#it must be so weird to see me actually post art and see the jumps from my old art to now art

[letssetsailor]

A messy lighting practice w/ my favorite wife

[sleepy-spacetronaut]

Gravity Falls fanfic plot idea

After a long moment of debating I decided to write down something I could incorporate my Human!Bill design into. (Why do all my writing ideas come to me at the worst possible times?!)

Some plot related specificities

Bill has a human form he maintains up until he managed to restore his magic back to 50% of its initial quantity.

Stanley would have some amnesiac episodes and holes in his memory.

Subsequently, Bill would offer to help restore some of them since he saw most of his memories back when he tried to possess him in Season 1.

Mabel and Dipper would turn 16 during the summer (story happens 2 years post weirdmaggedon)

One-sided BillFord (romantically) most likely, it could become queerplatonic with mutual bickering.

High chances of the story being anachronistic for the sole purpose of using some Gen Z slang and songs from the 2010s.

We will try to stick as close to the canon as possible, until we jump into complete and utter weirdness powered by imagination.

The plot itself

Main idea is that the initial “forced therapy for millions of years” solution failed miserably. Knowing that Bill is chaos incarnate, he would be driving the theraprism staff mad for the sake of getting a rise out of people. He’d make arts and crafts with his meds, bullsh*t his way through therapy sessions ,and draw cringe stuff about him and Ford dominating the multiverse together, whenever he’s not drawing red, blue and yellow triangles all over his room/cell.

The story would most likely begin with Bill getting thrown back to earth for being an annoying little equilateral freak.

The logic behind this is that if therapy couldn’t cure him, and sending him to Hell would be the same as sentencing an unworthy man to ostracism in ancient Athens, then shipping him off to earth (buttnaked and with no powers) and letting him fend for his life as a lowly human is their best option at getting him to ‘learn his lesson’.

I love the Handyman Bill AU (credit to @/LosanPostle & @/waty_mot on Twitter*), so Bill will be taken in by Soos and Melody to work in the mystery Shack, however at first Bill will sneak in pretending to be an overly curious tourist and try to find a way to Ford’s laboratory. Only after getting discovered , the Axolotl would materialize in their realm to explain the reason why the dream demon was back, and ask Soos and Melody if they were okay to give Bill a place to stay for the time of his ‘redemption arc’.

With some compromises they accept, Bill must to wear an ankle monitor at all times and the Axolotl grants its protection to all the people who live in the town in case Bill tries anything silly! (e.g. Weirdmaggedon 2 since one near end-of-the-world experience clearly wasn’t enough for him)

At first he’d be casually helping out around when asked before it became his unofficial job, but the trouble settle in when the Stan twins return from their trip. They arrive at the shack two weeks before Mabel and Dipper returned for their summer vacation to visit their grunkles.

Once the younger Pines are in town, Bill will be attempting to gain their trust—this part is both difficult and incredibly delicate.

After the way he had actively tried to murder , had tortured (physically and psychologically), impersonated and lied to the Pines (and everyone else in Gravity Falls for that matter), people would first try to avoid even being in the same room as him. Eventually, he got to earn their trust by keeping to his end of he bargain each time he made promises and by actually doing favours for them.

Besides cleaning the shack and running many errands at a time, Bill would also get dragged into some perilous adventures with and without his consent, and will eventually develop a fondness for the people he’ve sworn to hate.

Mabel would probably become his favourite, he’d see her as a younger sister or perhaps as a daughter, although he wouldn’t qualify as a good caretaker. With Dipper, Bill would often get into disagreements, but their love for science, strategy games and music brought them together; they’d often sing some BABBA songs and be dorky and unserious.

Regarding his love life, it was a major flop: despite his and Mabel’s efforts, he couldn’t get back with Sixer. The cut in their withered relationship was too deep to heal with time, and romantic fantasies were quickly dumped in the trash along with crumpled love notes. Although, despite not being able to see him as a romantic partner, Ford accepted the possibility of a renewal of their friendship. Bill even got to share a moment with Ford on the roof one night and rest his head on Ford’s shoulder as they gazed at the stars. Everything seems to be going great.

For once in his existence, Bill had almost everything he’d ever wanted, in a way. A place he could call home, he had friends—and family, to an extent… However, he wasn’t satsfied with what he had, and would still snoop around Ford’s stuff to see if he can make his powers return (which they do indeed, slowly by surely), yet more passively.

At one point, at the end of July, he got caught by Stanford looking through some old books and writing down magic circles. A heated argument broke out, in which both of them got injured, and it cumulated too Ford threatening to erase Bill a second time via the memory gun he kept from McGucket. In the end, Ford states that Bill will never be a part of the Pines family, that his lying was proof of the impossibility of his redemption, and that the next time he wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of him.

Upset beyond measure, Bill packs his stuff and choses to leave the town without a word of goodbye. At the edge of the town, he found his way blocked by the natural weirdness containment barrier, since his magic would almost be the same as half of what he had prior to his death and resurrection in the Theraprism. Even more enraged, Bill tried to break the barrier, transforming into something close to his feral form when he was a triangle—except in human form he’d look something like a Titan. Mabel and Dipper also had ran off in search for Bill because they got worried, and when they tried to stop him, they got captured. Bill was almost about to crush them in his hands if it weren’t for Melody, Soos, Stan and Ford’s intervention.

He then shrunk back to regular human proportions and released the twins, who got back to their grunkles. Feeling as if he had messed it up yet again, and not wanting to face the consequences to his actions (both due to him being still bitter with the way Ford treated him and being scared because he overstepped the agreement Soos had with the Axolotl and did not want to be returned to the Theraprism) Bill chose to run. He took off into the woods before anyone could stop him. Would he survive the woods and it’s inhabitants?

Would he get back to the shack?

Would he travel to another dimension and attempt to ‘fix’ everything, or will his existence be doomed to a catastrophic ending?

Only time will tell.

Now a little poll time, should I bring this to life or shall it forever be a theoretical thing, too dangerous (or boring?) to be applied in practice?

*note regarding the AU: there’s an account here where the creators of the Handyman Bill AU post their comics, they can be found under the tag or simply by searching the name of the AU in the search bar.

[sayakxmi]

[Magi reread] Night 76: Smile

It's been a while, lmao. I did some fandom jumping, was pretty busy, too, but this chapter was dragging behind me, like, come on, last chapter of the arc! Part of the reason I'm back here is bc I'm kinda getting to the part in this Final Arc rewrite where it'd be fucking nice to have some background info on a few characters. I mean, I know stuff in theory, but I also know myself enough to expect random changes during the actual writing process & it'd be a fucking pain if I wrote one version of events in flashbacks, and then went somewhere else in the actual prequel.

ANYWAY, chapter.

Bro, I love some of the final chapters of the arcs titles, especially Smile and Welcome Home (Magnostadt Arc), like, they just stayed in my brain. Why must you hurt me this way, Ohtaka.

I don't recall posting covers of chaptera too often, but this one is just so fucking sweet, man. And sad. It just... really does it for me, y'know? Smiling after everything that's just happened, but also it feels like a promise, especially after Cassim just fucking died like that (I will never recover) - now the three of them are a family. ;;

On a semi-related note, it's kind of what makes it difficult for me to ship any of them with each other. Even excluding Aladdin's age (not that Ohtaka has issues with such things, and boy will you hear it from me, but that's for later), I mentally familyzoned them. Interestingly, I'm more flexible with Cassim and Alibaba, though over time I also grew to prefer to view them as siblings. Like, I had a few CassAli AUs in the past, but I think I also wrote too much of Alibaba perceiving Cassim as his brother to come up with new ones. Now it'd just feel weird.

I'm still waiting for Silk for Steel update, tho.

Also, shoutout to me bc I thought: it's been a while, I'll check quick what I wrote about the previous chapter to kinda regain some context (yes, only now), and, yep, tears in my eyes. It happesn every time.

Ok, chapter.

I was going to ignore him, but, fine, you get a pic. He looks fucking exhausted. And no surprises here, tbh. He was using his magoi in battle and also got a little impaled, too.

Is he, really?

I'm still mad at Al-Thamen resolution or the lack of it. Like, bro, look at this pic, it's so messed up? What the hell? Right after Sinbad says that the fight isn't over, we get this, and, like, yeah, there's a shitton of these guys left here.

I miss Al-Thamen being threatening.

Is it the first time First-Class Singularity is used referring to Sinbad? I might be wrong, but if not first, then one of the first ones.

On a different note, I kinda chuckled, seeing that they refer to Alibaba as Aladdin's immature candidate to be the king, I mean, immature, and yet him and Aladdin managed to change the Flow. Imagine what they can do once they do mature? <3

Can I please get some details, Ohtaka? You mean similar situations as in Kings changing the Flow? What do you mean by that? But on the other hand, kinda makes me think about the Final Arc & the argument that everybody can see a little bit of destiny/change it. Heh.

Side-effect of taking a break from the manga reread is that I'm wondering if it's the first time we have that "Father" mentioned or not. Honest with ya, on my first read I definitely didn't pay attention to this, lmao.

Also, sick art.

Welcome back to my God I love Alibaba. I love kind characters. Of course he didn't want anybody to die, but something about the fact that he says "they surely still had many things they wanted to do", it's so... humanizing. Not of Alibaba (tho him, too), but of these people who died, who we know nothing about - they were just background characters, after all. But to Alibaba they were people who had their own lives and hopes and dreams. They had a meaning just because they existed.

It feels so... contrasting to Hakuryuu. He had no consideration for his own people, he just used them as means to an end, literally brainwashing them in an extremely painful ways that I very much did NOT forget, until they became nothing but puppets full of anger. Feels weirdly ironic, or maybe even metaphorical that he himself was a slave to his own anger, and so he turned those around him into his image. Ha.

Ugh, this smile is so sweet and gentle.

Anise! Wish we knew more of you : (

I'll save you the Rashid salt this time.

This entire page deserves to be there, imo. It's... beautiful.

"The flow never stops, it'll endlessly protect and be the ally of us, the living... that's why although a person's death is a tragic thing... It's no a farewell."

It... actually remind me a little about Avatar: the Last Airbender, specifically this quote "You have indeed felt a great loss, but love is a form of energy, and it swirls all around us. The Air Nomads' love for you has not left this world. It is still inside of your heart, and is reborn in the form of new love. Let the pain flow away."

I'm ignoring the other ones, I was always like, hah, seeing how Rashid is disappointed in them.

Tho still, shoutout to the guy who left his kids' in the care of his wife, and then was disappointed they didn't turn out how he wanted them to.

Bitch I'm sad

*squints* what is this expression

: ' )

Oh, hi, Morgiana.

As much as I complain about Magi's trio being actually a duo + Morgiana, I'll give a point here. It was pretty sweet that as the spirits were leaving, she run up to them.

Welp, that's the end of the chapter.

I checked the next chapter just in case, and, yeah. The anime has some stuff happen here, as in, Kou is close or something & there's some scene on the ship iirc, regarding leaving Balbadd... I complain about the anime a lot - and I will keep doing that - but I think it was a pretty good decision (idk about the execution, I don't remember). Jumping from Night 76 to Night 77 feels kinda weird. I legit had to take a second & check if I didn't miss some chapter.

Maybe Kou was mentioned sometime earlier & I just don't remember, but still. This really is the last pic of the chapter, and suddenly we're in Sindria.

Damn Ohtaka and her stupid timeskips.

[professional-idiots]

AFTERSCHOOL HANAKO KUN CH 27—THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS

1. I love this panel sm 😭 they’re all so cute and it just makes me wish and wish and wish that they could all be normal together

LOOK AT KOU AND HIS FRIENDS IM GONNA CRY!!!

2. AGSKANSK THEYRE SO CUTE AND TEENY

Also Kou’s cardigan looks like Mitsuba’s cardigan and now I need official art of him in it

3. Uh… no comment

4. This is just a Mitsuba appreciation post now

*please note that both of Mitsuba’s hands are visible here…

5. I love so much about this—Yokoo being terrified is actually so real and also LOOK AT KOU LISTENING SO INTENTLY TO HIS BF

6. Okay ngl… I was a little spooked at Mitsubas story… well up till the end

7. Now this is an Aoi appreciation post

8. I WAS SPOOKED WHEN THE SECOND YASHIRO SHOWED UP!!!! SHE STARTS BANGING ON THE DOOR LIKE HELLO?????? ON THE EDGE OF MY SEAT

9. Everything about her starting to question her surroundings!!!! Like oh my god????? I had chills!! (Kou looks so cute with his little head tilt)

Edit: how tf did I not realize Kou didn’t have his lame ass earrings on here??!?! Like the head told literally like annunciates it

10. He’s so—

I actually love them so much 😭

11. AGSKANS THEYRE SO CUTE!!!!!!! LOOK AT HIM BLUSHINGGGGG

“The world I love” I know who you’re really talking about Yashiro Nene….

11. My good sir is THINKING about that shit

Okay I actually have a lot of theories for this chapter and it’s not even part of the main story.

So while I was reading it I went through a few different ideas. First I started drawing comparisons to the pilot chapters (Yashiro is in a long sleeved uniform and at first I saw Kou’s cardigan and thought that it was the same from the pilot BUT upon further research the jacket Mitsuba has on is closer to Kou’s original jacket. Which to me could still point to the pilot bc it could just be the old uniform for them but idrk) (and speaking of Mitsuba—like I said before his sweater isn’t over either of his hands…) but Teru being there kind of put a pin in this theory. Also I don’t know if the Mitsuba thing points any fingers to the pilot chapters but it’s just something I noticed and I think it must mean *something*. I also noticed that Aoi’s hair was back to being up which was really weird…

So then I started thinking about what exactly this could mean otherwise. Now, I’ve seen a lot of people calling this a nightmare, but was it?

The next place my mind jumped to was that Hanako wasn’t with them from the beginning and is not mentioned at all till he shows up at the end. Curious.

Sooo what could this meannnnn? Well I don’t think it was a nightmare at all. I think that this is a parallel universe (it’s still weird that in this universe Amane isn’t friends with Yashiro and Kou/is dead but Mitsuba isn’t, but who knows….) and our Yashiro is summoned into this parallel world by the stories her friends are telling. And so she is the doppelgänger as Teru and Natsuhiko say.

I think this is really plausible because Mitsuba’s story is very strange in that it doesn’t end normally and he says that he heard it from a friend of a friend then reiterates that same thing. In a way it almost seems like this really *was* just some real story he’d heard and maybe he’d mistaken it for fiction but it was actually true. And! These other versions of her friends that she’s with don’t recognize her versions of them (as we see with Kou), but really we can see this from the very opening because our Teru would NEVER participate in this normally. Especially not with such enthusiasm. And Hanako showing up and knowing what to do like that is very indicative of him hopping into this universe with her to protect her (like the consequences of the doppelgänger are real) (and obviously this is within Hanako’s power). Then when we cut back to the real world/the original universe Yashiro doesn’t tell us that she’d been sleeping, just that suddenly she found herself in the classroom. AND when she’s talking to Hanako later he doesn’t say he *didn’t* help her, he says “who knows” and I feel like that’s a classic Hanako deflection line!!! Meaning that he DID help her!!!!!!

Anywayyyyy I really liked this chapter. Like I feel like the afterschool chapters don’t normally feel so lore-heavy…. Part of me wants this to come back somehow. Like maybe later in the main series they travel between parallel universes for whatever reason (maybe that’s what it is when Yashiro sees past Amane—though I hope not because I really want that to have actually happened in Amane’s life in our timeline)

EDIT: OH MY GOD OH MY FUCKING GOD KOU DOESNT HAVE HIS EARRING IN!!!! HE DOESNT WEAR IT HERE!!!!!!!! THIS IS CRAZY ACTUALLY JESUS 😭 (I wonder if this can somehow be linked to Mitsuba being alive… cause traffic safety and whatnot… hmmmmm) (like he still has an earring but it’s not the traffic safety one arghhhhhhgg!!!!)

EDIT EDIT: I WENT BACK TO TRY AND FIGURE OUT WHY I DIDNT NOTICE AT FIRST AND ITS ALMOST LIKE ITS BEING HIDDEN TILL THE HEAD TILT PAGE!!!! THERES ALWAYS LIKE A SPEECH BUBBLE IN THE WAY OR LIKE YOKOOS HEAD OR SMTH!!! OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHM—

Edit edit edit: I’m Stan and I was wrong. I’m singing the Stan wrong song. I shouldn’t have taken that chance. Now here’s my remorseful dance. (Translation: even though it can’t be seen in most panels and that does feel kind of purposeful to me still, there are like two or three panels where his right ear is in clear view)

[xavalav]

wanna tell me more about your dnd characters?

ALWAYS!!!!!!!! hi hello i love yapping abt my dnd characters it's my favorite pastime. i've got two main characters i'm playing rn!! the first i made at the start of last semester and the second i just made this past week :]

my first character is athanasius scyre. he is my skrungle who i put in horrible situations and shake around like a dog toy. he is an abyssal tiefling divine soul sorcerer who is so fucking weird about everything. he's like if you took an unethical scientist and gave him religious trauma about it. i like him a lot a lot a lot, he's genuinely one of my fav characters i've ever created. his whole deal is that basically, he was born into a family with of a long line of divine soul sorcerers on his dad's side. but due to world events, their power had waned significantly and his powers never really naturally came in. but then he got kidnapped by a cult! and used as a guinea pig! yippee!!

the cult was fairly disappointed he couldn't actually use his powers and spent a while trying to coax him into using his powers before moving onto trying to force him to use his powers. this culminated in a ritual meant to unlock his divine bloodline that ultimately worked, but there was a rebound and in the aftermath he had been transformed into an abyssal tiefling with little to no memory of who or what he was before. he spent the next few years being controlled and molded by the cult into a fucked up little freak with no baseline morals. he grew into the perfect image of a divine savior willing to do anything for his 'family', including dying to ascend to godhood.

all good things must come to an end tho, and eventually he hits a wall where he can't seem to be able move past it. his powers stall which doesn't make the cult too happy, and they end up pushing him further and further until one day it ends in an explosive confrontation where he fears for his life. he closes his eyes and mutters a prayer and when he opens his eyes again his parents are dead, the room is on fire, his hands and forearms are burnt, and his staff is nothing but ash. he managed to escape the inferno with a few scrolls and his life, running as far away as he could.

that is like. that main gist of his backstory before he went to magic school and got even sillier. he's currently investigating an eldritch god killer named "the eye" who is haunting his dreams right now and making him paranoid as hell. he's also developed a fear of dying which is new for him and he is not happy abt that. he doesn't really appreciate not being able to just jump into things head first with 0 fear anymore but dw, he will experience more horrors also learning that he enjoys having friends and is willing to do anything for them!!

if you wanna see me yap more abt athanasius or see what he looks like, this tag is where i put original posts and art abt him and this tag is where is put reblogs that make me think of him. also this is a spotify playlist i made for him that i listen to a lot :)

myyyy second character is named micah castelle. they are a grave domain cleric vampire in the desert. they are not having the best time bc. well. gestures to The Sun. but they're mostly chillin. i don't have a complete backstory thought up for them rn but i’m working with the thread that they are a grave domain cleric, and clerics of that domain hate undead while they themselves are undead. i really love characters that are walking contradictions or that have some kind of dichotomy within themselves (see athanasius: divine soul sorcerer that is an abyssal tiefling) so i really wanna hone in on that particular point of their character bc i think it’s fun and can leas to some very tasty characterization later in the campaign. right now i’m thinking they died or were on the brink of death and was made a vampire through the request of someone close to them rather than them getting kidnapped or stolen away like a lot of vampire stories go. but this is not concrete and could change in the future, just a fun idea i had that i wanted to explore w my dm.

i will also mention that i partly based them on a quote from the movie good fellas “there’s a lot of holes in the desert, and a lot of problems buried in those holes” cause i thought it would be funny. and i was right micah is very sillay. but their general design is that they are based off of the undertaker trope from western films. they have a shovel that they both use to dig graves and hit people over the head with, and they are surprisingly strong and charismatic for a cleric (their stats are way better than athanasius’ lmao). they also have a big hat with a veil, a long coat, and thick gloves. partly bc even in the desert, they are still cold, and partly bc if the sun manages to even get a peak at them they are so done for.

thank youuuuu for letting me yap!! i love yapping i am the dnd oc yapper :)) but seriously thank you i always love talking abt my ocs, they are genuinely something that i am really proud of designing and writing and really excited to continue evolving them.

[adreamingofguns]

Reverse Unpopular Opinion: tell me what you love about Saw

Takes your hands. We are going on a journey. I'm probably doing the reverse unpopular opinion thing wrong but ❤️ it's 5 am by me. we deal.

Personally I like that some of the traps are done with practical effects, much to the detriment of the VERY ENTHUSIASTIC cast who are surprisingly chill with almost drowning IRL and/or having to suffer through wearing 30+ lbs of jagged steel while having the flu and/or actually being stuck in the shackle prop because there was a malfunction while everybody else goes for lunch and/or requesting real glass for the stunt scenes and insisting on throwing real punches in the stunt fights because they're a masochistic freak of an actor (the masochism isn't the bad part, the EVERYTHING ELSE about him sucks) Some of the worst traps and effects are when they use cgi. Looks bad, tom.

I also appreciate that the through-line of the movie is not only justice (and the malformations of it) but also love. Love is what drives the characters to do what they do!! At least three of the apprentices/jigsawers do what they do because they are doing it for love of another person!! And not even romantic love for most of them. I love that the fandom has led me to more friendships and sparked more creativity in me that was lacking for a while. I love that the cast list is just random b-c list actors and also Greg Bryk is there and every time I see him I get jumpscared. I love that it gave me an idea for a tattoo (original idea do not steal!!!) where it'll say "do you like how brutality feels?" but in the shape of a spiral and I kinda wanna get it on the inside of my forearm.

As the adage goes, one must cultivate their online experience because there are some WEIRD ASS headcanons out there. That being said, I love and appreciate the people who are normal about the fat characters. I love that people banded together against an artist who was very adamant and weird about drawing fat characters (which there are a few) like twinks. I wish they kept that energy going. I LOVE that seeing a specific fat character and the way he's built/the way people draw him voluptuously (😂) gives me so much gender euphoria. I love when people acknowledge this character as an erudite and well-dressed man with an art degree and a secret passion for home remodeling (this is canon) who also happens to be a fat man. Like fat people are real three dimensional human beings or something. He's also super deranged and mows down like 70+ people at once in a spree that ends in him stuck and trapped, possibly killed and possibly just held captive by a cunty evil doctor in the basement of his own home like how in the Sims game where you make somebody live in the basement and paint constantly so you can make money selling the paintings.

I love how a few months ago on Twitter the fandom came together to mourn as the bot that goes through the script line by line came to a particularly devastating part and that stupid image of the cat puppet from the OLD Dr Who

(this image) was the only thing keeping me sane while I was in the trenches of crying in school over stupid bullshit.

I did my final in my religion in film class about Saw and used the following image. My professor and classmates were wowed.

Sadly the accompanying paper sucked major ass (I wrote it in the span of an hour and it's ADHD core topic jumping like HELL) but it got me an A and the respect of my asshole professor 😂

I ALSO LOVE HOW SAW FANDOM POSTS KEEP ESCAPING CONTAINMENT AND GETTING POPULAR AMONG THE GENERAL NON-SAW FANS LIKE THAT 50 GUNS AND VIBRATOR IN THE CAR CUP HOLDER DASH THING MEME THATS A SAW POST

I kinda rambled a bit sorry 😂 here's a gif of Peepaw Jigsaw himself zooted off his ass and staring at a fishtank in his ex-boyfriend's office.

[forestlingincorporated]

So... Jason Todd might be immortal.

So, a long while back, I saw a theory floating around that Jason Todd (specifically the version from the New Earth continuity, we won’t get into Prime Earth, and New52 and Rebirth) is actually immortal. 

I can’t find the theory now, google has failed me, but if I remember right, the gist of it was that Red Hood super fucking dies at the end Under The Hood. 

Jason is hurt badly after Bruce gets him with a batarang, but it’s suggested this wasn’t fatal because Bruce’s whole thing was figuring out a way of stopping Jason from killing Joker without killing Jason. 

However, Joker immediately blows up the building they’re in. 

There’s this weird ripple of space sparkles, Bruce gets up, and immediately begins to mourn him, alongside various images of different Batmen across the multiverse... I guess, maybe. 

Under The Hood was technically part of the Infinite Crisis event, so like everything else that happened in that block of time, we time jump a year after this (theoretically, some characters don’t appropriately age up, the perpetual teenagers that they are).

If you read this at the time, you probably assumed Joker just killed Jason in another explosion. 

Jason returns in the Nightwing costume in Nightwing #118. If you remember my post about Conner Kent dying in place of Dick, I’ve been told this happened because they’d planned to have Jason become Nightwing after Dick’s death, but when Dick was spared, allegedly they already had art drawn of Jason as Nightwing, and I guess didn’t want to scrap it. I cannot confirm this as fact, though, I’m not sure where that information comes from. 

So, clearly Jason didn’t die, so what happened? It’s kind of a weirdly written comic, so Nightwing is going to be no help explaining what happened, Dick asks no questions regarding where Jason’s been or how he’s back, character emotions and actions are all over the place, Jason turns into a grotesque blob monster for a bit (it... is explained, but its weird and confusing), it’s a whole thing. 

If I remember right, the theory has to do with those space sparkles. They seem to be associated with the event of Superboy Prime punching the universe, the same event that un-killed Jason Todd. 

As the theory goes, Jason cannot die - his death was unwritten, and cannot be re-written; he will always come back. So, Jason died at the end of Under The Hood, but reality won’t let him stay dead. 

He’ll just come back - “reset” so to speak - as if he never died. 

This is also a handy excuse for how he crawled out of his grave without dying again from lack of air. 

So I read that theory, thought “oh that’s cool” and then proceeded to never think about it again. Until today. 

So I was reading Battle for the Cowl, and I got to this bit in Dick and Jason’s fight where Jason yeets himself to what surely must be his death - Dick seems to think it is, at least, and Jason indicates that Dick doesn’t want Jason’s blood on his hands, so Jason must know this fall could kill him. 

But just before letting go of the ledge, Jason tells Dick “I’ll be seeing you sooner than you think.” 

.....Weird. 

And then I remembered this little line from Batman and Robin, after Jason’s returned again (in the fucking pill helmet outfit....), where Jason says - “shoot me, do it, I’ll come back.” 

....I mean it seems like Immortal Jason Todd may have been the intent during this era. Possibly. There’s more evidence supporting it than I thought. 

Sometimes you get things like this that are just a bit out of place, a bit odd, but build on each other and seem to be leading toward some big reveal or deeply explored concept... and then it just got dropped entirely or the universe rebooted, and you’re left wondering if it was ever really there at all. 

[bonnymori]

01 | 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫... 𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭?!

chapter 01 / chapter 02 / chapter 03

Word count: 1250+

Synopsis: During a particularly boring afternoon, a muscly man with a purple worm around his shoulders has made his way onto your house- literally, smashing through your window- and, subconciously, onto your life.

Contents/Warnings: (1) Fushiguro Toji x gn!Reader, theres also Gojo cat as your cat!! (2) Reader finds Toji's worm cute; i'm sorry if you don't just skip that part (3) There's some cursing but I promise next chapter won't

A/N: I have a lot of drafts and this is the most normal looking I've got... so let's post it first ehehehhsjhd- Also, I'm remaking the structure of the posts (Megumi's one-shot is updated with the very same visual as this!), hope it looks less unorganized! Thank you for reading <3

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To think you'd let such a stranger barge into your apartment- actually, you would never imagine such a comeup. But here are we.

Right in front of you there is a man. Raven locks, black shirt, white baggy pants - is that a purple... gut, intestine thing around his chest? - and a pair of imacculate ballet shoes on his feet. The dude is knocked out cold, it seems that he barely made it through your window, only to come head first against your floor tiles. Now you have drops of blood all over the floor and counter- and, a bleeding man.

You can't tell which task will be more grueling to solve.

Because you have a working brain, of course the man comes first. No matter if your window is broken, and a handfull of glass shards adorn your countertops. And now you've accidentally stepped upon one- just then you realise the man's back must be feeling like a bed of thors- or shards, over being dragged through the floor.

So you throw his arms - which you notice, has a few cuts here and there - over your shoulders, and picks him up in a one-person carry; barely, his torso is against yours and legs are dangling on the floor, this guy must weigh the double you do. It feels like you're carrying a fridge.

From your peripheral, you can see Satoru paddle to the kitchen's doorframe, probably wondering if you were preparing a meal for him or whatever.

"I'll be back in a moment, Ru." He meows a reply, dragging his mountain of fluff back to your couch- you're certain he's taking your spot, while it's still warm.

Thankfully, it doesn't take long for you to reach the bathroom, dropping the man leisurely upon your fluffy mat. Beside all the cuts, the man has already a plentiful share of permanent scars, and none are of your business, you don't care. It's like cleaning and stitching up a old doll full of tears, by the way you're able to maneuver his limbs; you're glad he's still unconscious.

But the thing around his shoulders is not.

In a blink of eye, it jumps from his shoulder to yours, attaching itself to your back and nestling upon your shoulder. When you glance down at it, it feels like a weird looking parrot.

"Hi?" You ask, it looks back at you. "Are you like, his pet or something?" It doesn't talk, just gazes at you through half lidded eyes; so you give up on short talking it, not knowing what you expected yourself. "Let's go finish my movie then!"

You join Satoru on the couch, the cat rapidly making room on your comfortable lap; and the man forgotten, snoring soundly on your bathroom.

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A sequel and half movie later, you hear a loud thud coming from the kitchen. Even though you're aware there's a strange in your house- the sudden sound still naturaly jolts you out of your seat.

"UGH- Goddamn it-" Next comes a colorful list of slurs; a sigh makes way out of your mouth.

You round the corner, pointing a accusing finger to the strange man, who's laying on your floor again. "No cussing on my house."

"Why didn't you even clean this floor, it's loaded with glass shards."

"I wanted to finish my movie afternoon before doing so. Besides, what made you smash through there," You point to the ruined window. "to here." Then, to the kitchen floor. And finally, motioning to your whole apartment.

That was a interesting question, he expected a "Who are you?" or "I'm calling the cops!" call.

"I don't need to explain you shit."

"Think of it as an retribution, since I patched you up, answer my question."

"No."

"That, or you'll pay for my window."

A sigh. "Fine. I was being chased."

"You're a criminal, then?" You questioned.

"Yes." A devilish grin made its way to his face, showing canines and stretching the small scar on the corner of his mouth.

"Alright, just don't get me involved then."

Toji is familiar to that sort of outcome. Sometimes people man up, people weaker than him. But he knows he's intimidating, and he absolutely loves to play with the attitude of those who challenge him.

Forgetting the shart carving on the sole of his feet, he walks up to you efortlessly, towering over your frame.

"Well, are you not scared to have a criminal inside your house?"

"No, I'm not defenseless. And, you're bleeding. Again."

"Shit." Toji sits down close to the wall where it's safe, twisting his leg to bring the injured foot up to his face. He easily plucks the reddened shart between thick digits, and throws it far away from him.

Meanwhile, you bring your first-aid kit up to him, setting it down near.

"Here, use this."

"..."

"I'll do it for you then." You wasted no time, reaching for the line and thread. Once everything was stitched, you wrap a bandage around his foot, then pats it finished. "What's your name?"

"Fushiguro Toji."

"I'm L/N Y/N, lost all your bite huh?" You tease.

Casually ignored. "Why do you have a first-aid kit? Most people don't have it on their houses."

"I practice muay thai, it's useful both for me and you."

"Right. Have you seen my worm?"

"Well, make yourself at home, until your feet gets better. And yeah, your worm jumped at me like those surprise music boxes, and now it's on the couch with my cat. It's been watching movies with us."

He was beyond curious, because the worm didn't have a thinking mind nor knew what even meant to watch something. Toji limped to the doorframe, eyes widening once he spotted the worm wrapped snuggly around your very fluffy cat.

"That's some cute shit."

"The worm is gross."

"I think it looks cute."

"You're batshit crazy."

You stretched your limbs. "Whatever, let's waste some more time watching TV."

Toji sat down - mind you, taking a handful of space you were not content with - once you picked up "both" animals to make room. He thinks you're weird, seeing the fact you didn't question what the hell was that giant-purple-moving worm, and for letting in a random guy inside your house. You do fight a martial art, though, but most people wouldn't have such confidence on him - a dude build like a truck.

There's some survival show playing in the background, yet he's beyond bored watching it, so he settles in questioning your questionable manners.

"How are you so chill about everything?"

"Oh well," You seemed focused on the show, surprisement showing itself once you turn to him. "I see these things in a daily basis, so it's really no big deal after a while."

"Curses?"

"Yep."

"You-"

"I'm going to clean the kitchen. Also, I ask you once the skies darken, to leave my house."

"..."

"Is there a problem?"

"I got no hideout out there."

"Suuure you don't." You sighed. "Alright, the couch is your best option; if I hear rumbles at night, or if you steal me or something, I'll be the one chasing you."

"Right, have fun cleaning the blood stained kitchen."

"The audacity." You left with a smirk, shaking your head.

Although you're weird, so far, you're also the most interesting individual Toji has come up to par with; something in this house prickles at his skin to stay. Plus, the fluffy cat laying on his lap is very cute aswell.

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[stolen-pen-name23]

“it’s nothing. it’s just a bruise.” with Obi-wan?

Hello again, my friend!! Thanks you for the prompt!! This onee kinda got away from me so I posted it on Ao3, but you can read the whole thing under the cut too!

Read on Ao3

Anakin didn’t really know this Obi-Wan person all that well yet, but he could tell there was something wrong with him. Well, something wrong besides the quiet mourning he was clearly trying to keep hidden. He wasn’t all that successful, but Anakin wasn’t going to call him out on it.

Of course, Anakin was sad too. As if it wasn’t enough that his mother could not come with him, the man who had finally managed to free him was dead.

But Anakin knew that Obi-Wan was feeling the loss more acutely. Anakin could sense that Obi-Wan had held great respect, admiration and love for his late Master. He could also sense his grief, even if he was skilled at hiding it behind walls.

That didn’t matter right now. What mattered was the way Obi-Wan was pale and shaking slightly underneath all of his robes. He was sitting hunched forward on the little couch in their quarters, his elbows on his knees. His gaze was unfocused, and as far as Anakin could tell, he hadn’t eaten anything recently either.

“Mr. Kenobi sir?” Anakin said shyly.

Slowly, Obi-Wan’s gaze turned to Anakin. He looked like he was trying to focus his eyes. “I told you that you can just call me Master or Obi-Wan if you prefer,” he said softly.

“Obi-Wan,” Anakin corrected. “Are you alright?”

Obi-Wan nodded the affirmative, but Anakin wasn’t convinced.

“You’re not looking so good.”

“I’m fine, Anakin.”

“Do you want me to get you something to eat?” Anakin actually had no idea how he would acquire food for Obi-Wan. He didn’t know where anything was, and even if he did, he didn’t know how to cook anything. But if Obi-Wan wanted something, Anakin would do his best to get it for him.

“No, I’m fine. Not really hungry.”

Anakin frowned. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Obi-Wan nodded sullenly. “I’m sure. I’m going to go to bed though. I know it’s early for you. You can stay out here and watch the holo if you want, I guess. Just… Don’t wander alone in the halls yet. I don’t want you to get lost.”

Anakin didn’t want to get lost either. The temple was huge and this morning when Obi-Wan had given him the tour, the other padawans stared at him. Even some of the knights and masters stared at him. No, he had no desire to leave the safety of their quarters just yet.

Anakin couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed. This was officially his first night in the temple. They had arrived from Naboo this morning and they had gotten situated in the small apartment. He’d hoped Obi-Wan would have wanted to spend a little more time with him, getting to know him and all that.

“Okay, Obi-Wan,” Anakin said quietly. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Padawan,” Obi-Wan said, but the look on his face indicated the word felt weird on his lips. He shook his head. “Good night, Anakin.”

Anakin nodded at him as he took his leave.

Anakin sighed and flipped on the holo. He’d never had a holo before, but he quickly figured out how to work it. He stared at the moving images in wonderment, flipping through channel after channel, never settling on one thing – just content to watch the moving images.

He didn’t know how much time had passed before he heard shuffling from the hallway behind him. He turned around and saw Obi-Wan stumbling towards the fresher. Anakin flicked off the holo and raced after Obi-Wan.

When he got to the fresher, Obi-Wan was already there, leaning heavily over the toilet and heaving into it.

“Obi-Wan?” Anakin asked nervously. “Are you okay?”

Anakin cringed. Of course he wasn’t okay. It was a dumb question, though it didn’t seem to matter. Obi-Wan couldn’t answer him at the moment anyway.

Anakin tried to remember everything that his mother had ever done for him when he was sick. He remembered his mom rubbing his back. Slowly, Anakin approached Obi-Wan and laid a gentle hand on his back.

Obi-Wan yelped and jumped sideways as far as he could in his weakened state. Anakin yanked his hand back in alarm.

“What—”

Obi-Wan was breathing heavily and his eyes were squeezed shut.

“What’s wrong?” Anakin asked, his voice coming out smaller and squeakier than he would like.

“It’s nothing, it’s just a bruise,” Obi-Wan said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“A bruise?”

“On my back,” Obi-Wan panted.

Anakin took a step closer to him. “Can I look?”

Obi-Wan looked a little unsure. “Yes,” he finally said.

With careful fingers, Anakin slowly lifted up Obi-Wan’s shirt. He gasped at the dark purple bruising all over his back. His stomach sank. He immediately turned and looked at the contents of the toilet and then back at Obi-Wan. It was only then that he realized there was blood on his lips and his chin.

“Obi-Wan, you need a healer,” Anakin said, panic rising in his voice. “You… you’re throwing up blood that’s not… when the slaves would get beaten too hard they…”

“Shhh, Anakin, it’s alright.”

“No!” Anakin shouted. “No, you’re… you’re dying and I—”

“I’m not dying,” Obi-Wan said. He put his hands on the ground and moved to stand up. It was an ill-conceived attempt. He fell back down to the ground with a soft thud. He looked up at Anakin but his eyes were unfocused. “Okay, maybe that’s not a good sign.”

Obi-Wan coughed and blood spluttered out of his mouth. “Yeah, not a good sign,” he murmured.

Anakin’s panic rose. “What do we do?”

Obi-Wan lay down fully on the tile floor. He glanced up at Anakin. “Go find a healer.”

“What?”

“In the halls of healing. Remember, I showed it to you this morning when I took you around the temple? Go there and find someone. They can help.”

Anakin nodded. “Okay,” he said, trying to make his voice sound even and sure. “Just stay here, don’t try to get up.”

“Don’t think I could even if I wanted to.”

From the look on Obi-Wan’s face, Anakin could tell that he meant it to sound light-hearted, but it only added to Anakin’s worry. He gave Obi-Wan a parting glance before darting off into their quarters and out the front door. He ran in the direction of the halls of healing, or at least he ran in the direction he thought the halls of healing were in. The more he ran, the less familiar everything appeared. Anakin paused when he entered a great room with large pillars and beautiful art on all the walls. He had no idea where he was and his eyes welled up with tears.

“Hey little one,” a female voice said from behind him. “Are you okay?”

Anakin whirled around and came face to face with a tall, pink-skinned mon calamari woman. “Um.”

“You must be Anakin,” the woman said. “I’ve been very excited to meet you. Where’s your Master?”

The tears welling up in Anakin’s eyes spilled over.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong, little one?”

“Obi-Wan is hurt and he... he sent me to get a healer but I— I don’t know where to go,” Anakin said around choked sobs.

The woman’s face turned serious. “He sent you to get a healer?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, it’s your lucky day. I’m a healer. Come with me,” she said. She reached out a webbed hand and Anakin took it, grateful for the direction and the physical comfort of it.

They made their way back to Obi-Wan.

***

An unshakeable feeling of heaviness was what greeted Obi-Wan when he woke up. He groaned and fluttered his eyes open. A figure stood before him, and his eyes focused to reveal Master Che. He groaned again.

“Glad to see you’re still with us,” she said. “Thank the Force Anakin was able to find Bant and they got to you when they did.”

“Huh?”

“You had your new Padawan worried sick. Poor kid,” Vokara said, shaking her head.

“‘kin?” Obi-Wan asked. “Where?”

“He’s fine. He’s with Bant right now. She’s showing him her medical instruments.”

“Oh. That’s good. What happened?”

“I was kind of hoping you would tell me that,” Vokara Che said, fixing him with a glare. “You had internal bleeding, Obi-Wan. Your kidneys were failing. There were massive bruises on your back. How did you even get those?

Oh. Oh yeah.

“During the fight with the… with the Sith. I fell off a catwalk and landed on another one below it. Landed on my back,” Obi-Wan said weakly.

“Obi-Wan that was three days ago,” Vokara said. “You’re lucky it wasn’t initially too severe.”

“Initially?”

“You would have been fine if you immediately got medical treatment.”

“I was busy,” Obi-Wan said simply. It was true. He had to tend to the hasty funeral arrangments and then the parade and then he had to take Anakin back to Coruscant and then he had to convince the Council to let him keep him and then… well then his body had started to give out on him. Vokara gave him a sympathetic look. He felt small underneath it.

“I know. But you need to take care of yourself. You have a Padawan now.”

Obi-Wan’s breath hitched.

“Oh, Obi-Wan,” Vokara Che said. She squeezed his shoulder. “It’ll be alright.”

He put his face in his hands and stifled a sob.

“It’ll be alright,” Vokara Che repeated. “Trust in the Force.”

Obi-Wan nodded, sniffed and steeled himself. “Right. Right. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. You’ve been through a lot, young Kenobi.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he offered a simple nod.

“Is it alright if I go get Anakin?” Vokara asked. “He’s been dying to see you.”

“That’s fine,” Obi-Wan said. Vokara turned and left, presumably to retrieve Anakin.

In truth, Obi-Wan wasn’t sure he wanted his brand new Padawan to see him like this, but he knew it was important for the boy to see that he was okay — that he still had someone in this strange new place to stand by his side.

“Obi-Wan!” Anakin shouted as he burst through the door. Obi-Wan winced.

“Oh, sorry,” Anakin said in a whisper this time.

“It’s alright.”

“Are you okay?” Anakin asked.

“Yes, I’m fine, Anakin.”

“That’s good. I don’t really know anyone else here. Well, actually, I know Miss Bant now and she’s really nice, but I don’t really know anyone else and I like you and I—”

“Anakin,” Obi-Wan said softly. “Volume.”

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly.

Obi-Wan played with a loose string on the edge of his blanket. He ripped a few of the stitches but stopped before he could do any more damage to the innocent garment. He could feel Anakin hovering awkwardly next to him.

“You don’t have to stay here, you know? You can go back to our quarters if you want.”

Anakin shook his head vigorously. “No, I can’t!”

“Why not?”

“I– I don’t know how to get there.”

Oh. Right.

“Well, I’m sure Bant or one of the other healers would be more than willing to—”

“No!” Anakin said quickly. “I don’t want to go. I want to stay with you.”

Obi-Wan couldn’t help the little wave of warmth that filled his chest. “Okay,” he said. He then patted the bedsheets and nodded his head. “Come on then.”

Anakin gave a wide, toothy grin before he climbed up and snuggled himself into the cramped little space right next to Obi-Wan.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Anakin asked.

“Yeah,” Obi-Wan said. “Yeah, I’m alright. Let’s just get some sleep okay?”

“Okay,” Anakin said softly, his eyelids already fluttering closed. “Goodnight, Master Obi-Wan.”

“Goodnight, Padawan.”

[lilysdaydreams]

The Artist and The Musician

→  I do not claim to know corpse- therefore please don’t think that this is what he would actually act like, or that any details about his life are actually true. this is fiction.

→ Pairing: Corpse Husband X Fem!Reader

→ Genre: Fluff.

→ Words: 5.6k

→ Request:  Hey! It’s me again lmao I was curious maybe like sykunno or raes little sister (like 2 or 3 years younger) meets the group and her and corpse just click. How would either of them react to them hearing the news that their little sis is dating corpse and like they’ve moved in together and everything idk I thought it’d be cute💛

→ Warnings: Swearing.

→ Authors Note: Its been a hard couple of weeks and im really sorry that this took so long to be done but depression rlly hit me and I could barely move myself. I hope you enjoy this, and if you do, please comment some words of encouragement or feedback 💛

→  if you have some spare change , consider buying me a coffee.

You sighed as you finally dropped the last box in your new room, stretching to get rid of the pains in your back. Grabbing your phone, you moved over to Sykkunos room, knocking before sticking your head in.

"You want subway?" you asked when he looked up from the computer. He nodded with a quick smile, and as you closed the door behind you, you could hear him talking to the stream, letting them know that it was just his sister. Quickly ordering on Ubereats, you slumped on the sofa, closing your eyes and resting for a bit.

You had decided to move in with Sykkuno a month ago, the same week you'd decided to drop out of college. It wasn't something your parents were happy with, but after seeing how big your art and business had gotten, they had let you drop out. You'd dropped out and moved to LA, moving into an apartment with Sykkuno since he had to leave the OTV house. Sykkuno had moved in a week earlier which was why his room and computer was all set up. You'd only moved in today, spending a few weeks at home with your parents before leaving for LA. Stretching, you grabbed your phone, checking how long it would be until the food came, and then clicking on Instagram. Your most recent post was of this morning, a photo of you sitting on top of half the boxes in your room, throwing a peace sign at the camera. Sykkuno had taken it for you, the whole process taking 10 minutes cuz you made him take it at 45 different angles. Scrolling through the comments, you liked a few, replying to the ones by your best friends.

@selinaissss: "HOW DARE YOU LOOK THIS PERFECT AT 8 IN THE MORNING????"

→ @junefarie: i look like a racoon dont u dare

@onlyalyssa: "we need a house tour"

→ @junefarie: bitch I dont even have a bed yet

You grabbed the subway order when the bell rang, saying a quick thank you to the delivery man. You left yours on the table, and went to Sykkunos room, yelling "Sykkuno catch!" before throwing it at him, giggling as he leapt forward from his chair to catch it. Closing the door softly behind you, you jumped onto the couch, sitting cross-legged, grabbing your sketchbook and pencils from your backpack and setting them on your lap. It was time to wind down a bit.

~

It was a week later and you had unpacked fully, now focusing more on creating new pieces of art for a shop update. You were also working on some designs specifically for shirts and hoodies. Sykkuno found you in front of your computer, blanket wrapped around you and glasses perched on your nose as you emailed the manufacturer you were working with for the hoodies.

"Un, y/n?" he said hesitantly knocking on the door. You spun around in your chair, raising your eyebrows at him. "What's up?"

He walked in, sitting down gingerly on the edge of the bed and you got your water from the table, taking a sip as you wait for him to talk.

"I um- You know how I- I play Among Us right?" he asked, scratching his neck.

You hummed in response, urging him on with a nod. Sykkuno was almost never this nervous around you. Most of the time, you guys talked normally, joking and teasing each other. For him to be stuttering around you, he must have been extremely nervous.

"Well, you know Rae right? She um, she asked me to make a lobby," he said, standing up and pacing now. You furrowed your brows, confused as to where this was going.

He was explaining what a lobby was (which what the fuck, you watched his streams, of course you knew what a lobby was, why was he explaining that) when you cut him off, getting up and grabbing his shoulders to stop him.

"Hey, what's wrong?" you asked, holding his shoulders with both your hands.

He sighed and slumped into you, his head coming to a rest on your shoulder.

"Rae asked me to make a lobby and it's the first time I've ever made one and I'm really nervous about it. I've already invited people, but um I was wondering if you wanted to join as well? I- It would help me to have you there." he muttered, the words muffled as he spoke into your shoulder.

"Me?" you asked, a little shocked because you had never played among us before.

He nodded against your shoulder.

"Um sure!" you said, wrapping your arms around his middle, "It'll be fun!"

"And hey," you added on when he didn't say anything after that, "I can meet all your friends as well!"

He finally lifted his head a little, smiling as he muttered out a quick "Thanks y/n."

"However," you added, jumping back onto your seat and wiggling your eyebrows at him. "You have to buy me pizza for tonight's dinner."

He chuckled, grabbing his phone and already mutterng the order to himself as he opened up the ubereats app and walked out of the room.

You turned back to the laptop humming a tune under your breath. From interactions like this, most people would probably assume that you were older but the truth was that Sykkuno was 5 years older than you. Your roles were reversed and you were probably more protective over him than anyone else. Once in high school a girl had called him cute and asked him for his number only to write it on the bathroom walls. After the first three prank calls, you'd taken the phone from him yelling at anyone who called that if they called again, that you'd personally track them down and shove a dildo up their ass.

Both of you had always been close, but with the amount of bullying and teasing he got in high school, you'd got even closer, eventually becoming his best friend in a way. Seeing Sykkuno grow as a person, get new friends who were genuinely nice and kind made you the happiest person alive. When Sykkuno had first started streaming you'd been worried, scared that people online would say something mean. When he had first started streaming with other streamers and then met Lily and all his other friends, you had been anxious, worrying that they might only be putting up a friendly facade. You were also the happiest though when he grew even closer to them, when he smiled more, laughed more, talked more.

You had yet to meet or talk to any of his friends, mostly because you'd been in college, and the pandemic had made it harder. Maybe it was finally time.

~

The day came and you sat in your room, once again a blanket wrapped around you, glasses perched on your nose as you accepted the discord invite Sykkuno sent you.

"DO I GO IN THE CHAT THINGY?" you yelled to Sykkuno, hearing a "YES" before clicking on the voice chat.

You mumbled a "hello", wondering if your mic was on.

"Hey, yeah I can hear you y/n."

Breathing a sigh of relief, you logged into the game, smiling as you heard sykkuno introduce you to his chat. "Hi everyone," you said, feeling a bit weird only talking to a screen. You rubbed your hands, a little nervous to be doing this.

Just then someone else joined and before you could even speak another three people joined as well, all of them yelling hello as they joined.

"He- Hey guys, how's everyone doing?" started sykkuno.

"Im doing great oh my god, guess what guys, I'm-" started Rae, cutting herself off. "wait, whos um "ms snores a lot"?

You were a bit confused for a second, furrowing you eyebrows for a second before realising what had happened.

"SYKKUNO YOU ASSHOLE WHAT THE FUCK?" you yelled, staring at the name underneath the voice channel that you now realised belonged to you. You could hear Sykkunos laughter from the other room but you just spluttered indignantly. He was the one who had set up everything on your computer yesterday because technology was something that you rarely messed around with.

"Sykkunooo" you whined, when he kept laughing, "How the fuck do I change it now?"

"Um wait, sykkuno who is this?" asked Rae, the other three echoing her. You glanced at the names and from the voices figured out that it was Rae, Toast, Sean and Corpse in the lobby.

"Hey okay, so guys this is my sister, her names y/n and we recently moved in together, so I asked her to be in the lobby because... um.." he said stuttering at the end to find a reason.

"Because he wanted to embarrass me apparently!" you exclaimed, giving him a way out.

"Oh god, um - you can change it in settings, at the bottom near where your name is."

"Ahhh," you said finding it and then simply typing in your art business name.

"Its nice to meet everyone by the way," you started. "I've been watching your videos for ages so it almost fels like I already know you"

Raes voice started in your ears and you winced at the volume befoe turning it down a bit.

"I would love to say that Sykkuno has told us a lot about you, but the truth is that he keeps a lot of secrets and I didnt even know he had a sister, I AM SO SHOCKED RIGHT NOW"

You gasped. "Sykkuno what the fuck, you didn't even tell Rae?"

"You told me not to tell a lot of people!" he protested.

You heard someone saying "they're so different!' but you ignored it and kept talking.

"Yeah at the start! and on stream! I can't believe you never even said you had a sister." you spluttered out, followed by another gasp.

"Are you embarrassed of me?" you whispered dramatically.

"N-What no of course not!" he exclaimed, and you could also imagine how wide his eyes would have gotten.

You giggled before telling him that you were only joking.

"Um since sykkuno is embarrassed of me," you said jokingly, "I'll just tell you myself."

"I'm like five years younger than sykkuno, I'm a June baby, I do art, my star sign is cancer, I'm 5'4, I recently moved in with sykkuno, and my favourite colour is purple!"

"Oh is that why your username is junefarie? Because you were born in June?" asked Sean.

Before you could say yes, someone else cut in.

"Wait, junefarie?" asked corpse, "like the artist?"

Your eyes widened as you realised that he knew you. Sure you had quite a few followers, but you never expected any of Sykkunos friends to know you from there.

"Um yeah," you said letting out a shocked laugh, "I didnt expect anyone here to know about me."

"Dude, your art is fire!" he exclaimed, voice louder now. "I was honestly thinking of buying a piece soon, I've followed you for ages!"

"Wait, I wanna see as well." whined Rae, "Ima look you up, are you on Instagram?"

"Um," you said still shocked by the fact that somone this big knew you. "yeah I'm on instagram, its just junefarie." you said first replying to Rae, "Um corpse, thankyou so much! thats so nice of yo!"

"Um my art isn't that great yet," you chuckled, embarrassed by all the attention now. "I'm hoping to improve a lot more and I have a bunch of ideas for it as well. I'm hoping to work more now that I moved in with Sy."

"Oh my god, this is amazing," whispered Rae, Toast and Sean echoing her. You ducked your head even though no one could see you. Your cheeks were blazing hot and you pressed your hands to them to cool yourself down.

"Thankyou," you mumbled, not sure what to say.

Someone else entered the lobby, and said "hi" and you welcomed the source of distraction.

"Hi! I'm Sykkunos sister, y/n!" you said , wanting to move away from the topic of your art.

The reply of "sykkuno has a SISTER?" made everyone laugh, successfully moving the attention to Sykkuno and off your art. Finally Sykkuno started the game and you breathed as you lost yourself in the art of gaming.

"OH MY GOD!" yelled Rae as the game ended and everyone appeared in the lobby. "That was like amazing, Y/N I cant belive you pulled that off!"

She was talking about the last game where there was 50/50 between corpse and Sykkuno (because you refused to kill sykkuno when you were imposter) and you somehow managed to convince Sykkuno that it was Corpse.

"Honestly, neither can I!" you exclaimed back staring at your screen, eyes blurring the screen because of how tired you were.

"I can't believe Sykkuno," mumbled corpse. "I literally said I saw her vent and kill toast and Sykkuno was still like "hmmm, I don't think so."

Giggling at Sykkunos yell of "SHES MY SISTER" you yelled out a bye as everyone started leaving and then struggled to find a way to end the call.

"Wait, how do I end it," you muttered to yourself.

You jumped as Corpse talked, not expecting anyone to be there.

"You can see yoru name at the bottom left right? Its above that but a little to the right." he said chucling a little.

"Oh." you said, you cheeks heating up. You didnt know if it was because of him or because you were utterly useless with technology.

"Um thankyou," you said awkwardly.

"No problem."

You exited out of the call, a small smile at your lips.

Sykkunos friends were nice.

~

After the stream, your fanbase grew, and with it, the number of orders as well. For the next week, you were buried under orders, only leaving the house to go to the post office.

An Instagram post on @junefarie account: 

[ID: A photo of y/n and sykkuno standing in the middle of the living room, packages scattered everywhere. Y/n is hugging Sykkuno tight and Sykkuno is staring at the camera, a distressed look on his face.]

Caption: Thankyou so much for all my supporters and all the love shown to me. Sending out loads of orders and I cant wait for you gusy to get yours! Special thanks to @sykkuno for helping me send out orders. luv yu.

Comments: 

@Sykisacutie: best sibling duo!

@valkyrae: hope my order is in their as well.

→ I SCREAMED WHEN SY TOLD ME THAT WAS YOUR NAME.

@corpse_husband: sykkuno looks like he's accepted death.

→ @sykkuno: I would have welcomed death at that point

→ @corpse_husband @sykkuno: okay ill be honest, I would have welcomed death as well.

@ariesin: go best friend, go! we need to get together to paint soon !!

→ SOONNNNNN

~

You flopped onto your bed, every part of your body hurting. Carrying boxes filled with orders down the stairs had tired your whole body, which wasn't used to any exercise at all. That had taken practically the whole day and then you had to clean your room because the mess from the orders had barely left any room to move. You flung your hand to the side, grabbing your phone from the table and bringing it up to your face. The "1:02" was clearly visible on your screen and you unlocked the phone, heading to Twitter. Scrolling through your feed, you liked a few tweets from friends before gearing yourself up and moving to the messages. Ever since you'd played with Corpse, Sykkuno and everyone, you'd been getting a lot of messages. Most of them were just the streamers fans, asking you if you know them or telling you to take care of sykkuno. There were a few though that targeted you, telling you that your art sucked, that they didn't know why Corpse could like my art. You'd taken to deleting them before sleeping so that your inbox wouldn't get cluttered and you could still find any serious requests or messages from your followers. Therefore, you didn't really think anything of it when there was another message from someone with a Corpse icon and you clicked on it only to see the message and gasp, immediately sitting up in bed.

Corpse_Husband → Hey, I was wondering if I could work with you on something? I really love your art and was wanting to commission or collaborate for an album cover or some merch designs. Message me on this number cuz I barely see my dms.

Underneath was a number.

"Oh my god," you whispered, unsure as to what to do.

When you had decided to drop out of college, you had expected hard days. You had expected your normal orders and mostly just improving your art and marketing it more. You had expected long days and not much money in the bank account. You certainly had not expected the immense amount of orders you'd gotten. Along with that, the amount of love and support had taken you by surprise and you had spent the last night crying because of how much love you and your art were getting.

You had also not expected such a big opportunity just landing at your feet.

Quickly you clicked on the number, putting it in your contacts with the name Corpse and then writing a quick message.

"Hey I got your twitter dm! I've personally never done art for merch or album covers but I would love the opportunity!"

You bit your lip, confused as to whether that was enough before deciding it was fine and just sent it.

Your heart beat a little faster as you slumped back onto the bed.

~

@junefarie Instagram story:

[ID: A zoomed-in picture of a drawing, the only part that was visible was curly hair. The text read: "Working on something SO COOL"]

~

Your phone was ringing. Stuffing the rest of the pizza in your mouth, you swept your hand over the covers of your bed, trying to find it. With a muttered "aha", you grabbed it and swiped on the call before it ended. Pressing the phone to your ear, you mumbled a "hello", still chewing the pizza bite.

A low rapsy voice came out of the speaker, one that you definitely didn't expect. You choked on the pizza, coughing out pieces onto the bed.  Sure you guys had messaged each other a bit (you kinda had to because of the commission), but you hadn't expected him to call out of nowhere.

"Um I hope this isn't a bad time," he said when you didn't respond for a second. Of course, he didn't exactly know that hearing his voice so close to your ear had you frozen for a second.

"Um no," you replied, coughing slightly to clear your throat. "It's fine! What did you wanna talk about?"

"Oh, um I know you're already working on the commission and its looking great! I can't wait to work with the merch team to create something really cool with it, but um-" he broke off for a second sounding hesitant. "I really wanna get another commission done as well."

"Oh?" you said after a second when he didn't reply. "I'd be happy to do another one for you!"

"Uh yeah, but I'm afraid that I might be a bit late, You see I was wondering if it could be done before Christmas?"

You sucked in a breath as you counted the days in your mind.

"Hmm, it depends on how big it is tbh. There's still 2 weeks to go till Christmas so I could fit it in," you mumbled, biting your lip as you remembered the onslaught of orders you still had to send out.

"Well," he started and you smiled a little as the excitement crept into his voice. "You know that Sykkuno, Rae, Toast and me are called the 4 Amigops right? I kinda wanted a portrait of all 4 of us, in our um among us colors, and I basically wanted to print it out and send to each of them for Christmas."

"Aww, that sounds like such a good idea, I'm sure they'll all love it!" you smiled, thinking about how much Sykkuno would appreciate that.

"Uh thanks," he mumbled, "do you think you can get it done?"

"Sure!" you replied immediately. You did have a lot of orders, yes, but like, you could fit Corpse in. If you pulled a few all-nighters. "I'll send you the sketches soon okay?"

"Oh thank god, thankyu so much for this y/n, I really appreciate it. Youre one of my favourite artists and I'm really happy that I could finally commisison you after so long."

"So long?" you questioned. "Since when have you known about my art?"

There was a moment of silence and then "Um, around the time you still posted your sketches and stuff I guess?"

You furrowed your eyebrows thinking for a second before letting out a gasp.

"Corpse that was 4 years ago!"

"Oh really?"

"Yeah, oh my god, I cant believe you've seen those, I was so bad then!"

"No no, they were really good at that time as well! I was so shocked when Sykkuno told us you were his sister because like, I'd been following you for ages and I had absolutely no idea. You guys are like really different."

"Hah yah, Sykkunos so soft, and then there's me. An actual devil."

"Your usernames so different as well! I remember when I first saw a picture of you on your account and I was kind of shocked because based on the name junefarie, I was expecting someone very soft I guess but then you were literally the opposite and wearing actual devil horns."

"Oh god, that was one of the first few photos I posted of myself. that was on Halloween I think,", you took a deep breath still shocked that Corpse had known about you for that long,

"Yeah, I chose junefarie because...”

It was 2 hours later when Corpse said that he should probably be working on his music.

"Oh I'm so sorry," you apologized, "I didn't mean to keep you,"

"Oh no, I um, I liked talking to you."

Your breath caught for a moment and you smiled like a lunatic at your Pokémon covered bedsheets.

"I liked talking to you as well," you whispered out, heart sinking a little as you realized the call would be ending soon.

"Um, do you, maybe want to stay on call? like I'll just be writing and we can just chill?" he asked and you felt like your prayers had been answered.

"yes" you said quickly, not giving him a chance to back out.

He chuckled, and you fell in love a little.

Just a little.

~

You continued like that, calling each other every few days, talking so much and then at times, not talking at all, simply content with each others company.

He had even started facetiming you, the first time with a mask and then the second without it. You hadn't made a big deal about it, but the first time you saw him, you could barely breathe.

There were five days left until Christmas when you got the idea.

You were entirely not subtle about it, because, well to be honest, there wasn't a subtle bone in your body.

"Hey Corpse, do you like surprises?" you had asked, in the middle of colouring Raes hair (her hair was the last thing left before you could finally print the goddamn thing)

"It depends," he had murmured after a second, voice sending shivers down your spine like every time. Now whether that was because of his voice or because of him, you weren't entirely sure.

"on what?" you prodded when he refused to answer.

"On whether its a good one or a bad one" he had huffed out.

You had hummed, waited for a second and then blurted out that next question because you did not have a cent of patience.

"So what are you doing at Christmas?"

"Sleeping, if I can manage it," he replied, his voice taking on a sardonic tone, eyes flicking to you on the screen. The only thing he could see though was the top of your head because you had your iPad on the bed and were laying over it as you drew.

"Not with that attitude you aren't," you replied right back, making a small smile appear across his face.

"Hmmm, okay!" you said when he didn't reply.

He looked back over, eyebrows furrowed and mouth opening as he started to question you.

"Hey did you see the video I sent you?" you quickly asked distracting him from his question.

He would probably guess the surprise but that was okay. You only wanted to make a smile appear on his face. And honestly, for someone with anxiety, a small warning of a surprise was definitely needed.

~

It was Christmas day and you woke Sykkuno up at 6 in the morning with the promise that you'd buy him McDonald's. 30 minutes later, you were both in the car, yelling the lyrics to "All I want for Christmas" at the top of your lungs.

You had told sykkuno of your plan a few days ago and he had smiled at you with that stupid smile, agreeing with a small "alright."

You'd immediately realised that he knew. Even though you pretended otherwise, Sykkuno was the older one and the thing about older siblings was that they always knew.

They always knew.

So there you were, snacks loaded into your car, McDonald's fries practically everywhere, and a cake you had made in the backseat, on your way to Corpses house.

There was a lull in the music, and you were only 30 minutes away from his place, butterflies fluttering in your stomach when Sykkuno asked you a question.

"You like him right?" he murmured, head leaning against the window, eyes closed.

There was a moment of silence as you thought about what to say. Did you like Corpse? Of course, you liked Corpse! He was funny, he was nice, he made you feel like you were the only person that mattered and your heart beat faster than ever whenever he looked at you. Hell, that was through a screen, in real life, it would probably be even worse. So of course you liked him! The question was, did he like you back?

"Yeah," you answered Sykkuno, eyes straight on the road.

A second passed and then he smiled. "Good," he replied. and well. That was that. You sighed.

At least you had your brothers blessing.

~

Pulling into the apartment building, you breathed in, your heart beating a million times a second and the butterflies in your stomach had turned into snakes. Maybe, maybe this wasn't a good idea at all. I mean, you expected Corpse to get the hint but what if he didn't? and what if he didn't want you to come? Maybe you were being too quick. After all, It'd only been a month since you'd met.

These thoughts plagued your mind as you trudged up the stairs, turning to Sykkuno as you reached the door.

"Maybe we shouldn't have come," you whispered to him.

He looked at you, eyebrows high, "We just travelled two hours to get here. There's no way im going back without at least giving him the print."

"What if he doesn't want us to be here?" you hissed.

"Then we'll go away." he stated, "after we give him the print."

"But what if-"

Before you could even finish your sentence, the door opened and you both jumped, turning to face the person standing in the doorway.

You forced yourself to breathe as you finally saw him. It was him. Wearing a black beanie, half his hair spilling out the sides, stubble clear on his chin... it was him. At that moment, there was only one thought in your mind.

You were gonna marry this man.

"You suck at whispering," he said, and you huffed out a laugh, jumping onto him without even responding. You wrapped your arms around him, not letting go until Sykkuno cleared his throat from behind you.

You turned back immediately, grabbing the stuff in Sykkunos hands so he could greet Corpse too. As they awkwardly did their handshake/fistbump thing, you walked over to the couch behind them, putting down the print and the takeaway bags, and putting the cakebox down on the table.

You turned around to see them both standing there staring at you.

"Surprise?" you said when no one else spoke. That broke the ice a little and you grabbed the print from the couch thrusting it at Corpse.

"Open it. Open it. Open it." you mumbled, your heart beating fast as he carefully ripped the paper off. The smile that overtook his face made your heart immediately calm.

"It's beautiful," he whispered, eyes roaming everywhere, trying to take it all in. Clearing his throat, he nodded his head further into the apartment, mumbling that he was going to put it in the room, eyes still on the print as he walked there.

"You smile is gonna blind me," muttered Sykkuno.

"Oh shut up."

~

A few hours later, you stood in the kitchen, putting the leftover cake into Corpses fridge. You had all chilled, eating cake and the takeout that you and sykkuno had bought, laughing every few minutes. It felt like you were all on an adrenaline rush. You had facetimed Rae and Toast, Rae shrieking when she realised where you guys were. Sykkuno had just fallen into a nap, still tired from being wakened up so early, you assumed.

You leaned against the kitchen bench, smiling as Corpse walked in.

"Thankyou." he said as he came to a stop next to you, matching your position.

"For what?" you mused, even though you had a good enough idea.

"For the print. For coming here. For making my Christmas, a much happier affair than it has been my whole life." he stated, chuckling at the last point.

You turned your head sideways, and you didn't know what it was, but something about his face made you spurn into action. You grabbed his collar, pulled him down, and kissed him before he could even say anything. It would be too cliche to say that fireworks erupted. And if you were being honest they didn't. Instead, it felt like everything was finally right. You fit perfectly in his arms as they wrapped themselves around you, and you smiled into the kiss as he lifted you up, making you sit at the counter. You twirled the hair at the nape of his neck with your left hand, taking a deep breath in as you both slowed down and pulled away.

"Well," he whispered, "that was unexpected."

You raised a single eyebrow. Honesty you'd done a lot for this relationship. You just drove for nearly 3 hours! If he wanted it to progress, he was gonna have to say it himself.

"But not unwelcome," he continued when you didn't speak. A moment passed, where you could see that he was psyching himself up to say something. Finally, with a heaving sigh, he whispered  "Darling, would you do me the honour of being called yours?"

You melted right there.

A nod was all he needed before he grabbed your lips with his again, both of you giggling when he accidentally hit the side of your mouth instead of the lips.

The sound of a picture being taken filled the air, making you spring apart and swing your heads over to the doorway, which had sykkuno leaning against it, his phone in his hand.

"Thank god. Rae and Toast bet that you wouldn't confess until after Christmas, so now they both owe me 20 bucks." he said, now fiddling on the phone. "Dont worry Corpse, I'll add a circle over your face or something."

Your mouth dropped open as you stared at your brother.

"You bet on my love life?" you scoffed, still shocked.

At his nod though, you swung off the bench, marching until you were eye to eye to him.

"I want half the winnings."

Rolling his eyes, he turned back to the living room, jumping onto the sofa.

"C'mon, let's watch one more episode before heading back," he said and you jumped in next to him, patting the space next to you as Corpse came in behind you.

You grabbed Sykkunos hand and squeezed it, letting him know that you were grateful that he didn't make it such a big deal. Leaning your head on corpses shoulder, you smiled to yourself.

You'd have to leave in 30 minutes, to drive back to your parents and spend the rest of Christmas with them, leaving Corpse behind. And that made you a bit sad sure, but it couldn't overpower the feeling of pure happiness at being here. At giving him a happier Christmas. You smiled as he pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

Nothing could overpower this feeling of absolute happiness.

fin.

Corpse husband taglist:  @mythicalamphitrite @ramble-writes @atsumubabe @anxiouskat5646 @itssierramcquade @xaestheticalien @jotaroslightning @starstruckllamapuppy @gxldenskiez @shinyshimaagain @cavanana @fee-btheweeb (send an ask to be added!)

[jincherie]

say so | knj & ksj [m]

! —  COMMISSION  — !

❥ — pairing: namjoon x reader x seokjin ❥ — genre: poly, 1950s au/rockabilly au, smut, childhood f2l, angst, fluff, musician!namjin, burlesque!mc ❥ — words: 24.5k+ ❥ — rating: 18+ ❥ — warnings: light angst, pining, smut !!!; oral (all kinds), anal, fingering, squirting, multiple orgasms, edging, light switch!joon, light switch!oc, harder dom!jin, double pentration, cockwarming, reverse cowgirl etc.... if I forgot sometihng I will add it later but for now this is it fellas. ❥ — notes: oh my god I am FINALLY ejecting this fic from my brain !!! part of the reason this took so long was, of course, the current circamstances across the world mixed in with a few personal factors, but also because I haven’t written a ‘historical’ fic before and I wanted to make sure I got it right ! of course, that somehow ended with me going way over word count so i am so sorry for that, but i truly hope you like it! I haven’t gone over it yet but i will do that later, i just wanted to post and get this fic out of my asshole

Returning to your hometown for a week is something you’ve managed to avoid for three years, but when you can finally put it off no longer you find upon arrival the very thing you were scared of encountering. When the two famous childhood friends you haven’t spoken to in years have returned at the same time as you, you can’t quite tell whether you’re going to be able to make it out in one piece or emerge with a heart more wounded than before.

Especially since it turns out the feelings you thought you were over never quite went away.

— masterlist |  posted; 17.08.2020

You didn’t really expect to find yourself back here so soon, but here you are— everything in your room is in exactly the same state as it was three years ago.

The covers on your bed, the magazine cuttings, faded posters and hand-painted canvases that mark the phases of your youth hung on your wall—even the light-toned floral wallpaper and the little knickknacks atop your dresser are the same. It makes something like nostalgia rise within you, a reminiscent haze filtering through your thoughts. It has been too long since you’ve been back here, and the guilt that always lingers in the back of your mind now pushes its way to the forefront. You feel bad, not having been back to your childhood home in so long, despite the reasons you had for moving away.

You haven’t been here all that long, but as soon as you finished talking with your parents downstairs your feet had carried you here, more out of habit that anything. Absentmindedly, you brush your hand over the oak of your dresser, curious when your fingertip comes back without a single speck of dust. Your mother must have come through often to clean. The realisation both warms your heart and compounds the guilt you feel, making you frown.  In an effort to distract yourself, you turn your gaze back to the rest of your old room, catching sight of a few photographs plastered above your study desk. You know what they contain, and still you can’t seem to help yourself as you draw closer and peer at them anew. They’re just as familiar to your eyes as you expected.

Of course, in this house you’d be lucky to find a photograph of you that didn’t also have these two in it. 

Your eyes skip over the older ones with yellowing glaze and curled corners to focus on the most recent-looking image, drinking in the two boys you’d spent the entirety of your childhood and teen years with. Easily your best friends, until… well, until three  years ago. A fond smile fights its way to your lips; you remember when this was taken. Your mother had lined the three of you up for a photo in the yard but at the very last second they’d pushed you into the pool. Both boys stand tall in the image, but you’d recognise the taller one with the goofy grin anywhere, even if his face wasn’t already plastered across newspapers and featuring on the television every other evening. Namjoon is just as boyish in the image as you recall, and next to him where they stand laughing over the pool is Seokjin, appearance every bit as neat and clean as you’ve glimpsed in recent years when he has featured in a magazine or program that is particularly popular with the youth. It was always a bit weird to you, a little hard to process, that the two boys you’ve known since the three of you were in diapers are now pretty much, well… celebrities. Something bubbles in your chest, the pressure of a sigh but the weight of something you’re not quite ready to name yet. Distantly, in the back of your mind, a tiny part of you whispers that it tastes a little like regret, and sounds a little like yearning.

Growing up, the two of them had discovered an affinity for music, and you for the arts. You suppose that small difference is what eventually led to the distance that grew between you, before you left— if not for the fact that they found the limelight so naturally and built popularity quicker than anticipated after their individual musical debuts. It really didn’t take them all that long to begin steadily growing their fanbase within the youth of your town, their songs played more and more often on local stations. Before long people even a few cities over caught wind of them, but you didn’t get to see it. By the point they had spread their wings that far, you were already gone.

You wrinkle your nose, not liking this sudden trip down a particular lane in your memory that you’ve been avidly avoiding the past three years. Taking a step back from the desk that the photographs hang above, you desperately search for something else to capture your attention. Fortunately for you, a voice sounds behind you before you can flounder too long.

“Wow, I can’t believe you actually came. How long has it been, forty years?”

You jump slightly, the familiarity of the voice and sheer amount of attitude in the words allowing you to recognise it instantly. You spin, eyes quickly locking onto the familiar head of straight blonde hair and cherubic features that belong to your sister. You’ve kept in touch with her via letter and the occasional call, but other than that this is the first time you’ve seen her in years. She’s a little bit taller than you remember, and she’s filled out a little more now that she’s no longer a gangly teen. You are surprised though to note the absence of the usual distressed denim that she favoured throughout the years. Instead she’s in a neat pair of capris that rise to the dip of her waist, where she has tucked in a bright red blouse beneath a belt. Out of habit, you look down to her feet and catch a glimpse of red canvas shoes that instantly make you want to laugh; your mother never could get her into a pair of heels, even if she managed to get her out of the dungarees that she used to love so much.  Lisa smiles cheekily beneath your scrutiny, opening her arms wide. With a laugh, you throw your own around her, pulling her into a tight hug. 

“You’re so dramatic,” you retort, rolling your eyes even though she can’t see it. “Of course I would come to celebrate my own sister’s engagement. I had to see it with my own eyes to believe it.”

“Why does everyone say the same thing when I talk about it?” Lisa groans, pulling back with a familiar pout that seems to have survived her transition into young adulthood. She slips her arm through your own,  giving your bicep a smack as she leads you from the room. “It’s not that hard to believe that I’m getting married! Also— what on earth have you been up to all these years? Have you been attending classes? You’re in such good shape, oh my goodness—”

Unwittingly, your cheeks flush; you probably shouldn’t tell her the real reason for your current physique lest she blab with champagne-loosened lips about it to the rest of your family at her party. Sober Lisa is the only one that knows how to keep a secret, as you’ve found out through a number of shamefully scrawled confessions in the letters she would send you. A number of things you’d confided in her over the years have since been aired like dirty laundry to some of her friends, much to your mutual regret.

“Uh, yeah. Something like that,” you say dismissively, quickly returning to the previous topic as the two of you descend the stairs. “And it’s probably because of all those things you said when you were younger, like how you’d rather live in a mud hut on a deserted island than ever marry a smelly boy riddled with cooties—”

“Ah, yes,” Lisa sighs, the sound more fond and less ashamed than you were expecting. “Those were the days— I was such a badass little ankle-biter. What has become of me? I must be the one riddled with cooties at this point.”

“Probably,” you muse, catching sight of your mother behind the kitchen counter and shooting her a smile as you move past. Lisa is lucky she hadn’t spoken too loudly or else she’d be getting a light smack for her language. It never seemed to stop her when she was younger though, so you doubt it would have an effect now either.

“A skirt at the knee, y/n?” Your mother lets out a dramatic, scandalous gasp upon seeing you. “I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

“These are the clothes that you greeted me in?” You give her a pained look; apparently you need readjusting to her oddball sense of humour. She’s always been a little out of place in the straight-laced, conservative society that marks this day and age; your father too, except he was just a bit more sneaky about it. Actually, now that you think about it, Namjoon and Seokjin’s parents were always a little more on the liberal side too… What an odd coincidence that the three families ended up in a row at the end of the same cul-de-sac.

You’re not deigned with a response, your mother smacking her hands onto the apron she has tied over her baby blue skirt and turning to the oven. You think you hear her muttering about ‘time’ and ‘darn apple pies always taking too long to cook’ and can’t help the way your mouth waters in response. Gods, is it bad if one of the things you missed the most while away is the apple pies your mother makes?

You turn to Lisa, about to ask her whether the apple pie is something you’re going to be able to steal a piece of, only to find that she’s disappeared into thin air. Fantastic. You’re not staying here while you’re back in town, so you’re unsure whether you’re going to be able to cash in on dinner or whether your mother will hold it over your head a little first. You wander over to the  edge of the kitchen, sticking your head into the living room to peer around; you’re curious as to just how much has changed in the time that you’ve been gone. Not as much as you might have hoped, to your chagrin.

“You still have that ugly old thing,” you observe, unable to help the way that your nose wrinkles in response to the sight of the monstrosity still wearing holes into the carpet of the living room.

“My love,” you mother says, giving you an (affectionate) sharp smack on the shoulder as she slips past you, shooting you a bright grin when the thickness of her skirt knocks you slightly. Apparently she’s finished in the kitchen for now; you glance back to see a bowl of nuts joining the bowl of fruit that had been on the counter earlier. “I’d sooner perish than give up your grandmother’s armchair. Besides…. I do so adore how it never fails to draw your ire.”

“I do hate that thing,” your father utters suddenly from the kitchen behind you, his hand reaching for the bowl of fruit; he has his glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, so you figure he must have retired to his study to read after greeting you earlier. He moves just as fast as you remember— your mother didn’t even have a chance to stop him before he was gone as quick as he came, hands full of whatever fruit he couldn’t fit in his mouth. 

“You—!” 

The sound of your father’s laughter tumbles off the walls, and you can’t help the smile that tugs your lips. You did miss this; the liveliness, the feeling of home. 

“y/n, dear, darling, light of my life…”

You turn to your mother, already knowing what is coming next from her tone. One thing you definitely didn’t miss—

“I forgot when I went past earlier, but could you go and fetch some cream from Barb’s? You know, that little store on the corner, down the road from the diner you always used to—”

You’re already turning towards the front of the house, heading for where you’d left your purse with a fond roll of your eyes. “I know where Barb’s is, Ma! I only went away to study, I didn’t lose my memories!”

Your mother’s cheeky laugh is what bids you farewell as you duck out the door and start on your way.

X – x – x

You’d forgotten just how tempting the treats in Barb’s are.

When you exit the small corner store around an hour or so later (it was hardly any distance to walk, but of course Mrs. Park was keen to hold you hostage long enough to squeeze every single detail out of you she could about your time away) it’s with an overflowing paper bag in your arms that holds more than just the cream your mother sent your for. One look at the apple Danish pastries and cinnamon-sprinkled goodies behind the glass of her counter and you’d been unable to help yourself. Your mother did always say that your sweet tooth would be your undoing. 

Walking through the streets that you grew up becoming so familiar with breeds a certain kind of yearning that swells in your chest and borders on painful. This, you suspect, is because most— if not all— of your memories of this place are intrinsically linked with those of the two men who used to take up such a big part of your life; and that therefore then left such a big hole when they were gone. 

It’s hard not to fall into them, the memories. The candy store where the three of you would scrounge up as many coins as you could and pile them all together to get the best sweets on the shelves; the library where you spent as much time goofing off and getting scolded as you did studying in your senior years; even the drive-in cinema, where you used to take your parents cars for the evening and sit on the hood while poking fun at the latest flick to grace the screen. Being back here is making you face something that you have somehow skilfully managed to avoid up until now—

You miss them, Seokjin and Namjoon. You miss your best friends.

This is something that is hammered home further when you reach the point in your journey home where you pass the place featured most in your memories. Dana’s Dinery, probably the only thing more constant in your life than those two boys and your own family. The pink and red hues of its name and the exposed bulbs decorating the signage are something you remember clear as day, and just the sight of it alone has your mouth watering for the burgers and other fried goods they loved to serve there. The kind of food you know is terrible for you, but that you also just can’t get enough of nonetheless. You’ve spent so many nights there that at some point every single member of staff there knew you by name. Of course, since the three of you were barely seen apart at that time, they knew Seokjin and Namjoon, too. 

You’re tempted to duck in and say hello, and before you can even give it much thought your feet are already angling you in that direction, short heels scuffing against the pavement. Through the window you can see the familiar shiny red booth seats and the similarly upholstered stools that line the counter; behind it is a woman with wild, dark curls thrown back in a bun, a pencil behind her ear. Ah, so Mrs. Cara still works there. A petal of affection unfurls in your chest at the sight of her, but drops to the ground in the next second as your gaze slides to the side and halts on two figures currently seated at the counter.

No way. No way.

You freeze, eyes wide as you stand rooted to the spot for just a moment. You know that logically, they can’t be here, but the profiles you can just barely glimpse from this distance are so eerily familiar to that of Namjoon and Seokjin that you think your heart skips perhaps one too many beats. For some reason, your stomach roils with the urge to flee; you just got around to admitting that you miss them, and yet the second you think you might be seeing them, you want to run away? Honestly, it doesn’t make sense—wouldn’t make sense to anyone else privy to the thoughts currently whipping through your mind. 

But you’re a master at stewing in your own thoughts and feelings, familiar with dissecting them until you understand them to the best of your ability at the time. So you know why you promptly turn on your heel and begin hastily back on your way home, abandoning any plans to go inside the diner. You know why, but you’re not quite ready to dwell on it yet, so you push it to the backburner and do your very best not to think about it the whole walk back.

X – x – x

You’re ashamed.

A huff escapes you, your eyes boring into the ceiling, unfocused. After delivering the cream to your mother (and promptly having the extra sweets confiscated until after dinner, lest you snack away your appetite—you guess that answers your question about whether you’re staying for supper) you decided to retire up here for now. You’d thought that your room might feel a little alien to you after all this time away, but when you’d dragged yourself in and shucked your shoes off at the door, it had welcomed you back with an air of nostalgia and open arms. You’re sprawled across your bed now, arms behind your head as you stare at the ceiling. When you were younger, maybe fourteen, you had decorated it with little stars and planets that you’d painted. Well, it wasn’t just you—some of the more crudely decorated renditions towards the wall are courtesy of Seokjin and Namjoon. You wouldn’t say they’re bad at art, just that they have… well, a distinct style that is very them.

Wait, you’re getting distracted—back to the matter at hand: you’re ashamed. 

At this point in your life, if someone had asked you why that particular emotion might be plaguing you right now, then in all honesty you would have a vast array of reasons to give them. But the answer as to why you’re ashamed right now, lies in the two people you could have sworn you glimpsed earlier. 

Now that there is a little temporal distance between you and that particular moment, you can use logic to assure yourself that there’s no way you actually just saw Namjoon and Seokjin at the diner that you all used to haunt in your youth. But in the moment, when you thought you’d seen them, you fell into a bit of a panic. This, you have determined, is because you are ashamed. It’s a little harder to determine why you’re ashamed in relation to them, but what you’ve managed to discern so far is that you feel to blame for the way things went, at least partially. Or, perhaps its that you fear they blame you for the way things went. In reality, from what you remember, they first began to grow apart from each other, and then they began to grow apart from you. That, of course, isn’t something you can blame yourself for. But, what you can blame yourself for – and here is what you think may be the root of your shame – is that you were the one to up and leave suddenly. You were the one to disappear without even a goodbye, almost. You could have kept in touch if you tried, but you’d basically disappeared off the face of the earth.

You wonder if they blame you, or if they might even resent you because of that.

Well, if they even remember you, that is. They’re pretty much in the big leagues now, you remind yourself. They’re making it mainstream and they’re hot on the heels of the most renowned names in the business. 

You’re not very good at comforting yourself. Not that you really attempted it this time, but usually whenever you do you just end up stewing in your thoughts a little. You don’t even realise you’re glaring at the ceiling in the midst of sorting through your mental mess until a knock at the door jerks you out of it. You turn towards it just as it opens and a head pops inside, a gleam you instantly decide you don’t like shining in Lisa’s eyes.

“Come downstairs,” she says cryptically, beginning to ease back out. She only chimes once more when she’s out of view. “If you don’t, I’ll eat all those pastries you brought back! Keep that in mind!”

What on earth… you’re left absolutely confused for a moment, before her last words sink in and you throw yourself from your bed with haste, not even bothering to put your shoes back on before you dart out of the room. The trip downstairs is treacherous in stockings, but you don’t have time to lose. You’re sister isn’t one to bluff, and you don’t want her anywhere near those pastries!

“Don’t you touch those!” you call in warning as you slide across the hardwood floor in the hall and fly down the stairs. “Lisa, I mean it! If you lay a single finger on those pastries you’ll lose it!”

There’s laughter in the direction of the kitchen, and you’re angled to follow the sound when your eyes catch sight of movement to the side and you freeze on the spot. 

“y/n!” your mother cries, clearly ecstatic that you’ve come down to join her. She’s standing in the hall that leads the front door, talking to some people you can’t yet see. “Look who’s here! My, I haven’t seen these two in almost as long as I hadn’t seen you!”

Something like dread, mixed with an odd spike of anticipation, begins to trickle into your abdomen. All too suddenly you remember exactly who you thought you saw earlier, and realise she can only be talking about two people in particular. 

Nervously, you smooth down your skirt and blouse, shooting your mother a look that you hope isn’t too panicked. She is, of course, oblivious, and simply grabs you by the arm to drag you around the corner. 

“I haven’t seen the three of you together in so long! I missed your handsome faces around here, too. Perhaps the height as well— now there’s no one in the house that can reach the top shelf in the pantry.”

Your mother is babbling, but you can’t bring yourself to mind when it saves you from having to speak yourself. As you’d feared, there are two very familiar people standing before you, hovering on your doorstep with almost nervous energy.

“It has been a while,” a soft tone with the luxurious depth of velvet— Seokjin smiles so charmingly at your mother that you think your heart really might have stopped for a second. When his dark eyes turn to you, there is something swirling in their depths that is in such contrast to the winning smile on his lips that you almost feel your knees shake. “y/n, it’s a lovely surprise to catch you here— we didn’t know you were in town as well.”

“Oh, and what brings you two boys back here?” Your mother asks, all too excited to hear exactly what has been going on in their lives since she saw them last. Thankfully, she saves you from having to answer straight away. “Are you back for long?”

“Just a week,” Namjoon answers, bashful smile juxtaposing the beaten leather of the jacket over his shoulders and the low, rough melody of his voice. Oh dear— “We’re actually here celebrating something with a close friend of ours; we were invited to a… party of sorts, you could say.”

You think you might be safe, that he might not say anything to you just yet, when he turns to you and his eyes flick along your form. He smiles again, this time with his dimples making an appearance. 

“It really has been too long, y/n. I’m glad we managed to run into you.”

You know it’s not a dig at you, but you feel your cheeks flush with shame nonetheless.

“Don’t tell me the three of you haven’t seen each other since she left,” your mother gasps, sending you a look that tells you she is going to be wringing information out of you later.

There’s a slight lull in the conversation that tells you it’s your time to chime in. Before you can, though, Seokjin speaks— still with a smile, despite the slight bite of his words. 

“Ah, yeah,” he says, shaking his head. He leans back slightly, switching his weight to the other leg and crossing his arms over his chest— you try not to look at the way it makes his chest and shoulders strain against the material of his button-up. “We wanted to write, or call, but we didn’t know where she was staying to send it. Made it a little hard to keep in touch.”

Your heart squeezes; that was a dig, that was definitely a dig. And you deserved it, but damn you didn’t realise it would hurt that much. And he hadn’t even said anything direct!

“Oh, well this is perfect then!” Your mother smacks you on the back, a little rougher than necessary, making you cough. “y/n is here for the week, why don’t you all catch up? Lisa’s engagement party is on Saturday so any day other than that should be fine— oh, you two should come, by the way! And invite your mothers too; it’s been too long since we’ve all sat down for tea.”

“That would be wonderful,” Namjoon agrees amicably, nodding his head to your mother. “I’m sure they’d love to take you up on that invite— I did get an earful about how lonely she was when I got home earlier.”

You have to fight a smile at that— Namjoon’s mother does have a penchant for the dramatics. You turn your gaze to the side to find Seokjin’s own already boring holes into you— it takes all your willpower not to jump. When he sees he has your attention, he smiles once more.

“We’d love to catch up,” he says, eyes still holding you captive. “How about dinner tomorrow, at Dana’s? I miss the burgers there.”

You catch Namjoon nodding from the corner of your eye, agreeing with the idea, and swallow your nerves down to flash a smile back. “Of course, that sounds fantastic.”

The two men nod, satisfied for now, and Namjoon pipes up once more as they take a step back.

“Well, we should probably get back— if we’re late for supper today we mightn’t be alive for dinner tomorrow,” he jokes, earning a laugh from your mother. His eyes flick to you, unreadable but holding such heat you almost gasp, “We’ll meet you there at seven tomorrow, y/n. I’m lookin’ forward to it.”

“See you, boys!” Your mother waves farewell, jabbing you with her elbow until you join her. “Hurry home!”

They nod with a laugh, and you watch them retreat to their respective homes on either side of yours until your mother closes the door and cuts off your view, turning to you with a look that could mean a number of things. She’s distracted from unleashing a verbal flood on you in the next moment, however, when she catches sight of your feet.

“y/n!” she gasps, tone scolding. “Go put your shoes on! Walking around without them— this isn’t how I raised you, my goodness. You’re going to wear holes in your stockings! Go go go!”

Startled by the way she raises her arm in promise, you yelp and scamper away, back towards the stairs. “Okay, I’m going!”

You’re about halfway up the stairs, petticoat and skirt swishing violently from how fast you scaled them, when she calls after you.

“And don’t think you’re off the hook, missy! You and I are having a long, in-depth chat after dinner!”

You can only resign yourself to your fate.

x - x - x

“I’m in trouble, Mina. Oh, I’m in trouble.”

“It can’t be anything more than the trouble you’re going to be in for wearing holes into the hotel room carpet— stop that! You’re making me anxious!”

You halt mid-pace, sending your friend a pained look. She’s sprawled across the second bed in your hotel room, reading some magazine that touts the latest in makeup and jewellery from some of the more big-name brands.

“Please, just this once, let me be the one having a Diva moment,” you say, almost begging— to your own distaste. You just need someone to vent to, but she’s not exactly being helpful.

“What is this about?” she asks, closing her magazine to pin you with a borderline-grumpy look. “What has your knickers in such a— oh, I love those shorts! Are those new?”

“Uh, yeah. I bought them the other week,” you answer, looking down at the light blue shorts you’d slipped into for comfort’s sake this morning. They’re so comfortable, in fact, that you regret that you’re unable to wear them in public. You quickly shake your head when you realise you’re getting off-topic. “Hey— I told you what this is about! Did you listen to a single thing I said since I got back last night? Do I mean nothing to you?”

“You’re so dramatic,” Mina utters under her breath. “Yes, I was listening! I was just checking we were talking about the same thing!"

The look you give her is dubious at best, "Okay, then what am I talking about?"

"Those two hot cats you grew up with," Mina says, waving her manicured hand dismissively. "What about them is giving you such grief?"

"I ran into them yesterday," you say, eyes unfocused as you fall back into your thoughts once more. "They want to meet for dinner, to catch up."

"Oh, well that's fine," Mina says. "You don't have feelings for them anymore, so it should be alright, yeah?"

You bite your lip, wincing and giving her a look that could only be described as a mixture between sheepish and remorseful.

"Oh, y/n," She sounds a lot like your mother with the tone she's taken now, "Don't tell me..."

"I thought I was over it!" you say, wailing almost, as you throw your arms into the air. "They were already so distant before I left, you know? And it's been so long that I thought the feelings went away."

You huff, one hand on your hip and the other splayed over your face. "But then I saw them yesterday, and I think I nearly had a heart failure. I don't think... that those feelings went away."

When you manage to glimpse her way, Mina is wincing, teeth visible. She reaches up to scratch her hairline, almost dislodging one of the curlers she has wound in her hair. "Well, it's just one dinner... When is it? I'm sure you have plenty of time to get rid of those feelings before you--"

"It's tonight," you say with a certain level of resignation, walking over to your own bed and finally throwing yourself onto it in defeat.

"Tonight?!" Mina positively squawks, scrambling into a sitting position in her disbelief. "Uh, y/n, I do hope you haven't forgotten, but we have a show almost every night Saturday--"

"I know," you bemoan, staring at the ceiling and trying to ignore the odd marks there-- you don't have the brain space to wonder how they even got up there in the first place. "The dinner will be finished in time, I'm not worried about that. I'm just... worried about what will happen during, you know? It's kind of stupid but... what if they hate me now? I didn't even tell them when I left, didn't give them an address to write me or a number to call..."

"Yeah, that was kind of a rude move," Mina says bluntly, "But I don't think they would invite you to dinner to catch up if they hated you, y'know? They were your best friends, they probably missed the hell out of you."

You ponder her words, unable to pick them apart with logic. "Maybe," you mutter, picking at a loose thread on your blouse."... I did miss them."

"See?" Mina says knowingly, giving you a look before falling back on the bed and reaching for the chunky romance novel that she has perched on the headboard above the bed.. "And who knows— you're a hot catch, they might end up returning those feelings and you might come out of this a lucky woman! Well, probably a bit sore in certain places, but lucky nonetheless—”

"MINA!"

The pillow you threw smacks her square in the face, but does nothing to muffle the cackle she lets out after. God, she's not the first choice to come to for advice, but to her credit you do feel a bit better now.

x- x - x

Seven o’clock that evening finds you hovering nervously outside the doors to Dana's Dinery, hand outstretched to take the handle but unable to follow through completely with the movement. For the moment, you're stuck in your thoughts, and your thoughts are stuck on the same thing that had plagued them earlier in the day.

What's going to happen when you walk in there? When you're seated at the table with them and in the process of catching up? You shouldn't be as fearful of it as you are, but you can't help it. The evolution your feelings for them undertook a few years ago aside, they were still very much your best friends. Their opinion of you... well it sucks, but it still matters to you.

Didn’t stop you from doing what you did though, did it?

Huffing and deciding to ignore the nasty little voice that is attempting to make an already stressful night even worse, you force your limbs into action and simply resign to bite the bullet. If they are upset with you, then being late to dinner certainly won’t help things. 

“y/n! Over here!”

With how quickly they spot you, mere seconds after passing through the doorway, a part of you wonders if they saw you hovering outside like a coward. Shame flushes across your neck and ears at the thought, but you do your best to remain at least outwardly unaffected.

Over in the booth at the very end of the diner, nestled against the window and the wall, the two men who have been haunting your thoughts for more than a day sit. You recognise the booth— it’s your Corner, you always sat there with them, to the point where if the staff saw anyone else sit there when they knew you were coming, they’d politely usher them to a new seat. It makes something shift inside you to see them there again. You don’t feel like you’re in school again, but something else feels akin to that time…

It’s probably the butterflies.

Namjoon is grinning at you widely, waving his arm; he’s ditched the leather from yesterday and is now donning a fitted black button-up that brings a nice contrast against the sun-kissed hue of his skin, though his hair is still swept into its style somewhat half-heartedly. Seokjin next to him is in a tan knit turtleneck sweater, glasses perched on his nose and hair attended to much more neatly than the man next to him. Both men are looking at you as you approach, but their stares (especially Seokjin’s) are a little too intense for you to handle, and you end up looking away as you take a seat across from them. 

The booth is less squeaky than you remember, but somehow just as plush. You place your purse and cardigan onto the red leather next to you, clasping your hands together and offering a tentative smile. The soft rock tumbling from speakers around the diner isn’t going to fill the lull in conversation for very long. “Hey, sorry to have kept you waiting…”

Seokjin raises a brow, and you know in that moment that they did indeed see you hovering outside the diner. You don’t have time to process the embarrassment that follows that realisation, though, before Namjoon begins speaking with a warm smile. 

“Don’t worry, you didn’t,” he informs you, eyes glimmering like he’s just happy to have you here. It makes something painful throb in your chest. “And loosen up, would you? You’re sitting like you’re at a job interview.”

To your embarrassment, a brief internal examination of your posture tells you that he is right. Sheepishly, you allow the tension to drain from your body, leaning forward onto the table slightly. “Sorry,” you mumble, offering a smile. “Guess I’m just a bit wound up from being home. I forgot how chaotic it is here…”

To your surprise, Seokijn snorts; your fears that he was truly upset with you are dispelled somewhat as a lopsided grin tugs his plush lips, eyes meeting yours levelly.  “Tell me about it. My mother had my aunt and the cousins over when I got home. I haven’t felt as exhausted as I did after that night in, well, years.”

You don’t notice the smile Namjoon shoots to the man beside him when he first speaks, but you do notice when he lets out a laugh and beams so brightly that his eyes almost close and something you completely forgot about makes an appearance. His dimples have always been a weak spot of yours, and you’re slightly horrified to find that glimpsing them now has led to a skipped beat in your chest and a flutter in your stomach. 

It’s not looking very good for the state of your old feelings right now…

“You never unwind properly,” Namjoon says, somewhat chastising despite his playful tone. He doesn’t pursue it further, though. Instead, he turns to you with a soft smile. “So, y/n, how was college? If you have replaced us as best friends, I will never forgive you.”

You can’t help the laugh that tumbles from your throat at both his words and his face, Seokjin chuckling to himself in the corner. Still smiling, you tell him that no, you haven’t replaced them, and sort through the events of your first year for something they’d like to hear. 

Just like that, and definitely much easier and less stilted than you feared it would be, the three of you seem to sink back into something like the old dynamic you used to share, conversation beginning to flow and laughter beginning to tumble. There are some small differences, of course. Namjoon, who used to be much more clumsy and prone to blushing in his fluster, now seems to have come into his own and his presence commands your attention whenever he speaks or gestures, each movement sure and with confidence. While Seokjin used to be the more blatant joker between the three of you, now he seems to sit back a bit, observing conversation contentedly until he sees the perfect opportunity to chime in and elicit a few laughs. 

And then, there’s you.

Well, you suppose you haven’t changed all that much. When Ms. Cara comes around to take your order (amongst gushing about how grown up and handsome and beautiful the three of you look), you still order the same thing from the menu, go about eating it the same way (fries before burger, being sure to leave some so you can slip them under the bun), and feel the same butterflies running amok in your stomach as you did years ago. You know that you’ve changed a lot, an almost scary amount, but sitting here in this diner with the two men who used to be your best friends, you’re only realising just how much of you is the same.  

“I still don’t know how you can eat that,” Namjoon says, pausing in scarfing his own dessert down to judge you for yours. “You always used to get it— aren’t you sick of it?”

“Hey!” Seokjin intercepts, pointing his spoon at Namjoon. “The Fun Sized Sundae with the Triple Sauce Special is a respectable choice of dessert, and I won’t have you shaming it when you’re just sitting there with pudding and custard!”

You chuckle at Seokjin’s avid defence of your choice— the two of you were the only ones with a big enough sweet tooth to be able to combat the sugary monster that is your choice of dessert. He hadn’t braved it tonight, though, opting instead for apple pie.

“I actually haven’t had it since I was last here,” you say, without even thinking. Another spoonful is already on its way to your mouth as you continue, “It’s one of the things I missed most after I—”

You cut yourself off, realising your blunder too late. The looks in their eyes tell you they know what you were about to say. After I left. Ah, how could you forget? You’ve been here over an hour and this is the first time it’s crossed your mind since you entered. You left— you. Not them, but you.

Your appetite suddenly begins to fade, and you place your spoon down as gently as you can. It still tinks against the bowl, but does little to break the tension beginning to seep into the air.

You clear your throat, growing a little antsy in your seat. Even as you ask, you’re unable to meet their eyes, “Ah, what time is it? We— I got a little carried away…”

The question had mostly been to dispel some of the awkwardness, but Namjoon’s response had you shooting up ramrod straight. “It’s five-to-nine.”

“Oh, shoot,” you don’t even think about the words escaping your mouth, just that way more time had passed than you thought and if you stay any longer then you’re going to be bordering dangerously close on being late for your other very important commitment tonight. “I— I have to go. I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise how late it was.”

You hurry to gather your cardigan and purse, starting to shimmy out of the booth, when Seokjin speaks up, “Is everything alright? Where are you off to in such a rush? If you need, we can walk you—”

“No!” you burst, regret swallowing you moments later when you see how taken aback the two men are at your sudden rise in tone. “No, sorry, it’s okay. I just, um… I just have to pick up something, for Lisa’s party.”

“At nine o’clock at night?” Jin verifies, brows drawing down.

“Uh, yeah,” you say, voice small as you manage to finally get out of the booth and stand somewhat sheepishly at the end. “I’m so sorry, it was so lovely meeting you two again and catching up. I’ll, um… I’ll see you, at Lisa’s party.”

You barely allow them enough time to bid their own farewells before you’re turning on your heel and hightailing it out of there before one of them comes to their senses and offers to walk you again. 

You definitely do not need one of your old best friends walking you to the entrance of a club.

A fifteen minute cab ride is what you choose instead, and it isn’t long before you’re slipping into the building from the back entrance and dashing through the halls.

“FINALLY,” Mina erupts dramatically when she catches sight of you bursting into the dressing room, brows raising so high they almost meet her bangs. “I almost thought you were going to stand us up, Miss Luna.” 

Your eyes sweep over her form, alarm filling you at the fact she’s already mostly dressed, from her netted stockings to the many fluffy and feathery layers that she’ll be discarding on the stage tonight. She’s currently sitting at the dresser, putting the final touches on her makeup with small detail brushes.

“That lip colour is too orange,” you inform her, hastily rushing over to the chest that you know contains your outfit for tonight. Mina halts in her motions, staring at herself in the mirror for a long moment before she tilts her head back and lets out a loud, torturous groan.

“I knew it! Momo, you lied to me! I asked you if this colour was too orange or warm and you said—”

You shake your head, slinging the clothes you retrieved over your arm and making your way over to the screen in the corner to get changed. You feel a little bad for the girl currently on the receiving end of Mina’s whines, but on the other hand you’re now free to rush about and catch up to the rest of your co-performers. 

Within the next ten minutes you’re dressed and ready to go, dropping into a seat next to Mina and reaching to begin powdering your face.

From the tingle of excitement beginning to thrum in the air, you can only assume it won’t be long now before the show begins.

x   x   x   x 

Burlesque. It’s something that you know from experience, something you’d sadly gained before you grew more skilled at hiding your profession from the judging eyes of others, has some quite divided views and opinions. Despite how open-minded and liberal as your parents are, you know even they would struggle to come to terms with the fact that their beloved daughter had moved away for college and somehow come to perform in burlesque theatres on the side. 

You don’t even have a clear explanation as to how or why you’d ended up down this path, just that you had. Contrary to what a majority of the population would likely hope, you aren’t ashamed, and you don’t regret it. This is something you love, and you think part of the reason you had been so drawn to it in the first place was the promise of power nestled within a certain kind of anonymity.

Your act, after all, is a masquerade performed beneath the security of an intricate lace and silk colombina disguise.

When you’d first left, you’d felt… well, there wasn’t any other way to put it but rejected, and abandoned. You might have been the one that left, and it’s something you regret now, but at the time it was Namjoon and Jin who had grown distant from both each other and you. Coupled with their increasing popularity and the way their lives seemed to be picking up speed in the direction they’d always dreamed of, it made you realise that their world was getting a little too big for you, and in the scheme of their lives you no longer held a starring role.

So you’d packed up and moved away, and in the midst of your aimless moping in another city, you’d stumbled upon this�� and from the first taste of empowerment it gave you in the wake of all you had been feeling, you quickly decided you weren’t going to be letting it go anytime soon. 

And now here you are; an act with such high regard and admiration that you had been called to perform it in other cities. It was a stroke of fortune that one of the stops was your own hometown, at the same time as your sister’s engagement party no less. You had wondered at the time what the catch had to be, and now, of course, you know.

It’s that in an instance of divinely aligned misfortune, the two people you’d planned to avoid indefinitely happened to be here as well.

It’s been a few days since the night you spent catching up with them, and there is enough distance between then and now for you to have calmed significantly when thinking about it. It had been kind of weird, sneaking away from the diner to come perform that night. Even though years have passed, you’re still so used to telling them everything whenever you see them, that holding something back feels foreign, and oddly enough… you feel a little guilty. The first excuse that comes to your mind in your defence is that  ‘they wouldn’t understand anyway’. You know that is baseless, though. Both of them have become popular and risen to fame not just because of their natural musical talent, but for the topics that their music so brazenly broaches.

The truth is that you know they wouldn’t judge you for anything you do, and you’re not quite sure why you’re so resistant to them knowing. The human mind is a mystery, and yours is no exception.

A slow, smooth saxophone melody brushes your ears, a lower note capturing your attention and bringing you back to the present moment. Amongst the faint tendrils of smoke that reach you from the seating area, an itch rises at your brow and you fight to contain it, not wanting to rub off the thin arch you’d drawn on so carefully earlier. It was always like this; you always got itchy before performing, for reasons unknown to you. One of your friends had theorised that it was due to nerves, or something similar. It drove your manager mad, because you’d ripped your costume pantyhose a few times while scratching your thighs in the past.

Mina’s act precedes yours, usually, and tonight isn’t any different. She’s good, and you can’t help but marvel as you watch her. Her movements are fluid, full of a certain zest and allure that mix into a single heady cocktail that has the crowd enraptured as she allows her skirts to drop ever so slowly with each smooth swing and sashay of her hips. When the ruffled fabric hits the floor there are hoots and whistles from the crowd, and Mina’s beaming face peeks over her shoulder to deliver a wink. The room eats it up.

It’s a special performance, tonight.

Due to confidentiality, none of the performers had been told exactly who was attending tonight, just that they were Very Important People, and they were to be shown the best performance they would ever see in their lives. It was an ambitious set of instructions, but you know that both yourself and the other girls in the show are some of the best in the business, so you aren’t too worried about meeting expectations. You plan to exceed them. 

You always put effort into your appearance, but tonight you admit that you did try the tiniest bit harder than usual. Your hair is pulled back from your face, twisted and pinned into curls at the top of your head; the rest of it you simply allowed to hang to its natural length and shape, though you took care to make sure it was soft and silky enough to gleam beneath the stage lights. At Mina’s insistence, you’d allowed her to pin a few small glittery ornaments amongst the curls, and as you peek out and see just how full the room is, you find yourself thanking her mentally. It’s the little details that really pull together a performance and hammer home the effect it has on the audience, and it looks like a full house tonight that you’re going to wow. Though, none of the faces seem to jump out at you so far— you still don’t know who tonights VIPs are. 

Even though tonight is meant to be a big, important night — as it had been emphasised to you so many times — you still find your thoughts wondering back to a certain two men and the reappearance of the feelings you’d once harboured for them. You’re conflicted, as anyone might expect of someone in your situation, but you can’t say you’re very fond of the feeling. Hence, despite your best efforts, your thoughts just keep coming back to your current predicament. Lisa’s party is tomorrow, and you know from yesterday’s visit to your home that your mother had already extended an enthusiastic invitation to both families on either side of the fence. So you know that there is absolutely no way that those two aren’t going to be there, since even if they hadn’t already expressed their intention of attending, their mother’s would drag them over by the ear.

You’re not sure why you’re still worrying about this. You already met and caught up with them! And it went well… or at least it did, until the topic of your abrupt disappearance from their lives was brought up. 

Perhaps that is why you’re so conflicted still. That is an issue that has yet to be resolved.

When you tune back in to the moment and catch your manager sending you a whithering look, you shake your head and decide to try and ground yourself so that you’re not off with the fairies by the time your cue to perform rolls around. You bring your gaze back to the stage, finding that in the time you spent in your own head, Mina had managed to strip down to just her shelf brassiere and the panties and baby blue garter belt with straps that stretched over her shapely thighs and attached to the top of her stockings.

You get lost in the moment, watching as the spotlight follows her across the stage and illuminates each small gesture she makes that draws the audience further and further under her spell. Her hair is perfectly curled and with each flick of her head and bat of her lashes, the strands slide over her shoulder and bounce against her back. As she reaches for her final garment to discard, it isn’t long before the light fades in tandem with the last note of her song, and the audience gets only the barest glimpse of Mina’s almost bare form before the stage is blanketed in darkness. Cheers and applause break the beat of silence that follows, and then Mina is hurriedly rushing past you, beaming with pride and holding most of her discarded skirts bunched up to her chest. Soon, the applause fades out, the hollers nonexistent, and the stage is cleared.

Now, it’s your turn to wrap the audience around your finger. 

Taking a deep breath and revelling in the light fluttering of your stomach that never seems to fade no matter how many shows you perform, you listen for the first few strumming notes of the song that accompanies your routine. When the low, bass riff of guitar finally brushes the air, you make your way slowly onto the stage and let yourself fall into the familiarity of the show.

It’s kind of ironic, you can’t help but think to yourself. Considering the events of this week, the song you’d chosen to tailor your routine to is kind of funny. For the first few years of their careers, you’d seen Namjoon and Seokjin simply go their separate ways. You thought that would be it, that your friendship had broken up for good, but to your complete and utter surprise, at the beginning of this year there had been a new record to grace the radio and enrapture young fans across the country. An unexpected collaboration between two of the biggest figureheads of the rock and rebellion movement that had started to sweep through the youth. 

When you had first heard the song, you’d done a double-take. It wasn’t anything like the rapid, upbeat rock that came to be synonymous with Seokjin’s name, or the heavier, laidback tune that usually accompanied Namjoon’s records. The beat that lay beneath the lyrics was sultry, deep and dark and made your heart skip a beat and your stomach dip. However when the lyrics registered in your mind, you’d had to fight the urge to cry. They weren’t strictly sad, per se, but to you… they had spoken a little deeper. It felt paranoid to think it, but a part of you had to wonder at how… targeted… the song had seemed to be—

Was it made... for you?

You wouldn’t be caught dead admitting it aloud to anyone or even yourself, but you liked to think so. It helped, when you found yourself missing them and yearning for the way things had been. It soothed the traitorous aching of a heart that didn’t seem to remember that the choice to leave hadn’t been theirs, but rather yours.

In the version that accompanies your performance, there are no vocals. Even so, the beat is easily recognisable and as it begins to play, an excited murmur sweeps through the crowd. Something about it is a little odd, but currently your back is turned to the audience, so you don’t get to investigate the feeling. Instead, you let each note that enters the air and brushes against your skin to soak into your being, closing your eyes for the barest second to centre yourself before you feel the heat of the lights begin to grace your skin, and you start to slowly swing your hips.

It is only instruments that brush your ears now, but you can hear the opening lines of the song so clearly in your head you can’t help but mouth them in time.

We're part of the moonlight, Ain't a fantasy...

Can't breathe in the sunlight, Gotta hide your heart...

Following the rise and fall of the beat, you turn your head over your shoulder to deliver a sly smile and a wink, moving your hips all the while— a round of catcalls and surprised murmurs results. You are the only one of the performers to wear a mask after all, so you’re not surprised by the response. Turning back around, your ease yourself into the familiar motions of your routine and let the song and atmosphere carry you away.

At any other time, you would probably find it funny how second nature stripping yourself of your clothes has become. The silky gown that drapes over your shoulders and ends in faux fur ruffles that trail across the floor is the first to go, revealing the entirety of your stocking-clad legs through a sheer petticoat, and the corset and cushioned bandeau that hides a sheer, cheekily embroidered bralette beneath. The audience eats the reveal right up and at the enthusiastic response, your chest swells with pride. You’re smiling, but with a flick of your wrist you snap open a fan and use it to cover the bottom half of your face, leaving only your eyes to peer out at the crowd from behind the mask. You’d discovered early on that a little bit of mystery keeps them intrigued a little longer.

You don’t pay much mind to the audience as individuals; more often than not, when you perform they become a faceless blur. But as your routine goes on and your body follows each sultry move to the beat, one item of clothing discarded after the other, you find yourself paying a little more attention than you usually would. 

It’s as the top part of your corset meets the floor and your sheer bralette is exposed that your eyes sweep over a certain portion of the room, and you realise very suddenly and abruptly who the guests of honour are tonight.

And you cannot believe the atrocity of your luck.

Two familiar faces return your gaze from the centre-back portion of the room, in one of the deluxe booths. It’s a wonder you can recognise them through the haze of smoke created by cigars and cigarettes, but you think that you’d be hard-pressed not to, at this point. Seokjin and Namjoon sit back comfortably in the booth with two unfamiliar men on either side of them, their eyes lit with a certain kind of intrigue and focused solely on you. For a heartbeat, your chest feels so tight you can’t take in a breath, stomach fluttering. Just barely, you manage to maintain your face and stop yourself from stumbling in your routine. The beginning of panic begins to bubble beneath your lungs, but in a split-second it is stopped in its tracks as something seems to snap inside you and you come to a realisation.

You’re wearing a mask. They don’t know it’s you.

It strikes you again, the way they eyes are trained on your every move, and it knocks you breathless once more, though for a different reason this time. Exhilaration begins to course through you— you feel powerful. When you were with them the other day, the weight of the knowledge of your wrongs and your guilt held you on unequal ground. But now, here in the heady allure and smoky seduction in this room, you have them in the palm of your hands and the dynamic is switched, if only for a moment. 

With barely a moment having lapsed since your initial realisation, you slip right back into the next move in your dance, each shift of a limb accompanied with just that little bit more oomph than before. This is their song, the song you suspect they wrote for you, and since you don’t think you will ever be able to forget it, or them, you will make sure they won’t forget this.

One fluid movement leads to the next, the beat picking up ever so slightly as you bend, legs straight and behind pointed at the crowd, before easing your way back up and unclasping the hooks that keep your corset together. When it falls, you turn and bend once more, this time facing the audience so that they see it when you push your breasts together and wriggle your shoulders, a cheeky wink accompanying the resulting jiggle of your chest. 

More hoots and hollers, as expected of an audience that seems to completely consist of men tonight, and you’re pleased to see that the two guests of the hour aren’t completely unaffected either. Namjoon is leaning forward slightly, gaze intense, and Seokjin’s eyes have narrowed in focus as they follow you across the stage. 

Following each note in the song, you strut across the stage, and when there is a pause before it picks up once more, you drop to your knees and reach forward to the floor, arching your back with your behind to the audience again. Using the strength you’ve built in your thighs over the years, you slide one leg up and turn yourself around, using the momentum to slip into an abridged version of the splits. While in this position you bend backwards, one arm reaching back to unravel the ribbon that keeps your flimsy bralette up. When you feel it come loose, you bring your hands to each piece and make a faux-shocked expression, ever so slowly peeling the sheer fabric down and revelling in the way the room is watching with bated breath. 

Your breasts bounce as you yank the bralette all the way down, the tassels that were hidden beneath and keep the barest remainder of your dignity intact jiggling with the movement. Using the cheers that result as a distraction of sorts, you deftly remove the bralette with one hand and discard it slyly on the floor, bringing yourself out of the splits but moving to another position on your knees, sliding your legs apart. There are a few soft gasps and sharp inhales that echo from the front of the crowd, and you can tell from the way their eyes are focused on the inside of your thighs that they’ve glimpsed the pretty picture inked into your skin there. You don’t leave their gazes to wonder too long though, reaching up to pinch the dangling ornaments of your tassels and using them to lift your breasts. You ignore the low, pleasurable tingle that shoots through you at the sensation of tugging on your nipples, fighting to keep your legs open, and release the tassels from your grip. Your breasts bounce generously once more, cheers sounding across the room at the sight. You deliver a wink, before bringing yourself off of the floor in a fluid movement, hearing the final notes of the song beginning to play and a low, sexy saxophone drawl emerging to intertwine with the rest.

The end of your routine passes in a blur, your mind slipping into a haze as you simply move, barely aware of the way you dance and sashay across the stage. A feathery boa situated strategically to the side becomes incorporated in your final moves, allowing the audience peeks at what they can’t have and drawing them further and further in until the music hits a crescendo and with it, you fall into your final pose.

The last thing you see, as the lights begin to dim and the crowd erupts into applause, is the way Seokjin and Namjoon’s eyes are boring holes into you, transfixed on the place where your hip meets the inside of your thigh and the intricate depiction of a crescent moon and a rose that are inked into the skin there.

 x    x    x

 “...sweetheart? Is there a reason why you haven’t gone outside yet? Everyone is by the pool with those wonderful finger foods your Aunt brought with her!”

You startle at the sound of your mother’s voice, almost dropping the grape that had been en route to your mouth as you stared into nothing, rooted in place in the middle of the kitchen. The day of your sister’s engagement party has come, faster than you were able to prepare for, and now that you’re no longer on the stage staring down your two ex-best friends from behind a mask, you’ve lost a lot of your gall. In fact, it could even be argued that your spine had slipped right out of your body the second you stepped off the stage that night. It’s the early afternoon, and Namjoon and Seokjin have been here for about… perhaps half an hour. You don’t claim to be perfect, but the way you’ve been skulking about and hiding in the kitchen is pathetic even to you. 

It’s just… how do you face them after that? They’ve technically seen you almost completely in the nude! If your grandmother ever caught wind of the fact that a man had seen you without clothes then she’d marry you off immediately— not to mention if she ever found out Seokjin and Namjoon, of all men, had seen you like that, she would have an absolute field day!

It was bordering on disheartening, but at this point, even after all this time, you’re pretty sure most of your family loves those two more than they love you.

“I, um… just wanted some grapes?” you blink, offering a sheepish smile that you hope your mother doesn’t find suspicious. That is quickly shot down when you see her brow raise and her bright cherry lips quirk to the side, eyes flicking to the empty glass by the grapes that reeks of gin. What can you say, you thought downing a glass would help you cope, but you’d been wrong. 

“Uhuh…” Your mother says, folding her arms and leaning her hip against the bench; the fullness of her skirt swishes behind her in an echo of the movement. “Well, now that you’ve eaten half of the vine, maybe go outside? Mrs Kim has been asking where you are, I think she missed you almost as much as we did.”

Your brows furrow, “Wait, which Mrs K—”

“Off you go, sweetheart!” 

You don’t even get to finish whatever you were saying because your mother moves into the kitchen solely to chase you out of it. You drag your feet as she herds you out— or at least, you do before she reaches for the kitchen towel by the oven and starts twisting it.

“I’m going!” you promptly flee after grabbing a handful of grapes to-go, holding up a proverbial white flag. Your mother is a little too good at turning mundane household items into a weapon. Now she’s put the fear of god back in you, you find yourself thinking that it’s no wonder your father has always been so well-behaved compared to the stories some of your friends would tell you about their own parents.

It’s a beautiful day, really. It’s part of the reason you were annoyed at yourself for hiding inside, even if it was only for about half an hour. The sun is out, the sky is clear, and while the sunlight warms your skin there is a cool breeze every so often that keeps you from overheating. Some of your younger cousins are in the pool, and have probably been there since around ten minutes after they arrived an hour or so ago. You’d barely gotten a hug in greeting before they were off, the backyard pool held a little more favourably in their eyes for the moment than their own flesh and blood.

They’re cute, though, so you decide that perhaps just this once you will let them get away with it. You’re going to rain down a storm of kisses on them before they leave, though. No one ignores you for an inanimate object and gets away with it!

As you exit the house and step beneath the sun, the skin of your arms and lower legs warming instantly, you just barely manage to dodge as one of your cousins comes bolting past you, followed barely a second later by his mother, your aunt, who is hotter on his heels than you might have anticipated for a woman her age.

“Jackson! You better get back here with those patties, boy, or you’re gonna regret it!”

You know you shouldn’t laugh, because it will encourage the bad behaviour, but the sight is so funny you just can’t help the way you burst into giggles, shaking your head and turning in the direction of the large gazebo that is rooted by the pool and is currently sheltering most of the guests from the sun. A quick scan also reveals that the lady of the hour, your sister, is over there too. Your eyes narrow when they catch sight of the champagne glass in her hand; hopefully she’s forgotten any and all things you’ve told her in confidence recently, or else they’re about to become public knowledge.

“Ah, y/n, just a moment!” 

You pause in your steps, turning just in time to catch in your arms the plate of small pastries your mother shoves into your hold. 

“Wh—” you don’t get to question her, as she simply flashes you a bright grin and nods her head to the table. “Take these over there, will you? And make sure Jin and Joon get some, I made their favourite!”

And then she is off, shooting back into the house and leaving you on the grass. At the delicious smell that wafts up to your nose, you send a cursory look down at the plate and hum in recognition,ignoring the way your mouth salivates. Ah, these are their favourites. This plate probably won’t last very long when you bring it over there. 

You’re on your way once more, now with the plate of sweets in tow, and the closer to the gazebo you grow you catch the sound of the radio, on one of the channels most popular with the youth and playing one of Lisa’s favourite songs. She’s dancing, dragging her friend Rose with her, giggling like a madwoman as she does so. It brings a smile to your face without you even realising. 

“Oh, y/n! There you are! Where have you been? We thought you might have gotten lost!”

Your attention is drawn to the side of the gazebo closest to the pool, where a few people are lounging in the chairs there, beers and glasses with clear, bubbling contents that you can only assume is gin and tonic on the table and in hand. The older woman who called you over with such a teasing tone is Mrs Kim— well, one of them. Both the Kims are here, and you realise belatedly that of course, their sons are too. It was Seokjin’s mother that noticed you, and as you make your way over you see Namjoon’s mother next to her, and the two men in question in the lounging chairs opposite. They seem to light up at your arrival, and you try not to think about the way their reaction makes your stomach flutter. You aren’t here for them, you’re here for their mothers! 

“Sorry,” you apologise, leaning and placing the plate down on the small table in the middle of the seats. Straightening, you dust your hands against the patterned skirt you have buttoned over your matching swimsuit. “I did get a bit lost, there’s so many kids here right now I thought I might have turned up in the wrong house.”

Both women erupt into laughter at your words, and you take the opportunity to smile at Jin and Namjoon, offering a timid wave. They return it, before following your finger as it points to the plate and they realise you’ve brought them their favourite baked goods.

“Cinnamon scrolls!” Namjoon croons, material of his navy button-up creasing as he hastily leans forward to swipe one off the plate. “And they’re shaped like little fish, like she always used to do! I can’t believe your mother made them today.”

“Of course,” you say, snorting lightly. “She’d do anything for her two favourite sons. She made it because they’re your favourites.”

The two of them beam in pride at that, before proceeding to consume the plate of sweets.

“Ah, and she sent you too, sweet y/n! Our favourite daughter! And even more stunning than I remember, right Soo-ah?”

Seokjin’s mother, Jia, hastily reclaims the conversation and succeeds in making you flush pink at her words. Jisoo, Namjoon’s mother, instantly nods, her short curls bouncing with the action, and shoots you a devious grin. 

“It’s been so long since we saw you last, y/n. You didn’t get a husband while you were away, right? We still want you as our daughter-in-law, you know.”

This time it’s not only you that feels the embarrassment heat your cheeks— to your side, both men choke on the mouthful of scroll they’d been in the process of devouring, Seokjin’s face going bright red as he brings his fist to hit his chest and attempts to dislodge the pastry. Amongst his own struggling, Namjoon reaches to smack his friend on the back, clearing his own throat.

“Ah, no…” you say, awkward and smoothing your skirt to distract yourself; it feels like the eyes of the entire party are on you, despite the fact you know better. “I’ve just been focusing on school…”

“Oh, tell me, dear, do you still do those wonderful paintings? I still have that one you gifted me for my birthday before you left.”

Namjoon follows up on his mother’s question, shooting you a smile that somehow is a combination of both bashful and proud. It makes a dimple pop in his cheek. “She still has it displayed above the dining table, actually. She nearly killed me when I almost knocked it by accident a few days ago.”

Jisoo doesn’t even bat a lash, smiling at you brightly— though a bit drunkenly, if the almost-finished glass in her hand is anything to go by. You’re surprised— you know from all the dinner parties your three families held over the years that despite their petite stature and classy, ladylike countenance,  both Kim women can outdrink their husbands and your father. You wonder just how much they must have had already to have such silly grins on their faces.

“I do!” You answer, feeling your chest warm in affection. It was silly to have ever doubted it, but it made you feel somewhat eased to know that you haven’t lost your place in their lives despite your departure. “But, actually, while away I actually took up sculpting. I’ve been doing that a bit more…”

“Oh, are you talking about your works, sweetheart? Ah Jisoo, Jia— they’re absolutely wonderful! I have photos that she brought, here let me go get them—”

You feel heat flush to the tips of your ears, greeting the arrival of your mother with an embarrassed look. “Alright, let’s not bash ears about it—”

“Oh!” Jia and Jisoo perk up at your mother's exclamation, and you shrink into your seat as you watch her reach into one of the hidden pockets in her skirt and pull out a handful of small photos that you’d printed to show her. Your hubris seems to have come to nip you in the bottom. “I forgot I popped them in my pocket to show you earlier! Here, see— isn’t she just so talented? My baby girl must have been the absolute queen of her department.”

All three parents are oblivious to the way you’re shrinking into your seat in mortification, but Seokjin and Namjoon are anything but. They’re grinning at you, relishing in your discomfort much like they used to. 

“Hey, y/n, could you get us another drink? I’d go get it, but your mother actually told me earlier I wasn’t allowed in the kitchen until she’s finished with the pastries…”

You shoot him a grateful look, shooting to your feet and slipping out of the little seating area. “Yup, doing that! Getting drinks! Be right back, don’t wait up!”

Though you doubt any of the adults heard you, they didn’t wait anyway. In fact, in the time it took you to head into the kitchen and bring back three drinks on a tray, your mother has since downed her glass and has started on another topic of conversation. Thankfully, the victim is no longer you. 

“Oh, Namjoon, where are your peepers?!” Your mother gasps suddenly as you return, pointing at the man beside you. There’s the barest slur accenting her words, and you resign yourself here and now to a night of loose-lipped blabbering from both your sister and your mother. “I’m not goin’ crazy am I? You used to run into things all the time when you were a kid ‘cause you were blind as a bat!”

Namjoon winces, but Seokjin bursts into laughter. Glad for the conversational shift, you take one of the last remaining chairs and settle down, your own drink now in hand. Namjoon reaches for the refill you had brought him, using the opportunity to hide his face, and only when Jin has settled down does he manage to wipe his eyes and claim his own glass.

“I’m tryin’ out something new,” Namjoon answers after a hearty gulp, clearing his throat. He reaches to scratch the back of his neck bashfully. “Lenses, I think they’re called. They’re convenient, especially when I’m performing, but they’re expensive and so dang fragile I’m gonna need to take out insurance on them or somethin’.”

“Isn’t this your last set?” Seokjin queries knowingly, laughing as Namjoon grimaces. “Don’t worry, he’ll be back in the peepers you know and love by the end of the week. If he doesn’t break them, he loses them.”

You half expect Namjoon to be irked but he just sighs with a small smile, apparently having made peace by now with the clumsiness and two left feet that have haunted him since childhood.

Your mother decides to tease Namjoon a little more, before she changes the topic and starts gushing about their career, and how she can hardly go a day or two without hearing one of their songs on the radio. All three women are beaming with pride, and though slightly bashful about it you can see Namjoon and Seokjin’s chests swell slightly. 

Lisa, the star of today’s show, happens to walk by right when your mother is interrogating them about where they’ve chosen to settle down for the meantime, and eagerly joins the conversation.

“Ah, cool cats like you must be absolutely rolling in dough by now! How many mansions do you have already?” Lisa laughs, looking for a free seat and simply sitting on you when she doesn’t find one. She’s quite a bit heavier than you remember, and you feel your breath wheeze out of you at her abrupt drop onto your legs. 

“Unfortunately, none,” Namjoon laughs, gesturing to his mother, “Though, the pressure is on. I think ‘Ma wants a nice place to retire before my career is over.”

Jisoo takes a sip to hide her sheepish grin, crossing one leg over the other and smoothing her skirt afterwards. Seokjin lets out a soft chuckle before he turns to your mother and answers the question she’d asked earlier.

“We have a sweet pad back in the fat city, actually. We both were leanin’ to the same penthouse with the best view but in the end decided to compromise and split it.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful!” you mother exclaims, eyes alight. The last time she’d looked this excited was when you told her you were staying for the whole week. “It’s so good to hear that the two of you stuck together even though you’re such big news now!”

Guilt. You bring your glass to your mouth and take a large gulp in an effort to drown it, the tart fizz of gin and tonic barely disguising the familiar curl of guilt in your gut.  Perhaps if you ignore it, it will go away. 

“Oh, speaking of— that latest record the two of you released together, it really does razz my berries like nothin’ else!” Lisa gushes, throwing a hand out to wriggle her fingers for emphasis. “It’s real hip and different from all your other tracks. Trust you two to be settin’ trends!”

Starting to get slightly tipsy now from the generous downing of your drink, you can’t help how you chime in with little thought,  “Oh, I really do love that one. It’s perfect to dance to.”

“A dance?” Lisa queries, turning to pin you with a confused look over her shoulder. You realise your slip up in that moment, when you glance to the side and see both men looking at you with unreadable expressions.  “It’s a bit slow for a dance, I think.”

“You can dance to anything,” Namjoon swoops in and unknowingly saves you, shrugging nonchalantly. The expression that was present on his face earlier is gone now, but it takes a split second longer to fade from Seokjin’s features.

Sinking into your chair as much as you can with Lisa’s weight pinning your legs down, you bring the glass to your mouth once more. 

Slip-up aside, you can only hope it won’t be as difficult to get through this party as you thought. 

 x - x - x

The day has progressed nicely and as daylight begin to bleed into night, your father emerged to help man the barbecue and dinner was served —  it was a somewhat rowdy affair, given how much alcohol the party had consumed up until that point. After eating their fill, most of your relatives and small cousins went home — they have a strict bedtime to uphold, after all. You made good on your promise to smother the little ones in kisses as they left, and it was with pink cheeks and bright grins that they bid you farewell. 

It’s getting well into the night at this point, and only a few guests are left. Lisa is inside with a cluster of her friends and her fiance, your mother and the Kims are underneath the gazebo with their husbands— this has left you by the pool with Namjoon and Seokjin. They’d gotten a little bold earlier and when you’d teased them about something, you’d had an unceremonious reunion with the pool. It was startlingly similar to what occured right before your mother took that photo hanging in your room, and made an odd mixture of affection, nostalgia, and something a little bit bittersweet settle in your abdomen. 

Just as it had the other time you’d met with the two, any tension and awkwardness had quickly melted away as the evening progressed. A few drinks in your systems and anything and everything is now water under the bridge. All too easily the three of you had fallen back into the same comfortable, playful air that you’d always known—

That you’d missed so much.

You’re lounging now in one of the rubber duck-shaped floaties your mother bought recently (she’d made you blow it up, gushing all the while about what a bargain she’d gotten on it and the companion swan floatie). Your head is more than pleasantly fuzzy, and you decide as you finish this glass that perhaps you’re done drinking for the night. You kick your legs lazily, feeling the heavy material of your skirt swish in the water as you propel yourself around the pool. Normally, the skirt is meant to come off before you take a dip. However given the nature of your entry into the pool, you hadn’t exactly had an opportunity to discard it. 

“No, no— I remember it cleary— clearly.” Seokjin waves his hand, finger pointing at Namjoon— the man in question is cackling in the deep end, falling off the swan floatie that he was attempting to climb onto. Both men are at the point in the night where they are beginning to slur their words, and to be fair you’re not much different. You’d lost count of how many times either of them have slipped up in their words.  “It wasn’t me who fell and broke y/n’s coffee table. From what I remember, it was your buttocks that hit it.”

“But you pushed me!” Any attempts on Namjoon’s behalf to hide his grin and even pretend to be angry prove to be fruitless. He has the same dumb dimpled grin on his face that you remember from your teen years. “It was uncalled for, assault!”

“You!” Seokjin’s mouth drops open, his legs kicking in the pool in his outrage. Namjoon’s eyes almost disappear as he cackles, throwing his head back. It melds into the sounds of the festivities over by the gazebo, where the radio and Lisa’s own gleeful laughter echo into the night. “y/n can confirm, it was Joon, right?!”

You put your arms behind your head, pretending to lounge back on the floatie despite how tentative your position is on the slippery rubber. “I don’t recall, suddenly I can’t think.”

“Yah!”

Your jubilant laughter means that you don’t see it when Seokjin slips completely into the pool, diving beneath the water to where you’re lounging and coming up beneath you. A scream rips from your throat as you're flipped from the floatie, tumbling backwards and into the water with a hefty splash to boot.

When you come back up, gasping breaths above the surface turning into laughter, it takes a moment for realisation to reach you through the sluggish fog in your brain that your skirt has detached. Still laughing, you catch sight of it and reach for it where it’s floating across the pool, recognising the sound of the two males guffawing behind you. When you slip on the bottom of he pool for a moment and get water up your nose, you decide that perhaps it’s time for you to call it a night soon.

“Woah, bubs, are you okay?”

When you slip again, a strong arm catches around your waist like an iron bar, holding you to the surface. Blinking the water out of your lashes, you turn to see the owner; the breath is startled out of you as your gaze meet the dark depths of Seokjin’s own. His hair is still dripping, an inky wayward mess atop his head, and the t-shirt he’d donned as he first entered the pool so long ago is clinging to each line and plane of his body. 

For a moment, yearning and a feeling all too familiar takes up the space of your lungs, and you find that you can’t breathe. 

“I think… I think it’s time to call it a night,” you manage to say, a new kind of lightheadedness emerging to addle your thoughts. You turn, breaking the hold Seokjin’s gaze has on you to seek out the edge of the pool. You feel his eyes bore holes into you for a moment longer, before two hands come to grip your waist and he moves you through the water to the rim of the pool. 

“Probably for the best,” Seokjin says, grip tightening in a split-second of warning before he heaves you up and onto the brick that lines the poolside. Off-kilter and unexpecting of the movement as you were, you have to balance yourself with your legs, which almost end up smacking Seokjin in the side. Through your inebriation, you don’t realise the way your thighs have parted in the process, the detached skirt in your hand doing little to cover you where it is laying sopping wet on the brick.  

“You’re being almost as clumsy as—” You’re also so busy trying to quell the fluttering in your stomach and find your bearings you also don’t notice the way Seokjin’s eyes move unwittingly down your form, falling to your thigh at eye-level. “...Namjoon.”

You blink, eyes finally focusing but heartbeat still thrumming in your ears.

“I don’t know if I will ever be that clumsy,” you manage to say, as comprehensible as possible. Seokjin’s hands leave your waist as you stumble to your feet, wringing out your skirt before attempting to button the drenched garment back up above your hips. 

“Hey!”

At Namjoon’s outcry, you grin and bring your hand up in a wave. 

“I’ll see you guys later,” you drunkenly promise, completely forgetting that in a few days, you’ll be out of this town and out of their lives once more. “Goodnight, you two.”

They return the sentiment, and you grab a towel from one of the poolside chairs, wrapping it around yourself and making your way back in. You miss the way that their eyes follow you as you leave their sight and reenter the warmth and light of your home.

x - x - x - x

The night has drawn to a close, and the two men have long since climbed from the pool and dried off with the fluffy towels your mother so generously laid out for them before she got too tispy. A sharp look from their own mothers reminded them earlier that there are still plates to clear and things to tidy, so despite being guests they do their best amongst the alcohol-induced fog clouding their minds to help clean up the aftermath of Lisa’s engagement party. 

As they do so, the same thing is true for both of them: there is a lot on their minds.

Seokjin had to turn to Namjoon earlier to confirm what he’d seen, and when he saw the man in question already looking at him with wide eyes, he knew he hadn’t just drunkenly imagined it. They both saw it, the glimpse of a strikingly familiar picture peeking from the inside of your thigh. They’d seen that very same tattoo in the very same place just a few nights ago, only last time the owner had remained a masked mystery. Now, they’d glimpsed the same image on the body of their childhood friend, the girl they’d both fallen in love with and subsequently drifted apart over only years ago because they were young and jealous and stupid. But, things are different now; they’re now only two of those things, and after they made up over a year ago their friendship is stronger than ever, in… more ways than one.

But despite how much has changed over the years, there is still one thing that has remained constant; and that is their feelings for you.

Truthfully, after not seeing you for so long, they had started to think perhaps they were finally getting over you. Impossible as it had seemed, considering how smitten they were. A cold realisation washed over them the second they saw you again, though, that those feelings hadn’t disappeared like they had suspected, but simply remained dormant. Seeing you at the diner and finally getting to catch up after being apart so long, missing you so much, had pretty much cemented that. When they’d returned to their hotel room after, they didn’t need to say a word and only shared a look to know they had both come to the same conclusion.

They were both irrevocably, pathetically, undoubtedly still in love with you, even after all these years. 

Then had come the show.

It was the reason they’d returned to this town, technically. An important friend of theirs had invited them both to celebrate the success of their latest record and talk about future opportunities; the location happened to be a club currently hosting a highly regarded burlesque set. They’d felt the second the final masked performer had come on stage that there was something odd, something special about her. She had used their song, on her thigh had been a tattoo that tickled something in the back of their minds, and there was something in the way she moved that had been so jarringly familiar, but neither had been able to pin where they had seen her before.

Until tonight, that is.

It hadn’t been an intentional reveal on your part, but there on your thigh had been the exact same tattoo they’d glimpsed in the club, and they’d known the second they saw it that it wasn’t a common design. At first, on the night, Seokjin thought that it might have struck them because it was drawn similarly to how you always used to doodle moons on all of your schoolbooks, and now it all made sense. 

The only thing left to consider is, what do they do now that they know?

“Oh, my boys— my precious, helpful, lovely boys!”

The two men turn in tandem, easily catching sight of your mother as she stumbles her way over to them. They were in the process of moving some of the plates to the kitchen before they heard her drunken cooing, and Seokjin finds himself thanking the heavens they’d put them down quickly because in the next second your mother is throwing her arms around them and they’re being yanked down to her height from the sheer strength of her grip.

“I missed you two, we all missed you two,” she blubbers, hugging them close like she’s worried they might slip away into the night the second she loosens her hold. A second shy of suffocating them, she finally releases her grip, and they straighten with warm faces. Namjoon knows without even having to check that he’s got a real goofy grin on his mug right now. 

“We missed you too,” Seokjin says, and he means it. Your family and Namjoon’s family are both pretty much his own at this point, and he’d found himself missing every single member while he was away. Each time he returned home, he was sure to visit the other two houses at the end of the cul-de-sac, though the times he’d been able to actually make his way back to his home town were unfortunately few and far between. The same is the case for Namjoon, as he knows, except likely a bit worse since he knows Namjoon has always been a real Mummy’s boy.

“But I doubt it was as much as we missed you!” Your mother argues, and it makes both men smile. The next few words to escape her mouth knock the expression straight off their faces, though.  “y/n especially. Oh, I remember she was so heartbroken when you three started growing apart. I think part of the reason she left was to get away from it. The way she used to talk about you boys…” Her gaze slips to the side, eyes slightly hazy in recollection. “I thought for sure that she was going to end up marrying one of you.”

They don’t even get a good second to unpack that, before the haze leaves your mother’s eyes and she is giggling, leaning forward with a cheeky glint in her eyes that they know for sure they’ve seen in your own. She brings her hand up to shield her mouth as she whispers in a voice that is not at all as quiet as she likely thinks it is, “It’s a bit improper, but I think she used to like both of you.”

Namjoon chokes on his own spit, and Seokjin’s mouth falls slack. “What?”

Your mother merely giggles, leaning back and spinning on her heel. “Thank you so much for your help, boys, but you ought to be on your way! Your mothers are about to head home and neither of them are walking in a very straight line.”

She halts, turning over her shoulder to shoot them a wide grin. “I’m glad you two came. Thank you.”

And then she is gone, and a blanket of silence falls over the kitchen. Seokjin and Namjoon turn their heads, locking gazes. 

Well, at least now they know what to do.

x — x — x

 You swear there is something odd in the air of the club this evening. 

It’s something subtle, and none of the other girls seem to have noticed it; they continue as always, tittering away in the dressing rooms and giggling amongst themselves when one of them makes a joke that probably shouldn’t be repeated outside the room. It’s the last night you will be performing here, and also the last night you will be staying. You were planning on making a quick visit home tomorrow morning to say farewell to your parents and congratulate your sister once more, before being on your way. You hadn’t decided yet whether you were going to go out of your way to track down Seokjin and Namjoon to say goodbye to them as well, but the idea of it… well, it sets your belly alight with nerves. You have no idea what you would say, and you know — you know— in your gut that doing it would revive the elephant in the room that you’ve all been ignoring up until now. 

But if you don’t, then you’ll be doing the exact same thing you did last time, and this time around you don’t know if you’ll get their forgiveness, let alone deserve it. 

By this point in the evening, you’ve already slipped into your costume and powdered your face. Since you wear a mask while on stage, you don’t really need to apply any heavy makeup around your brows and eyes; you usually settle for accentuating them naturally. 

Mina has disappeared since you last saw her, which is odd since she usually lingers to talk your ear off about any handsome faces she might spy in the crowd as the room beyond the stage begins to fill. You’d started to look for her earlier, seeking a distraction from the depressing inner monologue you have running, but hadn’t managed to find her. This means that for the past half hour or so you’ve been left to your own devices, fiddling with different parts of your dress and costume like a child twiddling their thumbs in the principal’s office. Part of that time, you spend trying to ignore the events of last night and any feelings that may have resurfaced as a result of your return to this town. For the rest of it, you attempt to think about what you’re going to do tomorrow when the rapidly-approaching hour comes when you have to leave again. God, where on earth did Mina get off to? You’re going insane here.

Oddly enough, it’s her that finds you a few minutes before the show is set to start. By this point, it’s a wonder you haven’t torn your hair out of it’s meticulous styling.

“Where did you pop off to?” you ask her before she even has a chance to say hello. She raises her brows, laughing at your rapid questioning. 

“Big boss wanted me for something,” she supplies, cocking her hip and resting a hand there. “Actually, I was asked to pass on a message to you.”

The confusion must be evident on your face, because Mina is quick to wave her hand. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing bad— though it is a bit odd. He just asked me to tell you to meet him in one of the private rooms in the VVIP section. I think it was the very last one…?”

That is odd, considering she’d apparently just come from meeting him. Private shows aren’t something you do, so you can’t think of a reason why the big boss would ask you to meet him there. 

“Huh, ok. So soon before the show…?” you ask, just to be sure. You don’t have your mask on you right now, so you need to calculate how long it’s going to take you to return and get it. Mina shrugs, nodding. 

“I suppose so. Don’t worry,” she smiles, something indecipherable yet oddly devious entering her gaze. “You won’t be there long enough to mess anything up. The show will go on, Miss Luna.”

You could almost swear there is something hidden in her words, but don’t have the time or the thought to dwell on it. Instead you return her smile and turn to be on your way; the VVIP rooms are on the other side of the establishment, and you don’t want to keep the big boss waiting. You’d only met him once, the owner of this club, and he didn’t strike you as anything in particular. The only thing you’d thought to note is that he smoked perhaps a few too many cigars, because his office was almost always filled with curling, coiling smoke that leaked into the hall  each time you moved past. But he was quite mild-mannered and polite as far as men in this business go, so you’re not particularly concerned for your wellbeing as you make your way to meet him.

It takes a little longer than anticipated, since you ran into one of your co-performers and they cornered you for help with their outfit, but finally you’re arriving in the second-floor wing that houses the VVIP rooms. Instantly, it’s evident where you are. The carpet is a little more plush, the wallpaper a little more maintained, and the hall decorated a little nicer than the rest of the place. Spotting the room on the end, you make your way down there and knock on the door thrice before grasping the handle and easing it open.

“Mr. Leigh? What did you want to t—”

The rest of your sentence dies in your throat before it even has a chance to reach the tip of your tongue, feet freezing mid-step as your eyes fall upon the occupants of the room. For once, you don’t have any sort of instinct that kicks in to save you; you simply stand and stare with wide eyes.

“Took you long enough, bubs.” Seokjin straightens from where he had been leaning back against the plush crimson leather of the circular lounge. “We were beginning to think you weren’t going to show.”

A myriad of thoughts suddenly flood the blank space in your brain, all in contention with each other. Oh no, they’ve seen you— no, you have a mask, they don’t know who you are— no, you don’t have your mask—

Dressed in your performing attire and standing before Seokjin and Namjoon, in one of the VVIP rooms in the club where they attended your show, you aren’t a faceless dancer. You’re y/n, and it feels like they can see every single bit of you there is to see.

You don’t even know where to begin.

“I…” You attempt to say something, anything, but your tongue has suddenly turned to lead in a pact with your stomach, sinking down and refusing to dance for your words.

It takes you a moment to realise as you watch them straighten, but neither of them look surprised. It leads you to believe that somehow they figured it out on their own, though you have no idea how. You don’t really have the presence of mind to ask them right now, either. In fact, it could even be argued that you’re almost panicking.

“We have a lot to talk about,” Namjoon speaks up, offering you a smile that holds neither judgement nor disdain. “We wanted to catch you before you inevitably skipped town without saying goodbye.”

That stung, just as much as the guilt that struck you for the truth of his words. You’d been contemplating it, leaning towards it even, but suddenly you feel you have to defend yourself. 

“I hadn’t decided that yet,” you say quietly. You let the door fall shut behind you, silently acquiescing to the unspoken demand weighing heavy in the air.

“Don’t lie.”

Your eyes shoot even wider, if possible, at the sound of Seokjin of all people snapping at you. His tone was sharp, and you half expect him to look furious, but when your eyes flick to his face it gives nothing away. When he continues in the next second, though, you see it in the depths of his eyes. Hurt.

“We used to tell each other everything, back then.” It could have been a trick of your mind, but you swear you heard his voice break slightly. “I don’t want that to change. So no lies tonight, y/n. We’re going to talk as adults, openly and honestly.”

For reasons beyond you, something about the promise woven through his tone makes you nervous. A tremor fights to shudder its way down your spine; for a moment, you feel akin to a small, cornered forest animal, even though they are the ones sitting against a wall and you are in the open. You don’t know what to say. 

Namjoon steps in, saving you from fumbling for a response as he always seems to do. “You don’t have to stand there, ready to bolt, you know. You can come sit down.”

You shake your head, suddenly recalling your commitments outside this room and feeling relief flood you at the realisation that you have an excuse to remove yourself from this situation you’d tried so hard to avoid. “I can’t. I have to go p—”

“We already talked it over with your boss, he was happy to take you out of the performance tonight. It’s okay, the others know too.”

You deflate, looking at Namjoon with a sinking feeling in your stomach. He doesn’t hold your attention all that long, though, before the sound of Seokjin’s voice brings your gaze to him once more.

“Why did you leave? Without even saying goodbye, or telling us where you went?” You feel rooted to the spot, pinned first by the weight of Seokjin’s gaze and then his words as they slam into you, unfiltered. 

“Hyung.” You think you hear Namjoon murmur softly, giving the man next to him a pointed look. Seokjin is unphased, looking at you expectantly, “Be honest.”

It’s just as panic begins to seep into the bottom of your lungs that anger sparks and sets it alight, transmuting it to something red and hot in your chest. 

“You want me to be honest?” you ask, heat beginning to colour your voice and sharpen the tip of your tongue. “I left because of you— both of you. I don’t know if something happened between you or if I just wasn’t enough, or you felt I was holding you back, but you drew away and you left me. You both left me before I ever left you.”

You see it the second your words enter the air like a whip, the hurt and guilt slipping across their features. Anger bubbles in your throat, stings your eyes, and urges you to let loose everything else rising to the tip of your tongue, “I left because I couldn’t handle the pain of my two best friends slowly easing themselves from my life, like— like I was old news. Like I no longer had a place in that shiny, brand new world they’d stepped into.”

More rushes to escape, feelings kept bottled up tight for three years suddenly flooding forth with the force of a tidal wave, but you bite it down, closing your eyes and taking a deep breath that rattles through your chest. When you’re sure you have a firmer grasp on your emotions, you allow yourself to speak once more. “If an apology is what you want, then I’m sorry. I’m sorry for leaving without saying goodbye. I’m sorry for my part in hurting you. But you… the two of you hurt me, too. You meant the world to me and when you pulled away you made me feel like nothing.”

Your eyes remain closed, teeth sinking into your bottom lip as you will yourself not to cry; silence sinks over the room, only broken as your ears adjust to the thin buzz of electricity thrumming through the walls. One moment, another-- you try and focus on breathing in, and breathing out.

“Something did happen between us, you know. We fought over you.”

Your head snaps up, eyes locking onto Namjoon. He stands, dusting his legs as he straightens and adjusts his jacket. Slowly, like he’s worried he will spook you, he begins to step closer. “I’m sorry, y/n. We never meant to hurt you, and didn’t realise the way our immaturity was hurting you, too. You took up such a big part of our lives, and after you left it was painfully empty… when we saw you again this week, it was the first time we’d felt whole in years.”

Stunned, you’re rooted to the spot and can only watch as he comes close enough to touch, hands reaching for your own; faintly, you register the sound of Seokjin getting up from the couch as well. When he reaches your side, you risk a glance to his face and are surprised by the soft, remorseful expression resting upon his handsome features. 

“I’m sorry, bubs, for hurting you.” He lifts a hand, the warmth of his palm cupping your cheek. “You are irreplaceable to us, and we will always want you as a part of our lives. No one meant as much to us as you did then, and no one means as much to us as you do now. The two of you are my world, and I know the same goes for Joon.”

There’s something different hiding in the depths of his tone that makes your heart patter faster against the confines of your chest, something in the way they share a look so full of something warm that your own cheeks heat in response. Both of them… with each other, too? 

 “Why are you saying this?” Now, you meant to tack on. Why is he saying this now?

Namjoon’s eyes are warm as they meet your own. “Because we should have said it three years ago. Plus… we got a tip from an anonymous source that our feelings aren’t as unrequited as we once thought.” 

You don’t even need to wonder who it was that could have exposed such a thing; your mother had been mysteriously avoidant of your gaze this morning, almost knocking a few things off the bench in the extent of her effort to evade meeting your eyes.

“If nothing else, please just tell us before you go,” Seokjin implores, voice a low murmur. “Whether it was true then, or....”

You have a feeling you know what he was going to say: or even now. You’d known it the second you glimpsed them back in this town that those feelings you’d harboured for years and years weren’t ever going away. Even seeing them a handful of times has made your heart ache with the revival of your love and the magnitude at which it had bloomed once more in the tender soil of your being. The words rush to the tip of your tongue, but even now when the two objects of your affection have all but confessed to you, fear barrs them from leaving your mouth. Because it’s not appropriate, a voice murmurs it’s familiar tune, It’s so unlikely— what if you are just reading too much into it and are mistaken?

Honesty, Seokjin had requested. You take a deep breath before admitting the words that will seal your fate, for better or for worse.

“I did love you, then,” you say, catching it as they both seem to tense. “I should have known better than to think those feelings would just go away.”

It takes a moment, but soon both men are erupting into bright grins. In his glee, Namjoon folds you into his arms, smacking a soft kiss to your forehead, your cheek, and finally your lips— the suddenness of the action brings a gasp to your lips, but you’re definitely not going to complain. Especially not when the way his mouth moves against yours lights something bright deep within you. 

You don’t get to enjoy the sensations for longer than a moment before Seokjin’s voice is parting the air, a completely different tone underlying his words than what you expect from seeing his stupid grin earlier.

“Ah-ah-ah, don’t think you’re off the hook just yet, little miss. “ You meet his gaze over Namjoon’s shoulder and a shudder shoots down your spine at the look in his eyes. “We have a lot of lost time to make up for, wouldn’t you say?” 

x - x 

Barely ten minutes and a private car ride filled with scandalous touches and even more scandalous noises later, you’re being pressed against the wall in the bedroom of the penthouse suite in the most expensive hotel your town has to offer. Namjoon’s mouth is on yours with a kiss so impassioned that it pulls the air from your lungs and the strength from your knees; you don’t even realise that the lights hadn’t already been on when you entered and it was Jin responsible for illuminating your path into the suite.

A part of you expects some internal resistance — it had been three years since you’d last seen them, before this week — but instead you’re simply overwhelmed with how right it feels. Soft, fluttery warmth like sun rays on a winter’s morning fills you up to the brim, the feeling so foreign you’re worried your heart might actually burst. 

Namjoon’s hands come to your hips, pressing them to the wall before sliding up to the dip of your waist. He isn’t overly bold in the way he moves his mouth against yours, but it makes a whine build in your chest nonetheless. A part of you disagrees with it, and when you recall that you’re still here dressed in the costume that usually gives you the power over men, you push back and turn the two of you around. 

When his own back meets the wall, the softest gasp escapes Namjoon’s mouth and you swallow it down, your hands coming to cup his jaw. You take the lead in the kiss and he doesn’t put up a fight, grip tightening on your sides as he holds you closer. 

“Ah-ah, bubs.”

An unwitting squeak escapes you as two large hands find purchase on your waist and you’re pulled apart from the man panting against the wall. You blink and before you know it Seokjin has you falling onto something so plush and soft you know immediately it’s a bed. Your eyes are quick to find Seokjin’s, and the raven-haired male shoots you a stern look that is only contradicted by the heady mixture of affection and lust in his gaze.

“You don’t get to call the shots tonight,” he informs you simply, striding closer to where you’re laying on the bed and tugging on the string that holds your silken gown together. It’s designed to come undone, and so it’s no surprise that at the lightest pull the silk is sliding off your body, revealing the outfit you’d paraded on the stage before them barely a few nights ago. Faintly, you register the bed dipping behind you, but your attention is otherwise occupied when Seokjin reaches for the bedside table and retrieves something long and black. 

“Her wrists?” Namjoon asks, unknowingly answering the question you had forming in your head. Seokjin nods, tossing the tie  to him. Your gown is slipped from your shoulders completely, sheer petticoat ruffling as you’re scooted backwards until you feel the firmness of Namjoon’s chest against your back and Seokjin is sliding between your legs, in the midst of unbuttoning his shirt. 

“Do you know what you did to us when we saw you that night?” Seokjin asks, voice smooth as honey. It’s a struggle to remain focused on his words when Namjoon brings your hands together in front of you where you’re propped against him, beginning to bind them a little too expertly with the tie Seokjin had passed him. Your heart beats a little faster, thighs trembling as heady anticipation whirls within you. “What you do to us?”

“Just seeing you was already dangerous enough,” Namjoon murmurs, husky tone brushing the shell of your ear. “But you danced to our song, the song we wrote for you. It’s like you knew what it would do to us…”

It makes something swell in your chest, the confirmation that they had written that song for you. You catch something fond flick through Seokjin’s gaze before he tuts, shaking his head. He pushes your now-tied hands up and over your head, back until you feel the side of your thumbs grazing the back of Namjoon’s neck. Lips brush your neck, eliciting a shiver that Seokjin eagerly drinks in. Long, deft fingers work to undo the top part of your corset, the cushioned bandeau, and slip it from your form. You can visibly see it as his eyes darken, drinking in the sheer bralette barely supporting your breasts. You also know the second he glimpses the tassels pressed beneath, because his teeth sink into his lip and he takes in a sharp breath. 

Namjoon’s wandering hands come to trace the underside of your chest, breath catching in your throat when he takes their weight into his hold and kneads. Warmth shoots to your core, the hints of pleasure curling your toes. You feel breathless as they work in easy tandem, Seokjin slipping your petticoat over your legs and Namjoon removing your bralette. You shiver once your chest is bare, not from the cold but from the intensity and the weight of their gazes as you feel them fall upon you. 

“Leave her corset,” Seokjin instructs, flicking one of your tassels and eliciting a yelp. He settles back further between your legs, wrapping his arms around your thighs; his gazes falls upon the tattoo on the inside of your leg and the corner of his lips curls up. 

The plush of his lips presses against the sensitive skin of your inner thigh, the sensation tingling along your nerves. He doesn’t comment on the picture, but when his mouth touches where it is inked into your skin you feel your heart skip a beat nonetheless. 

Your mind is pulled from the sensation of fingers slipping beneath the edge of your panties when Namjoon’s fingers play with the tassels attached to your nipples, tugging and pulling and eliciting all sorts of heady sensations that make your thighs shake. “Joon,” you breathe, something else resting on the tip of your tongue only to be replaced with a whine when Namjoon pulls a little harder, soft open-mouthed kisses pressed to the sensitive column of your neck.

It’s like all of your nerves are alight at once, each touch and brush of their skin against yours heightened and making your heart race and your breath come a little quicker. Seokijn quickly slips your panties off, but leaves the pantyhose and garter belt. His eyes drag a trail of heat up your body, halting where Namjoon has begun to suck marks onto your neck like an artist decorating a canvas. For a moment he is mesmerised, and you can’t help the words that slip from your lips.

“You like what you see?” You ask, curving your back ever so slightly to emphasise your position. Seokjin pins you with an unreadable look, jaw ticking for a moment. 

“Very much so,” he answers, pulling away from you for a moment. He reaches behind him, retrieving something you hadn’t even noticed before now, and when you realise what it is he has in his hand you feel your stomach simultaneously drop and flip in excitement. His eyes meet yours for a moment, an unspoken question whether what he is about to do is okay, and had it been anyone else you know you would have refused, but you trust him. You trust them. You offer him a small nod and you receive the smallest smile in return before he is bringing the camera up to his eye and lining up his shot. 

Flash. Click. The camera isn’t as bulky as you’re used to, and you figure it must be one of the newer models you are far too poor to afford. One picture seems to be enough for him for now, but you know as he places it well to the side that it won’t be the only appearance it makes tonight. 

“Just in case you decide to fly the coop on us again,” he says, a sly look on his face. You scoff, knowing that he’s joking, and hold up your hands, still bound. 

“Like this? Not likely.”

He chuckles, and you feel Namjoon’s chest rumble with a soft laugh against your back as well. The lighthearted moment is over as quick as it arrives as Seokjin settles back between your legs and hardly waits for you to orient yourself before dipping his head down and delivering a broad swipe of his tongue up your slit.

“F— Jin!” you yelp at the sudden shock of pleasure, wriggling in Namjoon’s arms slightly; he nips at your skin in light reprimand, and Seokjin lifts his head only for a moment to scold you with a cheeky gleam in his eyes.

“Careful now, bubs,” he cautions, delivering a small kitten lick to your clit between utterances. “We might have the penthouse but there are still people below us.”

Surprisingly— or perhaps unsurprisingly, when taking the rest of your life and profession into account — the idea of being heard has the opposite effect on you than one might expect. You bite your lip, tipping your head back as Namjoon’s fingers begin to play with you once more and Seokjin begins to bury his face between your legs in earnest. 

It gives you a bit of whiplash, when you think about it; you don’t think you ever would have expected to end up here, in this situation. Crushes or no crushes, you hadn’t even expected to see them again let alone become the meat in a famous musician sandwich. 

It’s almost shameful how quickly the heat and pressure builds within you, Namjoon managing to tug the tassels off completely to roll your flushed buds between his fingers. The noises that sound from Seokjin’s ministrations between your legs are so downright lewd you can feel your face flush with heat, your thighs trembling either side of his head. You attempt to keep your own moans and whines in until Seokjin delivers a smack to your thigh and sends you a warning look. 

Just when you think you might be about to reach your peak, Seokjin stops, pulling back and licking your cream from his lips. The look you send him must be devastated, because he looks absolutely smug. 

“Now, this isn’t just about you,” Seokjin says, carding a hand through his hair before he finishes undoing his shirt and slips it from his form. Your breath catches at the sight of his sculpted torso, and the ink that decorates it in pretty splotches of imagery. You feel so ridiculously naughty, finding the tattoos on him as attractive as you do, and you’re aware of the irony but you just can’t help it. Seokjin could manage to make a potato sack look good. “Hasn’t Joonie been good? Been making you feel so good, with nothing in return? I think we should pay him back.”

It’s all the warning you get before you’re flipped over, braced on your elbows and knees. There is rustling before something plush is slipped beneath you, and Seokjin lowers you down between Namjoon’s legs with the pillow propping your hips up for him to continue where he left off.

Dazed from the sudden shift and beginning to lose yourself to the feeling as Seokjin returns his mouth to your soaked centre, you tilt to meet Namjoon’s dark gaze and offer him a brief smile. You can’t deny, the angle you’re viewing him from is nice, especially as he wrangles his shirt off and you catch glimpses of firm abs and chest. Namjoon, too, has decorated his skin, and it’s somewhat ridiculous how viscerally you’re reacting to it but you really think you might be about to drool. 

The pleasure quickly beginning to build in you once more from Seokjin’s plush lips and agile tongue leaves you no room for pleasantries, “Can I suck you off, Joonie?”

You hear his breath catch before he tips his head back and lets out a soft groan. “Do you even have to ask?”

His response only fuels your eagerness, mouth beginning to feel empty when your face is so close to his crotch you can feel the heat of his body. Considering the state of your hands, Namjoon makes quick work of his belt and slacks for you, shimmying them down with his briefs just enough to let his member spring free, almost completely hard at this point. 

“Holy shoot, Joon,” you curse, eyes wide with a mixture of shock and lust. God, you don’t think you’ve ever wanted anyone as much as you want these two men.  Namjoon shoots you a cheeky, if somewhat dazed, smile that makes his dimples pop out.

“It’s not just me you have to worry about.”

Well that’s a condemning statement if you ever did hear one, considering how you’re hoping this night will go. One of the more open and liberal girls that worked the show with you had once said “god gave me two holes for a reason, girls!” and right now you find you couldn’t agree more. 

You’re sick of your mouth being empty, you decide, and so you forego further foreplay and simply reach for his cock, taking the length into your hands and promptly enveloping his tip in the heat of your mouth.

“Fuck!” Namjoon swears loudly, thighs tensing against your shoulders. The yelp that escapes you as Seokjin smacks your ass melts into a moan that elicits a throaty noise from Namjoon, as well. 

You press and drag your tongue along the underside of his length, gradually working your mouth lower and lower until your nose is brushing the dark patch of curls across his pubic bone, a surprisingly pleasant mixture of musk melding with his cologne and brushing your senses . Even without the pleasure flooding your nerves from Seokjin’s tongue and the way he latches his lips around your clit, the deep, throaty noises tumbling from Namjoon’s mouth are reward enough. Since your hands are bound, your mouth has to do most of the work; when you sink down enough that his tip bumps the back of your throat, you do your best to fight your gag reflex from kicking in fully. 

Namjoon swears once more, just barely stopping himself before it gets too reminiscent of a sailor’s vocabulary. The sensation of your throat constricting around the head of his member makes his hips twitch and buck up ever so slightly, his hands winding into the hair at the nape of your neck. Struggling to keep on task through the haze in your mind, you do your best to build up a rhythm that has Namjoon’s abdomen trembling from the effort of keeping his hips still.

In tandem, the two of you seem to be rapidly approaching your highs— unfortunately for you, that same attention to detail that makes Jin’s ministrations so mind-numbingly good is what alerts him to that fact. Right when you feel yourself tense up in the prelude to your orgasm, Seokjin rips his mouth away, the bed shifting behind you. “Not yet, bubs.”

You can’t help the whine that sounds from your throat, the vibrations making Namjoon jerk.

“Fuck, I’m—”

Flash. Click. 

Another whine, different in tone this time, escapes you at the knowledge that Seokjin has added another filthy memory to his collection. 

“Joonie, you better not cum until I say so. y/n, off.”

Namjoons nails scratch lightly against your scalp, almost making your eyes roll back as he whines lowly in protest. You know you should listen and do as Seokjin says, but you can’t help but push a little, taking your sweet time as you pull your mouth slowly from Namjoon’s length, sucking all the while. The noises that tumble from Namjoon’s mouth as a result are incriminating enough, and even though you knew Seokjin wasn’t going to let it slide it still comes as a surprise when there is a sharp, painful smack against the globe of your ass. It’s hard enough and loud enough that your back arches slightly, mouth leaving Namjoon with a pop so you’re free to cry out. 

“Jin!”

Seokjin’s hand is cool against the smarting flesh of your behind as he rubs soothingly over it, raising an eyebrow as you meet his gaze over your shoulder. “I told you off, bubs. Let’s not make me repeat myself.”

Somewhat petulant despite the giddy butterflies in the pit of your stomach, you allow him to grab you by the hips and yank you back with a pout, breathless with anticipation when you feel his fingers drag over the dips and curves of your body as though mapping them out. He makes you sit up, your back against his chest as he explores your front, drinking in each gasp and whine as he pinches and tugs your nipples and rolls them between the pads of his fingers. Down, down, down he goes— when his finger drags along your slit and slips over your swollen clit you cry out, unable to help the unwitting buck of your hips. 

“After all the effort I went to to clean you up, you’ve gone and made a mess again,” Seokjin murmurs, pillowy lips brushing the edge of your ear. You quiver in his hold as he rolls a lazy circle around your bud, thighs threatening to close around his hand. You’re suddenly aware of how empty you feel, surprised that you’ve almost orgasmed twice without even being penetrated. 

You try and cant your hips up, not above whining and begging at this point— if he denies you your high one more time you just might go insane. “Please, Jin, please—”

Namjoon, who had taken a moment to recover after almost blowing his load earlier, shifts forward on the bed to join the two of you. His lips find your neck, your jaw, until they finally meet your lips once more and he swallows your sinful noises down. 

“What, you want more? You want my fingers? Look at you. You want to be filled so badly you’re willing to rock against anything with a pulse...”

Heat flushes up your neck to your cheeks, Namjoon’s kiss muffling your whine; you hadn’t thought you would be one to fancy this sort of thing, but if the wetness gushing forth at his words is anything to go by then apparently you do. 

Namjoon parts from your lips, waiting until your eyes focus on him so that he can hold your gaze. “Baby girl,” he murmurs, voice rough. His hand slips down to join Seokjin’s, finger dipping ever so slightly into your slit. The true meaning of his question isn’t lost on you.  “Who do you want?”

You feel almost unhinged with how much raw, restless desire is coursing through you right now— you couldn’t have stopped your answer even if you’d wanted to. “Both… both of you…”

There is a moment of silence following your response, but you don’t have time to wonder whether you said the wrong thing. In the next second Seokjin is swearing lowly under his breath, pressing his lips to your throat to hide his groan.

“Joonie, bedside table. You’ll have to prepare her.”

You’ve never seen Namjoon move as fast as he did the second Seokjin spoke, flying from the bed; he’s back within seconds after retrieving something from the drawers to the side, placing them on the covers. A small rectangular tin and a slim bottle. 

When he sits, waiting eagerly with his cock still flushed and hard and bobbing from the movement, Seokjin turns you around in an abridged version of the way you were before. Taking note of the uncomfortable angle of your arms, he undoes the tie, but doesn’t discard it after slipping it from the reddened skin of your wrists.

With your ass now pointed in Namjoon’s direction, it isn’t long before his hands find purchase and your most intimate area is revealed to him.

“Fuck,” he swears, “You’re so wet, baby. We might not even need the extra help, hyung.”

“Use it just in case,” Seokjin instructs, before turning his attention to you. “Now, if you want to cum later I think you should earn it now, hm?”

Your hands were already moving towards his belt and fly before he’d started talking, but his words renew your vigour. When you free Seokjin’s crotch from the confines of his slacks and briefs, you quickly understand just what Namjoon meant earlier. Namjoon has length, but Seokjin is thick. You wrap your hands around him and can’t help but marvel at his size— you’re a little ashamed of how excited it makes you.

“Ah!” Your plans to engulf Seokjin’s cock in the heat of your mouth are interrupted by a sensation at your rear. You wiggle slightly, unable to help it. “That’s cold!”

Namjoon places a featherlight kiss to your cheek, thick, slippery finger beginning to ease into your hole now that it is sufficiently lubricated. Suddenly aware that your attention is in the wrong place, you do your best to hurry back to what you were doing before you earn yourself another smack. 

“Perfect, bubs.” The groan that rumbles from Seokjin’s throat in praise is so raspy and low that it makes a shiver roll down your spine. As teasingly as you dare, you’re suckling around the flushed head of his cock, feeling it twitch and throb in your hands in response. It’s already a tight fit in your mouth, you can feel your thighs quaking in anticipation as you imagine what it would feel like filling you up. The thought takes you by surprise.

Since when did you start thinking like such a wanton whore?!

Well, you suppose, there is no time like the present. 

Seokjin’s hand threads through your hair, his hips rocking ever so slightly; you watch the way the muscles in his abdomen undulate at the movement and fight to keep your saliva in your mouth as you begin to bob your head down his length. Considering his girth, it’s hard to keep your teeth tucked behind your lips, but you somehow manage; when the time comes that he reaches your throat you’re in a better condition than you were earlier for it, but it’s still a bit of a shock to the system.

“Oh my god,” Seokjin’s thighs quake for the slightest second against you. “Fuck. No wonder Joonie almost blew his load. Look at you. You do this often, huh? Look how well you swallow my cock…”

You moan around him, his words and the oddly pleasant sensation of Namjoon working his fingers in and out of your asshole melding into a pool of heat in your abdomen.  Your eyes flutter closed as you try to focus on making Seokjin feel good, and you’re only distracted by a muted flash behind your eyelids.

Click.

Another shot saved. You take Seokjin further into your mouth, trying to go as far back as you can without gagging. He doesn’t seem to mind the way your throat constricts around his length though, if the noises escaping his plush lips where they part are anything to go by. Namjoon gradually adds one finger after another, making sure you’re accustomed to the stretch at least a little before the next joins. By the time he has squeezed in three fingers and scissored them a few times, you find yourself shaking a bit from the sensations. It’s odd, different to what you’re used to, but oh even with the light burn that accompanies each finger it still feels so good. 

You’re so focused on the sensations that you don’t even realise the attention you’ve been giving Seokjin has strayed, lips sucking a little harder and your hand stroking a little tighter. The salty taste of precum coats your tongue and you have half a mind to be ashamed of the way it makes you long for more. It proves to be a little too much for Seokjin at once, though. His hand tightens in your hair, pulling you gently off of him as he struggles to catch his breath.

“Not yet, bubs,” he says, voice rough. His eyes are like magnetic pools as they draw you into their depths, their hold only broken when Namjoon slips a final finger in and you shut your eyes on instinct, mouth dropping open at the sensation. 

“Are you ready, baby?” 

Namjoon’s voice makes your stomach flip, his free hand smoothing over the curve of your ass. You find yourself nodding before you even have the thought to do so, and with that Namjoon shifts on the bed behind you. Seokjin helps you move backwards, your eyes trained on his length somewhat longingly. There is the sound of something tearing softly behind you and you find yourself thankful that they took the initiative and you don’t have to ask them about protection.

You’re moved so that you’re straddling Namjoon’s hips with your back to him, still facing Seokjin. The two of them have since discarded their slacks and briefs  and are now presenting themselves in all their naked glory. Namjoon mutters a tender warning, informing you it might burn a bit, and you’ve heard of that but aren’t about to turn tail when you also know it’s going to feel so good after. You feel his tip press against your ass, alarmingly bigger than his fingers, and Seokjin helps ease you down slowly, inch by inch, with a firm grasp on your hips. 

True to the warning you’d received, it does burn; Namjoon had made sure there was more than enough lubrication for an easy glide, though, and by the time he has seated himself fully in you, you’re making noises you don’t think you ever have before. The line between heady pleasure and light pain is so blurred that you’re worried you might have fried your nerves at some point tonight. 

“Oh—” you take in a shuddering breath, shifting your hips ever so slightly and moaning in tandem with the man beneath you. “Joon…”

“Ride him,” Seokjin instructs, hands leaving your hips to reach for his camera once more. “Let’s make him feel good, hm?”

Who are you to say no? 

You pride yourself on having a lot of strength in your limbs, thighs especially, but still they tremble as you roll your hips up until just the tip of Namjoon’s cock remains in you, and then ease back onto him again. It takes a second before you realise the low moan you hear is coming from you, mind so addled with pleasure at this point you almost feel like you’re floating. Bracing yourself on your thighs, you do your best to set a rhythm and maintain it, ignoring the fatigue of your muscles and focusing on how good it feels and the noises tumbling from the man beneath you. 

When there is a sly touch against your swollen clit, you cry out loudly— Namjoon almost shouts at the way you clench around him, his hands flying to your hips to hold you in place for a moment. You look to Seokjin with wide eyes, panting slightly.

“Didn’t you wanna cum so badly, earlier?” he queries, fingers slipping down to slide through the slick mess around your entrance. You moan as he easily sinks two fingers in, pumping lightly. “Don’t stop, fuck yourself on my fingers, bubs.”

It feels so good you think you might tear up; obediently, you resume the pace you set earlier, now riding both Namjoon’s length and Seokjin’s digits. Each time you sink down he curls them, and you don’t know how much longer you can keep this out before your legs become too akin to  jelly to support you.

The answer is: not much longer. Seokjin quickly grows tired of it when your movements slow, thighs trembling from the effort. With a hand to your stomach he pushes you back, shifting your legs so they’re folded with your feet flat against the covers. You scramble for purchase, Namjoon quickly supporting you from behind. 

Seokjin tuts, muttering playfully about having to do everything himself, and it’s all the warning you get before he adds another digit and begins to finger your sopping entrance so hard and good that for a moment your vision goes white.

“S-Seokjin!” you drop your head back, nails sinking into the bedding as he begins to curl his fingers into that delicious spot inside of you with each pump. You had been slowly but steadily climbing back up to the precipice of your orgasm earlier, but now you’re heading there at breakneck speed. Before you know it the coil of pressure is snapping inside you and you’re shaking, pleasure numbing your limbs and making you whine.

By the time your high fades and you tune back in to the moment, you quickly become aware of two things— one, that you’ve somehow managed to coat Seokjin’s whole arm in your fluids, and two, that Namjoon has gone so tense and still beneath you that you think you might have almost killed him.

“Good girl,” Seokjin praises, sucking your cream off the tip of his fingers before wiping the remaining excess on your thigh so he can reach for his own rubber. “Do you need me to wait another moment?”

Assessing your current state, you find yourself shaking your head. You might have thought you would be too sensitive to continue, but Namjoon is still fully seated in your ass and now your pussy feels too empty for you to bear. Seokjin is only too happy to fill that void. 

Nestled between your legs, when he lines his cock up at your entrance and begins to slide in, you all but lose the ability to think. You clench unintentionally from the sensation of being filled so completely, making both men groan and Seokjin halt in his movements. He waits until you relax again before continuing his motion. 

When both men are fully sheathed inside you, you think this really might be what bliss is. Soft, panting whines and moans tumble freely from your throat as Seokjin pushes your thighs to your chest and begins to set a mind-numbing pace. It’s borderline brutal, the way he slams into you and splits you open so hard and good; each time his hips hit home you feel your whole body jostle.

“You can move, Joonie,” Seokjin somehow manages to articulate, sweat beginning to bead across his forehead and dampen the strands falling over it. You don’t know how he can talk, because you know if you tried at this moment you’d likely end up biting off your tongue. 

You feel Namjoon shake his head, hair brushing the space between your shoulder blades. “‘m close,” he mumbles in explanation, a short moan following his words. “Wanna cum together.”

It’s such a sweet desire in the midst of such a lewd situation that you almost get whiplash between the swelling of your heart and the pleasurable ache filling your insides. You feel that he will get his wish soon, because despite your recent high you’re already well on your way to reaching it again— Seokjin’s hips have begun to stutter, too, and you know he isn’t far behind. 

It all reaches its peak when Seokjin slips his hand down, following the angle of your hip bone to your core and rolling your bud with his thumb. It proves to be too much for you, because in the next moment you’re letting out a loud train of expletives and clenching tightly around them as pleasure floods your system once more, mind absolutely blank. The tightness of your heat around them is their undoing and barely a moment after you reach your high they follow suit, the sounds tumbling from them borderline sinful against your ears. 

It takes a bit longer for you to come back to earth, this time. By the time you do, Namjoon is winding his arms around your waist and rolling to the side, taking you and Seokjin with him. You let out a noise of surprise that curls into a laugh, hands gripping his arms as you hit the bed; both men are still inside you, and while you secretly wish it could stay that way for a bit longer, you know you should probably clean up. 

“No,” Namjoon says before you even go to move, a pout in his tone as he buries his face in the back of your neck. Seokjin nestles closer, pressing his lips to the hollow of your throat. “Stay, just a bit longer.”

That’s a dangerous request, especially considering the way your eyelids are beginning to feel heavy after the events of the night. For them, too, you can hear the way their breathing has already begun to even out. You couldn’t be mad if you tried, though, because just being here in their arms feels so right that you don’t ever want to feel anything else. 

“I guess we can nap…” you say, sounding tired enough that it elicits a chuckle from Seokjin. You let your eyes close, nestling your cheek against the top of Seokjin’s head and enjoying the light scent of his shampoo and cologne. You let out one last warning before you let yourself fall into the abyss, though. Just so they know who’s boss.

“If I see those photos anywhere near my house, Seokjin, it won’t just be me getting disowned.”

The laughter that tumbles forth in response just adds to the warmth flooding your being, and you let yourself relax, contented and truly happy for the first time in three years. 

[rainboq]

Seeing ghost-in-the-hella's punk Kate art has me wanting to write a scenario.

Basically, Max (five years later) has a much better understanding and control of her powers but still doesn't know the full extent of them. She, Chloe, and Kate, who are a throuple by this point, are accidentally pulled back to 2013. However, instead of them finding themselves in their younger bodies, they find themselves there physically, in the middle of the schoolyard, and everyone staring at them. Including their younger selves. The whole plot would be them visiting the past while trying to figure out what Max did and return to their present.

In terms of appearance, I'd have Max and Chloe have their LIS2 look, though Chloe's hair is still blue, her tattoo isn't covered up, and is now buff. For Kate, she'd look like hella's punk rendition of her with the undercut and hot-pink tips.

Warren and a few others understandably chalk it up to the supernatural occurrences that had been happening and think they're from a parallel timeline. While the older trio are quick to list off a few events that just transpired and are about to happen to prove who they are.

What happens after this, idk yet. I want to have present and future versions of the characters interact with each other. I might even have it that nobody recognizes Kate until she talks due to how different she looks now.

Chloe meeting Joyce and David can be potentially interesting as I might have her cutting contact with them given how strained her relationship is with both some time after LIS1.

Jefferson is a can of worms I have no idea how to approach.

Sounds like fun! Depending on how far back they go, they could be split up because it's before Max started at Blackwell and Chloe could save Rachel, just to add another layer of chaos onto the whole thing. Jefferon's pretty easy. Tip off the feds about his handy dandy binders full of women from multiple states who he has assaulted and let them do the heavy lifting.

I think the Chloe family situation could be super interesting actually, because Chloe desperately wants to reconcile with Joyce, and she knows what makes David tick now. She's got the emotional maturity and tools to navigate that situation in a successful way and maybe find a way to making peace with Joyce and getting David the fuck off her case. There could be a lot to dig into there, especially with Max, Kate, and potentially Rachel (assuming she doesn't wig out and bail from the weirdness and Chloe knowing about her old fling with Frank) backing her up.

As for the people just "chalking it up" thing, I don't think that's how people would react at all. Three people just suddenly being radically older and physically different would turn heads, very important heads. There would be a lot to navigate there, especially with regards to Kate and Max's families, never mind Top Minds who want to leverage fucking time travel. Chloe is barely home anyways, so she could probably just bail and lurk around until Kate and Max can link up with her or something.

As for Max's time powers... I'm always leery about Max's powers from a narrative standpoint. They can present a lot of writing difficulties in terms of "why doesn't Max just rewind and do it differently", so depriving her of her powers post jump is kind of a must.

Beyond that, I think this is a promising AU and you should definitely explore it!

[penelopebridgerton24]

Babe

So.... remember that post I made about how I was watching New Girl and Cece and Winston would call each other 'Babe' and Schmidt would always look annoyed, (you can find it here) well..... I wrote it! And if anyone wants to write another version of this, please do! I would love to read it! I hope you all enjoy this!

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Colin didn’t realize it at it first, he was so enraptured in his relationship with Penelope, that he didn’t see how close she had gotten with someone. You would think that his biggest annoyance would be Eloise, being Penelope’s best friend and an avid hog of her time. And yet, his biggest annoyance was his brother, his own brother, Benedict.

Of course Penelope can have friends. She could be around whoever she wanted. And really it wouldn’t have been such a surprise if he had been home more, he begrudgingly admitted to himself. He had been with Penelope all of one when it really hit him.

They were sitting on her couch, all cuddled up and watching TV. He was nuzzling her hair and pulling her close, she was smiling and gave a happy sigh, settling further into his embrace. Bliss, he thought to himself, and then the door burst open, Benedict strides in and takes Penelope from his arms.

Pen seems surprised but not surprised at all by his brothers presence, which in turn confuses Colin because why on earth is his brother barging into Penelope’s apartment?

“Pen, you’ll never guess what happened!”

Benedict had taken hold of Penelope’s arms when he had pulled her away from Colin, and Colin was annoyed by the fact that he was still holding her quite close. He tried not to notice that Penelope seemed to be holding him close as well.

“What happened?” She asks, excitedly.

“I’m having my first art show.”

She screams with joy and jumps into Benedict's arms, fully embracing him. He hugs her tightly and Colin wonders, for a moment, if he should be worried about their relationship.

“I’m so proud of you,” she says, squeezing Benedict once more, before stepping back.

“You know I couldn’t have done it without you,” Benedict replies, looking at her fondly.

Colin notices they still haven’t completely let each other go and Penelope’s eyes become a little misty.

“Babe, don’t,” she points a finger at him with a watery smile.

“Babe.” Benedict replies with a similar smile.

“Babe.”

“Babe.”

“Babe.”

Colin’s head whips back and fort between the two, surely he must be hearing them wrong, why are they calling each other babe? He’s sure his face is scrunched up in confusion.

“What the hell is going on?” he finally voices, standing from his spot on the couch.

Penelope and Benedict both turn to him in surprise as if they forgot he was even there. Penelope recovers quickly turning to him and grabbing his arms in excitement.

“Your brother is going to have his very first art show!”

Benedict is beaming with pride and Penelope is smiling at him with so much joy, he pushes his annoyance aside and smiles at them both.

“Congratulations, Ben,” he says and hugs his brother.

It was probably just a weird one time thing.

××××××

It wasn’t just a one time thing. The next time it happened was a few months later. Penelope and Colin had decided to move in together. He couldn’t wait to have an apartment that Eloise and Benedict didn’t have keys to. He had lost count of how many times he was enjoying his time alone with Penelope and his siblings would barge in. Penelope usually placated him with a kiss and promises of more later, which always brought a goofy smile to his face. Which in turn always made Eloise roll her eyes and Benedict give with a smirk, but what could he say he couldn’t get enough of her. Colin enjoyed spending time with his family and he loved how well Penelope fit with his family, he loved his family, he really did, but he would love a lot more if they just let him enjoy Penelope.

And this wasn’t how things were supposed to go, Colin had planned a romantic one last night in Penelope’s apartment for just the two of them. Unfortunately, once again his family had to take over his time with Penelope. It was doubly irritating this time because he had planned to thoroughly ravish Penelope on their last night in her apartment and he never misses a chance to completely ravish the love of his life, but his siblings apparently had other plans.

He was just getting everything ready for their evening together when, the door burst open, revealing Eloise and Benedict. Their arms full of food and alcohol.

“I can’t believe you’re not going to live here anymore,” Eloise exclaims, going straight to Penelope and hugging her tightly.

“There are a lot of fun memories here,” Benedict agrees, embracing Penelope as well.

Penelope smiles at them both, while Colin stares at them slack jawed.

“What are you both doing here?” He nearly bellows.

Eloise gives him an annoyed look.

“We’re giving Penelope’s apartment a proper goodbye,” she replies as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Neither of you ever lived here.”

“No, but we both have very happy memories with Pen here,” Benedict cheekily smiles, knowing his brother was getting annoyed.

“And,” Eloise says, scowling, “you never lived here either.”

He was about to reply, but she cuts him off before he can.

“In fact, we’ve probably spent more time here than you ever have.”

She abruptly turns away from him towards the kitchen, knowing she was right and he didn’t have an argument.

“Well, we had our own plans, so leave,” he says loud enough so that she can hear him from the kitchen.

“Colin!”

Penelope looks at him shocked, although she shouldn’t be he could be quite selfish about his time with her.

“Don’t worry, Pen,” Benedict smirks, as he rises from the couch and moves to her side and pulls her into his side. “We know you actually want us here.”

Benedict continues to smirk as Colin scowls at his brother. Colin reaches for Penelope to pull her into his arms.

“Will you please ask them to leave?” he whispers, nuzzling her neck.

“Colin….” She sighs, easing into his arms.

“Please,” he kisses her neck now, soft and teasing.

“I can’t,” she groans.

“Why not?” His kisses trail to her collarbone and back up to the sensitive part behind her ear.

She sighs softly before replying, “I invited them.”

He pulls back to look at her, his features painted with disappointment and just a bit of betrayal.

“Why?”

“Well, we were all talking about all the fun times we’ve had here,” she looks at him bashfully, her cheeks growing pink, “and they mentioned one last hoorah and,” she trails off, wincing, “I said that we should.”

He sighs in defeat because if it was something Penelope wanted to do with her friends that just so happened to be, he decided, his two most annoying siblings, then he would relent. He couldn’t deny her anything, especially when she looked at him with pleading eyes, pink cheeks and was biting her lip. He sighs in defeat.

“Colin, please don’t be upset,” she says quietly.

“I’m not,” he pulls her into his arms again and kisses her temple. “My plans to ravish you will just have to wait till later,” he bends down so that he can look her in the eyes , “and it will be happening later.”

“Colin,” she gasps and he smirks, enjoying the way her cheeks went from pink to red.

“Enough of that,” Eloise her face scrunched in disgust, grabbing Penelope’s hand and pulling her away from Colin.

A few hours later, the four are sitting in Penelope’s living room sharing memories and stories. Colin is mostly just listening and enjoying a tipsy Penelope leaning into his side. While he was still annoyed by his siblings presence, he couldn’t deny how adorable Pen was when she was tipsy. She would look at him from time to time to realize he was continually staring at her. She would smile and blush, which would just make him smile wider at her.

Once she quietly told him, “Stop.”

“Stop what?” he whispered back.

“Looking at me like you want me.”

He gives her a wolfish smile and whispers directly in her ear. “But I do want you, I always want you.”

He takes pleasure in the way she shivers against him. Just as he attempts to convince her to send their guests away, Eloise pulls Penelope out of his arms, again. This was really starting to get on his nerves.

“Pen,” she pulls her best friend into her side, “this is where we were when you got your dream job.” Eloise's eyes look glassy, as Penelope nods.

“Its where you decided you wanted to marry Phillip,” Penelope replies with a wistful smile.

“It’s where you both convinced me to share my art,” Benedict stands with the two women, smiling.

“That was mostly, Pen,” Eloise smirks, “but I was there.”

They all chuckle together. Benedict turns to Penelope.

“Its where we went from friends…”

He trails off, while Penelope shakes her head.

“Don’t do it.”

“Babe,” Ben smiles at her.

“Babe,” she replies with a watery smile.

“Babe.”

“Babe.”

“Babe.”

“Babe.”

“Babe,” Benedict replies one last time, before pulling her into an embrace.

Colin is once again completely weirded out, confused and irked by their exchange.

“What has your panties in a bunch?” Eloise asks at his scrunched up face.

“Is that not incredibly weird?”

She shrugs her shoulders.

“It doesn’t bother me.”

“It’s weird!”

She rolls her eyes.

“Relax, it’s not like they’re in love with each other or anything.”

Colin supposes that that was true, but still.

“Penelope is absolutely mad about you and Ben is still searching for his mystery lady.”

Colin smiles at Eloise's comment, he knew Penelope loved him, but it was still nice to have it confirmed.

“Besides I call Penelope ‘babe’ all the time, its really not that big of a deal.”

Colin slowly nods along until her words register in his mind.

“What?!”

× × × × × ×

Colin loved pampering and spoiling his wife year round, but on her birthday he always went all out. This year it was her 35th birthday and he had a full day of spoiling and loving her planned, followed by a surprise party in her honor. With the help of Daphne, Eloise and his mother because “Colin Bridgerton if you think for one moment I wouldn’t be a part of planning a celebration in honor of that dear girl, you obviously have no idea how much I adore her.”

After being appropriately berated all the plans were made and the day had gone by without a hitch. Colin was proud to say the smile he loved so much never left Penelope’s face. He was leading her Blindfolded up the steps to the Bridgerton family home, where everyone was waiting.

“Okay, are you ready?” He asks standing behind her and reaching for the blindfold.

“Yes,” she exclaims with a laugh, “the suspense is killing me!”

He makes sure she’s in just the right spot and then removes the cover from her eyes.

As soon as he does she met with a chorus of a loud-

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”

She sees the entire Bridgerton clan along with their spouses, her younger sister Felicity and Lady Danbury.

“Oh my goodness!”

She’s beaming at the group of people who came just to celebrate her and her eyes grow misty. She turns back to look at her husband who’s just looking at her with so much love and adoration she thinks she just might melt into the floor.

“Colin,” she whispers, bringing a hand up to caress his cheek and hoping he can see all the love she has for him in her eyes.

And just like he always does, it seems he reads her mind because he nods and takes her hand caressing his face and kisses her palm.

“Now, now, enough of that,” Lady Danbury interrupts, “you’ve gotten to celebrate her all day, if our turn now.”

“And I certainly have,” Colin says with a smirk, that his brothers return.

He only barely misses getting his toe crushed by Lady Danbury's cane. Eloise is quick to move in and like she had been their entire relationship, steal Penelope from his arms.

“Yes, Colin, I hardly ever get to see my best friend because you hog her all the time.”

Penelope giggles at Eloise's antics.

“You just saw her the day before yesterday!”

“Exactly, it’s an absolutely eternity to be away from one’s dearest friend,” she replies pulling Penelope further away from him.

Colin rolls his eyes but let’s her whisk his wife away.

“Eloise does have a point, you know,” Benedict smirks at Colin before embracing Penelope with a fond smile.

“You just saw her last week!”

The group laughs, as Penelope squeezes his hand before she’s enveloped by all the people she loves so much.

The party is alive with laughter, music, memories and of course food (Colin did plan this party after all). When it comes time for gifts she can’t keep the smile from her face as she tries to keep her eyes from watering.

Benedict is the next to give her his gift, they share a smile because it’s in the shape of what she knows is a painting. She has always been fond of Benedict's work and one of his biggest supporters, but she can’t keep the tears from her eyes when she sees the painting.

“Ben,” she whispers as she stares at the painting.

“I know it’s your favorite park,” he shrugs, “it was Sophie’s idea,” he smiles at his wife.

“Thank you,” she smiles at Sophie and gives her hand a small squeeze.

She looks back at the painting and gasps when she sees her and Colin in painting as well. She looks back up at Benedict.

“This is the most beautiful painting I have ever owned.”

“Babe…” Benedict says his hand over his heart.

“Babe,” Penelope replies.

“Babe.”

“Babe.”

“Babe.”

Colin sighs in exasperation and rolls his eyes as Benedict and Penelope embrace.

“What has you so annoyed?”

He looks to his side at Sophie.

“This babe thing doesn’t bother you at all?”

She scrunches up her eyebrows in thought for a moment and then shakes her head as she watches the two friends with a fond smile.

“Benedict calls me, my love and Pen is as much my friend as she is Benedicts.”

He thinks for a moment.

“Penelope always calls me the love of her life or her love or darling,” he thinks aloud.

Sophie smiles.

“Do you really have anything to complain about then?”

“No, I guess not.”

She smirks. “She did marry you after all.”

His smile widens.

“She absolutely did,” he smirks.

He smiles watching his wife, she looks back at him with nothing but love in her eyes, only for him.

Sophie smiles at the exchange, and then laughs at his last reply.

“Its still really weird though!”

[ladyc0312]

A Jikook Guide to RunBTS: 112-121

Yes, I'm still doing these! It's just happening more slowly than I'd like because writing for work + writing fic + trying to go to bed before midnight + so much amazing content being released that clearly must be poured over and dissected = less time to make guides. For anyone still with me, he's the next section!

Ep 112 “Dalbang School Part 1” (Ep: 5 / KM: 4)

The ones with BTS in a classroom driving Teacher Jin insane

5:58 - JM declares that he and Taehyung will pair up (by being the first to hug each other in a game), but then when Hobi blows the whistle at 6:38, JK runs over to hug JM before Tae can get to him.

6:58 - Jin asks why JM said he wanted Tae and then hugged JK. JM explains that he didn't hug him, he just found himself in JK's hug as JK cackles in the background.

7:24 - When Jin blows his whistle at the class, JK and JM mirror each other in putting a finger in one of their ears.

7:35 - Teammates JK and JM are immediately on the same page about wanting their team name to be Kim Seokjin. When they have to change it, JM quickly picks up JK's suggestion that they call their team Bang Sihyuk. These don't sound like particularly unique moments, but when you watch it, it just really strikes you how in sync the two of them are in terms of physicality, ideas, and sense of humor.

9:52 - After Jin comments that he heard JM did very well in school, JK adds that JM was the top student. When someone else asks if JM was the best or second-best, JK forcefully reiterates that he was the best student.

12:45 - When they get a question right, JK and JM clasp hands and bump their shoulders together.

13:10 - JM and JK both goof around, speaking in satoori and challenging JHope to a fight of sorts.

13:27 - When Jin repeats that they got the question right, JK and JM do exactly the same as 12:45, but seated this time.

14:22, 14:36, 15:13 - In all three of these moments, JM nearly falls over laughing at something JK did that no one else found anywhere near as funny.

23:36 - When JK says he's good at this game, JM laughs and pokes JK in the chest with a marker.

BEHIND 2:30 - JM takes a selfie of him and JK with his personal phone while they're supposed to be paying attention to Jin.

6:35 - JK cheers on JM and calls him Jimin-ssi when JM announces he's doing well on this spot-the-difference round. When Jimin modifies the brag to say he only found four, JK says "that's still quite impressive."

Ep 113 “Dalbang School Part 2” (Ep: 5 / KM: 4)

4:50 - We all know how JK is when he gets into his "focus" zone, especially in a competitive environment. But here, when JM rather rudely interrupts JK's melodica practice, JK just starts playing around with him and giggles.

7:41 - As RM & JH take their turn, jikook are whispering to each other in the back row.

11:42 - After quickly agreeing on a lunch option, jikook do a high five / handshake thing and then JM says "we think alike" and "we get along pretty well." JK responds "that's exactly it" and the on-screen captions tells us they are a "good match."

22:20 - This is where JK and JM start switching back and forth carrying each other on their backs to get under a limbo stick.

They go again at 23:35, 26:11, and 28:13.

And again at 30:22 and 32:16 and 34:30 because, even though they lost, they want to try to do it again to show that they can as a "matter of pride."

25:00 - JK points something out to JM and then pats his butt.

33:33 - JM announces they lost, and then jikook do another handshake / high five thing.

34:33 - JM does an... interesting pose for the camera where he puts his hand on a bent-over JK's back and smirks.

34:56 - Yet another handshake and JM pats JK on the back when they finally pass the limbo challenge.

BEHIND 5:55 - While examining the limbo setup, JM comments that JK is good at this. JK comes over to give a demonstration and JM watches him be silly with it and says "he's a strange kid" fondly.

6:21 - Another jikook limbo attempt - this one was cut because they did it too easily.

Ep 114 “League of Number One Part 1” (Ep: 3 / KM: 1)

The ones where BTS play games with League of Legends world champions

3:55 - After Jimin protests that he shouldn't be out, JK tells his hyung to turn around and face the back.

14:40 - JK fake-boxes JM after losing the hammer game.

18:18 - JK mimics Jimin's BWL intro.

Ep 115 “League of Number One Part 2” (Ep: 2 / KM: .5)

BEHIND

7:05 - JK comes over to check on Jimin's phone to make sure he's actually visible in the selfie the teams take.

Ep 116 “Team-Building Special Part 1” (Ep: 4 / KM: 1)

The ones with random games in that rec room-looking place that are a lot more fun than they sound

22:14 - JM and JK play around with the jump rope during breaktime.

22:26 - JM and JK play around like they're boxing with each other.

BEHIND 5:15 - JK appears to take an interest in watching JM's... back as he moves around acting out potential poses.

Ep 117 “Team-Building Special Part 1” (Ep: 4 / KM: 2)

5:30 - Despite showing pretty much everyone else touching everyone else in the pose guessing game, we don't get a single shot here or in the behind of JK feeling up Jimin. The above photo proves that it happened, though, so definitely side-eyeing the editors, here.

BEHIND 5:35 - JK keeps throwing water bottles when they're supposed to be taking a group photo. Jimin pulls him back next to him and puts an arm around his neck. JK puts an arm around Jimin's shoulders in return.

7:51 - After it's explained that JK is staying late to watch Jin do his penalty, a packed-up Jimin comes over and stands next to JK, waiting until they're done to leave.

Ep 118 “Photo Story Part 1” (Ep: 3 / KM: 3)

The ones where BTS play a Samsung-sponsored game involving getting specific pictures while a spy tries to ruin the fun

4:22 - JM appears to direct JK to go punish Tae and pats JK's back when he starts to obey. Something happens that we don't see when the angle changes - next thing we see, JM seems to be pushing JK? JM then giggles at JK pretending to beat up Tae. (After this, JK spins around like a ballerina. Not jikook-related, just adorable.)

29:51 - JK calls Jimin twice without adding "hyung."

32:28 - JM pulls JK along by the wrist. Meanwhile, J-Hope once again mixes up their names.

32:44 - Though there is now a group walking slowly together and he doesn't need to pull him along anymore, Jimin takes JK's hand again.

37:02 - There are a bunch of seats open in the room, but Jimin walks over to sit right next to JK.

BEHIND 5:40 - When JM tries to steal a post-it from JK, JK scolds him in satoori banmal. JM calls him out for not calling him with hyung and JK quickly apologizes (in a way some k-army jikookers have said is like how a married person would respond to their nagging spouse!).

6:09 - JK and JM meet up and JK tells JM he's exhausted. There's a kind of weird moment that I fully admit I may be reading too much into where JK seems to be walking right towards JM, then abruptly stops and turns, looking at the camera, before walking with Jimin in a different direction than he had been heading. Then, JM says he thinks their matching shirts are hilarious and that it's funny they're wearing them for the show.

Ep 119 “Photo Story Part 2” (Ep: 4 / KM: 3)

8:21 - "You are me, I am you" moment: Jimin does a ballet spin the same way JK did in part one.

11:18 - JK is the only one to vote for JM to be able to keep a picture in other than Jin (who has nefarious reasons for doing so).

29:40 - JM goes over to help JK see how many of his photos the spy ruined and almost falls over laughing when it becomes clear it's nearly all of them.

34:21 - JM puts his hand on JK's shaking leg to help calm him (see above photo), but JK is so irritated that it doesn't work like it usually does. Poor bunny!

35:17 - JM pulls at JK's shirt and hand, then folds over his back while trying to get him to confess that he actually lost.

38:24 - JM has a comforting hand on JK's neck when he's acting upset about losing.

38:32 - When it seems like JK is struggling to come up with an ending statement, JM helps prompt him.

BEHIND

0:55 - JK talks about how amazing it is that Jimin found so many cards.

3:51 - When JK is playing with the sequin art on the front of his shirt, JM leans over and starts rubbing on them, too.

5:11 - Jimin tells JK that, if he wins, he's going to make the loser hike Mt. Achasan. JK asks why he's looking at him when he says that and they both laugh. Jimin pats JK's chest and they laugh even harder. Jin and Tae both have "omg, these two" looks on their faces.

Ep 120 “Reply BTS Village Part 1” (Ep: 3 / KM: 2)

The ones with a real-life Mafia game inexplicably set in a 1970s village. It's... fairly difficult to follow, but the guys are into it and the outfits are great!

24:40 - Jimin breaks character and laughs when asking JK if he's the culprit.

29:40 - Caption: "The air is undeniably tense between Gamer Jeon and Chief Park." Not explicitly jikook, I just find it funny that the writers seem to be playing with some real life relationships, making sope best friends and jikook have tension that leads to banter...

BEHIND

5:34 - When Jimin is playing with the yo-yo, JK expresses concern that he's going to hurt his fingers (caption: Kook is just worrying for his hyung). Then, JK asks poutily and in banmal if he can play with the yo-yo multiple times and Jimins says no. Like, JK straight-up gives his hyung a command ("let me try that") using informal speech and no one bats an eye!

5:58 - Jimin starts singing a song about an ants. JK watches him. JK initially says to Hobi "look, he's a fool/dummy!" (in banmal again), then starts singing along. He jokes that JM doesn't know all the lyrics and Jimin says back "quiet, you."

Ep 121 “Reply BTS Village Part 2” (Ep: 3 / KM: 2)

38:48 - After having asked for it a bunch in the Behind of the previous episode, JK now has Jimin's yoyo.

non-jikook note: At the end of this one, they "time travel" to solve a mystery in Joseon-era Korea and I can't express how badly I want to see that. Please come back to that, Run!

BEHIND 0:58 - Jimin and JK play around accusing each other with exaggerated accents and formality. Jimin comes up behind JK and reaches out to touch his shoulder, but stops when Tae joins them and accuses them of plotting together.

9:05 - When JK says everyone else is so good at acting, Jimin compliments him that he was very funny towards the end.

[arwainian]

My Reading This Week:

This is that stuff I have started, finished, or continued reading this wee! (So far not including articles for school, but maybe future editions of this style will) I'm trying to find something to do to catalogue the books I read for if twitter goes down sometime soon, but also to give myself a space to catalogue progress through things that take a while to read, or don't have a real point of being "done."

If I do this again, then the formatting will be subject to change as I do this more and come to conclusions about what works best about this for me! I also might move this to a non-tumblr blog, but right now tumblr suits me fine.

Started & Finished:

Delicious In Dungeon/Dungeon Meshi, volumes 10-11 by Ryoko Kui and translated by Taylor Engel

This manga delights me so so much. I love the art style and the tonal dissonance and all the characters and just... *chef's kiss* mwah. While reading these the other day I kept leaning over to my friend to show him panels I really liked. I'm actually considering tracking down where to read the chapters translated by fans before the official english volume translations come out bc i don't want to WAIT longer than I absolutely have to. But I also have enough to read already

A Restless Truth by Freya Marske

What's up, it's my brand, queer historical romance with fantasy elements! AND this has murder mystery elements too. This could not be more my shit. I don't tend to preorder books because I am... bad at buying books that I want to read? But I did actually preorder an ebook copy of this as a little gift for myself after I read A Marvellous Light, and I found this so delightful that I could not stop my hands moving. This books wins the coveted "made me jump up and down" prize, and the prize of immediately being recommended to a lesbian friend. Also @ Freya Marske's agent, I would have read the ghost threesome, how dare you keep it from me.

Started & Ongoing:

Boy Oh Boy by Zachary Doss

A very dear friend recommended this book to me after [redacted] last year and I finally got around to picking up a copy through Libby and starting to read it. It is very weird. But I think I'm enjoying it? And yeah, I can see why Tort recommended this to me in the wake of All That.

Ongoing Reads:

Blood Sisters: Vampire Stories by Women edited by Paula Guran

See it is big anthology books like this which are the first reason for the 'just plain ongoing' section. Tort also gave/recommended this one to me, if I am remembering correctly, because I am of course a vampire lover, of both the monstrous and scary-sexy variety. (Gosh this is a Tortoise heavy post) Anyway, I've tried reading a bunch of these in one sitting and can't really do it, so what I'll try is to read one short story from this collection per novella or novel that I read, so that I can make continued progress through it. So far I have read the first five stories in it:

A Princess of Spain by Carrie Vaughn Shipwrecks Above by Caitlín R. Kiernan The Fall of the House of Blackwater by Freda Warrington In Memory of... by Nancy Kilpatrick Where the Vampires Live by Storm Constantine

Aurora by Red (of Overly Sarcastic Productions)

comics with no end in current sight are the second reason for an ongoing section! This is fun, tropey fantasy fluff. This one updates three times a week and I do try to keep up, so to avoid being repetitive I probably won't mention it again unless i feel like there's something i Must say about it. but I feel good about finally having a place to say "hey! I'm reading this right now!"

There we go! Attempt number one of a non-twitter reading log, with all of the (non-school related) reading I did this week (and a bit before with that anthology). Also. this may or may not be the most formally formatted posts I have made to tumblr since I made those name-meaning posts for a bunch of homestuck characters, so please appreciate the effort I made

[ksalientian]

25. [orv] joongdok

'yjh is a dakimakura'. text version of my twitter post.

.

I have a weird question, Dokja wrote, on his Twitter account that had eleven followers (two of which were bots). Do you think ghosts exist?

No one replied to him, of course, because Dokja's online acquaintances weren't interested in things other than the popular webnovels, but he hadn't expected it anyway. He wasn't even sure if he was imagining things. It was only— well, it really might have been his paranoia. Dokja looked around, made eye contact with the thing lying innocently on his bed, flushed, and looked away again. No, Dokja didn't think he was being paranoid.

He opened up a Q&A forum to ask the same question, hesitating when he was prompted to add more detail. I made a body pillow, he typed, slowly. I commissioned the art and only made one of it so I'm the only one who has one, it's not from a maker. He didn't add that it was a picture of a man on the cover, nor that it was a fictional man whom he sometimes felt like he'd been in love with for half his life. Long story short, it feels like it's watching me.

Supernatural questions were fairly popular on this forum, and before long the answers were filled up with people heckling him for being dirty and asking if he liked 'that sort of thing'. He scrolled past these answers with mild embarrassment.

"Joonghyuk-ah, you're making people think I'm a pervert," he said, absently. 

Then he closed his eyes and heaved a sigh. He'd meant to stop talking to the pillow, but he just couldn't seem to break the habit. Dokja had always talked to himself like he was talking to Yoo Joonghyuk before, and the addition of a life-size pillow with an almost-perfect recreation (because nothing really lived up to the Yoo Joonghyuk in his imagination) had just made this habit exponentially worse.

To be fair, it wasn't that the pillow responded to his talking. In fact, the pillow didn't respond to anything he did.

Honestly, Dokja thought, turning to look at the pillow again. What has it really done? Nothing, that's what. It was just Dokja inexplicably sensing the constant weight of someone's regard, feeling like the pillow's eyes were watching his every move. He glanced back at his phone and saw that the answers on the forum were heading in an irrevocably age-restricted direction, sighed again, and decided to just give up. If his pillow was haunted, just let it be haunted. What could a pillow do to him, anyway.

——

Joonghyuk hadn't meant to do it.

Really, he hadn't. 

He had been doing so well in all his world-jumps, avoiding even the thought of looking for traces of Kim Dokja. Down that path lay no good things whether for him or Biyoo. He stayed just long enough to make sure the story was being published, then he left, nice and simple.

Until… this.

Being a pillow was very stressful. He couldn't speak or move or do anything, really, for fear that Dokja would notice him and the situation would spiral out of control. The fact that Biyoo was somewhere else fixing the Ark made it even worse— he had nothing to fill his time when Dokja was away, because even if he did move, his movements were limited to that of a pillow. He couldn't open the door, or the window, and in any case leaving meant someone might see him, which was what he had to avoid in the first place. 

Joonghyuk cursed whatever metaphysical whim that had decided to allow a Ways of Survival clone in this world, and then cursed the Kim Dokja in this world along with it. He was, somehow, certain that it was all because of Dokja's ridiculous custom body pillow. The picture on the thing didn't even look like him; it was far too clean and unmarred. And less good-looking, not that Joonghyuk cared about that sort of thing.

Having cursed his fill, Joonghyuk returned grouchily to his only pastime, which was observing Kim Dokja.

This Kim Dokja was different from the one that was his companion. Younger, of course, still a kid fresh out of high school who hadn't even been to the military yet. But he was also a little less… hardened. Less hurt. Joonghyuk remembered the days he'd been here, how Dokja relaxed and smiled when he thought he was alone and felt like his own Dokja wouldn't be like this even if he was nineteen too. His Dokja must have been a shifty bastard since he was in the cradle.

If he started categorising all the ways they were different, there would be no end to it. Sometimes Joonghyuk thought he might have built up the Kim Dokja in his head so much that when (if) Kim Dokja actually came back, he would be disappointed.

Just then, this world's Kim Dokja laughed at something on his phone.

Joonghyuk watched the way his whole face softened, how he leaned back in his chair and opened his mouth wide and didn't put his hand over it like he was embarrassed. Watched a little less calmly as Dokja eeled off the chair and came to flop on the bed right next to him.

"Joonghyuk-ah," said Dokja, face a little flushed and eyes shining. It was depressingly attractive. "You're so cute!"

Dokja began to tell Joonghyuk about the antics of fake-Joonghyuk in this world's Ways of Survival. Fake-Joonghyuk had apparently jumped in a lake and fished out all the marine life in it because Mia had wanted to eat fish, which— Joonghyuk wasn't going to say he hadn't done that before, but it hadn't been fun and it most certainly hadn't been cute. But he listened to Dokja's spirited retelling anyway, because what else could he do?

Soon, Dokja's bright voice faded away. "It would be nice if I was that brave," Dokja said, softly enough that Joonghyuk almost missed it. He didn't hug Joonghyuk, but he put his back against Joonghyuk's pillow form and leaned against him.

You are so brave, Joonghyuk wanted to say. You are brave enough that you still want to live, despite everything, despite the universe.

But that wasn't this Kim Dokja. Joonghyuk's Dokja was still scattered, waiting for Joonghyuk to bring him home. This Dokja was not yet in such dire straits.

You can be brave, Joonghyuk thought instead. 

Very carefully, he curved the pillow that was his body closer to Dokja's. Dokja stiffened. Joonghyuk pressed himself against Dokja's back anyway, suddenly glad that he was a pillow in this world (there was no way he could do this as a human). He knew Dokja had some suspicions about him. But if it meant a kid could take some comfort from it, he was alright with being discovered. Biyoo would fix it. Probably.

"Are you… a ghost?" Dokja asked, in a trembling little voice.

Joonghyuk couldn't answer.

The room was quiet for a long time, and then Dokja hesitantly reached a hand behind him to touch the pillow. Joonghyuk noted that his fingers rested coincidentally on fake-Joonghyuk's chest.

"Thank you," whispered Dokja, and said no more.