#it says he left the draft in panel

[bisexualdinahlance]

I have a pimms exes to rivals to lovers au idea I will probably never write but damn do I kinda want to discuss the logistics of it with someone anyway lmao

[brainlicking]

Janus Week Day 4 - Name Reveal

For @darksideweeks Janus' week! I've had the draft thumbnails for this comic sitting pretty for three years and today's prompt was PERFECT for me to blow off the dust and actually draw it!

(I have many ideas of how Janus shared his name with Remus but this is by far the funniest.)

Image ID below the cut.

[ID: A four page digital Sanders Sides comic with the brainlicking.tumblr signature at the bottom of each page.

Page 1: [A small yellow panel at the top of the page with a speech bubble]

Janus: I... ...I would like to tell you...

[Whole page panel with Janus at the forefront, his back to the viewer and his arms crossed behind his back, he is facing Remus. Remus is sitting on a purple couch, concentrating on reaching a book.]

[Bottom left panel. Remus looks up in surprise.] [Bottom right panel. Remus is looking intently at Janus with both hands pressed together in front of his mouth, there is a green text box with an arrow pointing to Remus that says, "Not saying a word because he genuinely wants to know."]

Page 2: [The panels of this page are bordered with yellow with faded text that reads, "HE'S GOING TO LAUGH" over and over.]

[Top panel. Profile shot of Janus' torso, going from neck to waist, he is facing to the viewers left. His arms are out in front of him and is taking off his right glove.]

[Middle panel. Closer shot of his right hand, it is now ungloved.]

Janus: My name...

[Bottom panel. Closeup shot of the lower half of Janus' face, teeth bared and his hand close to his mouth.]

Page 3: [Whole page panel of a bust shot of Janus, he is grinning widely, his expression cheeky and is pressing the length of his pointer finger against the space between his upper lip and nose. There is a mustache drawn on the finger.]

Janus: Is REMUS!

[Bottom panel. Janus and Remus stare at each other in silence.]

Page 4: [Top panel. Janus and Remus burst into laughter, there is yellow and green "HA HA"'s written around them, with green text of Remus saying, "You silly bitch!" to Janus.]

[Whole page panel. The laughter from the top panel trickles down the middle of the page. Janus is now sitting with Remus on the couch, he peeks one eye open at him, still smiling.]

Janus: It's actually Janus.

Remus: Aw, we match!

Janus: Heh, yes we do.

End ID]

@thatsthat24

[thedensworld]

The Margin | J. Ww

Pairing: Wonwoo x reader Genre: Dark Fantasy, Meta-World Au!, Parallel World Au! Words Count: 23k Preview: A very well known illustrator went missing after the villain in the story was defeated.

The assistant illustrator couldn’t help it anymore — he had to report his boss, who hadn’t shown up at the studio or answered a single call in nearly a week. Soonyoung now found himself pacing in front of your apartment door, chewing at his lip while the building owner spoke in hushed tones with two uniformed officers. Any moment now, they were going to force the door open.

A thousand troubling images clawed at the edges of Soonyoung’s mind, but he clenched his fists and shoved them away. You were eccentric, sure — always lost in your stories, always scribbling out scenes that made even hardened editors flinch — but you weren’t reckless enough to hurt yourself, not just because the world had turned on you overnight.

There was only one reason the internet was tearing you apart now, one “crime” that made fandoms froth at the mouth and the comment sections drip poison: you had killed off Wonwoo, the villain in your latest web-comic — the villain people secretly adored more than the hero himself.

The last time Soonyoung saw you, you’d laughed off the hate comments, tapping ash from your cigarette out the studio window, and shrugged when your editor pleaded with you to “fix” the ending. But now, standing here with the hollow hush behind your door pressing into his ears, Soonyoung wondered if maybe — just maybe — the world’s cruelty had clawed deeper than you ever let him see.

You had left him with only one final, cryptic draft: Wonwoo’s funeral, rendered in stark, aching lines — a villain laid to rest in an empty graveyard under a cold, unfeeling rain, watched by no one except a lone stranger standing at a distance, unnamed, faceless.

Every time Soonyoung reread that scene, the same chill crawled under his skin. The pages were too quiet, too final — as if you’d been trying to say goodbye to more than just a character.

Who was the stranger at the funeral?

Why was there no hint about what came next?

And most importantly — where were you now?

Soonyoung had tapped his pen uselessly against his empty sketchpad for days, eyes flicking between the unfinished panels and the increasingly frantic messages from the publisher.

No Safe Place was your crown jewel — a web-comic that had devoured the internet whole, translated into a dozen languages, flooding timelines and group chats from Seoul to São Paulo. It told the tragic story of Choi Hansol, a hero weighted down by injustice since childhood — betrayed, framed, yet always rising again, righteous to a fault.

But the heartbeat of the story, the dark star that pulled millions into your orbit, was never Hansol alone. It was Jeon Wonwoo — the villain people loved to hate and secretly wished you’d redeem.

Handsome, cold-eyed, and terrifyingly clever, Wonwoo slit throats and burned secrets; he murdered Hansol’s fiancée and closest friends without blinking. He came for Hansol’s life, too, driven by a hunger so raw it almost made him human. That brutal contradiction — a monster drawn like a fallen angel — turned your comic from just another hero’s tale into a global fever dream.

So when you dropped the final episode, the internet howled as if you’d stabbed them instead: Wonwoo, defeated at last by Hansol’s trembling hand, two deep wounds blooming red across fresh snow. No redemption. No mercy. A villain dying alone under winter’s hush.

At first, some called it poetic. Then the hate began. How could you? they raged. Bring him back. You betrayed us. Your inbox drowned overnight in death threats and demands. Fan forums burned with conspiracies about secret drafts, alternative endings, half-mad theories about why you’d done it.

Soonyoung swallowed the sour taste rising in his throat. He should have stopped you. He should have begged you to let Wonwoo live a little longer — or at least forced you to sleep, to eat, to turn off your phone for one damned day

When the lock finally gave way with a sharp snap, Soonyoung’s heart lodged in his throat as the door creaked open.

Soonyoung stood frozen in the doorway, the metallic click of the cop’s radio muffled by the pounding in his ears. The moment the lock gave way and the door swung inward, he’d half-expected to see you — curled up on the couch with your laptop burning your thighs, mumbling a half-apology for ignoring his calls.

Instead, silence pressed against him like a heavy hand.

The hallway light flickered over your tiny living room. He stepped inside, shoes squeaking faintly on the polished floor. At first glance, nothing screamed danger: your beloved blankets draped over the armrest, a mug ring staining the coffee table, your phone abandoned near the charger — its black screen reflecting his pale face.

But when he turned toward the kitchen, his breath caught in his throat.

Shards of ceramic crunched under his heel — the shattered remains of your favorite mug, the one with the faded comic panels you’d joked was your “good luck charm.” Beside it, near the base of the counter, a dull brown smear spread in a jagged trail. Dried blood. Not fresh enough to drip. Not old enough to ignore.

“No... no, no, no—” Soonyoung’s voice cracked as he stumbled closer. He crouched, trembling fingers hovering just above the blood, afraid to touch it and make it real.

Behind him, one of the officers muttered into a walkie-talkie, calling for forensics. The building owner stood frozen at the threshold, one hand covering her mouth, eyes wide.

Soonyoung’s vision tunneled. He looked from the broken mug to the blood, to the bare hallway that led to your bedroom. No forced entry. No dragged body. Just this mess — a single, silent scene that made no sense.

“What the hell happened to you…?” His whisper trembled. He should have been angry at you for scaring him like this, for vanishing when the whole world wanted your head for killing off a fictional villain.

Now, with you missing, Soonyoung wondered: was this really just fan rage gone too far?

*

He knew something was wrong long before he had any proof. He’d always known, in the quietest corners of his mind — when the roar of his rage faded, leaving behind only questions he could never quite kill.

That day, he’d been wandering the aisles of his old library, hunting nothing in particular, haunted by everything he couldn’t name. His eyes caught on a thin, battered copy of The Little Prince — the same edition he’d clutched at ten years old, back when life was only lonely, not yet steeped in blood and sin. He traced a fingertip over the faded cover, feeling the soft paper buckle under his touch, and for one heartbeat he felt... almost real.

He sank onto a creaky wooden chair and cracked it open to the first page. But the words blurred the longer he stared, drowned by flashes of himself in every mirror he’d ever broken: his reflection, but never just his alone. There was always something behind his eyes — a ghost whispering orders, a script scrolling where his thoughts should be.

Every time he’d aimed a gun at the innocent, some quiet animal part of him had begged him to stop. His hand would shake. His pulse would hammer rebellion against the cruelty he was known for. But the bullet always found its mark. His will always drowned under a tide he didn’t control.

And then — he met you.

One moment he was tracing the little fox on page twenty-four. The next, his breath caught — the musty hush of the library vanished. In its place: the low hum of an old computer, the dry warmth of a single desk lamp flickering in a cramped, paper-crowded room.

He blinked. Not his house. Not the library.

A narrow, cluttered room greeted him: walls tattooed with sticky notes and scraps of sketches pinned in frenzied constellations. Unwashed mugs on the floor. Crumpled snack wrappers. And you.

You were hunched at your monitor, eyes bloodshot from too many sleepless nights, shoulders stiff from hours chained to the same unfinished panel. Your stylus hovered over the glowing screen when the faintest breath — not yours — brushed the back of your neck.

You froze. Your pulse ricocheted into your throat. Slowly, you pushed your chair back until the wheels squeaked against the floorboards.

There. In the far corner by your battered bookshelf — a man, half-draped in the lamp’s flickering shadow. Tall, broad-shouldered, clad in black from throat to boots. Unfamiliar, yet your gut twisted with a terrifying recognition.

A fan? A stalker? A thief? Your mind clawed for logic, but your voice failed when your eyes found his face. It was as if someone had carved him straight from your imagination and then let him bleed into your reality — eyes too sharp, too deep, a mouth that looked like it had forgotten how to smile but hadn’t forgotten how to sneer.

He stared at you like you were a riddle he’d never agreed to solve.

“Who—” Your voice cracked, too high to sound brave. You brandished the stylus like it might fire a bullet or at least buy you a few seconds to breathe. “Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?”

He flinched — just a flicker — as if your fear startled him too. His eyes darted across the chaos of your walls: sketches, sticky notes, draft pages stamped with his name on every line. He looked like he was piecing himself together from scraps he didn’t remember leaving behind.

He opened his mouth. Closed it. A faint scoff escaped, half a laugh, half a curse. He looked furious that he couldn’t make sense of any of this.

“I should ask you that,” he rasped. His voice was rough velvet, scratching your name straight out of your bones even though he didn’t know it yet. “What is this place? Where am I? And—” He stepped forward, slow and deliberate, like testing the floor before lunging. “Who the hell are you supposed to be?”

You stumbled backward, spine slamming the edge of your desk. Pain cut through your panic, anchoring you just enough to register the impossible: this man shouldn’t exist. He was lines on a page, a snarl in speech bubbles, a villain you’d birthed out of ink and exhaustion at three a.m. — not this living thing breathing your air, glaring you down like you were the monster.

Your heart rattled so hard your chest hurt. Now that you really saw him — the razor cut of his eyes, the sharp line of his jaw, the way his dark hair fell messily over his brow exactly as you’d drawn it a thousand times — the truth knocked the breath from your lungs.

You knew this face better than your own.

You had sketched it laughing cruelly, smirking behind a gun, spitting threats through bloodied teeth.

“Wonwoo…” you breathed. It slipped out raw, like a prayer you regretted the second you said it.

His brow twitched — confusion flaring so violently it made his hands clench at his sides.

“You know me?” His voice dropped softer now, but it was softer the way a blade is soft just before it bites.

“You—” you gasped, pointing a trembling finger at him as if that alone could keep him back. “You’re Jeon Wonwoo. You’re not real— I made you. You’re—”

He closed the gap in two strides. The movement made your stomach twist; it was too smooth, too quiet — exactly the way you’d always written him: a beautiful predator who never missed his mark.

“Stop.” His snarl was barely controlled. “How do you know my name? How do you know me?” His eyes darted past you — catching the glow of your computer screen, the pinned sketches around your walls. His own face stared back at him in half-finished scowls and ghost-smiles.

The way he looked at it all — raw confusion, rising fury, a storm brewing just under skin — terrified you more than his threat ever could.

“Answer me.” His voice knifed through the air. He lunged before you could flinch, grabbing your wrist so hard your stylus slipped from your fingers and clattered to the floor. He yanked you closer until you could feel his breath and the tremor in his chest where it touched yours.

“Tell me the truth,” he hissed, each word scraping against your cheek. “What is this place? Where am I?”

You both stared at each other then — creator and creation, but neither fully aware yet that the line between you had just shattered.

His grip on your wrist tightened, then slid up to fist the collar of your worn T-shirt. You squeaked out a half-word — a plea or a protest, you didn’t even know — but he yanked you closer, so close you could see the way his pupils flickered and shrank, anger and confusion devouring each other in endless loops.

“Speak!” he barked, his breath hot against your cheek, trembling with something too human for the monster you’d created in ink and pain. “Why is my face everywhere? Why do you know my name? What did you do to me?”

Your hands scrambled at his forearm, your fingers digging into solid muscle that felt far too real under your palms. His strength was terrifying — not superhuman, but human enough to bruise you, break you. Yet your eyes, wide and glassy, locked on his with a quiet that made his throat seize up.

You didn’t look like his victims did. You weren’t begging for mercy — not exactly.

You looked at him like you knew him. Like you pitied him. Like you were seconds from confessing something so heavy it might crush you both right there on your cluttered floor. And that look twisted behind his ribs, scraping at something raw he didn’t have a name for. It made him angrier than any lie ever could.

“STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!” His snarl split the stale air, rattling the lamp and your bones alike. In a blind lash of frustration, he shoved you backward.

You hit the floor hard — a dull, shocking thud — and the breath punched out of your lungs. For a heartbeat, the ceiling blurred above you as you sucked in air like a drowning thing.

Above you, he staggered back, both hands raking through his hair so hard you thought he might rip it out by the roots. His chest heaved as he spun in a frantic circle, eyes snatching at every scrap of himself plastered on your walls — young, old, laughing, bleeding, always wrong but always him.

“Why…?!” His voice cracked like splitting ice. He slammed a fist into the drywall beside your pinned sketches, rattling a cascade of thumbtacks to the floor. “Why am I drawn?! Who am I?!”

He turned back toward you, but the snarl had broken. Beneath the fury, you could see it now — the terror, the desperate wanting to understand. Something no amount of hate mail or final drafts had ever prepared you to face in flesh and bone.

You lay there, chest hitching. But before you could shape even a single word— before he could hear anything from you, his eyes flickered — the anger flickered — and something inside him cracked like a mirror catching the sun.

Wonwoo staggered back a step, pupils blown wide and then drifting somewhere you couldn’t reach. Not here. Not with you. Somewhere deeper.

He blinked once. Twice.

The harsh yellow of your desk lamp flickered into a single dusty sunbeam slicing through grimy library windows. The slap of your heartbeat faded under the dry hush of turning pages and a far-off cough from the lone librarian.

His fists clenched around something soft — thin paper under his knuckles, the cover folding where his nails bit too deep. The Little Prince lay splayed across his knees, right where it had been before he’d vanished. Page 24, the fox waiting patiently in its ink lines.

His chest rose in a shudder. He twisted in his old wooden chair, eyes searching the cracked marble floor, the tall shelves, the drifting motes of dust caught in afternoon light. No blood. No trembling voice whispering secrets he couldn’t bear. No walls covered in his stolen face.

Just books. Just silence. Just him — and the tremor in his ribs that insisted he was real enough to fear his own heartbeat.

Wonwoo pressed a palm flat over his chest, feeling that traitorous pulse hammer against his skin.

“...What the hell…?” he murmured to no one but the echoes, voice hoarse, softer than the rustle of pages.

He didn’t know if he’d dreamed you — or if, for a moment, he’d woken up from the lie he’d always believed was his only truth.

He didn’t know at all.

*

It had happened a month before you ever dared to draw him bleeding into the snow.

You told yourself it was stress — that infamous “artist’s madness” everyone joked about when deadlines crawled into your dreams and stole your sleep. You’d laughed about it once. Maybe you should’ve laughed harder while you still could.

Because the first time you saw him — standing solid in your apartment, warm breath ghosting over your cheek, eyes glinting with a predator’s confusion — you realized madness was too gentle a word.

The grip of his hand on your wrist. The rasp of his voice demanding truths you couldn’t give. The faint heat of his forearm brushing yours when he leaned too close. None of it was paper or ink or your exhausted brain short-circuiting after too many all-nighters.

He was too human to ignore.

You went to the psychiatrist the next day, trembling so badly you spilled water down your chin when they offered you a paper cup. You told them — haltingly — that you were seeing things. That you’d made a monster and now he wouldn’t stay on the page.

They asked if you heard voices.

You said yes — his.

They scribbled notes you couldn’t read.

They gave you pills.

This will help with the hallucinations, they promised, their smile stretching too wide. Take them before bed. Sleep will help you separate fiction from reality.

But sleep didn’t save you.

Because sometime later — maybe days, maybe weeks (you’d stopped counting) — Wonwoo came back. Not with confusion this time, but with a polished gun clenched in his steady hand. Just like you’d written him. Just like you’d drawn him a hundred times, perfect and terrifying.

He cornered you in your kitchen, stainless steel cold under your back, barrel kissing your temple while his eyes searched you like an unsolvable riddle.

“Who am I really?” he hissed, every word precise and soft, the way you’d loved scripting his lines. “What did you do to me? Why do I exist like this?”

You could barely choke out an answer. It wasn’t the gun that broke you — it was the way his desperation bled through the barrel and sank into your bones.

It drove you mad.

He ate your sleep. He gnawed at your sanity, your drafts, your trust in your own hands. It was like watching your mind rot from the inside out — and you had made him this way.

So you did the only thing left that made sense to your splintering mind: you decided to kill him first.

Hansol would help you. Hansol, your poor righteous hero who had always deserved to bury the monster who made him suffer. It wasn’t the plot you’d started with — no, Wonwoo had been just another chess piece to deepen Hansol’s tragedy — but readers had twisted him into something you couldn’t control anymore. Something they worshipped more than the hero.

So you locked yourself away for three nights that blurred into one long, jagged heartbeat. You didn’t let Soonyoung touch a single panel. You didn’t sleep. You didn’t eat. You just drew — every drop of your fear and rage bleeding through your pen until the final stroke sealed your freedom.

Two stabs in the chest. Snow blooming red. A villain dying alone.

You uploaded the episode before your own hands could betray you. Before your fear could beg you to save him again.

And when the server confirmed the update, when Soonyoung’s panicked messages blinked unanswered on your phone, you sank to the floor under your desk and laughed — raw, exhausted, almost hysterical.

You had finally killed him.

You were free.

*

You woke up from a thin, drugged sleep — the kind where dreams and nightmares bleed into each other, where you half-believed you’d finally banished him for good.

But the scream that dragged you awake wasn’t yours.

At first, you thought it was just the pipes moaning through the walls, or maybe your own throat raw from nights spent mumbling his name like a curse. But then you heard it again — a choked, guttural rasp coming from your kitchen.

Your feet hit the cold floor before your brain caught up. You stumbled through the half-lit apartment, pills and papers crunching under your soles.

And then you saw him.

Jeon Wonwoo, sprawled in a mess of dark, glossy blood against your cabinet doors. Pale skin splotched crimson, shirt clinging wet to the ragged wounds carved right where your stylus had last touched the tablet: two deep stabs in his chest, red soaking the linoleum beneath him like spilled ink.

His eyes fluttered up at you — glassy, struggling to focus. But they were still his eyes: sharp even dulled by agony, beautiful even in ruin.

Your mouth opened, but your voice cracked like an old record.

“Oh my god, Is it real?” you whispered, the question trembling from your lips before you could stop it. You sank to your knees, heedless of the blood soaking into your sweatpants.

He coughed, a wet, rattling sound that made your skin crawl. His fingers twitched weakly, groping at the floor until they found the hem of your shirt — grasped it like a lifeline.

“Help me…” he rasped, the syllables bubbling through the blood at the corner of his mouth. His eyes locked on yours — not cruel now, not mocking. Just a man begging, like he’d never begged for anything before. “Save me. Please.”

And you — fool, creator, god trembling before your own monster — you pressed your shaking hands over the wounds you had given him. You felt the heat of his blood seep through your fingers, felt the heartbeat stuttering beneath your palms.

Your tears dripped onto his cheek, mixing with sweat and red and the last thread of whatever sanity you still had.

“I killed you,” you whispered, voice breaking. “I killed you — why are you still here?”

Wonwoo’s lips parted, but no words came out — only a shuddering exhale that smelled of iron and loss. His grip on your shirt tightened, a pitiful strength for a man who once slit throats without flinching. Now he clung to you as if you were the only thing left tethering him to breath, to pain, to existing.

“Don’t… don’t let me go,” he gasped, the plea breaking apart in his throat. A violent tremor coursed through him, blood bubbling between your fingers as he tried to hold himself together by sheer will. His eyes searched yours, desperate and terrified — the look of a man meeting the void and wanting anything but its cold mercy.

You choked on a sob so raw it burned your lungs. This was wrong. This was so wrong. He was your nightmare, your villain — you had sculpted every cruel smirk, every crime, every unredeemable sin. He deserved this ending. You had given him this ending.

So why did it hurt like you were killing him again?

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—” You pressed harder, your hands slick with him, your voice shaking apart with each word. “You weren’t supposed to suffer this long, Wonwoo, you weren’t—”

His eyes rolled back for a second and you panicked, slapping his cheek lightly, your tears splattering on his ashen face. Your vision blurred. Your heartbeat pounded against the cage of your ribs like it would tear free to keep him alive if you failed.

You grabbed his clammy face between your shaking hands and pressed your forehead to his, breath mingling with the scent of metal and sweat and the ink of your own sins.

“I’ll fix it, Wonwoo. I swear to God, I’ll fix it. Just stay.”

Somewhere deep in him, past the pain, the violence, the villainy, you felt him believe you — just for a heartbeat. His eyes slipped shut, his lips moving in a ghost of a word you almost didn’t catch.

“...please.”

It was enough to break you. It was enough to make you crawl through hell again — for him, your monster, your fault, your unfinished prayer.

You remembered.

The stranger at his funeral — the faceless silhouette standing under the gray rain while everyone else turned away. You hadn’t named him, hadn’t given him lines, hadn’t even told Soonyoung who he was supposed to be. He was just there — a margin in the story, a whisper you’d meant to revisit but never did.

The Margin.

Your heart stuttered with something like hope — foolish, desperate hope — as you cradled Wonwoo’s head against your chest, your fingers trembling in his hair sticky with sweat.

Maybe they could help. Maybe the forgotten ones could fix what you broke.

With one arm wrapped around Wonwoo’s shaking shoulders, you fumbled for your laptop on the blood-slicked floor. Your palm left crimson smears across the touchpad as you dragged up your hidden folder — the one you never showed Soonyoung or the publisher. Drafts. Abandoned arcs. Ghosts with names you never spoke aloud.

You clicked The Margin.

The folder flickered open: dozens of half-finished files, lines of dialogue that led nowhere, silhouettes that waited to be drawn. Unused, unseen, but breathing in the dark corners of your mind.

You whispered like a prayer to the screen, to the hidden codes, to the characters you’d once left behind:

“Help me… please, help me save him…”

Wonwoo stirred in your lap, groaning weakly, blood pooling warmer under your thighs. His hand twitched near the laptop’s edge, as if even dying he was tethered to the story that birthed him.

And then — the cursor froze.

The screen dimmed.

A hiss of static crawled up your spine.

The light in your apartment flickered, once, twice — then darkness swallowed everything. Not the gentle dark of a power outage — but a pulling, as if the shadows under your bed had grown teeth and wanted you back.

Your breath caught in your throat. You clutched Wonwoo tighter as the chill pressed into your skin, dragging at your consciousness like greedy hands. The laptop fan whirred one last time — then died.

And before your scream could escape, the world folded in on itself.

*

You wake slowly — not with a jolt, but like drifting up from deep water.

At first, you feel warmth against your cheek, the faint scent of wild grass, the sound of leaves whispering overhead. You blink your eyes open to a sky so wide and blue it makes your chest ache.

You’re lying in a clearing beneath a canopy of ancient trees. Sunlight filters through branches heavy with wind-chimes made from broken pens and paper scraps — your paper scraps, you realize with a jolt, words you once threw away now dancing above you like blessings.

Around you, winding stone paths lead to mismatched wooden bookshelves, some leaning sideways under the weight of dusty tomes, others half-swallowed by flowering vines. Low stone benches circle each shelf like tiny reading shrines. It feels like a park built from every soft daydream you’ve ever had about books and second chances.

And the people—

Your breath hitches.

Scattered in the grass and along the benches, you see them: men and women, young and old, draped in half-familiar clothes. A girl in a yellow raincoat you never finished writing a storm for. A man with an eyepatch, reading aloud to a group of children that never made it past your old notebook margin. A boy with wild hair and a grin so sharp it cuts through your memory — Seungkwan, your trickster, alive here like a rumor the world forgot.

They pause, one by one, as if sensing your heartbeat quicken. Heads lift from open pages. Eyes lock on you — not with blame, but a solemn recognition. The ones you abandoned, the ones you swore you’d come back for but never did.

And then you remember —

You sit up so fast the world spins. Next to you, half-cradled in the curve of your body, lies Wonwoo. His head rests against your thigh, dark hair sticking to a forehead slick with sweat. His chest rises and falls in shallow, trembling breaths — but he’s breathing. Still warm. Still real.

You brush his cheek with shaking fingers. His lashes flutter, but he doesn’t wake.

When you look up again, the characters are closer now. Forming a quiet circle. Some carry books — your books. Others hold old sketches, pages you thought you lost forever. One by one, they study you and the bleeding villain in your lap.

Seungkwan steps forward first. Mischief flickers in his eyes, but this time, it’s tempered by something older, wiser — the part of him you always imagined but never wrote down.

“Well, look who crawled back to the margins,” he says, voice a soft laugh that drifts through the leaves. He flicks a glance at Wonwoo and then back at you, tilting his head.

“You’ve brought him.”

He nods at Wonwoo — your monster, your contradiction, your bloodstained fox under the oak tree.

Around you, the others murmur like turning pages, some curious, some wary, all impossibly alive.

The garden hushes again, waiting for your answer — the answer that might heal the bruised stories still breathing between these pages, and the villain in your arms who was never just bad or good, but something painfully, beautifully human.

Your mouth opens, but no sound comes out — only the raw scrape of your breath fighting through disbelief.

Seungkwan watches you patiently, like a cat waiting to see if its prey will bolt or beg. Behind him, more of them drift closer through the rustling garden paths: half-finished dreams wearing your words like borrowed skin.

Your heart stutters when you see him — Joshua. Not the angel, not the saint you meant to finish someday, but the tired, gentle father you once scribbled lines for on a rainy bus ride. He stands a little apart from the others, a little sad around the eyes. A small girl clings to his trouser leg, peeking shyly at you from behind his knee — the daughter you never got to name.

Your lips form his name before you can stop yourself.

“Joshua…”

He smiles at you, soft and forgiving. It guts you more than anger ever could. He rests a protective hand on his daughter’s hair but doesn’t come closer. He just nods, as if to say: I knew you’d find your way here, eventually.

Your gaze skitters past him — and snags on a figure leaning against an old iron lamppost, arms crossed, a familiar smirk playing at his mouth.

Kim Mingyu.

The vice captain you made too reckless, too golden, too big-hearted for his own good. His letterman jacket is unzipped, wind tugging at his hair, just like in the final match scene you never wrote. He lifts two fingers in a lazy salute when he catches your stare, but there’s a bruise blossoming under his eye — the fight you’d planned but never finished.

And beside a shelf blooming with lilacs, half-shadowed, you spot him: Jihoon.

The wizard who once studied charms in a castle built of your childhood wonder. His robes are dusty, ink stains his fingers, and a battered spellbook dangles from his wrist. His gaze is sharp, calculating, but when your eyes meet, there’s a softness there too — the forgiveness of someone who understands how many drafts a miracle can take.

You sink back on your heels, your hands trembling where they cradle Wonwoo’s sweat-damp hair. He groans faintly in your lap, dragging you back to the sick reality of flesh and blood and consequence.

The characters wait. So many shades of you. So many pieces that were never just light or shadow — always both, always alive in the margins.

You swallow, voice barely more than a cracked whisper.

“I don’t… I don’t understand. Why are you all here? Why is he—” you look down at Wonwoo, at the monster turned man, at your fear made helpless in your arms — “Why is he still bleeding? I killed him. I killed him.”

Seungkwan clicks his tongue, crouching so close his grin brushes your panic like a knife.

“No, darling. You wrote an end. That’s not the same as killing.”

Behind him, Joshua’s daughter giggles softly, clutching a flower she’s plucked from the grass. Mingyu tips his head back to watch the clouds drift like torn paper across the sky. Jihoon flips open his spellbook, murmuring under his breath — perhaps already plotting a charm to mend what you’ve broken.

Hansol’s eyes gleam as he leans in, nose almost touching yours.

“This place — the Margin — is where the unfinished things wait. Good, bad, broken, hopeful. Us. You. Him.” He flicks a glance at Wonwoo. “You gave him too much of yourself to truly die. You stitched kindness into his cruelty. You doubted him, and you loved him. And now — here he is. Asking you to decide which part of him gets to live.”

The wind stirs the pages on every shelf, like a thousand heartbeats holding their breath.

“Tell us, author…” Seungkwan purrs, voice warm and deadly all at once.

“Will you keep running from your monsters — or will you set them free?”

Wonwoo’s breath stirs weakly against your thigh, then catches on a soft, pained laugh. His eyelids flutter — heavy, reluctant — until they crack open enough to find you, blurry and bright and trembling above him.

His fingers curl in the fabric of your pants, gripping just enough to anchor him to something warm. His lips twitch into a shape that almost resembles a smile, ruined by a tremor of agony.

“Am I…” He coughs, the sound tearing at your chest. His voice is hoarse, but you can hear the ghost of that cruel lilt that once made your readers flinch — twisted now into something childishly fragile.

“Am I in heaven?” He drags in a ragged breath, eyes skimming the sun-dappled leaves above, the soft sway of books and petals drifting on the wind. The other characters — your half-forgotten children — watch him with an odd, quiet sorrow, like old ghosts paying respect.

“Do I… even deserve it?”

Your throat clamps shut around a sob. You want to say yes. You want to say no. You want to scream that this place is not heaven — it’s your fault, your punishment, your miracle.

So you do the only thing your broken creator’s heart can manage: You cradle his face in both palms, pressing your forehead to his. The warmth of him sears your tears clean.

Around you, the Margin seems to breathe — the other characters watching, waiting, their layered stories rustling through the trees like wind through an orchard of second chances.

And in your arms, your monster — your mercy — bleeds and breathes, daring you to decide what you truly believe in his endings.

*

You woke up with a dull ache pounding behind your eyes, the kind that made the ceiling blur and tilt before settling back into focus.

For a breathless moment, you didn’t dare move. You lay there, half-tangled in crisp linen sheets that smelled faintly of old wood and some expensive soap you’d never buy for yourself. A massive window spilled soft morning light across polished floors. Heavy curtains, carved panels — all too grand to be yours.

Your mind reeled, scrambling for something solid. The last thing you remembered was the Margin with Wonwoo.

Your eyes flew open. Wonwoo. Where was he? Was he still bleeding? Still clawing at his own existence?

You pushed yourself upright too fast, the world spinning so viciously you nearly collapsed back onto the pillows.

And then —

“Excuse me…”

The gentle voice startled you. A woman, perhaps in her forties, stood just inside the doorway. She bowed her head politely, her hands folded at her apron front. The soft lines around her eyes crinkled when she offered you a careful smile.

“I’m Mrs. Park,” she said, in a tone so calm it only made your heartbeat worse. “I’ll be the one to serve you while you’re staying here. At Jeon’s house.”

Jeon’s…

The words hit you like ice down your spine. You stared at her, your lips parting, mind skimming frantically through old drafts, background notes, family trees only you ever cared about.

Park… Hyungrim.

Daughter of Jung Seo — Wonwoo’s most loyal servant. A side character you’d named in a margin note, half-intending to give her a line or two someday.

Your gaze flicked from her kind eyes to the unfamiliar grandeur pressing in from every wall. The high ceiling, the carved beams, the muted luxury that felt exactly — horribly — right.

You were in Wonwoo’s world. Inside the fiction. Inside him.

“Park Hyungrim…” you whispered her name aloud, more to prove you hadn’t lost your mind again.

She beamed, seemingly pleased. “Ah, so you do know me, Miss. Master Jeon will be pleased you’re awake. He instructed us not to disturb you until you’d rested properly.”

You didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Master Jeon. So polite, so proper — as if he hadn’t once pressed you to the floor with blood on his hands and yours.

You swallowed hard, voice a bare breath. “Where is he?”

Mrs. Park’s smile softened into something almost maternal. “Master Jeon is waiting for you in the study. He said you’d have much to discuss.”

And for the first time since you’d opened your eyes, your pounding head went quiet — replaced by a single, echoing thought that felt both terrifying and inevitable. You were in his world now. And there would be no running from the ending you owed him.

“How… how did I get here?” you croaked out, your voice still raw from sleep and disbelief. You clutched the blanket tighter around your waist, needing something — anything — to anchor you to the fact that this wasn’t another fever dream.

Mrs. Park stepped a little closer, lowering her voice as if sharing an intimate secret. “Master Wonwoo and you were found outside the main gate early this morning. It startled the entire household. Master said you… you saved him.”

Your heart stuttered painfully in your chest. Outside the gate. The Margin. The promise to find the end — did it fling you straight into the story’s spine?

“He was injured,” you whispered, your throat closing around the memory. Blood on your hands, his broken plea: Save me.

“Yes,” Mrs. Park nodded, her eyes shadowing with concern. “Badly hurt. But the doctor came at once. He’s resting well now, stronger than any of us could have hoped.” She hesitated, searching your face as if weighing how much truth to spill. “He insisted no one disturb you. He sat by your bed all night.”

You felt the floor tilt again, but this time it wasn’t the headache — it was the sheer absurd tenderness of it. Your villain, who once threatened to gut you like one of his victims, had guarded your sleep as if you were the fragile thing.

Your lips trembled around the question that slipped free despite yourself. “Why… why did he say I saved him?”

Mrs. Park tilted her head, confusion and gentle fondness mingling in her expression. “Perhaps, Miss… because for Master Jeon, being alive at all — that is your doing, isn’t it?”

You laughed then, an exhausted, broken sound that tasted too close to tears. Because of course. It always came back to you. His pain. His breath. His mercy — or lack of it — all crafted by your hand.

And now you were here. Trapped inside the fiction you’d stitched together.

And somewhere beyond this room, Jeon Wonwoo — the man you’d written to be both monster and tragedy — was awake, waiting, and wanting answers only you could give.

Mrs. Park bowed politely, stepping back to the door. “When you’re ready, Miss… the study is just down the corridor. Master Jeon is waiting for you.”

You padded barefoot down the hallway, trailing your fingertips along the walls — smooth polished wood, the carved crown moulding exactly as you’d drawn it, the embroidered runner soft beneath your feet. It all looked like your story, but living in it turned out to be a maze: corridors twisted into each other, doors you never bothered detailing led to entire wings you’d never planned.

You cursed under your breath when another turn ended in a dead end lined with framed calligraphy and a cold window staring at the courtyard.

“Great,” you muttered, pressing your palm to your forehead. God of this world, but can’t find the villain’s study to save your life.

Then behind you — low, rough, and unmistakable — came the sound of someone clearing their throat.

You spun so fast you nearly slipped on the rug.

Wonwoo stood half-shadowed at the intersection of the hall, leaning more heavily on the wall than he probably wanted you to see. His torso was tightly bandaged under an open black shirt that hung loose on his broad frame, fabric brushing his hips but baring the bruises you’d put there yourself.

His eyes — your undoing every time — locked onto yours, hungry for answers, flickering with relief and raw confusion.

“You’re hopeless,” he rasped, and the corner of his mouth twitched, like he was half-amused, half-pained. He pushed himself upright and nodded his head toward a door just behind him. “You walked past my study twice already.”

You opened your mouth, found nothing useful to say, and snapped it shut again.

Wonwoo’s eyes dragged over you slowly, taking in your disheveled hair, your wide stare, the tremor in your hands. His voice dropped, rough but softer now — maybe for you, maybe for himself.

“Come here. Before you get lost again.”

*

You sank deeper into the cushions, the plush velvet swallowing your shoulders while you watched him — Jeon Wonwoo, your beautiful nightmare — fuss with the buttons of a shirt that didn’t quite hide the bruises or the faint wince every time he moved.

He pulled the old corkboard closer, the squeak of the wheels dragging over the marble floor cutting through the heavy quiet.

Gone were the grainy photographs you’d pinned there for him — Hansol, his mark; that lover he’d used for leverage; the detective’s blurry license plate.

Now only jagged notes scrawled in black marker covered it. The Margin. Source Stream. Memory Loops. Control Points.

Wonwoo faced the board, but his eyes flicked to you in the glass reflection.

“You promised me an ending,” he said, voice calm, but the undercurrent rippled with a threat you couldn’t name. “That’s why we’re back.”

You flinched. Back. Not we’re home. Just back.

“You’re back,” you corrected under your breath, but he heard you, of course. He always heard everything.

Wonwoo’s fingers ghosted over the biggest word in the middle — MARGIN — underlined twice.

He spoke slowly, almost carefully, like testing the edges of a blade.

“We’re connected through The Margin. Because that’s where you pull it all from. The scraps. The lives you half-built. The truths you left unfinished — including me.”

His knuckles tapped the board once, too sharp, too close to anger.

“You sound smart,” you mumbled before you could stop yourself. Regret bloomed immediately.

But instead of snapping, Wonwoo let out a low, humorless laugh — one you’d written for him a hundred times, now bleeding through real lips.

“You made me smart,” he said simply. Then he turned, pinning you to the couch with that impossible, too-human stare.

“Now, creator — Y/n — tell me honestly.” His jaw flexed, the words grinding out like stone.

“What was the goal? Writing me.” 

Your mouth was dry. He waited, breathing ragged in the hush.

In that moment, he looked nothing like the neat lines on your tablet screen — just a man who realized he’d been caged in ink and was clawing for a door.

Your voice cracked at the edges — too much truth pressing out all at once, pushing past the fragile dam of guilt you’d built every time you put your pen down.

“You weren’t supposed to cross both worlds,” you said again, as if saying it twice might shrink the horror of it.

Wonwoo, standing by the board, went still. One hand flexed at his side, restless and half-curled like he wasn’t sure whether to reach for you or for your throat.

“But you…” Your breath hitched. Your eyes blurred at the memory — your dingy apartment lit by the flicker of your desk lamp, your own wrists bruised where he’d pinned you. His voice, a low growl in the dark: Tell me who I am.

“I thought it was all a dream,” you confessed, voice no louder than the rustle of papers drifting behind him. “You came to my place. You threatened me. You aimed a gun at my head. You haunted me. And I—”

You swallowed, shame sour on your tongue. “I thought I was crazy.”

Wonwoo’s jaw twitched, but his eyes didn’t leave yours. When he spoke, his tone was stripped bare of any monster’s snarl — only weary certainty: You’d written him too deep. You’d made him want more.

“That night,” you whispered, voice trembling as you looked at the neat bandage peeking from his open collar, “when I realized I’d lost control of you, I decided your end. I had to finish you — I had to end it…”

He tilted his head, eyes dark and searching, as if reading the unwritten pages still hiding behind your ribs.

“You always planned to kill me, didn’t you?” His tone was half-accusation, half plea.

“No — I never tried to kill you,” you blurted out, voice cracking as your hands clenched uselessly in your lap. “You were… you were there for Hansol. I needed you, Wonwoo. I needed you to break him, to build him, to—”

“But you were about to kill me, Y/n!”

Your name in his mouth tasted like rust and accusation, each syllable bitten off like he resented having to say it at all.

“Because you— you started to fight for your life!” you cried, the confession tumbling out raw. “You weren’t supposed to want it that badly. It scared me!”

His laugh came out sharp, cracked at the edges. “I scared you?”

There was something so small and so vicious in his eyes, the thing you’d written into him — a monster, but too human to accept that word quietly.

“You never did,” you whispered, shoulders sagging. “Not until that.”

A tense silence pooled between you. Wonwoo’s tongue darted to the corner of his lip, catching a drop of blood from where he’d bitten it. He looked at you like he might devour you or collapse at your feet — and he hated both options.

Then, in a sudden, tired gesture, he turned away, palm flattening on the board so hard the paper pinned beneath it crumpled.

“Enough. Let’s talk again tomorrow,” he said lowly, not looking back. 

You rose from the couch on unsteady legs, the taste of your name still burning on his tongue long after you slipped from the study’s doorway.

*

You woke up to the faint clink of porcelain and the soft rustle of fabric. Park Hyungrim stood by your bed, her hands folded politely in front of her apron as if she hadn’t just arranged half your breakfast and an entire boutique in your room.

“Good morning, Miss,” she said with a slight bow. Her voice was calm, gentle — the way you’d scripted her mother, Jung Seo, to soothe the monsters that haunted Wonwoo’s halls. Now the daughter did the same, but for you instead.

On your nightstand: toast still warm, a delicate cup of tea, fresh fruit you hadn’t seen since your last attempt at healthy living.

And beside your bed, servants flitted in and out, arranging a small forest of dresses, blouses, skirts, even shoes you’d never pick for yourself.

“Master Wonwoo had these prepared,” Hyungrim explained, her tone betraying neither judgment nor curiosity. “He also wishes for me to show you around the house once you’re ready.”

You sat up slowly, blinking at a cream silk blouse hanging from a carved oak rack — your reflection caught in the brass mirror behind it, hair a mess, hoodie collar stretched, sweatpants wrinkled at the knee.

Your life at home: instant ramen, half-finished scripts, coffee stains. This life now: gold-thread curtains, high windows, an entire wardrobe you never asked for.

A hollow laugh slipped past your lips before you could swallow it.

You made him — made all this — and now he wants to give you a tour like some polite landlord showing a clueless tenant around her own mind.

“Miss?” Hyungrim asked softly, eyes kind but too observant for comfort.

You dragged your eyes from the silk and forced a smile.

“Okay. I’ll get ready.”

And as you ran your fingers over fine cotton and delicate lace, one thought drummed under your ribs:

He’s more than what I wrote. And maybe… so is this world.

Hyungrim’s footsteps were soft but unhesitating on the polished floors, her voice steady as she guided you past rooms you half-recognized from your sketches and half-felt for the first time with your own skin.

Your mind, though, barely clung to her words about family portraits, study halls, and the greenhouse behind the east wing.

Instead, your thoughts drifted down familiar back alleys and precinct corridors in another part of this world — the threads you’d woven so carelessly late at night and left dangling because life, or heartbreak, or deadlines got in the way.

Hansol. Your reckless police officer hero who was more fists than caution tape, always coming home bruised but never beaten.

Dokyeom. Bright-eyed chief of Team 3, all warmth until he slipped on gloves. Sihye. Your breath caught on that name. Your sister’s eyes, your sister’s laugh — borrowed, resurrected as a gentle doctor tending to broken bones and broken men in a city that didn’t deserve her softness. 

You snapped back when Hyungrim stopped at the main doors, bowing lightly.

“Miss?”

You turned to her, your chest so tight it made your voice come out raw.

“Hyungrim, I need to go into town.”

Hyungrim didn’t flinch. She only dipped her head again — your unwavering servant in every version of this story.

“Yes, Master Wonwoo mentioned you might wish to explore. He has arranged a car and driver for your comfort and safety.”

You half-laughed, half-scoffed, words spilling fast. “But I need cash, Hyungrim — real money.”

Hyungrim nodded as if you’d asked for tea instead of freedom.

“I’ll prepare your bag immediately, Miss. Please wait here a moment.”

And as you stood by the carved doors of the Jeon estate — your own palace, your own cage — you wondered if your characters would even want to see you.

After all, what did you ever give them but unfinished endings and borrowed hope?

*

Wonwoo stepped out of the glass-walled dining lounge just as the midday sun dipped behind passing clouds, softening the sharp lines of the towering skyline that hemmed his empire in steel and secrets. He slipped on his sunglasses, ignoring the bowing host trailing behind him with murmured thanks.

Jun — his right hand since VEIN’s inception — matched his pace easily, a discreet file tucked under one arm and a subtle bulge of a sidearm under his jacket.

“Mr. Jeon,” Jun began as they passed the marble lobby’s silent fountains. “The board is satisfied with your agreement. The Ministry liaison will handle the new shipment from Busan.”

Wonwoo gave a curt nod, mind only half on the logistics of memory chip couriers and clinic expansions. He was already sifting through the next puzzle: you. His unexpected, stubborn guest still tucked away under his roof like a secret he couldn’t burn.

A discreet vibration against his palm drew him back — Jun handed over a slim phone. He flicked through the latest security update: your breakfast, your walk with Hyungrim, your request for money — and now, a note that you’d left in a black sedan headed toward the old river district.

“Curious little god,” he murmured to himself. What are you digging for this time?

Wonwoo’s eyes found Hansol instantly. Even in the gentle bustle of lunch hour crowds, Hansol looked like tension made flesh: clean blazer, faint holster imprint under the left arm, a restless glint that had never dulled despite his disgrace. A woman walked beside him, slim in a pale coat — Sihye, the doctor. Wonwoo’s jaw tensed around a crooked half-smile. You always gave him someone good to protect. Even if he had to bleed for it.

“That’s Officer Choi,” Jun repeated, voice low. “He… hasn’t given up, sir.”

Wonwoo adjusted his cuffs, then let his gaze linger on Hansol’s silhouette in the crowd.

“He was never written to give up,” he said simply — almost fond, almost pitying — before slipping into the waiting car, doors thudding shut like the click of a rifle bolt behind him.

The engine purred alive. Through the tinted window, Wonwoo allowed himself one more glance at the stubborn detective you loved so much — the loyal hound you’d set on his trail long before he himself knew he deserved to be hunted.

He closed his eyes as the city slid by. The day Wonwoo first felt the fracture in his own mind was the day he named his kingdom: VEIN — an unassuming biotech front woven tightly with a network of data brokers, black market pharma, and discreet clinics for the desperate rich and the dangerous sick. A perfect name, he thought. A lifeline and a chokehold.

He’d once believed every ambition in him was his own: the sleepless nights in overseas libraries, the charm he sharpened at law school roundtables, the hands he dirtied in Seoul’s neon alleys — all stepping stones for a man who wanted power to flow through him like blood through a vein.

But then there was that cop.

A routine nuisance at first — a mere local detective trying to pry open VEIN’s clinic back doors with cheap warrants and moral righteousness. A flick of Wonwoo’s finger could have erased him. One bullet, one whisper to a debt shark. Simple.

Yet he didn’t.

Instead, Wonwoo found himself sparring with the man, baiting him into dead ends, feeding him crumbs of false evidence, watching the frustration carve lines into the officer’s youthful face.

Choi Hansol. Young, tireless, irritatingly incorruptible. Wonwoo could have ended him a dozen times. But he didn’t. He didn’t even want to.

Instead, he played.

He toyed with the righteous dog long past reason, sabotaging raids only to leak hints later. He twisted Hansol’s life just enough to keep him close — but never close enough to break free.

And the strangest part? It made no sense. Wonwoo was never so indulgent. Never so sentimental. Never so careless. And yet, a hunger for this dance dug itself into his marrow, whispering “more.”

So when he first breached the boundary — stumbled through the shadow between his world and yours — he found the truth scrawled across an old sketch in your apartment. He was written that way. The ambition. The hunger. The odd fascination with a cop he should hate. The compulsive mercy that made no sense for a man like him.

He wasn’t a king at all. Just a creature on strings — greed stitched in by your pen, compassion dripped in when you were feeling soft.

VEIN had never been his alone. It was a monster’s dream borrowed from your sleepless nights. And every time Hansol’s stubborn eyes flashed with defiance, Wonwoo saw not just an enemy — but your favorite blade.

Jun, strapped in the front beside the driver, spoke with the hesitant tone he reserved for anything concerning you.

“Sir… it seems your guest has caused a scene.”

Wonwoo didn’t bother looking up from the report file in his lap.

“Main station confirmed: she attacked someone. They’re holding her for questioning.”

Wonwoo shut the folder gently. The slap of paper closing made Jun flinch more than any shout would have. Wonwoo’s mouth curled — but not into a smile. A cruel twist, more irritation than amusement.

“Drive to the station. Now.”

He leaned his head back against the seat, jaw tensing until it ached. Outside the tinted window, the river glittered in the distance — the same place where he first tested how far your invisible leash would stretch.

Now you were tangled in your own plot and Wonwoo wondered if you could survive him.

Wonwoo’s shoes clicked on the station’s cold tile floor, each step an echo loud enough to hush the low murmur of busy officers. Jun shadowed him, silent and sharp-eyed.

He didn’t bother greeting Hansol — only let his gaze sweep the scene: you, a mess of stubborn defiance and trembling wrists, seated across a metal table; Hansol and that same woman standing guard like a mismatched pair of guardian angels.

Wonwoo’s voice cut the tension like a scalpel.

“She’s my guest. My people will take care of this.”

Hansol stood immediately, his chair scraping back so hard it nearly toppled.

“This is a police station, Jeon. We do things under policy. She stays until this is settled properly.”

Wonwoo’s smirk was an insult and a promise in one curve of his mouth. He didn’t even spare Hansol a full glance — eyes flicking instead to you, assessing: your raw knuckles, your bitten lip, the manic shine barely hidden under that exhausted guilt.

“My person,” Wonwoo enunciated slowly, “will have it settled. Officer Choi.”

Hansol bristled, heat climbing his throat. The other officer — some senior detective — stepped in quickly, a hand on Hansol’s arm, voice placating:

“Hansol. Let it go. Sir Jeon, we’ll discuss this with your lawyer. Please have her stand up.”

You didn’t move. You stared at the floor — at the faint stain of your own drama playing out like spilled ink. But Hansol’s voice broke that moment of retreat. “She attacked Sihye!” His voice cracked.

Wonwoo’s steps were unhurried as he guided you out of the suffocating air of the station. Eyes darting for threats that didn’t dare appear while Wonwoo’s presence darkened the exit like a stormcloud.

Outside, the sun was sharp, the street too ordinary for the mess you’d caused inside.

But Hansol followed. Of course he did. Hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders tight with barely caged defiance. He barked past you, straight to the man you’d written as his enemy.

“Are you his girlfriend?” His eyes cut to you, unblinking. “Do you know what he does?”

Wonwoo didn’t stop walking until he did — a single pivot on his heel, the sudden stillness more violent than any blow. The grin was small but lethal, a blade turned politely outward.

“You should know when to close your mouth, Officer Choi. I taught you plenty, didn’t I?” His head tilted slightly, an animal’s warning.

You hovered wordless by Wonwoo’s shoulder, the only sound of your quickened breathing. When Hansol stepped closer, you instinctively shrank behind Wonwoo’s broad back. Ironic — how the hero you’d made to save others now looked at you like you were a mistake, and the villain you’d built to ruin lives shielded you like a wall.

Hansol’s eyes flicked down to your shoes, up to the faint bruise near your collarbone. Each detail stoked the anger in his jawline.

“She doesn’t have an ID. No records, no prints — no one knows her. Another name to vanish under your rug, Jeon?”

At that, Wonwoo’s hand swept behind him, palm pressing against your hip to pull you closer into his shadow. A quiet, possessive gesture that made Hansol’s fists ball deep in his coat pockets.

“Let’s meet again — on real business, Officer Choi.” Wonwoo’s voice lowered into silk lined with iron. “Bring your gun next time. Maybe it’ll make a difference.”

He guided you toward the waiting black sedan, the tinted door swinging open as his driver slipped ahead to clear the path.

Behind you, Hansol’s voice cracked the air one last time, rough with something dangerously close to grief:

“I see she's yours, Jeon.”

Wonwoo didn’t answer. He only nudged you gently into the backseat — his monster’s promise warm at your shoulder, the door slamming shut between you and the world you’d written for him to devour.

He leaned one shoulder against your bedroom doorframe, arms folded loosely across his chest — looking more at home than you ever did, though this was technically your mind made real, your words given walls and floors and furniture.

“First day here and you already managed to get yourself locked up in a police station.”

His voice was deceptively calm, dark amusement simmering beneath the chill. He clicked his tongue, a small, mocking laugh escaping him. “You really don’t know how to live a life, do you?”

You sat stiffly on the edge of the bed, legs tucked under the unfamiliar nightgown Hyungrim had laid out for you. The lace collar scratched your collarbone — too pretty for the way your chest felt tight and raw.

“You weren’t supposed to find out so soon,” you muttered, eyes darting to the floor. “Or Sihye, or Hansol— I didn’t plan—”

He stepped inside, closing the door behind him with a soft click. “That’s your excuse for everything, isn’t it?”

You flinched as he stopped before you, close enough to see the faint bruise blooming along the line of his bandages, where your betrayal still lived in his flesh.

“Why did you hug her?” he asked, quieter now — not the villain’s voice, but something more human, more disappointed. “The doctor.”

You squeezed your fists in your lap, nails digging half-moons into your palms. “She shouldn’t have looked that much like her. I — I panicked.”

A silence fell between you, heavy with everything you never intended to write. Wonwoo crouched down, knees cracking softly. He looked up at you from beneath dark lashes, eyes sharp yet weary — a predator forced to carry its wounded prey.

And then — softer, almost too soft for your chest to bear. “Rest. You’ll need it. Tomorrow, you’ll tell me exactly how you plan to end this story.”

He stood, the room suddenly emptier as his shadow slipped back to the door. Leaving you with the ache of every word you’d ever written that never learned how to stay safely on the page.

Your plan sounded logical — on paper, anyway. A neat conclusion, a redemption arc, a sacrifice to balance out all the blood and secrets you’d poured into him.

But the second the words left your mouth that morning in his study, you regretted them.

Wonwoo laughed. Not a quiet, amused laugh — but the kind that cracked through his teeth like glass under a boot. He tossed his pen aside and shoved away from his desk so hard the heavy chair scraped the floor like a threat.

In three strides he was before you, and you nearly flinched when the shadow of his frame fell over yours. His arms shot out — one hand slamming the wall beside your head, the other braced against the bookshelf behind you — boxing you in with the sharp scent of his cologne and the faint, metallic tang of wounds still healing beneath his shirt.

“This,” he hissed through clenched teeth, voice trembling at the edges of his rage, “this is your grand plan for my ending? I rot in a cell so your precious hero can stand above my grave and bathe in pity?”

He snapped his chin toward the coffee table where your folder lay, pages bleeding out like open veins. With a guttural snarl, he grabbed the whole thing and hurled it so hard the papers burst apart mid-air — drifting down behind the sofa like feathers, mockingly gentle against the storm in his chest.

“Fuck!”

He turned away, fingers clawing at his hair until the strands stood wild and jagged. You could see it — the tremor in his shoulders, the truth that fear mixed with fury when a monster realizes its own cage.

Your knees threatened to buckle, but you gripped the shelf at your back so you wouldn’t collapse under the weight of your own creation.

“You want me to surrender everything I crawled through blood for? The money, the power — the way they tremble when they whisper my name?” He stabbed a finger at the floor-to-ceiling window behind him, where the city glittered like prey under moonlight. “You want me to kneel so that bastard cop can stand over my corpse and call himself righteous?”

His laugh split the air again — brittle, a knife dragged over glass.

“Tell me, Creator — where in me did you ever write the word mercy?”

When he turned back, his eyes locked on you — sharp and wild and too human for something you’d crafted in a midnight draft.

Your breath snagged in your throat. You felt it — your heart drumming terror into your ribs because he was right. You’d made him a monster with a mind sharp enough to hate it.

“I don’t want you to break…” you whispered, your voice trembling like your hands.

He crowded closer, so close your back pressed deeper into the books. His forehead nearly touched yours; his next words were a threat and a plea wrapped in a confession of all he couldn’t control.

“Then write a better end, Y/n.” His breath ghosted your lips, hot and ragged.

“Or I’ll carve one myself — and you won’t get your happy ending this time.”

You returned to the Margin that night — or maybe it was dawn, or dusk. Time curled strangely there, bending to the flick of your desperation like pages warping under rain.

You stumbled past the familiar oak trees and scattered benches, your footsteps echoing over the soft grass. Here, characters who had once whispered secrets in your dreams paused to watch you. Some nodded in silent greeting, others simply kept reading, bound to their fates between covers you’d left half-shut.

You collapsed by the fountain near the center — the heart of your abandoned stories. Your fingers trembled as you tugged open the folder on your lap, pages yellowed by neglect but still humming with promise.

Title by title. Year by year. Notes scribbled in your tired college nights, outlines drafted on train rides, character sheets born in the blur between heartbreak and caffeine. You read them all — searching for loopholes you’d never written, prayers hidden in subplots you’d discarded.

Somewhere, you thought, you must have planted a seed for him.

Something good.

Then you found it.

*

You pressed your back into the old wooden chair in the library’s quietest corner, the smell of aging pages and dust grounding you more than the marble halls of Wonwoo’s estate ever could.

Myungho was probably still in the car, chain-smoking nervously because you’d threatened to fire him — a laughable bluff, considering he’d take Wonwoo’s word over yours any day. But at least he’d left you alone for now.

Your fingers traced the frayed spine of The Little Prince, that battered comfort you’d clung to as a kid when walls trembled with your parents’ anger, when love cracked apart in the dark and you had nowhere else to sleep but under your own thoughts.

You flipped to the chapter you always returned to — the fox and his quiet plea: “You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”

A bitter smile tugged at your lips. You never intended to tame Wonwoo. But you did.

Your thumb lingered on the delicate illustration, the tiny prince’s scarf flaring in a wind that had never been kind enough to you, either.

Somewhere between the sentences, the library’s hum softened to a hush so deep it pressed against your eardrums. The fluorescent lights flickered, warped into a golden dusk that wasn’t there before.

You knew this feeling.

The pull — not of this library, but the Library.

A door to the Margin within the real world.

You’d cracked it open before, half-asleep at your old studio desk.

And now it opened for you again.

The fox on the page seemed to lift its head. The paper prince turned slightly in your mind’s eye. And you felt yourself drawn under — not drowning, but drifting deeper into words you’d once written to save yourself.

You were back in your stories, hunting for another answer buried in the lines.

You closed your eyes against the library’s glow and whispered into the hush, “Show me another way to save him. Before he destroys everything… before he destroys me.”

And the fox — or the book — or the Margin itself — answered with the faint rustle of pages turning themselves.

You barely noticed how the chatter of the students nearby faded into a dull echo, how the dusty light filtering through the high windows blurred to a soft glow behind your lashes.

Your finger rested on the line you’d underlined years ago — “One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets oneself be tamed…”

A brittle laugh bubbled up your throat.

Isn’t that what you did to him?

Tamed a monster with half-baked mercy and lonely nights, then recoiled when he turned his fangs on you for answers.

Your vision pulsed — the black letters swimming — until the margin of the page bled outward, curling up at the edges like burned paper.

And then you were falling through it.

The musty library air thinned, replaced by the dry, warm hush of your own constructed nowhere — the Margin — infinite aisles of half-born ideas, boxed scenes, handwritten scraps you’d never shown anyone.

Your old apartment unit.

Inside, the air smelled like dust and stale instant noodles. Everything was exactly as you’d left it — the stack of dog-eared manuscripts on the tiny desk, the mug with three pens and a single dying highlighter, the sticky note on the mirror that read You owe them an ending.

Your throat tightened. You owe him an ending, you corrected yourself this time. You caught yourself on a shelf labeled VEIN — Early Drafts. Behind it: folders and loose pages, secrets too grim to publish, dreams too soft to stand in the real world. You dragged your fingertips over the binders until you hit one marked in your scribbled pen: Characters: Minor/Discarded. Your heart lurched.

This was where the overlooked lived. The side characters, the failed plot devices — the ones you’d promised next time.

You flipped through the folder so fast paper cuts stung your knuckles.

Behind you, the floorboard creaked. You froze, a cold current slicing down your spine. You didn’t dare turn — not until you heard that voice, low and almost gentle, yet heavy enough to press your heart flat against your ribs.

Your eyes met his in the reflection of your mirror: Jeon Wonwoo, leaning casually against your doorframe. Dressed in black again, hair still tousled from the car ride you didn’t know he’d taken right behind you.

He looked impossibly large for this room — for this part of your life that once felt too small for even yourself, let alone him.

Your voice cracked as you twisted to face him fully. “Wonwoo — how are you here? You… you shouldn’t be here. Not here—”

He tilted his head slightly, but this time there was no smirk — only the barest flicker of something unsettled behind his sharp eyes. He looked at you, then past you, as if the peeling wallpaper and flickering dorm light might offer an explanation he’d missed.

He stepped closer, slow but not deliberate this time — more like he was testing if the floor would hold him.

“Where are we?” he asked, voice lower than a whisper, and not for effect. He truly didn’t know. His hand reached for the edge of your desk, gripping it hard enough that your scattered notes trembled.

Your breath caught as you realized it. The monster was lost.

“Wonwoo… this is—” you started, but your throat closed up.

His eyes snapped back to yours, sharp again, though confusion still bled through the cracks.

“This isn’t my house,” he said, more to himself than you. “This smell… the hallway… it’s old. It’s…” He looked you up and down, taking in your clothes, your trembling hands, the ancient little prince book half-buried under a mess of scribbles.

“You dragged me here,” he accused — but it wasn’t the cold venom you knew. It was frustration. A flicker of fear under all that rage.

You shook your head, desperate to make sense of it too.

“I didn’t mean to! I just— I needed a place to think— to fix this—”

Wonwoo barked out a humorless laugh, raking a hand through his hair. The motion exposed the faint line of stitches on his temple — a reminder of your last attempt to control him.

“Fix this,” he echoed, almost mocking but more tired than cruel. He looked around again, at the tiny room that reeked of old anxiety and stale coffee and everything you’d once been.

His eyes found yours again, searching, pleading despite himself.

“What did you do, Y/n? Where did you take us? When did you take us?”

And for the first time since you’d ever written him, you realized he wasn’t your villain or your creation at all — he was a man who’d been dragged across stories and time without a map.

And he was just as scared as you.

You tried to steady your breathing, but the lump in your throat only grew.

“This is… my old studio,” you forced out. “Where I wrote most of you — the early drafts. The first scenes. All those nights when I—”

Your voice caught when his eyes flickered at the word wrote. He was still trying to piece it together. Still fighting it, even now.

“I was looking for answers, Wonwoo. I thought— I thought if I came back to the beginning, maybe I’d find a way to fix you. To fix this.” You gestured weakly around you: the faded curtains, the cracked plaster, the boxes of old manuscripts and half-dead pens you’d hoarded like talismans.

Wonwoo’s throat bobbed as he swallowed whatever curses or threats rattled inside him. He stepped back just enough to lean against your rickety bookshelf, arms crossed tight over his chest like he needed to hold himself together.

“I was in my office,” he said, voice low but clear — a confession forced through clenched teeth. “I had a meeting. Jun was reporting about you — how you were poking around an entertainment agency building. And then—”

He broke off, brow furrowing as if he could claw the memory back from the haze. His gaze flicked to the grimy window, the taped-up corner of your old laptop, the dog-eared books that made up the bones of who you used to be.

Wonwoo’s breath hitched as his hands planted on either side of you, caging you against the edge of your old desk. The tiny lamp buzzed between you, throwing his eyes into restless shadow and light.

His voice was low but ragged, scraped raw with a question too big for the peeling walls to contain.

“What did you do, Y/n?”

You flinched at your own name in his mouth — so human, so accusing.

“I— I didn’t mean to—”

He cut you off with a sharp, disbelieving laugh that died as quickly as it rose.

“I was in my office. I had control. I had my people, my rules—” His palm slammed the desk by your hip, rattling pens into your lap.

“And then I’m here. No power. No way back.”

You couldn’t help it — your voice cracked, trembling worse than your hands clutching the hem of your old sweater.

“I came here to find answers, Wonwoo. To fix you. I thought… maybe if I went back to where I made you, I could undo it — the blood, the killing, the— everything.”

His jaw tightened. A muscle jumped under the faint scar near his temple.

“So instead you dragged us both backwards.” He leaned in, forehead almost brushing yours, the heat of him wrapping around you like a noose.

“Is that it, Y/n? You wanted to rewrite my hell so badly you tore it all open? Time, place — me?”

You squeezed your eyes shut, a single tear slipping free before you could swallow it down.

“I didn’t know this would happen. I swear. I thought maybe— maybe the beginning could show me the way to give you a better ending. Or at least… save you.”

His laugh ghosted across your lips, bitter and helpless all at once.

“Save me? Or save yourself?”

His eyes bored into yours then — not your villain’s eyes, not your monster’s. Just a man’s. Furious, fractured, and terrifyingly real.

“What did you do to us, Y/n?” he breathed.

And for once, you had no line, no plan, no paper shield to hide behind. Only the truth that maybe you’d broken the lock on the very cage that made him yours.

*

You watched Wonwoo asleep on your bed, the floor around you littered with notes and scribbled timelines from every version of this mess you’d ever tried to control. Paper crumpled under your bare feet each time you shifted, but he didn’t stir — not until your stomach betrayed you with a low, sharp growl.

His eyes fluttered open, dark lashes brushing his cheekbones before they focused on you. You’d inched so close you were leaning over him, your head tilted at the edge of the mattress, just watching him breathe.

“You have money?” he rasped, voice rough from sleep, but his gaze flicked to the chaos on the floor like he already knew the answer.

You blinked, then remembered the stash of emergency cash you’d once hoarded for late-night ramen runs and rent you couldn’t pay on time.

“Let’s go out to eat,” you murmured, half a command, half a plea.

Oddly — maybe because he was too tired to argue, or maybe because in this world he had no empire to guard — he just nodded and swung his legs over the edge.

You pulled on an old oversized hoodie over your thin dress, the fabric swallowing you whole, and slipped into a pair of scuffed sneakers instead of your usual heels. Wonwoo’s eyes lingered on you, narrowed, curious — as if he was seeing a version of you he’d never been allowed to touch before.

When you stepped out of the tiny studio, the night air slapped your cheeks cold and real. You ducked your head low, hiding your face from the street’s indifferent glow, too busy bracing for a stranger’s glance to notice the way Wonwoo’s eyes followed every step you took.

You ended up in a modest restaurant you’d always passed by back then but never once stepped into — too clean for your student budget, too proper for your unwashed hair and all-nighter sweats back then. Now, at least, it gave you warmth and a moment’s pause to swallow real food for the first time in days.

Your fork froze halfway to your lips when the TV above the counter blared breaking news:

“A powerful earthquake struck Busan earlier this evening…”

You didn’t hear the rest. The numbers, the shaking towers, the headlines dissolving into a date that burned behind your eyelids:

10 August. Four days before Independence Day. The day you didn’t go home. The day you missed her funeral.

Your chair scraped back so hard it startled the couple beside you. Wonwoo’s hand shot out, catching the edge of the table before it tipped your plate to the floor.

“Where are you going?” His voice was too calm, too sure — but his eyes were locked on yours, searching for the storm he knew was coming.

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t.

Wonwoo dropped his fork, metal clattering against the ceramic plate, but he didn’t flinch. He just watched you — your back retreating through rows of still-eating strangers, head lowered under that oversized hoodie that did nothing to hide how shaken you were.

He stood, slower than you, ignoring the waitress’s startled “Sir, the bill—” as he followed. One hand slipped into his pocket, fingers brushing the folded cash you’d forgotten to take — the only anchor he had left from his world in this mess.

Outside, the late summer air hit harsh and humid. He found you half a block away, standing at a dusty bus stop sign that looked like it hadn’t been painted since the year you wrote him alive. You were hunched, arms tight around your middle like you were trying to hold something in. Or maybe keep something out.

“Y/n.”

His voice cut the buzz of cars and far-off traffic. You flinched, but didn’t turn.

He came closer, not stalking like your villain — not hunting. Just moving. Heavy, deliberate steps on cracked pavement.

“Where are you going?” he asked again, quieter now. No threat. Just the question — and something ragged underneath it, as if he hated needing to ask at all.

Your fingers dug into the hem of your hoodie.

“It’s August tenth,” you whispered. Your voice trembled worse than your shoulders. “That earthquake… I remember now. That day, my mother—”

Your breath hitched and your next words came out broken.

“I didn’t go home. I didn’t see her one last time. I stayed here. Writing you. I stayed here for you.”

Wonwoo’s eyes flickered. A pulse of understanding — and something colder — behind the confusion. He reached out, touched your wrist with fingers that could break bone but only rested there, too light, too human.

“Y/n.” He forced your gaze up, two wrecks caught in the glow of a flickering bus sign.

“You can’t change that,” he said. Not unkind. Not gentle either. Just brutal truth, shaped in the mouth of the man you’d once written to be invincible.

“You drag yourself back here, back then — but you can’t rewrite her. You can’t rewrite that.”

Your lip trembled. The truth slammed your ribs worse than any villain could.

“But if I could—”

He cut you off, firm fingers at your jaw, grounding you.

“You can’t.” His eyes narrowed, voice a hoarse whisper meant for no one but you. “You want to fix me. Fine. Fix your story. Fix the ending. But don’t lose yourself in the part that was never yours to hold.”

And as the old bus rattled up, brakes screeching through the sticky night air, you felt it — the choice pressing against your ribs like a knife: save him, save yourself, or bury it all under the ruins of your past you couldn’t dig up anymore.

You and Wonwoo stood at the edge of the crowd, half hidden behind a rusted iron gate and the old lilac tree your mother once planted in a cracked pot on the apartment balcony. Now it grew wild beside her coffin — a reminder she’d always loved beautiful things even when they died in her hands.

You pulled your hoodie tighter around your face, sleeves tugged over your fists like they could hold in the storm brewing under your ribs. Beside you, Wonwoo was silent, hands shoved in his coat pockets, his eyes flicking over the black-clad mourners with an unreadable coldness. To him, it must’ve looked like an irrelevant side plot, a scene he’d never been given to play in the margins of your draft.

You wondered if your old self was somewhere nearby — the you that never made it here, that stayed locked in a dorm room, scribbling villains and empires while the real world crumbled outside her locked door.

Wonwoo leaned closer, his breath warm against your ear.

A flicker of something crossed his eyes. Regret? Sympathy? Or just curiosity that the one who played god in his world could still be so painfully small in her own.

He shifted closer, enough that the cold wind couldn’t slip between your shoulders anymore.

He glanced back at the line of mourners, the hushed prayers, the echo of grief he could mimic in your pages but never feel like this.

“You’re trembling,” he murmured after a moment. One gloved hand brushed the edge of your sleeve. “Are you cold?”

You laughed, choked and watery. “No. I’m terrified.”

He didn’t say don’t be. He didn’t promise to protect you — that was never him. Instead, he stepped behind you, close enough that his coat brushed your hoodie.

*

Wonwoo’s steps halted when you veered off the narrow gravel path, deeper into the quieter rows of stone and framed photographs. He almost called your name — but the look on your face stole the word from his tongue.

You stopped in front of a headstone tucked between a wind-worn willow and an old brass lantern left by some devoted relative. There, pressed to the cold marble, was a photo he recognized instantly. A gentle smile. Sharp, kind eyes behind slim glasses. Ji Jihye.

Wonwoo’s pulse thudded in his ears.

“She’s in my world.”

His voice came out lower than he meant, brittle in the hushed air.

“The doctor. The one you…” He hesitated, thinking of that night — the trembling relief in your face when you clung to her like a drowning child to shore. In his world, she’d been the calm in his storms, a plot device he’d never questioned.

“The one you hugged that day.” You nodded, eyes fixed to the photograph as if you could fall into it and never come back.

“She’s my sister. She raised me when my mother—” Your voice cracked, but you didn’t bother hiding it. “When she couldn’t.”

Wonwoo’s jaw worked, silent words trapped behind his teeth. He glanced at the picture, at the name carved so neat and final: Ji Jihye.

He almost asked What happened to her there? — but the truth landed in his gut before you said it.

“Murder.”

You didn’t flinch when you said it. The word sat between you like a bloodstain no rain could wash off.

For a moment, the wind rattled the willow branches overhead. Wonwoo turned back to you — really looked at you, past the creator, past the coward who ran from funerals and folded reality when it didn’t obey. There it was: the child left behind, the sisterless girl who stitched monsters out of her grief.

Wonwoo didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Because suddenly all the twisted knots that made him — the rage, the power, the endless hunger for fear and control — trembled on a single question:

Was he really evil, or just a vessel for every wound you never mended?

His fingers curled, nails biting into his palms. He watched you, your eyes shimmering under the willow’s shadow, and for the first time since stepping from the pages into your fragile reality, he wondered:

What was he really for?

*

You and Wonwoo sat side by side on the dusty wooden floor of your old studio, knees brushing, backs pressed to the peeling wallpaper like you both needed it to hold you upright. Between you lay a scatter of papers — the same half-baked plot threads and character sheets you’d clung to for years like they were prayers that might save you.

Outside, the cicadas were singing — an old summer song that once made you feel small and safe at the same time. But inside, the silence between you and him was heavier than grief.

You picked at the edge of a yellowing notebook. “I wasn’t supposed to be here. I remember… I was supposed to be in Jeju. I ran away after my aunt texted me. I couldn’t… I couldn’t see her like that.”

You didn’t have to say your mother. The word was already a bruise in the room.

Wonwoo didn’t comment, didn’t pity you — he never did, never would. But the way his shoulder leaned just barely into yours was louder than a thousand sorrys.

He turned his head, watching you from the corner of his eye. “How did you come back? To this version of now?”

You laughed — a thin, breathless sound that made him frown. “I was reading. In the town library. I was trying to find another way to fix you. I thought maybe if I found my old ideas…”

He finished it for you, voice softer than you’d ever heard. “Was it The Little Prince?”

Your breath caught. You turned to him, eyes wide. “How did you know?”

Wonwoo dragged a hand through his hair — he looked almost embarrassed, if a man like him could be. “It sent me too. To your place. I was in my office. Then… there.” He gestured vaguely at the air, as if the whole universe was just an untrustworthy hallway you could slip through by accident.

Your lips parted, memories flickering: a child curled under a thin blanket, whispering to a paper prince to save her from doors slamming, from the crash of glass, from fists and broken promises. You’d written him to be your monster, but before that, you’d begged a little boy on an asteroid to protect you from adults.

And now here he was — no asteroid, no desert rose, just Wonwoo, an echo of every shadow you’d loved and feared.

“The Little Prince…” you murmured, almost to yourself. “It was my sanctuary. When they fought. When she cried. When I was too small to stop anything.”

Wonwoo let out a dry, near-silent laugh. “Mine too. It made me hate the king less.”

For a heartbeat, your monster and your child self sat together on that floor — two broken kingdoms connected by a single, fragile story about a boy too gentle for the world.

Wonwoo nudged your knee with his. “Maybe that’s it,” he said, half teasing, half serious. “Your prince keeps dragging us back when we run too far.”

Your laugh cracked open something in your chest. And you wondered, for the first time in years, if maybe neither of you was too far gone to come home.

*

You woke up tangled in warmth you didn’t remember climbing into — stiff sheets, a familiar weight against your side, and a scent that was unmistakably his: crisp, deep, edged with something dark like wet stone.

Blinking through the fuzz in your head, you shifted — and found Wonwoo half-asleep beside you, sprawled on his stomach, face turned toward you. His hair fell messily over his forehead, shadowing the faint scar at his temple.

He cracked one eye open, caught your startled stare, and groaned into the pillow.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, voice thick with sleep and still a little rough. “Too tired to drag you to your room.”

Before you could answer, he let out a long breath and promptly buried his face in the pillow again, clearly intending to finish what little rest you’d stolen from each other all night.

You sat up so fast the blankets slipped to your lap. Your head spun. The familiar carved ceiling above you wasn’t the dorm’s cracked plaster — it was rich mahogany, polished and cold. His world’s air was heavier, scented faintly of cedar and the garden roses you knew he never watered himself.

Back. You were back.

You swung your legs off the bed and found your shoes still on. The hoodie swallowed you in its softness, a piece of the past now clinging stubbornly to your present. Carefully, you slipped from the bed — Wonwoo barely stirred, just an arm flung out to claim the empty space you’d left behind.

Padding to the heavy door, you cracked it open, peeking into the wide, sunlit hallway that could never belong to a cheap old dorm. Marble floors, oil paintings, hush of distant servants. His empire — real again.

You stepped out, only to freeze as a soft gasp broke the quiet.

Mrs. Jung stood there — sturdy, neatly dressed in the dark uniform of the household’s inner staff. Her hair was pinned tight and her eyes were sharp, though they widened when she saw your disheveled hoodie and bare feet peeking from beneath it.

Mrs. Jung. Hyungrim’s mother. The real iron backbone of Wonwoo’s household — the one who knew every secret passage and every lie.

She blinked once, took in your flushed face, the door cracked behind you, and gave the smallest bow, voice utterly neutral but her eyes curious as ever.

“Miss Y/n,” she said, smooth as tea poured into porcelain. “Good morning. Did you… rest well in the Master’s chamber?”

You opened your mouth, closed it, then managed a strangle, “Yes. Thank you.”

Mrs. Jung’s lips twitched like she wanted to smile but had trained herself not to.

“Very good, Miss. Shall I prepare your room again? Or… would you prefer breakfast brought here?”

Behind you, Wonwoo’s sleepy grunt drifted from the bed — a muffled, lazy sound that somehow made your heart kick against your ribs.

You swallowed, tugging the hoodie tighter around yourself, suddenly feeling sixteen again and older than you’d ever been all at once.

“I— I’ll take breakfast here, thank you. And… Mrs. Jung?”

“Yes, Miss?”

You met her gaze — the mother of your villain’s most loyal man, standing in this world you’d spun from your grief and hunger for protection.

“Thank you for… looking after him..”

You sat stiffly on the edge of his leather couch, knees drawn together, the hoodie sleeves tugged down over your fists like a child’s security blanket. Outside the tall windows, the courtyard gardens basked under the late morning sun — a sight so distant from the cracked dorm ceiling that your head still ached trying to reconcile the leap.

Footsteps padded behind you — soft, slow, and unmistakably his.

Wonwoo dropped onto the couch beside you with all the lazy, fluid grace you hated to admit still made your chest tighten. He smelled freshly showered now, hair damp and pushed back, but his eyes were heavy-lidded with leftover sleep.

He slouched into the cushions, head rolling toward you until his sharp gaze pinned you like a bug on velvet.

“How we got back?” you asked before you could second-guess yourself. Your voice betrayed how raw your throat still felt, scratchy with exhaustion and words left unsaid at that graveyard.

Wonwoo’s mouth curved — not quite a grin, more a crooked slice of mischief through lingering fatigue.

“Myungho found you,” he said lazily, like recounting a half-remembered dream. “Passed out in the town library. I was too in m study.”

You blinked. “Passed out?”

Wonwoo lifted a brow, amused by your disbelief. He mimicked your tone under his breath: “‘Passed out?’ Yes, darling, that’s what happens when people rip holes in their heads, hopping worlds and time.”

You scowled at his mockery but he only hummed, ignoring it as he stretched out an arm behind you along the back of the couch — not touching, just there, like a bracket holding you in place.

You pressed on. “Then why was I in your room?”

At that, a real grin ghosted over his lips — fleeting, crooked, so achingly boyish it almost didn’t fit the monster you’d carved him into.

“I was too tired to carry you to yours. You passed out, remember?” He nudged your knee lightly with his own. “And don’t flatter yourself.”

You shoved his leg half-heartedly, heat crawling up your neck. “I wasn’t flattering myself. I just— it was surprising.”

Wonwoo laughed under his breath. A sound that, for once, held no threat. Only a secret understanding between the creator and her creation — two ghosts returned to the flesh, sharing the same borrowed couch in a world neither fully owned anymore.

His eyes softened just a fraction as he watched your face — as if daring you to ask the question that trembled behind your teeth: What now?

But for now, he didn’t press. He just tipped his head back against the cushion, eyelids drooping again, a king at rest beside the only storm that could shake him awake.

The quiet between you barely settled before the faintest knock, polite but firm, tapped at the door frame. You flinched, twisting just as Mrs. Jung stepped in carrying a tray balanced with more care than a royal offering.

She dipped her head first to Wonwoo — “Master,” she greeted with gentle respect — then turned her warm eyes to you.

“Breakfast, Master. And for your guest.” Her voice was steady as ever, but you caught the subtle flicker in her eyes when they lingered on your oversized hoodie and the way your bare feet tucked under you on the couch.

Wonwoo, half-slouched with his arm draped over the couch back, cracked one eye open, a lazy smirk curling at the corner of his mouth.

“She demanded my share too, Mrs. Jung. Make sure she leaves me at least the fruit.”

Mrs. Jung’s lips twitched at his dry humor — she’d clearly survived it for years. She set the tray carefully on the low table in front of you, arranging the bowls and teacups with a grace that almost felt ceremonial.

“I’ll bring more tea if you wish, Master,” she said, her tone softening when she spoke to you too, kind but clear. “Please eat well, both of you — you need your strength after worrying us so.”

You mumbled a quiet thank you, cheeks warming under the hood as you avoided Wonwoo’s look — a mixture of amusement and something else you couldn’t read.

Mrs. Jung’s eyes lingered on you for another heartbeat, as if she wanted to say more but thought better of it. Then she bowed her head again, turned, and slipped out — the door closing with a gentle click behind her, leaving the scent of warm porridge and faint herbal steam curling around the room.

Wonwoo reached for a bowl and pushed it toward you, his knuckles brushing yours without apology.

“Eat,” he ordered, voice rough from sleep but softened by something like care. “If you faint again, I’m not dragging you next time. You’re heavier than you look.”

He claimed his own bowl, folding one knee up beside you as if this — a monster and his maker, side by side over breakfast — was the most ordinary thing in the world.

Outside, the courtyard glowed under a patient morning sun. Inside, for the first time in a long while, neither of you felt like running.

*

The sun was dipping low when Myungho knocked twice and stepped into Wonwoo’s office without waiting for permission — which was enough to make Jun look up from the couch, eyebrows raised. Wonwoo didn’t lift his eyes from the contract he was marking up, but the quiet knock alone had already put him on edge.

“Master,” Myungho said, voice tight. He didn’t bother with titles this time. “We have a problem.”

Wonwoo’s pen paused mid-sentence. He finally looked up. “Speak.”

Myungho’s throat bobbed. He shifted his weight like he didn’t want to say it at all.

“It’s Miss Y/n. She was at the town library. About an hour ago, witnesses say a black SUV pulled up. Two men forced her inside. One local vendor found her bag in the alley behind the bus stop.”

Jun sat up straight. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, sir. Her guards said she slipped them by going out the back gate. She didn’t want them trailing her that close — she told them she just wanted quiet.”

The room stilled. Wonwoo didn’t slam the desk or shout — but Jun, who’d known him long enough, saw the change immediately: the pen dropping soundlessly, the barely-there tremor in his knuckles before he curled them into a fist.

“Where was this? Which street?” Wonwoo asked. His voice wasn’t cold — just quiet, so quiet that Myungho almost preferred shouting.

“Near the east gate road, Master. Traffic cameras caught the SUV heading out of the old market district but we lost it near the industrial park.”

Wonwoo leaned back, eyes on the ceiling for a heartbeat — like he needed to keep the anger in check just to stay focused. Then he pushed up from the desk, methodical. He shrugged on his black coat, buttoning it with steady fingers that betrayed none of what tightened his throat.

“Start with the market CCTV. Block every road out of the district. Call the inspector directly, use my name if you have to — I want every exit checked. If they switched cars, trace every plate that left that zone in the last hour.”

Myungho nodded, halfway out the door already, phone in hand.

Jun stood, rolling his shoulders. “Sir—”

“I know,” Wonwoo cut in, voice softer, tired. His eyes flicked to Jun, a shadow of worry slipping through the usual steel. “She hates people trailing her. I should’ve—” He shook his head once, as if to snap himself out of it.

Wonwoo huffed a breath that was almost a laugh, but his jaw clenched right after. He grabbed his phone, already dialing, eyes distant but burning with a promise.

You owed him an end, but this isn't something he expected.

Wonwoo had barely made it down the marble steps when his phone vibrated in his coat pocket — just once, an unfamiliar number flashing on the screen. He answered it without thinking, half-expecting Myungho with an update.

But it wasn’t a call. It was a text.

“So you have a vulnerability?”

Attached below, a single photo loaded.

He stopped cold on the last step. Jun, coming up behind him, nearly collided with his shoulder.

“Sir?” Jun frowned, peering at the frozen look on Wonwoo’s face. “What is it?”

Wonwoo didn’t speak right away. His eyes traced the picture, the cheap motel wallpaper, the too-bright flash. The raw knot in his chest squeezed tighter at the sight of you — wrists bound to the headboard, head turned away, hair spilling across the pillow like you’d fought before they forced you still.

The phone trembled in his hand — barely. Just enough that Jun saw it.

Wonwoo exhaled through his nose. Slow. Measured. But when he looked up, the cold calm he always wore was gone. Something far more human burned through his irises — fury, yes, but beneath it, a helpless ache that scared Jun more than the rage ever could.

“They want me to panic,” Wonwoo said, almost to himself. He lifted his thumb, saving the photo to his files as if cataloging evidence, not an open wound. His other hand clenched the stair rail until the veins stood stark against his skin.

A second vibration buzzed through the silence. Another message:

“You want her alive? Come alone. Tonight. We’ll send the location soon.”

Wonwoo’s eyes flicked to the clock on the hall wall. Not nearly enough time to wait. Not nearly enough time to forgive himself for letting this happen.

Jun slipped the phone back into Wonwoo’s palm.

“I’ll have everyone track the signal. You’re not going alone., sir”

Wonwoo’s fingers closed tight around the phone — as if he could crush the message, the photo, the threat itself. He didn’t argue. For once, he didn’t care about pride or image or playing the perfect chess game.

*

In the stale half-light of the run-down motel room, the buzz of a flickering ceiling fan blended with the shallow rasp of your breathing. The rope bit cruelly into your wrists; your throat tasted of cotton and regret.

You barely registered the dip of the mattress until a familiar weight settled near your hip.

“Hey.”

You forced your heavy eyelids open. Blurred outlines resolved into a face you knew too well — Hansol. But not the Hansol who’d laughed through his meeting in the team 3 room, or muttered sleepy jokes behind stakeouts. His eyes now held something you couldn’t name, but you knew you never wrote it.

He watched you like a puzzle he’d half-solved. One corner of his mouth tugged upward, a smirk that made your pulse stutter for all the wrong reasons.

“You look smaller up close,” he said quietly, brushing a finger along your hairline. “Does he keep you hidden in that big old house? Or are you just too precious to show around?”

Your dry lips cracked when you tried to speak.

“H-Hansol…” you croaked. “Why… are you doing this?”

He clicked his tongue, feigning disappointment.

“You know, for someone Wonwoo goes soft over, you ask dumb questions.” He leaned closer, shadows carving sharper lines into his cheeks. “I don’t care about you, sweetheart. You’re just the leash. The king drops his crown when you scream — everyone knows that now.”

Behind him, two strangers — older, meaner — checked the window for the fifth time. One of them brandished your phone, the screen cracked from being snatched.

Hansol’s eyes flitted back to yours, studying the tremor in your lashes with unsettling patience.

“You really think he loves you, huh?” he murmured, voice dripping disbelief and something like envy twisted into contempt. “A man like him doesn’t love. He owns. And now… he’ll learn he can’t own everything.”

You winced as he thumbed your bruised cheek, tender as a lover.

“Tonight,” one of the men said gruffly, tossing Hansol your phone. “Drop sent. He comes alone, or she bleeds before dawn.”

Hansol pocketed the phone, then turned to you one last time — no warmth, no hate either. Just a wolf checking its trap.

“Try not to cry too much. Ruins the pretty face he likes so much.”

He stood and motioned for the others to tighten your bonds. Then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him — leaving you bound, dazed, and painfully awake to the fact that in this nightmare, you were nothing more than leverage for a man you’d created but could no longer control.

The click of the door echoed in your skull long after Hansol and his shadows vanished down the hallway. You lay motionless for a few heartbeats, letting your breathing even out, listening — first for footsteps, then for the hush of the old building settling into silence.

Don’t panic. That voice — your voice — the same one that used to narrate these horrors from behind a safe screen. It sounded so far away now.

Your wrists burned from the coarse rope. Every shift scraped skin raw, but you forced your elbows up anyway, testing how much slack they’d left in their arrogance. The knots weren’t perfect; Hansol was cocky, not careful.

Your eyes darted around the dingy room: a battered side table, an empty bottle on the floor, a lamp plugged into a wall socket hanging loose from age.

You flexed your fingers until blood stung the tips. Inch by inch, you curled your knees under you, testing the rope at your ankles — tighter than your wrists, but not unbreakable.

You tugged once. Twice. The headboard rattled softly. No footsteps. Good.

Next, you twisted your body to the side, forcing your bound hands against the jagged corner of the bedframe’s rusted hinge. Metal bit skin — you hissed through your teeth, the smell of iron blooming fresh.

Keep going.

Your breath hitched when you heard faint voices down the hall. Hansol’s laugh. A lighter flick. Then footsteps retreating toward the far end of the corridor.

You pressed harder. Back and forth, flesh tearing, fibers loosening.

A single rope strand gave way with a muted snap. Pain blurred your vision but you swallowed it down, gasping through grit teeth as you slipped one wrist out.

Free. Half-free.

Ignoring the sting, you scrambled to untie your ankles, each tug punctuated by the terror that any second the door could burst open. Finally, the rope fell to the floor with a soft thud.

Your legs trembled as you stood, barefoot, hoodie rumpled and sticky with sweat and blood. You scanned for anything useful — no phone, no weapon, just a creaky old lamp and your pounding heart.

You padded to the grimy window, praying it wasn’t painted shut. Your trembling fingers worked the rusted latch loose. You shoved. Once. Twice. The frame groaned in protest before giving way an inch at a time — a humid gust stung your cuts but tasted like salvation.

Below, a dirty alley sloped into shadows. No time for fear. You swung one leg over the sill, biting back a whimper when your scraped palms pressed into the peeling paint.

A voice shouted inside the room — too late. You pushed off, dropped into the night, knees buckling as you hit the gravel. Pain shot up your shins but you forced your feet to move.

One breath. One thought: Run.

You bolted down the alley, bare feet slapping against broken concrete and puddles that splashed up your legs. Behind you, shouts erupted — Hansol’s voice, furious and sharp, echoing like a nightmare you couldn’t wake up from.

Your breath tore at your throat, each step a prayer to whatever cruel god still watched over you and the monsters you’d unleashed. You veered right, shoulders crashing against an overflowing dumpster, then stumbled out into a dim side street lit only by flickering neon signs.

A black car screeched to a halt at the curb just as you shot across the gutter — headlights blinding you, tires squealing against wet asphalt.

You froze. For half a second, the world stilled, your scraped hands trembling in the glare, your chest heaving, your heart a war drum.

Then the car's door slammed open.

“Y/n!”

Wonwoo’s voice — raw, frantic — cut through every other sound.

He was on you in two strides, one hand gripping your shoulder so tightly it almost hurt, the other brushing your hair back, searching your face as if to confirm you were real, whole, not just a vision conjured by rage and fear.

“Are you hurt?” he rasped, scanning you up and down. You tried to answer — your mouth opened — but over Wonwoo’s shoulder, another figure emerged from the shadows.

Hansol.

He slowed to a stop at the edge of the headlights, breath misting in the night air, his eyes locked not on you now but on Wonwoo — and whatever twisted history the margin had let grow between them.

Wonwoo didn’t turn, but you felt the tension coil through him, like a bow pulled so taut it could snap bone.

Hansol cocked his head, wiping a smear of blood from his split lip with the back of his hand. He didn’t look at you — you didn’t exist in his eyes anymore. Only Wonwoo did.

“So,” Hansol said, voice calm, almost amused, though his knuckles were white at his sides. “Seems you do have a soft spot after all, master.”

The word dripped with mockery, a dare.

Wonwoo’s hand slid from your shoulder to your waist, anchoring you behind him. His other hand curled into a fist. He didn’t answer Hansol — didn’t need to.

You could feel it in the way he shifted his weight: this wouldn’t end in words.

Wonwoo’s arm tensed across your stomach, pinning you back a step as Hansol lifted the gun — careless, casual, yet steady as stone. For a split second, you thought he was bluffing.

But the glint in his eyes wasn’t madness — it was something colder. Certain.

“Don’t,” Wonwoo warned lowly, voice a dangerous calm that made the men behind him — Jun, Myungho, a handful of guards in black — shift their stance, guns discreetly trained on Hansol’s head and chest.

Hansol laughed, almost gentle. His finger curled tighter on the trigger.

“Look at you, Wonwoo… playing hero for a woman.” His eyes flicked to you, just a flicker, then right back to Wonwoo’s.

“Did she soften you so well you forgot what you are?”

“Hansol,” Wonwoo growled, moving half a step forward — but Hansol’s aim never wavered. The muzzle of the gun aligned perfectly with your chest first, then flicked back to Wonwoo’s.

“Stay behind me,” Wonwoo murmured to you without looking — an order threaded through with something fragile.

Your breath caught.

“Hansol — stop this. You don’t have to—”

Hansol’s grin twitched. For a heartbeat, regret flickered across his sharp features — gone before you could name it.

“Too late.”

The gunshot cracked the night open.

Wonwoo jerked — a sound, not a scream but a punched-out breath, left his lips as his shoulder snapped back. His grip on you faltered but didn’t break; his weight leaned into you for half a heartbeat before he forced himself upright, staggering once but staying between you and the barrel that still smoked in Hansol’s hand.

Time splintered around you — guards shouting, Jun lunging, Myungho cursing as he tackled Hansol from behind, the gun clattering to the pavement.

“Y/n—” he rasped, his forehead brushing yours, breath warm despite the cold. “Stay… behind me…”

Time fractured.

Wonwoo’s weight sagged into you — warm, heavy, terrifyingly real — as a second gunshot cracked through the air, closer than the first, sharper, final.

Your head snapped up just in time to see Jun, breathless and stone-faced, lowering his pistol. Smoke curled from the muzzle. Hansol’s body lurched back, the force sending him sprawling to the filthy asphalt. His gun tumbled from lifeless fingers, skittering away until Myungho’s boot pinned it down with a crunch of gravel.

For a moment, no one breathed. Then the night erupted: boots slamming pavement, men shouting commands, two guards wrestling Hansol’s barely-conscious cronies to the curb. Somewhere in the chaos, a siren wailed — distant, irrelevant.

But all of that blurred when you looked down at Wonwoo. His eyes fluttered open just enough to find yours, a glassy stubbornness shining through the pain.

“Hey— hey, don’t—” You pressed your hand hard against his shoulder wound, the heat of blood seeping too fast between your fingers. “Wonwoo, stay with me. Please, just—”

A choked laugh rattled out of him, strained but real.

“Y/n..” he rasped, half a smirk ghosting his lips. “You don’t… order me…”

You wanted to scream at him to shut up, to save his strength — but all you could do was press harder, leaning over him as Jun dropped to his other side, barked something you barely registered to the guards about an ambulance and backup.

“Jun—” you gasped, your voice breaking.

“I know.” Jun’s eyes flicked to yours, softening only for a fraction of a second before hardening again at the sight of Hansol’s limp form a few feet away. “I got him. Focus on master. He’s going to make it — sir, you hear me?”

Wonwoo’s breathing hitched, then steadied, his lashes fluttering against your wrist as you held him.

In the periphery, Myungho’s voice rose over the chaos, sharp and venomous as he kicked Hansol’s gun away and helped bind the man’s wrists in blood-smeared plastic cuffs.

And in that chaos — asphalt, blood, the ruined echo of betrayal — all you could do was bow your head over Wonwoo’s chest, feel the stubborn pulse beneath your palms, and pray that this time, for once, your story would let him live.

*

When your eyelids finally fought their way open, the first thing you saw was the sterile white ceiling — too bright, too still — and the frantic blur of Soonyoung’s worried face leaning into your blurry vision.

“Y/N! Y/n — hey, look at me, look at me — Doc! She’s awake! She’s—” He turned his head and bellowed down the hallway, his voice cracking halfway between relief and panic.

You blinked hard, your tongue dry as you tried to form words. It felt like waking from a lifetime underwater.

“...S-Soonyoung…?”

He almost collapsed over your bedside rail, grabbing your hand so tight you felt it through the IV tape.

“Holy shit, don’t you ever— I mean— where the hell were you?! Do you know what—” He choked on a half-laugh, half-sob. “The whole country could’ve gone to war and you wouldn’t know, you— oh my god—”

A doctor brushed past him, checking your pupils with a penlight, mumbling something reassuring about dehydration and mild concussion. Soonyoung refused to let go of your hand the whole time, his thumb sweeping your knuckles like he needed to remind himself you were really there.

When the doctor finally stepped back, Soonyoung dropped his voice, fighting the tremble that made him sound ten years younger.

“You were gone for two weeks, Y/n. Two weeks! A farmer found you lying by the side road near the rice fields — said you were passed out in the dirt. Police brought you straight here. We—” His breath caught. “We thought—”

You squeezed his hand weakly, a reflex to hush the tremor in his voice.

A soft knock at the door cut through the haze — two plainclothes officers stepped in, polite but clearly exhausted. One flipped his notebook open, voice gentle but firm.

“Miss Y/n… we know you’ve just woken up, but can you tell us anything about what happened? Where you were? Anyone who might have—”

You stared at him. The white walls swam a little. Wonwoo’s blood, Hansol’s laugh, Jun’s voice telling you to hold on — all of it pressed like a bruise behind your ribs.

“I…” You wet your lips. “I don’t remember. I’m sorry. I don’t… remember anything.”

The older officer exchanged a glance with his partner, then nodded, jotting something down.

“That’s alright. When you’re stronger, maybe something will come back. Rest for now, Miss.”

When they stepped out, Soonyoung exhaled shakily, dropping into the chair by your bed again.

“You don’t remember, huh?” he whispered, searching your eyes for the truth you couldn’t say out loud.

You only shook your head.

Soonyoung didn’t let you drift back into that soft, dangerous haze of half-sleep — not when he’d waited two weeks and nearly lost his mind doing it. He perched on the edge of your hospital bed, his knees bouncing, hands flying everywhere as he retold everything in the only way Soonyoung knew how: animated, loud, and bursting at the seams.

“You should’ve seen it! I mean— no, you shouldn’t have seen it— it was terrifying! There was blood on your floor, your notes scattered like some horror movie— I thought you’d been murdered!” He smacked your pillow, startling you. “So I called the police immediately — and the landlord — and then the internet exploded, obviously. Everyone thought some stalker fan did it, or one of your haters, or— god, I don’t even know, people started fighting in your comment sections—”

He pressed his hand to his chest dramatically, catching his breath like he’d run laps around the hospital.

“Your name trended for days. Then the whole ‘#ComeBackY/N’ thing — people apologizing for leaving hate, people crying they’d misunderstood you — ugh, the drama. Half of them are still scared you’ll sue them for defamation now that it looks like an actual crime scene—”

You groaned softly, your dry throat protesting. “Soonyoung… please…”

He ignored you completely. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you sneaky genius — you finished the damn manuscript before you vanished! You sent it! The publisher called me to check if it was really you — I almost fainted—” He jabbed your forehead gently with a finger. “You didn’t even tell me the last chapters! How dare you wrap up his arc without me. It’s going live tomorrow, do you know that? Tomorrow! I’m your biggest fan and you didn’t even spoil me!”

Your tired chuckle cracked open past your dry lips. It hurt, but it felt good too.

“Sorry…” you rasped. “Had to… finish it before—”

Before everything bled over. Before you lost control completely.

Soonyoung softened then, all the noise melting into a fond grumble. He brushed your hair gently from your eyes, the way only an old friend could.

“Yeah, well. You’re finishing this first — getting better. Then you’re gonna tell me everything. Even the parts you swear you don’t remember. Deal?”

His pinky hovered near yours. You hooked it with yours, sealing a promise neither of you fully understood yet.

Outside your room, the sun was already setting. And tomorrow — tomorrow, the ending would finally belong to the world.

The next morning, the hospital felt like it pulsed with a quiet hum — nurses at the station murmured about your trending name again, passing by your door with curious eyes. But you didn’t care about them. You were propped up in bed, blanket twisted around your legs, eyes glued to your phone screen.

Soonyoung sat on the recliner, scrolling too — at first pretending not to care, then stealing glances at your expression every other second.

You’d stayed up all night refreshing the publisher’s site, waiting for the final chapter to drop. You’d written the ending weeks ago: Wonwoo would die in winter’s first snow, tragic but poetic — the only way to end him before he devoured everything. Hansol was just a thread you’d never fully pulled tight; a side piece, never meant to bloom into a real threat.

Except now, you scrolled line by line in growing disbelief.

It wasn’t your ending.

In this ending, Wonwoo’s death was there — a single, startling moment in a half-frozen courtyard under falling snow — but it came like a dream: hazy, shifting, wrong. Instead of fading out, the chapter kept going.

Hansol rose out of the ashes you’d never planted. Darker, stranger — his voice split between what readers knew and an alter ego no one had guessed. Sihye — a minor guard you’d half-named once — appeared at his side like a shadow stitched to his heel, coiled and hungry for vengeance on Wonwoo’s ghost.

And you — you were gone. No trace of the girl who should have been kneeling in the snow, holding the monster she’d built. In this version, you’d been erased entirely, replaced by Hansol’s distorted memory of Wonwoo’s only weakness: a secret no reader could name but every line implied.

You exhaled a shaky laugh, the phone trembling in your palm.

Soonyoung jolted upright. “Why are you laughing like that? Don’t do that, you look possessed—”

“It’s not mine,” you said, voice cracking somewhere between relief and horror. “It’s… not my ending. He— he rewrote himself, Soonyoung. He rewrote himself.”

Your friend blinked, squinting at your screen as if the code behind the page might explain it better than you ever could.

“But you sent the final draft, right? Like… the publisher didn’t—?”

“They didn’t change it. Look at it.” You shoved your phone at him. “This is him. Wonwoo—Hansol— it’s them. I didn’t write this part. They— they finished their own story.”

Inside your ribs, your heart thudded at a truth too big to put into words: the monsters you’d made had crawled off the page — and somewhere, somehow, they were still writing the next chapter themselves.

Soonyoung stared at you, then at your phone screen again, then back at your wide, exhausted eyes. He let out a long, dramatic sigh — the kind he used when you forgot your umbrella on a rainy day or burned your rice three days in a row.

He reached out, gently pried the phone from your fingers, and tossed it onto the side table, ignoring your weak protest.

“Yah. Enough. You’re not going to fight fictional men and real-life trauma in the same week. Not on my watch.” He jabbed a finger at your forehead, like sealing an invisible button to shut you up.

“But, Soon—”

“No but. You’re still hooked up to an IV, you look like you time-traveled through a blender, and I swear if you refresh that page again I’ll eat your phone.” He plopped back into the recliner with a huff, arms crossed like an overworked guardian.

“Just rest. Sleep. Let them rewrite whatever they want — you’re alive. That’s all that matters, okay?”

His voice softened at the end, enough to blur your stubborn argument into a watery laugh. You nodded, letting your head sink back into the pillow as your body — traitorous and bone-deep tired — finally agreed with him.

Soonyoung mumbled as he pulled your blanket higher under your chin, “Next time you want drama, just watch Netflix. Less kidnapping, more popcorn.”

Outside your hospital window, the world kept turning — while inside, for the first time in days, you let yourself drift without chasing any more endings.

*

You kept your announcement short — a single post on your page, pinned right above the final episode that had broken the internet for all the wrong reasons:

Thank you for reading my work all these years. I’ve decided to take an indefinite hiatus from creating comics. Please keep supporting new artists and stories. I’ll always be grateful. — Y/n

No dramatic farewell, no live Q&A. Just a quiet bow at the end of a stage you’d clung to for too long.

By the time you clicked ‘post,’ the comments were already flooding in — Take care of yourself, Author-nim! We’re so sorry for what you went through! We’ll wait for your return! — but you only let yourself read a handful before shutting your laptop for good.

The studio that had become your makeshift bedroom was a battlefield of cold coffee cups, scribbled drafts, and stacks of half-finished illustrations. You rolled up old posters, boxed every pen and sketchbook that still worked, and tied up bundles of storyboards you no longer had the heart to burn but couldn’t look at either.

Your tiny apartment — neglected for months while you hid among ink and paper — felt foreign at first. Sunlight spilled onto the dusty floor as you pulled the curtains wide, a broom in one hand and resolve in the other. You scrubbed, sorted, folded. Every faded mug and wrinkled blanket was a piece of your old life you were willing to keep — everything else, you stuffed into black trash bags and left by the door.

When the rooms were finally empty of yesterday’s ghosts, you stood in the middle of it all — the hum of the fridge, the ticking wall clock, the warm breeze sneaking through the open window — and breathed.

No Wonwoo. No Hansol. No margins waiting to tear open.

Just you. And this chance, fragile but yours, to live outside the page.

You tied your hair up with an old scrunchie, sleeves rolled high as you dragged a ragged mop across the narrow kitchen floor. The scent of pine disinfectant mingled with the faint, stubborn smell of ink and dust that clung to your walls no matter how hard you scrubbed.

Every time you opened a cupboard, a bit of your past life fell out: old character sketches wedged behind the plates, a mug etched with World’s Best Artist from Soonyoung (he’d spelled artist wrong, on purpose). You smiled weakly, tossing it into the keep pile anyway.

Your phone buzzed, rattling against the counter. You ignored it. Today wasn’t for calls or comforting words. Today was for clearing out the ghosts.

In the bedroom, you stripped your bed to the bare mattress. Crumpled sheets went straight into a laundry bag, along with the hoodie you’d practically lived in through every late-night rewrite. When you caught your reflection in the wardrobe mirror — hair a mess, sweat trickling down your neck — you almost laughed. Human again, you thought. Not an author. Not a hostage to a world you’d lost control of. Just… you.

By evening, cardboard boxes lined the hallway. Some destined for donation, some for the trash, some — the ones too heavy with memory — tucked carefully into the closet. You’d decide what to do with those later.

You sank down on the now-bare floor, back against the freshly wiped wall, and let the quiet wrap around you.

No drafts to finish. No margin to cross. No monster waiting behind your mirror.

For the first time in too long, your biggest problem was what to have for dinner. And that felt like freedom.

You were half-dozing on the bare floor when the knock came — three quick raps, one heavy thump. Classic Soonyoung, no doorbell, just his whole personality at your doorstep.

You opened the door to find him balancing a large paper bag in one hand and a soda bottle under his arm, grinning like he owned the hallway.

“Survival rations for the hermit,” he declared, barging in before you could protest. He paused mid-step when he saw the cleared apartment — the boxes, the empty desk, the naked walls where your storyboard clippings used to be pinned with colorful tape.

“…Whoa.” He set the bag down on your tiny dining table. “It really looks like you’re quitting your entire life in one day.”

You shrugged, pulling out the takeout boxes one by one. Rice, spicy chicken, egg rolls — all comfort food, all too much for one person. Soonyoung was good like that. Always bringing more than you asked for, just in case you forgot to eat tomorrow too.

“I’m not quitting my life,” you said, opening the soda for him. “Just… changing it. For good.”

He flopped onto the floor next to you, cross-legged like a kid. “Yeah, yeah. You know, people online still think you were kidnapped by a deranged fan.” He gestured with a chopstick. “You could clear that up, you know.”

You pressed your lips together. “Let them think what they want. It’s over.”

He went quiet for a second, then reached out and flicked your forehead — not hard, just enough to snap you out of your thoughts.

“Eat first, dramatic later,” he said, voice soft despite the tease. He cracked open a container, waved it under your nose. “I gotta go after this — there’s a meeting with my editor tonight. But I didn’t want you spending your first free night with instant noodles.”

You laughed, the sound a little watery. Soonyoung bumped your shoulder with his, eyes twinkling like always.

“Next chapter’s gonna be your best, okay?” he said. “Even if there’s no drawing in it. Promise me.”

You clinked your chopsticks against his, a tiny toast in the middle of your nearly empty home.

“Promise.”

*

You were jolted awake by a dull thud — something heavy shifting, then a soft scrape against your living room floor. For a few disoriented seconds, you lay stiff under your blanket, eyes wide in the darkness, every childhood nightmare crawling back into your mind at once.

Half-dreaming, half-dreading, you wondered if this was finally it — the day the anonymous threats turned real, the day the masked words became hands around your throat.

Your throat tightened as you slid your feet to the cold floor, steadying your shaky breath. You bent down, groping blindly under your bed until your fingers curled around worn, familiar wood — the old baseball bat you’d kept since college, back when you thought monsters only lived in alleyways, not in your inbox.

You clutched the handle so tight your knuckles whitened. Each cautious step made the floor groan just enough to betray you, but you pressed on, every nerve on fire as you crept toward the faint slice of light spilling under your bedroom door.

The quiet outside was worse than any noise. You could almost hear your heartbeat echoing off the walls. You paused by the door, inhaled once, twice, then flicked the switch with trembling fingers.

The harsh hallway light flared to life, making your eyes sting — and in that moment, the bat fell limp in your grip.

He stood there in the middle of your living room, as if he belonged in the mundane mess of your reality: a man in a rain-damp coat, droplets dripping onto your floorboards, a battered copy of The Little Prince dangling loosely from his hand. He was brushing rain from his dark hair with the other hand, utterly unbothered by the way your entire world had just jolted awake with you.

Your throat worked around his name, hoarse and disbelieving. “Wonwoo…”

He turned slowly, dark eyes meeting yours under the harsh ceiling light. Something soft flickered there, ghostly warmth beneath the sharp lines of a man you once wrote as unyielding steel.

“Hey,” he murmured, his voice deep and so achingly familiar that your grip on the bat finally failed you.

It hit the floor with a muted clatter — the only sound loud enough to remind you this wasn’t a dream, no matter how much your knees begged you to wake up.

Your mind reeled, lagging behind the sight of him standing there, flesh and bone and rain-soaked reality — not ink, not pixels, not a memory stitched into your pillow at 3 a.m.

You took a step forward before your legs betrayed you, buckling just enough that you grabbed the door frame for support.

“Y-You’re…” Your voice broke on the word, disbelief scraping your throat raw. “You’re alive.”

Wonwoo tilted his head at you, a faint crease between his brows as if he was gently puzzled by how fragile you sounded. He shifted the little book in his hand, like an absent gesture to ground himself in this place that wasn’t meant for him — your place, your clutter, your humdrum lightbulb humming above him.

“Of course I’m alive,” he said, and his tone held that soft reprimand you’d given him in all your drafts when he needed to remind people he was human first, ruthless second. “It takes more than a bullet to kill me, doesn’t it?”

You shook your head, eyes stinging, the rush of tears making your vision stutter like a broken film reel. 

“Wonwoo, I— I saw you—”

Before you could finish, he stepped forward, crossing the distance you couldn’t. His free hand, warm and real, cupped the side of your neck, thumb brushing your racing pulse. His touch made your heart lurch against your ribs, a startled bird in a too-small cage.

“You wrote an ending,” he murmured, voice lower now, nearer. “But you forgot something, didn’t you? I never really did what you told me to do, not completely.”

He lifted The Little Prince slightly, almost playful, like a conspirator showing you his secret.

“Wherever you put me,” he said, “I always find my way back to you.”

Your body moved before your mind could catch up as you stumbled forward and threw your arms around him.

“You’re alive…” you whispered, the words trembling out of you like a confession — like an apology for every night you’d cried over his death, for every version of him you’d buried in the drafts you never dared to reopen.

Wonwoo let out a soft grunt at the impact, but his arms wrapped around you without hesitation, steady and certain. He smelled like a cold wind and a trace of old paper — the way you’d always imagined his world to feel against your skin.

“I’m here,” he murmured into your hair, one hand splayed wide between your shoulder blades like he was anchoring you to him. “Look at you… You really thought you’d gotten rid of me?”

You laughed, a small, cracked sound muffled against his chest, your fingers fisting in the damp fabric of his coat. His heartbeat thudded under your ear, so solid and steady you almost sobbed from the relief of it.

“I thought—” you choked out, pulling back just enough to see his face. His dark eyes searched yours, calm even now, as if there was nothing more natural in the world than him standing in your hallway. “I thought you were gone. I thought you—”

He pressed his forehead to yours, his breath brushing your lips as he cut you off softly. “I’m not gone. You should know by now… I never die that easily.”

Your hands came up to frame his face, to prove to yourself this wasn’t another cruel dream. His skin was warm. His lashes fluttered when you touched his cheekbone with your thumb, like you were the fragile thing this time, not him.

His hand slipped from your cheek to the back of your neck, fingers threading into your hair with a tenderness that contradicted the storm behind his eyes. Before you could answer, before you could even draw another breath to question him, Wonwoo closed the last inch between you and pressed his mouth to yours.

It wasn’t gentle — not really. It was the kind of kiss that said enough to every unfinished ending you’d ever written for him. His lips moved over yours like he was claiming lost time, like he needed to remind you he was flesh and blood, not a tragic line on a page you could erase.

Your knees nearly gave out. One hand clutched at his coat while the other fisted in his hair, and the bat you’d dropped rolled noiselessly across the floor behind you. The hallway light flickered above you, but you barely noticed. There was only his warmth, the taste of him — familiar and heartbreakingly real — and the soft rumble of his low groan against your mouth when you tugged him closer.

When he finally pulled back, your lips tingled, your breath stolen, your heart pounding so loud it drowned out every thought but he’s here, he’s here, he’s here.

Wonwoo didn’t step away. His forehead rested against yours, eyes half-lidded, voice rough when he spoke.

“Do you believe me now?” he murmured, the ghost of a smile brushing your swollen lips. “I’m alive. I’m not leaving you again.”

Your hands trembled where they clutched his coat, but you didn’t care — you didn’t want to care about anything except the taste of him and the warmth that bled through every inch where your bodies touched.

You tipped your chin up, breathless but hungry for more, and tugged him down to you again. This time the kiss was deeper, slower but impossibly warmer — no fear, no half-finished confessions, just you pouring every sleepless night and every secret wish into the press of your mouth against his.

Wonwoo made a sound you’d never heard before — half a groan, half a laugh muffled by your lips — as if he couldn’t quite believe you were real, too. His hands gripped your waist, pulling you flush against him until there was no room for the past, no room for doubt, just the frantic thrum of your pulse answering his.

When you finally pulled back for air, your lips were damp and your chest ached sweetly with relief. His eyes searched yours — dark, sharp, so alive — and softened when he saw the tears you didn’t even realize had slipped free.

“Again,” he whispered against your mouth, his thumb brushing your cheekbone. “Say it again.”

You breathed out the words like a vow, fingers curling into his hair.

“You’re alive. You’re here. With me.”

And this time, when he kissed you, it was softer — but it felt endless.

*

Soonyoung nearly choked on his iced coffee, eyes wide as saucers darting between you and the man beside you — the very real, very unbothered Jeon Wonwoo, who calmly stirred his latte like he hadn’t just upended everything Soonyoung thought he knew about you.

“Wait— wait,” Soonyoung sputtered, jabbing a finger accusingly at Wonwoo’s face. “You’re telling me… you— this— he’s real? And his name is actually Jeon Wonwoo?”

You pressed your lips together, trying to hide your laugh behind your palm. Wonwoo only raised an eyebrow, glancing at you with that faint, knowing smirk before returning his gaze to Soonyoung, unruffled as ever.

“Yes,” you said, voice light but betraying your thrill. “His name is really Jeon Wonwoo.”

Soonyoung gaped, looking like he was rethinking every midnight rant he’d ever heard from you about “that tragic idiot villain” you were rewriting for the hundredth time.

“Hold on— then all this time, the comic— you were inspired by him?” He leaned in over the table, practically vibrating with secondhand scandal. “You built that entire icy bastard king based on your real boyfriend?”

Your gaze slipped to Wonwoo, your hand drifting unconsciously to his on the table. He didn’t pull away — instead, his thumb brushed yours, so soft it made your chest tighten all over again.

“Maybe…” you murmured, unable to hide the tiny smile. “He’s my muse, after all.”

Soonyoung groaned, dropping his head dramatically to the table with a loud thud.

“I knew it. I knew you were secretly romantic, but this is insane. Next you’ll tell me Hansol’s real too and wants to kill me.”

Wonwoo’s low chuckle rumbled beside you. “Don’t worry,” he said smoothly, eyes twinkling. “Hansol won’t bother you.”

Soonyoung just wailed into his arms. “I hate both of you. But also — I’m so happy for you, oh my god.”

The End.

[skyrigel]

Guardian angel - the salesman

Kidnapping, manipulation, forced feeding, mild dumbification [ Read Guardian devil here ]

He watched your face, ridden of any turmoil. Sleep laden and lips parted, blissfully lost in a foreign dream.

It pleased him to see you sleeping so peacefully, in your dingy apartment with broken windows and leaking ceiling, loud hostile music coming from upstairs and poor regulator that did nothing to warm your room. The bed left your body sore and cold, there was no comfort there for a pretty one like you, so soft, so tender. But it's alright, he'd got you safe here baby.

As much as he loved watching you sleep, but it's been hours after he had taken you out from that shitty apartment, paid the six months due rent and slapped the landowner three times — for all the windows he never fixed and only asked for payments. Next he logged into your email, sent the resignation you had drafted months ago but never sent because there was no work except it. You don't need it now, you needed none of their bullshit. 

You belong to him, he'll take care of you.

“Easy…wake up now, sweetheart.” He cupped your face, skin warm and soft. Your lids slowly opened, expecting harsh day light that came through the broken panels, cheap curtains did nothing to block out the rays. 

There was none of it, your body felt rested and warm. 

“I..Y-you— this..” You scrambled back like a kitten spotted stealing bread. Banging your head hard against the headboard and pain ozzed up in short waves.  His big palm coming to rest on the back of your head and smoothing down the pain, “You must be hungry.” 

It wasn't a question, a statement.

“Who are you ?” You snapped back, trying not to waver your gaze at the tray he was hoisting up with careful, with a steaming bowl in between. 

“Chicken soup,” He said, then smiled like a devil masquerading an angel, “oh, me ?” 

“Who are you ?” you asked again, desperation pouring its way inside you. He was handsome, very handsome. 

“I am your everything baby. Your lover, your family, your angel….” His eyebrows tugged manically, “And your devil.” 

You bite your lips hard enough to draw blood, then open your mouth to say something, counter him. He wasn't. He wasn't. He — 

Meanwhile he blew the steam away from the scooped up herby soup, countering him wasn't something that would please him. You can be a brat all you want later, talk back all you like. He's here, he'll listen, maybe you should give him a list of all the people who've pissed you. That will be good, but for now you must eat and rest. He didn't want to drug you, but there was no other way. 

“Eat, love.”  He pushed as your lips parted, it wasn't hot enough to burn your tongue. He knew it as well.

“Is it good ? I made it for you.” 

Your eyes teared up, it tasted similar, it was the sort of thing that tasted like home, although you haven't known it for so long after your parents' home smelled too much like alcohol and bruises. 

“Hey, hey, hey —” He cooed, as much as he liked how puffy your lips became and goddamn those star like eyes. But it pulsed his heart to see you cry. “What happened ? Tell me.” His sleeve came up to wipe away the soup from the corner of your lips . 

You breathlessly shaked your head.

“Was it you who sent food every day ?” You looked up, eyes into eyes. He leaned forward, his hands holding up the tray.

“Don’t worry too much baby. I've got you.” He whispered, pressing his lips on your forehead and taken aback with your raised chin, a moment, then his lips met yours in a peck. He pulled away, you were all flushed, another moment. He kept the tray aside on the bed table, and smiled like the tempted devil. Slender fingers came and held your jaw hard, before he drank you up all the way in. His lips glided and pried open your mouth to let him get a taste of home, rawly he fucked his tongue in your mouth and felt his cock erect in the simple thought of using your mouth. His beautiful kitten, his cock slut.

It's alright, he's got you. His baby, all his.

[heartkaji]

　 ★…𝐀𝐓𝐋4𝐍𝐓𝐀 𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐊 ?! ❞

୨ৎ synopsis. blue lock characters but they’re hood. based on the atlanta lock ! tiktok trend.

୨ৎ includes. bachira meguru, isagi yoichi, nagi seishiro, shidou ryusei, otoya eita

୨ৎ notes. this has been in my drafts since july cuz ive been procrastinating, hope it’s not too late to post this 🙏

★ BACHIRA MEGURU— LIL SMOKEY

“shit, we making it out the hood with this one y’all ! run the track again—fire flame flow productions ain’t neva miss.”

you roll your eyes as bachira daps up isagi.

you’ve been here for an hour & you can feel your eardrums beginning to rot like dead peaches. bachira raps over a beat you swear you’ve heard from lucki, but he’s quick to shush you when you bring it up. you cross tired arms over your chest as the music winds up and bachira starts his verse again.

“pretty bitch, yeah she got me seein’ stars, like it when i thrust, fuck her all the way to mars,”

isagi whistles. you contemplate suicide.

“she think that i’m loyal but i switch my bitch like cars, new whip every day and no i’m not just penning bars !”

“type shit !” isagi calls. you still in your seat. what ?

your chest swells with something akin to rage. you were already exhausted, ears wilting at the boom of the bass. bachira’s been redoing the same verse for hours, but you’d never paid attention to your boyfriend’s lyrics till now. you march over to the sound panel and shut it down with closed fist.

“bachira meguru—!”

“fucking hell, woman ! the fuck did you do that for—?“

you march into the booth and slap him silly.

bachira looks back at you with mouth agape and red tinged cheeks. his face is blood drenched and you almost feel guilty but you tighten your chest & straighten your back.

“what the hell did you just say, meg ?”

“what are you on about—“

“don’t play with me right now, meg. word to my mother i’ll slap y’ left cheek too. fuck you mean you riding a new bitch every day, huh ?”

bachira groans, rubbing at his cheek. “god, those are just lyrics ! you tripping for real—“

you slap his left cheek.

“you think you’re future or something ? fucking try me meg. you’re lucky i know you don’t actually have the balls to cheat. change those lyrics. now.”

bachira mumbles something under his breath before marching to the sound station. a boyish giggle breaks the quiet, and you shoot a glare at yoichi, causing silence to envelope the room once again before bachira revs up the track.

“she know that i’m loyal cuz i treat her like a star, call me yuki chiba man, ‘watashi wa star !’ ”

★ ISAGI YOICHI — YXNG EGOIST

“yoichi, you were raised in a gated community. you do not have opps.”

isagi clicks his tongue. the sound is muffled under the wool of his thick balaclava, but you manage to make it out regardless. “you don’t understand, princess. just keep watch for me, alright ?”

“yoichi.”

you heave your third sigh of the evening. you and isagi were at a high end restaurant for a date, but suddenly you wished you were home. you’d been looking forward to having dinner with the busy striker all week, but now that you’re here together with you in a fancy dress while he sports a thick balaclava, you can’t help but feel embarassed.

“yoichi i’m literally begging you to take that off.”

isagi lifts the chin of his mask to sneak a bite of chicken with his fork. he quickly takes a sip of water before dragging the mask back over his lips, eyes darting from side to side to scope his surroundings. he breathes a relieved sigh. “i think i’m safe for now..”

“alright, i’m going home.”

“huh ? what — no, babe, i’ll take it off, come back !”

★ NAGI SEISHIRO — SUGARHILL SEI

“riddle me this, sei. how the fuck your bank account low but your ass getting high ?”

you and reo stand arms crossed over a faded nagi, his eyes blood tinged & cheeks hot & swollen. his breathing is labored as he fits the blunt to his lips to take yet another drag.

“cuh i ain’ even got time fuh dis forreal. y’all mothafuckas just be bouncin’ on my dick fo’ no reason man.”

“what the hell is he saying ?”

“i think he’s speaking ganglish ?”

“oh hell no.” reo snaps his fingers over his head, “i rebuke every spirit of hoodlum in you, bro. what the fuck nagi, is this what you’ve come to ?”

nagi rubs his forehead & for a second he bears an uncanny resemblance to travis scott. “cuh i ain’ even—“ FWAM !

reo dashes a hot slap to nagi’s cheek. the red handprint glistens against his pale skin & your palms fly to cover your gaping mouth. “reo ! that’s—that’s too far !”

“stay out of this y/n,” nagi lays limp on the room floor, his eyes rapidly blinking with his mouth agape. “this is just the beginning. if we don’t correct him now, he’ll start dressing like a carti fan before you know it !”

reo hops unto one foot, aggressively tugging a chancla off the other. he turns to nagi.

“sorry bro, i don’t wanna do this,”

“cuh—“

FWAM !

★ SHIDOU RYUSEI — MR. FREAK

“gyattttt”

“i’m breaking up with you.”

“no mami i’m sorryyy,” shidou drawls playfully, arms circling your hips. he tugs you closer to him so you’re pressed flush against his skin.

“respectfully asking you to wear these ‘forbidden tights’ more often, ma. this recoil is insane.” he makes a slurping noise and you question your existence.

“ryusei—“

“boing !” shidou chuckles to himself as he slaps your ass. the flesh is soft in his palms and he’s about to indulge his intrusive thoughts once again before you slap him with your purse.

“shidou ryusei ! in the public eye ?!”

“government name is crazyyy.”

“i’m going home.” you begin heading towards the exit with a noisy shidou calling after you, “bae come back ! it was just jokes !”

★ OTOYA EITA — LIL’ FLOCKA

“nah cuz what you know about ken carson for real though.”

you groan for the third time today. “eita it’s enough.”

“no babe i’m just sayin,” he rubs lazy circles along your hip bone, lips pressed lazily against the back of your shoulder, “since you wanna be lip syncing to unreleased ken, you must know more about him than i do, right ?”

“oh my fucking god. literally who said that ?”

“no but you implied it. look at you posting yoself singing with your big ole’ tatas.”

“eita i’m literally gonna leave you for karasu right now.”

“nah nah chill it’s just,” he swipes through your story, clicking his tongue when he notices you’ve posted yourself to yet another underground artist, this time thouxanbanfouani. he bites his inner cheek to stop himself from asking you to take your story down.

“you don’t get him like i do, you feel me ?”

“congratulations otoya. the fuck you telling me that for ?”

“take your story down.”

“we’re over.”

© ─ heartkaji ; do not steal, copy, edit, translate or reupload

[retireddaddyric]

The last article about him

(“You’re nobody” part VII)

Synopsis: part 7 (which is the last). The ‘hater’ journalist with whom Daniel had an affair texts him again after listening him talk about her in his interview. And a new article drops.

Warnings: 18+, minors do not interact please. Sweet love making, funny insults, fluff, Daniel Ricciardo memories (this is a real warning.)

Note: this is all fiction. English is not my first language, so I apologize in advance if there are any errors. This is the end of them.

It’s been three weeks, not that you’ve counted.

Not that you’ve checked his profile at night with your screen dimmed low.

Not that your heart still clenches every time you pass something Red Bull blue.

You’ve written four pieces since but none about him: execpt every single one was about him in its own silence.

And today, like a slow knife between the ribs, you hear his name again.

You’re in your apartment, half-listening to an F1 post-race interview on the TV until you hear it, not his name, yours. From someone else’s mouth.

“I mean, you’ve seen the way she used to write about you. Ruthless. Some would say downright unfair.”

Your stomach knots.

You know exactly what they’re doing: They’re talking to him about you on live broadcast.

And you should shut it off, you know for your mental health you really should.

But you don’t.

You freeze halfway to the kitchen, a coffee gone cold in your hand.

When he speaks, he is calm and collected.

“Yeah, she was hard on me,” he says. “But she was usually right.”

Silence from the host.

“I deserved most of it,” he continues. “Back then, I was cocky. Reckless. She didn’t let me off easy, and I respect that. Honestly, we need more people like her in the sport. She tells the truth, even when it makes people uncomfortable.”

The host clears his throat, trying to keep the tone light. “You don’t think she had some… personal agenda?”

A pause.

You hold your breath.

“She saw me clearer than I saw myself,” he says.

Your coffee slips from your hand, hits the floor. You don’t even flinch because he’s still talking. “And when she called me out, it pushed me. She made me better. You can say what you want about her tone or her words but her mind is sharp, and she doesn’t flinch. That’s rare.”

There’s a stunned silence on the panel. You imagine the blinking faces, the cameras the awkward host trying to pivot.

You don’t hear the rest because you don’t need to.

You sink to the floor.

Because he defended you. Not just tolerated you. Not just brushed off the question. But defended you. Softly. Firmly. Like you mattered.

Like he wasn’t ashamed anymore.

And suddenly the last night you saw him, that kiss, those trembling hands, the way he said your name like it hurt, rushes back so hard your lungs twist.

You sit there, heart hammering against your ribs, lips parted, staring at nothing.

You don’t cry but something inside you shifts.

Because you get how you had it all wrong.

You thought he left because he didn’t want more.

Bu maybe, just maybe, he was afraid of how much he did.

You grab your phone and start typing a text into his chat.

You don’t send it immediately. You draft it,delete it, draft it again.

Just a few words, that’s all, just something simple, distant, neutral.

You don’t want him to think too much.

You don’t want to think too much.

But it’s been hours since the interview aired, and the words he said, the way he said them.. still echo in your head.

“She saw me clearer than I saw myself.”

It was too soft. Too real.

So finally, in the dark of your living room, you tap the screen. Fingers still trembling, goddamn it.

[You]

Thanks for what you said today I didn’t expect it

You stare at it.

Then add, after a breath:

[You]

it meant something

Then you send it.

No emoji. No punctuation. No armor.

Just that.

You lock your phone and toss it onto the couch like it might burn your hand.

Then, five minutes later, it buzzes.

You don’t check it immediately but you feel the weight of the message like it’s sitting beside you.

When you finally open it, his reply is short. Direct. It doesn’t play games.

[Daniel]

can we talk?

about us.

Your stomach twists.

You blink at the screen.

Then another text follows.

[Daniel]

not sex

not pretending

just us. for real this time.

You stare at the words so long the screen dims.

And this time, for once, you don’t run.

You pick a quiet place, you both pretend it’s casual : it’s tucked-away café with tiny tables and too much ivy, somewhere in the hills, far from the center of the city.

Still, a camera finds you, you catch the glint of a lens just before sitting down. He notices too but neither of you mention it.

He’s already there when you arrive. Simple shirt, sleeves pushed up, backwards cap, sunglasses discarded uselessly on the table like he forgot who he is. He stands when you approach.

You raise a brow. “You’ve got manners now?”

He smiles, slow and tired. “Trying to impress the critic.”

You both sit but you don’t touch. Your knees brush under the table and neither of you pull away.

You talk about nothing at first: the weather, the ridiculous new team principal drama, who’s actually going to take the seat next year.

You sip your drink like it’s a shield while he pretends not to watch your mouth when you do.

It’s not enough.

He leans in after a beat and his voice lowers. “I meant what I said. On the interview.”

You nod. “I know.”

Silence lingers. He fidgets with the edge of his glass.

Then you say the thing that’s been bruising your throat for weeks.

“I didn’t mean half the shit I wrote.”

His head lifts.

You force yourself to keep looking at him. “I mean… I wrote it. But it wasn’t really about you. Not all of it. Not the important stuff.”

He stays quiet, eyes locked on yours, like he knows you’re not done.

You exhale.

“You weren’t just a mask. You were—are—good. Even when I hated you, I knew that.” You pause. “I just didn’t want you to be that good.” Your voice trembles slightly when you add “Because then I’d have to believe in you.”

His expression shifts, there is no smugness, no victory. Just a kind of aching relief.

He reaches across the table and takes your hand. No games this time.

You let him.

And that’s when the photographer clicks again and you both glance toward the distamt flash. He squeezes your fingers once and doesn’t let go.

“Let them take the picture,” he says quietly. “Let them know.”

Your breath catches.

And that’s how you know you’re fucked.

You leave the café together. No ducking, no hiding. His hand in yours, openly, as you walk to his car. He opens the passenger door like a gentleman, and you roll your eyes like you’re not melting.

The ride to his place is silent, but not awkward. Just heavy with something tender.

The front door closes with a soft click. You both stand there for a moment still, breathing the same air.

He looks at you like he’s searching for the part of you he’s missed every single day since you left.

Your fingers reach for his. You slide them between his knuckles without a word.

And when you look up at him, your voice is barely a whisper.

“Don’t go slow unless you mean it.”

His jaw tenses, but his thumb grazes yours.

“I mean every second of this.”

The moment he kisses you, it’s not hurried. It’s not desperate.

It’s deliberate.

His lips part over yours slowly, like he’s learning you again, or maybe memorizing you for the first time. You melt into it, hands in his hair, breath shallow. The taste of him makes your knees weak.

He walks you backward to his bedroom, lips never leaving yours, only pausing to look at you. Just look.

“You’re real,” he murmurs. “You’re here.”

The way he undresses you feels almost reverent. He peels your clothes off piece by piece, eyes never straying from your face.

When your shirt drops to the floor, he exhales like it’s a relief to see you bare again.

“God, I missed you.”

His hands skim your waist, palms splayed wide.

“Tell me you missed me too.”

You nod, your voice caught in your throat. “Every night.”

He lets out a sigh and closes his eyes.

He kisses your shoulder. Your collarbone. The space between your breasts.

When his mouth brushes your ribs, you gasp softly and he murmurs something you almost don’t catch:

“I dreamed of this. Of you.”

You reach for him, your fingers trembling as you take his cap off, undo his shirt, push it off his shoulders, run your palms across the solid warmth of his chest. He shivers.

When you’re both bare, he doesn’t touch you at first. He just looks at you. Long. Deep. Like he’s memorizing every inch.

Then he leans in and whispers against your collarbone, “You’re even more beautiful when you let yourself be soft.”

That’s when you close your eyes. Because his words hit deeper than any thrust ever could.

He picks you up and lays you gently on the bed setting himself between your legs.

His hands glide over your hips. Your thighs. He kisses down your sternum, your ribs, your stomach everywhere but where you’re desperate for him. Not because he wants to tease but because he wants all of you.

When he finally comes back up and lines himself against you, he pauses, nose brushing yours, foreheads almost touching.

“Are you sure?” he asks.

You nod. Breathless. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

And when he pushes inside you, slow and deep, your breath hitches and your whole body arches to meet him.

It’s different this time. No rough grabs. No slamming hips. No trying to break each other open.

Just him fitting into you like he belongs there, like he’s always belonged there.

He moves slowly. Steady. Every roll of his hips is a promise. Every moan against your throat is a confession.

You wrap your arms around his shoulders, pull him closer, until there’s no space left between your bodies, until you feel every tremble in him like it’s your own.

Your legs wrap around his waist and your fingers lace with his tight, grounding, real. Neither of you lets go this time. He pushes them slowly above your head, your hands in his hands on the pillow.

He looks at you while he’s inside you. Eyes open, locked to yours.

And you look back.

Neither of you blink.

It’s not about power anymore, or control.

It’s about finally having what you both wanted all along.

LI don’t want anyone else to touch you like this,” he breathes.

Your chest cracks open. “They won’t.”

He thrusts deeper, slower, and you cry out his name into the crook of his neck. He whispers yours like it’s a vow.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says.

You don’t realize you’re crying until he kisses your cheek and tastes the salt. He doesn’t ask. He just keeps moving inside you, holding you like he’ll never let go.

And when you come, it’s quiet not a scream, not a gasp, but a soft, trembling exhale as you cling to him, fingers curling, thighs trembling, overwhelmed with how full you feel, not just your body, but your heart.

He follows seconds later, groaning against your shoulder, pressing so deep you swear you feel him in your chest. His body shudders and stills, and you hold him through it, whispering it’s okay, I’ve got you, even though he was the one holding you first.

After, he stays on top of you, just resting there. Skin to skin. Heart to heart.

And then he lifts his head, eyes glassy, lips parted.

You kiss him again. Soft. Sweet. Slow.

Neither of you says it.

But you both know.

You’re not pretending anymore.

You’re in love.

And this time, you’re going to stay.

Half an hour later, quietly, into the soft dark of his room he says: “So… are we a scandal now?”

You smile against his skin. “No,” you whisper. “We’re a headline.”

He laughs , soft and full, and you close your eyes, fingers still entwined, heart wide open.

This time, you know what to do next.

And you do it.

Your article about him goes live three days later.

——————————————-

The man behind the laps

by (Y/N)

For most of my career, I’ve written about speed.

About mistakes. About pressure and glory and the millions of eyes watching from behind the safety of a screen. I’ve written about men who win and men who crumble. I’ve written about egos. Masks. The illusions we all wear when the world demands performance.

And for years, one of my most consistent subjects was a man I thought I understood completely.

Fast. Flamboyant. Frustratingly charming. Always a smile, always a joke, always something maddeningly unserious behind the wheel.

I’ll admit this now: I thought that smile was armor.

I thought he was all show and no depth.

And I wrote like that.

Again and again.

But the thing about hindsight, the thing about actually knowing someone, is that it humbles you.

Daniel Ricciardo (yes, I’m naming him now) is not a mask.

He never was.

He is grit under pressure. He is grace in failure. He is the teammate everyone wanted beside them in war, the last-lap miracle-maker, the one who reminded the sport — and all of us — that joy is not weakness.

He made people believe again. Not just in racing. But in him. In what it looks like to lose with your chin up, and win with your arms wide open.

He didn’t leave the sport bitter. He left it better.

And while his time on the grid has passed, his presence hasn’t.

Not for the fans.

Not for the people who worked alongside him.

And not for those of us who now know him… differently.

I could list every podium. Every impossible overtake. Every champagne-fueled shoey.

But what I remember most clearly is a quiet moment: him watching a junior driver’s interview, nodding with pride, eyes soft.

That’s the man who ran lap after lap with the weight of public opinion on his back, and never let it make him cruel.

That’s the man we underestimated.

That’s the man I’ll be standing beside, wherever the road takes him next.

Because behind every driver’s helmet is a person.

And behind his, there was someone worth seeing clearly.

I only wish I had seen it sooner.

——————————————————

Daniel is halfway through his second coffee when he sees his name. Bold at the top of the page.

And right beneath it: your name.

He freezes, cup at his lips. It always hurt knowing you were about to hit him with words.

The morning sun filters in through the kitchen window. you’re still in his bed, hair a mess, your legs tangled in his sheets like you own the place now which, let’s be honest, you do.

He scrolla slowly.

At first he thinks it’s a trap. Another one of your sharp essays dressed in elegance.

But then—

“He didn’t leave the sport bitter. He left it better.”

His throat goes tight and reads it twice. Then three times.

By the time you wander in yawning, wearing his t-shirt and absolutely zero shame he’s read the whole thing.

You sees the screen in his hand and stop in your tracks. “Oh,” you say, blinking. “You read that.”

He arches a brow. “I did.”

You fold your arms, pretending to brace for a punch. “Well?”

He sets the phone down slowly, deliberately, like it’s sacred.

Then he lean back in your chair and say, deadpan:

“Bit sentimental for someone who used to call me an overrated clown.”

You smirk. “You were an overrated clown.”

“Ah. So we’re doing this.”

“Just because I love you now doesn’t mean you weren’t unbearable.”

His heart skips.

You freeze.

You both look at each other.

Silence.

He stands, slow, crossing to where you’re standing barefoot in his kitchen like you’re not shaking a little.

He stops in front of you and rests his hands on your hips. “Say it again.”

You look up at him, breath caught. “What?”

He lowers his voice: “The part where you said you love me.”

You try to play it off with a scoff. “I don’t remember saying that.”

He smirks. “Well, I heard it. And I’ve got an article now to back it up.”

You narrow your eyes. “Don’t make this worse.”

He leans in, whispering against your lips, “Make what worse?”

And just before you can threaten to knee you, he kisses you. Soft. Certain. The kind of kiss that anchors.

He pulls back barely an inch, breathing you in.

“I love you too,” he murmurs. “Even when you write mean things. Even when you steal my shirts. Even when you act like you don’t.”

You melt. Literally melt.

And then, just because you can’t help yourself, you mumble into your chest: "You’re still a clown.”

He laughs. And you can see it written on his forehead ‘God, you love this woman.’

He wraps his arms around you tighter, lifting you just enough for you to squeal.

“Yeah,” he says, kissing your neck, grinning, “but I’m your clown now.”

And for once, you don’t argue.

The End

(For all those who got here, I love you all, thanks for the love for these two, I will miss them! Feel free to reach out in the comments or in private! Muah!)

[5tarchaser]

.:･˚₊ mission: evacuate

pairing: assassin!jay x fem agent!reader ft. jungwon and jake of enhypen genre: rivals to ??, inspired by mcu fics

synopsis: you and jay are asked to work together on a mission, even though it is well known around the compound that you guys don't work well together.

word count: 1.6k

warnings: swearing, mentions of wounds, poor attempts at humour, a little angst, fluff, although inspired by mcu no plot spoilers

a/n: im backkk!!! havent written in forever cause uni took all my writing motivation away :/ still have a bunch of fics drafted from forever ago but wanted to post this first. inspired by mcu fanfics cause they created thunderbolts for me (i love bucky barnes give him more screentime). thank the mcu for reviving my bucky era (which never left) and fanfic writing gears :p honestly not entirely sure about the ending of this fic but what can i do T-T hopefully writing block doesnt hit me like a truck again, enjoy!!!

“You guys get that?”

You look up from the mission files in your hand, making eye contact with Jungwon, the team’s leader. 

“One quick question,” you say while raising your hand. “Do I really have to be paired up with this prick?” 

There wasn’t anything wrong with Jay per se—at least skill-wise—but something about his personality was always off. You can agree that he is good at what he does and has is impressive on the battlefield, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s always given you a cold shoulder since entering the team. You don’t know if it’s because you’re a simple agent while he’s a trained assassin, but there’s no need for him to be so condescending.

“I could ask the same thing,” the said prick mentions.

Jungwon shakes his head. “Jay, you are one of our best assassins,” he says sternly. Assassin, more like asshole. Jungwon turns to you, “And Y/N, you’re one of the best agents in this compound, and believe it or not, the assets both of you bring to the table work well together.”

“I find that very hard to believe,” Jay states as you roll your eyes.

“Look, as much as I know how much you guys despise each other for some unknown reason, this mission is a quick grab and go, and I trust you both enough not to have this mission turn sideways no matter what differences you guys have.” Jungwon states. “Plus you guys won’t be fully alone, Jake will be on comms during the whole mission.”

“Oh great, put us with the rookie who happens to be Jay’s best friend,” you mutter.

“So with that, I hope to see you guys at the jet by 5AM tomorrow morning. Meeting dismissed.”

Without so much as a word, the two of you guys head out into your respective rooms, preparing for a short but dreadful mission.

As you suit up waiting for the jet to land, Jay comes up to you, dropping the map of the base onto your lap. “Here’s the map of the base, all you have to do is get to the panel room and extract the CCTV footage. Don’t fuck it up.”

You purse your lips and furrow your brows, feigning annoyance. “You’re giving this to me as if Jungwon didn’t already explain the mission. I know what I have to do, I’ve done it before.”

As the jet comes to a stop, you turn to Jay, “You better not fuck up either. The moment someone spots you, we’re both dead.”

"You saying you have no trust in me sweetheart?" He states with his hand to his chest, acting hurt.

"Yup."

You both enter the facility without any difficulties, which garnered suspicion. “Everything seems a bit too easy,” you mutter to Jay. “The only time I’d actually agree with you,” he responds. “Just get to the panel room as quickly as you can, then we’ll be out of here.”

“Roger that.”

Finding the panel room was just as easy as breaking and entering into the facility. It’s as if people expected us to come here. “Hey, Jake,” you speak into the comms, “Can you scan the surroundings? Check if there are any traps around or inside the base.”

“Copy.”

Looking at the screens in the panel room, it wasn’t hard to locate where to collect all the drives. But it just didn’t make sense as to why it’s been so easy. No traps, no guards, it was just given to you.

“Seems like there’s no suspicious activity in or outside the base,” Jake speaks into your ear. “Y/N, just get the CCTV footage, and do it quickly. The longer we’re here, the more time people can come and get us.” Jay says.

“Ok, ok, calm your tits, Jay, I have the USB in.”

Watching as the files move to the USB, you take a better look at your surroundings. The room was just like any old panel room in these abandoned bases. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, but normally by this time, guards would come and start shooting, or traps would be set off. Yet nothing has happened. Maybe I’m overthinking it. This is an abandoned base anyways.

When watching the screen, a small red glow catches your eye in the corner of the far left camera. You had told Jake not to switch off all the cameras, just in case that set off an alarm. But the red glow was quite distracting. As if there was a camera recording you at that moment. But that shouldn’t be. Jake said there was nothing suspicious about this room. Must be some random glitch on the screen. 

You can’t help but stay focused on the red glow that was beeping. Almost like it was using Morse code. It was sort of hypnotizing. It drew you in, blocking all your senses. You walked closer towards the panel, unbeknownst to the smell of something burning and the sound of Jay yelling into your ear. 

“Y/N,” Jay spoke urgently, “we need to evacuate. Y/N evacuate now, the mission’s been compromised.”

Smoke fills your vision and nostrils, not being able to recognize your surroundings. As you close your eyes, the last thing you remember is the feeling of being lifted off the ground.

Opening your eyes, you recognize the bright white walls of the compound’s infirmary. You groan as you sit upright on the bed, not remembering a single thing from the mission. One second you’re extracting CCTV files, and the next second you’re in bed with a pounding headache and what seems to be a bunch of patched-up bruises and cuts. Well, now I feel like shit.

“Knock, knock.”

You see an unscathed Jay by the door, with a steaming mug in his hand. “Can I come in?”

You grunted as a response.

“I bought you hot chocolate, Jungwon says it’s your favourite,” he says, looking at you expectantly.

You reach your hand out to receive the hot chocolate. “What are you doing here?” you say after blowing on the hot chocolate. He shrugged, “Just wanted to see how you were doing.”

“That’s surprising to hear. I would’ve thought you were sent here by Jungwon.”

“I mean, he did tell me about the hot chocolate.”

An awkward silence filled the room, with the sound of you occasionally sipping your hot chocolate.

“What actually brings you here, Jay?” you asked. “I’m sure you aren’t here to just silently watch me drink hot chocolate. You here to tell me that I finally failed a mission like I inevitably would?” you say with discontent.

He gives you a displeased look. “I—” “Or are you here to laugh in my face and tell me how I suck at my job and need to go back to being an agent in training? Because whatever it is, I just need you to tell me straight up.”

“I wasn’t gonna say any of that,” he trailed off. “Is that what you really think I’m here to say? Do you think of me that lowly?”

“I mean, you tell me, you clearly don’t think I’m a good enough agent. Always avoiding doing missions with me and always nitpicking on every little thing I do.” You start to list, your hot chocolate being long forgotten.

“Y/N, when have I ever told you you weren’t a good enough agent?” Jay questions.

You think back to the prior interactions you’ve had with Jay, realizing he never straight up told you that. You shrugged, “Look, just because you haven’t said it, your actions have definitely said otherwise.”

“Cut the bullshit Y/N, you know I’m not one to drop inconspicuous hints if I hated somebody. If I hate someone, they’ll 100% know from my words.”

You turn to him expectantly. “Then why do you hate me so much, Jay?” 

He shifts to the side, avoiding direct eye contact with you. “Like I said, I don’t hate you.” Time seems to slow down as you watch him hesitantly speak up. “Funny enough, it’s actually the opposite.”

“What’s the opposite?”

“You think I hate you because you’re a bad agent, but it’s actually the opposite.” He states. “You’re too good of an agent, actually, it’s as if you've been training your whole life.” He shakes his head. “I guess I was sort of, I don’t know—”

“Jealous?”

“More like intimidated.” He finally turns his body toward you, picking up the courage to look at you. “I mean, it’s kind of embarrassing when an agent who’s only been trained for what? 10 years?” You nod. “And then me, someone who was literally programmed to kill, seeing you. God, I felt like I was useless.”

“You’re not entirely useless. You help me train when I imagine your face on the punching bag.” You joke.

He lets out a soft chuckle. “Good to know you think of me.” 

A silence fills the room. The silence that was once filled with tension was now somewhat comfortable.

Jay begins to speak up. “I know my reasoning isn’t entirely valid. But I do want to tell you that I’m sorry.”

You shake your head, which may have been a bad idea considering the headache that is still there. “You’re honestly good, Jay. It’s all in the past.”

“Hopefully we can start over.” He suggests. “Maybe we can make that punching bag scenario real. You can hit me as much as you want.”

“I’ll definitely take you up on that offer.” You reply.

He begins to stand up. “I’ll let you rest up now. You inhaled a lot of the chemicals the other day.”

“Thanks, Jay.”

“Anytime, Y/N.”

As you watch him leave the room, you reach out for the hot chocolate that is now cooled down. Funny, I don’t think I’ve ever told Jungwon hot chocolate is my favourite.

my masterlists

likes and reblogs are appreciated ⋆˙⟡♡

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[cherryblossom-heart]

The wolf's den (A devour me one-shot)

modern!Sukuna x Reader

C.W: mentions of violence, mysogynistic men, you know what I'll just say Naoya is his own warning.

A/N: Hi besties, I've had this in my drafts for a little while but here is it, for anyone that's curious how reader and Naoya met.

This is a drabble for Devour Me

W.C: 2k

“Hey, sorry I’m late. I fucking oversle–“ Your excuses to Toji were cut short.

A fake blonde man, probably in his twenties, stood in the middle of the empty closed bar. Renovations were being made ever since the pipe explosion so almost everything was covered in tarp or plastic. The wood floor panels had already been ripped out, concrete and dirt now covering the base of the place as you waited for the new panels to arrive. He was scanning everything in the room, the snob sneer in his face immediately making you want to punch him.

He turned to you, his brown eyes latching to you immediately making the hairs in the back of your neck rise up. A shudder ran through your spine the longer he looked at you, like an instinct hardwired in you that told you to run away from danger.

You should’ve listened to it when you had the chance.

You opened your mouth, the horrible habit you had whenever you were nervous or uncomfortable.

“Who the fuck is this?”

For a second he looked shocked of the way you had spoken. Maybe it was the brass tone you had or the use of the word fuck but something about you made him angry enough to scowl at you.

“Your mother didn’t teach you to speak like a lady?”

Now it was your time to scowl.

You were about to open your mouth, a mental speech already created to emasculate him but Toji cut you off.

“It’s my cousin. Naoya.”

You glanced between both of them and you supposed you could see it. The shape of the eyes, smug smirk and the coldness behind their eyes. You knew where Toji came from, the so famous and dangerous Zenin Clan, you knew the type of people his family was, especially the men.

You should’ve stopped yourself, you should’ve left the bar and come back the next day. Maybe he wouldn’t have taken an interest in you, dragging you into the world of madness you were currently drowning. Or maybe it didn’t matter, you were always a part of his plan.

“What the fuck is your prick of a cousin doing here?”

Toji’s green eyes lasered you. Stop it, they warned you.

“I’m here to save your quaint little bar from bankruptcy so you don’t have to go to the nearest whorehouse to beg for a job.”

Oh.

Oh

You were going to fucking kill him

The words came faster than you could stop them.

“Thanks but I don’t feel like working with your mother. Heard she’s a terrible manager.”

You almost laughed at the sourness that overtook his face. You began walking, putting your things in the bar as you tied your hair. As you walked by him, you got a wiff of the expensive cologne he was wearing, a mixture of citrus with sandalwood and for some reason even that made you on edge.

“Besides, we don’t need your money. I already took care of it.” You scoffed.

He looked at Toji, an eyebrow cocked not only in surprise that everything was handled but that it was you who handled it.

“You’re saying you paid this? What did you do? Did you offered free blowjobs for his debts to be spared?”

You turned to him, hammer ready in hand.

“Not all of us have to give our asses away like you do, Naoya. Don’t project yourself.

Now get the fuck out of my fucking bar.”

“Thank you!” You told the lady of the convenience store as you walked through the doors.

The skies had turned dark a while ago, the work remodeling the bar always took long so it wasn’t unusual for you to be out so late. Even when Toji offered to walk you home you turned him down, his your apartment was only a couple blocks away and your were comfortable with your own little routine. You needed it.

It was stupid.

Everytime you walked home you had this fantasy that maybe, along the way, he would find you. You would hear his voice, calling you a brat or perhaps your just your name, then you would turn around and red eyes would be staring back at you once again.

Finally, he would be back.

They would be back.

The sharp breeze of cold air took you out of your thoughts, pulling you away from the memories. You held your coat tighter as you waited for the traffic lights to turn red, a small tear managing to espace your hold.

You reached your apartment, your body thanking the change of temperature. You opened the door, turning on the lights in habit as you closed the door. Your coat fell to the floor as you kicked your shoes off, every muscle in your body aching as you made your way to the kitchen.

Water filled the cup of water you had in your hands, and as you nursed your drink you turned to put your cold snacks in the fridge.

“If you’re here to kill me you could’ve at least gotten rid of that disgusting cologne.” You spoke to the air.

It took him a second but you heard his steps behind you coming out of your bedroom. You turned around to a pair of brown eyes along with fake blonde hair looking at you with a smirk on his lips.

“I didn’t think you would be smart enough to notice it.”

Right, misogynistic.

A common decease amongst the Zenin clan.                               

“Or maybe you’re just stupid enough to not even being able to kill me. A poor, stupid, little woman.”

You grabbed one of your beers in the fridge, twisting the cap off as you sat in the kitchen island.

“So… are you here to kill me?” You asked after you took a sip.

“No,” He answered, taking a seat across you. “I’m here to collect.”

“Collect? Collect what?” You asked confused.

“Collect your little boyfriend’s debt.”

Sukuna.

“See, he made a deal with me.” He took out his phone, scrolling through it. “He begged for my help so he could find you and your little piss of a sibling.”

He put his phone on the table, pressing play.

“Tell me what you fucking know.” Sukunas voice played through the device.

“Who says I know anything?” Naoya answered.

“You own half of this fucking city, if anyone is going to know it’s you.”

Naoya snicked. “Perhaps. But I have no reason to tell you shit.”

“Stop with the fucking games. What do you want?” Sukuna grunted.

“How much is your little business partner worth? Or her whore of a sister? How much is she worth to you?”

Only a second went by before he answered.

“Everything. Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you.”

Naoya laughed, the type of laugh that told you he knew he had Sukuna where he wanted him.

“I’ll do you a favor. But when I come knocking to collect, I’ll take anything I want.”

“Sure, whatever. Just tell me where the fuck they are.”

The recording stopped, leaving you both in silence.

You knew Sukuna had made a deal with the Zenins but… you never thought it was like that. You never thought he had been so willing to give everything away to get you back. It was difficult to make peace with that information, your mind racing as you thought of his words.

If he cared for you so much, why wasn’t he back?

“And now here I am, and Sukuna is nowhere to be found.” Naoya said as he leaned back on his seat. “But I still need my payment.”

You looked back at him.

“I don’t know where the fuck he is.” You said, the bitter tone in your voice didn’t go unnoticed by him.

“I know.”

“So… what the fuck do you want from me?”

He smiled and you wanted to claw your eyes out.

“My payment.”

You took a second to look at him and you couldn’t help the mask of disgust that washed over your face.

“Ew, no.” You spat and if your mind hadn’t been going haywire you would’ve enjoyed washing his smirk off his face. “I’m not the one that owes you shit. Go fucking find Sukuna if you want him to pay you so bad.”

You stood up, chugging some of your beer before turning to empty the rest in the sink. Your hands shook and you weren’t sure if they were from anger or fear.

“I could do that. I could waste money and resources to find him, maybe lose a couple of good men in the process.” He shrugs just before looking back to you. “Or I could visit his brother and… what’s his name? Yumi?”

The bottle slipped from your grasp, hitting against the metal sink.

“Yuji” you whispered, suddenly every cell in your body completely aware of the danger you faced.

“Yuji! That’s it.” He clapped as he pretended to be relieved, as if he wasn’t toying with you. “The pink hair does run in the family, don’t you think?”

This fucking bastard.

All of this had been a game.

He knew who you were and a part of you thought his little visit to the bar had only been the beginning of everything.

You couldn’t risk them. Jin, Watsuke and Yuji didn’t belong to Sukuna and Uraumes world, the world you had been inadvertently dragged into. You supposed this was your world too now that the big bad wold had come knocking on your door. You had to fix this and not just for Sukuna but for them, even without him you cared for them. You had grown together and this past year would’ve been unbearable without Jin’s calming presence, or Yuji’s laughter or Watsuke’s foul yet entrataining humour.

You had to do it for them.

“I have money.” You mumbled as you turned around only to find his stupid smirk.

“I don’t need your money.” Naoya scoffed, the thought of taking your money seemingly offensive to him.

“Then what do you want?”

“I want you to do a job for me. I need you to get me access to someone’s phone.”

Now it was your turn to scoff.

“Me?” You asked, incredulously. “Why the fuck would you send me? Can’t one of your dogs do it?”

He laughed. “My dogs, as you call them, can’t get to this particular man.” He stood up, walking closer to you and for the first time in a while you felt like prey. He stopped right in front of you, his eyes swiping your body and you had the urge to take a hot scalding shower. “But you,” he tried to caress your face only for you to smack him. “you seem like his type.”

“I’m not fucking sleeping with anyone, you fucker.” You managed to say through gritted teeth, pushing him away.

The moment your hands landed on his chest you saw the rage in his eyes and you thought he would hit you, you saw the intention behind his eyes but the only response he had was a deep sigh as he struggled to keep his cool.

“Fuck him, don’t fuck him, I don’t give a fuck. Get me that phone and we’re through.”

He made his way to your front door and you were finally able to breathe again. God, were you really going to do this? Maybe you could talk to Toji, see if he could help you get out of this shit show. Anything that would help you get far away from the wolf’s den.

“Unless…” Naoya said before walking through the door, his back still facing you. “You want to know where he is. Where they’ve been hiding.”

“Wait.”

The word came out before you could stop it.

“You know where they are?”

He looked at you over his shoulder and he gave you the same smirk you thought he gave to Sukuna when he made his deal.

“Maybe… but we can talk more about that once you get me that fucking phone.”

If you like the story please interact: reblogs, likes and comments go a long way. Feedback is always appreciated! Feel free to message me about it.

[floylia]

# MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE ⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾

02. I’m not a pervert! 💌

Lights out in an “empty” gym – luck chose to bless you today.

You’ve never been inside the indoor gyms – never found a reason to – but the school must have spent a fortune on the interior design. It’s impossible not to admire it.

The sun’s gaze peaks through the arched, glass roof, acting as the building’s only light source. Accented panels run along the walls in a well-ordained pattern. Pennant flags that alternate between the colors of the sky and the sand hang above the pool, occasionally fluttering back and forth in the air.

You can’t miss the pool, separated into chalk, thin lanes – and a stranger treading his way underneath, moving as if he belongs in the water – mastering its element and breaking the rules of gravity.

Every motion is weightless, following a rhythm with each stroke. No splash is wasted. His body propels forward until he reaches the finish line, victorious, despite the lack of competition.

Swimmers often describe the wave of water as freeing. You wonder if he felt the same.

“Can I help you?” The stranger asks, illustrating his paper-white teeth, not fazed by your prying eyes.

He emerges from the pool, breath labored, and chest – well-built, exemplifying his athlete status as water drips to the floor.

He steps closer and you draw the constellations of freckles falling along his cheeks–how they steal the sparkle of his eyes, threatening to lose anyone who looks deep within.

Focus.

You clear your throat, “By any chance, have you seen a brown vintage messenger bag? A friend left it.”

He squints his eyes and swerves his head from left to right before taking off his swimming cap. Wet ginger hair reveals itself as he brushes a hand through it, “I think I saw one near the stands.”

“Thank you. I’ll look for it.”

He nods before heading towards the locker rooms. A part of you is glad that the gym isn’t packed with training athletes. But the other half feels an unpleasant lump down your throat. The awkwardness of being caught gawking at his performance has you praying to leave immediately.

Fortunately, you spot Kaveh’s bag from the stands. Its weight indicates the laptop is inside.

Finally.

“HELP! WHAT THE FUCK!”

A high-pitched-horror-like scream followed by a string of curses echo inside the men’s locker room as the double doors blew wide open and the ginger sprints behind you — his eyes bulging out of his sockets, breath agape, and face from crimson to ash as if a ghost had tapped his shoulders and waved hello.

What the hell.

“Do you need help?” You offer.

“It’s alright, I’m fine,” He chuckles awkwardly. He opens his mouth to say something else, but no words form – only exaggerated hand gestures pointing at the empty locker room.

You don’t understand, but you pretend you do.

He looks insane.

“Are you sure you don’t need help?” You ask one more time.

“So… Look– there” he slowly cranes his neck inside the locker room, anticipating something or someone from walking out, “I saw– Ok look It’s not what it looks like. I mean, to be honest, I don’t even know what this looks like. But I swear, in the shower— I’m not even—“ He looks down to his exposed torso, “Wait—“

You look away, hoping to preserve him of some dignity, “I got what I came here for. You don’t owe me an explanation.” You wave your hand politely before scurrying away.

“I SWEAR I’M NOT A PERVERT!”

NOTES:

hi i wrote the first draft a long time ago, but when i re-read it, i hated it so i changed some things and hopefully this makes more sense idk

also thoughts on childe with freckles? i saw a fanart on twitter once and it stuck in my head

SYNOPSIS: There’s a line Childe knows he shouldn’t cross; A line built on years of friendship; A line that happens to cross you, his best friend’s younger sister, grieving her first love; A line where he plays savior, wears a halo, then feign ignorance, because love is a game for fools—and he happens to be the biggest idiot when it comes to love.

When a new stranger invades your life and an old poet writes back.

CHILDE x FEM!READER

masterlist | previous | next

TAGLIST (OPEN!): @thegalaxyisunfolding @stratusworld @tiramizuloz @miy-svz @trulyylee @batatinhafriita @scaradooche @yuminako @m1njizzie @mtndewbajablasted @fadedpinkpen @vavrin @kioffy @kokoomie @ashveil @tired-jaz @nia333 @riabriyn @kyon-cherri

[linkspooky]

Love your JJK metas - apologies if I missed it, but any thoughts on Gojo feeling that he was "left behind" and has to "catch up" to Geto before slaughtering the higher ups?

I don't think the impact Shibuya had on him was really explicitly explored, except for that one panel where he said it was his responsibility, but him internally seeing it as following Geto's path in a way surprised me - it makes sense to me, but it doesn't at the same time.

This is a question I really wanted to answer, but delayed for a long time because I wanted to think it over. When the exhibition changed and Gege released his original draft for this scene, it helped clarify a lot of my thoughts on this scene.

"If you want to kill me, kill me. I wouldn’t mind if it were by your hand. But make sure mine is the only life you take.”

These lines become more meaningful if you think of them in the context of earlier events in Hidden Inventory. It sheds light on a lot of scenes from the flashback arc.

In particular this scene.

In his post-enlightenment high Gojo could kill the entirety of the Star Plasma Cult and feel nothing about it to punish them for Riko's death, but he lives the ultimate decision up to Geto.

In that moment Geto convinces him that killing these bystanders would be pointless, because society has other methods for punishing the members of this cult. Specifically he tells Gojo that it's not their job as Jujutsu Sorcerers to punish these people. He basically confines Gojo to the morality of a Jujutsu Sorcerer. Sorcerers kill curse users yes, but they never use their curse techniques on other people like the members in the crowd who don't fight back. Jujutusu Sorcerers aren't a part of the japanese justice system, they exist for one job and that is to deal with curses and curse users in order to prevent them from hurting normal people.

So Geto's lpong explanation to Gojo to talk him down from slaughtering the crowd that's applauding for Riko's death amounts to "That's not our job." He also emphasizes how killing these people wouldn't accomplish anything, because the group was going to disband anyway, and these are just rank and file believers the leaders of the cult are already gone. So in total two reasons, 1) it's not our job, 2) this murder wouldn't accomplish anything.

In the KFC breakup, Gojo parrots Geto's own arguments about killing right back at him. Notice that when they're having their argument Gojo never brings up the fact that killing is wrong, but that killing non-sorcerers is pointless because the sheer amount of number of people you would have to kill is so enormous it's impossible.

Geto's methods are wrong not because they're immoral but because they're impractical. It's not whether or not killing is right or wrong. It's meaningles killing vs. killing with a purpose. Geto's goal is completely impossible for him to accomplish, so all the people he killed in name of that goal died for no reason.

Gojo and Geto are specifically arguing about methods, not morality. Gojo is especially troubled because he's trying to appeal to Geto using the morality that Geto taught him, obligation as a sorcerer, justice, killing with purpose, but now it's all falling on Geto's deaf ears. I think it's poignant Gojo at this stage in his life can't really form a moral argument of his own just repeat Geto's words back at him, it shows how much Gojo was using Geto as a guidepoint.

Gege even says in the databook the reason Gojo stopped himself from killing the cult is that he was using Geto's moral reasoning and not his own.

So in a way, it's Geto's words that prevented Gojo from being a monster all the way back in Hidden Iventnory. Yet, we see in premature death Gojo's completely unable to talk Geto down from the ledge he was standing on.

Even though the words he's using are Geto's words. Perhaps, because the words he's using are Geto's words. Gojo's faith in Geto as a partner and a moral guidepost was so unshakable he's not capable of reconciling with the fact that the person standing in front of him right now slaughtered a whole village.

Geto leaves, and Gojo lacks the words to make him stay. However, in spite of the fact that this scene is called the KFC breakup this, Geto and Gojo aren't ending their relationship. In Jujutsu Kaisen Zero, Geto is surprised by the fact that Gojo still trusts him and feels the same way years later. In Gojo's dying dream, he states that he would have been satisfied losing to Sukuna if Geto was there to wish him good luck before he left. The Geto he pictures is the one in his Gojo-Gesa, the corrupted adult Geto, and not the one he used in childhood.

This is also after Geto expresses jealousy that Gojo wanted to provide a challenge to Sukuna and force him to go all out, because Gojo understood Sukuna's isolation from being the strongest. Because Geto and Gojo's relationship began from the fact that Geto was the only other special grade in their year and therefore the only one able to understand Gojo by being just as strong as he was. Only for Gojo to immediately say that he wasn't satisfied going all out against Sukuna, because Geto wasn't there. It wasn't Geto's power he needed, but his presence.

Geto wasn't leaving Gojo. He was leaving Jujutsu Society. However, since Gojo is such an integral part of Jujutsu Society, it's essentially the same thing. They're not breaking apart because their no longer friends, but because their morals are so different. Even if his attempts at reform wasn't so radical as killing all human beings, Gojo still wouldn't be able to leave with Geto because without Jujutsu Society there is no Gojo Satoru.

Gojo doesn't believe that massacring half the world is possible, but in a way he probably wouldn't believe even a less extreme reform is impossible as long as it was accomplished from the outside. Gojo has always been an internal reformist while at the same time being a radical. Gojo stated this early on he can just kill the people on top but that would make him a monster.

Remember what I emphasized above, Geto convinced Gojo not to slaughter the members of the Star Cult because it's not a Jujutsu Sorcerer's job to punish people like that. If he crossed that line he'd no longer be a Jujutsu Sorcerer. Gojo not only lives to be a sorcerer, but the time in his youth when he was with Geto was the only time he ever felt understood and that there was someone he could rely on.

Geto crossed that line and when he killed the people of Nanako and Mimiko's village (the way that Geto wanted to kill Riko's murderers that day), he was no longer acting as a sorcerer. Geto stopped being a sorcerer, but Gojo couldn't follow him because Gojo lives to be a sorcerer.

Gojo's plan is therefore create sorcerers strong enough that they can support each other the way that him and Geto should have. Create strong allies so that in the next generation no-one will be left behind.

Gojo's belief is that what he needed was stronger allies, not a systemic issue. When his attempts at reform fail, and he wakes up to see that all of his students have had execution orders placed on them by the higher ups he finally gives up on the notion of internal reform.

Gojo eventually ended up committing a mass slaughter for his perceived greater good. The same kind of mass slaughter that Geto prevented him from doing that day he avenged Riko's death. By doing that, he stopped being a sorcerer.

Now that we've finally come full circle I'm going to explain what I think Gojo means by "I can't do that. That day I was left behind, so I have to catch up."

The most direct interpretation is that Gojo is echoing Yuta's sentiment. Geto became a monster all on his own and left Gojo behind. Now, years after the fact Gojo is realizing that Geto's violent action was necessary and he's essentially leaving his role as a sorcerer to become more like Gojo. He's finally understood why Geto did what he did, years after the fact, and far too late.

In one sense Gojo is becoming Geto in this scene. In another sense, he's recalling how he felt years before when he watched Geto walk away. Geto is the one who kept Gojo from being a monster and kept him on the path of being a sorcerer, only for Geto to go off that path himself. Not only that though, but in their final conversation, Geto made sure to still try to keep Gojo on that path.

Remember this line from the original draft:

"If you want to kill me, kill me. I wouldn’t mind if it were by your hand. But make sure mine is the only life you take.”

This line is essentially the same as this, but look at the paneling.

Gojo is about to unleash a hollow purple on Geto, but when Geto disappears into the crowd of people he stops. In order to kill Geto, he would have had to kill several innocent people in the crowd so Gojo hesitates.

The original draft lines indicate that Geto did this on purpose. He told Gojo to be sure only to kill him and not kill anyone else because he still wants Gojo to remain a sorcerer. Geto was resolved to become a monster on his own and didn't want to drag Gojo down with him.

Geto is leaving and he doesn't want Gojo to become with, because Gojo is the happiest when he's a sorcerer.

In the Hidden Inventory Gojo is playing the role of Yuta, begging Geto not to become a monster alone only to be left behind. In the future Gojo resolves to become a monster like Geto. Even though he's finally trying to understand his friend, he's a year too late. Geto is dead and he can't catch up now.

[lucydixon]

Neighbours pt. 3

Part 3 of what will now be referred to as the Neighbours Miniseries. If you haven't already, check out part 1 + part 2.

Ok, people, this one isn't smut. It's angst and setting the scene for what I have planned for the next part.

Summary: Euronymous sees you with another man, gets pissy about it, and confronts you. Twice.

Euronymous caught sight of you through the store window one afternoon and looked over his shoulder to make sure no one was looking before watching you through the gaps in the display.

His jaw clenched when he saw a man at your side. 

The two of you were talking and laughing, and you looked far too comfortable around him for his taste. 

You were headed towards the stairs to your apartment. 

His jaw clenched. 

A small part of him knew that he had no right to feel any type of way about how you spent your time or who you spent it with, but it was overshadowed by a possessive anger that resonated through his entire body. 

Instead of thinking about why he felt the way he did, Euronymous huffed and headed into the back of the store to stew in his annoyance. 

“Thank you so much for doing this.” You muttered, letting Filip into your apartment “I don’t know anything about this kind of shit and I didn’t have anyone else to ask.” 

“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled, following you inside. “I owe you one anyway for saving the day with that cake last month. Carina would have killed me if the baby hadn’t had a cake on her birthday.” 

“I like baking.” You waved him off, leading the way to the shoddy light switch in your kitchen. “Plus, you’re family. I’ll never say no to baking my favourite niece a cake.”

“Tell me again, what’s wrong with it?” He set his bag of tools down on the ground and flicked it on. 

You both watched the light flicker, followed by a burning smell.

“Never mind.” He grimaced and flicked the switch back into the off position. “I’ll take a look.” 

“Thanks again,” you sighed tiredly, “I’m just going to get some work done in the other room if you’re alright in here?” 

“Yeah,” he muttered, already focused on getting the light switch panel off the wall. “I’m all good. I’ll yell if the house catches fire.”

You chuckled under your breath, heading towards the massive pile of assignments you’d taken on. You’d very clearly opted to write too many articles and needed first drafts for almost all of them before typing out a final version the following day at the office. 

When Filip left an hour later, you shrugged on your coat and walked him out, thanking him one last time before walking in the opposite direction with the intention of getting yourself a bottle of wine.

You lit a cigarette and walked slowly to the liquor store a few streets down, enjoying the warmer-than-usual weather. You loved walking around town at a leisurely pace, taking in all the storefronts and the people milling around, guessing who they were and what their stories were. You'd been too busy to appreciate day-to-day life lately and were looking forward to a moment of peace.

“Big date?” Euronymous’s voice caught you off guard when you made it back to your apartment an hour later. He was leaning up against the outer store wall by the stairs, smoking a cigarette with a scowl on his face.

“Huh?” Your brows pulled together in confusion. You weren’t sure why he was talking to you in the first place. It had been weeks since you’d last fucked. He’d painted your face with cum in your kitchen after fucking you stupid and walked out without a word. 

You hadn’t spoken to or bothered eachother since. 

To be fair, you’d been so overwhelmed with work that you didn’t feel like you had time to breathe. You weren’t sure that you would’ve even noticed if he’d started blaring his music again or pissing on the sidewalk. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d actually paid attention to anything other than the smoke curling up towards the sky while having your morning cigarette.

“With your boyfriend from earlier,” he squinted at you angrily, “Do I need to get tested or something? I didn’t realise you were such a whore.” 

You frowned, clutching the bottle of wine to your chest as if you were afraid he'd snatch it out of your hands. 

“Filip?” You’re eyes widened in realization, followed by a little amused smirk. “That’s my brother in law, fuckhead.”

The flush in his cheeks was light, but you were able to see it before he let some of his hair fall in front of his face in what he hoped had been a casual move.

“Why do you even care?” You cocked your head to the side. “Are you jealous?” 

“No.” He scoffed immediately. “I just don’t want the fucking clap.” 

“Sure.” You bobbed your head tightly, “real nice. The closest I’ve ever been to being a whore was letting you fuck me so if anything, I should be the one getting tested. I bet you’ve got all sorts of groupies hanging off of you and your little band.” 

“I don’t fuck groupies!” Euronymous snapped, clearly offended “We don’t have groupies, I fucking hate groupies. The kind of music we play is supposed to make people want to kill themselves, not fuck us!”

“Oh my god,” You groaned tiredly. “Yeah, you’re real cool, Mr. Metal. Don’t you worry, that’s exactly what it’s doing. Are we done here now that we’ve established that you’re not jealous and neither of us are whores? I’ve had a long fucking day.”

“Whatever.” He scoffed, looking away. 

You had the bottle of wine open before you were even halfway up the stairs and took a good, long gulp before jamming your key in the lock angrily. 

Once the door was shut and you were on the other side of it, you rested your forehead against it and let out a frustrated scream, bouncing it, not too hard, off the wood. 

You’d managed to go weeks, too busy to think about this guy, and now here he was being jealous. You were also pretty sure he’d waited there for you to come back too, which meant he’d been watching you, at least well enough that he’d seen you walk by with Filip a few hours before.  

You hated that you found him being jealous and possessive, regardless of his denial of it, incredibly alluring. 

Had he been thinking about you? 

That night, you downed what was left of the wine and dreamt of fucking him, but not like the other times. 

No. 

This was soft and loving and so, so different from what the two of you had been doing up until that point. 

There was no name-calling, no cursing, or hitting. 

Just the two of you, clinging to eachother, staring into each other’s souls. 

You woke up feeling far too relaxed. 

“Ah, shit.” You sighed to yourself, letting your head fall into your hands, less concerned about the ear-splitting headache than you were about the dream. “What the fuck is wrong with me.”

You came home on the following Friday night to find a man dressed in full metalhead uniform with long hair tied out of his face with a red bandana, sitting on the stairs leading to your front door. 

It was a nice face. 

Pretty with light facial hair and smoldering eyes that were fixated on you the second you rounded the corner. 

The two of you stared at eachother for a moment. 

“You live here?” He asked you, looking genuinely surprised as his eyes scanned you from head to toe. 

“Yeah.” You frowned. “Did you throw a rock through my window or something?”  

“What?” his brows pulled together immediately and a startled laugh slipped past his lips. “No. Why would you ask that?” 

“I dunno,” You shrugged, able to feel your cheeks warming slightly. “Looked like you were waiting for whoever lives at the top of those stairs.”

“I work in the store downstairs. I actually sit out here a lot. I’m surprised that I’ve never seen you before.” He cracked a little smirk. “You’re pretty.” 

“You’re the one who poured coffee on Øystein.” He said after half a minute, when you just blinked at him.

“Øystein?” You frowned 

“Yeah, Euronymous, who owns the store?” 

“Oh.” your eyes widened slightly in realization before a grin stretched across your face. “Yeah. That was me. Twice.” 

“Twice?” He laughed “oh, he kept that shit to himself the second time then.” 

“I probably would too.” You shrugged, looking smug “I warned him.” 

“So, what do you like to do when you’re not pouring coffee on your neighbours?” 

“I-” 

You were cut off by the shops back door slamming open. 

You both watched the shop owner step out onto the sidewalk and immediately start scowling when he caught sight of the two of you together. 

“You said five minutes.” He narrowed his eyes at his bandmate, who just sighed and muttered a goodbye on his way back into the shop. 

“So you’re trying to fuck my friends now?” Euronymous all but snarled at you once the two of you were alone, taking two steps forward to get in your face. 

“Oh, for christ’s sake.” You groaned, looking up at him with clear annoyance. “We were just talking, and you know what? It is none of your goddamn business who I fuck.” 

His upper lip twiched when the corner of yours curled up into a smug smirk. 

“You are jealous.” You jabbed a finger into his chest “just fucking admit it.” 

He leaned into you, planting one hand above your head, against the wall, trapping you in between him and the hard brick. 

You shuddered, but still had that infuriating look of amusement on your face. 

“I thought we’d been over this.” He dipped his head down to mutter into your ear “I’m not fucking groupies, and you’re not fucking Jan.” 

“First of all,” Your voice came out breathy. You were undeniably flustered by the proximity and the warmth of his breath on the side of your neck “You don’t have groupies. That was established and not much else. I never agreed to anything, neither of us did.” 

“Isn’t that right Øystein?” His actual name came out of your mouth and he stiffened. 

God, it sounded so right falling from your lips. 

In a fit of confused rage, he bit down on the side of your neck and sucked at the skin brutally. 

“Ow!” You yelped, shoving him off of you “What the fuck?” 

He just smirked and licked his lips, backing into the store. 

“Fuck you!” you shouted, brushing your fingers over the sore spot he’d left on your neck. 

Confused, annoyed, and a little bit turned on, you rushed up the stairs and threw your bag down on the table, examining the quickly darkening bruise blooming where he’d unexpectedly clamped down with his mouth. 

“Mother fucker!” You cursed under your breath, pinching the bridge of your nose in an effort to slow your ragged breathing and racing heart. 

He’d fucking marked you. 

As if you belonged to him or something. 

That fucking asshole.

Dividers made by @saradika-graphics

[themunflower]

How We Got Here: Part Three

Kouign-Amann: "Hey. Are you still up?"

Capsaicin: "Yeah. I haven't been sleepin' too well since… Well, you know."

Kouign-Amann: "They're holding his funeral without his body present. They've been trying to figure out what the Hell happened to him, but it's hard to run any tests, because the only thing left of him is abnormally hard sugar. Everyone's stumped."

Capsaicin: "I kind of expected that. It's morbid to say, but… I don't think there's any way they could fit him in a coffin like that… "

Kouign-Amann: "Morbid, but you're right. The only thing they have figured out is that he was apparently suffering from the flu. He'd warned his teachers he was too sick to come to class for a while, his doctor confirmed he came in suspecting he might have the flu the day before that. He also had filled a prescription for a few extra-strength fever reducers."

Capsaicin: "Think it could have been the pills?"

Kouign-Amann: "Nope. That was the first thing they tested. The pills were ruled out."

Capsaicin: "Sucks that they can't really tell us anything else, since we don't know if this even was a freak accident. I've heard some whispers about campus police starting to suspect a really bizarre murder involving a sabotaged potion."

Kouign-Amann: "I saw a bunch of his potion ingredients were used up, but I don't think we should assume murder just yet. I mean… How would you even DO something like this?"

Capsaicin: "S'what I was thinking. Plus, his doors and windows were locked from the inside. Nearly all his food was gone. I get the feeling he knew something was wrong, just not HOW wrong…

Kouign-Amann: "… "

Capsaicin: "Are you okay?"

Kouign-Amann: "I'm sorry, I just… I don't like thinking about the possibility that he suffered something like… THAT… all alone. And the fact that the sugar was starting to disintegrate into the air like that… How long had it been? I… I'm gonna be honest, I've been having nightmares about what we saw…"

Capsaicin: "… "

Kouign-Amann: "Ah, S-sorry. Didn't mean to upset you. Well, more than we both already are. It's not helping that on top of everything else, I've felt off for the past couple of days. I think I might have actually worried myself sick."

Capsaicin: "Maybe take some time off? The headmaster here already offered me time away from classes."

Kouign-Amann: "Same here. I'm probably gonna take him up on the offer. I couldn't focus this morning during swordsmanship practice."

Capsaicin: "I can come stay with you if you need me to."

Kouign-Amann: "… I think I would appreciate that, yes."

Capsaicin: "I'll let the headmaster know where I'm going tomorrow. Right now, I think we both need some sleep."

Kouign-Amann: "I'll try, but no promises, haha… "

Capsaicin: "Good night, Kouign."

Kouign-Amann: "G'night."

.

...

... ...

... ... ...

... ... ... ... ...

They had no way of knowing what they were about to unleash on the world…

INTRODUCTION END.

----------

INTRO COMIC COMPLETE!

I'm gonna buy myself pizza, drinks, and breadsticks tonight to celebrate, HELL YEAH!

Also, another official announcement, since @magicalkaite20 has been helping me write the AU over on Discord, she's officially a co-author on this AU!

GOOD SWEET FUCK THIS WAS LONG… And the insane thing? The original draft was longer. But because I'm not a fan of permanent tendon damage and I go insane from stir-craziness if I can't get out on my bike at least a couple times a week, I revised my script a few times to get it to a do-able length. Yes, I actually wrote out a whole-ass script for all of this before I even started drawing.

This wound up being trickier than expected, because it's hard to make a convo between two characters over a video call NOT be visually boring. I tried, lol

Had to darken that last panel in Firealpaca because my scanner is ass and just LOVES to wash out my art when there's a lotta black. :( It also loves de-saturating the fuck out of artwork if there's multiple shades of one color. Good GOD I need to replace that…

Anyway, I'ma rest mah wrists for a day or two before I start drawing more for this AU. In the mean time, now would be the time to ask questions about it if you have 'em. Just a heads up, I might not be able to answer some questions fully or at all due to spoilers. I'll still answer to let you know you'll hafta wait on that.

[letustalkaboutlevihan]

8) ISAYAMA'S ENDING FOR LEVIHAN

On the manga, Levi was sitting on a wheelchair and he's with Gabi, Falco and Onyakopon

Levi was holding a magazine/newspaper(?) in his hand, but instead of looking at it, his eye was looking at the plane above them... remembering Hange.

In Isayama's draft for this panel, the sketch for the plane was different. But Isayama redraw it to a similar flying boat that Hange protected. Isayama also crossed out the dialogue that says, 'The pain that we feel' and changed it to, 'The story we sought after'

Can't imagine how painful it is for Levi, losing everything and Hange 😢💔 (If only I could, I would give him a hug...)

On the anime, Mappa changed Levi's ending into Levi distributing candies to the children. When he saw a round lollipop, he blinked because he remembered someone.

He remembered Hange and the day they visited Marley with the kids...

Isayama and Mappa were trying to tell and show us that in whatever endings, Levi will always end up thinking about Hange.

Just how can he even forget the person who saved his life? The wounds that Hange treated before might've already healed, but he would always remember her by his scars.

Afterall, Levi spent more of his days with Hange than anyone else. Hange truly played a big and important role in Levi's life 🤧

9) IS LEVIHAN CANON?

Even without statement and confirmation from Isayama-sensei, I firmly believe that Eremika and Levihan are both canon.

There's a lot of evidence that proves their relationships are parallel to each other.

Just like Eren and Hange are both obsessed with Titans. Eren wants to kill titans while Hange wants to learn and study them.

Levi can recognize Hange by her knock while Mikasa can recognize Eren by only sensing him.

When Eren asked Mikasa, "What do you think about me?" Mikasa replied, "You're a family".

When Hange asked Levi, "Maybe we should just live here together. What do you think, Levi?" Levi replied, "If we just run away and keep on hiding, what will we have left?"

Both Mikasa and Levi lost Eren and Hange because they chose to say a safer answer. Had they answered differently and truthfully that time, then maybe they never lose them.

I think that's what really Ackermans are. They are physically strong, but they are not good in expressing their feelings through words. (They only show it through their actions)

When they bid a farewell to the love of their life. They didn't say, "Good-bye," ... But instead, they told them, "See you," / "See you later,"

They believe that they would see them again, in a place where there is no more war, no more pain, no more tears, no more regrets... A place where they can be happy together. A place where they could finally get the happy ending both Eremika and Levihan deserve <3

Bonus:

Isayama himself wrote, "Levihan" instead of writing it as "Levi and Hange" so he would lie if he'll say that he doesn't agree with Levihan ship 💜💚🤭

English is my third language so please forgive me if I didn't get to explain it well. I just really want to talk about Levihan because they mean so much to me 💜💚

Thank you for reading! 😊

[blighted-lights]

slaughterhouse posting part 2 that isn't going to be polished at all and has been sitting in my drafts for days, but this scene is so interesting to me because i genuinely have no idea what megatron wants from ravage in this interaction- and i don't know if megatron knows, either.

megatron starts out by saying that the decepticons' loyalty isn't to him- its to the cause. ignoring how this is immediately striking me as completely, blatently wrong due to the times we see megatron rallying the decepticons around himself when other leaders fail to do the same (nevermind the fact that he started the cause in the first place), he then gets angry with ravage when ravage confirms that- yeah, actually. you're not the cause anymore. we have moved on with someone new. megatron gets so angry he stands up, he looms over ravage, he raises is voice and balls his fist- and why else would he do this if he wasn't upset that they're moving on without him?

which would, of course, make megatron a hypocrite. he left the decepticons and refused to take any effort to rejoin them- he clearly doesn't actually want to return to the fold. but when the decepticons unite themselves and move on from him, it's different. i can abandon you, but you cannot abandon me.

i've always took this reaction as being an immediate, no thinking, gut reaction to finding out the decepticons are moving on without him. he's angry, potentially feeling betrayed by them, when he... doesn't have much of a right to feel that way. and it's not like megatron wasn't given an option to join the decepticons again if that's what he actually wanted.

he was given a choice. he turned it down. he could of turned it down for any number of reasons, but no matter the reason, the point remains that he turned it down.

going back to panel after megatron snaps, ravage clearly takes megatron's outburst as him being upset that they've moved on without him. despite the aggressive way this interaction started with ravage attacking megatron, ravage spends most of this conversation attempting to reassure megatron. megatron gets angry that galvatron took over and they're moving on without him? okay- so then he wants to come back, right? he's upset he's been replaced?

well, galvatron isn't permanent. say the word and you'll be back in charge. megatron says that the decepticons aren't loyal to him, ravage reaffirms that they were loyal to him but now they've chosen a new leader since he left, megatron gets angry that they're moving on without him, and then ravage reinforces their original loyalty to him by saying if he wants to come back, they'll follow him.

and then megatron turns it around; yes he was just angry that the decepticons were no longer loyal to him, but now that same loyalty is toxic, actually. and it is! it absolutely is toxic. but i think ravage backed him into a corner here, even unintentionally. he can't sit down and actually address why the decepticons moving on makes him angry without admitting some part of him wants to return to the cons. or at the very least he still feels possessive of them and doesn't want them to function outside of his influence. when given the option to rejoin, he responds by insulting the decepticon's (and ravage's!) sense of devotion/loyalty and then quickly changes the topic to seawing and the trial. he doesn't say a solid yes or no answer because he doesn't actually have one to give.

ravage nails it down anyways. megatron has no idea what he wants from ravage in this interaction because he doesn't know where he stands anymore, let alone what he wants for himself. before ravage was revealed to be on the lost light, megatron was captain. he even seems content to BE captain- but ravage makes it complicated. ravage is a direct reminder of who he used to be and the people he used to surround himself with. worse, people he's abandoned and hurt in order to get to where he is as captain now. megatron left the decepticons behind with no command structure, no guidance, no plan- and ravage's mere presence is a bitter reminder that even if he's run off to the autobots, he can't escape that.

he's settled into a state of stagmentation with the autobots. one he's content with, maybe- at the very least one he can live with where the guilt isn't as heavy. it is the easiest way out megatron saw for himself.

but if anyone can get him to doubt himself, well.

who else better than ravage to stir up the past?

[randomfoggytiger]

Collector's Edition: Curated brenayla

Happy (belated) Birthday to the Poang Pal boss! May this year be personally successful and peaceful and light.

Loose chronological order below~

@brenayla's (Ao3)

threadbare (Tumblr)

Freshly showered Scully is scrubbed pink and freckled, her hair wavy and edged with frizzy strands when she yanks it from a loose bun. The pale purple face mask she had on before the shower is gone and he watches her smear a thick lotion across her cheeks, using two fingers to swipe it into her forehead. Scully brings her travel size toiletries wherever they go. She moves around, snapping up and sealing products into a gallon size bag before flinging it into her flayed open suitcase.

He wants to remember her like this tonight, not tied up and gagged.

Mulder and Scully and beds through the years.

For the sleep prompt list: He/she fell asleep during the car ride.

Earthy Arizona air blasts through Mulder’s half-open window, creating an early summer draft in the car. His fingertips drum against the exterior metal lip of the warmed roof.

In the passenger seat, Scully sleeps on, little tufts of copper hair moving with the wind he’s created.

Long car rides and Scully cat naps.

Cross My Heart

Outside, she keeps a grip on his arm, her heels barely finding tread on the salted sidewalk. Frozen over snow crunches under Mulder's dress shoes as he takes up his space between Scully and the curb. With his free hand, he hails a cab.

It only takes a few moments for a car to swing out of the night, coming to a lurched halt before them.

“Take it.” Mulder waves a hand towards the car and then to her.

“Are you sure?”

“When am I not,” he says, sounding the part.

Post-One Son's Valentine's Day.

ālea iacta est

But all in for Mulder means loving her fiercely while he feeds himself on a labyrinth of mysteries. The X-Files are a siren with which she cannot compete, singing puzzles to him late at night when Scully gives in to her human need for rest. He is a dying star of relentless wonders; an itinerant supernova that cannot be put out early, even by his wild love for her.

Scully takes his face in her hands, warm in the glow of the wood paneled walls, and she tells him the truth.

Post-Millennium Mulder and Scully navigate loosening rules, their first relationship fight, the En Ami aftermath, family hopes in Hollywood A.D., and Requiem desolation.

6. He has a nightmare  

She looks up at him with wide, frightened, cut geode eyes, her skin washed out by a powder blue hospital gown. Blood falls sharply from her left nostril, ripe cherry red. It pools in her cupid’s bow for a moment before overflowing and dribbling against her rosebud lips.

Mulder, she pleads, mouthing around the blood flow.

S7 Scully soothes Mulder after a cancer arc nightmare.

Fin (Tumblr)

They’ve discussed this. On Monday morning, he will be back in this office and she will be across the universe in a Quantico lecture hall, dependent on cell phone service that can easily be severed by elevators and rural highways.

The end is anticlimactic. As soon as the clock strikes 4:50pm, Doggett leaves politely with a one-armed hug and well wishes for the little one.

And then it’s just them. Scully and Mulder in their secretive underground den.

AU-- Alone plays out a little differently (with fewer abductions and angst overall.)

Scully wakes suddenly, disoriented in time.

Mulder opens his eyes, his attention seized. “What kinda bizarre things?”

“I don’t know,” Scully fibs. “I could have sworn that he was…things kept moving around him.”

“Like what?”

“Like his mobile. Maybe other things, I can’t remember. It was a dream.”

Mulder considers his response, poorly concealing his amusement. "Scully, I don't mean to step on your toes here but don't mobiles just do that?"

AU-- Post Alone Scully dreamt up Season 9.

a mini acute postpartum MSR fic

“Hey Scully?”

“What?”

“Did you have an out of body experience when they handed him to you? Because I… when I held him, I definitely had some kind of cosmic experience. I wouldn’t say astral projection entirely, but something in that vein.”

“Mulder, please, not right now.”

“No, I’m being serious.”

S8 Mulder and Scully over-the-moon after the completely normal birth of their son.

He/she has sleep tousled hair.

The apartment is novel still. A hot mug curled between her palms, Scully settles into the crook of the couch, taking a cautious sip.

Time bleeds on, the roof of her mouth scalded by impatience.

Golden light begins to paint the lacquered floors in warm bands before she hears a peep from the bedroom.

Half-hearted cries, shuffled sheets. Her coffee has cooled to lukewarm, allowing her to take earnest gulps.

Post Existence Scully soaks in a moment of silence in this new reality.

AUs

midnight gold (Tumblr)

They were hunting a Vietnam vet who kept on evading capture and Mulder was standing in a huddle of agents who called him childish names when he stepped out for the restroom.

As he’d turned around to shake her hand, Julie would’ve sworn on her granddad’s tattered old Bible that she saw it.

His face was a flesh-toned blur, a Macy’s mannequin; shadowed sockets where his eyeballs should have been. Clear blue currents arched from his temples.

And for a moment – just for a moment – she could see that he was bleeding black from a nostril he did not have.

Mulder and Scully aren't what they seem.

moon shadows

They are different.

Fox Mulder’s hand is made of aloe vera and lush emerald vines that spiral up her wrist. He swells with crisp jungle rainwater, pupils woven with liquid gold. He dims the spring sun in the middle of the afternoon.

The skin of her palm melts into his, dripping with pearls of oxygen rich blood.

“Hi,” he says, sizzling with invigoration so strong it flickers the overhead lights. “Hi, Scully.”

“Hi, Mulder.”

Cryptids Mulder and Scully and the Pilot.

Thanks for reading~

Enjoy!

[batnotes]

Hiya! Noticed you’ve been posting about bats for a while. As a newer fan, I was wondering what are some things you love about Helena Bertinelli in particular or what’re things you think fans tend to overlook with her?

Aw, this is such a nice ask! Yeah, I'm recently returned to Tumblr after a long hiatus, but I've been a Batfam-fan for a verrrry long time. I've loved seeing your content---it makes me super happy to see others appreciating Helena Bertinelli. One disclaimer here I is grew up on the 90s/2000s comics and stopped reading after Flashpoint erased/retconned/de-aged/reworked-past-all-recognizability several of my favorite characters, chiefly Huntress and the Birds of Prey---while I've watched from afar the last decade-plus of stories, and have enjoyed a lot of Batfam fanfic set post-Flashpoint, my Helena is solidly pre-2011 Helena.

I had to give this some thought because I have too many reasons to love Helena. But I think the biggest thing that is overlooked about her is her astounding loyalty. Gonna link panels where I could find them easily because this became a bit of a manifesto as I was drafting it. Whoops.

Helena's loyalty to Gotham isn’t something she ever really articulates in words but it is there in all her actions. Both in her civilian life (Why else be a public school teacher? Why not any other kind of work? Why not just live on her inheritance?) and as a vigilante. Gotham is not good to Helena---personally and professionally, it repeatedly shows her the worst humanity has to offer (up to and including cannibals, not joking). But she continues to fight for it well beyond that of someone whose only loyalty is to themselves.

Leading up to the Quake and NML, Helena, who's been told several times at this point that she will not be getting an engraved invitation to the Batcave, is asked to assist in several major Batfam events. And she does! Every time! She might lampshade that very fact, but she never sits out when her help is needed. If she were only about her own agenda, she wouldn't respond as such. (Is this partly a product of the writers not knowing what to really do with her? Probably, but the effect is that for being a so-called loner with an all-consuming vendetta, she sure does help out a lot. And that's leaving aside all her multi-issue team-ups with Robin or her stint on the JLA....)

Fast forward to NML. 1) She stays in Gotham. Despite the perpetuated narrative that she’s a vigilante for vengeance (Babs’ narration harps on this in particular), the mafia has fled the city; there’s no personal gain for her in staying. But she does. (Without Barbara or Bruce's resources, I can't help but add.) 2) She becomes The Bat. For all the talk about how she wants Batman’s approval, he's not around to approve when she dons the cowl. She's not doing it for him. When she says, "he'll have to accept me," it's not that that's the goal, it's that she knows she's a worthy crimefighter and unquestionably committed to Gotham—Bats can’t gaslight her about that after this. She's verbalizing what no one is willing to ever admit (because NO ONE TALKS ABOUT IT, even after she and Babs finally become friends), that she saw the city’s need and met it. Not what Helena needed, what Gotham needed. 3) She holds her ground when shit hits the fan. For all the talk that she "goes rogue" after her humiliating unmasking (and a frankly unhinged guilt-trip from Batman for not being able to do the impossible), she spends most of her time with the Strongmen reigning in Petit, not abetting his increasing insanity or abandoning his sector to his destructiveness, at the risk of her own life. (That this is exactly what Batman wanted her there to do...implying trust in her choices....GAH). And then of course her one-woman stand against the Joker and his goons, which speaks for itself.

Fast forward again to post-Cry for Blood (where Helena has again been mistrusted and left to fend for herself). We don't see much of Huntress for a while, but when she's back, I love that Helena can resent Batman with every fiber of her being but it never stops her from showing up: zero hesitation to come to Bruce’s rescue in Hush, when there's been no reconciliation between them. Bruce even acknowledges the enormity of that. She later throws herself out a freaking skycraper WINDOW when Checkmate tries to blackmail her into joining them and by extension sell out Batman. She says on panel this is something she would never do.

And of course it's not just Batman she shows up for. Within minutes of meeting Robin in Cry of the Huntress, she protects Tim from his own worst impulses; by their next team up, they're bantering about who owes who a rescue. When Babs calls Helena to ask her to rescue Black Canary in BoP, she goes, questioning only why Oracle is deciding to trust her with the mission, not the going or who it's for. And it's not just people she admires or likes! When she gets Oracle's distress call a few issues later---Oracle, who has held and expressed a grudge against Helena as much if not more than Batman has---Helena goes, immediately. Helena also subs for Arsenal (whom she barely knows, as they've never worked together) on the Outsiders for several months after he’s critically injured, even though it means dealing with an absurdly pissy Nightwing about it.

Her loyalty, despite all the horrors she's witnessed, despite the repeated ostracization, double standards, and lack of faith in her heart and her abilities, should nuance even her most cartoonish characterizations (looking at you, late 90s Chuck Dixon) and how we interpret her in-universe critics (particularly folks like Bruce and Babs).

Don't get me wrong. Helena is deeply flawed and I love that she's a character who grows and matures with many steps backward along the way. She's messy and complicated and I don't always love or understand her choices. But she also shows the hell up.