#it was the abusive relationship and losing my step dad :)

[the-kittens-of-vol-tron]

ummm KAT??????? U look so DIFFERENT than when u first started this blog wtf????? Time did well on u

ooPPPP THANK YOU?!!?!?!

[acid-ixx]

How do think readers relationship with each of the batfam would be had they not been neglected?

what if...? ft. domestic headcanons w/ your family

series masterlist &. request masterlist — long post ahead !

reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.

a/n: 6400+ words, no beta i'm genuinely insane. help i literally thought abt this yesterday !! i may or may not post a drabble about this one specific dream the reader had about where they had a normal relationship with the batfam but at the same time i want to implement it in the next chapter instead so have food for thoughts instead! slight spoilers below. also please do comment and reblog if u like this ! ^^ supporting my writing just makes me further motivated to write even more !

if you were never neglected by your own family, then i could say that the process of them turning yandere would be a tad bit better or worse. i'm saying, because of your past and because of an incident during your elementary years (that could've been avoided if your family actually never ignored you; so let's assume that that incident actually never happened but it opened a gateway for an even more protective family) the batfam could easily be either a dream or nightmare.

let's say it was bruce and dick who had picked you up from the police station. the moment he sees his own firstborn child, all his thoughts would circulate from just how broken and hopeless you absolutely looked, how the injuries litter throughout your entire body, the way your empty eyes stare at anything.

the child, his child, looked exactly like him all those years ago. he knows just how painful it is to bare losing all your loved ones.

he wouldn't hesitate to approach your form, immediately picking you up and letting your head lean on his shoulders as dick follows in tow, cooing about his significantly younger sibling.

that would be the first time dick would call you his baby bird, with the way you'd stare at him with mixed emotions in your eyes.

if him and dick were to hear about what happened to you inside your old apartment from the police (drugged and abused by the same men who took your mother away from you), then be guaranteed that batman and nightwing would be more brutal during their patrol afterwards (dick would even take more weeks off from bludhaven just to care for his younger sibling), even going as far as formulating a plan for your captors, having oracle stalk each and every person involved in your life.

if anyone thinks the vigilante would abide by his no-kill rule then they're wrong, because he'd turn a blind eye for once if dick were to brutally stab someone at any moment. why? because batman will not settle until his own child's attackers are thrown into putrid prison cells with no guarantee that they'll see the light of the day. the criminals should be grateful that red hood isn't even in the picture yet.

your father would be more perceptive of your emotions if he had never neglected you. he will always be the one giving you rides, he'll shield you away from the mass media trying to take photographs of you— and you're getting carried throughout the manor if your little body were to even express fatigue.

bruce wayne wouldn't admit it, but he absolutely cherishes you and your youth. he had adopted dick and grayson when they were above the age of ten, when they were already growing some sort of consciousness about the world they live in. but you? you're so small and you have so much to learn, your innocence is something bruce would protect. you'll be absolutely coddled by your father, your grandfather figure, alfred, and your oldest brother, dick. even future members of the family knows just how important you are maintaining their sanity.

that means you have the manor in the palm of your hands. you had a nightmare tonight? don't worry, your dad would always be one step ahead of you and would immediately be in your room. hell, if you were comfortable enough, you'd be sleeping in the same bedroom as your dad for the first few years you'll live inside the manor. he'll read you bedtime stories if you want and even have alfred prepare you warm milk or chocolate before you go to sleep. his entire schedule would also be centered around you, making sure that he would always arrive on time from business meetings to have dinner with you, and coming home early from patrols. if he leaves the manor before you're set off to sleep, then he'll be giving you a good night's kiss whilst alfred would be the one substituting for your nightly bedtime stories.

you may call him overbearing once you start to notice the signs the more you grow older, but your father will always track your sleep schedule - he even makes you wear a watch that records your heart rate - from the moment you drift into dreamland to the times you get nightmares— he makes sure the food you eat before dinner is light, booking appointments with nutritionists to make sure you're healthy. he even does specialized training with you, for self defence and to also maintain a healthy lifestyle.

and dick grayson? his visits to gotham would be more frequent. even if his relationship with bruce is strained, he'll always be in the manor faster than you could say 'i miss you' to your older brother on the phone. he loves coddling his baby bird, especially since you were adopted right after jason's death; dick doesn't want a repeat of the past, always making sure you get proper cuddles and affirmations.

spending time with dick means you get all the power to draw on his arms or face or make arts and crafts with him. he enjoys it when his baby bird is at their comfiest state so even if you were seated on the floor, there would always be cozy blankets that count as your chairs and snacks right beside you. you could ask him to get something for you and he's right at it.

he would be the older brother who normalizes physical affection in the household. dick would constantly kiss your cheeks, your foreheads, and any injuries you would obtain (a habit that even bruce adopted once your dad realized how it's an effective way to soften your cries and ease your heart). he's not afraid of picking you up even! always tossing you to the air under alfred or bruce's supervision whenever you feel down. dick would always hold your hand, too, as an assurance that your beloved older brother is always there for you.

you'd probably ignore all the red flags he carries around because of how early he shows off his signs of obsessiveness. so don't question it if him and bruce wouldn't allow you to go to sleepovers with your other friends or if sometimes, just sometimes dick feels the need to just have you in his arms for hours without end after particularly brutal patrols. you're the only person holding him up and if he doesn't breath in that reminder then he might just lose himself.

your brother would literally prioritize you over anything else. he can and will pick you up from school, he makes sure nobody in your class is there to bully you, he'll spoil you with sweet treats whenever bruce is too busy with business meetings. he wants to be seen as your favorite ever since he's discovered himself to be your idol, so he'll always show off his acrobatic skills for your eyes only.

whenever dick would say "i love you!" it always translates to, "if you want me to, then i will give you the world." which means he'll drop anything he's doing right now the moment you invite him over to design your diaries or sketchbooks.

your talents very early on would be heavily acknowledged by your family. that means any single drawing or craft you'd do, whether poorly done or not, would be stored in very protective places or shows off in every crevice of the manor. any father's day gift from you would be framed in bruce's personal office, a personal reminder to him that you are the light at the end of the brooding tunnel he puts himself in. so even if he can't always be there for you, he will always have you in his mind and in his heart.

your existence in the manor would prove to be a healthier way for bruce to cope, for him to get his mind off of the loss of his second child. whenever he looks at you, he'll always be filled with a determination to protect gotham from any further danger, to save the city - if not himself, then for your sake, for his baby to feel safe whenever they would walk on the streets, for his baby to feel protected whenever you two would eat in fancy restaurants or go shopping for your diary's supplies.

criminals would immediately get the message that messing with you means getting on the bad side of both batman and nightwing. you may be the child of bruce wayne, (name) wayne, but if they even think of kidnapping you for ransom then they should pray; pray because if batman's baby even gets a single nick, a single droplet of blood on their body then they're gone. there's no such thing as holding back if it comes to you.

now, your older sister figure, barbara gordon, despite her constantly being busy because of her role as the oracle, would find ways to at least entertain you whenever you would visit her in the batcave. if you feel like your father's overprotective nature and your older brother's coddling is too much, then she will be offer you solace by her side. she may not always be physically there but you two are as close as you are to the other members of your family because you're a creative one. it's not often barbara gets to spend time with someone like you who enjoys having her as a muse for your art pieces. she allows you to also style her hair, and if you like to design clothing, then she'd be your model for as much as you want.

barbara is also your go-to for when dick and bruce are both unavailable. she lets you watch her hack through multiple security systems, explaining concepts that you don't understand. and, because she's the most emotionally stable out of all of them, you'd prefer gossiping to her about your school's drama compared to dick, as she actually gives you helpful advice!

well, little do you know that she had already hacked your school's camera footage and wired multiple recorders on your bag but you don't have to know that! after all, barbara wants to keep the only sane person in the household safe and happy. she's not openly obsessive towards you, but whatever secrets you have that don't compromise your safety are secrets she promises she will bring to the grave. that means if you ever have a crush on a someone then she will hide it from the others.

... that is until you actually end up trying to get into a relationship too early for even her eyes then she won't hesitate sending out the signals to bruce and the others. she can't afford exposing her younger sibling to heartbreaks and emotional attachment towards strangers! so do forgive her if there are times where you feel like there's someone constantly watching your back, because she is that someone; with all the intentions in the world that you wouldn't have to go through what she did with the joker or any other villains who could whisk you away from their arms.

it's obvious that, of course the oracle will use all the power in her hands to guarantee all eyes are on you, so that there would never be an opening for any danger towards you. even if you do know that she's the one in-control of the strings, there's not much you could do but accept it.

then there's tim drake. your brother who had stalked batman and nightwing just to prove a point. his parents are alive and he's fine being on his own, but fuck it if he prefers being in the wayne manor! once you're introduced to tim, he's immediately researching about the first biological child of bruce wayne. and thank god bruce requires the two of you to become familiar with each other because you're just so interesting to him, you and your curious eyes, your small habits— the way you shift in your position as your father's hands are clasped on your shoulder protectively.

tim can already feel himself blast off in excitement just solving the mysteries about you! yet he doesn't know it in himself that the longer you spend time with him, the more the urge to just stitch himself into your very life grows stronger.

if you were never neglected by your own family then you would instead be analyzed constantly. tim is just another set of eyes constantly watching you, but unlike the others, he picks off every single detail about you to a T.

you, your interests, your hobbies, your favorites, your friends, you name it; he will have an entire collection of case files on everything, picking apart your very mind to the seams. it's like he's eating up the information about you, spending sleepless nights researching about a movie you two would watch soon, because the look of amazement in your eyes feeds the growing love he has for his sibling.

at first he'd never understand why bruce and dick seems so smitten towards you other than the case regarding your mother. but he slowly starts to understand why— because just like him, you're perceptive of his well-being. if dick isn't around then you're always the one hanging around his room, visiting him with snacks in your arms or an invitation to watch a cartoon show.

he likes doing your assignments for you, especially your projects even if he neglects his own duties for his own school. and despite how emotionally constipated or unaware he seems, he's obsessed with your personal life. that means you don't even have to rant to him about school drama or your friends or crush because he can and will know it. what he doesn't like, though, is when your attention is towards anything but him. he may not be the most physically comfortable to cuddle but he will offer you his jackets which he would end up not washing right after you use them, instead he wears them, feeling closer to you than ever.

it even lulls him to sleep for the times you're unable to sleep over at his room.

tim may not know how to comfort you like dick whenever you wake up from nightmares but he does know ways to avoid them; he knows a lot of strategic methods to get you drowsy after a moment's panic.

bonus points if you cuddle him afterwards! he loves the warmth that you emanate, loves it when your body leans against him and makes him feel so important. tim loves it when you snuggle him unknowingly, tightening your already bruising grip on him, he loves reciprocating it too, feeling a special bond with his sibling that not even his parents could offer.

though he doesn't openly tell you that he loves you, he does so in his own ways! you don't want to see an entire photography room dedicated to his younger sibling— most pictures contributed by tim. you don't want to see the terabytes of files that are all about you and your interests, millions of video imagery of just you sketching or writing diary entries, sometimes eating or rambling senselessly. you don't know it but tim loves playing the videos of you in the background, especially the ones where you're humming a tune or singing a lullaby; those are his favorites.

it's not his fault that you're just so interesting to him, that your presence is so comforting, that you're the only person closest to him that has the ability to make him melt into you, unknowingly succumbing to your spoiled wishes.

jason todd comes into the picture later, and he is a very enraged man. he's mad at his replacement, at bruce, at you, at the entire universe.

at first he just doesn't understand anything. he doesn't understand why bruce finds it so easy to not only replace his status as robin but to also bring in another child, who's valued and loved more despite not taking the mantle of robin. he's mad at just how quick he was replaced, how it seems like bruce never avenged him, and yet if he threatens your safety then the old man suddenly turns violent towards him?!

jason wouldn't bring you into the fray, because you're unaware of the entire situation, but fuck, he doesn't understand why you are just so cherished when he'd watch the news and sees your picture plastered all over the reporters' walls, talking about the child who bruce never allowed to separate from his side. they talk about how you're the sheltered one, the hearthrob of all media with just how clingy the billionaire is towards his supposed younger sibling.

he's not jealous, he gets why bruce is protective and smothers himself all over you; but he hates feeling replaced, feeling discarded and forgotten by the very man who'll avenge your death if that ever happened.

hence why he has to see it for himself, has to see you for himself. it's a coincidence, a miracle actually that he just seems to easily find you by the kitchen of the manor— a manor whose aura is now different from last time, it seems like it now reeks of life, of personality. clearly you were the main cause of all of this.

you could simply be reading a book and sipping your nightly tea, but jason would soon realize just how... vulnerable you are at the moment. you find him hiding in the shadows and all you offer is a wide stare with no sense of self defense whatsoever. it's the same vulnerability that he sees off the cruelest streets of gotham. you're exactly like the innocent kids who get brutally murdered without justice, just like the children who have never once gained penance for the torture they had to experience just living off of personality.

jason isn't a dumbass, living near the crime alley means hearing the gossips of every citizen. your name, or preferably your last name is famed even in the underground. your mother is infamous for catching the attention of most crime lords by running off with their cash, successful staying hidden to care for her child, just right until she met her untimely demise. you lost her early just like how he lost his mother early as she had fallen victim to drug overdose.

he'll discover why gotham's vigilante seems to be so protective over you. the way you carry yourself, the warmth you give off as you offer him your leftover dinner despite not

you told him that your dad taught you to never talk to strangers— but clearly he's not because "how else would you be able to trespass the millions of security alarms in the manor? you must've lived here before." you'll state as if it's the most obvious thing in the world, sipping your drink before you offer him a seat next to yours, unafraid of the dangers that lie ahead of you—

"you must've really been pampered by the old man, huh?" is all his reply, the voice changer of his makes him sound naturally intimidating, like he's ready to attack but no, that's not his intentions with you. he'll take a seat beside you, try to make out what book you're reading and that's when he knows that you truly have no idea that it's your dead brother who's talking to you. you have no idea of his resurrection whatsoever as you start to mumble off about the novel— he finds it quite amusing that, finally, he's not the only guy who enjoys literature in the family, even going as far as to recommend his own fair share of favorite novels to you.

once he leaves out of the window after a seemingly long session of talking, definitely aware that yes, bruce does have a microchip inserted under your skin, and the watch you're wearing has a voice recorder that sends recordings straight to the batcave's system; jason takes note to visit you more often, finding the normalcy you offer very welcoming.

he likes it, likes your mellow behavior. he'll even admit that you're the only proof that bruce can, in fact, raise a child right, even if that means tracking their entire life. but that's the old man's love language, and jason knows it in himself that he's already planning for a way to take you to ride his motorcycle at night without bruce's knowledge; just so his angel knows the feeling of gotham's breeze flowing through their hair since bruce seems to love dictating your every move.

once he does form a solid plan to take you away, even just temporarily, you don't have to worry about the criminals who litter the streets because jason made sure that nobody's gonna mess with him and his angel's bonding time together.

the youngest, damian wayne, and the second biological child of bruce is a special case. his upbringing as an assassin makes him susceptible to his fits of tantrums. the first time he steps foot into the manor is the same time he will threaten anyone around him; and that includes you, the bastard child. quite frankly, your first greeting with him would be the same as the one in the original storyline, you'll greet him with a tray of sweets in your hand and a small smile and he'll reply with a sword on your neck. but the difference would be the undeniable fact that dick and bruce immediately stopped him from even nicking your delicate skin.

dick's swearing was shut down by alfred's scolding and you, again! pulling on your oldest brother's sleeve with an assurance that you're okay.

that's the very first time he sees his father truly reprimand him with nothing but rage in his eyes. despite damian's annoying antics towards his father the entire day, it seems like you were the snapping point.

his father, bruce wayne, made it very clear that he can mess with anyone and everyone in the family but you. that you have nothing to

his only reply would be a sneer as he demands they take him to his room immediately, unable to shut you down when you offer to help bring his luggage despite bruce's firm unwillingness and dick's hesitant request that his baby bird should instead spend time in his room instead.

but it was always your word above everybody else's and damian hates that, hates that everyone just seems to succumb to your request as long as it doesn't compromise your safety. the bitterness that keeps resurfacing in his heart whenever he sees you wearing tim or dick's jacket, or if he caught sight of bruce giving you affection was a feeling he tried to convince himself wasn't jealousy.

not jealousy towards you, no, but towards them. your behavior towards him was nothing but kind, a kindness that was taught to him as weakness. he thinks you're weak and undeserving of being spoiled and yet he hates it whenever he sees his blood sibling (whom he called a bastard child so many times) become too close with anyone but him.

he hates it, he hates you and his conflicting feelings. he hates it when he pushes you away, hates it when he sees you pout after another failed attempt at trying to have your youngest sibling talk to you.

and as the days or even weeks pass by, with all your effort to try to bond with him, with the days where he can feel dick's energy drain because you insisted on spending time with damian instead of dick again, with tim's intolerable treatment towards the him because you chose to bother damian instead of that loser— are the days he feels himself actually becoming closer to you because he relishes in your insufferable behavior towards them, because you just seem so sweet to him.

damian feels that it's right that you make him the exception.

so it's inevitable that damian will eventually discover both your talents towards art and the love for nature. it's a mistake, really, when one day as he stalks through the hallways he'd find you in your own atelier, painting a portrait of a robin with a color scheme that matches his vigilante suit. the beams of sunlight seems to hit you just right because you looked so at peace with your surroundings, humming a tune, unaware of your youngest brother who has found himself at your most natural state.

he'll budge in without moment's hesitation afterwards, steering clear behind you as he analyzes your art. it would only be after a few minutes would he announce his presence in the room, expecting you to scream at him to buzz off but all you did was jump in your seat, looking back to eye the intruder only to find out it was damian all along, offering him a smile and a seat beside you.

after he does so, you'll both end up spending the entire day bombarding each other with art tips and animal facts. he'll give you comments about the bird's proportions and you give him guidelines on how to properly mix your colors without it looking muddled. it's like you two are meant to be siblings because damian swears he ended up clinging to your side after your painting session, refusing to even seat beside anyone during dinner time if it isn't you because he's not done rambling about the rainbow eucalyptus you had told him you'd seen in a nature documentary once— so it's rightfully his place to be beside you and not drake's or grayson's or even his father.

eventually you two would be as close as peas in a pod because you're seemingly the only one who knows how to calm him down, the only one with the right to raise your voice at him and to ask him of favors because you're his blood sibling. and because you both share the same blood, that means you both should share clothes that complement each other, share snacks and treats, share matching bracelets and necklaces and any jewelry, you're the only one allowed to hang around his room and him in yours.

the others find it annoying that you let him be, but what choice do they have? unless they would like to hear an earful from damian then they should stay silent because you both aren't done painting each other's nails yet!

stephanie brown is shortly introduced to you after her incessant insistence on meeting you right after stepping foot into the manor. she knows of your internet fame for being the beloved bruce wayne's 'favorite' child and she's not afraid to admit that you are indeed adorable in person! unlike your first meeting with damian, steph would immediately coddle you at first glance, insisting you call her by 'steph' and that

due to the short period of time as her robin and her being constantly reprimanded for her antics, you'd take it in yourself to become closer with her, and she accepts your offer without any complaints. she's also one of your muses for your art and it's a good thing she has a sense of style unlike your brothers who are either too flashy (you had to stifle a laughter looking at the discowing costume) or too dull. damian's fashion sense is good but he's often out during the time period you spend with steph, and even if she often doesn't stay still, you at least hsve someone to talk your ears off whilst you try to sketch the poses she chose.

her obsession towards you stems from your willingness to "match her freak" or whatever internet lingo she finds that day, but she's a fun company to be around! she's always there for you when you need to rant about anything regarding your feelings, especially since you're at the age where you're a teenager and your emotions towards your family would be all over the place and she'd relate the most towards that.

so other than barbara, you'll find yourself speaking up about any concerns you have to steph, and she turns your 'favoritism' towards her her entire personality.

but if you think of even spilling your secrets about a highschool crush to steph or news that someone had asked you out for prom them then spoiler alert! don't. like her mentor, steph will drop signs and clues and your brothers would promptly deal with that. awe, don't worry about feeling alone though or if you weren't permitted to go to your highschool prom because steph and babs will be the ones to convince bruce to throw you your own very elegant gala where you would dance with only your siblings!

see, isn't she so strategic that way? psht, you don't need a boy or a girl acting as your temporary reprieve when your entire family is there for you! steph is here for you and you did technically promise to go out with her today to go shopping so...

it's not that she isn't on your side, no! but you're very much the entire family's baby and she doesn't want you losing your attention on her, definitely not! her goofy personality towards you really does cover her intense urge to be by your side really well. unlike damian, it's not obvious that she's trying so hard to monopolize your time for herself but you're just so fun to be around and she's at her best behavior when it comes to you.

so what's wrong if she ditches her other friends to bond with her beloved sibling? it's not like they'd understand what it's like having someone who actually looks at her for her rather than just the surface level.

don't question why most of the gifts she had given you (which ranges from attires like jackets and shles, to matching bracelets, even little fidget toys) all don a shade of purple and blue! and don't also question why her gallery is filled with cute selfies of you and why your phone's lock screen wallpaper is now suddenly matching with hers.

after all, steph likes making it known that you are her favorite!

cassandra cain, when she first saw you, is, of course, silent. but she makes her presence known quickly after she has enough proof that you've no fight in your body. she may not be the most expressive in words but she is through actions.

you were actually the one who had first approached her after bruce initially introduced you two to each other, offering her a handshake and a greeting in sign language. albeit it being crusty, and her insisting that it's alright if you do the talking, it seems like you were more than willing to learn sign language just for the sake of your new sister and she likes it.

she really, really likes it, appreciates how there were no signs of malice in your movements and just how comfortable you seemed with someone who could potentially end your life with just a snap of her fingers. and yet you treat her like she's not a weapon of murder but rather another sibling who is welcomed into your own world.

you ask her if she wants to hang out with you and steph in your own personal sleepover inside your room and she accepts it because of just how comforting your presence is. it's been so long since she had last felt like she was treated as a human and you were proof that she's glad she never took the path to human carnage like her father intended her to because then she wouldn't meet someone who would soon be so precious to her.

cass may not talk a lot but she is a listener.

a listener to both your words and your body language. it's quicker for her to notice if you ever needed a hug or a catalyst for comfort. she knows your boundaries and when you need space the most. she knows it when you want to open up to her about how stuffy the manor is beginning to feel, how it feels as if they're becoming more sensitive about your social life, how you wish your friends aren't distancing themselves from you because of how intimidating your family is.

and you can say all that to her because cass, alongside duke and sometimes steph, would be the only ones keeping your deepest darkest desires to their grave. although she may not understand your reasonings on why you even felt like your family is coddling you too much (because they're not! they love you very much and she does too) in the first place, she's always the one offering you to hold her hands whenever you're going through a momentary panic attack or a shoulder to lean on whenever dick would scold you for something impulsive you've done.

unlike your neglected counterpart, cass would always be by your shadows, watching every one of your moves and to abide by bruce's order to make sure you wouldn't escape, shall you ever feel rebellious during your teenage years. you may be older than her but she's stronger than you, more experienced and can even combat your dad if she wants to.

yet she always seems to let her guard down when it comes to you because you just seem to have that alluring effect on everybody. can't you understand just how important you are to everybody? you're the most important to her, you're one of the first few people who had treated her like a human so she swears on her life to protect you from harm's way like you did her whenever she's often in a pit of despair.

cass isn't the most expressive, so she makes up for it by instead leaving signs that she really cares for you, or sometimes hiding little trinkets for you to find in your room. it's like her very own message that translates 'cass was here'.

whenever you sit beside her at the dinner table, she always slips in extra food by your plate without you looking or sometimes even filling your glass bottles with extra juice and you'll never know why until you realize that it's her way of telling you to eat more. sometimes, your clothes would go missing until you see your sisters wearing your own collection of jackets and hoodies then swapping them in your drawers for their own— you'd realize that cass got that idea from steph and you can't get mad at her or anybody else as it soon becomes tradition that you'll have an entire closet dedicating to the missing clothes you have that your siblings have replaced to their own attire.

cass really does love you and although she can't always say it out loud, you'll always have a constant reminder instead. as long as you're safe and sound then you don't have to witness the darker sides of her that she hides from you.

then finally, duke thomas. he may have been introduced to you the latest but you could say in terms of every trait, he'd be the brother you'd like to keep close for every situation. your first meeting with him is quite frankly the most normal one of them all, introducing yourself to duke through dinner. although he may be temporarily under bruce's guardianship over anything else, he's incredibly comforting to be around as he's quick to catch on your emotions but unlike the others, he doesn't push you to open up to him, but he won't leave your side at all either.

duke is the only metahuman you're probably allowed to be close with because your dad absolutely refuses you from even trying to talk with the superfamily. and duke heavily prides himself with that information, often secretly showing you his metahuman skills and answering whatever questions you have about them.

like jason, duke wouldn't fully delude himself into thinking you're innocent, that you need to be babied to the point they feel the urge to track even the food you eat— so he's your reliable source for any video games you were forbidden to play or any movies dick would consider too gruesome for you. he's chill, he even sneaks you unhealthy chips once in a while which makes him automatically one of the top in your tier list.

but don't think he's entirely on your side, because whilst duke seems the most normal to you - the only sibling who wouldn't smother you in blankets the moment you accidentally cut yourself with a kitchen knife - he's also batshit crazy for his own sibling and he'll sacrifice a lot for you two. so if you even dare try to suggest an idea that duke knows would risk not only him, but especially you, then that idea automatically is relayed to your dad and you wouldn't really want your father's gentle scolding anymore.

you can try to find a loophole to go out with him though! if you want to eat batburgers outside then you can do so when he's at his patrol, seeing as how he's the only batkid who does daytime patrol and that's way safer than eating at night, no?

so do expect spending more time with him the most outside, other than with dick and damian, but you'll be forced to sit in the sidelines where nobody can lay their hands on you whilst duke would be busy fighting crime and afterwards treating you to ice cream like he didn't just 'accidentally' and brutally body slammed a criminal into the wall for giving you heart eyes.

'most normal member of the family, my ass' would be the first thing that pops into your mind, but hey! at least you didn't have to be always locked up into the stuffy manor, right...?

at least you get to spend time with all of your siblings and a very loving and attentive father..!

little did you know that the only reason they allowed you out is to give you this false sense of independence, slowly but surely planning for the ultimate day where they truly would lock you up away from the world.

but they just can't help it, you know? the media's greedy hands are starting to take more than they could; so many eyes are on you and danger awaits at every corner in gotham— they can't afford having their beloved being pried away from their arms.

so is it truly a blessing or a curse in disguise? you don't know anymore.

[petrichor-han]

the city that never sleeps; choi beomgyu

PAIRING | beomgyu x fem!reader

CAST | choi beomgyu, choi yeonjun, yoo jimin (karina), mentions of choi soobin, yang jeongin (i.n), shin ryujin, lee heeseung, kim minjeong (winter)

WC | 28.2k

GENRE | angst, smut, childhood friends to lovers, friends to lovers, neighbor!au, boy next door!au, right person wrong time (sort of)

WARNINGS | explicit language, explicit smut & sexual content, infidelity, toxic relationship, verbal abuse, mc has a present mom and dad, vaping & smoking cigarettes, marijuana mentions

SYNOPSIS | SEQUEL TO IDLE TOWN! // it’s been ten years since you last saw choi beomgyu in the flesh, but a high school reunion prompts you and your fiancé, yeonjun, to return to your hometown one last time. unfortunately, it seems like old habits die hard, and the harder you try to stay away from beomgyu, the closer he seems to get.

A/N | i was not planning on a sequel but sometimes the heart wants what it wants and i just had to write this. idle town readers, welcome back, and if you haven’t read the prequel then it’s linked in both the synopsis above and next to my masterlist below. it’s not required to read part one, but it’s helpful and provides context.

request to be added to current and future taglists HERE!

listen to the playlist here!

MASTERLIST | IDLE TOWN (PT. 1)

TEN YEARS LATER.

The day that you receive the envelope in the mail was the day that everything started going downhill. Now that you think about it, when was your peak? Was it as soon as you stepped foot in the city you’d always dreamed of living in? Was it when you met Yeonjun? Was it when you started working at that publishing company with amazing pay and benefits? 

All in all, you’re not really sure. But if you had to pick a simple “best moment,” it would probably be your college graduation. 

It was the perfect summer day. You’d aced your last semester of classes and had numerous colorful cords around your neck, showing off your accomplishments from the past four years. You sat between two people that you were semi-close with now, what with being almost forced to talk to them during rehearsals and all. They were alright, maybe you’d have even been friends with them in school if you met them earlier. Maybe being the key word. So instead, you sit between them, exchanging excited words in hushed whispers, making small talk, asking them what their plans are after the ceremony is over with. One of them invited the two of you to an end-of-school party that one of the frats is throwing; you had no clue about it. But as they explain the theme, saying that it’d be fun to end your last year with a typical college party—something that you’d probably never get the chance to do again—you start thinking, why not? What do you have to lose? 

The ceremony itself is great. Nothing goes wrong, even though in these sorts of situations you always expect something to go awry. It doesn’t start raining, no one trips or messes up their words, the speeches aren’t too dull (as far as graduation speeches go), and the cheers for you as you walk across the stage are almost deafening. You can’t help the wide, almost cocky grin that spreads across your face as you turn to the crowd and wave once towards the area you know your loved ones are sitting in, spotting Yeonjun’s pink hair right away. He sticks out like a sore thumb, almost neon in the bright sunlight in comparison to the people around him. You hear his voice rise up above everyone else’s cheers, yelling your name amongst praise and sweet words. It makes you blush, how he’s not afraid to say such sappy shit in front of your parents, in front of your friends—in front of your entire graduating class, really. 

The rest of the ceremony goes by in a blur. You can’t stop smiling even if you’re a little clammy underneath your cords and robe and cap, and your grin grows even wider once you’re able to toss your cap in the air and then go find your loved ones. 

You see Yeonjun first, parting the crowd like the Red Sea. It’s kind of impossible to not see him. That’s something you’ve always equally liked and disliked about him—he attracted attention wherever he went. And not always from those who were sexually attracted to him, though that was, admittedly, a large portion of the attention that he got. No, he emitted this glow when he walked into a room. There was something about him that demanded your attention, even if you were unwilling to give it up. It was partially his looks—god, was he stunning—but also, the charm that basically oozed from his pores. You’d never known anyone that didn’t like Yeonjun. Even if they were apprehensive at first, no one could resist his genuinity, his kind nature that collided with his sharp visuals that sometimes made him come off as the cold or arrogant sort of attractive. But of course, no one ever thought of him as cold or arrogant as soon as he opened his mouth. 

You liked this about him because it was easy. Everyone loved him: your friends, your classmates, and most importantly, your family. “He’s such a catch,” your friend Yeji said jealously, eyeing him as he walked away after dropping off lunch for you. “I wish I had a partner that would bring me a homemade meal.” 

“And he drove half an hour to get here,” you bragged playfully, shaking your little dosirak full of food, still warm to the touch. 

When he met your parents, your mother waited until he left the room before nudging you and smiling. “That’s a keeper,” she said happily, “I couldn’t think of anyone better for you.” The only issue with this was the fact that you noticed her stumble over the second part of that sentence, and it made you think of someone that you hadn’t bothered to think about in years. 

But when Yeonjun was there, any semblance of thought towards that someone melted away almost immediately. 

You run into his arms, almost crushing the massive bouquet of flowers that he’s holding gently. He holds it above the both of you with one hand and catches you in a tight embrace in the other, laughing and trying to speak through his giggles to congratulate you. “You are the most wonderful person in the world,” he says astutely, caressing your face gently as you part. Before you can get too far, he brings you back in to kiss you softly, his hand dropping to the small of your back to bring your body closer to his. Once he lets you go, he hands you the colorful bouquet that you almost squished. It’s beautiful. The entire thing is so heavy, full of flowers that are almost as big as your head. It hides the bottom half of your face as you hold it in front of your body and he laughs, pinching your cheek and calling you cute before everyone else arrives to congratulate you. 

Is it selfish of you to think of that as your peak? Why do you consider it so? Your immediate answer to that is because of how you felt, how happy you were. You were so happy that you had no more room for any other emotion, save for perhaps excitement—but even that bled into happiness, blurring the lines between which was which. But maybe you think of that as your peak because of your achievements—no, that’s not it. You’ve achieved much more since then. Then the last conclusion, and the one that you dreaded to consider, must be correct. You consider it your peak because of everyone else’s reactions. They celebrated you that day, they all paid attention to you and how much shit that you’d done in those four years. And to be fair, it was a well deserved celebration—you worked your ass off in your undergrad years, so much so that sometimes Yeonjun would have to physically stop you from pushing yourself before you collapsed from exhaustion. 

Your other option for your peak in life isn’t a singular moment. But it’s happier than considering yourself to peak in college. You consider your life as a whole since you moved out of your parents’ house to be your peak. That time frame between getting on the airplane to New York City and receiving that letter in the mail, that was your peak. 

It has been ten years since you left your hometown far behind when you pull that letter out from between a catalog for lacy underwear and your electricity bill, and promptly spit your coffee all over your dinner table. 

The address is from your home state, your hometown. It’s the address of your high school, and sure as hell, that’s your full name written across the front of the envelope. The stamp in the corner is of the school mascot—well, the same animal as your school mascot, anyways. 

Hands shaking, you wipe your mouth quickly and then use a butter knife to cut a slit in the envelope. A single piece of dense paper slides smoothly into your palm, and you gnaw on your lip until you taste blood as you read through it, eyes following the dark print, chasing it as it registers in your brain. You swear you can feel your tongue dry and your heartbeat slow as the words “HIGH SCHOOL REUNION” echo in your head. You toss the invitation back on top of the opened envelope and busy yourself with wiping up your mess of spewed coffee. 

Of course, this is when Yeonjun comes back. 

You hadn’t expected him to be gone long; he’d just stopped by the local bagel place to get some fresh breakfast to pair with your coffee (though your cup is now half gone, spat across your dinner table). 

“What’s wrong?” he asks immediately. 

That’s another thing about Yeonjun—he can read you like an open book. It’s a little annoying at times, when you want to keep certain things private or hide surprises from him, but most of the time you appreciate his intuitiveness. 

You don’t say anything, but point towards the invitation that’s still on full display, laying on top of the envelope it came in. Yeonjun kicks off his shoes and sets the box of bagels on the kitchen counter before walking over to you. He kisses you on the temple and picks up the invitation, leaning against the table as he scans it. Sucking in a deep breath through his teeth, he taps the thick piece of cardstock against the solid wooden surface of the dinner table and looks at you, concern clear in his eyes. He takes in your ashen face, bloodless and unsure. 

“Well,” he says, “are you going to go?” 

You groan loudly and slump forward in your chair, your forehead colliding with the table with a resounding clunk. Yeonjun coos, babying you like he knows you want him to, and drapes his slim frame over your back. His weight is a welcome comfort, like your very own weighted blanket. 

“I don’t know,” you say honestly. Your voice is muffled, but he understands. 

“If it’s stressing you out this much already, then…” he trails off, but you already know that he’s going to suggest not going. For some reason, this pisses you off a little and you nudge him off of you and pick up your head, scowling at him. 

“What if I want to go?” you ask, frowning. 

“Then go, of course,” he says, walking back into the kitchen to retrieve the bagels. His voice echoes through the hallway, preceding his physical return to you. “I just assumed that you didn’t want to because—“ 

“Because of Beomgyu,” you finish for him. 

Yeonjun stops, freezing up at the sound of his name. You do too. It’s like you’ve been literally frozen—you feel so unbearably cold, and you can’t move an inch even though you’re the one that said it in the first place. 

“I was going to say because of your reaction to the invitation,” Yeonjun says carefully. He still does not finish his route back to you. Instead, he stands there, halfway between the kitchen and you, very still. In his slim fit dark pants and sweater, he almost blends into the background. 

There’s an uncomfortable silence that settles between the two of you, making itself comfortable atop all the surfaces in your home. Outside, it begins to rain. The only sound is the scattered raindrops that are beginning to pit-a-pat against the roof of your apartment building and the tiny fire escape. 

After what seems like an eternity of stunned silence—you’re both still so shocked that you even uttered his name—you clear your throat to break the ice and say, “Well, I probably won’t go anyways. I hate that town.” 

“Right.” 

You both resume your day as usual, but the air is different. You’re both much more reserved and careful with what you say, something that’s rare for Yeonjun, who usually likes to speak his mind even if it comes off as a bit brash sometimes. 

The reunion is not discussed any further until the week of, when you slide two plane tickets across the dinner table to Yeonjun, the destination being your hometown. 

“Come or don’t,” you say, “but it’ll be uneventful either way.” 

“I know this means a lot to you even if you refuse to say it out loud,” Yeonjun says knowingly. “I’m not an idiot.” 

“You’re not an idiot, but you’re also unusually good at reading my mind,” you murmur. This prompts Yeonjun to crack a smile. 

“Well, since you already bought me a ticket…” 

“I can get a refund,” you retort, but he knows that it’s a lighthearted joke. 

“Not a chance.” He snatches up the tickets and walks over to you, slinging an arm around your shoulders and holding the papers up to the light. “High school reunion, here we come.” 

—-

Maybe you should be more nervous. 

Or maybe it just hasn’t kicked in yet. 

Because the thing is, it’s not like you haven’t been back to your hometown at all since you left for college. You come home for certain holidays, for special days, for celebrations or times of mourning. 

So far, it feels like another one of those times. 

In your head, it’s just like you’re going home for Christmas, or for your mother’s birthday. Nothing has been really different just yet, so it has yet to hit you. 

It’s only once you’re back in your childhood bedroom, with Yeonjun standing next to you, that you begin to feel uneasy. The only time you’d stayed in your childhood bedroom (after you’d moved out, of course) was for a long weekend during Christmas a few years back. Every other time, Yeonjun had come with you, and the two of you stayed in a nearby hotel. This time, before you could book a room, your mother had called you and demanded that the two of you stay in your childhood home. 

“Cancel your hotel room,” your mother said cheerfully, once you’d picked up her call. 

“Why?” you asked, stifling a yawn and blinking your dry eyes simultaneously; she’d woken you up from a late afternoon nap. Golden sunshine was pouring into your bedroom like honey, splashing across the length of your shared king-sized bed. It was the first real sunshine to penetrate through the thicket of fog and storm clouds, the last lingering signs of spring before summer took over. The air was warm and heavy, scented heavily with the spices Yeonjun was using to cook dinner in the kitchen. The bedroom door was slightly ajar, and of course this is why the smell of food was so strong. You sit up as your mother starts talking again, wrapping a soft throw blanket loosely around your shoulders. It’s only a few steps to the window, but your bare feet are quickly getting chilled from the hardwood floor as you peer out the window at the setting sun. 

“You and Yeonjun can just come stay at the house,” your mother prompts, but her tone is a little off. 

“You know I love our house, but it’s just too small for me and Jun to stay in my room,” you say, walking back over to sit down on the edge of the bed. “We sort of tried that one year at Chuseok, remember? We tapped out at around eleven after tossing and turning for like half an hour in that tiny bed.” 

“I know, but still,” she says, trailing off. 

You lean down to inspect a chip in your floor. “But still what, mom?” 

“We’re selling the house,” she finally says. You freeze, heart skipping a beat as you lick your dry lips. 

“You’re selling it?” you ask hoarsely. 

“We can’t take care of it any more,” she explains, and you can hear the pity in her voice, sweet like cough syrup. “We’re going to move to a little complex a few towns over at the end of the month.” 

“Oh, Woodbury?” you ask faintly, a flash of a memory of a Woodbury Apartments catalog sitting on your parents’ coffee table the last time you’d visited, around the winter holidays.��

“We just thought that you might like to stay here for the last few weeks. We’re mostly cleaned up and starting to pack…” 

Your head is swimming in the warmth of your bedroom, suddenly too hot for your taste. The blanket slides off of your shoulders as you mumble an excuse to your mother and hang up before she can even reply. You feel your phone buzzing in your hand and you know that your mother is texting you and asking if you’re alright, but you don’t answer her. You sit there until Yeonjun comes to get you for dinner, and once he sees your frail figure, shaking and clutching your phone to your chest, he scoops you into his arms and you listen to his heartbeat until the words come spilling from your lips. 

You grimace, thinking back upon the memory of that phone call, as you yank the zipper on the side of your suitcase, trying to get out the bag that holds your toiletries. You packed it on top of all your clothes for easy access, for this reason exactly. The memory of your mother breaking the news to you wasn’t a good one, and the worst part was how stupid you felt for being upset about it at all. You were nearly thirty years old and you were having a breakdown over your parents selling their house? 

“You grew up there, there’s a lot of memories. It makes perfect sense to feel the way you do right now,” Yeonjun had soothed, when you whimpered out your worries about sounding dumb. But you still felt shitty about feeling shitty. 

But like you’d said before: nothing really felt different until you actually got back and you were unpacking in your childhood bedroom. You’d specifically asked your parents to leave it untouched so that you could pack things up yourself, and they obliged. Every other room in the house had been scrubbed clean and left simplistic, easy to clear out in just a few hours when the time came to leave for the last time. 

Luckily, that wasn’t for a while yet. 

First, you had to get through this damn reunion. 

It took place the night after you landed, starting around eight thirty. You assumed that people would show up early, so you prepared yourself to arrive at crisp eight forty-five, just so that there was no chance of you being early nor late. You wanted to attract the least amount of attention possible from your old peers. 

“If you don’t even want to see anyone, why did you decide to go?” your father asked sharply over dinner that night. A mixture of your annoyance, the tension in the room, and probably some of his pain medication for his back, was all building up. You watch through slightly narrowed eyes as your mother slips another few pills to him, a new wrinkle line appearing on her forehead. She’d tended to your father day and night since he fell off a ladder a few months ago. His tone made your head ache, and you sighed harshly—perhaps a bit too harshly, you realize, as you watch him flinch—before replying. 

“I do want to see people,” you say, scowling into your dinner. Even though it’s delicious as always, prepared by your parents, you can’t seem to get much of it down before your stomach starts turning. You put down your utensil and rub your eyes, making your parents exchange an uneasy glance with an awkward Yeonjun. He didn’t really know what to do about the tension between you and your father, so he helplessly draped an arm over your hunched over frame and rubbed your shoulder comfortingly as he made a kind, somewhat pitiful expression towards your father. “It’s just that—I don’t want to see most of them, and I know that most of them haven’t ever left town. What if they ask me questions? What if they want to be friends? What if they expect something from me just because we were in the same class?” 

“Woah there,” Yeonjun said, speaking up before either of your parents could offer a singular reassuring word. “Doll, if they didn’t care ten years ago, they probably won’t care now. At most you’ll get a few curious questions but it won’t be from a harmful place.” 

“You weren’t there,” you glower at him, “you don’t get it.” 

“Did something happen?” he asks, eyes widening. “I didn’t know… You never said anything about… Are you alright?” He stutters, trying to find the right thing to say to soothe you.  

You kind of feel bad at this point, with both your parents and Yeonjun staring at you with the same concerned look written across their faces, the food in front of them untouched since the conversation started. You didn’t mean to be bitchy and bitter about it—after all, you were the one that chose to come back and go to the damned thing after all. But this was why you wanted to do it alone. As soon as it was over with, you imagined yourself returning to the playful, slightly more cheerful version of yourself that everyone knew and loved. You exhale loudly, then stand up. Your three loved ones mirror your actions, with Yeonjun straightening up to his full height beside you immediately, as if he could read your mind, and both your parents half-rising, mirroring out of pure empathy. 

“I’m sorry,” you state, “I’ve just been stressed about this.” You want to say something more, give them more information about what the hell has been going on inside your head since it really clicked as you were standing there in your childhood bedroom, but your tongue feels glued to the roof of your mouth. Your jaw clenches and unclenches as the three of them stare you down, expecting more, but when they realize that is all you have to say, you watch your parents’ wrinkled faces deflate into a more relaxed expression. One that says, “my child has issues, but they’ll work through it themselves and there’s nothing we can do about it so let’s just stop freaking the fuck out.”

“It’s okay, sweetie.” Your mom says this solemnly. 

When your eyes meet, you feel anger bubbling in your chest again. There is nothing but pity behind those old eyes. You know that your mom feels bad for you, her child that’s completely exiled from the hometown that they once lived in. The child that ran away to a big city and never came home again. The child that’s back home for the last time before they finally, really turn into an adult and let go of the last strings of childhood forever. 

It settles, though, as she reaches over to place her cool, dry hand over yours. You look down, a little ashamed now that you’re calmer and can think clearer. 

“I think I’m going to turn in early, so that I can… pack tomorrow before the reunion,” you explain, and your hand moves to pick up your dirty plate. Before you can lift it an inch off the table, your father swipes it from you and waves you and Yeonjun off. 

“We got this. You two go get settled.” 

You lock eyes with your father and you give him an appreciative nod. He smiles in return—yes, a sad one that is full of pity for you—and kisses you on the top of your head as he walks by you on his way to the kitchen. 

You press your lips into a thin line, a slightly awkward silence emerging between the remaining people at the table. Your mother jumps up before anyone has the chance to attempt to rekindle the conversation, and brings both hers and Yeonjun’s dirty dishes to the kitchen, following your father and disappearing behind the cream wall of your dining area. 

“I guess we’ll do what they say,” Yeonjun says, exhaling slowly and standing up. He pushes his chair in and tries to brush off imaginary dust from his place mat, and then looks to you for direction. Though he likes to take the lead, it seems that there is an exception when it comes to your childhood home. 

You take the creaky stairs by two and slip around on the slick wooden floor, warped and smoothed down from years of sock hockey and communal use. Your childhood bedroom door is there at the end of the hallway like it always has been, illuminated by the ceiling light that’s clearly just been replaced by the sheer brightness of it. The door, which has faded crayon lines and your name in wooden letters, blue tacked to the wooden frame, is slightly ajar, just how you had left it when you went down to dinner. 

The two of you sidle into the room, feeling a little claustrophobic. You spy an old purple bikini string overflowing out of one of your old dresser drawers, and your chest lurches a little as a memory of Beomgyu resurfaces. In the brief flash, Beomgyu is sitting in the middle of your bed, mud-caked high tops kicked off and laying on your shag rug. The browned laces are messy and askew, because of the haphazard way that Beomgyu had untied them messily and kicked them off carelessly. He’s dressed in a t-shirt and baggy, light colored jeans. His white socks have a hole on the left bottom and you can see pale flesh peeking through because of the way he’s laying, slumped onto his back with his feet sticking straight out in your direction. His hair is dark, long, and messy, with those white streaks that you loved so much. His brown eyes are twinkling in the dim yellow light, and just as he opens his mouth to say something to you you snap out of it. 

When the image of Beomgyu dissipates completely, you realize that you’ve been staring at Yeonjun this whole time. His stature almost mirrors Beomgyu’s in the memory. But instead, Yeonjun is perched politely on the corner of your mattress, and his pointy-toed, shiny black boots are neatly lined up next to your teenage collection of shoes in your closet. Your own ankle boots had been kicked off and left in the middle of your old rug, just like the illusion of Beomgyu’s Vans had been. Yeonjun’s hair—it’s a mushroom-y shade of brown now, rather than pink—glows warmly in the light alongside his sharp, sparkling eyes, a stark contrast to Beomgyu’s midnight locks and rounded boba pearl eyes. 

“Hey you,” Yeonjun teases, “where’d you go off to in Dreamland? I missed you for a few moments there.” 

You realize that you’ve been fidgeting with your fingers this whole time, picking at your cuticles and peeling the surrounding skin. It’s a bad habit that tends to resurface when you’re stressed, and your fingertips burn now. You regret it, but it’s too late. 

You chuckle. “Sorry, I got lost in my memories for a second.” You swallow hard, feeling choked up for some reason. 

Yeonjun picks up on your watery voice and your inflamed fingers, and he smiles that goofy smile that always makes you feel soothed before he kisses your hands and starts rummaging for his own luggage to find a first aid kit. You let him baby you for a bit, jabbering over your wounds and gently rubbing in a medicated ointment to soothe the throbbing. He selects the worst wounds to bandage up, reassuring you that the other ones would be fine as long as you didn’t touch them again, but it was too late already. Your skin wouldn’t heal before tomorrow, and after that you hardly had a damn about anyone and what they thought of you. You mentally insult yourself for a moment before feeling weary, pushing Yeonjun away after he finished fixing your last finger but rewarding him with a long kiss. 

He’s desperate for something more, for your attention to be solely on him. You again feel bad; your mind has been elsewhere for days now, and you know that Yeonjun can feel it. 

So you relent even though you’re exhausted, and you kiss him with what you hope is passion, dragging your nails down the curve of his back to make him groan and pull you closer to him until your front halves are smushed together. Chest to chest, your bare breasts beneath your thin t-shirt brushing against his hard pecs, his groin grinding against yours. You wrap your legs around his slim waist, pulling him ephemerally closer, closer, closer. You suddenly desire him so much that it burns. It hurts in your chest and your stomach and your head and the burn can only be soothed by his touch. Slowly he pulls away from your lips though he feels intoxicated by them; if he could, he’d kiss them forever. He starts at your head, pressing light kisses to your forehead, nose, and lips. He lingers on your lips again, the feather light drag of flesh against flesh driving you insane when you were craving depraved, rough handling. 

Maybe Yeonjun really did feel your desperation as you gasped aloud and clung to his frame. That faked passion in the beginning was so foolproof that you yourself feel victim to your own lying. 

Yet, nothing more really happens that night. You both take off your clothes, locked in each other’s embrace, and you feel his hot mouth attaching itself to your neck, your chest, your clavicle. His wet tongue laves over the bruises he’s suckled onto your flesh, narrowed eyes looking up to you for approval. You stroke his hair, and the texture is even different from Beomgyu’s—you remember when he would lay his head in your lap during your sleepovers, and every now and then he’d shift and lock eyes with you, grinning foolishly like he always did. You didn’t realize how much you missed him until now, until you found yourself in a place that reeked of familiarity, that reeked of him. If you closed your eyes and tried hard enough, you think you could smell the cologne that he wore all those years ago. It’s musky, yet sharp, and he wore so much of it sometimes that you couldn’t ever hug him without your eyes watering and your nose wrinkling. 

Yeonjun’s mouth parts from a particularly sensitive spot on your neck, a string of saliva from his lip connecting to your neck for just a moment longer before breaking. He places a soft, wet kiss on your lips, lingering there for just a little too long before he pulls away and smiles at you. 

“Everything’s going to be okay,” he says quietly. You fix your gaze on your fiancé, his face smooth and soft in the warm glow from your bedside lamp. That’s the only source of light in the room apart from the slivers of pale moonlight that are barely creeping in through a crack in your dusty butterfly patterned curtains. 

“I know.” You place a kiss on his forehead, which he receives gratefully, happy to have your attention. At least, some of it. More than he’d been receiving recently. 

“Do you want me to come with you tomorrow?” he asks, following you to the bathroom. 

You clutch at the plastic bag holding your toothbrush and toothpaste, along with other toiletries. “Do you want to come?” you ask, as he closes the bathroom door behind him as he walks in. You turn on the faucet, wetting your toothbrush and squeezing a blob of mint green toothpaste onto the bristles. Yeonjun reaches over to turn off the water. 

“Do you want me to come?” he asks. “It’s your high school reunion, and if you’re more comfortable going alone then I understand. But if you want me to come—especially because he might be there—I would love to.” 

You accidentally jab yourself in the gums with the hard plastic of your toothbrush at the mention of Beomgyu. Even though he didn’t say the name aloud, you knew that was who he was referring to. You groan, spitting out the mixture of blood and foamy toothpaste into the sink as you turn the water back on and watch the mixture go down the drain. “I know I’ve made it seem like a really big deal,” you said, choosing your words carefully, as to not offend your somewhat hot headed fiancé, “but it’s really not. I think I was just overwhelmed because of all the memories here, and the fact that my parents are selling the house. But really Jun, it’s not that big of a deal. I’ll be there for an hour, max.” 

“Then you’ll be back and we can finish packing,” he says promptly. 

A warm feeling washes over your body at the way Yeonjun always used words like “we” and “us” constantly. It always made you feel like part of a team, like a relationship should be. Such a simple gesture made you feel so safe and loved. 

“Yes,” you said, pinching his cheek playfully, “then we can finish packing, and my parents can sell the house and we can go home.” 

Yeonjun grabs your hand and plants a kiss on the back of it, making you blush as you pull it away. “I can’t even brush my teeth in peace,” you tease. 

“What can I say? If you’re gone for more than five minutes, I start to miss you too much.” Yeonjun winks before leaving you to finish washing up in peace, and you sigh softly as he closes the door. You look in the mirror, and you look tired even though you’ve yet to start packing at all. Really, it won’t be a big job. What’s more exhausting to think about is the reunion. 

You can almost picture a devil and an angel on your shoulders as you stare at your reflection in the mirror as you pat in your skincare. 

Listen to everyone else, the devil-you scolds. She scowls up at you. Why are you even going to the reunion? You could just skip it tomorrow and help your parents pack up the rest of the house. Your trip home won’t be a waste, and you’ll suffer less. It’s a win-win situation, she pressed. 

Because she has to prove to her old classmates that she’s successful now! the angel on your other shoulder pipes up cheerfully. And isn’t it nice to see old friends anyways? 

The devil scoffs. If she has to prove that she’s successful, is she really successful at all? And what old friends are you even talking about? She had Beomgyu, and that was all. There is zero point in going to this stupid reunion. 

Maybe if we see Beomgyu again, he’ll fall in love with her again and she can live the life she always wondered if she could have if she’d just forgiven him—

You throw a fistful of water at the mirror, washing away the hallucinations. Your eyes are rounded and panicked, from the angel speaking your greatest fear aloud. You always told yourself that if you never thought about it again, it wasn’t real. You didn’t really think or care about it; it was just an intrusive thought. 

Now, it was too real. Your angel spoke the truth. 

You may not be in love with Choi Beomgyu, but you sure as hell have laid awake many nights wondering what would have happened if you did love him back. 

Even more so, what would have happened if you’d never gone to New York in the first place, and stayed with him like he wanted you to. 

—

“That’s the last box of books,” you wheeze. 

Collapsing on top of a freshly sealed box filled with your dusty collection of Harry Potter books, you stare up at your ceiling. Yeonjun’s sweaty forehead appears in your line of vision, a playful expression on his pretty face. “Tired already?” he asks, pulling you up. You groan loudly as you get back on your feet, squeezing his hand tightly. 

“The books are heavy,” you complain. 

“That’s your fault for being such a nerd and having ten million books crammed into one room,” he retorts, wiping his brow with his forearm. “But enough of that. We’re done with it now.” 

You sit down on the floor, which is bare now. The first thing you two had done was roll up your old flower-patterned rug and take it down to the main floor so that the movers could easily pick it up with the rest of your parents’ stuff once they arrived early next week. A half empty bottle of water sits next to you, and you reach for it and chug the remaining liquid. A bead of sweat rolls down your temple and collects in the collar of your dusty t-shirt. 

“We did a lot for just one day,” you praise, as you look up at your newly empty shelves. “It already looks so much emptier in here.” 

“It really does,” Yeonjun says, sitting beside you and squinting at the empty bookshelves. 

You pick up your phone, and your eyes widen at the time. You wanted to give yourself enough time to get ready without rushing and stressing yourself out further. 

“You better get going,” Yeonjun said, noting your reaction to the time. “Don’t want to be late.” 

“I won’t be,” you say confidently. You give him a quick peck on the lips before dashing off to take a shower and wash away all of the dust and sweat before getting dressed. 

Besides stressing yourself out about going in the first place, the next big thing you worried about was what you were going to wear. You didn’t want to show up under or overdressed, and you’d done countless hours of research on what was usually proper. You even scoured some of your old peers’ social media to see if they’d posted at all about the reunion, any hints of what they would look like. Well, their outfits, at least. 

Luckily, it seemed like a lot of your classmates still liked to over share, and you found out more about what others planned to wear that night. Turns out, you had stressed out over almost nothing, as usual. You picked out an outfit from the few choices you’d stuffed into your suitcase, finding something almost new and just fancy enough to put your old classmates to shame. Yes, you were definitely going to outdo your frenemy Shin Ryujin, and without looking tacky too, as Lee Heeseung tended to do. Lucky for him, he was handsome enough that people looked past his terrible sense of fashion and liked him anyways. 

You almost tripped down the worn wooden stairs as you tried to multitask and double-check the location while pulling on your left shoe. It wasn’t like you even needed to look it up on your phone; you knew the way to your old high school like the back of your hand. You’d walked there every day for four years, and driven there countless times with other people. You could close your eyes and find yourself there in a matter of fifteen minutes (or less). 

Yeonjun had insisted on driving you there himself, and he promised you that he’d pick you up as soon as you texted him as well. You felt your heart flutter as he insisted on escorting you, liking the feeling of being cared for. He played music from a decade ago and sang along, making you giggle and pushing your anxiety to the back of your mind. 

Then before you knew it, with a quick kiss, you gathered up your things and left your parents’ car, and stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of your old high school. It’s littered with cigarette butts and old chewed gum, just like it was back in the day, and a wave of nostalgia fills you as you inhale the familiar scent of marijuana and crayons, a jarring juxtaposition that oddly made your heart ache for those years you spent on the cusp of adulthood and the cliff edge of childhood. The very same years that you spent suffering through high school in the very building you were staring at now. 

The front entrance is decked out in colorful balloons and a long white banner that reads “WELCOME CLASS OF ‘08” in crooked black paint. You manage a tight-lipped smile at the staff at the entrance, and duck into the main hallway, where a few people are mingling by the sidelines. The gymnasium is booming with music, and it’s almost too similar to your senior prom (which you of course attended with Beomgyu). 

You don’t recognize the few people talking outside in the hallway, so you prepare yourself to enter the gymnasium. You have to take a deep breath and look down at your outfit to make sure you’re not in your seafoam green prom dress. The watch on your wrist almost feels the same weight as your oversized corsage made of baby’s breath and small dyed blue buds. Your ankle boots seem to morph into dirty black Converse with scribbles on the toes. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the shiny reflection of the freshly repainted lockers, and your rippled reflection is ten years younger, with unblended green eyeshadow plastered up to your eyebrows and a brown-red lipstick on your lips. Your hair is very reminiscent of the time, and your nails are bitten but painted with matching green nail polish. Underneath your dress, your toenails are slathered with the same shade even though they wouldn’t show with your choice in shoes. 

You feel ten years lighter, ten years dumber, ten years younger. 

TEN YEARS BEFORE.

You’ve never had a panic attack before, but you think you’re having one now. 

In the girls’ bathroom. 

At school. 

During your senior prom. 

You’re breathing heavily, wheezing as your lungs seem to collapse in on themselves. Your manicured hands are gripping the sides of the porcelain sink so tightly your knuckles ache, and you’re staring at your reflection in the mirror. Your eyes are teary, but you know that if you let those tears fall your face will be streaked with metallic green trails for the rest of the night. You grit your teeth and will the wetness in your eyes to go the hell away. 

Beomgyu was waiting for you outside the bathroom. 

He’d never even asked you to go to prom with him; he just assumed that the two of you would go together. The week before prom, you complained about not having a date, and he’d turned to you with a surprised look, asking why you couldn’t go with him. For some reason, it hurt your feelings a little when he said that you were his best friend, but it healed the wound a little when he said that there was no one else he’d rather go with. 

He was so handsome in his suit. You knew that his mother picked it up at Dillard’s and had made slight adjustments herself so that it would fit him perfectly. Even so, the white shirt underneath was wrinkled and his tie was crooked, veering to the right. It didn’t matter to you though, and you’d smiled nervously, blushing from your nose to your toes as he offered you a corsage and you held out the boutineer. 

You felt like he was your boyfriend even though you walked the same way to school you did every day. The only difference was that you were all dressed up—and the simple fact that anyone who saw the two of you would assume you were a couple. Especially with the way he had offered his arm to you, and the way you were currently walking perfectly in time as you clutched his thin but muscular arm. 

It was too much when you both got to the school and he kissed you on the cheek right before the two of you walked into the gymnasium. Choppy locks of his messy wolf cut fell into his big brown eyes as he grinned at you, cocking his head to the side innocently as you nearly sweat through your makeup. 

Then, you ended up in the bathroom. A messy stuttered excuse to Beomgyu had to suffice, and you rushed away from him, clammy hands lifting up the train of your dress so that you didn’t trip as you ran away. 

He’s your best friend, idiot, you murmur under your breath, staring at your ragged reflection in the mirror. Stop acting like such a freak. You have a month before you go to school an hour away, and then you won’t have to worry about these feelings ever again. 

You place a hand over your heart, feeling the rapid beating start to finally slow as you take deep breaths and reassure yourself that it’s going to be okay. It’s been harder and harder to tamp down the weird bubbling feelings towards Beomgyu, and you’ve never been happier to be attending your back-up school in the fall. Anything is better than here, you think, grimacing. Anywhere away from Beomgyu will help me work out my shit without him interfering. 

“Your shit” refers to these odd feelings. Obviously. 

You finally let go of the sink and take a step back, relaxing your shoulders and looking at yourself one last time. You look normal. Your face is no longer scrunched up in a confused, panicked expression, and your chest isn’t heaving with shallow breaths. Your hands are less clammy and you feel more at ease. Right before you turn away, you fix the corner of your lipstick with your pinky finger, then spin on your heel and exit the bathroom. 

Beomgyu is waiting there, slumped against the lockers, picking at a cuticle. When you come back, his face lights up, and you can’t help but allow yourself to love him more than a friend, even if it’s just for one night. 

TEN YEARS LATER. 

You practically relive your senior prom in that same bathroom, clutching the sides of the sink and staring at your reflection with a mixture of nausea and anger bubbling in your stomach. This time, all you have to do is take a long drag from your vape before the tension in your head starts to loosen. You exhale, a cloud of white slipping from between your lips as you stuff the little device back in your purse, between your lipstick and your box of cigarettes. 

You feel like your old wallflower self again as you lean against the door before pushing it open to exit the bathroom again. For some reason, being in that bathroom again reminded you of the days where you’d skip class and eat lunch alone. You didn’t want to go back out to the crowd, something that you didn’t have any problems with after you graduated high school and came out of your shell for once and for all. But now, surrounded by your past, your hand hesitates a little before pushing the door open and leaving the confines of a place that’s seen you at your best and your worst for the better part of four years. 

Then it starts to feel like things are moving in slow motion. 

You’re hyper focused on the fact that the heavy bathroom door had dragged a clump of wet paper towels out of the bathroom and across the freshly waxed floors. You grimace as you step around the sodden mess, making a face and successfully avoiding the paper pile. 

You look up, the ghost of a scowl still present on your face, and then you see him. 

It’s been ten years since you’ve seen Choi Beomgyu, and it’s such a strange feeling that resonates through your entire body that you actually feel bile rising hot in your throat. You swallow hard, tasting bitter stomach acid, and can’t do anything else but stare. 

It’s stupid really; you feel, again, like your stupid teenage self. The one who froze up in uncomfortable situations, the one who cried too easily, the one with seemingly permanently sweaty palms that no boy would ever want to touch, especially not when you were around other more radiant individuals. No, you felt like you hadn’t changed at all as you stared at Choi Beomgyu the same way you did when you were eighteen: with nothing but love and pure adoration in your eyes. 

But that’s not to say it wasn’t terribly conflicting. 

As soon as you saw him and it actually registered in your mind that it was him in real life and not some ghostly memory, you felt your throat tighten as you thought of the last interaction you had with him. Those old familiar feelings of softness and love faded as you remembered the full extent of what he did, and it was hard to just pretend like that didn’t happen. You would never forget that. 

But god, was he gorgeous. 

Ten years had nothing on him. Even though twenty-eight wasn’t old in the slightest, you could still see signs of aging in your other classmates. Some had hairlines that had receded much further back than they were when they were eighteen, some had the beginnings of smile lines and crow’s feet, and some even had some wisps of gray hair, though it was only a select few. 

Beomgyu on the other hand looked exactly the same, yet so oddly different you almost couldn’t recognize him unless you looked very closely. You wondered for a moment how different he’d look in your eyes if you’d been by his side for the past decade and watched him age right beside you, rather than miles and miles away, both physically and metaphorically. Then, you attribute the weird unfamiliar feeling in the pit of your stomach to the fact that you haven’t seen him in years. Because really, you hardly know him any more. You can’t really call him your best friend if you have had zero contact for a decade. 

His hair, which you remembered was always messy, shaggy, and unkempt, was cut shorter. Instead of the dark natural black with white streaks, it was a reddish brown. It was just short enough to be acceptable for a professional job, but long enough that it still looked like Beomgyu. His bangs still fell into his eyes the same way as he leaned forward to laugh, and your heart ached as you heard the tail-end of his goofy chuckle. He stood right outside the gymnasium entrance, talking with a guy whose name you think was Soobin. You distantly remember him at the graduation ceremony. He leans against the lockers nonchalantly, making you remember your senior prom again, but this time the way he does so isn’t in a cocky way. He looks genuinely relaxed as his shoulder rests against the cold painted metal, nodding along as Soobin chatters away to him. 

This entire time, you’ve been standing right outside the women’s restroom. You’re kind of surprised that no one’s asked you to move out of the way, given how long you were standing there like an idiot with your mouth hanging open like a fish’s. 

Luckily, no one really gave a fuck. 

People were flying by, most of them on the phone and saying something like, “I was just there! You told me to meet you by the entrance! No, the front entrance!” Others were just standing around, either focusing way too much on their own conversations or typing aggressively on their phones without paying any attention to those around them, which included you. 

You fight the urge to whip out a cigarette right then and there, feeling a headache coming on. 

Taking out your own phone, you shoot a quick text to Yeonjun, who’s already asking you when you think you might be ready to leave. Unsurprisingly, you already feel exhausted and plan to just stop by the main room and then get the fuck out. 

When you look back to the entrance of the gymnasium, Beomgyu and Soobin have disappeared, and you catch a glimpse of Beomgyu’s pale blue dress shirt and Soobin’s khakis rounding the corner to the men’s room, opposite where you’re standing. You breathe a sigh of relief and enter the main room, chewing on your bottom lip as you look around for anyone you know. 

It really is like senior prom, you think grimly, as you sidle over to a table with drinks and snacks. You pick up a can of lemonade and pop it open with the little tab, taking little sips from it as you look around some more. 

“I didn’t think I’d see you here.” 

You swallow a mouthful of lemonade and turn to the source of the voice, eyes widening a little in surprise. 

It’s Karina, who looks as beautiful as ever. Like Beomgyu, she doesn’t seem to have aged at all, rather, her beauty seemed even more radiant. You knew immediately that she was the type to simply get better looking with age, and you couldn’t help but feel a little jealous at that thought. 

She offers you a small smile and stands next to you, looking you over with a satisfied look. “You look really good,” she said honestly, “how have you been?” 

You let out a long sigh, ending it with a bitter chuckle. “I’ve been good, finished school, got engaged. After I finish helping my parents pack up the house I won’t have a reason to come back here ever again, so I thought why not?” 

“Right, I heard about them moving out. Where to?” 

“Some apartment complex, I forgot the name.” 

“Was it Autumn Oaks?” 

You shake your head no, pursing your lips. “No, that’s not it…” you mumble. trying to remember. Then it comes to you, and you snap your fingers at no one in particular. “Woodbury!” you say, silently commending yourself on remembering the name. 

“Oh! I must have been wrong then,” Karina laughs, and you’re again jealous of her because of how delicate and pretty she sounds. It’s like the tinkling of little silver bells. Her eyes scrunch up when she laughs, and your gaze washes over her pretty face. Her laughter subsides, and it becomes just a little awkward as she clears her throat. “So, engaged, huh? Who’s the lucky guy?” 

You feel a blush creeping onto your face; your cheeks feel hot. 

“Yeah, his name’s Yeonjun. I met him as soon as I got to New York and we’ve been inseparable ever since.” You feel a little sheepish talking about him for some reason, and you’re unsure why. You’re very proud to have a partner as loving, handsome, talented, and successful as Yeonjun. Yet, it’s still weird to admit your love for him. It’s like he doesn’t fit with this version of you. And then you wonder, for a brief moment, if that really matters—have you really changed that much since high school? So much so that Yeonjun doesn’t even fit into the world you used to live in? 

Awkwardly, you show Karina the home screen on your phone for reference. It’s a cute selfie of you and Yeonjun from the past winter holidays. When the photo was taken, you and Yeonjun had been on an evening stroll when it started to snow, and heavily. The snowflakes were more like clumps, so many little particles gathered together all at once. In the photo you can see the snow clumps clinging to your winter clothes, your hair, even some resting on your eyelashes and eyebrows. Your noses are red from the cold, a single puff of breath escaping your mouth as you’re caught mid-laugh, mid-smile, permanently in the picture. 

At first you hated that picture. You hated that Yeonjun took it when you were caught off guard, hated the way you looked in it. But the more that you looked, the softer your reaction got, and eventually you came to love the photo as much as Yeonjun did. At least, you loved the way he looked in it. With his eyes almost closed from his whole face being scrunched up with laughter, his exposed teeth in his wide smile, and his strong arm wrapped around your shoulders, he looked like the sweetest boyfriend ever. 

Karina seemed to think so too as she audibly cooed at the picture. “You guys are adorable,” she declared. Then she stops talking, swiftly brushing a strand of hair behind her ear before she locks eyes with you and continues. “Honestly, and I don’t mean this in a bad way at all, I promise—I always thought that you and Beomgyu would end up together.” 

There’s a pregnant pause, and it was like everyone in the room held their breath before you remembered where you were and laughed, a little too loudly to be natural. “That’s crazy!” you say between fake chuckles, feeling your stomach turn. You briefly wonder what Karina would do if you threw up all over her, and then pray to any higher being out there that it wouldn’t actually happen. “What makes you think that?” you ask quickly, before she can respond to your exclamation. 

She flushes a dark pink. “Oh you know…” she waves a hand in the air. “You two were always together, like always. Everyone thought you were already dating, even if you never were. We all thought so.” 

You get déjá vu, remembering the last time you talked to Karina—when she asked you to hook her up with Beomgyu. You get irrationally angry over this, pushing aside the fact that it’s been ten years since she liked him, and you have a fiancé who obviously isn’t Beomgyu. 

You force a tight-lipped smile, squeezing your can of lemonade so hard it crunches in your fist a little. Karina doesn’t seem to notice, taking a long sip of her own lemonade. 

“Well, it was really nice catching up,” she says, after it’s clear you’re not going to further the conversation. “Good luck. Not that you’ll need it.” She holds out her free hand to you, and you grip it firmly as you both shake. You both burst out into giggles at the odd formality, and the butterflies you get from laughing with a female friend is like nothing else. You wish that you’d had a friend like her in high school. Maybe you even wish that you’d been her friend back in high school. 

“Thanks,” you say, “you too. It was so good to see you again.” You find that you genuinely mean it, and a fire roars in your chest. This was what you wanted. You wanted to come back for closure, and now you have it. You saw Beomgyu and he seemed to be doing just fine without you, mended things with the one person you weren’t on great terms with, and you’re folding it all up in your metaphorical box of childhood memories. You can just feel the satisfaction of tying the ribbon and moving on to the next chapter of your life without anything weighing you down. 

How mature, you think, to be able to move on from childhood just like that. 

You feel accomplished, and a weight that you didn’t even know about has been lifted on your shoulders. You feel lighter than air; you felt as if you could walk amongst the stars if you tried. There’s nothing more for you to do, so you gather yourself and take a deep breath before exiting the gymnasium, giving it one last look. Still, it felt like only yesterday that you’d walked these halls as a student. Those miserable (yet wonderful) years felt like a lightyear and a day away simultaneously. 

You’re fumbling through your purse for your phone, to text Yeonjun when your keychain falls out from your vigorous digging. It lands with a loud clink, metal hitting linoleum, and you groan, moving to pick it up, but another hand snatches it before you do. 

Standing up, you readjust your purse as the person holds the keychain out to you. “Thanks,” you sigh, reaching for it. 

They tug it away then, and you jerk your hand back in surprise. “Where did you get this charm?” the person asks in an accusatory tone. 

You finally get your purse back on your shoulder and look the freak in the eyes, but just as you’re about to give them a piece of your mind it clicks. Your breath is stolen from you; you feel like you’re shriveling up on the spot, no oxygen flowing through your veins. 

Choi Beomgyu is standing in front of you, frowning at your old matching keychains. 

Why hadn’t you gotten a new one, damn it? It’s not something that you regularly thought about; you always made a mental note to get a new one but it always slipped your mind. It was never important enough for you to write down. 

You try to say something—what, you don’t know—but your mouth is so dry that you hardly rasp out a single word. Beomgyu finally looks up, dark eyebrows angry and scowling, but as soon as your eyes meet, he melts. You see the hurt, confusion, and warmth flow through his face like waves onto a shore. He drops the keychain again, eyebrows furrowed and hands shaking. 

What are you supposed to even say in this situation? You have no fucking idea. 

That’s why you run. You squat down quickly to snatch your keys up, and then sprint for the front entrance. The doors are wide open, and you can see the pink and purple sunset, just out of reach. You don’t look back, and you’re soon you’re half running, half tripping down the staircase and then slipping on the dirt pathway all the way back to your house. 

It’s stupid. It’s juvenile. It’s immature. Why did you run from him like a maniac? Why didn’t you just say hello and then goodbye like a normal person? No, now things were definitely going to be weird. 

Sweat is running down your back when you finally get back to your house. It’s not a long walk, but even though the sun had now fully gone down, it was still hotter than ever. You forgot how nasty summers in your hometown could be. 

Musty, muggy air surrounds you as you wipe your moist forehead with your wrist. You feel suffocated in your semi-fancy outfit, and your dress shoes are killing your feet. All you want is to get home, take a shower, and forget that you ever saw him. 

So that’s what you do. You don’t tell anyone that you saw him, even though you know they’re wondering. Especially Yeonjun, who was so eager to pick you up from the school and hear all about the reunion. You can see it written across all their faces as you eat dinner together—while they ate, at least. You still felt so sick that all you did was pick at it with your fork and push things around on your plate. 

Afterwards, you kiss Yeonjun on the forehead and slip out the door. It’s too early to go to sleep just yet, and you want some fresh air. 

Now that the sun had fully gone away, the air had cooled more, but just a little. It was thick and warm, and the buzzing of mosquitoes and other pests hummed in your ears as you itched an already inflamed bite on your ankle. Fireflies danced close to the grass, the flashing yellow lights illuminating the dark blades. Distantly, you could hear big bullfrogs croaking and crickets chirping, and you knew that it came from the small stream that you and Beomgyu liked to mess around in way back when. You lost a sandal there once, you think.

The road from your house to your school started off as black asphalt, but later turned into a winding dirt path, carved by human feet alone, through a small thicket of trees fondly referred to as “the forest.” There were multiple ways to get there though; you and Beomgyu just liked this one best. You stand where dirt meets concrete, staring into the forest, and puffing on a cigarette, exhaling plumes of smoke floating up towards the massive full moon. It’s still too hot out, but you somehow feel more suffocated inside the house. Something about Yeonjun and your parents staring you down, their eyes practically begging to know what happened. You don’t need their damn sympathy, you just needed to chill the fuck out. 

“Big city girl needs her nicotine fix?” 

Somehow, you knew this would happen. A part of you knows that’s why you came out here tonight. 

“Only when I’m stressed.” You purposely take an exaggerated, long drag.

“Because of me? I’m flattered.” 

Beomgyu finally stands beside you, heels on the asphalt and toes brushing against the loose dirt. You refuse to look him in the eye. You refuse to look at him at all. The only light is from the moon and your lit cigarette, flashing reddish orange every time you breathed in. 

“What do you want?” There’s no softness in your voice despite your opposing feelings inside. You drop the remains of your cigarette onto the dirt ground and stamp it out with your shoe, which you now realize are an old pair of Converse, worn down and caked with dirt. 

And, complete with faded Sharpie scribbles made by you and the cocky bastard standing next to you. 

“You ran away from me earlier.” 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

“You ran away from me ten years ago too.” 

You groan loudly, wiping your face dramatically until the reds of your eyes showed. “I’m not doing this again,” you say, in a voice that’s much higher pitched than normal. You’re getting mad. 

“What, you’re just gonna run away again? Very mature,” he said sarcastically. Your heart panged with hurt; there was venom in his words. Clearly, he was still hurting from you leaving. He hadn’t healed either. 

“Say what you want to say, I’m only here until the end of the week anyways,” you snap. 

Honestly, even though you’re still mad at him, a part of you still cares deeply for him, and it makes your throat tighten when you see the despair on his face. You know you did the right thing back then; leaving, and never talking to Beomgyu again. You never wanted to let him think that what he did was okay, and you knew that if you ever reached out to him and apologized he would assume that. Even so, there were so many nights where you sobbed into your pillow, restraining yourself from calling his number, not even knowing if he ever got a new one. Maybe that was another reason why you didn’t want to call; if you tried to call and couldn’t reach him, it’d be ten times more humiliating. 

“You know I’m sorry, don’t you?” he asks quietly. 

“Yeah, but that doesn’t make it okay,” you mumble, dejectedly. “Just because you said that you’re sorry, just because you are sorry, it doesn’t mean you didn’t try to purposely ruin my future. For selfish reasons too.” 

He doesn’t reply for a minute, cocking his head to the side like he always used to do. Seeing him with his old mannerisms makes you feel sick. 

“I know,” he says, choosing his words carefully. “I was a stupid kid. I didn’t want you to leave, even if it meant holding you back. It was so damn selfish, and I am so sorry.” 

You swallow past the lump in your throat. “Okay. Thanks.” Again, Beomgyu doesn’t reply right away, and instead he turns to face you. The moonlight hits his face perfectly at this angle, and his features are lit up by the beams of silver. You can’t help but look over at him too, staring into his brown eyes that look completely black in the night. They’re so big and dark, but the moonlight reflects sparkles into them. Your scowl softens as you take in the slight signs of aging that you realize he’s beginning to show. His jawline is much more square now; his chin and nose slightly more prominent. There’s faint smile lines traced into his smooth skin, so light that you know you wouldn’t be able to see it in the daylight. The faintest whisper of stubble was only obvious on his chin, if you looked very closely. “Is that all you wanted to say to me?” you say finally, after what seemed like an eternity of you two staring into each other’s eyes. 

“No,” he admitted. “There’s so much I want to say, but I’ll forget most of it before I even begin. But I missed you a lot. And I still love you a lot too.” 

You wince at the declaration of his feelings, and you hope to any god out there that he means he still loves you as a friend, as someone he’s known for so long. But you know that isn’t what he means. You ask anyways. 

“And by love… you mean…” 

“I never stopped loving you,” he said fiercely, and his eyes look wet in the pale light. “I never will.” 

“You’re crazy,” you say, but your voice cracks, and when you see Beomgyu’s pleading eyes finally spill over at the sound of emotion breaking through your rock solid facade, you shatter. 

You’re leaking like a broken faucet; no sobs or cries, just silent tears streaming down your face non-stop. Beomgyu’s crying too, but he’s the opposite. His shoulders are shaking so hard from the force of holding his sobs in, and you can hear his little chokes as he swallows them down. Against your own better judgement, you mentally say fuck it, and walk over to him to take him in your arms. 

You regret it and love it at the same time. 

He smells just like he did back then; you can tell he uses the same cologne and it makes you smile into the top of his head, where your chin rests softly. And yes, the smell still makes your nostrils sting initially—but you find it doesn’t really bother you like it used to. His body against yours feels different physically but the same in memory. He’s broader, a little taller, a little more squishy now that he’s out of his teen boy phase where he grows faster than he can eat to catch up. But the way his hands clasp around your back, the way he buries his face in your neck, the shake of his left leg (you can tell he’s genuinely nervous because of this), it’s all the same. 

You watch your own tears drip down into his red-brown hair, smoothing them away before they can soak in. You sit there on the asphalt in silence, stroking his soft hair and holding him close, as you both cry. 

You almost press a quick kiss to the top of his head, but as soon as you look up you see Yeonjun standing there, flowery apron on and an oven mitt on one hand. Right, he’d been in the middle of baking dessert when you’d run out. You push Beomgyu away, a little too roughly, as Yeonjun looks the two of you up and down suspiciously. “Is that Beomgyu?” he asks sharply, and Beomgyu, upon hearing another man’s voice, turns around before you can even open your mouth to reply. 

“I am. And who are you?” Beomgyu asks, rather rudely. You shove him again and stand up, walking over to Yeonjun and shaking your head. You bring your wrist up to your eyes and roughly wipe away any of the remaining tears. Yeonjun notices this and his expression softens as he bends down to try to look at your face. 

“Hey, is everything okay?” he murmurs softly, rubbing your back gently. “This asshole didn’t try anything, did he?” 

“What did you just call me?” Beomgyu asks loudly. 

“I called you an asshole because that’s what you are,” Yeonjun snaps. He gently takes you by the arm so he can guide you back to the house, and you let him. “And just so you know, I’m Yeonjun, her fiancé. So fuck off.” He sends one last bone-chilling glare at Beomgyu before he wraps an arm around you and walks you back down the road. Beomgyu can see him leaning down to whisper in your ear, and he grits his teeth angrily, knowing that you’re both talking about him. 

“It’s fine, Jun, really,” you say, between stuttered gasps for air. You’re crying again, harder this time. It’s embarrassing; you’re not sad, you’re angry. 

“Are you sure? He didn’t try to pull anything? Promise?” 

“Promise,” you choke out, and Yeonjun presses a swift kiss to your wet cheek as he closes the front door behind the two of you. 

“Then… can I ask what was happening when I found you two?” he asks quietly. 

You avert your eyes and stare at the ground. You’ve tracked in some dirt, and you know your mom will be pissy if you don’t clean it up before you go to bed. Yeonjun says your name, reaching over to tilt your chin up so you can look him in the eye. 

“He started crying because he felt bad, so then I felt bad and… I just hugged him. He looked so pathetic.” You tell Yeonjun the truth, and he accepts it immediately. There’s no question about it; he trusts you completely. 

“I’m sorry you had to go through that alone,” he says, sounding genuinely sorry that he wasn’t there with you. “I would have beat his ass.” 

“And that’s why we walked away,” you said, laughing a little and wiping your teary eyes. 

“That’s right,” he repeats, pulling you into a tight hug. An immense wave of guilt washes over you as you flinch; your first thought was something terrible. 

You like Beomgyu’s hugs better, and you always have. 

—

The next morning dawns hot and dry.

Unlike the previous day, in which the air held so much moisture you could feel your clothes clinging to your seemingly permanently damp body, this heat was unbearable in a different way. 

You swear you can feel your skin cracking and drying as soon as you step into the direct sunlight, no matter how much sunscreen you apply. Heat waves are practically visible when you look outside; they’re distorting the image of the big tree in your backyard. 

This morning, you’re sitting on your front porch with a paper plate and a steaming mug of coffee. On the paper plate is a blueberry streusel muffin; courtesy to your fiancé’s above average baking skills—and also the reason behind the flower-patterned apron he had been wearing when he came across you and Beomgyu having a weird emotional snot-fest. The muffin is a little soggy, as muffins tend to degrade to once they’ve been shut in a tupperware overnight, but the promise of a sweet treat first thing in the morning far outweighed the initial disappointment upon seeing a second morning muffin. 

Chewing slowly, you dust off your streusel sticky hands, crumbs rolling off your palms and landing onto the peeling wood of your front porch. You watch one big crumb of streusel roll down the expanse of your thigh and down two, three steps until it lands in a patch of sunlight further down the stairs that lead to the street. It’s early enough in the morning that the sun isn’t directly overhead and therefore burning you as soon as you walk out the front door, and you’re grateful for the temporary shade. Your bare feet brush against the edge of the shadows, toes dipping into light and spreading across the sun warmed wood. 

It’s a gloriously individual morning, and you breathe in the smell of trees and warm grass. If only you could freeze this moment in time and revisit it whenever you wanted. If only you had such an escape that you could return to when times got tough. 

But really, that morning is the only peaceful part of your day. You’re arguing with your co-worker on the phone as soon as you down your last sip of coffee, which had by then cooled into a lukewarm liquid. You hate the last few gulps of a hot drink, because there is nothing worse than a lukewarm drink that’s meant to be hot. Then, irritable from your row with Jeongin, who fucked up your entire project and needed help restoring a few very simple documents, paired with the misery of living in a house with no AC during the hottest, driest summer months, you end up being snappy with Yeonjun. 

Also, your mother made your least favorite dish for dinner, and as much as you appreciated your parents for cooking for you, there was no way in hell you were eating it. 

Stomach growling, head aching, and fingers sore from furious emailing (thanks to Jeongin), you curl up on your side in bed. Your hair is still damp from your recent shower, and your face is shiny and a little sore from you taking out your anger on your face when you were washing it. 

You’re plucking at a piece of your hair, just toying with it mindlessly, when you feel the edge of your bed dip down as someone sits on it. You freeze, sucking your bottom lip into your mouth to chew on it nervously until you taste blood. 

“Long day, huh?” Yeonjun asked softly. You scoot over a little to let him lay next to you, but you don’t turn to look at him. He sidles in carefully, leaving just a little space between your bodies in case you’re not comfortable with too much contact tonight. You shrug in response, the only sound being your t-shirt brushing against your bed sheets as your shoulders move up and down in place of real words. 

“I was just annoyed, and everything piled up so quickly after I had to fix Jeongin’s shit.” You spit out Jeongin’s name like it’s poisonous, and Yeonjun can’t help but chuckle at your petty behavior. 

“He’s a kid,” he chided, “but he is a pretty dumb one, at that. I thought young people were supposed to be good with technology.” 

“Doesn’t apply to clueless idiots,” you mumble, your words muffled from your lips being pressed to your pillowcase. 

“It’s been a long few days for you, hasn’t it?” he asked, forgetting about Jeongin and his antics. “Are you sure you don’t wanna fly home early?” 

Home. Fly home. Right, this wasn’t home any more, even though you always referred to it as that. I’m going home for Christmas. This girl I knew from back home got married last month. My hometown is a wasteland and I never want to go back. But I don’t want to lose it, either. 

“I’m okay,” you start, and you can just picture Yeonjun’s doubtful frown without turning to look at his face. “Fine, I will be okay once this is all wrapped up and over with. It’s a stressful time but it’s something I have to do. I had to come back to my high school reunion for closure. I had to at least see Beomgyu one last time. I had to help my parents clean and sell the house.” You’re laying it out for him, word by word, and he pays attention to your intonation and serious tone, moving a little closer so that he could rest his head right next to yours. His nose poked the back of your scalp as he inhaled the scent of your shampoo, and underneath that, the scent of you. 

You swallow hard, feeling all of the anger from your long, stressful day melt away. Yeonjun’s steady breathing and complete attention to your stupid rant had calmed you. Silently, you both stare up at the warm-toned walls, washed with a dim yellow light from the small lamp on your nightstand, the only light in the house left on at the moment. It was late, past midnight, and you two were the only two souls in the house that were awake. 

Holding your breath, you slowly move closer to Yeonjun until your bodies are pressed so tightly to each other that you couldn’t wedge a single finger between where you two were connected. He breathes in harshly at the feeling of your hips connecting, flexing his hands into fists to try and control himself. Then, with a shaking hand, you reach over to find him, and once your fingers brush against his, you slip your hand into his hold. His fingers are warm, soft, familiar. Especially from the past few days of moving heavy objects. You bring your intertwined hands up to your chest, and then they part—you press his newly free hand against your breast, letting him feel your hardened, sensitive nipple. He groans softly, deeply, into your hair as he thumbs at the hardened nub over the thin material of your shirt. 

You exhale, happy that he seems to have missed you as much as you missed him. 

Now you feel his hard length pressed up against your backside, grinding roughly into you and making you slick with anticipation, though you were both still fully clothed. Momentarily, he let go of your tit, and before you could whisper a question he slipped his hand underneath your shirt to grope at them freely, without any barriers. He’s breathing heavier now, soft grunts escaping his lips ever now and then. You’re holding back a whimper as he sucks hickies onto your neck, his hot tongue making you squirm. 

All in one quick fumble, you’re facing him now and your lips are pressed to his. Your neck is stinging from his teeth, your nipples burning from his calloused fingers pinching and teasing. Worst of all, your clothed cunt, grinding against Yeonjun’s hard muscular thigh, which he had pressed roughly between your legs as soon as you turned to face him, gasping. 

You feel your teeth knock against his as you choke down a moan when your clit nudges against his thigh just right, and he reaches up with one hand to grab your throat gently, just enough to get your attention. He shushes you, and you whimper quietly as his fingers move up from your throat to inside your mouth. You swirl your tongue around the digits, sucking them deeper into your mouth, eager to please as you stare at his gorgeous face, half hidden in the shadows. His lips are swollen and red in the limited light, his eyes hooded and dark as he stares at you sucking on his fingers, desperate and longing. You haven’t felt this way in a long time. When was the last time you wanted to please a man this badly? 

Yeonjun pulls his fingers out of your mouth, staring at the string of saliva that connects them to your bottom lip momentarily before it inevitably breaks, and then he reaches down into your pants, spit soaked fingers expertly finding your clit, as they have done for years and years. He knows everything about your body, and better yet, everything about your mind that makes your body react. 

He’s going to give it to you exactly how you like it, exactly like he’s done for years and years. He’s never let you down before, and he isn’t planning on it now, even when it’s in your childhood bedroom. 

He winks at you before ducking under the covers, and you feel his hands grabbing at the waistband of your pants. You lift up your ass, letting him remove your shorts and panties at the same time, and finally, you feel his warm breath tickling your inner thighs as he leans in. 

He presses sloppy, wet kisses down your thighs as he works his way to the center, and finally you feel his fingers teasing you with light touches, poking and prodding just to get on your nerves a little so that you’ll pull his hair the way he likes it. And that you do, tangling your fingers in his brown locks as he smiles into your cunt, your wetness dripping down his chin. 

Yeonjun reappears once he’s done his job, so well that you had to stuff your fist into your mouth when you came so that you didn’t wake up your parents with the loudest, most pornographic moan you’ve ever uttered. Your legs are shaking as he emerges from between your legs, your slick making his lips and chin glisten in the light. You reach up to grab him by the shirt, dragging him down to you so that you can taste yourself on his swollen, pouty lips. It’s salty, a little bitter and musky, and you can smell it all over his face as you messily make out with him, lips sliding over each other as you fumble with the bottom of his shirt to try and tug it up. Feeling your cold hands on his stomach, he reluctantly stops kissing you to rip it off his body, tossing it onto the floor with a flourish. It joins the pile of clothes on the floor, alongside your shorts and panties, which had made their way closer and closer to the edge of the bed before finally just falling in a sad heap, forgotten about in the heat of the moment. 

You watch his muscles flex in the dim light as he tosses his shirt onto the floor, your eyes glowing with lust. He dives back in; kissing you like it’s the last time he’ll be able to taste your lips as he fumbles with his pants. You part once more to rid yourself of the remaining clothing items clinging to your bodies; your shirt and his pants. 

You’re already reaching over with a spit soaked hand to grab at his dick before he even gets the chance to toss his boxers on the floor, and he sharply inhales at the feeling of you sliding your slick hand over his cock head. You feel it twitch under your touch and giggle. The effect that you have on him has never dimmed; you are the most gorgeous person in the world to him. 

Before you and Yeonjun had officially gotten together, you had just been friends. He was two years older than you, an upperclassman already, and he didn’t want to hold you back with a relationship as soon as you got to school. No matter how much he liked you, he kept his distance just a little as he watched you grow and change as a person in those first few months as an adult. In this time, you managed to rack up a few sexual experiences, some better than others, all being below average at best. 

It was hooking up, that’s all it was. That’s the only kind of sex that you had, the only kind that you thought existed. Fucking. Hooking up. Having sex. Such plain, brash terms. 

Then, you were with Yeonjun. 

Fucking had a different meaning with him. There was affection, an underlying softness even when he was being rough, an overflow of love pouring from his heart into yours every time he was inside of you. It made you feel weird at first, and you actually avoided him for a bit after you started crying during one heated night due to feeling so safe in his arms. It was so new that you got scared; you thought it was wrong. 

It wasn’t just fucking any more, you later thought, he was making love to you. It was as simple as that. You had previously thought that fucking, having sex, making love, hooking up—it was all pretty much the same thing; they were all synonymous terms. No, the difference with Yeonjun was that he made love to you, and that was the missing puzzle piece in your previously deeply unsatisfying sex life. 

You knew that this is what he was doing now, especially tonight when you were both feeling so vulnerable. His lips hardly leave yours, save for when one of you needs to take a gasping breath, and his hands roam your body, embracing and worshiping every single part of you. It’s driving you crazy, as you’re doing nothing but kissing though you can feel his hard cock brushing against your weeping slit every time he leans forward. To remedy this, you wrap your legs around his waist to pull him closer to you. Now he’s grinding against you, his length pulsating against your cunt with every movement either of you make. 

“Please Jun, please just do it already,” you whine, over and over, crying in his ear. 

He teases you endlessly, stuttering his hips to make your breath catch in your throat, smirking at your visceral reactions to him. In the middle of your begging, he angles his hips differently, and his head slips into you, a breathy moan leaving your lips. He bites down hard on his lower lip, resisting the urge to groan aloud and slap your tit to see it jiggle, and pushes the rest of his cock in, warmth enveloping him as he closes his eyes. 

Your hands scrabble for something to hold onto, and his shaking hands find your flailing ones. He grips your hand tightly, pinning it above your head as he rocks his hips into you. The covers slip off of his narrow hips at the slow, constant thrusts, exposing all of you in the light. You look down to see where you’re connected, see the ring of your slick around the base of his shiny cock, and throw your head back with a whine as he pushes into you particularly roughly. 

Yes, sex with Yeonjun is always full of passion, full of love. It elevates the experience for you, when you feel so deeply and wholly for the person that you’re having relations with. 

You can’t help but pull him in for another kiss when he chokes out a quick warning, words spilling from his trembling lips. You’ve orgasmed twice already, from Yeonjun putting off his own orgasm in order to make sure you achieve yours. His neglected cock, edged multiple times, was red and leaking copious amounts of precum by the time his trembling hand directed it back inside of your swollen pussy after your second high. 

You feel warmth erupt from his cock as he cries into the kiss, unable to tamp down the soft groans that escape his lungs. Slick, wet sounds are the only thing you can hear apart from the both of your labored breathing, as he keeps thrusting his softening cock inside. You feel his cum leaking down your ass cheeks, and your cunt clenches around him as he stills inside of you. 

Somehow, the two of you fall asleep like that. It’s just so warm and fuzzy and sticky, and you’re so tired that when he lays his sweaty face in your chest, you close your eyes and don’t open them again until the early hours of the morning, when you feel like you’re about to piss yourself. 

You leave Yeonjun in the cum-stained bed; it’s still just past two in the morning, but you know you won’t be able to fall back asleep now. At least, not while there’s rivulets of dried semen down your inner thighs and you smell like a mixture of saliva and sweat. After you flush the toilet, you stare at the reflection of your hickey covered neck in the mirror hanging on your wall, pressing against one lightly with your pointer finger and grimacing at the purple color. It’d be a bitch to try and cover. You want to shower again so badly, but first you need a smoke. You find a half empty box of stale cigarettes in your purse and a gas station lighter on your nightstand, and you open your window and step out onto the roof. 

It’s a cool night. Your bare feet and legs—you only put on Yeonjun’s shirt and a fresh pair of panties when you woke up—scrape against the rough surface of the roof tiles. You’re clutching the box of cigarettes so hard you think you might have dented a few of them. Balancing one between your lips, you light it and inhale deeply, tossing the lighter down and leaning back before exhaling. You watch the exhaled smoke rise up to the dark sky before eventually dissipating. 

“I seriously think you have a problem,” a disapproving voice states, and you curse aloud, almost dropping the lit cigarette off the roof as you sit up. 

Again, Beomgyu stands there, looking wounded. “Why the fuck are you here?” you ask. Suddenly, the way that you’re dressed makes you extremely uncomfortable. Beomgyu seems to notice this too, eyes following the length of your bare legs, disappearing beneath the oversized shirt you have on. With disappointment, he realizes this is probably Yeonjun’s shirt covering your body. This is quickly remedied when you sit up in annoyance and he catches a flash of your panties underneath. He feels like a teenage boy when a simple glimpse of white panties makes his cock twitch in his pants. 

“I wanted to be an adult and say I’m sorry,” he says indignantly, offended at your violent tone. 

“At one in the morning?” You scoff, stubbing out your cigarette on the roof tiles even though it’s only half-gone. You don’t feel like smoking any more, not with Beomgyu’s judgemental eyes on you. 

“He get you into that shit?” 

“Jesus, Gyu,” you snap. 

“Fine, fine! I don’t care. I’m sorry.” His lithe figure, bathed in moonlight, moves closer to you, but with a slight caution. You know he isn’t completely sure how you feel about him. 

“Just sit down already.” 

He sits.

“You called me Gyu again.” 

His voice sounds thick, pained. You habitually reach up and touch your chapped, kiss-swollen lips. You hadn’t even noticed that the old nickname slipped out; it felt so natural to say even though it had been so long since you had. The closest you came to saying any variation of your ex best friend’s name was the silent mouthing of the vowels and consonants that made up one of the most beautiful names you’ve ever heard. The loneliest nights, mostly the ones that you struggled through right after you moved away, were spent with the ghost of his name on your lips. You were too cowardly to go any further, as if the simple singular utterance of his name might summon him from across the country and into your dorm room. The wound was so fresh that even the made-up version of Beomgyu that came with the memories was too much for you to bear. 

“Remember all the nights we’d come out here and just look at the stars?” he asks suddenly, and all of a sudden you truly feel eighteen and heartsick again—staring up into the dark void of nothingness above you, rendering you and Beomgyu smaller than the tiniest ant, nothing more than two less than microscopic specks on such a vast planet. 

“Yeah,” you manage to get out, though your voice sounds oddly strained. 

“The night before you left—the last time I saw you—I was looking at the stars and thinking of us.” He laughs a little, and you can’t help but turn to look at him, your dry eyes burning with the possibility of tears. You’re on your side now, facing him; he’s still laying flat on his back with his hands clasped behind his head. His eyes are locked on the night sky, so focused that he doesn’t even realize that the girl he loves is staring at him with tears in her eyes. “And then, you just appeared. It was like I manifested you. You looked fake in the moonlight too.” 

“Fake?” 

“Yeah, you almost didn’t look like yourself. You were wearing this dress, a floaty looking one with flowers, and you looked so pretty that I thought I was imagining you standing in front of me. I thought I made it all up, until I grabbed your hand and you were warm and solid and real.” Now he turns to look at you and realizes that you’re facing him, paying full attention to his rambling. Slowly, he mirrors your pose, turning to look at you. Your faces were close enough now that if you both leaned in, you’d kiss. The very thought of that makes your stomach turn—with anticipation or dread, you’re unsure. 

“Like now.” He whispers this last part, before looking down and taking your hand in his gently. His hands are different from Yeonjun’s; instead of being smooth and soft, they are dry and calloused. You can see how years of work in his dad’s old shop has taken a toll on his poor hands; the days where his hands were young and clean were long gone. You hold his hand up to your face to study it closer, to memorize each little line and freckle so that when you left for the last time you could remember exactly what Choi Beomgyu’s hand looked like, exactly how it felt to hold. Years from now, you will be sick and dying in bed, and you will wonder if the pale, slight freckles on the back of his hand will disappear amongst dozens of age spots. Will his fingers gnarl and twist like his grandfather’s did, falling victim to arthritis? Will his nails grow thick and yellow, like so many other elders’ do? You take in the cracked fingertips, the dirt and oil under his nails. 

“Like now?” you ask thickly.

He nods, head slightly bobbing up and down. It was so subtle that you almost didn’t catch it, instead focusing on his full lips and how they glistened. How was it possible for a man to have such perfect, delicate features? You’d never seen anyone so pretty in your life. There’s something about seeing a beautiful man in the middle of the night; the moonlight will illuminate their face in a completely different way than sunlight does. It will make you see an entirely new side of him, and it will only make you fall deeper in love with this unattainable, gorgeous boy. Once you see a beautiful boy in the moonlight, you will never be able to forget about them, and this is when you know that you will never be able to let Choi Beomgyu go. More time could elapse—ten, fifteen, twenty more years—and you’d still think of him too often for it to be normal. You’d still hope that one day, you get another chance to try things again. 

That is how you find yourself kissing Choi Beomgyu, nothing but a single pane of glass separating the two of you and your sleeping fiancé. 

His lips are slightly chapped. They’re warm, but his tongue is hot and wet as it glides across your lips, begging you to open your mouth. You do so after only a brief hesitance, sighing a little into his mouth as he cautiously puts a hand on your waist. The feeling of his hands on you seems to snap you out of your daze, and you quickly pull away from him, sitting back up and looking at the window, panicked. It’s still dark. No one is awake but you and Beomgyu. 

He reaches for your hand again. “Are you okay?” he asks. It’s a stupid question, you think—you just cheated on your loving, perfect fiancé—and he’s asking if you’re fine? Of course, he’s guilt-free in this—Yeonjun’s feelings mean nothing to him. 

“I just can’t do this. Not while he’s sleeping right there.” You look away, guilt already melting away as you stare into Beomgyu’s gorgeous eyes. It’s like you forget all about Yeonjun as long as Beomgyu’s there in his place.

Beomgyu ponders your words for a moment, looking off into the distance and pursing his lips. “Then… let’s go somewhere else.” 

You bite your tongue. Somewhere else? 

“And that means…?” you ask. 

“I know a place,” he says mysteriously. “Do you trust me?” 

You know you do before you even say it. Before the incident, there was no one you trusted more than Beomgyu. And even after the incident, you know that you would be safe with him. 

You quickly climb back into your room and snatch up a pair of shorts that are laying on the floor, pulling them on so that you’re not walking around in your panties. You also slip on some shoes, the first comfortable pair you see. 

After you climb back out the window and shut it as quietly as possible, he motions for you to follow him. He shimmies down the side of your house, whispering directions to you when you try to mimic his moves. You slip a little more than halfway down, your panicked scream catching in your throat, reducing it to little more than an exhale, but you land in strong, firm arms. Beomgyu rolls his eyes at your clumsiness, not the least bit phased, but you have to calm your rapidly beating heart before you even think to thank him. 

You feel a new fire burning in your chest, the thrill of doing something so daring, so wrong, waking up your hibernating rebellious side. You’re reminded of other moonlit walks you had with Beomgyu, years and years ago. You snuck out the same way, through your bedroom window—you just didn’t fall halfway down. 

It’s only when you’re more than halfway there that you realize where Beomgyu is leading you. He helps you across a shallow stream, telling you which rocks are safe to step on and which are slick with damp moss, and then a memory pops back into your head. You land safely on the dirt ground, clutching Beomgyu’s hand, and you grin. “Are we going to Thomas?” 

Thomas—the nickname that you and Beomgyu gave to the abandoned boxcar in a clearing in the woods. At the time, you were regularly babysitting a child in the neighborhood, who was obsessed with the animated show about a talking train named Thomas. For a few months, you and Beomgyu watched a little more of the show than you’d like to ever admit. You also both enjoyed it more than you’d like to admit. But something that you were more than happy to admit, you now had a good code name for the train car in the woods. 

“You still remember!” he exclaims. “I was starting to think you seriously forgot about him.” 

“I did, until we crossed the stream,” you admitted. “It’s been a while.” 

“It really has,” he agrees, “since when, junior year of high school?” 

“Something like that.” 

You only have to walk a little longer before the trees thin out, and you spot the faded old car on the other end of the small clearing. You take Beomgyu’s hand, and you both run over, laughing openly and bumping into each other playfully. He boosts you up into the car first, and then hoists himself up and sits beside you. 

The door had been ripped off the car since you’d found it, and it was now covered in moss and broken down into splinters behind the structure. This meant that there was a section of the car that was lit up by the moonlight, so you weren’t stuck in complete darkness. That was where you and Beomgyu sat, legs hanging over the edge, until he nudged you and got up, walking further inside the car until he sat down at the far end, motioning for you to come inside. You follow him, kneeling beside him, heart hammering in your chest as he slowly takes your hands. 

“Can I kiss you again?” he asks quietly.

You swallow hard, but nod. You shut your eyes tightly before your lips collide, but as soon as he’s kissing you again you don’t care any more—there’s no more hesitation. You’re bringing his hands to your chest eagerly, sucking his tongue into your mouth. 

He pushes you down, so that your back is flat on the floor of the car, and he’s slotted between your legs. He’s groping your tits over your shirt, pressing his knee into your cunt. 

You pull out of the kiss, opening your eyes and studying him. His lips are swollen now, and he’s panting. “I want to see you,” you whisper. 

“Then look,” he says sassily, cocking his head to the side, shifting his bangs into his eyes. 

“No,” you whine softly, “I want to see all of you.” 

He holds his breath once he realizes what you mean. You watch intently as he slowly sits back on his heels, taking off every item of clothing carefully. You do the same, making a neat pile so that you don’t lose anything. 

You’ve seen him shirtless before, when you’d go to the pool or he’d change his shirt in front of you on the occasion. But now, he looked different. He’s more muscular, more solid. He’s still slim, but it’s clear that he’s worked on his body and grown into it more over the years. You can’t take your eyes off of him as he takes off his pants, gaze fixated on the bulge in his boxers. He flushes a dark pink when he follows your eyes, and gets back between your legs, staring at your naked tits. Your nipples are stiff in the cool night air, and he gently tweaks one of them, smiling when you inhale sharply. 

“Is this okay?” he asks, when his mouth is an inch away from your breast. His warm breath ghosts over your skin, and you moan quietly, nodding and pushing your chest against his lips. He sucks your nipple into his mouth, grazing his teeth against it, and you can’t help but place a hand on the back of his head and lean into his mouth. 

When he’s done admiring your tits, which he’s dreamed about for years, he places wet kisses down your body, until he reaches the band of your panties. “Okay?” he asks again, just as his fingertips curl underneath the elastic. 

“Yes, please,” you gasp, and he pulls them down your thighs, tossing them into the pile of clothes in the corner. He places his hands on your knees, spreading your legs, eager to see you. He leans down, parting your glistening lips in the moonlight, and feeling prideful—you’re wet because of him. He did this, not Yeonjun. 

It seems that the differences between Beomgyu and Yeonjun keep growing—the two of them eat pussy differently too. 

Beomgyu’s messy with it, spit already dripping down your cunt and down his chin. He’s rough too, pressing his tongue against your clit until your thighs are shaking uncontrollably. His soft hair curls around your fingers as you pull his head closer to your cunt. 

You cum, surprisingly harder than you have in a while. You’re whining and bucking your hips into his face, until he finally lifts his face. His lips and chin are wet, and he has a shit-eating grin on his face. 

“What?” you ask, suddenly embarrassed at the way he’s staring you down. 

“You’re so hot,” he sighs, and you feel yourself blushing at his genuine glee. 

“Whatever,” you mumble, suppressing a giggle, but he doesn’t stop smiling to himself as he takes off his boxers. 

You think it’s completely, wholly unfair how beautiful he looks naked. 

Something about his skin makes him look extra luminous in the moonlight that washes over his body in pale stripes, slipping through the slats of the wooden walls and pouring in through the door frame. His auburn-brown hair looks dark cherry red in the limited light, so different from the fine black hairs that litter his arms, legs, and stomach. This is where your gaze dips lower, towards the one part of Beomgyu you’d never seen before. 

His cock, hard and leaking, twitches as he feels you staring. You’re impressed—but really, you weren’t expecting to be disappointed. You’ve never seen him naked before, but you weren’t an idiot. After seeing him in his swim trunks that last summer, you couldn’t help but bring that image to mind whenever your fingers traveled beneath the elastic band of your panties. You swallow hard as he drops back down, hovering over you. He’s breathing heavily, nervously, as he tries to decipher the unassuming expression on your face. 

“I hope I’m not disappointing you,” he can’t help but blurt out, not thinking straight. 

You wrap your arms around his neck and pull his face close to yours again, kissing him long and deep. He melts into your embrace, quickly reciprocating your excitement. You feel the head of his dick nudge against your slit as he moves closer, and you unconsciously buck your hips up, slipping it inside for just a moment. You both shudder at the sudden closeness, the sensation of being closer than you ever have before, and you part—he stares so deeply into your eyes that you swear he’s staring at your soul. You feel more naked than ever; it surpasses your physical body. You’ve exposed your loves, your fears, your darkest secrets and the skeletons in your closet, before baring your tangible nudity—something you’d never done before. 

His eyes drop to your neck and chest, and the adoring fuzzy gaze disappears as he takes in the dark marks left by Yeonjun. His hold on your hips tighten, so hard that you’re gasping from the tingling mixture of pain and pleasure, and he attacks the same spot on the side of your neck, the same one that Yeonjun had been nibbling at as he worked you through an orgasm. It’s sore, swollen—the skin is hot to the touch and bruised already, but Beomgyu’s hard teeth reignite the pain ten times over as he roughly rubs your clit. You cry out, thighs squeezing his hand as you come again, feeling over sensitive already. 

He positions himself at your entrance, looking up to you for confirmation. Your chest is heaving as you pant, still woozy from your orgasm, but you know you won’t be wholly satisfied until you feel him completely. This time, you need him in a way you have never had him. You nod, and he reaches up to clasp your hand above your head, rough fingers pinning you to the wooden floor.

He enters you in one fluid motion, so smooth you don’t register it until he’s fully sheathed inside and the two of you let out a simultaneous deep groan. 

“Does he fuck you as good as I do?” Beomgyu can’t help but spit out between moans, slamming his hips into yours so roughly that the slap of skin on skin echoes around the empty car. 

You’re getting annoyed at how you keep comparing Beomgyu to Yeonjun, so when his thrusts differ from your fiancé’s too, you completely block the thought of your loving partner out of your head. You forget that he’s asleep in your childhood bedroom, cuddling with your favorite stuffed animal, surrounded by the smell of you. You forget that it’s too late to ever go back, to ever regain what has been broken. And you forget that you ever hated Beomgyu, because it was hard to hate him when your mind was so clouded by lust you couldn’t think of anyone else. 

The last thing you think about before you fall asleep in the early hours of the morning with another man’s cum leaking out of your sore cunt, is how angelic Beomgyu’s face looked when he filled you up. It made you want to wrap your legs around his narrow waist and let him fuck it into you, so that he would never be apart from you again. You never wanted to see another face ever again, after you saw his delicate features scrunched up in pleasure. 

You’re so exhausted by your sneaking around, so sore from the splinters and scrapes, that you curl up right next to Yeonjun without showering off your night. 

It’s a pity, that when Yeonjun wakes, long before you do, he doesn’t suspect a thing when he sees a twig clinging to the back of your shirt, or fresh mud on an old pair of your shoes. He trusts you, so wholeheartedly, that he pressed kisses on top of your exposed hickies—though not without noticing that they looked a lot darker than they did the last time he saw them. 

—

“Excuse us, ma’am!” Two children—no older than ten and twelve—squeeze past you in the crowded aisle, the younger one brushing against a box of uncooked pasta and knocking it to the ground. Without a glance backwards, they speed off towards a tired looking couple with a shopping cart full of sugary cereal and cheap plastic toys. It’s then that you register the name that one of the kids called you, and you’re disgruntled—do you really look that old? You catch a glimpse of yourself on the reflective surface of a colorful advertisement standee, and frown at your appearance, feeling older and more out of place than ever. 

You toss a box of uncooked pasta into your cart and go forth, braving the chilly aisles of the grocery store without your jacket, which you stupidly left in the car, thinking that you’d be fine. You make a mental note to never trust the temperature again. 

As you’re studying the nearly identical packages of grapes, a pale hand reaches for the same bag you were going for. The both of you spring back, surprised, and you lock eyes with Karina. 

“Oh!” you exclaim. You try to make yourself say hello, but there’s already been an awkward silence after your surprised outburst. 

She smiles, unaffected, and says, “Hello, (Y/N). How have you been?” 

Damn her perfect ability to navigate a conversation. 

“Hey, Karina!” you say, crossing your arms to try and mimic a comfortable position. “I’ve been good! Just busy, moving and stuff, you know. What about you?” 

She laughs, the same delicate laugh that makes your stomach jump with excitement, before replying. “I’m good too! Trying to soak up the last few weeks of summer, then everything starts up again. This place really revolves around the kids, you know? When school starts again, it feels like the whole town just wakes up after a long sticky summer nap.” She pauses. “Oh, I’m rambling.” A little embarrassed even though you’re clearly not offended, she places a delicate hand over her chest. A pretty silver ring sparkles on her fourth finger.

You shake your head, assuring her that it’s fine, that she’s right anyways, but you’re staring at her ring the whole time. She notices, gaze following yours and quickly flickering down to her hand, and smiles broadly. “Oh! Did I tell you last time? I’m married now!” she exclaims. Her cheeks are pink, flushed with excitement. Clearly, she was very happy in her relationship, eager to talk about it. The very thought of your own relationship now made a rock appear in your stomach—a heavy, dark, massive boulder that weighed you down and made you sick. 

“Congratulations!” you say, and you both share a little moment right there in the fruit and vegetable aisle—it makes you miss your girl friends from back home, and you again wonder if it would have been possible to be friends with Karina way back when. If that would have made things different. Better, even. 

“Thank you, thank you.” She looks down, trying to hide her wide smile, and brushes a long lock of her dark hair behind her ear. “He’s the best.” 

“That’s sweet, I’m really happy for you,” you say, and you find that you actually really mean it. You exchange goodbyes as the conversation naturally trails off, and head off in opposite directions—both of you carrying a bag of grapes, neither one being the initial same choice. 

As soon as you get into the car and place your hands on the steering wheel, your phone starts ringing, and you groan and reach over to fumble around in your purse for the vibrating device. 

“Hello?” you ask, answering the call, which you now see is from Yeonjun. You feel the rock in your stomach press down harder on the sensitive walls of your stomach lining, and you wince. 

“Hey, babe,” he coos, “are you on your way back yet?” 

“Yeah, just finished grocery shopping,” you say honestly, propping your purse back up. You work on tossing the mess back into the open mouth of the bag; you ended up spilling an expired container of Tic-Tacs all over the passenger seat when you tried to feel around for your phone. 

“Good! I was thinking that maybe we could go on a drive tonight?” 

You freeze up, a handful of fruit flavored mints falling from your hand. “Why?” you ask carefully. 

“No reason, I just… I guess I just miss spending time with you alone,” he confesses. “As much as I love your parents, and this place, it’s not the same. I’m excited for us to go back home, and for things to go back to normal.” 

Your heart aches at the melancholy, tired voice on the other end of the line. “We leave soon, babe,” you assure him, “we’re almost done here.” 

“I know, I know—I’m sorry, I’m complaining. This is a lot for you, I shouldn’t be wrapped up in my own feelings.” 

“No, no! I understand, I do, and I miss you too. Look, the drive sounds good. I’ll be back soon, and as soon as I finish putting the groceries away we can leave. Does that sound okay?” Your grip on the phone tightens, and you feel guilty. If not for the complete betrayal, then because you’d genuinely been neglecting him since you got home too. 

“Yes, it does.” He sounds content, relieved even, and you smile to yourself as you say goodbye and hang up. You place your hands back on the steering wheel, and take a deep breath as you head home, away from Mr. Kim’s grocery store—which is now owned by his son. Another small change, another thing that makes you feel like you never knew this town in the first place. 

Outside, the sun is setting. Orange and pink bleed through your cracked windows, painting warm stripes across your body. The air is warm and thick, almost soupy from the humidity, but it feels familiar and comforting. 

Yeonjun is baking again when you return, the same flowered apron that’s too short on his lanky frame tied in a messy pink bow at his back. He’s pulling a tray of cookies out of the oven when you push the door open, hands full of groceries. 

“Welcome back!” he exclaims, quickly putting down the cookies to rush to your aid. Gratefully, you hand off a few bags. Yeonjun bustles around the vanilla scented kitchen, putting things away quickly as you dust off your hands and sneak a cookie from the tray. Sweetness floods across your tongue as you bite into one. It’s still a little too warm, the center burning your tongue a tad and the rest of the treat falling apart in your hands. “They’re not cooled yet!” he scolds, finally noticing your struggle. 

“Couldn’t help it, they looked too good,” you say around a mouthful of cookie, and he rolls his eyes before walking over and planting a peck on your messy lips. 

“I’ll finish up here, you do what you need to do,” he says, kneeling down to sift through the remaining few bags. He shoos you away as you cram the rest of the cookie into your mouth, giggling. 

Really, you don’t need to go off and do anything. You already had everything in your purse. So all you did was check your reflection quickly before walking back into the kitchen, where Yeonjun has finished putting the groceries away and is hanging up the beloved frilly apron. 

“Ready?” he asks. 

“Sure am.” 

He grins, wraps an arm around your shoulders like he always does, and presses a kiss to your temple. The two of you don’t bother to close the windows or lock the door, because it’s a small town where everyone knows everyone. It’s still a bit unnerving for Yeonjun, who has always lived in the city. He was brought up sternly, always told by his parents that if he ever left a door unlocked or a window open, someone evil would surely get in. And in the city, that’s not too far of an assumption. That was probably Yeonjun’s least favorite part about you—if he had to choose. Though you were much better about it now, for the longest time he saw you as a little country mouse lost in a big city. You would leave the door of your dorm room open all day after leaving for class. You would often leave the windows unlocked overnight. One warm autumn evening while going out for dinner with some friends, you left your window completely open and Yeonjun was the one that found the intruder under your bed. To be fair, the intruder was a rather chunky squirrel who didn’t have the gymnastic ability to hurl himself back up onto the window ledge, but still. You remember all of this fondly, as you watch Yeonjun double check that the front door is closed in the rear view mirrors before pulling away from your house. 

The sun seemed to be taking its sweet time, wanting to give a magnificent show to anyone who spared the time to watch. You stare down at the small clouds of reddish dirt being spit up by the wheels of your car, then refocus your attention on the splendid landscape before you. The warmth of the setting sunlight bled golden everywhere, turning the green grass a springy hazy shade and shining rays of sparkles onto any moving creature. A pair of songbirds flew by quickly, twittering and warbling a good night song as golden light danced across their waxy feathers. You squint at the tree that the birds have landed in, and you gasp as you recognize it. “Jun,” you plead, “can we stop by the blackberry bushes? It’s just the right time to pick them.” 

“Blackberry bushes?” Yeonjun exclaims, “you don't have to tell me twice.” 

“You sound like my dad when you say stuff like that,” you groan as he pulls off to the side of the road. 

“I am honored. He is a fine gentleman,” Yeonjun insists goofily, watching you with adoring eyes as you leap out of the car and into the meadow. 

“It’s just past this tree,” you claim, pointing to the very same tree that the two birds landed in earlier. “I used to come here with—I used to come here all the time,” you said, stumbling over your words. Your mouth feels dirty, almost saying Beomgyu’s name aloud, and in front of Yeonjun too. 

If Yeonjun notices, he doesn’t say anything about it. He lets you lead him past the tree with the gnarled bark and further into a thicket of younger trees. Your grasp on his hand tightens as you spot the patch of bushes, their branches heavy with fruit. You bound ahead, letting go of his hand and plucking a few large berries, the dark juices staining your fingertips. Yeonjun walks up beside you, pulling a large handkerchief out of his pocket and holding it out to you. You pile on blackberries immediately, knowing that was why he was offering it. 

“Your lips are purple,” Yeonjun says accusingly, using his free hand to point at your face. You feel your cheeks heat up slightly; you’re embarrassed for acting so juvenile and stuffing your face with blackberries. 

“And yours aren’t,” you say in the same tone. His eyes flicker from your lips then back to your eyes. You feel your heartbeat speed up as he gently sets the handkerchief of berries down on the soft grass before scooping you into his arms and pressing his lips to yours. 

“So sweet,” he murmurs against your purple lips jokingly. 

“I told you it was blackberry season,” you retort, giggling as you feel him squeeze your hips.

You keep the handkerchief of blackberries in your lap for the rest of the ride, crying out when Yeonjun would reach over and slap your fingers away as you tried to sneak another berry into your mouth. “I want to use those in some scones!” he insisted playfully.

The lightheartedness of the banter and the gorgeous golden light painting your hometown in nostalgia was an escape. It was almost like you were back home with Yeonjun in your apartment, looking back on fond memories you shared together. The setting outside your window looked fake because of the dreamy haze, and you wished you could freeze in this perfect moment with the perfect man. Everything in the snapshot would be perfect; it wouldn’t capture the thoughts that plagued your mind as soon as you stepped out of the car and looked up at your childhood home. Guilt, pain, and hurt bloomed in your chest as Yeonjun parked the car and took you by the waist, so that the two of you could walk back inside together. You masked the guilt of another man’s touch behind a smile, but it didn’t last long. As soon as you looked up, your blood ran cold. An ambulance was parked right in front of your house, and the front door had been thrown wide open. 

Yeonjun grabs your hand as you both run up the front stairs and into the house. You see your father sitting on the floor of the kitchen, an oxygen mask covering his lower face. Your mother sits a small distance away from him, her face gray and her lips pressed into a thin line. An EMT pats your father on the shoulder before mumbling something to your mother and nodding at you and Yeonjun on his way out. The ambulance pulls away, luckily without a patient inside. 

“What was that?” you blurt out, running up to your father, who is having trouble standing up on his own. His face looks gray too. 

Your parents exchange worried looks before they look back at you. “Sweetheart,” your mother coaxes, “remember when your father fell off that ladder a few months ago?” 

“Yes, but you told me everything was okay. Isn’t it?” you ask in a small voice that sounds childish, naive, and stupid—even to you. You feel Yeonjun stiffen beside you, and you turn to look at him. He’s always been bad at hiding things, so you immediately know. “You knew this whole time,” you say to Yeonjun, pulling away from him. 

“Doll,” he says pleadingly, his eyebrows furrowed with pity and regret. 

“We didn’t want to upset you,” your mother clarified, “it happened right before you and Yeonjun got engaged, and we didn’t want to spoil anything.” 

“That wouldn’t have spoiled it!” you say shrilly. “I would have come to help you and Dad if I knew!” 

“We knew you would, that’s why we didn’t tell you. It took so much planning and time and effort for Yeonjun to plan things out for the proposal and we didn’t want to ruin the mood before or after, and by then months had already passed…” your mother trailed off. 

“I’m your daughter, I’m supposed to help you when things like that go wrong,” you say, feeling your eyes starting to well up with tears, though you’re not completely sure why. “And why does Yeonjun know, and I don’t? It would have been his planning that got ruined, not mine.” 

“It was an accident,” your father says abruptly, and you see that he’s been able to stand up on his own. He leans against the kitchen table heavily. “Your mother accidentally ordered my medication to your address and Yeonjun was the one that found it.” 

“Autumn Oaks will be good for them,” Yeonjun pipes up, trying to help. “They’ll get all the help they need there.” 

Your eyes almost bulge out of your skull. “Autumn Oaks? The assisted living facility in town?” you ask. You pick your brain for the moment you first heard the name, and then you get it—Karina. “Even Karina knew before I did?” you fret. 

“Karina? Nurse Yoo?” your dad asks. 

“You know her?” 

“She works there. She’s actually the one that showed us around. Do you know her?” your mother asks. She seems very nervous now, clearly due to your building emotions. 

“I went to school with her,” you mumbled. Your head absolutely aches, and you stare out the front door, still hanging wide open, into the dark night that had crept up on the four of you since you got home. “I need to go for a walk,” you say. Your parents again exchange looks. “I’m not mad,” you snap, “I just need a minute to process everything.” 

You feel Yeonjun start to follow you timidly, but you look back at him with narrowed eyes. “Alone,” you emphasize, and he shrinks back and lets you go. 

Luckily, you had the sense to hang onto your purse the entire time, and you fumble through it for your cigarettes and a lighter. You shove one into your mouth and light it, tossing the box and the lighter back inside the mess of your bag. You don’t know where you’re walking, but the night is warm and muggy and you can feel insects swarming. You want to go back home and take a long hot shower, especially as you feel a bead of sweat slip down your back, but you don’t want to face everyone again. You feel like an idiot for acting like an emotional child, and you don’t know why you have been ever since you got back to your hometown. It was like you were reverting back to the person you were the last time you stayed that long. As if simply breathing the air and drinking the water were enough to take away ten years. 

You stop walking naturally in front of a house. A large, old tree stands strong in the front yard, casting a large black shadow over the whole space. Though it’s been repainted a new color—a light beige, instead of the misty blue it once was—it still feels like your second home. You’re very sure that Beomgyu doesn’t live here any more, mostly because he said he hated bland paint colors and you simply couldn’t picture the Choi Beomgyu living in a beige house of all places. But also because your parents had told you that his parents moved out years ago and retired somewhere sunny and warm, leaving the family business to Beomgyu, who was more than willing to take over it by then. They had no news about where Beomgyu had moved to. 

You feel like a freak, just standing outside someone’s house like a stalker, so you turn on your heel and start to walk away, when someone says, “hey,” in a low voice. 

The front door of the blue-turned-beige house opens, and Beomgyu stands there in pajama pants and a thin white t-shirt. “Why the fuck are you here?” he says, mimicking the voice you used when he appeared on your roof. 

“Shut up.” 

“I’m joking. Come inside already. Aren’t the mosquitos pissing you off?” He steps aside and opens the door wider, motioning for you to come inside. 

So you do. 

You’re not sure what you’re expecting when you step inside. Maybe, you expected it to look exactly how it did the last time you saw it, with his parents’ furniture and decorations and family pictures on the walls. There’s a few hints of the old decor as you look around and focus on a few minor details, but for the most part it looks completely different. New furniture, more modern and young, paintings on the wall that definitely weren’t there before. There’s even an entire wall missing, the one that separated the kitchen and the front room entirely. Something about an open concept, you think solemnly, recalling an episode of HGTV you watched when you were too drunk to get up and get the remote to change the channel. 

“It looks different in here,” you say bluntly. 

“Well, my parents don’t live here any more, do they?” he asks cockily. “Come on, let’s go up to the bedroom. The old house still doesn’t have AC, but my bedroom has a really good fan.” 

The stairs creak the same way they did when you ran down them sobbing the last time you were there. It’s bittersweet, and you hold yourself back from rolling your eyes at your old dramatic self. 

Beomgyu’s right about the fan, at least. The bedroom is much cooler than the rest of the house, and it’s cast in a cold bright light from the flatscreen TV mounted on his wall, facing the foot of his bed. “Nice place,” you say, sitting on the edge of the bed. “Did you get an interior designer or something to help you with all this?” 

“Or something,” he says, shrugging. He gets in bed too, patting the spot beside him once he got comfortable. You inch forward, a bit awkwardly. Your heart is pounding in your chest, and you feel like a middle school girl sitting next to her crush at the movies or something equally as corny and butterfly-inducing. 

Beomgyu doesn’t hesitate to wrap an arm around you and pull you in closer, so that your legs are draped over his and his hand rests on your waist. His big hand starts to slip under your shirt, toying with the hem and teasing you. He already knows why you came to him; he can see that you’re upset. He rightfully assumes that Yeonjun is a part of the reason, and he knows that you want him to take his place, even if it’s just for a night. 

Boldly, you take his hand that’s teasing you and place it firmly over your breast. Beomgyu stops pretending to watch whatever is playing on his TV and looks at you, a crooked smirk on his face. “That’s why you’re here,” he says, wanting a verbal confirmation. 

“‘Course it is. No one knows how to comfort me better than you do.” 

“Not even Yeonjun?” Beomgyu can’t help but ask, venom lacing his words. He can’t hide his jealousy, even when he thinks he can. It always comes spilling forth from his lips like sick word vomit. 

“Not even Yeonjun,” you whisper as he closes the distance between your lips, unsure if you’re lying or not. 

It’s not as frantic this time, because you know you have time. No one is expecting you home anytime soon, and Beomgyu doesn’t seem to have anything going on either. It’s a sudden but welcome change; the soft sheets instead of the splintering wood of the train car, the cool controlled breeze instead of the sweltering mugginess, the silence of closed walls instead of the risk of open air. 

You let Beomgyu take off your shirt and shorts, and you settle between his legs as he whips off his own top. You pull down his pajama pants and boxers in one fluid move, taking his cock in your hand and suckling on the head. The saltiness of his precum coats your tongue as you swallow it down, your nose pressing against his crotch as his hand gently presses on your head, wordlessly begging you to take it all. It’s better than you imagined, and you’d imagined it many times. 

His breathing grows ragged as you start jerking him off, his dick slippery with your saliva, and you take one of his balls into your mouth. His eyes roll back in his head as you do so, and he groans loudly. “I knew you’d be good at this,” he pants as you take his length back into your mouth. 

You make a noise of confusion, the vibrations making him whimper. 

“I just wanted you so bad,” he babbles, “I knew—I knew no matter what, I’d never forget—” His eyes squeeze shut as he cums, and you hollow your cheeks and swallow, eliciting a high-pitched squeak from him due to the slight overstimulation. Shaking, he opens his eyes to look down at you, and you sit back up obediently, using a finger to push a small pearly rivulet of cum into your mouth; it had been dripping down your chin. 

“You’d never forget?” you asked, crawling up to him on all fours. Beomgyu feels his cock jump again as he stares at you taking off your underclothes, and he grips your hips tightly, squeezing the flesh there and exhaling deeply. 

“I won’t,” he says breathily, as if he’s making a promise to you, “I won't ever forget.” 

You press your forehead to his, feeling his sweaty bangs stick to your skin. The two of you stay like that for just a moment as his heavy breathing slows, and then he slowly reaches up to caress your cheek and pull you in for a kiss. He shifts beneath you, his muscles flexing as he lifts you up and tosses you down onto the soft mattress so that he’s the one on top now. 

“I was having fun up there,” you say, wrapping your legs around his waist. You can feel his dick, half-hard, nudge against your clit. 

“I think you’ll have fun down here too,” he says with a wink, as he presses sloppy kisses down your neck. Your toes curl as his warm breath ghosts over your nipple; he’s making his way down your body, making sure to worship every inch of your skin with his slick lips. He can’t help but flick your nub with his tongue, watching your reaction as you flinch at the unexpected contact. He envelopes your nipple and the surrounding area into his mouth, suckling hard and making your toes curl with pleasure as he grinds against you simultaneously. His teeth graze against your skin, eliciting a low moan that erupts from deep inside, so animalistic you hardly recognize yourself. You realize that with Beomgyu, unfamiliar parts of you emerge and take charge—both parts that remind you of your youth, as well as parts that you’d never met before, or even knew existed at all. 

A string of saliva, glistening in the faint bluish light, connects his lips and your breast for just a second before it breaks. He looks up at you with big doll eyes and smirks, a juxtaposition of innocence and naughtiness, before mouthing the valley between your breasts and kissing his way down to your navel, then between your legs. Beomgyu’s words echo in your mind as you flush with slight embarrassment, realizing he’s staring straight at your sopping cunt with great interest. The fact that you’d both been taking your time this time around made you much more aware that he was perceiving you just as much as you were perceiving him, and that thought was making you just a bit anxious. 

After all these years, he can still read you like a book. He feels your thighs tense up as he gently slides a calloused finger through your slick, and though he thinks your pussy might be the prettiest one he’s ever seen, he stops, and makes eye contact with you. Your brow is slightly furrowed, your lips pressed together—a sure sign that you’re worried about something. “Everything okay?” he asks, wiping his finger on his sheets. “You look like you’re thinking long and hard about something.” 

“More like I’m thinking about something that’s long and hard.” You catch his eye for a split second before you start to grin and he bursts out laughing. 

“You had me there,” he admits, settling back between your legs. “I thought you were having your reservations.” 

“What, you thought I wouldn’t want to double dip or something?” 

Beomgyu shakes his head, trying to suppress a smile. “I’m trying to go down on you and be all sexy, and you’re making jokes that align with the humor of an immature thirteen year old boy.” 

“Sorry, I do that when I’m nervous.” 

“Don’t be. It’s just me.” You lock eyes with him, but this time it sends a real chill down your spine. Different from the chills that you got when you saw him at the reunion and he handed you your keys. It was so much more than just those five words that he spoke aloud—in that phrase, he cemented the fact that you two have history, and that there is so much meaning in the actions that you’re committing together. It’s just Beomgyu—but how can he be “just” Beomgyu when your feelings about him have been the exact opposite forever? It’s never been simple. He’s never been “just” Beomgyu. 

Your clouded mind is suddenly cleared when you feel his lips connect to your clit and he starts suckling roughly, similarly to how he was attached to your nipple earlier. You can feel his teeth biting at your cunt, teasing it with little flashes of pain that make your back arch and your thighs start to close in on his face. He holds your legs apart, devouring you like he’ll never have the pleasure of tasting you again, and knowing that that could be the reality. You feel a mixture of his spit and your juices running down your inner thighs and soaking the sheets beneath you, but you hardly care. You want to leave a mark in his bed, in his house—in that moment, you want it to be known that you were there. 

You finish as he plunges his thick fingers into you and curls them upwards just right, and your moan catches in your throat. You almost choke on it, a few stuttering gasps being the only thing that escape your lips as you come down from your high. 

Before you can fully reorient yourself, Beomgyu’s sliding his cock against your slippery pussy, whining like a bitch. He’s too embarrassed to ask if he can fuck you, but you know he wants to. You want it too, but unlike him you’re not afraid to say it. “Please,” you whisper, just like you did in the woods, “please.” 

Without another word, he’s pushing into you, which is quite easy given how much lubricant there is. He grips the headboard of his bed, his knuckles turning pale from the effort, as he waits for you to tell him to go on. You reach for him and he listens immediately, almost giddy as you pull him close. You want to feel his sweat on your skin, have his spit in your mouth, feel his stuttered breaths as he gets close. 

He slips a pillow under your hips before readjusting himself, wanting to make sure you’re comfortable, before he starts drilling his hips into you. 

The way he fucks reminds you a bit of your hookups in college, before you got with Yeonjun. The desperation, a bit of inexperience, and the quick but deep thrusts are all too reminiscent—but in a good way. It’s different, than the way that you’d been fucked by Yeonjun all these years, and you realize that you’ve missed it. The carnal urge to just fuck like animals, without caring about staining the sheets or worrying about someone hearing you. 

You don’t realize just how far you’ve shifted until your head is hanging over the side of his bed, and your eyes are level with his nightstand. You can feel him getting close already—which you’re not surprised by, given how long he’s been waiting for it—and you’re getting close yourself until you lock eyes with a framed picture sitting beside his lamp. He groans loudly as he slams his hips into yours one more time, and you can’t help but gasp as you feel him filling you up, but your eyes are focused on the picture. It’s upside down, because of the angle you’re at, but it’s pretty obvious what it is. You don’t need to be right-side-up to know that it’s a wedding photo. And not just any wedding photo either—it’s a picture of Beomgyu and Karina. 

It hits you like a ton of bricks. You’re the other woman, just as he’s the other man. You try to sit up, forgetting that he’s still hovering above you and trying to recover from having two orgasms quite close together, and smack your forehead into his. 

“Ow!” he exclaims, pulling out of you and sitting back. 

“You’re married!” you blurt out, scrambling away from him. His gaze drops to the photograph on his nightstand, and he wrinkles his nose guiltily. 

“Well—yeah… But you’re engaged.” This time, it’s your gaze that drops—and you look down at the diamond ring on your finger. There’s a deep, gnawing pain that’s arising in your stomach, and you know what it is immediately. Guilt, so thick and dark you swear anyone who looks at you could see it seeping from your very pores, is tearing you apart. You feel yourself tearing up, which is somewhat ridiculous because you’d known this whole time that you were cheating. You weren’t an idiot and you weren’t manipulated either—you were a completely conscious and self-aware asshole that chose to cheat on her fiancé with her first love. And so was he. 

You furiously wipe at your eyes with the back of your hand and stand up, crossing your arms over your chest as you scan the room for your clothes. You go around and pick up your garments one by one and put them on, and Beomgyu watches you solemnly. Neither of you say anything until you’re fully dressed and he’s at least pulled on his boxers and pants. You stand there at the foot of his—no, his and Karina’s king-sized bed, and glare at him. It’s hypocritical to be mad at him for cheating when you’ve been doing the exact same thing, but for some reason that’s how your brain is functioning. 

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?” you asked, staring at the floor. You don’t know if you’ll cry or fall for him harder if you look into his eyes again. You fear that it might be both. 

“I don’t know. It just never came up,” he says lamely. You narrow your eyes at his half-assed reply. 

“I helped you cheat on her.” 

“So what? I’ve been helping you cheat on Yeonjun. How’s this any worse than that? In the end we’re both just assholes.”

“Because I know Karina! She was the closest thing I had to a girl friend here in town!” you exclaim, “It's not like you know Yeonjun—you don’t care about hurting him. I care about hurting Karina!” 

“But you don’t care about hurting your own fiancé?” Beomgyu rubs the back of his neck, confused, and stares at the floor. “I don’t get you.” 

“That’s not the point,” you mutter, “but it doesn’t matter. Whatever. It’s already done, and like you said, we’re both the assholes in the end.” You can feel his cum leaking out of your cunt and pooling in your underwear. You want to go home and shower, without anyone seeing you or talking to you. You briskly walk over to his bathroom while rummaging in your purse for something to touch up your disheveled appearance. 

You’re wiping at the makeup that’s started to slide off your eyes with a dry makeup wipe you found at the bottom of your purse when Beomgyu appears behind you in the mirror. He’s still shirtless, and somehow still beautiful in the shitty bathroom lighting. You stop your futile attempts to fix your appearance and stare at his reflection with weary eyes. He wraps his arms around you and presses a long kiss to the top of your head as he inhales your scent and takes it all in, knowing that you won’t return. You let him. 

“I just got you back,” he mumbles, “and now you’re leaving again.” 

“I wasn’t ever planning on staying. I wasn’t even planning on seeing you again,” you say firmly, though it’s obvious when your voice shakes that you hardly believe your own words. 

“But you did,” he whispers. “Doesn’t that mean something? Doesn’t—doesn’t the fact that you’re standing here in my house, in my shirt, with my cum leaking out of you, mean something?” 

You look down. You are, in fact, wearing his shirt. Somehow you must have pulled it on instead of your own. Even worse, you recognize it as an old band t-shirt that he used to wear in high school. You shake your head and pull it off, throwing it aside as you walk back to his bedroom and find your own shirt crumpled in a mess on his floor. 

Looking wounded, Beomgyu appears in the doorway, clutching his abandoned shirt. “Are you really leaving?”

“Well, I don’t know when Karina will be back but I don’t want her to see me sleeping on her side of the bed,” you say coldly, “and I have a fiancé I need to get back to.” 

“A fiancé who doesn’t know his future wife is a dirty cheater,” Beomgyu says, glaring at you. You see tears in his eyes, the hurt evident on his face. 

“Don’t start that shit with me,” you snap. “And don’t contact me ever again.” 

“I did a pretty good job avoiding you for ten years. What’s another ten, twenty, thirty more?” Beomgyu spits back, but his tears start to spill out and he turns away, not knowing you already saw them. 

But you don’t care. You don’t want to care. So you gather your things and you go, slamming his front door so hard that the stained glass wind chimes hanging on his front porch fall and shatter on the wooden floor. You don’t even give the mess a second glance as you stomp down the stairs and down the path home. 

The lights are all off, except for one. Your bedroom light is on, and you know that Yeonjun must have left it on. Whether he’s awake or not, he was waiting for you, and that makes the guilt sink into your stomach even further. You didn’t know it was possible to feel even worse than you did while you were laying in Beomgyu’s bed. 

As quiet as possible, you unlock the front door and close it behind you, re-locking it and wincing as the heavy iron lock clicks into place. You creep up the stairs and peek around the corner, sighing with relief when you realize that your bedroom door is closed. You’re allowed to slip into the bathroom and wash yourself of all the evidence of Beomgyu before being confronted by anyone. Usually, you’re plagued with thoughts in the shower—whether that’s stress about work or dinner plans for the night, your mind is always running as you shampoo your hair. Tonight, it’s the opposite. You feel blank and numb as you rinse yourself and step out of the tub, toweling yourself dry before tiptoeing down the hallway and letting yourself into your bedroom. 

Yeonjun is wedged against the wall in your childhood bedroom, leaving space for you in your little twin bed. You’re realizing just now how bare the room looks—everything is gone except for the bed and the little nightstand, where Yeonjun’s glasses and your cup of water live every night. He’s scrolling on his phone but he looks up immediately when he hears the door, and his face lights up when he realizes it’s you. “Welcome back,” he says carefully, not wanting to breach the subject unless you propose it. 

You leap into his arms, feeling the guilt twisting your stomach into knots as he presses warm kisses to your clean skin. “I went to a friend’s house,” you clarify, “and we just smoked and sat there for a while. I just needed to get away for a minute.” 

“Okay,” Yeonjun says, rubbing your arms comfortingly, “thank you for telling me.” 

“It was an acquaintance from high school. Her name is Minjeong.” 

Though he didn’t ask who the friend was, you can see relief flood across his face as he realizes it wasn’t Beomgyu—or even another guy. “I’m glad that you feel better now,” he says, pressing a kiss to your naked collarbone. You slide off his lap and get dressed, tossing the towel onto the floor. 

“Come to bed,” he coaxes, “it’s nice and cozy.” 

“I don’t doubt that,” you reply, sidling in next to him. As soon as you lay down, he wraps an arm around you and kisses your cheek. “I love you,” you say, desperate for him to say it back, even though you know he will—from his knowledge, he has no reason to doubt you at all. 

“I love you too doll,” he mumbles sleepily, and then he’s gone. Asleep, dead to the world, no nasty thoughts plaguing his mind. 

Unlike Yeonjun, you lay there awake for hours, unable to fall asleep for a multitude of reasons. Even worse, you know that most of these reasons are your own fault, and that guilt is eating you alive. Every single thought that you had managed to avoid in the shower was haunting you now, forcing your eyelids to stay open and keeping your heartbeat racing. 

—

On the last morning that you will ever spend in your childhood home, you are awakened in the early hours of the morning by a massive moving truck trying to parallel park right beside your driveway. Yeonjun is already stirring, both from the noise outside as well as your movements, and he blinks hard as his eyes adjust to the bleary light. It’s so early that the sun hasn’t fully risen yet, and you can see from your window that the late summer has given birth to a smattering of dewdrops stricken across the greenery, giving it a haunting, blurred look. The palest of sunlight spreads across the land, a subtle “good morning” before the dry heat that’s sure to come once the quiet early morning hours wither away. Your parents are shuffling about downstairs, pushing all of the boxes and furniture into the front room so that the movers can have easy access and you can all hopefully be out by the designated time. The faint smell of dark roast coffee reaches your nose, and it reminds you of the youthful years you spent here, and how you got so used to that smell of coffee in the morning. When did you forget about it? When did you adopt a new norm? 

Yeonjun presses a sleepy kiss to your cheek before climbing over you and claiming the bathroom first, and you hear the shower turn on. He’s always been a morning person, whereas you prefer to bathe during the night. It works out well in your apartment, where you only have one bathroom. You glance down at your phone, which has coincidentally given you an update on a few places the two of you had been looking to move. The crowded apartment, though now nostalgic and homey, is simply too small now. You’ve outgrown it. 

You busy yourself with cleaning up a few stray clothing items scattered across the hardwood floor, your bare feet making small pattering sounds as you walk about. It’s hard to sort between your clothes and Yeonjun’s clothes—you tend to share a lot of garments, and you have a similar taste. 

As soon as you zip up your own suitcase and sit down with a huff, Yeonjun strolls back into the room, a towel clinging to his waist and another slung around his neck. He uses one end to rub at his dripping locks, and you jump up to escape to the bathroom, suddenly very aware of where you were last night, as well as the fact that you’re unsure how to further explain yourself if anyone asks. “I’ll be down in a few,” you say to him, “I’ll help bring down our suitcases and everything.” 

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it,” he says, shaking his head. “Take your time. Your parents have coffee on the table too if you need some.” 

“When did you have time to go and say good morning to them?” you exclaim, your voice echoing down the empty hallway. 

“I didn’t! I just know!” he yells back, and that makes your skin prickle. The ease of Yeonjun becoming a part of your family—it makes you feel that guilt even more. How could you take him away from your parents now? How could you take your parents from him? 

Once you’re done washing the sleep away from yourself, you get dressed and frown at the room that’s now completely empty. You’d heard people coming up and down the steps, but you didn’t think they’d touch your room. Now, even the bed that you’d just slept in was gone. For a moment, you stand there in your bedroom alone. Though, you suppose you can’t even really call it that any more—you don’t possess it. How long has it been since it was really yours anyways? A decade? More? Less? You try to hold your emotions back, because it’s just a house, but it’s to no avail. You have to return to the bathroom and wipe your tears carefully with your sleeve while staring in the mirror and realizing just how much your reflection has changed. 

“Are you sure? We can stay and help, it’s no problem,” Yeonjun’s voice echoes up the stairs. You sidle into the kitchen and stand in the doorway, looking at your parents and your fiancé. They’re standing across from each other in the kitchen, all holding steaming mugs of coffee. 

“Oh, don’t worry about us. We don’t want you to miss your flight,” your mother insists, “the movers said they could help us just fine. They’ve been moving a lot of folks into Autumn Oaks lately.” 

Your chest clenches a bit at the thought of your parents in assisted living—were they really that old already? They seem perfectly capable, aside from the incident with your father. You suppose that’s reason enough to consider assisted living. 

“Okay, but call immediately if you need anything,” Yeonjun says warily, placing his empty mug down on the kitchen counter. “I’m going to call a car.” 

He ruffles your hair when he notices you standing in the doorway, and then walks out. This leaves you with your parents, the both of them standing there and smiling at you. You know it’s because of Yeonjun. You know they wholeheartedly think you’re safe with him, and that he’s your forever. Who are you to say he isn’t? 

“We really can stay and help you guys,” you offer again, but your father shakes his head. 

“And we told you we can handle it,” he says softly, “you have a flight to catch.” 

Your shoulders sag as you sigh. Perhaps, you weren’t only wanting to stay for your parents. You don’t want to let go of the house, of your aging parents, of Beomgyu. You don’t want to let go of your hometown, even though you hate it so much. And even though Autumn Oaks was just a drive away, hardly even separate from your hometown, it still felt like the end of an era, a disconnect, a severing of the last attachment you had to your childhood and everything that came with it. You got your closure, and that was what you wanted—so why did it feel wrong? For the first time in so many years, you feel like you’ve made bad decisions that you cannot come back from. 

“Okay,” you say. “It was really nice seeing you. And I guess—to see the house one last time.” You will your emotions to stay under control. “I’m going to miss you.” 

“We always miss you too,” your mother says, pulling you into a hug. “But we’ll see you come Christmas, won’t we? Maybe we can come and visit you and Yeonjun in the city this year.” 

“That would be really nice, Mom,” you whisper as she lets go. She stands back, still holding onto your arms, and looks at you. 

“You’ve grown so much. We’re so proud of you,” your dad says, and it’s like he’s reading your mother’s mind as a tear trickles down her face. The three of you briefly embrace, a final wordless reminder of every memory that you had together in that house, and then you blink and it’s all gone. 

Yeonjun comes for you when the car pulls up outside, and before you know it you’re staring out the airplane window, looking at all the miniature houses down below. You’re finally going back home, but you know you left a piece of yourself in your hometown, and you’ll never see her again. 

Maybe that’s for the better. 

EPILOGUE. 

Yoo Jimin, known most commonly by her nickname Karina, is fucking exhausted. 

It’s the first snow of the year, she’s worked two double night shifts in one week, and she’s trying her damn best to get the household ready for the holiday season. She’s a woman who knows what she wants, and though this means she takes charge and gets shit done, it also means she burns out. Fast. And frequently. 

Her vision is slightly blurry on her drive home from Autumn Oaks, where she’d been busy tending to two new residents. They had made sure to try and shoo her away, claiming that they were just fine on their own and getting settled in, but it was her job to check in on them every now and then. She groans aloud in her car, thinking about how much she wanted to sink into a hot bath and just be alone for a while. 

The windshield wipers obediently push the fat snowflakes gathering on the glass away and out of sight as she pulls into her driveway. At least it looks cozy from the outside, as she’d made sure to tell her husband to put up the Christmas lights outside. He did, and they were twinkling warmly at her as she stepped out of the car. 

She knows that Beomgyu is sleeping. He sleeps a lot, and not just because she tends to work nights and he always works days, but because he’s been avoiding her. 

It was a natural conclusion that she came to, and that would be just fine with her because she knows that marriage isn’t some perfect fairytale, but there’s something that’s been nagging at her for months now. Beomgyu had been acting normal until the end of summer, after the reunion. It was quite popular amongst the gossipy folks, mostly because of a certain quiet individual who had become vastly successful in her market after leaving town about ten years ago. She was by no means a celebrity, but her success and emerging personality was a pleasant surprise to a lot of people—Beomgyu included. 

This was worrying for two reasons. 

One, because everything lined up pretty perfectly with the last time she was in town. 

And two, because she knew damn well, more than anyone else, of that individual’s history with Beomgyu. 

Maybe that’s a bit of a stretch. Everyone who knew Beomgyu knew about her too. Everyone thought they’d get married and stay in town forever, so it was quite a shocker when they ended up fizzling out and she left for New York so abruptly. It’s a little odd that everyone’s still so obsessed with their failed love story, but small towns tend to hold onto any bit of drama they can get. When tornadoes bring in people from the past, it’s inevitable that a rainstorm of gossip will come along with it. 

The house is quiet when she walks in. She sees Beomgyu asleep on the couch in front of the fireplace, which is only dying embers now. They glow a faint red, barely sparking, but are still exuding a fair bit of warmth. The entire house smells like firewood and sugar, the latter scent being courtesy to Beomgyu’s newfound hobby. Baking, of all things! Karina simply didn’t understand where it was coming from. This too began at the end of summer, when he declared that he was sick and tired of store bought treats (he’d never had a problem with them before) and that he was taking on the task of providing the two of them with fresh baked goods whenever they wanted. 

He was horrible at it, for a while. He’d never baked anything edible in his life, and he went through a fair bit of money buying ingredients because of how often he would mess up and want to try again. If anything, his determination was what linked banking to his other interests. He had always been a stubborn asshole, especially when it came to working at the auto shop, previously owned by his father, and before that his grandfather. 

But eventually, he got better. He liked to make muffins, and he would leave them out for Karina when she returned from her night shift, still warm to the touch—he’d often be awake well into the early hours of the morning to try and get a new recipe right. It was enough overlap that Karina, who got home around four in the morning, was able to get to them while they were still fresh. Eventually, this was the only was she ever felt warmth from her husband. 

She walks over to the couch quietly. She had slipped off her shoes as soon as she walked through the door, wanting to keep the floors clean. 

Beomgyu looked peaceful when he slept—a facial expression that never occurred naturally around her any more. She smoothed a lock of reddish brown hair out of his eyes, and he winced at the contact. She removed her touch from his face, but the damage was already done. Her husband opened his eyes, one before the other, and frowned in the firelight. “What time is it?” he asked. “Did you just get back?” 

“Four fifteen,” she confirms, “what did you make tonight?” 

“Blueberry streusel,” he replied, sitting up and yawning. He did not, however, move to go to sleep in their bed, with her. 

“Muffins,” she said quietly, staring at the muffins, still steaming from the oven. 

A silence settles upon the couple, in which nothing is heard but the howling winds outside and the faint crackling of the dying embers in the fireplace. 

“I think I’m gonna head to bed—“ 

“I can’t live like this any more—“ 

The two of them stare at each other, both cut off by the other. “What do you mean you can’t live like this any more?” Karina asks sharply, any semblance of sleepiness immediately gone from her body. “What does that mean?” 

Beomgyu rubs the sleep from his face and groans into his own grasp. “I just—I don’t think I’m happy like this.” 

“With me,” Karina says, though it’s more of a question than anything. She already knows the answer. 

“Just with everything. I feel like I’ve done nothing with my life,” he explains, ruffling his own hair. Her fingers twitch, wanting so desperately to run through those soft locks. 

“What does that mean for us?” she asks in a small voice. She hates how meek she sounds. 

Beomgyu shrugs, as if she’s simply asking him what he wanted for dinner. “I don’t know.” 

She’s suddenly angry more than sad, but she feels tears coming to her eyes either way. “It’s because of her,” she spits, to which Beomgyu’s eyes widen. He already knows who she’s talking about. 

“Who?” he asks, eyes darting around wildly. 

“You know damn well who.” 

Beomgyu doesn’t respond to his wife, and instead they stare at each other as a frigid cold settled over them. She couldn’t undo what she said, and he couldn’t undo what he did—that was that. 

Silence ensued for the rest of the night, and in the morning when Beomgyu awoke again his wife was gone. He had a voicemail left by one of her friends, stating that she’d be around every now and then in the coming week to pick up Karina’s things little by little. Karina, it seemed, did not ever want to see Beomgyu again. 

He understood that decision—honestly, he did. He felt guilty after he realized just how much warmth and love she had provided him, even if he never picked up on it before and surely took it for granted. There was a cold void left behind, and it was slowly overtaking the entire house. 

Beomgyu didn’t know what else to do—what else could he do? With his wife gone, his auto shop mediocre at best, and no one important left in his life? Other than his parents, who had already retired and moved away years ago, he had absolutely no one left. All he had was shattered remnants of past relationships—and in grasping onto those shards desperately, not caring whether or not they cut into his flesh, he sold the house and used his funds to move to the city that never sleeps, in the hopes that someone somewhere would be able to wake him out of the waking nightmare he’d been living for the past decade.

DIVIDER CREDIT | @firefly-graphics

© petrichor-han 2024, all rights reserved

[vampmorgue]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐚𝐧

𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤!𝐑𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 & 𝐉𝐉 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

📖 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘: 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐑𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐧, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐧'𝐭, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐡𝐢𝐦 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐲 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬.

⚠️ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒: 18+, she/her pronouns, pogue! reader, routeledge! reader, jj is readers ex boyfriend, some backstory, some fluff but lots of angst, dark themes, toxic relationship, trauma bond, love bombing, language, dark!rafe and him being toxic, mentions of drug use, addiction, abusive behavior, choking, smoking, weapon: gun use, violence, blood, fighting, and jj being protective of reader.

📑 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓: 5.1k

🦇 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄: if you or someone you know are in a similar situation, please don’t hesitate and ask for help. my dm’s are open if anyone needs to talk. ♡︎

©𝐕𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐆𝐔𝐄 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐃: 𝐃𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐞, 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐲, 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐩𝐩/𝐰𝐞𝐛𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐞.

You definitely had a type. JJ was your ex-boyfriend, and he was impulsive and would get into trouble but stayed caring, protective, and loving at the end of the day. He made you the happiest when he could. You two dated for a year after knowing each other for years growing up but broke it off due to the right person, wrong timing type of thing. You wanted JJ to focus on himself as he was losing himself for a while, and you were growing distant from each other but remained friends.

As your older brother, John B. got more involved with Sarah Cameron and brought her into the group, you soon heard about her older brother, Rafe, and the stories about him, and trouble always seemed to attract you.

From the day you saw Rafe Cameron, you were intrigued by his presence, but not as much as he was with yours.

You were a Pogue, something Rafe hated, but whenever Sarah brought you over, he didn't mind it as much, almost like it never mattered in the first place. You would notice the way Rafe would be eyeing you up and down, but not notice that he would be finding excuses to talk to Sarah just to see you in the same room, and then later at night, his mind would be going crazy over you.

When you first revealed your interest in Rafe to Kie, she scolded you like you had done something bad and told Sarah; Sarah didn’t mind it but did warn you that her older brother was not the best guy to be going after. When JJ found out about it, he was shocked and unhappy that you found interest in a Kook and was more unhappy you chose Rafe Cameron out of all people. JJ made it clear to you that he moved on from the break up to not come across as jealous or anything else and said you could do better than Rafe Cameron, along with everyone else agreeing.

"Look, I just think you should keep your options open, that's all." JJ comments, hoping your brother could at least convince you as well.

With your dad being gone, John B had stepped in to protect you as your older brother, and he hated the idea of you liking Rafe.

“Don’t you dare go to that Kook party where he is!” John B chases you out the front porch as you giggle, “Sarah! Back me up on this!”

“I’ve tried, John B!” Sarah scared to intervene, "The least we could do is watch over her at the party plus, we can have a little fun?"

"Fine," John B sighs at the idea, running his hands across his face.

You weren’t someone who liked listening to others about what they had to say, especially in your life. So as a result of that, during the party at Tannyhill, after a couple of shots, you went after Rafe, which caught him by surprise, but he liked it anyway.

“Y'know, I had my eye on you for a while,” Rafe smirks, drinking from his solo cup.

John B. saw the whole thing, which angered him, but at that point gave up. “I feel like I’m raising a rebellious teenager,"

“I think you’d be considered one as well, from the things you get involved in.” Sarah jokes.

From that day forward, Rafe had you wrapped around his finger. The more you started getting involved with him, the more your friends weren't liking it and made it known.

“Oh, god, you want to be like your brother and date a Kook now?” Pope asks, with JJ and Kie waiting for your response. "I mean, seriously, what is it with you Routledges' and Kooks these days.”

“You guys like Sarah now,” you mention, “so maybe you’ll like Rafe too.”

“Ha!” JJ scoffs, shaking his head.

“I doubt that Y/N but you do you.” Kie shrugs.

“Yeah, I will,

And you kept your word, but little did they know, Rafe had also persuaded you so you could be together.

"Listen, you and I were meant to cross paths," Rafe tells you in an optimistic tone, "so let them talk,"

Three months into your relationship with Rafe, he was the sweetest boyfriend, at first. From the dates to spoiling you, him making you feel like his whole world, and making it clear to everyone that you were his. The Pogues accepted your happiness but didn’t accept Rafe; they couldn't do it when they saw how he would treat other people. He was the complete opposite of his sister, Sarah.

Now six months into the relationship, you were aware of his addiction and had mentioned your concern about it to him before, but you didn’t want to be that kind of controlling girlfriend or anything. You also didn’t want to let your friends and brother know about it because you knew they would try to get you out of the relationship with him but you didn’t want that because you cared about Rafe. You let Rafe live his life and for a while, he got better after realizing how much he was scaring you, and the sight of coke making you uncomfortable. He would smoke weed instead, which you were completely fine with since you did the same.

But then Rafe would relapse as coke was more of his thing.

Your boyfriend soon revealed another side of himself on nights when you were with him, a darkening aura surrounding him as his eyes grew more hostile. You knew he was high by the size of his pupils, and how he was getting stressed out about the things going on in his life, especially with the pressure his father was putting on him. There would be times when he took out his anger on you by shouting at you or just snapping out of nowhere by throwing things around or punching walls. Every second of those bad nights was like torture so being with him started to drain you physically and mentally as time went on, you were now in his control of what you could wear, say, or do in front of him. Every morning, you’d wake up to an anxious feeling in your stomach because of Rafe, which could’ve been your sign to leave him, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do so. It was moments like this, that made you rethink your life decisions if you had never broken up with JJ, would you be in this position? Were you longing for JJ or the right treatment that you weren't getting from Rafe? Unfortunately, you grew too attached to Rafe just like he was to you. You felt dependent on him, and you grew a fear of not being able to do anything without him or his approval but maybe one day the bond would break, right?

Every time you and Rafe argued, no one was around because Rafe wanted your relationship to look perfect to others, though it was the complete opposite, he always told you to put on a happy face.

You barely saw your friends anymore because of him not trusting them but Rafe barely trusted anyone, especially Pogues.

The Pogues were missing your company, so whenever your brother mentioned them coming over, you’d ask him if he could drive you over to Rafe’s or you would text Rafe to come get you because that’s how much afraid you were of your boyfriend; you were scared of him finding out somehow that you were in the presence of your ex JJ, though you weren’t doing anything wrong or planned on it. Whenever they’d ask about you, John B’s answer was always "Rafe", so they stopped asking but JJ thought that it was weird how the only time you were home was when everyone, except your brother, was gone, and if they slept over then you’d spend the night with Rafe— which he never said no to.

Even though your friends didn’t know the full story yet, they knew something was wrong when you were Rafe’s date to midsummers— you were the youngest in the group, so they all felt protective towards you, especially JJ. Though you looked beautiful, you didn’t look happy to be there, especially next to Rafe. They had tried to talk to you, but Rafe had his arm wrapped around your waist the whole night basically and kept giving death glares to your Pogue friends. When you made eye contact with JJ, he could tell in your eyes you had this sense of hope; he didn't know what it was but he tried to approach you because he knew in his gut something wasn’t right and said if Rafe started something then he'd finish it, but Kie convinced him to not cause a scene, and JJ was mad at John B for not looking out enough for you, his little sister.

“JJ! I’m not gonna go to fucking jail if something happened because if I did, then who's going to be looking after her, huh?!” John B argues.

“I would!” JJ responds.

“Man, why’d you guys even break up in the first place?!” your brother emphasizes, “I preferred her with you! Shit, I wouldn’t even have to be in this position!”

JJ stayed silent wondering the same thing as he hated remembering the fact that he lost you. As much as JJ didn't want to admit to himself, he still had feelings for you, and seeing you with Rafe was only making it worse.

John B just didn’t want trouble, especially at a Kooks' party knowing their power but he also didn't want you to be mad at him or give the silent treatment if a fight broke out; he also didn't want to risk losing you completely away from home more than you already were. Sarah tried to see if something was up, and you were always reassuring her that everything was fine, but it was all a lie, “See, Sarah, she’s fine.” Rafe would go on to say but that was before he took you into a room just to yell at you for causing attention like it was your fault, though it wasn't.

The day after midsummers, John B had finally confronted you about being so distant ever since you got with Rafe.

"You just don't hang out with us anymore or never make the time for it!" your brother emphasizes.

"I'm sorry! I just..." you hesitate, "really love him and love being around him. He makes me happy...ever since Dad's been gone-"

"Don't you dare bring Dad into this!" John B. hollers.

"Well, who else is going to love me now?!" you cry out, storming out of the house to see Rafe.

John B's eyes filled with loss as he was watching you slowly lose yourself.

Now tonight, Rafe had called you sounding like he wasn't in a good mood, he wanted to take you out after yelling at you the day before, so you accepted it, hoping he was changing for the better. He told you he needed to make a quick stop on the way, and that stop was to meet with Barry. You were annoyed with him and felt betrayed in a way when he fully knew you never wanted to be around his drug deals let alone being around Barry since he made you uncomfortable. Rafe didn’t listen and expected you to brush it off, but you didn’t.

“Rafe, you know I’m not comfortable with you being fucking coked out around me, or you buying from Barry in front of me," you tell him.

“Can you stop fucking nagging for once?” Rafe sighs, driving away from Barry’s.

“You know what? Just me drop off here,” you point to the side of the road, “I’m growing so tired of you.”

“Oh, you’re growing tired of me?” he scoffs, slamming hard on the breaks, “How do you think I feel with you haunting my every move?!”

“Me? You’re fucking unbelievable! You’re the one who controls every fucking thing I do! I barely see my friends because of you!” you snap, getting out of the car but Rafe quickly comes out to your side and forcefully puts his hand around your throat.

“That’s the last time you’ll ever raise your voice at me again.” he sternly states, “Now get in the fucking car.”

Rafe lets go as you gasp for air and start coughing. You get in the car knowing you couldn’t be walking alone in the dark not even knowing your way around, especially around Barry’s area. You were frozen and silent almost the entire car ride, trying to process what happened. You thought maybe if you jumped out of the car, you could run away and scream, you needed to get away, so you took your chances.

“No!” Rafe grabs your wrist while nearly swerving into an oncoming car, “Are you fucking insane?!”

He puts on the child lock before driving back to Tannyhill as if nothing happened. You felt helpless as you slowly walked behind him with his tall figure that now seemed like a monster in front of you as he led the way to his room.

“Y/N…you know that I love you, right?" Rafe asks calmly, closing the door but you stay silent.

“Come on, baby,” he says, pulling you into a hug, “I’m just trying to protect you.”

“Protect me? … Protect me from what?!” you spat, pushing him off of you, “You’re not doing that, all you’re doing is hurting me!”

“After everything I’ve done and given you so you wouldn’t live that Pogue lifestyle anymore, you dare to act like this? Tsk, tsk.” he shakes his head as it gets silent again.

“You really wanna know why I don’t let you see your Pogue friends?” Rafe chuckles in an unsettling tone, breaking the silence, “Because I know you used to date that blond Pogue…so how can I trust you around him, hm?”

You don’t say anything, instead, you stare down at the floor not wanting to look him in the eyes.

“That’s what I thought,” he nods seeming proud.

“It’s not something new,” you look up at him, “You fully knew that before you and I even got together, and you’re acting like I’m not a Pogue myself…but if you ever lay on hand on me again–”

Rafe gets in your face, “Or what?”

You push him out of your way to the bathroom. You’re on the verge of tears when you look in the mirror and see the bruises on your neck, he caused from choking you. You didn’t know what to do, whether to scream your lungs out due to your frustration or see if Sarah was home but you didn’t want to cause a scene; fear is what you felt.

Now you were at your breaking point and needed to leave, needed to leave him. You saw Rafe doing lines and he looks up at you, “If you don’t wanna see this then go hang out with Sarah or something, I don’t fucking know.”

“You’re right, I don’t wanna see this or you, I’m done.” you reply, leaving his room, “I’m done with you.”

“The fuck is what supposed to mean?” Rafe follows you downstairs.

“It means this fucking relationship is over, we’re over!” you shout in frustration.

As you made it outside, you heard Rafe scream and break something that he threw. At this point, you didn’t care you were walking outside alone, you knew your way around from Rafe’s home, and you just needed to get home away from him, hoping he wouldn’t follow.

You were glad to make it home and see the sight of your brother and Sarah asleep in the living room with a movie playing on the TV. You made your way to your room and cried yourself to sleep.

It was like a parallel between you and Sarah. You were a Pogue dating a Kook and Sarah was a Kook dating a Pogue, except now she was a Pogue. One relationship was toxic and the other healthy. Sarah is happier with John B than she was with Topper just like you were happier with JJ than you were with Rafe. 

How could Rafe do that to you? Especially to someone he said he always loved but that wasn’t love. You knew that you had no love for him left in you, instead, it was hate.

꥟

The next day, you woke up to your neck feeling sore and you remembered why as you felt sick to your stomach.

Now how were you going to hide the bruises? Makeup could help but not in the hot weather. You decided to take a shower and think in there.

A hoodie. Yes, it was hot out, but you weren’t about to throw on a turtleneck so you thought pairing the hoodie with some shorts would make it look less odd, and it would be cooler by the time the sun sets. You had to tighten the strings of the hood so it would cover your neck better, and that was the best you could do.

“What time did you get home?” John B asks, making you jump, “I didn’t hear you come in.”

You shrug, “Not too late, you were asleep when I came back.”

“I see…” he replies, “Listen, I’m sorry about last night–”

you interrupt him, “No, I’m sorry, I should’ve never stormed off like that or brought up Dad that way.”

“No, it’s okay,” he shakes his head, “I know you miss him too but we’ll be okay just like we always have.”

Some time passed, the sun was setting, and you saw Sarah out on the front porch.

“Hey, are you okay? I heard you and Rafe broke up,” Sarah asks with concern in her voice.

“Oh, you did?” John B joins in, “Finally!”

Sarah glares at him, telepathically telling him to shut up.

“Yeah, we did…” you confirm, “How’d you find that out that?”

“Well, I came home last night and saw a shattered flower vase on the floor and a hole in the wall, so I was like, what made Rafe mad this time?” she slightly chuckles.

“I guess he didn’t take it well, huh?” you assume with a small laugh.

“As far as I could tell," Sarah sighs, "I wouldn’t recommend going anywhere he might be.”

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Miss. I’m too good for you Pogues.” Pope appears.

“You know that’s not true, Pope.” you chuckle.

“I know, I’m just teasing,” he replies.

“Y/N!" Kie comes running to you, “Where have you been, you bitch!”

“Well, damn, it’s nice to see you too.” you joke as she squeezes you in her arms.

“I’m never letting you date another Kook again.” she declares and you agree to it.

You feel overwhelmed with emotions with all that’s going on, but it feels good to see everyone and then remember one was missing.

“Hey, where’s JJ?” you ask everyone.

John B points over to the water where you see JJ sitting by smoking a joint, so you decide to go talk to him.

“Hey, Jay,”

“Oh, hey,” he looks up at you and smiles, “you want a hit of this?

“Sure,” you reply, taking the joint.

“So,” JJ begins, “How come you were barely around?”

“If I’m being honest…” you hesitate, “Rafe is a…control freak in the worst way possible.”

JJ chuckles, “He looks like it,”

“I know, I should’ve noticed earlier.” you mention, "I'm sorry though, I never meant to hurt you and everyone else."

“No, you’re all good, you made it out though.” he gives you a comforting smile.

“Yeah, I’m glad that nightmare is over.” you sigh in relief.

“Why are you wearing a hoodie?” he asks out of curiosity, “I’m only asking because that’s rare for you on a day like this.”

“Why are you?” you ask back, pointing out the one he’s wearing.

He laughs, “Alright, you got me there.”

“It’s a nice hoodie though.” you compliment him, hoping he'd let you borrow it one day and he would.

“Thanks, you should wear it sometime.” he teases, “Too soon?

“You’re funny, JJ...but I wouldn't be opposed to it." you turn the other way, hiding the redness on your face.

"I'll keep that in mind then," JJ smirks, taking another hit of his joint.

You and JJ just always had that spark that would always come back, and you both loved that.

JJ knits his eyebrows, “What’s that on your neck?”

Your heart drops to your stomach when you remember. He saw the bruises since you turned your head, and you didn’t want to lie and say it was hickeys but you also knew you couldn’t use the good old burned yourself with a curling iron excuse.

“Oh,” you nervously laugh, “that’s from wrestling with my brother the other day.”

“Really?” he doesn’t buy it, “John B barely even hugs you.”

He must’ve paid good attention or had a good memory of your life because he was right.

“Damn, you didn’t have to call me out like that,” you respond, joking since it’s a way of coping.

“Well, I’m just saying and I don’t think he would hurt you like that.” he adds, “C’mon you can tell me.”

“Rafe…”

“What do you mean?”

“…we were arguing, and he didn’t like that I raised my voice at him but I was only defending myself until I couldn’t,” you answer.

JJ felt his blood pressure rise so high, but he stayed calm to comfort you as he pulled you into his arms and tossed the joint away. You remembered the times he held you in his arms when you were sad about something so that’s exactly what he was doing.

"Does John B know?' he asks.

"No,"

“Listen, it’s not your fault, none of it is.” he reassures, “Rafe has his issues to work with but that doesn’t mean he had the right to treat you like that. You don’t deserve that; you deserve way better than that and more.”

“Thank you, JJ,” you say, still in his arms. “I appreciate that, I needed it.”

“Of course,” he affirms, “I’m also sorry. I wish I tried harder to get you out of that, I knew something was up— we all did but everyone was just stuck on what to do without any proof, you know?”

“No, I don’t want you or anyone else blaming yourself.” you reassure, “I still have you all at the end of the day, and that’s the most important to me.”

“Yeah, me too.” he mentions, "We're going to have to tell your brother as well."

"Hm, I don't like the sound of that." you say, "But I know I have to."

"I know," JJ adds, "but I'll be by your side if that makes you more comfortable?"

"I'd like that!" you exclaim, and he smiles.

You two hear the sounds of a dirt bike.

“Did one of them take your bike out for a joyride or something?” you joke.

“I didn’t bring it today…Kie drove Pope and I out here.” JJ says with a confused expression.

Your heart drops once again, remembering who else you knew who owned a dirt bike.

“Fuck, this cannot be happening,” you mutter to yourself as you both got up.

“It’s okay, just stay behind me,” JJ tells you.

You both watch Rafe make his way to your brother and the others.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Sarah calls out to him.

“Taking back what’s mine,” Rafe responds before looking around, “tell me where she is, and nothing happens.”

“Dude, get the fuck out of here.” John B warns him as he gets closer, “I don’t need any more of your bullshit right now.”

“Seriously, you’re crazy,” Sarah tells Rafe, “Just go back home.”

“Or what?” Rafe lets out a small laugh.

You were holding onto JJ’s arm, and you could tell JJ was getting angry just by Rafe's presence but unluckily, Rafe spotted you and JJ.

“Well, would you look at that!” Rafe calls out, “You see, Y/N? I knew you’d go back to that Pogue! You’re just a fucking slut!”

“Alright, fuck it,” JJ pulls out his gun from the pocket of his hoodie and points it at Rafe.

“JJ!” everyone but Rafe shouts.

Rafe had pulled his gun out as well and John B yelled at you to get down, so you did.

“You really wanna do this, man?” Rafe questions JJ.

JJ shrugs, “If it keeps you dead then yeah.”

“Not unless you’re the dead one first,” Rafe states, slowly moving his finger to the trigger.

You began shaking while John B motioned for you and JJ to stay quiet as he slowly made his way to Rafe and pushed him down to the ground. Shots were fired at the sky before Sarah grabbed Rafe’s gun and threw it into the water.

JJ made sure you weren’t shot or anything before he went to help your brother as Rafe was strangling him, and JJ pulled Rafe off of John B and took matters into his own hands. JJ threw punches at Rafe, but he fought back then JJ pressed his fingers into Rafe's eyes before he started to punch him again to the point of blood running down Rafe's face then JJ began strangling him back to feel what you felt the night he choked you.

John B and Pope pulled JJ off of Rafe this time while Sarah and Kie told you to go hide inside the house.

Your brother told JJ to take you somewhere far from there while they would handle Rafe, and JJ didn't hesitate and kicked Rafe in the stomach before doing so. Kie would’ve let him take the car, but it was her dad’s truck, and she wasn’t going to risk getting in trouble so he thought of taking Rafe’s bike as it added a little more taste of revenge.

After a couple of minutes, the commotion started calming down. You hated every second of it, you hated people yelling at each other, and you hated any type of fighting. You were feeling numb, all of it was happening too fast.

JJ came in, "We gotta go right now."

“Run!" you heard Kie shout as you both saw Rafe making his way towards you and JJ, who quickly grabbed your hand as you both ran towards the dirt bike.

You don't remember the last time you rode with JJ but this time, the wind hitting your face felt so freeing. An aura of colors felt like they were going inside your body as JJ sped up to where he was taking you. You took notice of the state his knuckles were in, all bloody. 

Within fifteen minutes, you both arrived near a small hidden shed near the woods. It intimated you to go in the woods with how dark it was, but JJ reassured you it was fine.

“How’d you find this place?” you ask him.

“Well,” he begins, “when I wanted to get away from my dad, I would hide here if I had nowhere else to go."

You nodded at his response, not knowing what to say as if you two didn’t go through chaos moments ago.

“This is also where John B and I first smoked weed together.” JJ laughs at the memory.

"I'm assuming this is where he would sneak off to then," you mention.

"For sure," JJ replies.

"I'm honestly worried right now for my brother and the others," you admit, "anything could have happened over there."

"The worst that could've happened is someone getting shot, but they got rid of it."

"That someone could've been you!" you cry out, "Rafe was pointing it at you."

JJ looks away for a second, rethinking the whole occurrence. 

"I was just trying to protect you..." he responds, "I couldn't risk losing you again if he had taken you or not,"

From that moment, you realized that the right one was always JJ. You both just needed the time to figure out the things in yourselves and what your heart truly desired and JJ had already done that; his heart desired you.

"And you did it, Jay," you reassure, feeling like your heart was screaming at you to spill out your true feelings, "just like you always have, it's you who I can always count on, and you've proven that."

JJ stares into your eyes, "What are you trying to say?"

"It's you who makes me feel safe and cared about, no matter what situation we're both in, you don't give up, and you're always there...it's you who I want."

JJ grabs your face, kissing you like he had been waiting to do that. You both missed this. His affection towards you always made you feel special, and you're the only person he's still ever wanted.

He pulls away, "You didn't have to tell me twice...I've missed you."

"I've missed you too," you smile, holding his hands that were still grabbing your face.

"So!" John B calls out with Sarah next to him who gives you a teasing smile, startling you, "It's a good thing I checked here first and yes, everything's taken care of."

"That's great man," JJ comments, acting like John B didn't catch you two in the middle of something.

John B pulls you into a hug when he sees your bruises and apologizes for what you went through. "From now on, promise me I'll be one of your first options to come if there's trouble."

"I promise,"

"I also just wanted to let you know, don't worry about him," Sarah refers to Rafe, "I got it taken care of and he's got other things to worry about so you're going to be okay."

Sarah had taken advantage of being her father's favorite so she just called him and took her side when she told him about Rafe's actions.

"Thank you, Sarah." you smile.

"So, you guys want to get out of here and do some illegal shit or?" John B asks, lightening the mood, "Pope and Kie are waiting in the Twinkie."

"Let's go!" JJ exclaims, "Lead the way, John B."

While everyone else gets in the Twinkie, you and JJ still go on the dirt bike with him now being the proud owner of two dirt bikes.

"Hey, listen," JJ looks back at you, "I know you just went through a lot, so I just wanted to let you know that there's no rush in anything between us, I'll always be by your side every step of the way and I'll be here when you're ready."

You smile and kiss him on the cheek, "Thank you, JJ, I'm glad to have you in my life."

JJ smiles and speeds off as you're hugging his waist, holding on tight but JJ was loving every second of it, happy to have you back in his life as well.

[poppadom0912]

By my side

Characters: Kelly Severide x Platonic!Reader, Matt Casey x Platonic!Reader, Sylvie Brett x Platonic!Reader

Warnings: Toxic men, abuse, protective firefighters.

Summary: You should've been better but at least your family is by your side.

A/N: For the sake of this, there'll be two ambulances which means two PIC's.

This has been sitting in my drafts for months unfinished and I suddenly decided to finish it after work on the train. Also couldn't be asked to proofread so sorry for any mistakes!! And I know this aesthetic thing sucks but it's been a long day and I'm tired, so sorry again. 😅😅

Being a paramedic had always been your dream.

Growing up in a first responder household: firefighter dad and patrol officer mum, paramedics were a constant presence around them. So, it was only natural that was were you gravitated towards.

Following this, working at firehouse 51 was a given since that was where your father was a Captain at till he became battalion chief and moved to another house.

Your family had history in this house, making it somewhat sacred ground for anyone who shared your family's surname.

Yes, there had been times when you had to prove your worth and that you weren't a nepo baby but your family in everything but blood were always somehow five steps ahead of you.

So it only made sense that when you started to skip going to Molly's and skimping on details about what you did during your day offs, that they were concerned and confused to say the least.

Six months later, after nearly holding an intervention, you introduced everyone to your boyfriend Mason.

It was safe to say, everyone had their suspicions, even after being together for a year. All of which you excused, diverting and switching blame.

*****

You thought that you were finally happy with how everything in your life was settling but all of a sudden, fate decided that stability wasn't necessary for you.

Shouting and constant arguing should've been the first sign, blaring as bright as the sun, warning and shouting at you to break it off before reaching the one year mark but you briskly ignored it and marched on.

Then, the drinking problems, anger problems and impatience were made alight when you started living together. (he invited you to move in with him when celebrating one year together)

You found yourself not liking the man he started becoming the longer you were together. It irked you to no end and you constantly were skittish around him, finding it harder to have a civil conversation with him the more time passed.

It seemed that your feelings somehow transferred themselves over to your work life because you were suddenly snapping at the stand-in paramedic for Sylvie when she was sick for a petty reason.

The PIC in you forced you to immediately apologise before Kelly dragged you into his office, Matt following without a word.

Naturally, the three of you including Sylvie had a bond of 'commanding officers' as you were all in charge in some degree and over several years, the work relationship blossomed and the four of you were as thick as thieves.

It also helped that Matt and Kelly worked with your father and knew you from their pre-firefighter and your pre-paramedic days.

Under their concern filled gazes, you found yourself crumbling, eyes all of a sudden filled with tears from the stress of it all.

They couldn't help but confirm their fears which you tried to deny incessantly, for some reason defending Jason and explaining that this could all be fixed and everything would be back to normal in no time.

If only you didn't.

*****

Over the past year, everyone found you changing.

The stern but loving PIC you once were had become but a memory. It was as though you were a shell of your past self, something of which you agreed with.

Mason was draining the life out of you and the only time you weren't losing yourself to him was during your 24 hour shifts before being surrounded by him for the next 48.

You tried your best to leave, you really did but at some point in your now two year relationship, things took an abrupt turn and Mason had become this toxic, controlling man who has a newfound urge to resort to violence when you were being your true self.

Being PIC meant you had an amount of power under your title and after many years of work, you had perfected your nature. It's why you and Sylvie were so good at what you did; you used force when necessary and compassion was always on hand.

Over the course of the past year, you found yourself on the end of many interventions held by Matt, Kelly and Sylvie.

With all the reasons in the world, they argued and argued with you, laying out the easiest ways to break you free. They were as desperate as you were at this point to get you to break up with Jason. They missed and needed the old you back.

Unbeknownst to you, they schemed behind your back, trying and failing to convince you to leave Mason for good but you found yourself pathetically laughing at them before going home to endure hell.

You struggled to understand your behaviour. Abuse to this degree was something you never you experience firsthand and you would never wish it upon your worst enemies.

On sleepless nights, you constantly contemplated why you wouldn't leave. You wanted to, you really did but then you could hear him whisper in your ear and you remained firmly glued to his side.

So badly did you want to rip your arm out his earth shattering grip and run back home, to the safety of love and familiarity.

Your final decision was set in stone when he finally made his mark a month ago, fingertips bruised into your wrist when he wouldn't let you leave his car in front of the firehouse.

"Alright then, thank you for dropping me off. I'll see you tomorrow." You said, pressing your lips together in a tight smile, hand reaching for the door handle while the other fiddled with the handle of your tote bag.

He replied with something, you weren't too sure because you were already out the car, closing the door with practised precision and gentleness.

Your expressionless face brightened at the sight of your colleagues/friends/basically siblings at this point. The firehouse and all its inhabitants were truly your saving grace and without it, you weren't too sure where you would be.

Just as you were going to walk up the apron to meet them halfway, you were being pulled back by a random force. It was so sudden that you dropped your bag, your things spilling out as they rolled away.

You yelped, attracting the attention of those who weren't previously paying attention to your arrival in their mortal enemies car.

Scrunching your eyebrows, you turned to Mason in confusion, your eyes following the hand gripping your wrist to his face you were once infatuated with.

"What the hell Mason?!" You said with gritted teeth, trying to escape but he wouldn't let go. "Stop, your making a scene."

Before he could reply, several shouts came from behind you and before you knew it, you were being pulled into comforting arms as big and bulky men dealt with Mason.

"Oh Y/N." Sylvie's heart melted for you while it ignited in flames because of Mason. With your bag in one of her hands, she somehow collected all of your things, she brought you into her arms and hugged you tighter than a koala.

"Let me see your hand." She muttered under her breath, unbothered by the fuming men huddling around you in a protective barrier, on guard as they watched Matt and Kelly deal with Mason on the street.

She sucked in a sharp breath through her teeth at the finger shaped bruise on your wrist, you copying her when she lightly touched it. Despite her angelic exterior, you saw a red glint flash across her eyes, one you rarely saw but had seen several times before on the rare occasion.

If this was her reaction, then you were dreading Matt and Kelly's.

And your feelings were very much justified because as soon as they sent Mason away, you found yourself being subject to a very strong worded conversation.

They played the role of overprotective brothers perfectly. With the help of detectives who you were lucky to call good friends, your plan was set in stone and would take a week to fully come together.

Despite how meticulously everything was planned, you somehow ended up in the emergency room. Surrounded by doctors and nurses you recognised, you felt their sympathy and felt nearly emotional with the care that greeted you.

Thanking Maggie, you smiled and watch the charge nurse leave but you weren't alone for even a minute before three certain people came barging in.

With wide eyes, they drank in your slouched figure.

Matt looked alarmed, Kelly disgruntled and Sylvie on the edge of a breakdown.

You choked out a watery laugh, harshly swallowing back tears as you shook your head and blinked repeatedly. Releasing a shaky breath, you felt your chest tighten as your oxygen was constricted before it was all treated when enveloped in the loving arms of your 'siblings'.

Had it not been for your intense emotional state, you would've barked out in laughter at the anger displayed by Kelly who imitated a caged lion, Matt who spewed words Hank Voight would find offensive and Sylvie who played parts of a mother comforting their daughter but also Satan prepared to burn and punish sinners.

Your pain was muted by their presence alone. With their constant love and never-ending companionship by your side, you were sure to heal.

[the-dixon-effect]

Daddy Issues

words: 1.1k

Nobody knew about your past.

Not even a bit. Your presence in Alexandria was regarded by the suburbanites as the disposition of a survivor, someone who had really been shaped by the cruel world outside the gates. Even the members of your own group, your family, didn't dare delve into the rocky landscape that was your life before the fall.

Despite the distinct mystery that followed you wherever you went, some could still sense the trauma you had ensued before. It was in the way you walked, the way you carried yourself, in your defensive impulses and your kind nature. And by 'some', this meant a certain archer who you had taken an interest in since the start.

Daryl Dixon was a man of few words, but since the beginning, you knew there had to be something else underneath his thick skin, a hidden treasure of sorts. And how right you were. You two remained by each other's side at all times, never once leaving the other in fear of losing them. If Daryl had lost you, oh God, he would have lost the one thing keeping him going, the light in his life, the oasis in the vast desert that was this harsh world. You had been so kind to him, and seeing you and your perfect smile was like medicine, and of course, he couldn't help but fall for you. He practically knew everything about you, or at least, he thought he did.

"Ya' alright?" he spoke. The two of you sat side-by-side in the front of a truck, heading out on a run. He had noticed your quietness and how it differed from your usual animated, cheerful manner. He rested both hands on the steering wheel and looked over at you. It had not been long since your father had died, out on a run, not unlike your current mission. Eaten alive by walkers, it was a terrible sight to witness for all involved, especially you, who remained silent for days after.

"I'm fine." Quite the opposite. Such a strange feeling, the man who had abused you your whole life, emotionally and physically, trapped you in the ghetto of Atlanta, and forced you to humiliate yourself to make a living, died at the hands of the new natural world? Did he get what he had coming? Did he deserve it all along? Were you supposed to be grateful, or satisfied? You always imagined that your father's death would feel like a gratifying weight lifted off your shoulders, but for some reason, you were never able to shake the trauma, the anxiety of it all. It was as if the world couldn't let you go, and you were being held hostage in your own dark memories.

Daryl might have been the most observant person you knew. You really thought you'd be able to keep the truth from him and he wouldn't know? Maybe, just maybe, it was time to let it all out. After all, if you were going to confess to anyone, it would have been him.

"I can tell you're not, ya know," he drawled.

"You remember my dad, right?" you spoke, softly and quietly. Even with his eyes fixed on the road, Daryl could sense that you were frowning.

"Ya, I remember tha' prick. Shoulda knocked him out while I had the chance." He also remembered your strong feelings against him, and how he had made a scene in the prison once by ordering you around with a less-than-polite tone. Daryl had obviously stepped in to defend you, which practically began your friendship. You thought of this often, and couldn't help but see Daryl as your protector from then on.

"Well, it's just that- I don't know, it's stupid," you began. "Can't stop thinking 'bout him. The way he died. It just- It seems wrong."

"Shit. I'm sorry, I shouldn't 've said-"

"No, it's okay. He was a horrible man." He was indeed, and though everybody shared your feelings about your father while he was with your old group, not one of them was aware of what he had done to you before the fall.

"There's- there's things I haven't told you. About him, and, about me." Daryl furrowed his brows. Of course he knew there must have been something deeper within your relationship with the man, but he never expected himself to be one whom you would share it with.

"It's alrigh'," he drawled. "Take your time."

"He hit me. All the time. Whenever he was mad or depressed or drunk, or even happy." The words came so easily, and you had underestimated how good it would feel to release some of this pressure build-up, especially to Daryl. Still, you couldn't help but let your eyes glass over as the memories came flooding back. You weren't sure, but despite the horrific things you had endured, it felt right to let it out for once.

He simply stared at you, and even with his brown hair falling over his eyes you could tell he was in shock. How could someone do something like that to you, the most beautiful person, in all ways, that he'd ever met?

"I'm- I'm so sorry Y/N. I never knew 'bout any of it," Daryl was at a loss for words.

"You wanted to know what I did before the world went to shit?" you paused for a moment, understanding that right now, you could not take any of this back.

"I was a- I was-" tears began to stain your cheeks. "I had to- I was a hooker." Silence.

Shit. How could he maintain a friendship with you after that? You were in total disbelief at your confession. Things will never go back to the way they were, you thought.

You sat there, shaking in your seat, forgetting where you were and paying no attention to your surroundings.

It was true, every part of it. You had been a hooker living in the hood of Atlanta before the fall, and you hated it. Every part of it. But there was no escape from the ghetto, and the route you had chosen to survive was safer and steadier than a life of crime. Still, every day you dreamt of a man who could take care of you, love you for your mind and soul, somebody to treat you right. Had you been shaped by the apocalypse, or had you always been like this?

"It's okay. I'm gon' take care of you. Ya don't have to worry 'bout anythin'." Daryl's soft words came like the arrival of the man you had always imagined late at night. You didn't need a man, of course you didn't. But Daryl, maybe you needed him.

[ghostlythunderbird]

As a Spouse and a Parent~ Task Force 141 

Pairings: Simon Riley, John MacTavish, Kyle Garrick, John Price X Fem! Reader

Warnings: Fluff, Pregnancy, Prior Abuse, some NSFW is referenced

Word Count: 2,269

Author Notes: Is this feeding into a deep longing of mine? Why yes, yes it is. I'm sorry if this is poorly written I was writing this at 3am

Simon “Ghost” Riley

As a Spouse

Simon actually didn’t want to get married in the beginning, because if you wanted to get married it would only put a potential target on not just you but anyone you're close to. But I can assure you he wanted nothing more than to put a ring on your finger, and as a testament to that you should have heard how picky he was with your ring. Soap was definitely losing his mind while trying to help Simon out

After the initial hesitation in the first year of your marriage not much had changed between you and Simon, but your relationship continued to grow as Simon became more upfront with nothing that seemed to really bother him. Of course keeping everything related to his job confidential.

He became more doting on you, constantly craving for your attention whenever he’s at home. It was honestly comical that this large man seemed to melt into a puddle at the slightest touch from you, practically purring for you when you rake your hands through his hair when you cuddle in those late mornings. Even after this he will ask you not to share how he truly acts at home with any of his teammates, there often was the threat of not getting any more breakfasts in bed from him.

Oh and when I tell you this man can cook, I mean he can COOK. Like this man can cook full course meals but the only time you have to interfere is because he doesn't use seasoning very much. Secretly he enjoys these small moments with you, just spending quality time whenever he can is what helps him realize that getting married was the best decision.

As a Parent

When you told him you were pregnant for the first time he had a whole mental meltdown that ended up with him leaving to take a walk around your neighborhood. Now it wasn’t because he was angry, if anything he was terrified.

This is a man who has faced horrid abuse at the hands of his father, had his Brother, mother, sister in law, and his nephew murdered because of his job, had so many near death experiences, and killed men without a second thought. How could someone like him raise a child properly, much less raise one that wouldn’t hate him for who he was.

After returning and talking his fears out, you both soon started to prepare the arrival of your child. And lets be real he is fascinated with each step of your pregnancy, His favorite part was feeling his child react to his touch each time. Just to add this in because I just have a feeling this might happen, this man would definitely end up having at least 5 kids because he falls in love all over again with each one. Not only that but he wants to prove that he is a better dad than his own could have ever been.

Simon loves all his kids and will spend each moment he can with them, going to dance recitals, practice, helping with homework, putting them all to bed. Does he become a tired dad after 5 kids? Well of course he would but does he regret it, Never.

Johnny “Soap” MacTavish

As a Spouse

Oh my gosh, now this man right here is one of the Sweetest Hubbies out there. You talk about remodeling the kitchen? Well here is your new kitchen after a month. Craving a certain food, he’s either buying it or attempting to make it.

From the first point when I mean attempting I really mean “Attempting” because this man cannot cook to save his life. And before you try to say he can, he can cook a few things but hardly anything is seasoned because the military has ruined his sense of taste. While he can’t outright cook more than simple meals like grilled cheese sandwiches it doesn't mean he can't help chop up ingredients or be your taste tester. His favorite thing to do is help you bake and you know this man will be licking the spoon and the bowl, he ended up stealing it once and locked himself in the bathroom so you couldn't stop him.

When he's home you can guarantee you're gonna be cuddled to death by him, he hardly ever lets you leave and if you're gone for more than five minutes he's going to look for you and become a human koala. Johnny I feel like is a very affectionate lover and will do anything to find a compromise if you two can't agree on something. He never makes big decisions without you as in his eyes being married means you have to work together not against each other.

As a Parent

Ok let's be real here out over everyone in the task force Johnny has the BIGGEST Breeding kink out there, and like most men he isn't much of a fan of condoms simply because it takes out the intimacy. He has a true addiction to cumming inside you so it's no surprise you end up becoming pregnant.

When you tell him you're pregnant he would let out the biggest yell and then tackle you into a bear hug while crying from pure joy. After finding this out he immediately called and told both of your families. He's very invested with both yours and the baby's development over time. His favorite thing to do is to fall asleep on your lap with his head near your bump no matter how big or small it is while running his hand over it.

While he does get prepared once you start reaching the end of your pregnancy it doesn't stop the military one bit. After hearing he would end up deploying towards the end he was devastated, while he understands you cant stop when you're called back to base he wanted nothing more to stay home and would even risk going AWOL.

He would constantly facetime you everyday when he's gone, and while he wasn't physically there for the birth of your child he did encourage you from the phone while being hundreds of miles from home. And when he was finally able to finally come home? He gathered you both up in his arms and refused to let go.

But as your child grows up I can definitely say Johnny is the most supportive and fun dad out there. He wants nothing more than to see his kid grow up to be a respectful and easy person who still takes time to appreciate the little things and know when to have a little fun.

Kyle “Gaz” Garrick

As a Spouse

This man I feel like can be often overlooked so here we're gonna give him a whole bunch of lovins here. Gaz is more of a selfless lover by heart, so be prepared to be showered in love and attention 24/7. Trying to read a book? Well now you're both reading a book because he wants to constantly be in your presence.

While Kyle is home he would definitely want to go on walks and hikes with you just so you're both exploring together. That being said he tries to plan yearly vacations for you both wherever you both decide to visit. Like Simon, Kyle wants to spend as much time with you as he can while he's home. The awful part about his job is to think that there might be a last time he would ever see you, so he wants to take advantage of every second.

Kyle loves to talk about your future together, wondering about your lives of what could happen or what could have been. His favorite part though is to talk about settling down somewhere away from the hustle and bustle of the big cities in the UK. Having a little house in a village far out into the countryside where the both of you can live in peace.

Maybe there are often times where he thinks that your dreams of living out your lives together may never become a reality when coming back after a rather rough mission. You will have to talk him out of those thoughts just to remind him that even on the roughest days you'll always be by his side even when he can't see you.

As a Parent

This man is NOT prepared to hear that you're pregnant. Wanna know what he does when you wait until he comes home to tell him? This man straight up faints from the overwhelming news. After hearing you freaking out after coming to he just wraps you up as you're both on the floor and just says “This wasn't in our road map, love” as a joke.

It does take him off guard to understand that he's not only fighting the darkness just to protect you but for his child now. And to say that it keeps driving him forward to survive every mission more than ever before is a vast understatement.

Kyle ends up asking you one day after being home for a week on how many you both feel comfortable with having, you both decide on having two. Over time his excitement continued to grow the bigger your child got and when I tell you this man keeps buying toys and baby clothes I'm not joking. He's a hoarder of baby stuff now

When your little one is finally born this man has constant tears that the nurses even joked that your husband cried more than you while in labor. He's mesmerized by this child, that while you fall asleep he begins to pledge his life for the newborn in his arms. Gaz as a dad is one of the sweetest things in the world, always wanting to be involved in his children's lives and to spend every minute with them.

John Price

As a Spouse

This man is by far the biggest romantic out there without a doubt, always wanting to surprise you when you least expect him to be home. His favorite memory was when he came in with you eating ice cream on the couch and he grabbed you from behind, he didn't regret having to clean the couch afterwards.

You better expect he's gonna take you out whenever he gets home too, like this man WANTS to show you off no matter where you go. You both go out to a fancy restaurant you're getting shown off, at a taco truck just down from your shared home. Well guess what you're still getting shown off even if you're dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt.

Don’t blame this man for any of it because he's just so in love with you he can't help himself. But if he had to choose between staying at home or going out without a doubt he would choose to stay in with you and just enjoy the limited time he has. While yes sometimes he has to bring home paperwork he still finds a way such as having you curled up in his lap over his tights and having a blanket draped over the both of you.

That being said there have been times you've both fallen asleep in the chair and you both totally have NEVER tipped the chair back. It definitely became an inside joke between the both of you but it's something you both never mention to anyone else.

As a Parent

You and John have talked about what you might do if you ever decided to have kids, but you've both tried to be as safe during your “Adult” time but it seems that life said otherwise. While you had no reason to be upset or nervous about telling John you couldn't help the nagging feeling of anxiety. You don't tell him right away, but you rather plan it around one of your nightly walks.

At first he thought you were messing with him and doing one of your pranks again, but after seeing your serious face he was speechless. After the initial shock he pulls you in and kisses you, he lets out a laugh after pulling back before resting his hand over your stomach. John tries to be around as much as he can for the majority of your pregnancy, but life as an officer is a very demanding one.

While he's gone on deployments he tries to stay in contact as much as he can, and if he doesn't have service he keeps a picture of you and a sonogram picture of his little one tucked away in his tactical vest. The only person he shows and talks about his new child with is Simon, because this man is dealing with 5 kids even after saying he's too old for this life.

You end up giving birth right before John was getting ready to land, and let's just say this man threatened a lot of people just so he could get to the hospital as soon as possible. John overall as a parent would definitely be doting but he knows when he needs to put his foot down, even if it does end up drawing tears. He’s one of those dads too that definitely lets his kids do whatever to him, especially if he has a daughter.

[arcadiabaytornado]

Who are your top 10 misunderstood characters from Life is Strange and Telltale’s The Walking Dead and why?

Kate (LIS) - Kate isn't misunderstood the same way Rachel and Chloe are, but I do think she's often portrayed as much more feeble then she actually is. For example: Kate stands for herself plenty in game. If you tell her to wait for more proof, she'll send Max this text. "Max. Sorry to have bothered you by asking for your advice. I guess I shouldn't do anything but let people enjoy my video all over the world." She'll also bluntly confront Max if you don't intervene when David's in her face. Don't get me wrong, Kate IS an utter sweetheart, but she's not a doormat either. She has a bit of a bite on multiple occasions.

Max (LIS) - Max is similar to Kate for me. I think she's often portrayed as much more feebly then she is. Some people treat her like she's a ...well...doe but she has a very strong bite to her! I mean, she's back with Chloe for 48 hours at most and she pulls a gun on Frank and maybe pulls the trigger. Also, if you don't side with Chloe for a choice, Max is very sassy about Chloe's objections. Chloe will say something like: "If you only you told David it was your joint," and Max will go "Oh, sorry, I was to busy saving your life. 🙄" Max is a very strong character, so I'm shocked that a lot of people see her as being super delicate. She's the furthest thing from a doormat.

More Undercut

Rachel (LIS) - Rachel deserves better. I can't even really get into this fully on this post because I want to keep my reasons shortish (well...short for me) but for a very quick and not detailed recap of my thoughts. 1. We don't even know if she cheated on Chloe, so, no, she's not the devil for sleeping with Frank. 2. Rachel is manipulative to a certain degree, but there's no indicator that she was an evil serpent women who only spoke in lies and manipulation. 3. There's plenty of in game evidence that she cared about Chloe. We can argue all day about whether she was ever in love with Chloe or not, but there's more than enough to back up that she at least cared for her.

Chloe - I'm going to make short points with her like I did with Rachel because this another topic I could make a full rant about. 1. She is mean, but some people really exaggerate the extent of it. 2. She's not evil for being mad that her best friend who ghosted her figured out how to work a phone when Kate called. 3. She's not a bitch for not liking her Step Father who is abusive to her. 4. She's not terrible for having a tense relationship with her Mother, who made it very clear that David is more than important than her. 5. Women are allowed to be flawed.

Ryan (LIS TC) - I will defend Ryan until the day I die. I know it isn't his best moment if he doesn't believe Alex at the end...but of course he doesn't believe Alex in all the endings?? Jed is his FATHER. A father he's close with and has been told his entire life is a hero. Then Alex (rightfully) bursts in and pops his bubble, and in the moment, he doesn't handle that well unless there's a lot of confirmation that his loving father is actually a hidden monster. And yes, I know that Steph backs up Alex no matter what...but Jed isn't her Dad, and she isn't as connected to the town, or it's stories, as deeply as Ryan is. She loses way less if Alex is telling the truth, while Alex's (rightful) honesty destroys what's left of Ryan's family after he already lost his Mother.

Violet (TWDG) - I've always thought it was weird how upset people got when Vi betrayed Clem in the cells. First off...Clem betrayed her first?? Vi spent the entire game defending Clem when no one else would. When AJ killed Marlon she stood in front of them with a cleaver to protect them from the other kids. When everyone voted to kick Clem and AJ out, she was the one shouting from the rooftops that it was unfair. When Clem and AJ came back, she was the one who insured that they could stay. And yet, when Clem saw her in danger, she chose not to save her. It's not shocking that she feels so upset, but it did shock me how fans reacted to it, and I'm someone who saved and romanced Louis! I mean...how unfair is a betrayal really if they stab you with the same knife you stuck in their back?

Louis (TWDG) - It's crazy how much of Ryan's paragraph I could apply to Louis. Of course he gets mad when Clem's murder toddler, who has never been taught restraint, puts a bullet in his best friends head. Marlon had given up. The gun was no longer in his hands. Clem had it handled peacefully, and then the situation ended with a bullet. I totally understand why he was mad, and I even understand why he wanted them to leave and not come back. He was mourning, and his pain is made even worse if you had Clem appeal to him because he helped disarm Marlon and that led to his death. So, in other words, I think his rage in episode 2 is very understandable. Plus, he moves on from his anger and apologizes for kicking them out in...Episode 2. The same episode the anger starts.

Sarah (TWDG) - People complain about her being a burden so much, but honestly that's Carlos's fault. She never really got a chance to be a survivor in the apocalypse because she was sheltered non-stop, and there's multiple moments that imply that she could have made it if things were different. I don't FULLY blame Carlos for sheltering her since I understand wanting your child to grow up in peace instead of surrounded by horror...but he really screwed her over. I think people should be way harsher on him than her. Sarah was doing her best. Carlos was not.

Ben (TWDG) - In the same manner as Sarah, people often complain that he's a burden. And...he kinda is, but also he's also literally sixteen years old. He makes bad choices because he's naive, not because he's malicious. Also, I know he indirectly got Duck and Katjaa killed, but the bandits were threatening to kill EVERYONE in the group if he didn't slip medicine to them. What Ben did got Katjaa and Duck killed, but who's to say the bandits wouldn't have kept their word and killed the entire group if he had refused. He was put in a no win situation, and honestly I just so much pity for him. I'm glad my Lee looks out for him.

Jane (TWDG) - Jane is...weird because she is a bad person but also some people act like she never cared about Clem and had entirely selfish motivations. She cared about Clem enough to teach her how to survive, which is something she never bothered to do with Sarah, even though she needed a mentor much more than Clem. And for as much as I disagree with her of philosophy of "never trust anyone, people are bad," I do think she was genuinely trying to help and giving what she thought was good advice. She also comes back and saves the group during the shoot out for Clem's sake, which proves that her motivations aren't entirely selfish...just mostly.

[readychilledwine]

we want the juicy details on your sexual awakening

It's not that juicy. It's actually fairly sad, but someone else may be at this point and need to hear it.

Warning - questionable consent, technically a form of sex work, total power exchange, abusive relationships, mental health issues, learning to adapt, and becoming a survivor instead of a victim.

I was a really really good kid and teen. Like I addressed, I got my kicks from fanfiction. I dated once in high school, and it never went further than kissing (which caused my first break up and broken heart). My first "What is happening to my body," came from watching The Mummy, and it wasn't something I could discuss with anyone besides my older brother who did the best he could to try to talk to me about safe sex.

I moved away from my parents in 2014 and went to a college about 4 hours away. Aka- close enough to mom and dad to drive home once every couple months, not close enough for them to randomly show up. I was an art major focusing on art history and visual design, and that required me to take a life drawing class.

Tender 18 year old Liz, a starving college student working two jobs, ended up catching the eye of one of the male models, and we started talking a lot. I found out after a month of him taking me on dates, surprising me with gifts, and him staying up with me when I'd be lonely because I didn't live on campus have friends, that he was married and him and his wife were looking for a girlfriend for him since she had a boyfriend on the side. I don't regret this choice because it shaped who I am today, but I stupidly agreed to go into it without having set my own boundaries and limits.

He had rules for me. Rules I can recite clearly to this day: he dresses me, I do not make financial choices without him, I am to tell him where I was at all times and leave my tracker on, he decides what I eat and when, no drinking, no smoking, and no other partners. If I listened, he would pay my tuition, books, help with rent, etc. At the time, I did not realize that I was entering a total power exchange dynamic, and he knew that.

Those starter rules evolved into more... sex based rules, and after 3 months, I ended up losing my virginity to him after he told me refusing was breaking his rules, and if I broke his rules, my allowance was cut off, and I really needed help with rent, friends. I am not proud of that decision, but that decision was made.

I stayed in this relationship with him hanging financial security and my own naivety over my head for close to 10 months. My dad is a law enforcement officer, and he is the one who noticed the change in my personality and looks.

I had waist length dark brown hair. I came home blonde with my hair cut to my lower neck. I stopped wearing Converse and Vans and started wearing heels and sandles more. I would get really anxious and upset if I wasn't near my phone or could not find it to meet my required check-ins. I cried. Alot. Yelling made me actually panic. My dad made me sit down with a female investigator and answer questions about everything.

When she was done and confirmed to him what was happening, he then proceeded to get my brothers, a uHaul, and my apartment keys and move me back home. He had my phone bill at that point, so he blocked the couple, her boyfriend, and their friends that I had the displeasure of meeting and ensured I never heard from them again.

Cohearsed consent is not consent. The second I started therapy and realized that, I spiraled. The weight of everything set in, and I realized I had been a victim of sexual assault. I began to cope by being hypersexual. Within a year, I'd had sex with close to 30 people trying to reclaim my body and, in turn, endangering myself until I met my ex fiancé.

When I met him, things changed significantly. He was a stepping stone in my healing and helped me find religion and value in myself beyond my body. Ironically, my healing and finding the wrong religion (catholics don't seem to be a fan of spirituality) is what led to our engagement being called off. I was 21 when we stopped seeing each other.

I slowed down at that point signicantly and cut off all sex. I was done with it and decided never again. I could please me better than anyone else could anyways. Then, I met baby daddy, and we started as strictly friends with benefits. He is the safest dom I've ever had, the kindest man I've ever met, and from the bat, he understood me more than I understood me. He saw me for me and cared for me despite the damaged goods.

He triggered the true awakening. We took sex between us slow, exploring things gently, talking about what I wanted to try and keeping track of what I liked, what he liked, and meeting in a happy middle. He indulged my want to explore with other women and just sat and watched. Then, when we felt I was ready, he introduced me to the swinging/bdsm lifestyle, and it helped me process the remaining bits of trauma I had with him beside me every step of the way. He helped shape me sexually into who I needed to be to heal and then who I deserved to be sexually for me.

I don't know at what point FwB turned into us living together and telling each other how much the other means to us almost daily, but now we're here, cuddling on couch, exhausted from taking care of our daughter, and discussing which one of us gets the last chocolate peanut butter overnight oats packet and *whispers* marriage.

Him and Sophia are the happy ending 18 year old Liz thought she was losing when she was desperate to pay rent. He helped me heal, learn who I was in terms of sex, and gave me the safest place to land.

One might say I'm pretty attached to him forever now 🤣

Ps - let me tell ya, missionary isn't boring when it's with someone who thinks you're the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, pregnancy stretch marks, and all. 💕

[askfallenroyalty]

my thoughts on finishing AFR (tumblr version)

Firstly, thank you all so, so so much for reading.

5 years ago, on February 19th, 2018, 2:24 PM I posted the first AFR comic. I drew it thinking it'd be a nice little project for a few months, and then I'd move on. Little did I know it'd become a huge passion project and something that's brought me many, many tears and laughter. It's been a journey making this thing, I can easily say I am hardly the person I am when I first made this. I've learned so much about myself, the world, and what I wanted to say in comics.

AFR didn't become a serious project until I realized Asriel and Chara's story hit home to me and I realized I had something more profound to say than just "heehee silly ut comic where siblings squabble." Now it's become a story about growing up, and the life after the "happy ever after." What does it mean for "everybody to live?" well, you live. You suffer. You cry and laugh and it's everything you want and you fear. You wake up another day.

It's no secret that Chara and Asriel are heavily based on myself. Every OC and every character I can put my grubby little hands on have been influenced by me. Yun's excitement for monsters, Mew Mew's loud declarations of frenzied thought, Hol's quiet, head-in-the-clouds nature... the list goes on. Knowing the characters now, I'm excited for the redraw as I can paint their stories from start-to-finish properly. It pains me more than anything I can't just say "here's a finished product, fully and forever." But one step to getting there was finally finishing the tumblr version. So even if I were to die, or lose my ability to draw, I can say: I told my story. I made it real. It's messy, incomplete, and not at all what I aspire it to be, but it's here. And that means, so, so much to me.

Never again will I be accepting story asks. Never again will we see what crazy thing Asriel and Chara are up to in their journey into adulthood. While the story will continue to develop, it has it's ending.

I've grown, a lot. I started this when I was 21 years old. I've had a on/off relationship, I've learned I'm neurodivergent, I've moved out of my abusive dad's home. I've had so many jobs in that time. I lived through the pandemic (not that it's over) and I've made and lost (out of touch) friends along the way. I am Sam. I drew AFR. I still have so much left to do to make it fully realized but I did it.

And in that time people have offered me grammar and spelling corrections. Advice, suggestions, fanart. You've sent like, I can only imagine to be at least a thousand asks in this amount of time. You guys have been a huge part in this comic being made. Even as the story moves more and more away from the "Ask" part of the title, you guys made it so much more fun, thought provoking, and exciting.

So while my minds a bit scattered and I'm kinda jumbled up, I just want to say with every bit of myself: THANK YOU!!!!!

I understand if many of you don't choose to stick around for the redraw, I'm more than thankful to anyone who's read this far (or heck, just one tumblr post is enough. I feel seen.) and if you so choose to stay, I look forward to sharing a million more little moments with you. ^_^

Thank you and I wish you the very best, have a good life. Peace and love on the planet earth <3

[transgenderteensurvivalguide]

Hey, I'm a trans (FTM) adult who isn't in the financial/mental place to move out from my parents' home. I told my dad I want to start testosterone soon and he was supportive. My mom, on the other hand, is very transphobic and she's not on board whatsoever (she's also extremely stubborn and won't change her mind). Should I start hormones anyway because at least one of my parents is supportive? Or, should I wait until I can move out?

(Side-note: I know my mom wouldn't kick me out if I did start T.)

Lee says:

Your well-being is the most important thing. Your mental health matters more than appeasing your transphobic mom! If starting testosterone is a crucial step for your mental and emotional health, it’s essential to prioritize it. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to start ASAP, but it does means having a plan to start, even if that plan involves moving out.

Having the support of your father is useful-- let him know if you need him to be a buffer between you and your mother, and ask him to stand up for you if she crosses the line from "unsupportive" to "verbally abusive". If he's okay with you starting T, he can help you to present your case with your mother.

Maintaining open, honest, and respectful dialogue is the only thing you can do to try and help your mom understand your choices. Sometimes people surprise you and change-- even if it takes years to happen.

But even if your mom is stubborn and never understands, if you express your feelings, experiences, and needs clearly, and tried to listen to her concerns and fears and address them, at least you'll know that you did all that you can to try and reach out to her and you won't have any regrets about not having tried harder to salvage the relationship.

Sometimes, providing educational resources and answering questions can alleviate some concerns, so if she's willing, having her speak to another cisgender mom who is supportive of their young adult on testosterone can help, and you can try providing her with the meeting times for your local PFLAG chapter or other parent support group.

Remember, this is your journey, and it’s important to make decisions that align with your needs, values, and well-being. The things I may choose to prioritize may not make sense for your current situation. While I would personally lean towards the "fuck around and find out" type of approach to starting T without your mom's support since you are an adult and aren't concerned about losing your housing, that can also backfire if you're living in a place where you don't feel safe.

Even if you think that your mom wouldn’t kick you out, it’s essential to assess all the risks involved thoroughly, including the risk to you emotionally. You have to weigh the positive impact of starting T and feeling more comfortable in your body (which can help with depression) with the potential impact on your mental and emotional health due to possible increased tension or conflict at home (which can make depression worse).

While you're going through this, getting support from a mental health professional or counselor can be literally life-saving, especially if you already struggle with mental illness. A therapist who has a lot of experience with trans clients can provide guidance, support, and resources to help you and your family navigate this journey. They can also facilitate family discussions, and it can be helpful to have them "referee" tough conversations with your mom-- sometimes having a third party witness helps people to reign in their behavior so it don't get too out of hand.

If you're not in the mental place you need to be to move out, therapy (whether it's one-on-one meetings with an individual therapist or an intensive outpatient group program) might also help with getting the stability you need to be ready to live more independently.

Building a support network outside your family can also help give you an outlet when things are rough at home. Connecting with friends, support groups, or organizations that understand and support your journey can help you get through the tough times.

Everyone says "it gets better" for a reason, but sometimes it gets worse before it gets better. It can be hard to start medically transitioning because you might find changes don't happen as quickly as you had hoped, and there's often a point when you're more "visibly trans" but not yet passing 100% of the time which can make you feel even more self-conscious when it comes to things like using a gendered locker room at the local gym when you don't know whether people in either room might complain to the front desk about someone of the "Wrong" gender being in there.

Even though moving out isn’t an immediate option, it can help to think of developing a plan for eventual independence as part of your transition too. Working, saving money, exploring housing options, learning how to "Adult" and get health insurance, etc, are all things that can move you closer to your goal of transitioning, especially if you decide to wait to start T until after you've moved out.

It can really help to break things into tiny steps (like spending a certain amount of time per day job hunting or aiming to save up a target amount) remember that you not only have a goal but also a plan and a path to get there and achieve that goal.

Personally, I would probably chose to start T, but I'm not you. If you've been ruminating on this for a while and still can't decide what to do, making a simple pro/con T-chart can help sometimes. If that doesn't work, and you've talked it over with your dad to get his opinion, and asked your friends, and you're still not sure, then maybe it's time to consult a therapist again-- they can really help with the emotional side of this type of decision-making. But in the end, it's up to you.

Good luck!! I believe in you!!!

Followers, any advice for anon?

[toastofthetrashfire]

Shadow the Series and Hamlet

Okay so after finishing the first half of Shadow there’s so much to unpack. So instead of doing the research I should be doing for my dissertation, let’s dig into some connections between literature and BL once again!

This won’t be a fully formed meta, and I’ll probably have to make a whole other post once the whole series is out. But I wanted to start thinking about how the show is dialoguing with and speaking to similar themes as Hamlet within a queer framework.

I thought I’d work my way through some different interpretations of Hamlet and connect back to Shadow. To be clear, I’m working with scholarship on Hamlet rather than any personal interpretation of Hamlet itself (which I unfortunately haven’t read or watched in many a years).

A quick summary

Hamlet and Shadow via Freud's Oedipal Complex

Hamlet and Shadow via Lee Edelman's work on queerness, the death drive, and queer time

Hamlet and Shadow via self-recognition and resistant readings

A few other directions

Hamlet and the Oedipal Complex

Back in 1897, Freud wrote about Hamlet in a letter to a friend noting that “falling in love with the mother and jealousy of the father…[was] a universal event of early childhood.” So Hamlet was one of the texts that Freud was thinking about when he came up with the Oedipal complex as a concept.

You may be asking, as I often do, who gives a fuck what Freud thought? Well over time, Freudian interpretations of the play highly influenced how it was performed and the ways that themes about subjectivity and sexuality were portrayed.

The 1948 and 1990 film adaptations in particular put stress on a sexually charged dynamic between Hamlet and his mother Gertrude. The later film has Hamlet lying on top of and wrestling with his mother before they kiss. More recent adaptations tend to move away from this, but, overall, it’s been extremely influential in terms of how the play has been interpreted and adapted.

So how does this come up in Shadow? 

Dan’s role as Hamlet is closely framed around his relationship with his father who he beats up in the dream world right before his death. We’re introduced to Dan’s dad during his audition for Hamlet. Perhaps in the most obvious parallel, Dan recites Hamlet’s lines as he goes to find his father’s ghost. And of course, this is when Dan’s dad appears as a ghost as well.

Yet, Dan’s narrative with his father seems to buck the expected relationship between father and son. Throughout the play, Hamlet struggles between a desire to fulfill his filial duty and avenge his father and the increasing violence and tragedy this brings. But Dan? In the face of abuse, he chooses to defiantly reject his father and filial piety, accepting and even wishing for his death. In many ways, Dan’s dad is more analogous to Claudius, the usurper and man trying to kill Hamlet. Through his abuse he loses the right to be Dan’s father. 

A shallow oedipal reading of Hamlet, frames Claudius as the father Hamlet is trying to kill, but ignores that this dynamic is born from Claudius’ cruelty. By acknowledging abuse, power, and violence Shadow perhaps takes an interesting step away from a pure Freudian reading. Because ultimately Dan doesn’t want to be his father! In fact, as he speaks with him and beats him up, we can see the way Dan is shaken, not by the act of harming or killing his father, but by the idea of becoming him. His father makes clear that “becoming him” is aligned with ideas about what it means to be a man, to be “the father” within a straight patriarchal society. And in a beautiful moment of clarity and defiance as they discuss what love looks like, Dan clarifies that his mom left his father not him. 

Okay so he "kills" his dad, what about his mom?

To be honest, when I was wrapping up my watch of the episodes, my head went towards the oedipal theory as a crack theory. What if the ghost is his mom, that’d be pretty effed up lol...But now that I’ve seen that the connection isn’t just one I made, it doesn’t seem as far fetched. The scenes between Hamlet and Gertrude in the 1990s film certainly could be an influence on the shadow getting sexual if they went that route. But to be honest I don’t really think they’ll go this way. Or at least I hope not. They’re already doing more nuanced things with the oedipal dynamic. Plus I think there’s more going on if we turn to queerer interpretations anyway.

The Death Drive, Queering Freud, and Queer Time

In Freud’s work, he talked about two opposing forces. The first was the death drive (later termed Thanatos by later psychoanalysts). This was a drive toward destruction that stood opposite to eros or life-producing drives such as sex, survival, and reproduction. 

Now, in 2004, queer theorist Lee Edelman would come in and queer the heck out of these concepts. I’ll be over simplifying Edelman’s points a lot here, but hopefully the core will remain. 

Edelman would point out that the life-drive was often weaponized rhetorically, politically, and socially as a way to reproduce cultural norms. Edelman often writes about "the Child"--that is the mythical idea of a child that we should be building society and the future for. Think of how often the “think of the children” rhetoric gets used in anti-queer politics, for example. In fact, Edelman points to oedipal readings of Hamlet as one way that dominant straight society has attempted to manage a narrative where reproduction and futurity are foreclosed. Oedipal readings of Hamlet, then, could be seen as an attempt to suppress the death drive, to put it out of sight where it can’t cause disruption or anxiety.

Of course, Edelman also notes that the death drive is inherently tied to and projected onto queerness and queer people–onto “those abjected as non-reproductive, anti-social, opposed to viability, and so as threats to the Child who assures and embodies collective survival”. And so, Edelman argues that queer people should embrace the death drive and queer time–that is non-futurity and non-linear, non-productive time. 

So how might these ideas be showing up in Shadow so far?

I might think of even more later, but here’s a short list:

1. All three of our main characters are abjected. Nai is gay, Trin is gay and mentally ill, and Dan is potentially both. I think we could argue that the connection all three of them have to death also quite literally marks them as abjected. And perhaps we could consider how the supernatural elements thematically and symbolically connect to their alterity and the way this is in conflict with social norms. In fact, I’d argue that, unlike Nai and Trin who are explicitly stated to be queer and/or mentally ill, Dan’s alterity is playing out through this more allegorical channel so far. 

2. Literal death as a central focus. 

3. Haunting as a limbo between past and present. This liminality feels very queer here.

4. The idea of vengeful ghosts makes the death drive perpetually present in a way that haunts futurity. Interestingly Edelman describes the death drive as a “negativity that haunts the social order” and which is “projected onto those who occupy the position of the queer.” Haunting has very queer thematic possibilities. 

5. Think of the ghost story told in the market in episode seven. The homophobia on display clearly ties queerness to death in a way that speaks to straight norms and anxieties. 

6. Dan is told by the monk that what is happening has to do with overlapping time frames: past, present, and future

7. Dan often loses his sense of what is real or a dream, but he also has moments where he loses his sense of time and temporality. Notice how when the art statue fell and he saw his classmates dead we jump back to before he even spoke with Nai. It’s not just losing time but jumping back and forth. 

8. Sexy times with a shadow monster are certainly non-(re)productive 

9. We learn that Trin has been trying to change things, disrupt the social norms, but he is shut down and told the school needs to hold onto tradition. While we often think of tradition as referring to the past, it is very much about continuing and reproducing this into the future. School director: "But think of the future Children who won’t get to experience the epic highs and lows of high school hazing”

10. There seems to be a tension at play between Brother Anurak who is trying to get Dan to just stop believing in the shadow (not sure if that's his actual motive but still) and Dan who is slowly starting to embrace the shadow (literally and figuratively). Perhaps this could be read as embracing the death drive and queerness. 

Hamlet, Self-Recognition, and Resistant Reading

Another theme that has often been explored by folks interested in Hamlet is that of self-recognition. The play focuses so very much on Hamlet struggling with his sense of self. And this speaks well to contemporary western ideas of the individual. One scholar, Marjorie Garbor, has noted that “the experience of Hamlet is almost always that of recognition.” While another, John Gouws remarks that Hamlet and Shakespeare’s sonnets both “seem capable of functioning like Rorschach inkblots, by making us reveal (increasingly) more about ourselves the more we try saying something about them.”

It’s interesting to me then that Hamlet and Rorschach tests are both used in Shadow, but they don’t seem to say all that much about Dan. The blot is simply a tool to test if Dan is still seeing the shadow. It isn’t used to psychoanalyze him further. And when Cha-aim asks Dan to compare himself to Hamlet he hilariously just says both their dads are dead. Of course we know that Hamlet’s dad and Dan’s aren’t exactly analogous either. Dan rejects this sort of self-identification. Or perhaps, the play rejects him? At the very least we know that he can’t perform the type of filial love that Hamlet has for his own father.

But perhaps this rejection has queer implications as well. There’s a really lovely article from the perspective of a queer South African director, Thys Heydenrych. He talks about reading and staging Hamlet through a queer and decolonial lens. In his piece he quotes Hanna Kubowitz who discusses queer readers' relationship with texts. She notes that “[b]eing heterosexual has several benefits…One can enter into most cultural narratives…on the basis of simple and satisfying identification.” This of course made me think of the moment when Cha-aim asks Dan to identify with Hamlet.

Whether we read this as an active refusal on Dan’s part or as the play being inhospitable to Dan’s identification, Cha-aim is asking Dan to express and perform identity here. Perhaps this could be read as her asking Dan to narratively self-identify with straight culture and values. It makes sense in the context of her having feelings for him and ties well into the scene where she tries to pick his costume. While Dan isn’t yet identifying as queer, he seems to be dis-identifying from straightness just as he dis-identifies from his father’s version of manhood. 

Still, motifs of self-recognition or the struggle to understand oneself seem to abound. The use of mirrors in episodes 6 and 7 speak to this theme well with the blurring of self and other, while also tying into both horror motifs and the Greek mythology being referenced (Orpheus and Eurydice, narcissus perhaps). Is the shadow a part of him?   

What I’ll be curious to see is how the show chooses to engage with this theme. Will Hamlet continue to serve as a narrative that is inhospitable to identification or will it be queered. There’s a tradition of scholarship that thinks about resistant reading. This is when a reader engages with a text that wasn’t designed with them in mind, but finds potential despite this. Certainly Shakespeare’s work and Hamlet in particular have been interpreted as queer at times, and Hamlet is definitely open to these readings.

When it comes to Shadow, however, I’m interested in what one scholar, Lois Tyson, has asked about resistant reading: “How might the works of heterosexual writers be reread to reveal an unspoken or unconscious lesbian, gay, or queer presence?” This idea of a hidden queer presence speaks well to the idea of haunting. I’m really interested to see how the use of Hamlet as a narrative might speak to the idea of queerness as hidden presence and whether this continues to play out in the second half.  

A few other connections that I want to wait to think on more:

-Madness seems to be a shared theme but I want to see how Shadow handles this as a whole before commenting, but you can check out my post on queer and crip time in The Eighth Sense if you're interested in that element at all

-Power and oppression. Heydenrych’s article mentions a 2010 production that focuses on Denmark’s repressive political system and themes of surveillance, control, and abuse of power. These seem like themes working their way into Shadow but I’d want to be more familiar with the topic in Hamlet

-Suicide. There are versions of Hamlet that heighten this theme further with Gertrude and Ophelia in particular being framed as making attempts. 

-Play within a play and the blurring of fiction and reality

-Decolonial and religious elements

Sources:

Heydenrych, Thys. “‘To tell our Storie’: Reflections on a Queer Adaptation of Hamlet in Twenty-first Century South Africa” Shakespeare in Southern Africa vol 30, 2017. pp. 43-55

Edelman, Lee. “Against Survival: Queerness in a Time That’s Out of Joint” Shakespeare Quarterly, 62.2, 2011. pp. 148-169.

Edelman, Lee. No Future: Queer Theory and The Death Drive. Duke University Press, 2004.

Note: Most other sources were mentioned in the Heydenrych piece

[motions1ckness]

hi, I’m not sure if you’re taking requests atm but could you please write something angsty with shiv? maybe an argument or a secret relationship exposed or something. Your writing for Roman is amazing btw 💕

^thank you so much! and ty for the request it got me out of my slump (literally thought i was gonna have to take a few more days)

“Loving you is painful enough.”

Summary: A leaked photo of you and Shiv comes out and you’ve had enough of being her secret.

Content: f!reader, secret relationship, so angsty, implied abuse, homophobia, (possible) internalized homophobia, suppressing emotions, cheating, suppressed sexuality, unrequited(?) love, neglecting partner, a crumb of fluff

(there’s sm references to songs and shows i love in this i wonder if anyone will catch a few)

You squeezed Shiv’s hand standing in front of the doors. She smiled back before dropping your hand and detaching from you. This had been going on for months, and her withdrawals consistently added salt to the wound.

Shiv asked you to be her assistant, which helped reduce suspicion. Tom appreciated you. He would always joke that you were her work wife and thanked you for making Shiv less stressed. As the night continued, you two reunited. Roman joined, snickering with his phone in hand.

“What the fuck is this all about?” He showed you two a photo of you walking around New York, hands intertwined and leaning on each other. Fuck.

Assistant or not, it looked like more than a platonic relationship. You felt your face turn red as your heart began racing. You waited for Shiv’s response, she seemed baffled, hesitant to speak.

“Rome are you kidding? Y/n and I aren’t sneaking around, Jesus.” She scoffed. She turned to you, waiting for you to back her.

You felt a lump in your throat as your mouth went dry. “We’re not together, no. Not dating.” You say with a compelling enough smile as you look down at your feet. You didn’t lie. You two weren’t dating.

You loved Shiv, you did. But she’s never expressed it back. The first time you said it was after she spent the night and she made you coffee. She looked so effortlessly pretty. Her hair was naturally wavy, no makeup, and she wore one of your shirts. You blurted out that you loved her, and after a few moments, she gave you a brief smile and began checking her emails.

“It looks like you two are fucking. Dad’s gonna lose his shit when he sees this.” He teases and wanders off.

“Why did you-” She didn’t let you finish. She caught your wrist and tugged you to the terrace with just enough privacy. It was risky being seen alone together but standing in that room would’ve been more harmful.

“Y/n, I know how this looks. I know,” she reassured. You could tell she was attempting to retain herself.

“No Shiv what the fuck was that?” Your voice grew, “You’re like a different person. It’s so- why am I just a secret to you?”

Shiv looked at you with a pained expression, “You know why. Fuck sake, I can’t keep defending myself to you.” She was trying to keep her voice steady.

You did know why. Not just Tom or the fact she was having an affair with her assistant, she would have to come out. Shiv never saw orientation as something significant. None of her siblings dared to talk regarding that. When it got out that Roman was hooking up with his trainer, he never heard the end of it from Logan. Shiv feared her coming out would cause her to seem more weak.

“I just want you to love me, Shiv. I just want to be with you. God, can't you fucking see that? I gave up my job to work for you. I fucking love you and you can’t even stomach saying it back.” Your voice started breaking. You began crying during your rant too.

Shiv stepped back, unable to give you the support you needed. She simply looked at you, her eyes full of sorrow. “I care about you y/n, I do,” you scoffed as you began pacing. She couldn’t say it. “But you’re asking me drop everything for this.” She raised her voice as she began stepping toward you. Grabbing your wrist to stop your pacing.

You paused and met her eyes. She had tears streaming down her face. This was breaking her too. Shiv held onto you tightly.

“It isn’t enough.” You answered truthfully, tearing away from her. “This is exhausting, Shiv. Loving you is exhausting.” Her face sank, and you felt the tears getting more heavy. “I just can't. I-I can’t keep doing this. Not if you can’t actually admit you love me.”

The air grew thicker. Neither of you knew what to say. She remembered Tom saying something similar to her before. She never anticipated going through that again.

“I’m sorry y/n. I’m sorry that I’m not fucking perfect.” She sniffled, flinging her arms out. “But some of us aren’t equipped with fucking support to fall back on. Did you remember all the shit Roman had to deal with?” She crossed her arms to hold herself, “I can’t. I fucking can’t.” She started crying harder, just embracing herself.

Her hair was now messy, her makeup smudged and she got tear stains onto your dress. She merely looked at you, unable to speak from shame and various other emotions. You held her face before wiping her tears and fixing her hair and makeup. Shiv scarcely smiled at your gentleness and remorse for her. She didn't understand how you could still help her after this.

“Y/n I do l-” you cut her off her another hug. You knew what she was trying to say, but you didn’t want her to feel obligated.

“Convince yourself first.” you voiced softly into her hair. You did believe she loved you. Every morning she got you coffee from the spot she wasn’t fond of but knew you liked it. She changed all the soaps in her house to pumpkin because she knows you love that scent. On work days, she quit using heat on her hair because you always tell her you love how it looks natural. You knew she loved you. But she needed to accept that she did first.

She pulled away, remaining silent. She examined you before barely laughing. You couldn’t help but do the same.

Shiv leaned forward, giving you a short kiss. She wanted to convey her love. But she remained aware of her circumstance.

Before returning to the party, she squeezed your hand. “I’m telling Tom it’s over tonight.”

[hunter-sylvester]

I know you do character analysis, would you be alright elaborating about Hunter and his relationship with his parents? Everyone says he has mommy issues, but it looks like it could be a mixture of daddy issues as well.

I would fucking love to, Anon.

(Ao3 Character Analysis Series about Hunter)

I do think it’s very clear that he has mommy issues. From the small handful of references there are to her, it’s obvious. While he has clear on-screen issues with his father, he still keeps a picture of him and his dad on his bookshelf. His mother- however, is violently ripped from it. Something that can easily be read as a visual metaphor for how he feels about her absence from his life. Although I personally tend to write her as having been directly abusive which creates a slightly different whirlwind of issues, in either case she abandoned him. And we clearly see him display a fear of abandonment around Kevin. There’s a clear cause and effect there.

But I entirely agree that he also has daddy issues. It’s a noxious cocktail of neither parent being someone that understands him or knows how to make him feel at home. And it’s precisely that cocktail of issues that makes Hunter make so much sense to me as a character.

It’s not exactly my style to give fathers a lot of sympathy, but even without doing so, it's easy to see that everything Alan Sylvester does in canon shows he just has no idea what to do with Hunter. (Most notably when he literally gives up on parenting him in favor of dumping him in rehab).

He completely fumbles any weak attempts he does make at connecting with/parenting him and they all end in screaming matches.

“Sorry you’re just a little late with the whole ‘parenting’ thing” (when I tell you I feel that line)

Growing up with a parent (partially more, since his mother was around until 7th grade) present without anyone actually bothering to parent you, you end up growing crooked.

Can’t go any other way. Even if his parents were never mentioned, we’d know they were shitty parents based purely on Hunter’s issues.

In my mind, they’re both obviously neglectful. Evident both from the aforementioned quote as well as just the way that Hunter acts.

Each in their respective ways. His mother by literally removing herself from his life. His father by neglecting him emotionally, not hugging him, etc. (I'm assuming he never hugs Hunter based on the deeply awkward shoulder tap during the last scene of the film.) Also, this is a bit of a stretch based on vibes alone. But can you picture Alan cooking for Hunter? Can you picture them having dinner together? I can’t. It’s a bit of a headcanon but I personally believe Hunter has been making his own food for years. (note: this does not necessarily imply that he is a good cook)

Let’s also not forget that Hunter is just a seventeen year old boy. He is still a child (in canon). And a fucking troubled one at that.

One that likely grew up with nobody telling him it was ok to be him. No-one telling him he belonged. No-one showing him how to healthily handle his emotions. (This is one I blame heavily on the father.)

He had to figure everything out for himself. Reinvent the wheel at every step. Of course he’s gonna fuck up along the way. He’s just a kid.

Of course he freaks out when he thinks he’s losing Kevin, he’s already been shown that he can be discarded- and by one of the primary people that are supposed to be there for him.

Of course he’s a bit of a bitch about alcohol when he watches his father drink all the time and he would probably rather die than turn out like him.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Alan also contributed to Hunter’s inability to accept his sexuality. At the very lightest he’d be homophobic in that casual way dads are. The “I don’t care what they do behind closed doors” followed by the most homophobic ‘joke’ you can think of twenty minutes, if not seconds, later. But I wouldn't rule out more blatant queerphobia.

In any case, it’s a clear & constant signal that being queer is not something that’s acceptable for a Sylvester. And as much as Hunter fights his father, as much as I think he dreads being like him, he’s the only parent he has left at this point.

He still wants to be loved. He’s a kid. He needs a loving parent. Even if he, realistically, doesn’t really have one that’s worth appeasing.

Consciously, he’ll rebel. Subconsciously, he still looks up at his father and wants to be told he did well. He wants someone to be proud of him, he wants to be enough.

Call me a pessimist but I think at this point, even if Alan tried, the relationship is so laden with barbed wire that nothing is possibly getting through.

Anything would be too little & too fucking late.

Sorry that got a little fucking bleak...it's me, it's what happens lol Thank you for asking, Anon 🤘

[citylawns]

you really need to step away from your mother otherwise everything in your days will always be about her

sending you the strength to do that

thank you and you're right

I've been debating it and trying for 4 years now and I've been compelled by loyalty, guilt, worry about her safety (she's an alcoholic, threatened suicide to me when I was a kid and teenager, she got in an accident and hurt herself quite badly when drunk this year) and I always took emotional care of her ever since I was a toddler so it's incredibly hard for me to stop doing that, along with the fact she knows when she's pushed me too far and will say the absolute loveliest kindest things and make me laugh and make me feel safe and forget all the horrible things. it's emotional whiplash. you can know things are wrong but not be able to think clearly in the moment after 26 years of abuse.

I'm seeing her, my schizophrenic and personality disordered Nan and the aunt I haven't seen or spoken to in 10 years on Wednesday and I'm going to use that day to draw a line in the sand regardless of the consequences. I've been talking to friends who have cut their mothers out. And I know cutting out my mum I have to be prepared to lose the relationships I have with other family members. I have my boyfriend and my dad and my friends and hopefully my cousin and the auntie I'm close to (not the one I haven't seen for a decade).

I have been told I'm selfish and cruel my whole life, so I'm trying to embrace accepting those family members (who I love) seeing me that way and choosing myself instead of trying to convince them otherwise. it's crippling my health and my life :')

[advocatingpeanut]

My mom and I have been binge watching Lost this summer and we're rushing through the last season before I go back to school.

Is it just me or does EVERY main character have such tragic backstories?

Jack: Drunk dad he had no closure with until Sawyer finally said something. A mother who defended said father. And a wife who left him. Not to mention he has a step-sister he doesn't even know about until later in the show.

Kate: Kills her stepfather for being abusive, learns her dad isn't actually her biological father, gets harassed by police, has a series of toxic relationships.

Sawyer: Is traumatized as a child and orphaned. When he seeks revenge, he kills the wrong man, and as such, feels guilty for it. Has a series of toxic relationships.

Hurley: Is in a mental institution, learns he has hallucinations and thinks himself crazy, is self-conscious about his weight and binge eats, has an absent father who suddenly shows up when Hurley wins the lottery, has bad luck because of the numbers.

Sayid: Is forced to torture people at a young and impressionable age, loses his first love and searches for her to no avail and in doing so is blackmailed by the FBI into convincing his college roommate into becoming a suicide bomber, watches said friend kill himself

Locke: Was born premature and very sick as a baby, his teenage mother didn't want him and his grandmother didn't give it a second thought when giving him up for adoption, is told he isn't special, is told throughout his life what he can't do, Anthony Cooper blackmails him into giving up one of his kidneys and then tries to kill him, his one romantic relationship ends as a result of Anthony Cooper's involvement, is paralyzed for four years

Claire: Has a tense relationship with both her mother and her aunt, her baby's father gets her hopes up then leaves her, has a psychic give her all sorts of conflicting information, feels guilty for considering giving her baby up for adoption, survives a plane crash while heavily pregnant

Charlie: Tries to help his brother get clean, tries to keep himself on the straight and narrow and in doing so becomes an addict himself, watches his brother get better as he gets worse, his band fails to sustain its success

Jin: Grows up poor and is harassed for being part of a lower class, falls in love with a woman in a higher class and is forced to do her father's dirty work to marry her, becomes aggressive and withdrawn until well after the plane crashes

Sun: Forced to be under her father's rule and falls in love with a man in a lower class, is blackmailed for a large sum of money by Jin's mother - a prostitute, has an affair with a man who loves someone else and feels guilty for it

Ben: His mother dies shortly after childbirth and his father becomes a drunk and blames him for it, is groomed from a young age by the Hostiles and gives the go-ahead for them to kill the Dharma Initiative, becomes their leader and must be ruthless.

Juliet: Is a divorcee, her ex-husband is her boss and flaunts his sexual escapades in front of her, her sister has cancer and Juliet cannot watch her be cured nor see her nephew grow up save for a glimpse of a black and white recording that lasted a few seconds, Ben controls her and does not let her leave the island.

Michael: Him and his girlfriend have a son, whom Michael loves very much and is committed to taking care of. Said girlfriend takes a job in another country and only tells Michael after she has accepted the offer. In the same conversation, breaks up with him and informs she will be romantically involved with her new boss and they will raise Walt. When Michael tries to travel to see Walt, he is injured and cannot leave. His ex-girlfriend visits, says she is marrying her boss, wants Michael to give up parental rights. A long, drawn-out custody battle ensues, Michael is eventually convinced by ex to sign away rights so her new husband can adopt him. Says goodbye to son that doesn't even remember him. Writes letters and draws pictures over the course of several years that his mother keeps from him. When Walt is 9 or so, his adoptive father comes to see Michael, tells him ex died, he never wanted to be a dad in the first place and only adopted Walt to appease ex. Gives custody to Michael. He tries to raise his son that doesn't even know him and amazingly after all that, doesn't paint ex or adoptive dad to be bad guys and doesn't turn Walt against them.

Desmond: Tries to find his purpose, gets fired from being a monk. His girlfriend's dad constantly undermines him, tells it to his face, actively tries to keep his daughter away from him. Goes on an around the world trip her dad is hosting to prove to him his worth and gets stuck on the island for four years. His one companion he accidentally kills and his life becomes pushing the button every 108 minutes.

Rose: Has cancer, falls in love with Bernard and he takes her to healers. Nothing works. She believes she is dying.

Boone: Is in love with his step-sister and is constantly manipulated and played by her and her many romantic interests.

Shannon: Is smart but plays the dumb, helpless, pretty blonde role. Manipulated her step-brother for money but probably feels guilty for it, especially when she has a moment of clarity about what type of situation she's in and wants to get out. Is accepted into a prestigious program all of her own hard work and asks her step-mother for money to attend it. Her step-mother says she is the sole beneficiary of her father's money, disowns Shannon and keeps said money.

Ana-Lucia: Is constantly trying to impress her mother, is shot while pregnant and loses the baby. When she tries to return to work before she is ready, she gets an earful from her mother for it. Kills the man that shot her, taking revenge and justice in her own hands and not the law's. Gets reprimanded for it. Is hired as a bodyguard for Jack and Claire's dad and is constantly confused about what they're doing. Shares a drink with Jack and is flirtatious. It never goes past that.