#it’s like my brain is say k to a long text right now

[searenbound]

It’s been a while since I sent an ask but I wanted to share these hcs;

Shinso’s biological father being an Eastern European immigrant

Bakugou being aspec abrosexual as in he is in a perpetual state of moving on the asexual spectrum

Kaminari was nefed in power and intelligence so in my head he’s the top student in literature but because he’s failing math, just barely passing science, and all his other subjects he’s a C student

I also think he uses big words in casual conversation and his quirk’s drawback is from a mental block he developed after a traumatic experience with his quirk

Kirishima gains weight to improve his quirk but loses weight after losing it so his weight fluctuates but is still chonky boi that gives good hugs and has big muscles

Jirou went deaf as a child but she uses her jacks as built in hearing aids

Ochako has been volunteering at soup kitchens since she was a little kid and is close to her dad, who experienced homelessness as a teenager

Mina has five brothers and two sisters, lives with her grandmother and single mom aunt who has a toddler her family has been raising all together

Todoroki had bpd before PTSD but they weren’t diagnosed until after the war and the additional trauma caused him to try something drastic but thankfully it actually helped the family get their shit together

Momo lives alone with the butler as her parents are never around and her sister attends/attended military school but she helps momo realize she is being neglected and deserves to decide if she wants to stay involved with their family or take her offer to live together as roommates until one of them moves out

Mitsuki becomes gentler with her son after the war to the point of not wanting him to continue being a hero because she doesn’t want to have to bury her only son

Sero is canonically neighbors with the Yaoyorozus but he has a healthier relationship with his family in that they’re trying their best and he has younger siblings

Tsu doesn’t talk much because she doesn’t want to have to explain her croaks are involuntary because of her tourette’s not her quirk and it’s difficult for her to get people to take her seriously. This also why Bakugo is less rude to her along with her personality of only talking when it’s relevant to the situation or sarcastic comments that he finds funny

He also doesn’t like Izuku’s muttering because 1) he’s worried that he’s plotting something 2) he doesn’t like not being able to hear people in general because it reminds him that his hearing deteriorating. He’s fine with rambling as long as it’s relevant to the situation and he can hear the person speaking

I don’t know if I have anything to add really, I think I agree with pretty much everything you said because it all sounds really interesting

[xinganhao]

🎸 vernon dates rockstar!reader.

anon → "vernon x rockstar!reader who’s a foreigner in an international rock band" ➤ see also: series masterlist

⌗ ┆ anon are u kidding meee. vernon dating a rockstar?!?! my bread & butter (｡･`ω´･)ﾉ hope this is to your liking!

‧₊˚✩彡 includes: international rockstar!reader, f!reader, long distance relationship, established relationship, pet names, fluff, can be read not in order + headcanons under the cut.

🎸 headcanons .ᐟ

— prologue.

vernon was never really a big believer in long-distance relationships. or relationships in general, if he's being honest. they take a lot of work, a lot of energy, a lot of effort. his life is already hectic as it is. why rope somebody in to the life of dating an idol? why be with someone if he can't give them his 100%?

it makes sense, then, that when vernon does find someone, it's someone who runs similar circles. someone who knows what it's like to constantly be on the road, to be in the public eye more often than not.

vernon has been a casual listener of your band for a while now. it's the type of sound that fits right in to his playlists. and, okay, fine. he thinks you're attractive. sue him. but he swears he's there for the music— most of the time. there is a part of him that's there for the performance videos of you shredding your guitar, or the ones where you're screaming in to the microphone.

alright. vernon concedes: he may have a little crush on you.

so you can imagine vernon's surprise when he finds out the two of you are in the same line-up for some american music festival. it's a rare thing, for vernon to ask his managers for anything specific, but he absolutely cannot pass this chance up. he tries to be discreet about it, too. "i really like this band," he sheepishly admits to his manager. "do you think— i don't know, i could just say 'hi' to them or something?"

that's how you and vernon meet. on the sidelines of a music festival, where he's so cool about the whole thing. he's more on the soft-spoken side as he tells you that he thinks you're a great performer and that he can't wait to see you live. you'll think he's cute, and you'll thank him for going out of his way tell you personally.

you'll take a photo together. he'll give you a signed copy of the group's latest album, and you promise to give it a listen. (prior to vernon, you might have not really known too much about k-pop. that's something the two of you briefly discuss— the differences in your industries.) but, as he starts to bid goodbye, you can't resist.

"tell me," you say, small smile in place. "how would a k-pop idol react to having a rockstar slide in to their dm's?"

vernon's brain short-circuits. your words steal every single thought out of his head, and he's reminded, yet again, of small cultural differences. how much more forward americans can be when they want to. he's about to respond when his manager clears their throat, and vernon remembers his place. he flounders through some lame response.

you apologize for putting vernon on the spot, feeling a bit bad yourself. you hadn't wanted to get him in trouble. there's a little more chit-chat, and then— "quick," vernon breathes while his manager's distracted with a phone call. "got a pen on you?"

he scribbles his phone number on the corner of the album he'd just given you. "dm's don't always work for idols. but this might," vernon will say with a smirk that's not quite a smirk, and oh. you know this is going to be fun.

it takes a while for vernon and you to agree that a relationship is something you want to attempt. it will happen after months of back-and-forth via text, months of 'will they? won't they?' flirtations. it's going to be long distance in more ways than one. there's thousands of kilometers between you, a thirteen hour time difference, opposite ends of the entertainment industry.

you two agree to give it a shot anyway, because what's there to lose? no hard feelings if it doesn't work out. that's your constant refrain. you'll try. you'll do your best. and if things fall apart— well, that's just how it is.

— the texts.

except vernon finds it increasingly difficult, as times go on, to imagine a life without you. it's hard to do long distance. of course it's hard. he just thought it'd be harder, but surprisingly, it isn't.

'catch ya when i can' becomes something exchanged as often as 'i love you'. the windows of time wherein the two of you can actually talk— especially when you're both busy— are small, and so it's a bit of a game. vernon races against his busy schedule to 'catch' you, and it always feels like the biggest win in the world. even if it's just a couple of minutes where the two of you are both online, where the texts don't have hours in between each of them? he'll take 'em.

facetime can be a bit of a luxury but it's something the two of you try to do at least thrice a week. a lot of it is quiet snapshots of your daily lives. vernon eats dinner as you go through your morning routine. you get ready for bed as he tells you his plans for the day. it's the epitome of long-distance, how he says 'good morning' and you respond with 'good night.'

there's the fact that it's secret, too. no one can know that the two of you are dating. occasionally, you're linked to other people in the business. it's a grace that vernon is so secure in your relationship that he doesn't really mind. he trusts you, after all, and sees no need to blow things out of proportion. every so often, he'll feel a twinge of envy. but he knows that it's him that you'll text at the end of every day, so it's okay. that makes it okay.

that's why vernon compensates as best as he can. there's a lot of red-eye flights, from incheon to jfk and vice versa. it's easier for you to be the one to come visit him, since your fans don't keep track of you the same way that k-pop fans do. when vernon does make the flights abroad, though, he's always careful to cover up his tracks. to come up with some story of spending time abroad to visit family, to work on 'projects' he never publicly reveals.

vernon goes to your shows when he can. mostly, he watches from side stage so he's away from the view of the public. he likes it that way, really— likes being the person you make a beeline for once you've taken your in-ears out. he'll laugh as you bear hug him. he'll keep an arm around your shoulders as he assures you that you did well. "you were so hot up there," he'll tease you. "how am i supposed to function now, huh?"

a cute little thing that vernon and you establish about midway in to your relationship is a 'couple' instagram account, except it's private and it's just for the two of you to see. @11203km (referencing the distance between you two) is a way for you to dump your thoughts/every day lives without flooding your text thread. when it's 🎸 posting, then maybe it's a carousel of your latest practice sessions or snaps of your recent attempts at cooking. when it's 🐻‍❄️'s posts, it's likely vernon's tiktok outtakes or his misadventures with the rest of the boys.

vernon had always thought that being in a relationship entailed giving your 100% all of the time. being with you has taught him otherwise. if some days, all he can give is 40%, then he can count on you to put in the rest of the 60%. the same goes for you: if you have weeks where all you can put in is 30%, then he'll step up with 70%. any relationship is work, but if it's you, then vernon is convinced that it isn't hard work. not at all.

— extra!

chwebacca 🤟 think i can join ur band now? ㅋㅋㅋ

📷 fansite photos from @Flechazo_0218.

[miscretis]

Discord Mod!Ronin x Discord Kitten!Reader (G.n) [PART 1 OF A CRACK FIC TAKEN SERIOUSLY]

CG art by: munstxr

WRITER'S NOTE

This used to be satire but I quickly took it quite seriously which was hilarious. Yes I still find this quite funny to write.

CW:

- Cringe

- Possibly dull writing (I'm still new and I'm tired)

- Coarse Language

❣️

“So, what would'ja do now? Taste the feeling of metallic death by my crowbar? Or ya gonna kiss me? Or are you gonna kill me? I got a knife right here! ” He lets out a dark chuckle as he closes up the gap between the both of you, pinning you to the wall. Now, how did you two end up in the dark alleyways of the Purgatory? Or rather, how did you even end up in this situation?

It all started with a text, a passcode and a link.

ERROR!UNKNOWN: don't be so obvious smh. You're Gonna Get Caught.

ERROR!UNKNOWN sent you a file.exe

ERROR!UNKNOWN: ReceivedKey: k!llrch8t_b00t.mango

here Ya go there's your Key Whenever you're Ready.

What the fuck? What is this?

All you were trying to do was to collect research for your dark romance serial killer novel and now you're being sent a strange link? (Especially after tweeting a question about killing experience with a crowbar.)

It seemed like a link to a Walmart version of discord but on the darkweb. You were wary at first, thinking about how your IP could've been doxxed if you ever clicked on the link. However you felt pressured to click on it when a notification sounded from your PC.

ERROR!UNKNOWN: are You gonna Join? you're no Fun at all.

Whoever this person was, he seemed like he wanted to mess around. Well, fine, you'll give him entertainment then.

You then clicked on the link.

You were led to a shady site with a blank for keying in the passcode. You remember the person giving you the passcode but it was long and complicated so you couldn't really memorise it properly.

Uh….maybe I'll just try keying in ‘password’?

ERROR! Wrong passcode. 2 more tries and your IP address will be revealed.

Well, shit.

You continued to rack your brain around for any possible passwords for this situation. You tried different passwords until a message showed up…

ERROR! Wrong password! Your IP address will be revealed in 3 seconds!

…

Just kidding, come on inside.

You entered a chatroom named “The Slaughterhouse.” with the exact same interface as discord. The channels, layout and everything.

<goreboy> welcome the Newly Christened @user

<hitmeuppp> AAA omg omg!! welcome to helllllll

<LUCA_IS_SO_COOL> WELCOME WELCOME HIIIIIII

<felicite> Nice to meet you!

<Angelic> Hi there! Glad to have another one with us ❤️

<goreboy> make Sure to take a Peek at #rules

there is Barely Anything but You Never Know

…

It's a serial killer chatroom. This has to be satire…right?

Oh god

You checked the rules.

<goreboy> Be a serial killer. first rule of Fight Club. Whatever i don't really give a shit lmfao. Oh and be nice don't be racist or transphobic or weird else angel will snipe u :\

<Angelic> it's not a threat it's a promise

Maybe this is just an intense roleplaying server

This must be it. These people are weirdos, not serial killers.

…

Maybe I’ll just play along…for now..

A day or two went by and they were still into the intense roleplay. It was weird in all honesty. Being in a server full of probably edgy teenagers talking about killing people seems to be the last time on your checklist of things to do. Least to say, it was fun and entertaining to watch. Watching them say the cringiest of things, it sure really gave you a good laugh. However soon after, you were getting bored and tired of watching by the sidelines for weeks despite the roleplay being a perfect source of research for your novel.

But a roleplay is just a roleplay…isn't it?

So, you decided to mess around to cure your boredom. Just a little more fun wouldn't hurt.

You lean back against your chair, pondering what you should do. Suddenly your thoughts drifted off to discord memes that your friends have been sending to you, then it clicked.

A discord kitten

You're not sure if you should do it, being a discord kitten is dangerous work and surely isn't a smart thing to do, especially in a server probably full of serial killers…

But yet again, they're just edgy teenagers that were very niche in intense roleplay, it would be fun to mess with them…but do you?

…

Fine, I'll play it this way then.

First of all, you need to find your discord mod to your discord kitten and you immediately chose the top dog, the alpha of the server, goreboy. Ronin…isn't it?

Oh god, I can't believe that I'm losing my dignity for this.

But what route could this open? A dangerous and gloomy path, or a sweet flowery romance?

At this point, you don't really care about that anymore. You just wanted to tell a good story.

[raffe156]

Oh good because I just wanted to make sure!!

so going back to my thought - do you think Tank would send Price nudes? “Tame” ones an not so tame one? 👀 like let’s say they are on different missions (Which is very rare they are a package deal - an Gaz comes free with their purchase) an he’s lonely? He gets a text sent from tank an its of her naked in his hat?? Or a tame one of her just with his cigar in her mouth? (That gets him going) Or it can be the other way around he sends a di*k pic? I like to think they enjoy phone sex aswell like he loves the sound of her an her him? also imagine he never deleted them an Ghost finds them 😱

Heavy weight boxing match in a safe house 🥊💥

💰 v 💀

anyway love your work

-🖤

She 100% does haha even if they are in the same room!

I really liked this one so I’m going to reward it with a quick Drabble!

NSFW UNDER THE CUT

—————

You knew you shouldn’t have sent it, but this briefing was taking way too long and you enjoyed seeing Prices reaction.

He was sat on the other side of the room right at the back his arms folded across his board chest. You were sat apart only because when you were sat next to each other you both couldn’t be trusted to keep your hands on the table.

You watched as he pulled his phone out from his back pocket, his face lit up in the dark room by the screen he held it out in front of him, his eyesight was getting worse, when his brain registered the image he quickly slammed his phone to his chest instantly looking in your direction, you gave him a cheeky smile, when had you taken that? You were lay on his cot bed in nothing but his hat and your fingers in places he would rather have his. Price looked at the image again, his head shaking as he released a loud sigh….it caught the visiting officers attention

“I’m sorry Captain, do you not agree?”

Shit. The whole room turned to look at him, Ghost who was leaning against the wall in-front of him look down at Prices phone. Before he could get a better look at the screen Price had turned it off, but Ghost knew a dirty picture when he seen one, an he would put money on who it was from…lucky dog.

“Ah no…please continue…” Price adjusted in his seat shooting you an angry look, the room slowly returned their focus to the projector, but Prices mind was now racing an the blood rushing to his crotch. He made sure everyone’s back were turn to face the other way an opened the message again a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth, he was going to give you a taste of your own medicine he sent the picture an sat back in his chair feeling triumphant. That will show you. He watched as you angled yourself in your seat opening the message up under the table you looked at him over your shoulder there was that devilish grin, it drove him wild but again your lack of attention had caused the speaker to pause…the whole room was now looking at you, phone still showing the pov shot of you kneeling in front of Price his cock hard with his cum on your tongue holding it out proudly. Fuck. “Everything ok Tank?” The officer smiled at you. “No nothing just forgot to turn my phone off” you gave him your best smile. “Come on Tank, you should know to turn it off I’ve taught you better manners than that kid” Price shook his head signalling for the Officer to continue. What the hell? You gave Price a quick look he was grinning from ear to ear, if he thought he had won, he would be mistaken. As the officer turned, you quickly sent a reply back to Price which would surely result in your victory.

You faced the front as Price looked down at his phone another image really? Hadn’t you learnt your lesson? Fair enough he pressed the image…but it wasn’t an image it was a video, a video that played out loud because though his notifications were on silent his media wasn’t! The heavy breathing, grunts an slapping noises filled the room they bounced off the walls an Price couldn’t turn it off fast enough! He ended up jamming the button to turn the entire phone off. His face was a picture his neck had gone bright red an he was staring daggers at you. Tank 1 - Price 0

[fandom-junk-drawer]

The Witcher Headcanon (Modern Au) - Error 404 Brain Not Found: Bonus Scene - Part 24

"Your dress is here"

Yennefer read the text message from Geralt and immediately started tapping out a reply, "Send me a picture, please"

The dress was for her friend's upcoming wedding. She had been assured that it was not going to be one of those hideous bridesmaid's dresses that everyone usually picked. Most of them were either lackluster, or just plain outrageous.

Hopefully her friend kept her word. She would find out any minute now.

What the h*ll was taking Geralt so long to send the picture?

She was just about to text Geralt and tell him to hurry the f**k up, when her phone pinged.

"F***ing finally!", she muttered as she opened the message. Her hand flew to her mouth when she saw the photo.

There was Jaskier, sitting at her bedroom window, like a classical painting of a dramatically posed forlorn maiden. Or a woman on the cover of an 80's mass market paperback romance novel.

He was wearing her bridesmaid's dress.

He looked good in the light yellow chiffon...

And the dress was gorgeous, so win-win.

Okay, she was saving that one.

Yennefer texted, "You could have at least done his hair and makeup!" She chuckled when moments later, she received a photo of Jaskier with badly applied lipstick.

That picture definitely had blackmail potential!

"That shade of red is too dark. Now put my dress in the closet and get out of my room."

"And tell Jaskier not to touch my stuff!"

Geralt and Jaskier carefully put the dress on a clothes hanger and hung it in the closet. It was then that Jaskier spied a pair of Yennefer's yoga pants. He grabbed them, and started pulling them on.

"Take those off," Geralt warned.

"Oh, hush--holy sh*t look how good my a** looks in these!" Jaskier exclaimed as he turned and looked at his backside in the full length mirror on the wall.

Geralt rumbled nervously, "Put those back and let's go already! She literally just said for you not to f**k with her stuff!"

Jaskier grinned as a thought occured to him, and he stripped the pants off and held them out to Geralt.

"I bet your a** would look good in these too!"

"No."

"Come on, haven't you ever thought about wearing them, even once?"

"No."

"Come on, Geralt. You know you've got the legs and a** to pull these off! Aren't you even a little bit curious about how you'd look?"

Ok, maybe he was just a little curious. Yennefer would wear those things around the house, claiming they were super comfortable. And now that he thought about it, they were basically just a stretchy version of the trousers he usually wore, right? But then again, they were Yennefer's yoga pants, and this could all go so terribly wrong... Best to err on the side of caution and not wake up dead.

"Yennefer said for you not to touch her stuff.", Geralt replied.

"But she didn't say anything about you not touching her stuff."

Geralt hesitated as his brain whispered: he's got a point, you know.

"But..."

"Your butt. In these!" Jaskier countered, giving the yoga pants an encouraging shake. Geralt looked at Jaskier, who was all smiles and excitement, and his last functioning braincell put up an Out to Lunch sign and f**ked off.

"Gimmie those!"

Geralt: *struggling to pull up the yoga pants*

Jaskier: "Lose the undies"

Geralt: *uncomfortable "hmm"*

Jaskier: "They're adding extra bulk, and you've already got enough of your own."

Geralt: Hm!

Geralt grumbled, but decided to follow the suggestion. No sense in accidentally ripping Yennefer's pants and having to explain what happened. It was several more minutes of struggle, with Jaskier alternately laughing, and offering unhelpful advice and comments, but Geralt finally managed to squeeze himself into the gray stretchy pants.

He looked at himself in the mirror.

"I told you," Jaskier laughed, "your a** looks great!"

Geralt regarded himself in the mirror. The pants were so very, very form-fitting. The fabric was very thin and stretchy, and Geralt realised, with growing dismay, that you could just about see a nice outline of everything. He felt so d*mn exposed.

But they were very comfortable...

Hmmm.

10/10 for ease of movement, but 0/10 for the feeling of being bucka** nekkid.

"Come on, give us a strut," Jaskier said, demonstrating as he did a ridiculous little walk by the mirror, wearing Yennefer's black yoga pants.

Geralt did a tentative strut, following Jaskier around the room. He felt ridiculous at first, but then decided f**k it, let's have a little fun, and let loose. He almost threw his back out twerking, but it was worth it to see Jaskier keeling over with breathless laughter.

A dance competition ensued, but there was no clear winner because neither of them could stop laughing long enough to focus on making up any kind of scoring system.

Doped up on confidence and serotonin, Geralt only hesitated a little when Jaskier said "Let's go give the neighborhood and eyeful!"

Geralt: Hm...(Hesitant)

Jaskier: Come on, it'll be fun!"

Geralt: Hmm

Jaskier: Just once around the block! Come on, Geralt! You go jogging all the time in those tiny 80's gym shorts. They are so short, I don't know how you aren't falling out of a leg with every step! At least these have full coverage, and actual legs!

Geralt: I don't know... What if there are people out there and they see me?

Jaskier: Oh, no! Not people! Gods forbid they see you jogging in athletic wear that has an inseam of more than 2.5 inches!

Geralt glowered, but gave in. Jaskier was right. The vintage shorts he usually wore to jog in actually did have an inseam of only 2.5 inches, and he'd never cared that other people were out and about when he went on his runs.

Geralt: ...

The next thing Geralt knows, he and Jaskier are jogging around the block in their respective borrowed yoga pants. Geralt is starting to relax, the apprehension wearing off as he focuses on jogging.

He doesn't even care anymore that he isn't wearing a shirt. The woman jogging in the opposite direction didn't appear to mind either, judging from the appreciative glance she throws him as she passes.

Jaskier, jogging along beside him, spots the approaching woman, and sees a perfect opportunity. He slows down to get behind Geralt to give the woman room to pass, and quickly takes out his phone. He watched the woman's eyes surreptitiously follow the bouncing balls as she jogged past Geralt, then sneak a quick peak at the rear view.

He caught her eye and gave her a cheeky wink.

Yennefer was just on her way back to the Conclave meeting after stepping out to get herself a quick drink, when her phone pinged. It was a message from Jaskier. She sighed, wondering what a**hattery he was going to inform her of now.

She stopped dead in her tracks.

Yennefer stared at the photo.

It was Geralt, or more specifically, his backside, and he was wearing a pair gray yoga pants.

It took her a second to realized that those were her gray yoga pants he was wearing.

They were stretched so tight, they looked like they had been painted on. She could see every finely sculpture curve.

Yennefer was impressed with how well they held up under the strain of containing that absolute unit of an a**, and those thighs... She couldn't even be mad.

She teased Geralt about it when she got home, showing him the picture and complimenting him on his assets.

She even changed Geralt's caller ID image on her phone to the photo of him in her yoga pants.

But it wasn't even the entire picture. It had been strategically cropped. Now, anytime he called her, what popped up was the picture of just his a** in those gray yoga pants.

[witchersmistress]

Battered and Broken

Hello my darlings, Happy Friday!!! Monster August and Walter are still in time out for being stubborn and no copperating.. bad bad boys

Trigger Warnings: the biggest one is going to be irritation with me, youll forgive me shorty i promise, blood, violence and masturbation

Word count: 7.6 K

its a long one so buckleup and hang on tight

August’s pov

The world comes back slow, like water gathering momentum. I hear voices and soft squeaks and a steady, monotonous beeping. It’s sickeningly familiar. It crashes in fast, like a wave that’s been building. I sit up, my heartbeat sending a machine into a frenzy. I start yanking at the tubes and wires in my face, my arm, my chest. So many fucking ties binding me to life. The squeaks come faster, and a hoard of nurses rushes in, shoving me back when I fight, pinning me to the bed, banging on the button to give me more meds, to sedate me. I don’t want to go under. There’s something important— And then it’s gone. When I wake again, I’m groggy, but I open my eyes this time. My brother is sitting beside me, scrolling on his phone, that damn sucker tucked into his cheek. “Where is she?” I ask. His head jerks up, his gaze flying to mine and then to the door, where our father is standing, his phone held to his ear. Baron takes his sucker out and puts a finger to his lips, turning his back to him so only I can see. “Who?” he asks aloud. Our father makes a ‘hold on’ gesture to us and then steps into the hall. “What the fuck am I doing here?” I demand. “You tell me,” Baron says. “We dropped you off at home and went out, and the next day when we woke up, we saw all these texts from Father saying you were in the ER with a concussion and a fractured skull. Again.” A little more comes back. Calling Dynamo. Meeting Colin alone at the Slaughter Pen. Throwing just enough punches to make him think I was trying. How right his fists felt connecting to my face, almost orgasmic. “When?” I ask, pushing up. I have to get her. The thought is quick and clear, a blow to the solar plexus. “A couple days ago,” Baron says, shoving the sucker back in his mouth. “Fuck,” I say, yanking the tape off my hand and jerking the IV free. Blood spurts from my vein, and my brain doubles back. Blood on Duke’s mouth. Blood on Baron’s dick. Blood on her thighs. “What are you doing?” Baron demands. “Chill the fuck out. You’re drugged out of your mind right now. Just go back to sleep.”

 “Where’s Harper?”

He glances at the door and lowers his voice. “Where we left her. She’s probably dead by now.” I shake my head. No. She can’t be dead. “I have to get her.” “You wanted her dead,” Baron reminds me. “You were going to kill her. I’m the one who told you not to. Remember?” I don’t want to remember that because then I have to remember what she did, the truth Baron showed me on her phone—hundreds of messages laid out over months, revealing the most personal, most shameful details of my life to a stranger on the internet. No, not a stranger. An enemy. She is an enemy. I don’t know why my body keeps fighting even when I remember that. But I have to get out, have to find her, have to know the truth, the reason. I yank the tube in my nose, but it hits the back of my sinuses and makes my head swim. Baron slams his chest down on mine, smacking a call button. “What the fuck,” he growls. “You’re intubated. You can’t pull that out. You’ll rupture your fucking esophagus or something.” I’m still fighting when the fucking army shows up, the nurses in pale blue scrubs that feature in too many of my nightmares already. I fucking hate hospitals. The drugs that cloud your mind, the helplessness, the way they keep you alive when you don’t want any fucking part of it. It’s all way too familiar by now. The way they think they’re saving you, but they’re destroying you. The way they keep you from saving her after you destroyed her.

Harper's POV

The first few days are hard. I don’t get out of bed except to use the bathroom, which is excruciating. There’s no point in objecting. What I want doesn’t matter. It never did. August kept telling me, but I didn’t understand. Now I do.. He never takes off the mask. He takes pictures of my face and body each day. I don’t protest. What’s the point? I sleep when he’s not asking anything of me. I appreciate, in some detached way, how little he wants, how little he bothers me, he asks for nothing, not even a response. I think if he demanded intimacy of any kind, I’d shatter completely. But he doesn’t. He barely touches me. He wakes me and dresses me and brings me to the table each day. He cooks fancy meals for me, but I don’t taste them. I eat, and when I’m done, he carries me to bed, where I curl up under the blankets. The lulling voices on Local News with Jackie fill my head as they drone on about the cost of gasoline and someone overdosing on a new street drug. I don’t hear anything about a missing girl. I fall asleep praying I won’t wake up this time. It’s around the seventh evening, as I’m slumped at the island eating some fancy herbed potatoes with glazed Brussel sprouts and salmon, when my savior and captor lays down his fork. “I have to go out for a while tomorrow,” he says. I don’t answer. I don’t care where he goes. I sleep most of the day. Sometimes the apartment is quiet, and sometimes I hear him exercising or clicking away at his keyboard in the big, open loft where he has a standing desk against one wall. I haven’t wondered where he goes or what he’s doing when he’s gone. It doesn’t matter. “Do you need to go home and get your clothes or anything?” he asks. I shrug. “I’ll buy you some clothes,” he says decisively. I don’t answer. 

“Where do you live, anyway?”

 “Mill Street.”

 My voice sounds creaky and unused. I clear my throat

 “Right.” He sips his wine and watches me for a minute.

 “I’m glad I wore a condom.” 

I don’t say anything. What is there to say? 

“Do you live alone?”

 “Yes”

He leans his elbows on the island, closing his eyes. “Thank fuck.” He always sits me on his good side, but I know why he hides under the mask. He’s a monster under the mask, disfigured and ugly. I push a bite of salmon into my mouth. It’s flaky and salty, but I don’t taste anything. The corners of my mouth have healed, and the angry red tracks across my cheeks from the ropes are gone when I look in the mirror. My body takes in food and water and heals itself. But whatever’s broken beneath the surface doesn’t change. At least you can tell, looking at him, that he’s suffered. “So will, ” he says after chewing and swallowing slowly. “Will anyone be looking for you?” I shake my head no, the only man i cared about left me for dead “Have you talked to anyone?

 “With what?” “Fuck,” he says, raising his hand like he might run it over his face. When he touches the mask, he drops his hand to his lap. “I’ll get you a phone tomorrow.” I shrug. I decide I’ll call him the Phantom, like the masked man from the opera.

 “Why hasn’t anyone called the cops?” “probably because of my job, i'm always gone for weeks at a time” 

“Oh.” He sits back on the barstool, working his tongue around inside his mouth. “That's slightly terrifying” I don’t argue.

 “I’m going up to water my plants before it gets dark,” he says, rising from the island to take his plate to the sink. “Why don’t you come? Get some air. It’ll be good for you.” He takes my plate and wine glass without asking if I’m done. I sit at the island while he cleans up. Each morning, he dresses like he’s going to an office, but every time I wake, I can hear him moving around his apartment, living. His closet is full of different shades of grey slacks and pressed dress shirts in every color. He rolls his sleeves up tan forearms before rinsing the plates and setting them neatly in the stainless-steel dishwasher. Everything here is immaculately clean and organized. I can’t imagine him getting his hands dirty. He opens a door and pulls a small tool bag from a shelf, then gestures for me to follow. I think about staying, but there’s no reason to disobey. He pulls down a drop ladder, and we climb up into a tiny attic space with exposed insulation and a door.  Opening it, he steps through into the blue evening. The door opens onto a flat roof that’s full of potted plants in different sized containers. Leaving me in the doorway, the Phantom unwinds a hose from a spool, turns on a faucet knob against the wall near the door, and starts spraying water over a rectangular box filled with curly purple and pink flowers. Their perfume lures me out onto the roof. I haven’t breathed outdoor air in a week. It’s moist and heavy, clinging to my bare arms like algae. I can hear traffic in the distance, but from the roof, I see only the same field that I can see from the huge windows in the loft below. The grass is tall and brown from winter, but green pokes up in small patches on the ground. I walk to the edge of the roof. I wonder if he’d stop me if I stepped over. There isn’t even a railing. It would be so easy. It would all be over.

I look back at the man who pulled me from the swamp, who went to such lengths to find me and bring me back. He crouches to poke in a big, round pot. His back is to me as he pulls on a pair of gloves from his bag. I could do it. It would be quick. “I got you an appointment at the women’s clinic on Wednesday,” he says. “To be tested for STDs. You can take my truck and bring it back when you’re done.” I step closer to the edge, until my toes are even with the end of the flat roof. I look down at the parking lot below. Try to remember why being up here is better than down there. I lift one foot, watching it hang suspended in the air, like a diver. He looks up when I don’t answer. His gaze moves to the edge of the roof and back to my face. Our eyes meet, and I know he can tell what I’m about to do. I wait for him to say something, to be angry or afraid. To demand to know what I’m doing, if I want to die. “I’ll bring a chair for you next time,” he says, unfolding slowly, cautiously, from his crouched position next to some sprouting plants. I watch him move, how comfortable he is in his body, how confident. He’s quick but unhurried; tall and slender, painfully elegant. He’s built like a dancer, all slim lines and measured grace. He’s at my side before I know what’s happening. His strong hands are gentle on my upper arms as they pull me back. “Good girl,” he says softly, drawing my shoulder blades flush with his chest. I know he’s thanking me for not jumping, for letting him pull me away, but in truth, I don’t have any more desire to die than I have to live. It’s not worth the effort. “You can come up here with me every day,” he says when I don’t answer. “You could use some sun.” We stare out at the overgrown lot next to his building without speaking. His breath is even, his hands barely holding on. But I can feel his heart thudding rapidly against my back with each heavy beat. I scared him. The thought registers in some distant way. He wants me to live. What I want seems equally irrelevant to both of us. There’s no point in telling him, so I don’t, and he doesn’t ask

August pov

“Where have you been?” I spin toward the voice, my hands fisting, adrenaline pumping. I don’t like being taken by surprise. “Out,” I growl. “What the fuck are you doing sitting in the dark?” Baron switches on the lamp beside the couch. Duke is sprawled across the loveseat, his eyes glassy, a tumbler of whiskey in one hand. “You’re going to get us caught,” Baron says. He picks up a sucker and begins to unwrap it slowly, his elbows resting on his knees and his eyes fixed on me. “This is a small town. It’s not New York. It’s harder to hide a murder when there are only a couple a year.” “We didn’t murder anyone,” I snap, hating that he’s the reason for that. He reminded me that death is too kind. That we don’t kill Darlings. “That’s right,” Duke says. “And I’m not afraid of the cops. They’re not NYPD. They’re hicks. What can they do to us?” “If we don’t get sloppy, nothing,” I say. “No one but the three of us know what happened.” The twins glance at each other, that fucking twin telepathy thing that pisses me the fuck off. “Right?” I grind out. “Right,” Duke says. “We didn’t say anything to anyone at work. We’re not stupid.” No, not stupid. They’ve just never done this shit before. Sometimes I forget how little blood is on their hands. And that’s by design. 

Protect our brothers. King would despise me if he knew what we’d done, what I’d let them become. I should have killed her like I wanted, kept them from her, kept myself from having to admit this truth about them—that I knew what they’d do to Harper when I finally let them have her after six months of denying them. It was both their reward for respecting my previous claim and her punishment for betrayal. But I can’t remember when they became the kind of people whose attention is a punishment. The twins look up to King, though, and I’m supposed to fill his shoes. I think of what he’d say, not because I want to be like him, but because it will comfort them. Duke needs that, at least. I’m not sure Baron has whatever it is that makes a person seek comfort. “We didn’t do anything the Darlings wouldn’t have done to us,” I point out. “We eliminated a threat to the family. That’s all. A man has a right to protect his family.” That’s not what she was, and we all know it, just like we all know Crystal’s blood is on my hands. Harper was no threat to my family. She was a threat to me. I finally, truly understand what they went through with Mabel. When it happened, I saw it from the outside, and I felt for my brothers, but I didn’t get it. I thought they were fuckwits for thinking of her as human at all. I didn’t think I was capable of caring about a Darling. But now I know what the Darling girls do to a person when they set their sights on you, when they decide to play. I know how they lie and twist everything until you start to believe that against every odd, even though you know it’s impossible, someone could give a fuck.

“Who was she talking to, though?” Duke asks. “Because he might figure it out.” “I don’t think we need to worry about him,” Baron says, sliding the sucker into his mouth. “She hadn’t talked to him in weeks. She cut him off. He won’t think anything unless it makes the news.” “So, it’s our job to make sure it doesn’t,” I remind them. Our eyes meet. He gets it. He may not have blood on his hands, but he’s got the stomach for it. “Exactly,” he says. He picks up the bottle of whiskey and pours a finger into a glass, then looks me over, his gaze taking in my wet jeans and shoes. “So, again, where were you? Because we’re being careful. But parking beside the road and walking across a huge-ass rice field into the swamp is going to get us caught a hell of a lot faster than anything we might say in the locker room.” “I was looking for her phone.” “Fuck,” Baron says, leaning back and closing his eyes. “She dropped it when she was fighting us.” I nod. Even a dead phone is easily traceable. It doesn’t matter if it is at the bottom of the swamp and will never work again. They can still track it. If the Darlings go looking for her, they’ll get the law involved. They don’t play by our rules, taking care of their own problems. They have no honor. Only a person without honor could do what she did, exploiting someone’s helplessness for their own gain. For a fucking scholarship of all things. Such a pathetic, pedestrian thing. All along, she was nothing but a gold digger. We thought she didn’t know she was Darling, but she must have known. Even if she didn’t, and she really didn’t know who she was talking to, he must have known. And if he gets the cops involved, and they suspect murder, they’ll get the FBI involved. And the FBI will find her phone.

 So we have to make sure no one else looks for her. “You didn’t find her phone?” Duke asks. “No,” I say, scowling at his drunk ass. “I didn’t find it.” “We should tell Father,” Baron says. “He’ll know what to do.” “No,” I say, holding up a hand. “If we need his help, we’ll tell him then.” “Okay,” Baron says, looking skeptical. “So, what now?” “Where’d you put her clothes?” “Shit,” Duke says. “They’re in my bag.” “That’s the kind of sloppy shit we can’t do,” I say. That, and letting her drop her phone in the swamp. If they find that, they’ll search the swamp, and they’ll find her. At least… I think they will. They’ll have a whole team, dogs and infrared gear and shit that I don’t have. I’ve been in that swamp exactly once before today, and it was night by the time we left, and I was… Not entirely present. I barely remember walking into the swamp. I was in survival mode, like those months after Crystal died that I barely remember, and the ones before that I don’t remember at all. I let the monster take care of me, take care of what needed to be done, of what I couldn’t. I was weak, and he was strong. Maybe if I put him in control, he can find her. I’ll have to go back again. But I have a good reason. I looked today, my first day home from the hospital, searching until after dark, but with only my phone’s flashlight and a vague memory of being there before, I couldn’t find where we’d left her. I couldn’t find her.

“What are you thinking?” Baron asks, sitting up straight and setting his whiskey on the coffee table. “Burn her clothes?” “Yes,” I say, stepping into the living room. “She was a Darling. We need to act like it.” I’ll burn everything that ever reminded me of her, all the random shit she left at my house, my notebooks where I wrote poems about her like some pathetic lovesick dog chasing after a bitch in heat. We should burn the whole fucking town to the ground with all the Darlings in it. “She’s one of the disowned Darlings’ kids,” Duke says. “They don’t care about her.” Duke isn’t good with the aftermath, the cleanup, the details. He’s there for the fun and games, but he forgets that after the games, it’s real. “One of them cared enough to find her,” I say. “Even if the grandfather cut them off, one of them reached out to her.” “Or he did,” Duke says. “Well, she’s an adult.” Baron says, trading his sucker for the whiskey. “And her dad doesn't give a shit anyway. Right?” “We need to act like everything’s normal,” I say. For a minute, we’re frozen in confusion. None of us have the slightest idea how to be normal. “No skipping work, though. Now that August’s back, we have to act like it was just about him.” Irritation flares in me, but he’s right. I can’t be the one to go off the deep end over this. Not when it means the twins will go down with me. I should have fucking left them out of it. What was I thinking? I could have done it myself, slit her throat and dropped her in the river. But I didn’t want her in the same river where Crystal drowned. That water is sacred. She deserved swamp water. “I’ll talk to her dad.” “What?” Duke asks, sitting up straight. “Are you fucking crazy?” “No,” Baron says, holding up a hand, his eyes on me. “He’s right. That’s what a normal person would do if his ex disappeared from work. Bring back her shit, ask her dad if she’s okay. Act like you think she went back to Faulkner High.” “And in the process, see what he knows,” I say. And see if Harper’s there. I don’t add that part aloud. I don’t want my brothers to worry. We left her tied to a tree somewhere in that snake-infested swamp. I barely made it out without being bitten by one of the vipers. She couldn’t have gotten away from the ropes, let alone gotten past the snakes and hiked twenty miles back to town without shoes or clothes. Could she? If there’s one person on earth who’s tough and resourceful enough to do that after what we did to her, it’s Harper. And she’ll be out for revenge. So, if she’s alive, why hasn’t she called the cops? And if she’s dead, why can’t I find her body?

[jazzythursday]

Hiiii, Jazzy! For the ask game: 🍓 🥑 🔪 🌿 🪲 (hehe sorry djsakgjkdg <3)

Hi Sparrow!!

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction? 

I’m a long time fanfic reader, but I didn’t start really writing anything until 2021. I think, probably, because of the pandemic and needing some kind of outlet for creating things (and also because the Miraculous Ladybug plotlines were haunting my dreams, rattling their chains around in my brain until I finally caved and wrote some actual communication/emotional resolution for the characters that I wasn't getting from the show)

🥑 ⇢ you accidentally killed somebody, which mutual(s) do you text for help?

You and @waterloou lol

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Bahaha there are SO many, because I frequently have to look things up to write all the fun little facts Wylan has in his head. But I’m not sure researching poisons and how to build bombs/fireworks is all that weird, to be honest.

I’m going to go with the time I was writing a Good Omens fic, and I used google street view to virtually walk from the Ritz to around where Aziraphale’s bookshop would be in soho, so I could know exactly what it looked like and if/when they would likely pass by St. James’s park on the way, and what named streets would be on that route. (I’m not even sure that’s that weird. Maybe I need to be weirder...)

🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity

I do generally believe in the whole “not forcing it and take breaks if you need to” thing usually, but as for advice:

Consume some type of media you really like. Movie, show, book, an old favorite fic, anything that inspires you. I also like going back to the source material for things like fic because it gives me ideas or gets me into the right mental place to write the characters, and I like reading my own fics to brush up on my own interpretations/style.

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

Oh...did you say 50? becuase I slipped and wrote 283...

(from Jesper's pov of the bookshop scene in ch 1 of Everyday)

At some point he loses Wylan to an art book he seems keen on and quietly drifts away with, leaving Jesper to talk to the enthusiastic bookeep on his own.

Jesper’s arms are getting progressively heavier with book recommendations, and the bookkeeper is somehow still holding at least twice as many. He doesn’t understand where they're even coming from at this rate, because more just seem to, to appear each time he looks away. 

He thinks about Kaz and his sleight of hand, and wonders at the chance that the bastard of the Barrel has been giving magic lessons to Wijnstraat booksellers in his free time. 

He actually has read some of the books the man recommends, either because they were commonly popular in his parents house or on the frontier, or from his short stint in university.

Unfortunately, mentioning that prompts the bookeep to ask, “Ah, so you’re a student, then?”

“Er—” Jesper blanches, in such a pitifully uncomposed way that he’s sure he can just feel Kaz shaking his head in judgemental spirit. The bookeep raises one solitary eyebrow, and Jesper, for some reason—probably because he’s Jesper—keeps bloody talking. “Yea-up. Yeah,” he bobs his head in a jerky nod, “Students, at the university. Good ol’ U of K. Woo...” Jesper cheers. Actually cheers. 

Great fucking work Fahey, very believable.

The bookkeep raises his other eyebrow, but smiles kindly. “That must be exciting. What are you studying?”  “Business,” Jesper answers quickly, and makes a concerted effort to not let it sound like a question. 

His fingers twitch, longing to trace over the pearl handles of his revolvers, but they’re hidden deep under the folds of his coat, and—apparently—he’s a university student now. 

I'm probably (definitely) going to be late to my fist class today now, but I really don't regret it.

Thanks for the questions!! 💖

[m1ckeyb3rry]

Bro said Isagi is too plain /j LMAOO ok but I kinda see what you mean?? Like maybe it’s because he’s got the most normal background out of everyone that unless you’re super interested in him it’s kinda hard to find something build off….like everyone at least has something unique about their background that adds a little extra depth (like injuries, medical things, bullying, etc) but he kinda just had the model life besides losing his match LMAO

Stop that ego idea Lowk…..no ok but I’m gonna read through that and imagine his bug eyes staring at me and lose it LMAOO

Ok but when you first told me you didn’t really like the itoshis I was kinda flabbergasted because I was like wait….is this the same person who wrote cherry tree????? If you hadn’t said anything I would’ve assumed you were a Rin fan because of how well it was written LMAO I was already super excited seeing the 6k wc but now after everything else I’m like oh yeah that’s on the lower side for Mira LMAOOOOO

NO FR please fill in the lore holes…..don’t let this end like jjk……I need to know…..you know they really should just hire us as oracles like we know what’s good!!!

I recently got badgered into watching haikyuu and it’s SO CHILL compared to bllk HAHAHA still enjoyable though!!!! But bllk honestly kinda reminds me of the kuroko’s basketball with the battle like aspects of it so I’m sure the hype will keep increasing!!!

Putting my trust in kaneshiro because he usually cooks!!! I’m ngl I’m kinda sick of seeing Kaiser Isagi and Rin though SHOW THE OTHERS

And THANK YOU WHAT A GOD SEND but OMGGG ITS THIS ARTIST!!! I RECOGNIZE THIS STYLE!! Pause I’ll translate this im gonna do Left to Right Top to Bottom

Karasu in Hiori’s Body:

1 - The one with his finger pointing up

Karasu: “The hell are ya lookin at?! There’s nothin to see here idiots!”

Someone else who I assume is Hiori: “Hey you shouldn’t use your middle finger…”

K: “HAH! IF YA LOOKED CLOSELY YOUD SEE IM USING MY INDEX FINGER!!! YOU SHOULD DO THINGS WITH MORE THOUGHT!!”

H: IM BEGGING YOU STOP WITH THAT FACE!!! YOURE DAMAGING MY IMAGE!!”

2 - the hair scene: He’s arranging his hair with a bunch of wax just like usual

3 - face pulling taunt image: Karasu is unsatisfied with Hiori’s stiff facial muscles and small mouth

K: This idiot’s mouth is so small he’s like a baby chick

4- With Isagi: Hiori usually assists him so when Isagi had to face him in a strength/muscle battle his brain glitched.

K: As if I’d let you move around

Hiori’s thoughts: Karasu-kun’s pretty dexterous huh, he’s already moving around.

5- smirking:

The immeasurable damage (to the heart) of a rare scene is very healing

K: As usual, when you fight on your own your feet get stuck. So mid.

H: ISAGI!! STAY COOL! THATS KARASU IN MY BODY!! I WOULD NEVER SAY THAT!! BREATHE ISAGI BREATHE!!

Hiori in Karasus body:

1- kicking: Even with a different physique, his dexterity allows him to continue playing without any problems. His only thoughts are “His legs are pretty long…I wonder if they’d break”

2- hair down:

Hiori, who doesn’t lift a finger to adjust his hair.

H: Does anyone have clippers or scissors? This hairs gettin in the way

K: Wait a damn minute ya dunce!!!

3- smiling:

H: Hahaha yer so dumb, what are ya even doing?

K: OTOYA’S FOAMIN AT THE MOUTH??!!!

4- With Otoya:

H: I couldn’t pass anywhere but there….sorry.

Text: A toxic looking face vs a sincere apology and behavior of someone who tries to compromise with others

Otoya: “…………..ah……..yeah……….its fine…..”

Everytime he says “I” (in a less aggressive tone) Otoya does a double take

Someone: Otoya’s got a hell of a lot of goosebumps!! And that face of rejection is insane!!!

- Karasu anon

i think a combo of that + him being too nice off field makes him a bit difficult for me in the same way yuki is but whereas yuki at least has medical trauma isagi is just chilling 😭 idk maybe one day i’ll be struck w inspiration for him 😰 but yeah out of everyone in bllk who i’ve written for i’d say he’s been the hardest character for me so far!!

NAH BECAUSE IT’S LOWKEY FIRE I CAN’T LIE…maybe young ego when he got enough sleep was fine af 🤔 imagine we get his backstory and he’s the most gorgeous man ever who literally puts yukimiya to shame HAHAHA that would crack me up…ego would be the ultimate side character to write about though because honestly i don’t even think there IS an ego nation 😭 there would be two readers fr (you and me)

LMAOO omg not the undercover itoshi non-fan 😭 pls i actually did start bllk for rin so i must give my king credit but he was a gateway drug to nagi and karasu fr…the day people stick more to his canon than fanon personality is the day i’ll wear my rin stan badge w pride ‼️ and YEAH i always forget that 6k is actually quite a lot of words…like people will post that they got carried away on a one shot and for them that’s like 1-3k words but for me getting carried away on a one shot atp means 15k+ 😩 anything between 5-10k is the normal range and anything less than 5k is quick and short!! but i’m also a wordy gal so 😰

i think i watched one ep of hq in 2020 and just couldn’t get into it!! i’ve heard good things abt it so no hate just wasn’t quite the show for me. i’ve also heard knb is good!! it’s another one i haven’t watched…tbh i’ve watched a very random assortment of animes 😭 but not that many unfortunately i’m not very good abt sitting down and watching tv it’s very rare for me to start a new show (one of my mutuals on here had to convince me to start bllk because otherwise i wouldn’t have…all because of a rin fanart i reblogged 😩)

I’M BORED OF THEM TOO maybe because none of them are my favs…i trust kaneshiro though all of the other matches have been super fun to read all at once so i’m sure it’ll be the same for bm vs pxg!!

MY TRANSLATING GOAT 😭🙏🏻 i hope it didn’t seem like i was trying to get you to do that or anything HAHA i just didn’t know if the caption was smth freaky or not…like pls don’t think i’m crazy i promise i have no idea what it says 👹

[ermora]

Ardyn x Neko Reader

Back again with a random idea of Ardyn being with a neko reader. A bit of a master pet dynamic (just a hint) I guess, anyways hope you enjoy and I’m sorry about Ardyn being OOC.

_______________________________________________

You happily walked around your apartment with your ears and tail out as you cleaned your space, feeling relieved that you got the day off from work. The past week has been stressful and having to hide your ears and tail under different articles of clothing and hats is difficult over long periods of time. You knew you could probably have them showing but neko’s such as yourself were extremely rare in Eos and most times people took advantage of a neko by making them a prized possession of sorts to show off. It reminds you of a rich person showing off their latest accessory or gadget. Your ear twitched slightly as you could hear someone moving through the apartment hallways outside of your door again as it had been happening all morning. You shook your head and the bell attached to the collar around your neck jingles a little bit, you hated hearing all of the little noises but there wasn’t much you could do until your lease was up and you could find a new place to live. It wouldn’t be much longer now either, which was nice, as your one neko friend was willing to let you crash with her right after your lease was up. She was actually coming over today to talk to you about it a little bit more and it won’t be long before she shows up. As if on cue, there was a knock on your door and you put your stuff down before you happily made your way over to the door and opened it up, your stomach dropped as it wasn’t your friend at the door bit your boss, Ardyn Izunia. He seemed a little stunned as he took in your appearance and you bit your lower lip, what the hell is he doing here?

“What brings you here Chancellor?” you asked in an uneasy tone.

“I was coming by to see if you had accidentally put some of my papers into your bag as I happen to be missing some important papers after you left yesterday” Ardyn replied as he looked at your (h/c) ears and tail. You hesitated briefly, wondering why he wouldn’t try to text you instead of just showing up as he now sees you for what you truly are.

“I can check… why don’t you come inside though as I don’t need someone else to see me or wonder why you’re here” you suggested as you let Ardyn into your apartment and closed the door behind him. You quickly went off to your bedroom and grabbed your work bag before returning to your living room and going through your bag in front of Ardyn.

“This is a rather modest place for a neko to have” Ardyn noted as he looked around your apartment, you said nothing back as you found some important looking papers in your bag. You felt your cheeks turn red as you pulled them out and handed them over to Ardyn.

“Here you are Chancellor and I’m sorry about accidentally taking them, my brain must have been in Friday mode when I went to leave” you apologized, Ardyn gently took the papers and gave you a smile.

“It’s quite alright (y/n) I think we’ve all done something silly on our Friday’s, besides, this was worth the trip as I’ve not seen a neko in quite awhile” Ardyn noted as he purposefully tapped your collars bell, making in ring a little bit.

“Yes, well I ask that you please keep this to yourself as I believe the empire would use me as an accessory to show off or some sort of pet” you stated.

“I won’t say a thing but there is something I want in return then… a trade of sorts” Ardyn said as he put the papers down, you swallowed nervously. You could say no but at the same time you need the job you have and you want to keep a low profile, you sighed as the answer was obvious.

“Very well, what do you want?” you asked, Ardyn smiled.

 

“Whenever you and I are alone I want you to look just like this, tail and ears showing with that adorable collar around your neck and in return, I’ll keep your little secret, do you agree my little kitten?” Ardyn asked as he stroked your right cheek with the back of his left hand. His touch sent an odd sensation through your body that was one you loved but hated because it was gentle and yet dominating.

“There’s more to this than your saying Chancellor” you replied, Ardyn chuckled.

“You’re as observant as ever… yes, I do have another agenda but I promise that your secret would not be revealed” Ardyn admitted, your (e/c) eyes met his golden ones.

“You have to tell me what it is or I won’t agree to your deal” you stated, Ardyn's left hand went to your collar and he put his index finger under it and pulled at it a little bit.

“You will be mine my little kitten and will do what I ask without question” Ardyn said in a rather quiet tone. You felt a rock in your stomach  of course he was going to use you as having a neko makes anyone look good.

 

“You do realize that I’m heavily debating as to whether or not this is a good idea or not, correct?” you asked, Ardyn took a step closer to you and without warning he leaned into your right ear.

“Ah, but you do realize that your choices are limited and that at any point this could backfire on you… make the smart choice kitten or I’ll be forced to do something you may not appreciate” Ardyn whispered with a hint of a threatening tone in his voice. Your ear twitched as his hot breath in your ear sent a jolt through your system, your ears were always quite sensitive and you loved it when someone blew on your ears for some odd reason.

“Ch-chancellor, please don’t do that” you breathed in shock, Ardyn chuckled again.

“Please, just call me Ardyn my little kitten and accept my proposal” Ardyn stated as he moved down to your neck, your eyes widened as you realized that he was going to mark you to make you his pet.

“Ardyn, you can’t just…” you trailed off, unable to find the right words.

“Oh but I can and if you’d like to keep your secret safe, I suggest you accept” Ardyn said, you sighed and felt tears in your eyes.

“Fine, you win” you reluctantly agreed, Ardyn smiled and pulled away from your neck, you looked at him in confusion as he let go of your collar.

“Good, I shall see you in my office in a few days and please… if it’s just us, call me Ardyn” Ardyn stated, you nodded and he left your apartment. You stood there in shock, he calls you little kitten and did all that, just to never make you his pet. Was that his intention or is he planning something else? You shook your head to clear your thoughts, it’s no use worrying about it at this point as you’ve got a friend coming over soon.

2 Months later

You entered Ardyn’s office with some papers and removed your hat to show your ears while pulling your tail out of your pants and taking off your turtleneck sweater to show your collar. Ardyn smiled as you approached him and your tail twitched nervously, you’ve been doing this for two months now and you’re finding that Ardyn is quite charming for a human. He does, however, rub you the wrong way by calling you ‘little kitten’ whenever it’s just the two of you.

“Here’s the papers from Ravus you requested Ardyn” you noted as you put the papers in your hand onto the desk.

“Thank you my little kitten, may I please get you to file these away for me?” Ardyn asked as he patted a stack of papers on his desk.

“Of course you can” you replied as you grabbed the stack, went over to the cabinet behind Ardyn and began to file the papers away, as you did so though Ardyn’s hands touched your tail and you jolted as you looked at him and he looked amused.

“Oh my, I didn’t mean to startle you little kitten, I was simply curious as to how soft your tail was” Ardyn said in a not so innocent tone.

“A neko’s ears are far softer than their tail and we typically hate our tails being touched” you explained as you moved your tail away from his hands, he lifted as eyebrow and stood up.

“Are they now? I must test this myself” Ardyn stated as he lifted his hands and gently rubbed your ears, it felt… good as he rubbed your ears and you slowly began to fall into a state where you felt, safe.

“Ardyn… that feels nice” you mumbled in a calm, content tone.

“I know my little kitten, I’m not nearly as uneducated about neko’s as you seem to think” Ardyn quietly said as he leaned forward and breathed into your right ear. You let out a small gasp as the urge to want him as your master began to rise, he didn’t look it but he was extremely gentle with you and has kept your secret.

“Master… please let me be your pet” you breathed without a second thought.

“Oh my little kitten, you’ve been my pet for quite awhile now” Ardyn mumbled as he went down to your neck and gently bit it. You did nothing as he made you his pet and as he released you and stopped touching your ears, your mind began to clear up. A sense of dread followed as you realized that your instincts had betrayed you and you were now Ardyn’s pet and he was your master.

“I… you…” you faltered in your sentence as Ardyn grabbed your collar and sat down in his office chair.

“Your master is demanding that you come sit on his lap” Ardyn demanded, you did as he asked and without missing a beat, Ardyn pulled your collar close to him and your lips met. A jolt went through your system now as you realized that he wanted this the whole time, a master and pet relationship where you would be his and only his. You’d be unable to say no now as he had marked you and you were his pet, his play toy, his… little kitten. Ardyn broke off the kiss and released your collar, the belly letting out a soft jingle as his fingers gently brushed it.

“What do you plan to do now?” you asked, Ardyn grinned at you.

“You’ll find out soon my little kitten and I’m certain you’ll enjoy it” he replied, you felt uneasy but nodded, knowing that you were now at Ardyn’s mercy as his pet. You could only hope that with him as your master that you’d be safe as that’s all you wanted at this point, safety and a nice quiet life with your master.

[idcifufollowme]

I’m laying in bed now and thinking about the things I’m missing because they are not a part of K’s nature: caresses, massages, long kissing sessions, cuddles, and big spoon/little spoon. I’ll probably never ask for them, even though I’m missing them desperately.

Is it bad that I don’t really want to see him this weekend? My heart is so heavy, and if we are going to have another weekend where we have zero moments of physical intimacy, I don’t think I can take it.

Tonight he’s going to a show with his (male) friend (not KE) and he’s left without sending me a text. It’s an 8 pm show and he’s leaving now (5:30) which is weird to me. I guess they’re grabbing dinner? My little inner voice that likes to make up stories says that he is actually on a date with someone. Because all men are dogs, right? Except that’s probably, most definitely not true. It’s just hard because he’s been so stingy with any physical affection. And I’m convinced he’s not attracted to me. And he hasn’t proposed. So my brain is just trying to make it all make sense.

I was supposed to hear about the job I interviewed for by the end of today, but it’s 5:10 pm and no email or text. So I guess that’s a bust. I’m sad but not surprised. So now the real question is: how much rum do I drink tonight??

[frogtanii]

iwaizumi was... overwhelmed, to say the least.

the past few days had been such a whirlwind of change that hajime could barely properly process, much less appropriately react to it all, so he behaved much like a zombie, saying yes when prompted, signing papers when told, and packing up what was his entire life for the past 11 months.

wow. iwaizumi collapsed on his bed as he scanned his now barren bedroom. he’d been here for almost a year and yet, all his belongings were in boxes within a couple of days.

hajime couldn’t keep the disbelieving chuckle from escaping his chest as he leaned back on his bed, dark brown eyes trained on the ceiling.

it felt like he’d spent such a large chunk of his life trapped in this house, under the foot of the woman who he thought he’d marry but in reality, he’d been in little leagues longer than he’d been in love.

iwaizumi scoffed and rolled his eyes. yeah, “in love”. it’d been about a week since his whole life started to unravel and he had hardly seen, let alone spoken to meiko throughout that entire time.

over text, she’d sworn up and down that she loved and cared about him but as she passed by him packing his things a few days ago, she’d barely spared him a second glance.

hajime wasn’t going to lie. it hurt. he’d opened his heart up to her, something he didn’t do easily, and she’d taken his trust and used it to twist him into her weapon.

he always believed he was stronger than this — he’d never forget his mother telling him so when he was younger. he had fallen and scraped his knee yet he refused to cry to keep from upsetting his mom. iwaizumi existed to live up to what his mother thought of him but here he was, completely enveloped in meiko’s shit, doing her dirty work and following her bidding like some mutt.

god, toorū was right. he really was her bitch.

“i could hear you thinking from down the hall, iwa-chan.” speak of the devil...

oikawa stood at his doorway, leaning against the frame with a posture that seemed relaxed at first glance but if you looked a little closer, you’d notice the tenseness in his shoulders and the tightness of his smile.

hajime quickly sat up on his bed before motioning for his old friend to enter. “uh, yeah,” he began, his voice cracking a little from disuse, “i have a lot to think about.”

the light haired brunette let out an understanding hum before wandering into the room, sharp observant eyes darting to look at all the empty walls. “looks like you’re all packed.”

“pretty much,” iwaizumi nodded before the room fell into an awkward silence, the two childhood friends completely avoiding one another’s eyes.

“look, i-“

“iwa-chan, i’m-“

they both paused for a moment before bursting into laughter, the sound carrying into the hall and throughout the house.

hajime wiped a few stray tears from his eyes, shaking his head at their awkwardness. “you first, shittykawa.”

toorū gasped in halfhearted mock offense before quickly sobering up, training iwaizumi with a completely serious look. “i’m sorry and before you go on some bullshit, self sacrificing rant, you’re not the only one to blame for what happened to our friendship.”

he sighed while making his way to iwaizumi’s bed, sitting down gently beside him. “i should’ve known better, okay? i shouldn’t have let my jealousy and insecurities get in between us but i guess i got swept up in the attention, yknow? meiko is actually charming when she wants to be.”

iwaizumi nodded in agreement, knowing all too well how compelling meiko could be. the room fell into a more comfortable silence as both boys escaped into their thoughts, questions about the future of their friendship flitting throughout their minds.

“oh!” oikawa was pulled out of his own head at hajime’s exclamation, his eyes moving to observe his friend dig through his pockets to procure a thick white envelope. “here. i’d like you to give this yn.”

all toorū could do was nod, his brain short circuiting at the sight of iwaizumi’s apparent kindness to the woman he tormented for so long. “uh, what’s in it?” he ventured to ask, his soft hands toying with the sealed envelope flap.

a soft chuckle came from across the bed. “don’t be so nosy toorū, just give it to her, yeah?” oikawa rolled his eyes but obliged, the bed creaking as he stood to his feet.

“so... this is it, huh?” it was like the reality of the situation was just now sinking in — they hadn’t been close in a while but iwaizumi was still his best friend and he wasn’t quite ready to let him go.

they’d been through so much together, practically growing up together and now, they’d only see each other on holidays, if even then, and then he’d never be invited to hajime’s wedding as his best man as they’d planned and he also wouldn’t be the coolest uncle/godfather of iwa’s children and—

“fuck no,” hajime scoffed with a bright grin on his face. “thought you were gonna annoy me til the end of time shittykawa. don’t tell me you’re quitting your job now.”

the hidden meaning behind iwaizumi’s words brought tears to oikawa’s eyes and before he could stop himself, he launched his body into iwa’s arms. hajime hesitated, his hands stuttering at toorū’s sides as though he’d forgotten how to hug but the feeling passed, his arms winding around his friend’s lithe waist.

“‘m gonna miss you hajime,” oikawa’s voice came out as a broken whimper, his arms tightening around his shoulders.

iwaizumi hummed instead of responding, too afraid of his voice cracking under the weight of his emotions. they stood there for a moment but the honk of the moving truck outside signaled the both of them of their limited time.

hurriedly, oikawa wiped the tears off his cheeks before waving awkwardly at iwaizumi as he left the room with a friendly, “don’t be a stranger.”

and then he was gone.

toorū finally allowed himself to collapse into sobs on his best friends empty bed, his palms pressing into his eyes as he sat there and just let himself feel.

apparently, he wasn’t crying very quietly because it took only a few moments for you to find him, your soft footsteps alerting him to your presence. oikawa scrambled to wipe away what he knew was an unattractive mixture of tears and snot as you got closer.

you were one of the last people he wanted to see him like this.

“hey,” you whispered, standing a few feet away from him. “um, i know this is probably a bad time but i just wanted to thank you for apologizing? back at the awards show?”

toorū sniffed as he looked up at you with confusion written on his face. “what? you shouldn’t thank me for apologizing. ‘s common courtesy.”

you laughed softly, nodding in agreement. “well, not always. so, thank you.” finished with your piece and not too keen on lingering where you weren’t wanted, you moved towards the door but were swiftly stopped before you got there.

“um, here. it’s from iwa-chan.” you gaped at the thick envelope oikawa was handing you before taking it and opening it, a low curse falling from your lips.

inside the package was a dense wad of cash, more money than you’d seen in months. accompanied with it was a letter, written in beautifully loopy handwriting.

you shut it quickly before oikawa could see, stuffing the envelope deep within your pocket where you could access it alone in the depths of your room.

“do you wanna come eat? last i heard, bokuto and tsumu were doing a cooking competition and i’m sure it’ll be fun to watch.” you were severely thrown off by the money and letter but you were determined to show toorū that you’d accepted his apology and were on your way to making amends.

he gave you a shy nod and trailed behind you to the kitchen, the loud sounds of fire and screaming coming from down the hall. you wanted to focus on the fun and merriment but the envelope was practically burning a hole in your pocket.

later that night, you finally got the chance to open the letter and read it, your former manager’s words bringing tears to your eyes.

dear yn,

i’m probably the last person you expected to hear from. you probably didn’t want to hear from me at all if i’m being honest and i don’t blame you. i know there is nothing i can say that could make up for what i’ve done to you but i’d like to try.

i’m sorry. those words don’t nearly express in and of themselves how truly remorseful i am but they needed to be said. there’s no excuse for how i treated you — not meiko, not my stress, absolutely nothing.

you deserved my common decency and respect and i didn’t give that to you. instead, i abused my position and made your life hell. i’ll never forgive myself for that.

uh, i bet you’re wondering what the money is? i promise i’m not trying to pay you off, it’s just all the money i’ve denied you since you moved here. i have a lot of wrongs to right and this is one of them.

sorry, i’m not very good with words but i just wanted you to know that i’m very sorry for everything that i’ve done. and i’m in no place to make demands or anything but i just wanted to ask if you’d keep an eye on oikawa for me.

he’s strong but he’s also vulnerable. he might be a pain in my ass but he’s my best friend and since i can’t keep him from drowning, i was wondering if you’d do that - not for me but for him.

anyways, this letter is shit but i suppose you get the gist. use the money for whatever you want and if you’re as unselfish as i’ve heard, you don’t owe me anything. you don’t owe me money, kindness, or forgiveness.

take care of yourself,

iwaizumi hajime

℗ poker face

so... this is it

series masterlist

(●’◡’●)ﾉ

an - soooo m back :D hopefully this is the last of my mini hiatuses!! this chapter sucked to write but i’m not mad at how it turned out?? pls let me know how i did skjdkd don’t forget to feed me <3333

taglist - if your name is in bold, i cannot tag you

@boosyboo9206 • @geektastic84 • @elianetsantana • @trashy-simp • @infinitebells • @6mattsun9 • @suhkusa • @katsulovee • @kotarosbabygirl • @fucktheworlddude • @insomniacwreck • @calumsfringe • @saltylettuce • @chai-blu • @al3x1ss • @hawksyoongi • @syndellwins • @jooleuuh • @loubells • @kissungjae • @liberhoe • @tetsurocore • @animeoverdosee • @duhsies • @saikishairclip • @afire24 • @premiyagi • @kit-kat428 • @doctorspencereid • @daphnxy • @kyomihann • @maer-333 • @sinoflust19 • @peteunderoos • @peachiikichu • @iidanotlida • @yongboxerrr • @kac-chowsballs • @tanakaslastbraincell • @memorableminds • @risjime • @starry-magicshop • @sugavwara • @smuttyanimeslut • @kiwibirbs-library • @haijkk • @airybnb • @crybabygumi • @iwaisa • @decaffinatedtealover • @notameera • @kawaii-angelanne • @rintarovibes • @urlocalsimp

the rest of the tags will be in the replies!!

[ibukis-songbook]

[Non-Request] Kiibo, Makoto, Nagito, and Shuichi’s f!s/o wearing something that makes them unusually dominant

I made myself blush while writing this.

Okay, so I started this based around a fantasy I had and started using it as a warm up for before I wrote something, and then eventually I finished it! It ended up so long because, for one, I’d had these fantasies before, and two, I just. Kept going. Lol. The horn knee does not end. If anyone wants to request this with an s/o with a different gender identity or with different characters feel more than free to! Please provide outfit ideas though because I’m not sure if my fried little brain can come up with any more.

(PS: does the colored and italicized text for the character dialogue look more pleasing?)

CW: nsfw, slight jealousy and possessiveness, revealing outfits, lingerie, cat ears/tail, title of “master”, maid costume, petplay, maid/servant play, pet names, leash and collar

.｡.:*☆♥︎♫♪—————— ↫ l l ↬ ——————♪♫♥︎☆*:.｡.

Gold Medal - Destroy Boys

Kiibo:

Oh gods

You’d worn tight outfits before, sure. Maybe a tank top and a pair of skinny jeans, or that one crop top you own…

But never anything like this.

It was a short, tight black little number you were planning on wearing to go out with the rest of the class for dinner.

Was it hot in the room or was Kiibo just overheating?

It hugged your shape in all of the right places, holding onto your hips and chest. It was short enough that he had a clear view of your thighs and oh gods he was gonna lose it

Humans we’re just so soft, and you especially could melt him with just a touch. Almost every inch of you was basically exposed, and he wanted to grab it, kiss it, stroke it, run his fingers over it…

“What do you think, Kiibo? Is it too much?”

Now, Kiibo would never police what you wear, and he wasn’t a possessive lover,

But that being said, the thought of the rest of the class seeing you in this dress? It did make him jealous. Very jealous.

Something snapped in him, and he uncharacteristically grabbed you roughly by the waist.

“K-Kiibs? What are you-“

“I can’t have you wearing that out, or around me, or…at all. Not without me being…excited.”

He shoved you up against the now closed front door, and kissed you. It was still a very Kiibo kiss—gentle and sweet—but a bit more pleading than usual.

It got rougher and heavier quickly though. He began nipping at your neck, and slid his thigh between your legs to tease you.

“I really can’t have you wearing this,” he bit down on your sensitive spot, “You know what? You should just take it off. Right here.”

Needless to say, you guys didn’t make it to the restaurant in time. Kokichi and Miu totally teased you guys the next day in the group chat.

Shuichi:

Shuichi thinks of you as more cute than sexy most of the time.

It isn’t because he didn’t think you were sexy. You were the sexiest person in the world to him. He just didn’t really see your body as something that was to be sexualized as much as it was something to be appreciated.

So he never told you what to wear and what to not, unless he was explicitly asked for his opinion. He never acted as if you were an object. He often liked your more risqué outfits, encouraging you to wear them out more!

And he had never really felt the need to viciously tear anything off of you. He was so gentle with you regardless of how turned on he was. You could wear nothing but a thong and he’d take it off of you like he was one wrong move away from ripping it, and you, in half.

Though this time, your experiments with fashion had tipped him over an edge he didn’t know he had.

You’d been wanting to try the lingerie-as-clothes trend for a while, so you had bought a bustier top with sheer, puffy sleeves, and paired it with a short skirt and a pair of classic pumps.

It was lacy, and cute, and downright gorgeous on you.

And you could tell that’s exactly what Shuichi was thinking before you even asked what he thought about it.

He was bright red and barely covering his boner. He stood there with his jaw halfway to the floor, trying to stammer out some semblance of a sentence.

“S/o…y-you…uh, you, you’re s-so…I, uh, god, fuck…I wanna…”

“You wanna what, Shu honey?” you replied, ever so innocently (naughty s/o!!!)

Aight, that’s it.

He snaked his arms around you and pulled you into a heated kiss, his mind glazed over with lust.

“I want…” he sighed, “No, I …need…to unlace this.” He had begun tugging on the back lacing for the top.

“I need you under me… and I need…your hands tied with this ribbon, baby…”

He began kissing down your neck as he guided you to the bed.

“You’re under arrest,” he delicately tied your wrists together with the ribbon from your bustier, which now lay on the bedroom floor.

“You’re under arrest for stealing my heart. Your punishment is letting the Detective have his way with you. How…does that sound?”

Nagito:

Nagito switches back and forth between dominant and submissive, but only ever what you want from him. He’s happy as long as you are, and doesn’t ever really assert himself.

In any position he’s in though, he loves worshipping you. Everything about you, your body, it’s all so hopeful and beautiful.

He would die if you did the same to him. He thrives off of your praise, and your approval.

So imagine his pure love and adoration for you when he came home to find you wearing a skimpy maid outfit, complete with the cutest pair of thigh highs, and a leather collar and leash, sitting oh so patiently on the bed, waiting for him.

“Hope, w…what are you…?”

He’s BEET RED and tbh already has a boner

“Do you like it, Nagito? You always do so much for me. I wanted to be the one to serve you today.”

His eyes are glazed over in love and lust at the thought of you doting on him, listening to every command, listening to him like he was your lifeline, just like he does with you.

“Oh, y/n, I c-couldn’t possibly ask…you…”

You cut him off by pulling him to a rough kiss. You bit his bottom lip, and started pulling off his jacket. His knees began to give out already, landing him on the bed next to you.

“Please, let me serve you tonight, Master.”

Aaaand that’s what got him

COMPLETE MOOD SWITCH

He kissed and bit down on your neck, savoring your moans, squeezing your hips tighter every time you allowed yourself to make another sweet, sweet whimper.

“You really want to be told what to do by trash like me?”

You nodded, and began returning the favors he did to your neck.

He took your hands in his, guiding them to the hem of his shirt. You helped him take it off, and he tugged on your leash, locking you into another passionate make out session.

“So pretty, so desperate to serve. All of this for me?”

“If you want me to tell you what I want so badly, then I will,” he started untying the apron that was layered upon the dress. “I want you to be completely exposed to me. I want you to show me how badly you need my touch.”

You shuddered as he leaned into you to whisper. Your neck tingled at the feeling of his breath grazing your jaw.

“Master Nagito…let me touch you. Please.”

“No no, not yet baby. If you want to touch me, you’re going to have to show master how much of a desperate girl you really are. Can you do that? Can you show your master how needy you are for my hands all over you?”

Nagito had a lot more stamina than usual for the rest of the night.

Makoto:

Makoto. Sweet boy Makoto…

Most revealing outfits could get him going, let’s be real.

He’s just so easily flustered! And he loooooovesssss your body. Just seeing some cleavage gives him a nosebleed~

He’s always had a fantasy of you in a puppy or kitty getup and you two had talked about it before.

So, as a surprise, you put on a cute lingerie set and a pair of cat ears and a matching tail, a cute collar, and sit on the bed until he comes home.

“Hey s/o! I’m ho-OME?”

Insta-boner

What a cutie omg he’s just sputtering and trying to figure out what he did do deserve such a wonderful girlfriend

You giggle and pull him closer to you on the bed

“Makoto, honey, do you like it? I got all of this just for you.”

He’s flushed a dark red now. “Y-yes! I l-l-love it, but do you r-really…?”

You laugh again, and take his hand in yours. You hook his index finger around the loop on your collar.

“Master, I want you to own me. Please touch me.”

Makoto stares at you with his mouth open for a sec. You think that he’s upset, and you’re about to tell him you can stop and take it off, when he yanks your collar, making you gasp, and pulls you into a frenzied make-out session.

He shoves his tongue into your mouth and grabs you by your waist, pulling you onto his lap. You moan as he grinds up into you.

He pulls away, and there’s a string of saliva between your mouths.

“Meow for me.”

[chill-pills-yandere-haven]

Dreams of Coffee and K-pop pt.2

Pt.1

An: I found the emoji!

Tw: yandere, implied murderous intent

Disclaimer: Yanderes are abusive, this is not love.

Art cred: Kackaorz1 on Twitter

It was the day of the concert. You had been listening to the 4NEMO music that your friend had been recommending you and had gotten quite familiar with it. Now, you were dressed in your favourite outfit, ready to attend the concert with your best friend. It was two hours before the concert started, but Venti advised you to come early so you and your friend could hang out with them and watch them warm-up. 4NEMO had gotten closer to you in the time before the concert. The boys texted you constantly and you got attached, welcoming them into your tight little circle of trust. You even all had a group chat with just you and the boys. They proved to be a pleasant way for you to blow off steam from your classes and relax so you welcomed them. Just a week after you all had met, 4NEMO had a new hit album called "Coffee Dream". It had become your new favourite album from them, containing all of the things you loved in music. Almost as though it was made with you in mind. You even set your ringtone to the instrumental of one of the album's songs. A beep resounded from your phone as you looked yourself over in the mirror. A text from Venti, " Hey cutie, just wondering if you need a ride to the concert, I'd be happy to give you a ride!" The nickname 'Cutie' had been something that sort of just happened, no inside joke, just Venti teasing you. You smile and chuckle a bit then answer him. "Yeah sure, I'm already ready so you can come now and I'm sure that they're ready too so you can pick us up now." Five minutes later you received another text telling you that Venti was now at your apartment. Making sure to fix your hair, you went outside. Outside was a black limousine waiting for you. "Get in, cutie! The others are starting warmups!" Venti called to you as you got in the limo, admiring the interior of the vehicle. Vent pulled you to his side, thighs touching. You were confused at his actions but then Venti slung his arm around your shoulder and explained. "Well we've got to make sense for your friend, right? Ehe." He giggled at the end. In return, you shrugged but it did make sense so you didn't mind. Plus, this was Venti, he's always like this. Once you got to your friend's house you saw them with a 4NEMO glow stick in hand and wearing a 4NEMO tee with the group's logo on it. "Hey, bestie! And Venti!" You laughed at the stupid nickname and replied. "Ok, you know you are my best friend and I love you platonically, and that I would die for you if necessary, but do not call me bestie. You can call me anything else, hell I'd even prefer if you called me your 'stupid butt-kicking partner in arson,' than whatever that was. Now, let's pretend that never happened and erase that from our memories. 'Kay?" This was just harmless teasing as you two had done much more stupid things and had many more inside jokes that no one except for you two knew about. "Aye aye, captain!" You talked about random subjects as the car ride went on. And Venti held onto you the whole way, almost as if he thought you might disappear. Maybe even a bit more than usual. Once you got to where the concert would take place, Venti escorted you both to the private room where the boys were practicing. "Hey, guys, I brought a little something!" Venti called to the other 4NEMO members, a hand on your shoulder tugging you to him. All the group looked up from what they were doing. From Kazuha trying out different chords on the electronic piano to xiao going over some dance moves that you hadn't seen yet, to Aether doing vocal exercises. Aether and Kazuha meeting you with soft smiles. Xiao looking away from you after he met your eyes. "So that's what you went off to do, and I almost thought you were trying to skip out on practice." Xiao retorted. "Well it is nice to have you here with us, and you too." Aether addressed you and your friend. It was surprisingly relaxing watching them warm-up for the concert. The practice was flawless, clear that everyone had already gotten everything down to the most minuscule detail. "4NEMO, you ready? Shows about to

begin." One of their workers called, you fairly remember her name being Rika or something along those lines. The boys nodded already dressed in their beautiful yet casual costumes. "Wooh! Go 4NEMO!" You called to them as you and your friend headed for where the audience had already situated itself. (On the other side) That past week, they had been almost three times more productive with you as their inspiration. Starting and releasing a new album dedicated to you in just a week. With you on their brains, inspiration was abundant. They were more devoted to you than even some of their superfans, Kazuha even stalking your social media in secret so he could make sure that his next compositions were to your taste. 4NEMO had been trying to express their love for you in the clearest yet unsuspicious way they could. Even referencing the day you met with the album. Nevertheless, you seemed to be only interested in friendship. No matter, everything would go their way in the end. Venti had put in so much effort to have you by his side, even if it was for just before the concert. Having to sneak away from the group without being noticed to go get you, paying the limo driver extra as he was only supposed to have driven 4NEMO there. Even holding back what we wanted to say to make you ditch that lousy friend of yours. Just for you to voice your feelings of devotion for them while he was in the same car!? So oblivious, so innocent, he had to protect you. The other boys were also surprised to see you but welcomed your presence. They all thought you would only show up at the concert, not before. But they all loved to indulge in you, so no one really minded Venti's little stunt. 4NEMO appeared on the stage. Smiling at the crowd with meaningless movie star smiles. At everyone except for you of course. All their eyes scoured the crowd for you, happy to see that you were close to the stage. Close enough, to tempt them into pulling you up to be with them. But, they had an image to uphold. So they held off on the longing looks at you and just focused on impressing you. "Hey, guys! Who's ready for a 4NEMO concert!?" Aether grinned and asked the crowd? The audience wooed back, even you, something the boys genuinely smiled at. "Well then, we've ought to get this party started!" Venti cried as the first song started. The boys knew that this had been your first concert as you preferred more quiet, secluded ways to spend your time while your friend was the one dragging you to interact with the outside world. And they were determined to make it special. Make this day the one that makes you as head over heels in love with them as they are. They started with a fast fan favourite, the one that you had as your ringtone. The one they created as a way to only express a fraction of the passion they felt for you. Xiao moved beautifully and elegantly as he sang. Venti hit a flawless high note that even most female singers couldn't reach. Kazuha harmonized with them in such a beautiful way that it could take one's breath away, rapping clearly and rapidly. Aether was the one who pulled it all together, he was the leader after all. 4NEMO was pleased to find that you were enjoying the change of environment. Moving your head and singing along with some of the songs you knew. Just one small problem. Though it was an irritation, the boys kept up in the perfect way only they could achieve. The problem was that you just had to bring your friend with you, Venti told the others what he had heard in the car, about how you would even die for them. And they just had to separate you two, it was too much jealousy to handle. It drove them even further, made them crave your praise even more. Even just a small compliment would suffice. So they worked their hardest at this concert. Making sure you have the time of your life. The concert was finally over and now you could be reunited with the boys. They swarmed around you once you had arrived at their private room. Asking you how the experience was and was delighted that you said that it was "absolutely

surreal" and that you loved it. It might not have been a direct 'I love you.' But it would work for now. Though they couldn't be with you in public due to their status, they would still have you. They would still make you theirs. They would remove anyone to make that happen. And it seemed like your friend was going to be the first.

[kiridarling]

𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐃𝐎.

katsuki bakugou | competitive sex + f!reader + pro hero!kats + hickeys + hair-pulling + ripping clothes + a surprise guest + more! minors dni.

— 1.8k words

"Text Shitty Deku we're gonna be little late."

“Katsuki. Hands off.”

The ash-blond sighs, grumbling like the petulant child he is before forcing his hands to his sides. Glaring at you through the mirror, he grunts, “Fuckin’ why.”

"Because I'm trying to get ready and you're in the way." You swat his hands away and reach for a brush, rolling your eyes when he ignores everything you just said in favor of hooking his chin around your shoulder and wrapping his arms around your waist. You shrug him off, "Now move."

In your defense, you've been pushed to your limit.

You two are already late enough for the Gala as it is, you know, the one that's exclusively for pro heroes. And yet, for some reason, today's the day your boyfriend's brain seems to be in his dick.

Katsuki digs his teeth into your neck, hard enough to make you whimper before you rip his head away by the strands of his hair. He growls in frustration, the grip on your waist ever-tightening.

"Y'know...if people saw the type of shit you pull in private, they'd think you were the aggressive one."

"You let me get away with it," you respond absentmindedly, leaning towards the mirror until the cool from the counter presses into your gut. Mistake.

"Right. I've been too fuckin' soft, huh?" Katsuki says more to himself than to you before he's forcing you over the sink with a heavy hand on your back; the metal from the faucet knocks you in the collarbone. "That shit changes today."

"I—Kats, we don't have ti—" but the indisputable sound of ripping cloth bounces off your bathroom walls, and the addition of cool air brushing your inner thighs implies precisely what you hope he didn't just do.

His phone clatters on the counter before he's nudging your legs wider, nestling between them, and settling on his knees.

"Text Shitty Deku we're gonna be late."

"Katsuki Bakugou, did you just rip my fucking stockings?" You howl, grip tightening around the marble countertop in fury. Katsuki growls, delivering a heavy slap to your ass.

"I said fuckin' text him."

Your chest rises and falls with indignance, and yet you're punching in the code to his phone anyway, telling Izuku to reserve two spots at the table next to him because you two won't be able to do it yourselves.

"D'ya send it?" Katsuki asks, having a blast as he kneads your exposed ass to the point where it's sore. You nod, dropping the six-by-four box onto the countertop in resignation, and the ash-blond's chest rumbles at that, hand disappearing only to crack back down twice as hard. "Good girl."

Pushing your panties to the side, Katsuki wastes no time in sliding in his finger to the first knuckle, grinning when you shudder against him. You squeal as his teeth graze your inner thigh, and he hikes your knee onto the couch, dismissing how much you complain about the burn.

"What? Can't get a better view?" He growls, cheeky bastard, before he's sucking a hickey into your thigh because he knows you like it and pushing his finger in the rest of the way. You narrow your eyes, glaring at the small sliver of his smug face you can actually see in the mirror—and he's quickly filling you with a second finger, chuckling at your moan.

"You shouldn't have a view in the first place," you grumble, insistent on standing your ground. "You should be viewing the road because we're supposed to be driving right now."

"That's a real fuckin' pity then," Katsuki responds apathetically, lips pink as he moves to suck another hickey—closer to the apex of your thighs this time. You whimper as he scissors his fingers and passes a messy thumb over your clit, hips burning from holding this position for so long. With a final lick, Katsuki pulls away from his third or fourth mark (you're not too sure) and smacks his lips. "On the sink."

"On the c—Katsuki we have to g—wah!"

Katsuki takes it upon himself to hook his arms under your thighs and hoist you onto the cool thing, sending all miscellaneous bathroom items flying. You sigh, accepting the fact that you're probably not going to make it out of the house tonight as your back kisses the freezing glass, and Katsuki pushes your knees as far back as they'll go.

He curls a lip, and then he spits, getting saliva all over your pussy and thighs, and it's wholly and utterly lewd. And yet, you bite your lip at the feeling, and he grins, knowing you like it just as much as you'll say you hate it.

"You're a fuckin' dirty girl, y'know that?" Katsuki's eyes go dark. You huff, threading a hand through his ash-blond locks to tug—and you're the one grinning when he moans.

"I'm not the one who's making us skip a mandatory gala to get his dick wet," you quip with a raised eyebrow, and your hand never leaves his hair. "Am I?"

Katsuki growls with a curled lip, but you know better, and so does the clammy grip on your thigh. You tug on his hair again, and suddenly you're full of him, yelping in surprise as your arms scramble for his back for better purchase instead.

"What was that?" He asks breathily, hiding a groan behind a bitten lip. You're just thankful he's giving you time to adjust, or so you think, until he almost pulls out entirely before his hips snap forwards as hard as they can, knocking your spine into the mirror and a bottle of lotion onto the floor.

You moan, hands searching for his hair again because you know it's one of the only things that will provide a one-up—Katsuki bares his teeth at that, bending over to suck a mark into your neck and his hips continue to fuck you into tomorrow.

"You fit like a goddamn glove," Katsuki wheezes, the grip he has around your stocking-covered thigh edging on bruising. "So tight around me—fuck—"

"K-Kats—" you grapple for his dress shirt so hard it tears, causing you to crash against the counter and make more of a mess that's already been made. The ash-blond's hips don't do anything but speed up though, filling you to the point where a deep breath feels like too much.

"Fuck baby, you're so goddamn needy," Katsuki grabs your attention by your jaw with a gritty chuckle, "But this shit's only for me, ain't it? 'Cause you're fuckin' mine."

You whimper with a nod, nails latching onto hot and sticky skin now. Katsuki hisses as they rake down his back, but that only makes you want to dig in harder.

"Fuckin' say it—tell me you're mine and no one else's," he challenges with a glint in his carmine red eyes, and something in your gut churns underneath it. Something painfully primal and raw, which has you howling out:

"'M yours, only yours!"

You jolt when his thumb returns to your clit and refuses to let up. Katsuki growls at that, somehow finding the stamina to speed up—and gripping your shoulder for leverage. You moan, eyes fluttering as his cock reaches the deepest it has tonight, and you’re sure Katsuki can tell as well if his curse is anything to go by.

Ring, ring! Ring ring!

Surprisingly, Katsuki's phone survived the purge and still sits on the counter, albeit teetering on the edge of absolute destruction. The ash-blond catches it before it falls and has the nerve to swipe right, not allowing you to fit in an objection or any say in this at all.

"The fuck do you want, Deku?" He grunts, putting the phone on speaker before he sets it back down. You eep in protest, but all he does is mouth the words quiet, baby. So you're huff, biting onto the meat of your palm for extra precaution.

"Um, Kacchan? Where are you guys?" The greenette's voice echoes off the bathroom walls to the point where it's nearly comical how clueless he is, and yet Katsuki refuses to slow down. "People are starting to ask when you're getting here..."

"Not fuckin' goin'," Katsuki's sweat drips from his brow onto your chest, and all of a sudden, you're aware of how painfully close you are, but hold back in fear of making too much noise. Izuku sighs through the phone, and you can feel his disappointment from here.

"I—Kacchan, you can't just opt out of these things, you know," Izuku says, echoing your words from earlier. "Mandatory means you have to attend."

"Yeah, well, I got better shit to do, Deku," the ash-blond spits, though he's grinning like the devil because the asshole knows you're close, he can just tell at this point, and you hate how well he knows your body.

"It doesn't matter if you don't want to go, Kacchan!" The pro-hero shrills, voice peaking out of pure frustration. "This is mandatory. As in, M-A-N-D-A-T—"

Katsuki hangs up.

"Why is everyone so goddamn mouthy these days?" He grunts, primarily to himself, and somehow you have the will to giggle. Katsuki's eyebrows furrow as you tighten around him, spurred when the head of his cock nudges the perfect spot, and his nails start to tear into what's left of your stockings as he shudders, "I—fuck baby, I'm gonna cum."

"What? Being on the phone with Izuku got you all riled up or something?" You jest breathily, and Katsuki growls, slapping your outer thigh.

"Don't fuckin' bring the nerd up right now," he wheezes, and you resist the urge to quip back—mainly because you're close yourself. You reach to pull Katsuki's hair again and his hips stutter, eyes fluttering with a breathy moan as he finally fills you up, keening over to dig his teeth into your neck. And his orgasm is only the catalyst for your own, thumping your hands against his chest as your body ignites like a live wire, toes curling and eyes screwed shut.

Katsuki stays seated in you as he catches his breath, head resting on the cool mirror with his ash-blond hair mattes brown to his forehead. He's always uncharacteristically soft while basking in his afterglow, face and chest flushed bright red from exertion as his eyes soften in a way he rarely lets them.

"You good?" He pants, chest still heaving as he blinks down at your exhausted figure. Somehow, you find the energy to nod.

"I don't feel like leaving anymore, though," you declare towards the ceiling. Katsuki clicks his tongue.

"Was hopin' you'd say that," he says gruffly—you narrow your eyes but bite your tongue. "Wanna watch a movie?"

A movie doesn't sound...bad.

You sigh in defeat (again), though jolting when Katsuki's phone rings. He quickly presses red, and 9 missed calls from shitty fucking deku is the first notification on his home screen. You two share a look—the ash-blond shrugs.

"What? I told the fucker I had better shit to do."

wrote this for a friends bday and i was like,,,i guess i could put it here too...

[yyxgin]

lee felix’s guide to hating you

— ♡ FIC BANNER MADE BY THE AMAZING @chogiwow !!

pairing: lee felix x fem!reader genre: college au, tutor au ; fluff, angst, slice of life, slow burn word count: 21 k warnings: mentions of alcohol, mention of weed, swearing, bad family relationships

a/n: this story is very briefly inspired by jaemin’s drama ‘the way i hate you’ :) also this idea has been in my mind for such a long time, so i’m happy i finally managed to write it. this is also my longest fic so far, i hope it’s worth it. uhh yea enjoy <3

taglist: @feyregels​ @missskzbiased​ @hyunyin​ @koishua​ @crispy-chan​ @rindomo​ @soulssung​ @thatrandomoneinthecorner​ @90shermione​ @chogiwow​ @creatichee​ @freckledberries​ @hyunnies-stars​ 

There’s a list of things Lee Felix knew before applying for college-- and that is: 1) he really, desperately needs a degree for his grandparents to value him as an equal adult, 2) college in young adult movies seems like fun and partying and alcohol really does sound like his wettest dream, 3) he doesn’t need to work for another 4 years, which is fun and 5) he is really, horribly bad at studying.

Here’s a list of things Lee Felix, however, did not know before applying for college, and even though it’s fairly shorter, it hits you in the guts deeper, and that is: 1) studying for college means never ending chapters of insomnia and 2) he is always going to feel like the second choice for everyone. 

You see, girls don’t like Felix that much. Well, that’s a lie-- girls do go after him, tell him he’s cute and his freckles are adorable, but that’s only after they find out there’s no use in chasing after his best friend Han Jisung when he gets himself a new significant other. Boys don’t go after Felix either. Why, you may ask? Read the paragraph over again-- just change the word girls to the word boys. It’s as simple as that. He’s always the second choice, the back-up plan. It feels silly to drag his grandma into this, really, but the truth is, he’s a second choice in every aspect of his life, and that, too, includes his big (and still growing) family that treats him as something less than a human just because of the fact that his grades aren’t as good as his cousin’s are and he doesn’t have a degree in biological science, although he’s too young for that and his college years only started. It’s hard, living in his shoes.

What is Felix, however, really good at? 

Cheating.

Yeah, well, you see-- it’s not funny to be the outcast of the smart Lee family and it’s also not enetaining in the slightest to be the only single one at family gatherings (read as: weddings, because every single one of his relatives decided to fuck up their life with marriage in the past three years for some unknown reason). So Felix does what he’s the best at, and that is going by his favorite life motto: fake it ��til you make it. 

He cheats on every single one of his exams and believe me when I tell you he’s the top of the class just because he’s the best cheater in town. Good cheating techniques equal good grades and suddenly, Felix’s life seems much brighter when he spends his sleepless nights with creating cheat sheets instead of studying and copying essays written in korean, translating them to english and submitting them as his own because no one will ever notice-- his degree is within the reach of his hand and he can already feel all the grandmas of the family clapping in joy, maybe even wiping away a stray tear on his graduation ceremony in a few years with bouquets of flowers in their hands and expensive watches in their gift bags, ready to welcome him back into the family.. 

What he doesn’t expect, though, is the cute little saying of ‘every lie has short legs’ he swears he heard sometimes in his linguistic class before, coming to life right in front of his eyes as the professor of his Biology class makes him the assigned tutor of the sweet Y/N Y/L/N, because, well, he clearly doesn’t know anything-- what’s he supposed to tutor now? 

The best cheating techniques?

The freckled boy sitting in front of you looks at you with furrowed brows and you wonder what’s the matter with him. Is there something on your face? Are you not dressed appropriately for the occasion? I mean, it’s only a tutoring session, so you didn’t put that much effort into it, but judging from the casual outfit enveloping his body, he didn’t really try to look fancy either. So what was it with him that made him stare you down as if you had horns on your head?

“Shall we start?” he asks once he’s done staring, voice sounding determined. You wonder if he sees the hints of nervousness on your face and if he notices the way you shrink in your seat in the mention of biology, but you guess he doesn’t know you that well to know that you fear the subject as much as you fear dying. 

“Yeah, sure,” you nod, scooting closer to the edge of your seat so you’re not so far away from the table. Felix-- your new biology tutor-- is sitting opposite of you and it’s quite difficult to read the text book once it’s upside down, but you don’t dare to mention it to him for a reason that’s unknown to you as well. It’s like you don’t want to overstep any invisible boundary on your first tutoring session, and telling the person that is teaching you to turn around the text book so you can actually see and learn something seems to be one of the taboos in your eyes. 

You take a quick glance at the waiter that just stopped next to your booth and smile, opening up your mouth to order yourself a meal. “Can I get you anything else?” she asks.

“No-” Felix offers her with a shy smile, but you cut him off with a voice a little higher in the octaves, not wanting your tutor coming in between you and reaching your biggest goal you’ve set for yourself.

“Actually, yes. Could I please get the chicken wings? With fries?” you ask, trying to look as innocent as you can, smiling at her in politeness. You ignore the confused look Lee Felix is offering you from the other side of the table. You mentally send him a signal to tell him to mind his own business, watching the waitress leave with a nod and a polite smile. 

“Okay, now we can start,” you nod at him and focus all your attention to the boy with sandy hair in front of you.

“O...kay?” he answers, obviously trying to bat away his rising confusion, because ordering yourself chicken wings on your tutoring session is prohibited now, apparently. “So,” he starts, sighing and scratching the back of his neck, “what do you not understand from this section?” 

You nervously chew on the bottom of your lip. Well, that’s a sweet question, you think. It would have been much sweeter and much easier to answer, though, if you understood at least a bit from the things you’re supposed to know. You went to university with the urge to prove something to yourself, but the only thing you’re proving to yourself right now is the fact that you are actually kind of useless, when it comes to biology.

“Just like the… whole thing, actually,” you nod, trying not to look as defeated as you feel and also trying not to burst out in a manic laugh as you always do when you feel slightly nervous about anything.

“Cool, cool, yeah,” he nods, taking a deep breath in, turning the textbook around and sighing, “I don’t think I can help you with that.”

“What do you mean you can’t?” you ask, confused. 

Lee Felix is the top of the grade. He is the best at biology, he is the best at chemistry, he is the best at his farmacy class. You’re sure he’ll be a fine biochemist in a few years, when his college times are over. Lee Felix is the smartest boy in your biology class and you are, coincidentally, quite the opposite on this spectrum. Which is exactly why your teacher managed to make Felix tutor you in his free time. You weren’t surprised at the fact that the blonde boy agreed to this-- he was quite the sweetheart, really. All the girls in your class fawned upon the way his freckles shined in the sunlight and the way he opened the doors for older professors. He was quite the boy you would want to introduce to your parents. Not quite the one every girl goes after, but the one that you would want to settle down with after your college years are over.

So why is he, the sweet, but also smart boy that agreed to tutor you, now telling you he can’t help you?

“It’s just.. I’m not really good at this section, I mean-”

“Felix, you’re the top of the class. Of course you’re good at this section.” you mumble, gazing deep into his eyes, trying to search for an answer.

“I-” he says and takes a sharp breath in, stopping himself in continuing his train of thought and just opting to shrug, not giving you a proper response either.

You feel like someone just punched you in the gut, and that’s when you realise-- here it is again. Another person that doesn’t believe in you-- another person that needs proving that you really can do it, you just need a little push. You can see it in his eyes that he doesn’t think you’re smart or bright enough to pass the exams, you’re not good enough to get good grades. It’s nothing new to you, but it still haunts you just the same.

“Is it because you know I can’t do it?” you bluntly ask, sighing. 

“No! No, no, I never said that-” he says, almost panicking with the way his hands fly into the air hurriedly, waving them around as if it was meant to calm you down. 

“You’re acting like it, though. I promise I’m not stupid- well, maybe I am, but-”

“You’re not stupid! It’s me! I’m the stupid one here.” he says, effectively silencing you with his words as you stare at him, dumbfounded. He’s joking, right?

“How can you be stupid when you get only the best grades? Felix, if you just don’t want to waste your time here, tell me, but don’t try to hide behind poor excuses.” you roll your eyes, feeling frustrated at the boy’s antics. Does he really think you’re that stupid that you can’t see right through his lies?

“I cheat.”

You blink a few times as if to reset your brain, gazing at him with pure confusion written in your orbs. He cheats? No. That’s a lie. A person as good at biology as Felix can’t cheat. All his exams are on 100% and he never makes any mistakes. He’s the epitome of the smart kid. The little Einstein. The prodigy. There’s no way it’s all cheating.

“No.” you shake your head in disapproval. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying! Look, I genuinely, really want to help you. I really do. The thing is, though, I don’t know how to study. I make cheat sheets and I use them at every exam and every test, that’s why everyone thinks I’m super smart, but that is really not the case,” he shakes his head, staring into your eyes with his wide open in honesty, wanting you-- no,-- needing you to understand. “I would tutor you if I could, really, but I just don’t know how to,” he sighs finally, acting like he’s just given birth or ran a marathon, exhaustion written all over his face.

“So why did you offer to tutor me, then?” you ask.

He takes a moment for himself to collect his thoughts, before he speaks up again. “Well, I didn’t really want to get caught. You see, I would never turn my back to anyone. Really. So I thought I could at least try to learn something? So I could help you? But I failed, as always, so I’m just coming clean in front of you and you have to promise me you won’t tell anyone.”

The moment the last sentence leaves his mouth, you notice the apparent fear in his eyes, realising that he just shared an information with you that nobody really knows. It’s a secret he’s been hiding and keeping from everyone just to appear as the smartest one-- fooling everyone, including you. You feel even more stupid now, under his gaze. You feel played. You came to the tutoring, hoping to finally get a grip, when all you get is a person that is stepping all over the sandcastle of your fragile dreams, kicking every little piece of sand away with his lies. You know you shouldn’t feel so invested in this. You shouldn’t feel so hurt. But somehow, you still do. 

“So you just told me you are lying to everyone and cheating on tests and you want me to keep it a secret from everyone?” you ask in disbelief.

“Yes.” he nods, eyes hopeful. He’s been lying for the last year as if his life was depending on it and now he wants you to do the same-- keep quiet in front of everyone.

“And what do I do when the professor asks me why I’m not getting any better? Huh? Ever thought of that?” you leash out, harshly chewing on your bottom lip in nerves. “I want to pass. And I want to do it fair and square.” you get out in between your teeth.

“I didn’t… I didn’t think of that yet, but-”

“Leave.” you say, looking him sternly into his eyes.

“What do you mean, leave?”

“I don’t want to talk to you anymore. And you’re clearly not here to teach me anything, so you can just take your things and leave.” you spit out, crossing your hands over your chest.

“You leave, then,” he mutters, looking rather offended. You’re not sure why he’s the one hurt right now, but you guess that’s just how men and their egos are, there’s nothing more under his hurt eyes and shattered self-esteem.

“I ordered food, I’m not leaving.” you calmly respond. Once you say this, you’re reminded of the little quest you made for yourself. Never once did you feel silly for taking it so seriously in front of your other friends, but now, in front of Lee Felix with freckled dusted cheeks, you feel almost invisible as you realise why you even ordered the chicken wings and how you’re going to write a yelp review about them later.

Well, someone has to do it, and if not you, then who will, right? It’s the only valid way to find out who makes the best chicken wings in the town and not even your traitor-tutor is going to stop you now, when your list is only getting shorter and shorter. 

He stares at you for a few moments, dumbfounded, before he sighs and accepts his defeat. “Okay, I’ll just have to text my roommate to pick me up,” he admits.

You nod, just in time the server comes back with your food, offering her a welcoming smile. “Fine. But don’t even think of talking to me from now on. I’m not interested in more lies,” you spit at him, scowling as you take a look at the plate of chicken wings sitting in front of you in their full glory. You sense a very bad review, judging from the way the chicken wings look nothing like wings, rather full on small chickens dipped in oil, but dive in nonetheless. 

“Why do you have to be so dramatic?” he asks, voice coated in disbelief.

“Because I was scammed!” you yell out, mouth full of chicken, not caring a second about the way you might look in the boy’s eyes. Yes, you could have at least swallowed before speaking to him, but did you do it? No. No, you didn’t. 

“Oh come on-”

“Don’t even try arguing with me!” you spit at him-- quite glad that this time, it’s not literal-- and huff out in annoyance, when the door opens and a short boy with a bucket hat on steps into the bistro, the red fabric of the seats of the booths contrasting with his shoes in a way that makes you feel captivated, your eyes refusing to tear themselves away from him. 

The boy is taking quick steps to your booth and you almost choke on your chicken wings as you admire his full glory-- tanned skin and car keys in his hand, but his eyes meet the boy sitting opposite of you and that’s when everything clicks. This is not the boy of your dreams, this is Han Jisung. Your tutor’s best friend and roommate-- also known as the resident heartbreaker. You shouldn’t feel weak in your knees when you look at him, but that’s exactly what happens and you won’t feel ashamed about it. Well, not now, at least. In a few hours when you’re lying in your bed? Maybe. But I’ll tell you then.

“Yo, dude, I texted you like five minutes ago that I’m waiting for you outside, what are you still doing here?” he asks, furrowing his brows at his roommate and slowly moving his eyes to you, scanning you up and down, leaving your heart to do the stupid cartwheel you haven’t felt since, like, middle school. 

“We were in the middle of an argument, so I didn’t hear my phone ring.” Felix answers, glaring at you with spiteful eyes. You almost prepare to kill him with yours, but you focus on wiping the oil from the corner of your mouth and smiling heavenly, trying to look like a lady in front of your new visitor.

“Was Felix being absolutely unbearable again?” he asks you, surprising you with his subtle way of engaging you into the conversation.

You giggle, rolling your eyes slightly. “Yeah. You know him too well, don’t you?”

“Unfortunately,” he admits, looking defeated, when he moves his eyes to Felix, looking rather sulky on the red seat in front of you as you chat with his roommate, when Jisung’s tone of voice changes into a more worried one, speaking up again, “does she… did you…?”

“Yeah,” Felix just nods. 

Jisung sighs, sitting down next to his roommate, pushing him a little so he has more space in the booth. “What are you supposed to tutor her anyway?” he asks.

“Biology,” you mumble sooner than Felix gets the chance to speak up, motioning to the textbook still sitting at the table in front of you. 

The boy takes a look at the papers, his face changing from a focused one to a one more lighter, his eyes scanning the papers with ease. You notice his mouth moving a little as he reads the words under his breath, catching yourself from staring when you feel Felix’s eyes burning into the crown of your head, snapping you back to reality. 

“You know… maybe I could help you with that.” he says, looking like a business offering you a deal that you’re sure involves something illegal. He looks like a focused squirrel with his cheeks puffed out a little in what you sense is pride, something in his eyes glowing as you nervously chew on your bottom lip.

“Really?”

“Yeah, of course. I’m actually quite good at biology, to be honest. Well, not as much as Felix over here-” he jokes, scowling when the blonde boy punches his arm, “but I think I could tutor you a thing or two.”

“What’s the catch?” you ask, nervously watching him. Something in his composure is telling you he’ll want something in return, but you don’t know what yet. You’re quite sure you’ll sell your soul for the adorable boy in front of you if he asked you to, but it never hurts to ask beforehand, right? 

“What do you mean, what’s the catch?”

“Like… what do you want in return?” you muse out, taking a bite of a fry, noticing how soggy it feels under your teeth.

“Woah, you spend 15 minutes with Felix and you already think there’s something illegal behind everything? I’ll let you know, I’m better than that.” he scoffs. “I’m just doing it because I see how miserable you are. And I also don’t want you to tell on my buddie over here.” he adds, smiling warmly.

You take notice of the way Felix’s eyes grow twice their size and how Jisung’s knee lightly bumps into his under the table. It’s subtle, but you think that maybe this is when you fully fell for the short boy in front of you-- when he offered to save his best friend’s ass by helping out a lost girl with biology. And who are you to say no now? I mean, you need the tutoring nonetheless. Who cares if the boy tutoring you is someone else? Maybe it’s even more appealing to you this way, but you’ll never admit that out loud.

“Okay then, sure.” you nod, grinning from ear to ear, feeling satisfied.

“Great. Now, give me half the fries and we can arrange our next tutoring session,” he smiles, “oh, and I’m Han Jisung, by the way.”

He winks. 

You should be disturbed, but strangely, you’re not. You grin back at him, offering him the soggy fries you’re sure you’re going to give a really bad review in the evening, watching his composure change into a more laid-back one, engaging you in a conversation and slunging an arm around his best friend’s shoulders.

Lee Felix remains silent. He feels it once again-- he feels the loneliness of being left out. 

And he’s sure it won’t be the last time.

Lee Felix knows damn well how it feels to be the third wheel. He’s hung out with Jisung and his potential love interests multiple times, he’s even been on double dates with the said male, yet, he always somehow ends up being left out. So why does it still feel the same? Why does he still feel that restless feeling in his stomach, the emptiness in his chest, just like the first time? I guess you never get used to some things and emotions are one of them. No matter how much you argue that you know a feeling so well it doesn’t even surprise you anymore, it still hurts the same. That’s funny about emotions. Sometimes, they can’t even make you numb.

“Hurry up dude, the bistro closes in an hour and half!” Jisung rushes the taller male (not tall, just taller. Don’t misunderstand.) with his car keys in his hand, twirling them around his fingers in a nervous manner. Felix notices his roommate has put some effort into his outfit today, considering the lemon supreme shirt enveloping his body that he saves only for special occasions, yet, Felix doesn’t realise why he had to put it on when they’re literally just going out to eat some soggy fries in the bistro close to their house. He doesn’t ask, though. He doesn’t want the car key stuck in his forehead. He also doesn’t know why they have to rush so much, since they have an hour and half left before they close, but again, he doesn’t dare to say it out loud. 

Felix quickly puts his shoes on and rolls his eyes at his roommate. “I’m ready,” he announces.

Jisung swiftly takes a bottle of cologne from the table in their small hall (it’s so small they don’t even have a mirror in it, because there was no use in taking mirror selfies when all you can see on the picture is your phone case due to the fact that the room is too narrow for you to move further away) and sprays his body wit hit, efficiently confusing his roommate. “You wanna smell great for the waiter there? Because from what I remember, he was a stoner-”

“Oh, shut up. You never know when you’re gonna meet someone cute, am I right?” he asks, grinning from ear to ear like a cat, taking his backpack with him and opening the front door, “gotta look and smell presentable at all times.”

Felix wonders if this is why everyone always goes after his best friend. 

No, he thinks, it cannot be the cloud of cologne hanging around his body. It’s heavy and it makes Felix cough a little, but he tries to mask it, because he’s fairly sure Jisung won’t pay for his fries today if he doesn’t. And Felix is a simple man-- if he can get something for free, he will do anything to achieve it.

They arrive at the place in a few minutes and Felix can already feel his mouth watering at the thought of the salty fries and cheeseburger he’s going to get himself, joyfully skipping inside the bistro and waiting in the queue. Jisung follows him, standing next to him, efficiently covering the smell of the oil and all the good things on this earth-- read as fast food-- making Felix scowl. The boy behind the register, is, in fact, Na Jaemin-- the resident frat boy. Felix’s heard all about him from the girls staying at the dorms and to be honest, he’s quite glad he doesn’t have to live the stories of getting caught with weed at Jaemin's party on his own. That, and the fact that hot water runs in his apartment. Na Jemin might have the weed, but he surely doesn’t have that in his college dorm room. 

“Three milkshakes, two large fries, chicken wings and a cheeseburger, please.” Jisung orders, confusing Felix in one sentence. Since when is his best friend a bottomless pot for food? Is he really going to eat all of that?

“Coming right at you. Anything else?” Jaemin asks, voice considerate and polite, still turned on his customer service mode, even though Felix is sure him and Jisung have had shared a joint or two on one of his parties before.

“No, that’s all. Thanks, man,” Jisung answers, leaving with Felix right behind him. 

“Who’s gonna eat all of that? I hope you know you’re paying, and before you protest, yes, I did purposefully leave my wallet at home-” he rambles, still moving, when his train of thought is cut off by a person in his view.

You are sitting there in your full glory, smiling brightly at the boys approaching you. You’re dressed nicely, he notices-- you look like you put some effort into what you’re wearing. You don’t look that much different, but he can still see the slight changes you made to look neat. You’re glowing, Felix notices. You look excited.

“Hi, Y/N,” Jisung greets, taking a seat opposite of you. He doesn’t even give Felix an answer, he doesn’t even give him an explanation. He’s left there only to take a seat next to his roommate after collecting his thoughts, chewing on his bottom lip.

The conversation never moves his way. He is silenced. Felix wonders why he was even invited, watching the people behind the window laughing with their friends, happy to order some tasty food and have fun on this Thursday evening. He watches his friend and his classmate have fun-- well, as much fun as a tutoring session could be. You’re laughing at every single one of Jisung’s jokes and he swears Jisung’s eyes never leave your face, even when he’s explaining something to you. He wonders why Jisung didn’t tell him where they’re going. He wonders why he even had to come.

Lee Felix knows how third-wheeling feels. Yet, it still makes his little foolish heart hurt just the same every time.

You nervously chew on your bottom lip, cracking your knuckles in a habit your friends always scream at you for, waiting for your tutor-- well, he’s not really your tutor anymore-- to appear in the bistro on the other side of the town. You admire the decorations for a while, liking the way it looks modern here and the purple led lights make the whole place look aesthetic. You can already imagine multiple college kids going here and taking instagram pictures to look cool. It’s nice and you’ll definitely include it in your yelp review-- it won’t make it more stars, though, if the chicken wings don’t taste like heaven.

You tug on the sleeves on your hoodie, as if you were trying to make yourself disappear. I mean, you do feel embarrassing. You feel pathetic that it had to come down to this, but you guess desperate times call for desperate solutions. You’re not here to look put-together anymore. You’re going to show him your full glory and although you regret it a little, you still have a little spark of hope in you that Han Jisung-- the boy you, admittedly, were crashing on real hard right now, won’t find out.

Felix comes into the bistro in his full VSCO boy glory, as always. He is wearing a jean jacket and his freckled cheeks are dusted pink, you’d almost think he’s blushing all the time. He doesn’t quite fit the aesthetics of this futuristic looking bistro, you notice. The retro places you’ve been to so far fit him much more-- his sandy hair contrasted well with the yellow walls and red booths. It was starting to get a little repetitive, though, you must admit.

“Hi,” he greets you as he takes his seat, smiling at you with what you can only describe as a feeling of full uncomfort. You wonder what made him feel this way about you, but you don’t dare to think of it twice as you focus on the main quest of the day-- forcing him to teach you his ways.

“Hello,” you smile. 

Felix notices how natural you look-- it feels like now is the first time he’s seeing you in your full glory. You aren’t wearing your neat clothes for a meeting with Jisung and you’re not too casual like you were at your first ‘tutoring session’ either-- you’re just you. The way he doesn’t even see you in classes. He likes the fact that no one else than him can see you like this-- he likes the fact that Jisung is nowhere around, yet, he wonders why is that, exactly, since the two of you seemed to be hitting it off quite well so far.

Felix hasn’t been with Jisung when he last tutored you. He figured there’s no use, he’s going to get ignored all the time anyway. 

“So… what’s the matter?” he asks, folding his hands into his lap. He dares to take a quick look at you, noticing your worn-out shirt and dark circles under your eyes, worry washing over him. Did something happen? Was Jisung a jerk to you? 

“Well, I sort-of have a little problem,” you mumble out, tearing your gaze away from him. You seem shy for the first time in front of him and he wonders why. He doesn’t understand your sudden change of behaviour. This isn’t the you he’s used to. “Well, turns out, I am really stupid.” you propose, leaving Felix to gaze at you in surprise.

He chuckles. You swiftly look up at him with piercing eyes telling him to stop, and he almost does, but your face looks too adorable when it’s scrunched up like that, so he only giggles once more. “You’re not stupid.”

“I am!” you whine out, finally letting your whole shy facade fall, exposing the true you once again right in front of Felix’s eyes-- direct and fierceful. “Even Jisung’s tutoring isn’t helping and I feel so stupid with him! And I don’t want him to think that I’m stupid, even though I am, and I just… I can’t pass my exams like this, so I need your help.” you say, eyes big, looking almost pleading.

“And I am supposed to help… how? Exactly?” The confusion is written all over his face, and it almost makes you frustrated. You knew he must be smart, if his cheating has been so good he’s getting through college with straight As, but really, is he really that smart if he can’t read in between the lines?

“Help me cheat.” you quickly get out, biting down on your lower lip just as you say it, as if you were regretting it.

The silence that overtakes the two of you feels like it’s slowly going to eat you up alive, angrily biting into your skin. It feels heavy and suffocating, your palms sweating as you watch Felix blink at you with mouth agape, breathing in and out. You pray for him to make up his mind soon, or else you’re going to run out of the bistro without a yelp review, tearing the skin of your cuticles as you see him blink quickly a few times before shaking his head in disbelief, clearing his storage.

“You want me to help you cheat?” he asks for clarification, furrowing his brows at you.

“That’s correct.” you nod, chewing on the inside of your cheek. You haven’t been this nervous since you took your college entrance exams, and that shows a lot, considering you used to say that has been the most difficult experience of your life so far.

“Because Jisung…. isn’t tutoring you well enough?” he asks again, making you roll your eyes in annoyance.

“Hey, don’t put the blame on Jisung! I’m just stupid, that’s all.” you say, looking down into your lap, because his gaze suddenly feels like he’s judging you and you really don’t feel like maintaining eye contact with him when you’re under pressure.

“If you don’t stop saying that, I will kick you.”

“You wouldn’t dare-”

“I would and I will-”

“Okay, but is that a yes, then?” you look up at him with hopeful eyes, resembling a puppy just a little too much, and, well, Felix can’t just reject you now, can he?

“I.. guess…?” he says, watching your face light up in joy as you clap a few times in excitement. 

“Great! Can we start today? We have to start today! I brought my text books and papers and sharpies and-” you are cut off by Felix’s face lighting up at the sight of you, his eyes looking warm and admiring. You quickly shake away the excitement before it goes too far and you actually go to hug him or something, taking a deep breath in and out to calm yourself down.

Just in that moment, the server appears with two servings of chicken wings and two large fries, making Felix look at you in confusion. 

“I ordered you food, since I thought we’ll stick around for a while..” you mumble, seeing him eagerly nod and take one fry into his hand, biting down on it with a face full of pleasure. 

“Perfect. Just let me eat a few of these and we can get right into work, I promise,” he mutters with a mouth full of food, prompting you to take a bite yourself. It doesn’t taste the worst-- the bistro you went to after prom last year was definitely worse than this, but still, you don’t think Felix’s face quite resembles how the food tastes. He looks as if the Queen of England made it. In reality, it’s just a soggy fry. 

“Why do you always order the same thing? Aren’t you tired of eating the same thing over and over again?” he asks suddenly, examining your face with real interest. No one’s ever noticed your eating habits before, just shrugging off what you order every single time. Your little fast food experiment has been a secret so far, even though it wasn’t that hard to cover it up-- nobody really cared until now. 

You feel blush creeping on your cheeks as you shrug, feeling a little embarrassed for like the hundredth time today, when you reply to the boy in front of you. You know his secret, so it only feels valid for him to know yours. “I have this experiment… like, I try chicken wings and fries at every single bistro, restaurant and fast food chain in the town to find out which one’s the best…” you mumble, looking into your plate instead of facing him out of the ugly feeling of patheticness creeping up your back.

“Oh, that’s cool!” he exclaims, pointing his fry your direction, a response you didn’t quite expect, “Where do they have the best ones so far?” he asks, genuine interest painting his features.

“Oh,” you get out, feeling your lips unvoliteraly tug into a smile, “I don’t.. I still have a few bistros and the McDonald’s on the highway out of the city left, but I’d say the best ones so far were at Wendy’s. I didn’t quite like the chicken wings there, though, so…”

“Hmm,” he nods, deep in thought, “we just get food at where’s the closest.” he says, munching on a chicken wing. “I guess we could pay a little more attention to the food from now on, because after eating this, I’m never going to eat the food from the bistro right in front of our flat again.”

“Yeah, that bistro’s really awful. I only gave it around 2.5 stars, I think-” you say, before you realise you just spilled out another secret to him, feeling your cheeks heating up. 

“2.5 stars? What, do you write yelp reviews or something?” he asks, clearly amused by your accidental spill-out.

“And what if I do?” you defend yourself, glaring at him with fake annoyance. No man will ever make fun of you because you write yelp reviews. Not Lee Felix, even though he seems too nice to actually make fun of you because of something, not anyone. 

“That’s cool, though! Those help so much when you travel,” he says, eagerly nodding at you with big eyes and an adorable grin plastered on his face, making you feel understood and happy with just the sudden sign of acceptance. Turns out your little weird obsession isn’t as embarrassing as you thought it was. Or Lee Felix really is the sweetest guy walking on this earth. Either one is fine in your books.

You stay there for a few hours and Felix teaches you the basic cheat codes-- never meet the teacher’s eye, never finish your tests too quickly, always forcefully pick the wrong option before scribbling it out and putting in a correct one to not seem too suspicious. He even takes a piece of paper from you and scribbles down the basic cheat-sheet making structure. 

He feels good with you. He feels useful. He knows he shouldn’t be teaching you this, but really, is it really doing any harm? We all have to go through college somehow.

Yet, all evenings always end the same for Felix, with a bad feeling in his gut and a fake smile on his face hiding the true meaning behind his actions. He’ll never be the first choice and you remind him even today, after you leave the ‘tutoring session’ with a quick hug to the male, lowering your voice so only he can hear when you pay him your goodbyes.

“Don’t tell Jisung, okay?”

Of course. It’s all because you don’t want to look embarrassing in front of his best friend.

It goes all how you planned it to-- you’re sitting at your next tutoring session with two males in front of you. One of them is your supposed tutor and one of them is a boy that’s helping you pass your exams for real. You’re into one of them, even though you shouldn’t. You wonder how you even ended up in this mess. You swear you were a good student in high school, always submitting your assignments on time and making sure your tests were on 100%. It was kind of fueling your ego, in a way. You had no other plans in your life to hold on to, no dreams to dream, so you reasoned to do the only thing that you were good at-- getting good grades. You had to prove to yourself that there was a reason, a meaning behind your life. You had to prove to yourself that your existence was valid.

You watch Jisung with interest. You pray to god that he doesn’t catch you in your act, because that would surely be embarrassing. You don’t want him to find out that you’re just fine with cheating, because that meant your tutoring sessions with the male would end and there was no other reason for you to see him. You knew Han Jisung wasn’t interested in you. You were sure you’d see it on him if he was. And even then, you weren’t interested in only a short relationship without any good point. You liked Jisung, but you didn’t like his reputation. One week wasn’t long enough for you to waste your time on him and get your heart broken. You weren’t sure if he was a player, or if he just wanted to desperately find the one by trying all the possibilities, but you weren’t going to find out. 

Felix watches you with interest in his eyes-- but you don’t notice. He prays that Jisung doesn’t find out about your secret little ‘tutoring sessions’, because that would mean he wouldn’t have a reason to hang out with you anymore. And Felix really doesn’t want that to happen. For some reason, he doesn’t want you to ever frown. And he’s sure that’s exactly what would happen if Jisung cancelled.

It doesn’t click to him what’s happening inside of his little, foolish heart when he sees you smile at Jisung and his stomach fills with worry. 

It doesn’t click to him what’s happening with him when every time Jisung subtly takes your hand in his makes his insides twitch in frustration. He thinks it’s just because of the fact that he’s third-wheeling again, like all his life, and maybe that is partly true, but it’s not the whole reason behind the cloud around his head.

It clicks only when him and his roommate are back home, sitting at the dinner table with the left-overs from the new bistro you three went to, munching on the chicken wings and another pack of soggy french fries and the cola they had in their fridge.

“So… what do you think about Y/N?” Jisung asks suddenly, making Felix furrow his brows in confusion.

“What should I think? She’s smart, I guess…” he mumbles, mouth full of food, not quite grasping the full meaning of his roommate’s question. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Jisung quickly nods in approval, “she’s getting really good. I mean, you can still see she’s having some troubles when I’m tutoring her, but at least she always gets good grades on tests now,” he says, biting down on another piece of chicken wing. Felix feels a wave of pride wash over him after hearing the words-- of course you’re doing well on exams. It’s all Felix’s doing. You’re a quick learner, when it comes to cheating. 

“Yeah, she’s good,” he says. 

“Well,” Jisung suddenly starts, meaning to sound nonchalantly, but only sounding like he’s determining his biggest life secret in front of his friend instead, “I like her.”

Felix almost chokes on the piece of chicken in his mouth, trying to play it off with a small chuckle. “Oh? You do?”

“Yeah. Should I.. Should I ask her on a date or something?” he asks and Felix swears he can see his friend’s cheeks reddening a little, even though the last time he’s seen Jisung embarrassed was when he accidentally called their Math’s teacher mum in eleventh grade. 

“You don’t date, though,” Felix opposes.

“That’s not true-”

“Two weeks long relationships aren’t relationships, Jisung.” 

“Not my fault they’re never the one! It gets boring after a while, Felix, I can’t just-”

“Why are you even asking me this?” Felix suddenly cuts him off, glaring at him. He doesn’t know why he’s reacting in such a way. It’s not like it’s the first time Jisung is going to date someone for two weeks just to break their heart, it’s not the first time they’re going to run after Felix a week after just so they can still be around the one that broke their heart. This time, though, he does not want to see another heart get broken.

“Jesus, chill, man… I was just asking, since you two seem closer. Did she mention anything about me? Is she dating anyone?” Jisung asks, eyes lighting up.

Felix could be an asshole. He could tell Jisung that you’re already dating someone, he could tell him to back off and that you’re not interested. However, he does not do that. Instead, he does the quite opposite. He pushes his best friend into asking you out, he tells him he should try it, because that’s just the kind of person he is. Besides, he knows you’re into him. Maybe the smile on your face could make him forget about the fact that you’re going to get your heart broken. 

“Sure, go for it.” he shrugs, “I don’t really care anyway.”

“Fine, then-”

“I’m gonna shower.” Felix says, quickly standing up from his chair and moving to the bathroom, quickly escaping the conversation.

Only then he realises what he feeling in his gut means, only then he notices the way his sigh feels like the weight of the world is sitting on his shoulders and he can’t breathe any time you’re around Han Jisung. 

He realises he likes you. 

And clearly, you don’t like him back.

Emotions are something you never quite get used to. Even the emotion of feeling rejection, the emotion of always being behind his best friend’s shadow. Lee Felix is always just the friend. Never the love interest. This time, though, it feels even more heavy, because in a way, you seem way more special in his eyes than the people that went after him just to get with his best friend.

This time, he does not want to see another heart get broken. Because it’s your heart we’re talking about.

And to prevent his heart shattering to even more pieces, he has to do something.

He has to stop liking you.

As soon as possible.

“Y/N?” 

“Mhhm?” you ask, raising your eyes up from the cheat sheet you’re creating with Felix’s help, the grease of the fries you’re eating glistening on your chin. You’re with him in a yet another crappy bistro, trying yet another soggy fries, and even though there’s nothing special on you to a stranger’s eye, Felix’s heart can’t help but run twice the speed of light. 

“How do you stop liking someone?” he mumbles, furrowing his brows a little, deep in thought. 

“Oh, do you like someone?” you ask, and Felix momentarily lights up at the thought of you caring if he’s interested in someone, but when his eyes meet yours and he notices them glistening and lightening up in curiosity, he realises it’s just because you’re happy for him. As a good friend should be. 

“No, no,” he quickly shakes his head in disapproval, snickering to himself, “I’m just asking. Because, think, what if, hypothetically, there’s someone who is into someone else. Easy, right? But what if their best friend likes the same person? And you know you shouldn’t like them because they’re into their friend as well? What is there to do at that point?” 

You scan his face for a few seconds, thinking to yourself. “Hmm,” you start, “I guess you have to start hating them. So the feelings disappear.” you nod, satisfied with your answer.

“How’s that possible?” he asks, scoffing.

“Well, I don’t know, since it’s all hypothetical anyway,” you giggle, focusing back on your cheat sheet. Your notes are getting smaller and smaller and Felix notices the improvement in your small lettering, making your cheat sheet less noticeable. You’re learning quickly.

“Oh come on,” he whines, kicking your leg under the table, “talk to me. How can a person start hating someone? Give me a tutorial.” 

“Well, since you really need to know,” you roll your eyes, putting away the pen from your hand and resting your back against the seat of the booth, “there are a few steps you can take.”

“For example?”

“Well, you have to stop hanging out with them, first thing’s first.” you start. “Because if you don’t hang out with them, you will eventually hate the fact that they’re not near, which will, logically, make you hate them instead.”

“Is that really logical, though?” Felix asks, furrowing his brows at you. In his books, this made no sense at all, but you seemed pretty satisfied with your answer.

“Of course it is! Then, you have to find something about them that you can hate. Anything. Find even the smallest thing, and blow it up in your mind until you hate it. Easy, right?” 

“...I don’t think that’s helping at all,” he says, tone of voice unsure. 

“Of course it is! You’re just refusing that it can be true, because you think I’m stupid.” you stick out his tongue at him, focusing on your work instead.

He kicks you under the table, making you scowl. “Ow! What was that for?”

“I told you that if you’ll make that comment again, I will kick you. So I just did right that.” he says. “Besides, your ideas are stupid. Not you. There’s a difference in that.” he smartly points out, making you roll your eyes at him.

“So, who is it that you like?”

“No one. I told you, it’s hypothetical.” he glares at you.

“Right,” you nod, sighing, “well, I’ll just stick to that, since that means Jisung doesn’t like anyone and I still have a chance.” you smile at him, obviously missing out on the way your words just punched him into the gut. Felix laughs it out, kicking you in the shin instead.

“Right. Of course you do,” he nods. He wishes he didn’t mean that.

You two remain in silence for a moment, while you get back to your work and Felix pretends he’s playing a game on his phone. You don’t notice the way his eyes scan you over, admiring you, once in a while. No one ever does. He guesses this is the perk of always being just the friend. The one people are friends with just because they want something from him. The one that gets taken advantage of. He chooses not to think about it more. Maybe if he did, he could hate you over it, if he wasn’t so used to that feeling anyway. 

“We should hang out on the weekend,” you say, taking him by surprise.

“Oh?” he mumbles out, “with Jisung?”

“No?” you furrow your brows, “look, I know I look like I’m obsessed with him, but I actually just want to hang out with you alone as friends once in a while, you know.”

“We’re hanging out now, though.”

“It’s midnight, Felix,” you point out, “and we’re working. I want to hang out with my friend, like a normal person, you know.” you shrug.

“Yeah…” he says, when your words resonate in his mind like a broken curse. ‘Don’t hang out with them.’ Don’t hang out with her. You have to hate her. He has to start hating you-- there’s no other way. And so, he turns to taking your words into consideration. He can’t meet with you if he’s not ‘tutoring’ you. There’s no way. “We’ll see. I’ll tell you if I’m free.” he smiles warmly instead, because truth be told, he’ll never tell you no to your eyes. He’s always been a bit of a coward. And he also doesn’t want you to frown. Ever.

“Great!” you smile. 

And when Felix comes home that night, at 2am in the morning when his roommate is already asleep-- not knowing of your secret meetings, he lays down in his bed and repeats your advice like a broken mantra. He can’t like you. He has to hate you.

Lee Felix’s guide to hating you: 1. Don’t hang out with her. Only meet her when it’s necessary. If you don’t meet her, you’ll start hating her absence, resulting in hating her altogether. 2. Find a small thing about her to blow up so much you start to hate it. 

That’s not difficult. He hates that you like Han Jisung. It’s a small mistake, a small flaw, but he’s ready to blow it up so much he hates you for it. He hates that he’s not the first choice. He hates that you don’t like him.

Maybe he would hate you more if you were dating his best friend for real.

Lee Felix’s guide to hating you: 1. Don’t hang out with her. 2. Find a thing to hate about her. SUCCESS! 3. Set her up with Han Jisung.

Now, this plan is bulletproof, isn’t it?

Felix unexpectedly breaks the first step of his guide only a few days later-- on a chilly friday afternoon, when his body is hurriedly skipping to the edge of the town centre only to meet with you. Just for the record, though, Felix didn’t intend to break the promise he gave to himself. He really wasn’t going to hang out with you if he didn’t specifically need to, but, well… you called Jisung to hang out. Felix’s heart almost skipped a few beats when he was added to a three-person big group chat with you and his roommate and at that point, he wasn’t going to reject an invitation to the fare in town, because he was fairly sure Jisung didn’t like rollercoasters and he wanted to see you laugh your ass off at him in front of everyone. Is it a little spiteful? Possibly. Does he care? Not that much.

Besides, it’s only one time. It will never happen again!!

He finds you with your black leather jacket on, stepping from one leg to the other, looking around like a lost puppy. Felix mentally curses at himself for not coming sooner so you wouldn’t feel so alone and awkward in the mass of people, when he realises he’s already 15 minutes late because of his afternoon class and his roommate is nowhere to be found.

“Thank god! I thought you were going to bail on me as well,” you call out when Felix is close enough, smiling at him.

“Where’s Jisung?”

“He texted me like 5 minutes ago that he can’t make it today. Something about his mum being in town? I’m not sure,” you furrow your brows, “at least you’re here now, though.”

Felix is met with the realisation that he’s left alone with you again, mentally cursing at himself. This surely does not look like a plan to hating you. It looks like a bullet-proof plan on how to fall even deeper for you, with how your stray hairs are flying around your head and you adorably scrunch up your nose and sniffle from the cold. 

“Should we go?” he forces out of himself, looking at you hopefully.

“Yeah!” you nod, striding a few steps in front of him like a happy school girl excited to go to school for the first time. Felix can’t surpass the gentle smile forming on his lips, shaking his head in disbelief. You look so cheerful and so joyful, making his heart swell with how easily you manage to make him feel so young again. 

He follows you gladly, managing to match his speed with yours, almost forgetting for a moment that he’s not on a date with you, almost forgetting about the fact that you like his best friend and the smile you’re giving him is nothing against the wide grin you offer to his roommate.

“Let’s go on that one!” you cheer, taking Felix by the hand and tugging him your way, not once giving him the opportunity of letting go as you drag him all around the fare. You remind him of his younger sister with how excited you get about the smallest things and he realises he wants to protect your heart from the world just as much as he wants to protect his little sister’s. It’s not the same feeling, though. The affection he feels for you is different. 

Felix doesn’t find it in him to tell you no whenever you tug him on another ride, even when his legs are tired and his jaw hurts from smiling. He finds himself wanting to capture your image into his brain forever, imprint the happy memory in there so he can find it and look at it whenever his heart feels lonely. For the first time in ages, he forgets about everything. He forgets that he’s just the friend, the other choice. He completely forgets that Han Jisung was supposed to be there, at his place, sitting next to you on the ferris wheel as you watch the night city under you with cold cheeks and frozen bodies.

“You must be sad that Jisung isn’t here with you right now. That would surely feel much more romantic than sitting here with me,” Felix says bitterly once the reality hits him for a second, once his heart is unsheltered for a short moment and your eyes meet.

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” you roll your eyes, “Jisung can’t be romantic. Besides, if I really wanted a date with him so badly, I wouldn’t have asked you to come with us, would I?” you smile at him, swinging your legs forward and backward, focusing your eyes somewhere into the distance again.

“Well, if you really want to go on a date with him, you can just ask him, you know?” he mumbles, playing with the dead skin on his thumb.

“So he can stand me up and go on a date with his mum again? I don’t know, Felix, is that really worth it?” you giggle, not noticing the way you’re messing with the boy’s head, not noticing the way a small spark of hope lights up somewhere in the deep pits of his stomach when you mention not wanting to ask his best friend out. 

“I don’t know, is it?”

“I’ll have to think about it.” you muse out, and the spark is gone. Of course it’s not that simple. 

Felix just nods and grins at you. The chilly air helps him hide his red cheeks when he thinks of how embarrassing his thoughts must have been in the past quick seconds. He focuses on your face, on the way your eyes crinkle up a little when you stare somewhere far into the distance and your hair flies a little with the breeze. The ferris wheel just reached the top, so he has plenty of time to keep admiring you from so close, but somehow, the moment still feels so short and he wishes he could stop the time. He wishes he could stop the time so he didn’t have to face the reality when he comes down from the ferris wheel. He wishes he didn’t have to see you fall in love with his friend, he wishes he didn’t have to act like he doesn’t care at all. 

“Thanks for helping me, by the way. I wouldn’t have passed my exams if it wasn’t for you and that… that would be really hard on me.” you get out, locking your eyes with his sincerely. He sees your eyes shining even so high above the ground, convincing him the sparkles really must be the stars, when he takes a deep breath in and responds.

“It’s no problem, I get it… I mean, it’s what you gotta do. What we gotta do, when we want to pass. And graduate,” he chuckles. 

Does he really want the degree, though? Or does he just need it to feel like he has some worth? Does he want to graduate or does he just want his parents to value him as an adult, does he really want to continue working so hard on passing or would he just be so much happier if he just dropped out. And saved himself so much stress. He should have known he was never smart enough for college.

“Yeah. I despise the smart kids in our class. I wish I were them,” you scoff, “I despise Jisung, in a way, too,” you add after a dramatic pause.

“Jisung?” Felix furrows his brows.

“Yeah,” you nod, like it’s the clearest thing in the world, “I mean, he’s smart enough to pass. He’s… he’s got his life figured out, in a way. He’s just fine. Getting all the girls and the guys, getting good grades, going on dinner dates with his mum on Fridays,” you giggle, “I mean, I want that. That sounds nice.”

Felix huffs, staring into the distance, “I guess you’re right.” He knows damn well how jealousy feels. 

“I came to college to prove to myself that my life has some worth, but I guess the only thing I prove to myself is that I can’t even pass my exams without help.” you sigh, sounding defeated.

“Hey,” he nudges you a little with his foot, “don’t say that. Life isn’t about grades, degrees and that shit. Of course you have worth and value.” 

He sees you smile in defeat, leaning your head on his shoulder. The feeling of acceptance, pure understanding washes over the two of you, when you gently speak up again. “Try to explain that to my brain.” 

He lightly giggles. “I’m trying, as you can see.”

You look up at him from his shoulder, scrunching up your nose and leaning closer to him, whispering. “It’s not working.” you laugh.

“I know it’s not easy,” he shakes his head, “I’ve been trying to tell that to my family for the past 21 years.” he slips out. Something about you makes him spill out even things he’s never told anyone before, but he finds himself not caring as you approach his eyes with pure serenity mixed with melancholy.

“Is it all because of your parents?” you ask, “the cheating, I mean.”

Felix feels his eyes giving him out, so he chooses not to look at you anymore. “I mean, I would have dropped out long ago if I didn’t have to feel so worthless around my family then. Every single one of my cousins is smart, has a degree and earns a killing. I’m just me-- living from the money I earned over summer, trying not to lose my mind with biology.”

He hears you humming next to him, your head moving as you nod in understatement. The ferris wheel is slowly reaching the bottom again and Felix finds the fact quite relieving. He doesn’t mind having deep talks with you, he just fears he might spill out something both of you don’t want to hear.

“I’m glad you came with me today, Lix.” you smile at him once the two of you reach the bottom, “wanna hear a secret?”

“Spill it out,” he dares you, grinning.

“I only invited Jisung because I thought you didn’t want to hang out with me alone.” you confess, quickly turning around in your spot as you jog a few steps in front of him, carelessly, as if you just didn’t make Felix’s heart stop and insides twitch in excitement. He prays and hopes it’s not just you giving him false hope, he wishes it’s not his mind playing tricks on him. 

“I-” 

“And now that I know you don’t mind being around me, do you wanna go to the dog cafe with me next Wednesday? You know, the one I talked about.” you turn around, flashing him a smile worth a billion dollars, taking him by surprise as his breathing hitches and he doesn’t find it in him to reject you ever again.

“Sure.”

Second step of Lee Felix’s guide to helping you: find a small thing about you he doesn’t like to blow up so much he starts hating you altogether. 

He was so sure that he found the small thing just a few days ago. He thought that the fact that you like his best friend could be enough for him to start hating you. He could sit on that thought for long enough to pick it up to the smallest pieces and over-analyse it to the point he could start hating you. 

And he tries to do just that-- he lies awake at night thinking of how every single person he’s ever been interested in slipped right between his fingers just because of Jisung’s existence. He wonders why he’s never good enough to anyone, why he always has to be the second choice even for tutoring (even though it’s not even tutoring, but we won’t talk about that anymore). He thinks of how you’re so foolish to think your relationship with Jisung is going to last, because Jisung’s feelings never stay the same for long. He over-analyses the smallest things he notices on you when you’re in Jisung’s presence until the point he’s almost sure he can do it, he can hate you for it just a little, in a way, but then, the thought flies right out of the open window as his roommate crashes into his door in the middle of the night.

He startles awake, sitting up at his bed, watching the short male going in with much difficulty, sitting on his bed without a word.

“Jisung?”

“Lixie, I fucked it all up, didn’t I?” Jisung whines, laying down on the bed next to his friend. Felix doesn’t think it’s only due to the late hours of the night that his friend’s words aren’t making any sense, but he doesn’t dare to put his finger on it until he makes sure for himself.

“What are you talking about?”

“Y/N.”

Your name coming out of his lips hits Felix like a baseball bat, hurting in all the right places, as the young male finds it in him to continue the conversation.

“What about her?”

“She asked us to hang out together. And I didn’t go. I know it wasn’t my fault, because my mum was in the town, but still, I feel so bad, because now it must look like I’m not interested in her and that I don’t care and I really don’t want that, you know?” he stummers, making Felix realise his friend talks a lot when he’s under the influence of alcohol just the same second Jisung’s breath catches in Felix’s nose, only proving his point. 

“You didn’t fuck it up, don’t worry.” he muses. And it’s true. Jisung could never truly fuck it up with anyone. Even his exes always crumble up around his feet, wanting attention even after getting their heart broken. Will it be the same with you?

“She must think I don’t like her. And that’s horrible-that’s- that’s- I like her. Very much,” he whines again, getting closer to Felix and wrapping his arms around the blonde’s torso in a wave of affection that only washes over him when he’s drunk.

“Sung-” he stutters, desperately trying to push him away, but even though Jisung doesn’t look like it, he is a strong individual when it comes to involuntary cuddling. Felix can never escape his arms.

“I think she’s special, you know? She’s like- I can’t explain it. It’s like with her, I actually want to try. I want to ask her on dates and love her and give her my heart, because you know, I never dared to give my heart to anyone. And no one’s ever made me feel truly special before…” he mutters, forcing his nose to Felix’s neck, “I’m rambling too much, aren’t I?”

“Yeah,” Felix sighs, nodding. He doesn’t battle his arms anymore. Jisung is his friend, at the end of the day. He can hold him when he needs it.

“Sorry.” he says shortly, sighing as well. The room falls into silence and Felix’s head spins again, his thoughts spiral like a tornado and the eye of the storm is you-- standing there with that stupid smile on your face and he once again realises that he needs to hate you in order to shelter his own heart, because you’re like a hurricane when it comes a to a person’s emotions.

The fact is, though, he could never hate you for liking his best friend. 

Han Jisung is too likable for his own good. His heart is too big for this world, and truth be told, he’s been sharing it with everyone for such a long time now, he deserves to find someone he’s willing to give his all to. 

He could never hate you for liking Jisung-- the boy who smiles at everyone in the halls, the boy that offered him to live in the flat his parent’s bought for him in freshman year, the boy that helps him hide his cheating secret every day. He could never hate you for liking Jisung, because he himself knows too well how much of a treasure his dear friend is. 

He gets it. He gets why people always choose Jisung over him. He could never blame you.

“Sung?”

“Hmm?”

“Ask Y/N out to the dog cafe on Wednesday. She'll love it.”

Felix could never hate you.

Step three of Felix’s bullet-proof guide to hating you is quite simple and actually the only one he completes with success. Setting you up with Jisung on a date is easier than he ever imagined, considering the fact that his roommate decided to finally take things into his own hands and call you on a date after the drunken weeping episode in Felix’s bed. 

Jisung invites you on a date to the dog café in town. The two of you go on Wednesday and although Felix feels like he just gave his roommate a piece of him, an invitation that was never meant for him in the first place, he feels at ease, because at least one part of his plan is working. He could never hate you, but at least now, it will be easier for him to ignore his growing feelings for you when you spend all your time with Jisung on dates and ice cream runs. He only has to ignore his feelings in school and at your ‘tutoring’ sessions. He wonders how long these will be a secret in front of your new boyfriend. Jisung’s not your boyfriend yet, but Felix can only imagine how short the time he isn’t is going to last. 

Felix does the stupid mistake of opening the instagram app in the evening, when he’s curled up in his bed with an embarrassingly big bowl of popcorn on his bed side table, serving him as his depression food. He sees your post show up, an adorable picture of you from the dog café, a big golden retriever in your lap as you giggle at its face. The picture is candid and looks like the kind Felix would like to keep as his lock screen if he had the chance. He’s sure his best friend took it for you not only from the fact that you went out with him tonight, but also for the fact that he’s tagged in the post’s description with a big blue heart emoji. 

He could stop staring at the picture if he really wanted, he could mute your posts and pretend you never existed to shelter his poor heart. He could do everything in his strength to cut all his ties with you. That would make it so much easier for him, wouldn’t it?

But he doesn't. And maybe he doesn’t even want to-- he’s used to the pain anyway, isn’t he? The bitterness, the feeling of being pushed away, ignored and left forgotten. 

He was supposed to be in Jisung’s place now, but that doesn’t change the simple fact that he isn’t-- maybe it was never his place to claim anyway. 

Felix stares at the picture for minutes, wondering of how things could be if you only didn’t fall for his best friend. Or if he came with you today. Who knows, maybe it wasn’t too late for him to ask you on a date. Maybe he could still change your mind. Felix likes to give up on things too quickly, though, and that is the curse that will follow him his whole life. 

Lee Felix is good at cheating. He is insanely good at it, he would also say it’s the only thing he’s ever been good at. Pretending.

It’s his time to shine again. It’s time to pretend he doesn’t like you, pretend you don’t hurt him, pretend he isn’t in love with his best friend’s crush. He’s been always the best at cheating and now it’s time to cheat his way out of liking you. 

Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

“You must be really hungry, if you’re planning to eat all of that in one setting,” Felix mumbles, watching you as you eat yet another plate of chicken wings in yet another pointless bistro in town. Felix wonders how you even know about all of these, since the one you’re both sitting in right now, in the middle of the night, looks rather lonely. It doesn’t even seem that welcoming-- it has graffiti on the walls and the seats are a little torn on the edges, but you don’t seem to care as you munch on the chicken, eyes big when you stare back at your companion.

“I eat a lot when I’m stressed,” you mutter in between your bites, mouth full. You look natural like this and Felix realises this is you in his mind-- cheeks full of food, that little wrinkle in between your brows when you look at him, eyes staring big into his like a loyal dog. This is how he knows you, in your rawest form, and this is coincidentally, also, how he likes you the most. He loves and treasures every single version of you, but your late-night meetings feel of different kind of intimacy to him that he’s sure he’s going to think of even when he’s old and his college years are dusty like an old polaroid picture.  

“Stressed?” he asks, tone of voice a little more worried than usual. Felix always worries about you. Even when you quietly take out your cheat sheet from under the table and write your answers down. He doesn’t fear being caught-- he frankly doesn’t care that much, but he knows that you are having a battle with yourself and he really doesn’t want you to feel like you lost. He didn’t know it was so easy to put someone else first when you worry for the future. 

“The finals are coming up.” you clarify, the words coming out a little bashful and smitten.

“Oh.” he nods. 

You’re both quiet for a while. It would be cheesy to say the silence was comfortable, and Felix knows, he’s seen enough teenage dramas to know these words are used in situations like this, but the truth is, there’s no other way to describe it, and he understands that now. Your determination shines through all your edges and he’s glad you’re doing what you can with the resources you have. You’re not exactly studying for your Biology finals, but it’s still as hard and as stressful as that. It can feel a little embarrassing at times, but there’s no other way around it. You have to battle your enemy, even if it means the game is not fair.

“And those chicken wings are fucking good, dude,” you mutter after a while, offering him one of the paper baskets the server brought you a few minutes ago, looking rather stoned and not interested in your presence at all.

“Don’t tell me this rotten place is winning your chicken wings and fries contest,” Felix snickers, taking a bite that, to his surprise, actually tastes the best out of the amount of fast food chains and restaurants you’ve brought him to. You should never judge a book by its cover and this bistro is clearly one of the examples.

“I have only one place left to go, so we’ll see then, but I guess it might just be the top place right now,” you muse out, a wide grin decorating your features as you glance up at Felix that watches you scribble down your notes on a mini piece of paper.

“Wanna go with me there? After the finals, of course. We can celebrate if we pass,” you point out, licking your lips in nerves, “I don’t think I’ll need these ‘tutoring sessions’ anymore then, but I still want to hang out sometime.” you say, putting air quotes around the words tutoring session, looking at him with expectations in your eyes.

“Oh, sure,” he agrees, nodding. “I have to be there when you finally declare your last yelp review.”

You only laugh at him and shake your head, eating some more as you look down into your notes again, lost in work. “I still don’t get how you can do these so fast.”

“I already know what’s the most useful. You don’t have to copy the whole textbook on there.”

“You can never know! What if I’ll need it all?” you exclaim, only making him laugh harder.

He points his eyes out of the window, watching the empty parking lot. You didn’t come in your car today, telling Felix your house is close anyway, and Felix doesn’t dare to drive his car anywhere unless he doesn’t need to. He has a little bit of a trauma since the last time he drove with his dad and he almost ran the car into a tree, getting a shower of swear words and exclamations from his dear father, so he only drives his small white Renault when he needs to go home. Which is, coincidentally, next week. 

“I really don’t want to go home next week,” he sighs.

“Your family is still onto you for the smallest shit?” you ask, tone of voice sympathetic.

“Yeah. Can’t wait to graduate so I don’t have to listen to them talking about a degree anymore,” he rolls his eyes, “I only have to find myself a partner so my grandma can shut up about me being single all the time.”

You softly laugh, making Felix look at you for a moment, his heart skipping a few beats when your eyes meet for a little more seconds than usual. “I’m sorry. You can always text me, though, if you need anyone to talk or gossip with.” you say, averting your eyes from his.

“You’d have to be on your phone 24/7, then. My mental stability comes down by 70% when I’m back home and it’s already only on 15% now,” Felix snickers.

“Oh, I don’t mind. I’ll be staying here anyway.” you say, giggling.

“You’re not coming back home?”

“No,” you shake your head in disapproval, quickly glancing into his eyes before speaking up again, “it’s my parent’s wedding anniversary, so they’re going on a holiday. There’s no use in me coming home if I’m just going to be alone there anyway,” you shrug.

Felix hums, nodding in understatement. “That makes sense. I’m sorry you can’t meet your family on holidays, though.”

“It’s okay,” you say, “I see them often anyway. One Christmas won’t kill me. I have a whole season of Game of thrones to catch up on anyway.” you light-heartedly laugh, sounding like Felix’s favorite song. He smiles with you, shaking his head in disbelief at how positively you can always see the world, when he glances out of the window for a moment again, only to be met with a surprise. 

There are white flakes of snow falling from the sky and something in Felix wakes up-- something he’d call happiness, maybe even joy, when he quickly shoots up from his seat and calls you with excitement coating his voice, “Y/N! Y/N! Come on!”

“Come where? Felix, what are you-” 

He doesn’t let you finish as he takes you by the hand and tugs you on your feet, tugging you out of the empty bistro out into the dark parking lot, admiring the snowflakes falling onto the ground and every surface in his sight. He sees some stick into your hair, making him giggle as his outstretched hand dusts them off subconsciously, when he starts running around like a happy child, laughter coming out of his throat filling the silence.

“It’s snowing!” you exclaim, when Felix reaches your body frozen in its place again. He reminds you of a golden retriever when he jumps a little in his place, his feet happily crouching in the snow. You laugh at his antics when he starts acting like a little boy, this side of Felix being so new to you, yet you can’t help but feel your heart swell with admiration when he asks you to catch some snow into your mouth.

“Felix! That’s disgusting!” you refuse, laughing.

“Oh come on! It’s just water!” he cheers, leaning his head back and opening his mouth wide, waiting for the snow to fall into his mouth. 

“But it’s unhygienic and dirty! You have to be kidding me!” you still reject his idea, standing your ground firmly as always in your life so far, when a face of a boy looking like an angel takes you by surprise and his big eyes plead you in a way that makes you drop all your grudges and all your beliefs down, rolling your eyes when he pouts, leaning your head back as well and opening your mouth with a loud ‘aaaa’ sound to satisfy his foolish heart.

Once you both feel a snowflake hitting your tongues, you look at each other with your tongues out, laughing at how stupid the other one looks, pointing to your tongues. You shake your head. “It melted off, you stupid!”

“You did the same thing!” he bursts out laughing, bending over in the force of his emotions. You watch him with a wide grin plastered onto your face. It feels like watching a movie. You don’t think you’ll ever have a brighter memory with the boy in front of you, with his cheeks red from the snow and smile so wide it hurts both of your jaws.

You instinctively take his hands into yours, looking down on your feet as you start going around in a circle with him, going quicker and quicker as you watch your footprints in the snow mixing with his, the dry skin of his hands making you feel strange. You laugh out when your head starts spinning, looking up at him to find him already staring at you with stars in his eyes, when you wonder,

isn’t this how love is supposed to feel?

All of his life, Felix had thought that family gatherings could always either go two ways, and that is: 1) a normal, boring meet-ups where your grandma asks about how school’s going, when you’re going to finally find a partner and another one of your cousin’s announces their engagement party, or 2) the actual engagement parties-- every single family member including the senile grandma from mum’s side gets drunk and you don’t have to think about more fake reasons why you have yet to lose your virginity.

You see, Felix is wrong in a lot of things. And this was surely one of them-- it’s the December 27th and he’s sitting in his grandma’s old kitchen, the wind blowing through the cracks of her window and the sweets on the table have already melted from the heat being too high, because his aunt is always cold and they can’t compromise. That sounds fine, even usual, Felix would say, however, the fire lights up a few moments later when his head starts to hurt from all the talking and he begins to dissociate a little too much, meaning that his grandma now has to shift her attention from all of his other relatives to him, because how dare he stay quiet on a family gathering where he has nothing to add to the conversation, right?

It starts off as usual, the answers to these questions digged deep into Felix’s brain since the first year of college. He doesn’t even bat an eye when he answers the questions directed at his studies and grades, telling all of his interested relatives that he’s working hard and it’s paying off. Nobody complains or disagrees-- his grades are awesome. His degree is here soon. Felix almost thinks he’s over with when his grandma laughs at a poor joke that comes out of his mouth, but that was only a bad prediction as he moves on to questions about his love life, which are, believe me or not, much more boring and much more ego-hurting for the blonde.

“Do you have a girlfriend yet, Felix?” she asks, tone of voice sounding rather interested, but don’t believe her-- it’s only an act. She’s ready to laugh into his face when he gives her the answer she’s hoping for.

“No, not yet, grandma,” he mumbles, averting his eyes from her wrinkley face as soon as possible. He really doesn’t need to look at her any longer to know she’s silently judging him on the inside, because that’s just how his grandmother is. 

“That’s such a shame… I wonder why… You’re such a pretty young boy, aren’t you?” she mutters under her nose, tone almost whiney, “what about your roommate? Jisung, was it?”

Felix takes a deep breath in, closing his eyes for a second to calm his rising heart beat. He could have predicted questions like this coming, because the conversation always somehow diverted to his roommate even when he was at home with his family. It’s crazy, how everyone just seems to adore Jisung much more than their own family member. 

“He’s.. Yeah. He’s always with someone, you know him. Not now, though, now he’s single,” Felix nods, explaining.

“Well, I’m sure he’ll find someone soon,” she admits, “he’s such a gentleman. And so handsome as well, isn’t he?” she asks, his aunt from her right side nodding quickly at the mention of Han Jisung. 

“He always has so many people around him, he’s so charming. If only you were more like him, maybe then someone would date you as well,” his grandma says calmly, not even noticing the way her words cut deeper and deeper into Felix’s heart, kicking him and punching him like a boxing bag, “you should try to be more like him.”

Felix bites down on his lower lip, rolling his eyes. Frustration coats his voice once he speaks up, the built-up anger living inside of him like an animal kept well in its cage. He doesn’t want to let it out, because he fears what it might do once it’s free, but he still retorts to a dig addressed to his grandma, huffing in annoyance. “Should I send Jisung home instead of me next time?”

“Oh no, Felix, what are you even saying right now?” his grandma looks rather offended, eyes twice their usual size as she glares at him.

“Well, since you like him so much.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I was just saying that-”

“Leave it.” Felix says. 

The atmosphere is too heavy now, all eyes on him as if he was in a circus, watching him just moments before his breaking. He realises he no longer feels welcome in this place and maybe he never did, he just chose to ignore it by now, because that’s what he always does when a problem appears-- he chooses ignorance. Ignorance is Felix’s best friend, and although it may sound like he’s running away from his problems all the time, it’s always worked so far. He’s just protecting his heart, building walls around it. 

He doesn’t want to fight. He hates conflict. So, even though he’d like to snap, even though he’d like to leash out like an animal, he doesn’t. He steps back-- as he always does, taking the car keys from the table and escaping the house, hearing the calls of his mother after him. He doesn’t bother to say goodbye, he doesn’t even bother to look back nor take the Christmas gifts his grandma brought for everyone. 

He sits into the small white Renault he drives once a year when he comes back home, starts the engine and speeds up to the limit, driving away from all of his problems. He doesn’t want to hear their complaints, he doesn’t want to listen. It’s the best this way. He wants to ignore the words that came out of his grandma’s mouth, but he can’t find it in him as he hears them resonate in his head over and over again. 

He’s the second choice even in his own family. He’s a joke to everyone, isn’t he? Just the side character, the one that never gets the spotlight. It hurts, it hurts him so much, but he pays no attention to his blurry vision, because even though he’s fairly sure no one from his family would miss him, he doesn’t want to drive off the road and kill himself with his escape.

He parks the car in front of his and Jisung’s flat after a few hours. He’s fairly good at it, considering he never drives, and mentally puts up a middle finger to his dad in his head for screaming at him so much. He was in a much calmer headspace when he was driving with his dad than he was now, yet, he didn’t manage to drive anyone over. 

Putting his feet into the cold, empty apartment, turning the heating on and plopping down on the sofa, he once again realises how lonely it feels. Not only because of the feeling of abandonment the dark flat resonates, but also due to the fact that it truly feels like now, he’s all alone in this world. The silence screams louder than any words ever could, his ears lowly ringing without any sound in the small room, which makes him wonder if he’s truly the only one that has to spend his holidays pretty much alone. Maybe it’s his fault that he’s fucked it up with his family, who knows-- but that’s a topic for another overthinking session of his, when he decides to let it go once his eyes meet the snow silently falling down behind the window. 

The dark mixed with the white balls of fluff in the air remind him of you. Your bubbly laugh, the feeling of your skin on his when you held his hands and danced around with him in the snow. He feels a smile growing on his face, despite everything he’s heard today, his fingers involuntarily texting you to see if you’re doing anything and if you can hang out with him today. 

He meets you at the door a few minutes later, your nose runny from the cold and hands dry, smiling at you with a sense he can only describe as belonging, because he realises, maybe you feel just as lonely as him on holidays and suddenly, he no longer feels sorry for leaving.

“Why are you even here, Lix? Shouldn’t you be at home?” you ask him when you’re taking off your shoes and hanging your coat on the hanger by the door. He bites down on his lower lip to suppress a bitter chuckle. 

“Christmas got cancelled this year.” he shrugs. 

It’s not like he doesn’t trust you. You know better than anyone what his struggles are-- he asked you to keep his secrets numerous times. It’s just that now that you’re here, it’s like his soul finally feels calm and he no longer wants to whine about his grandma or his aunts anymore. It’s just you and him and the empty apartment. If he was anyone else, maybe he’d try to get into your pants. He’s just Lee Felix though, and he’s absolutely, wholeheartedly in love with you, he realises, and believe me, it kind of takes him over the edge, and so he doesn’t try anything. 

And you look at him in understatement, no other questions asked.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s all a capitalistic holiday anyway,” he shrugs.

You follow him into the living room and he throws the remote control into your lap, telling you to choose a movie before he comes back with popcorn. 

“If you don’t pick anything before I’m done, we’ll just watch Venom, I don’t care,” he says, seeing you adorably scrunch up your nose at him in response. 

When he comes back and you’re waiting for him with Howl’s moving castle paused on Netflix, he can’t help but grin at you. He places the popcorn on the coffee table and notices himself staring onto your body next to his far more often than the TV and wonders if he really drove away from all of his problems or if he just drove away from one problem to another, because now, it’s getting really hard to focus on staying away from you. 

And when you shiver and curl up into his side, placing your head onto his shoulder, he can’t help but jolt at the contact, staring at you in surprise. 

“It’s cold,” you mumble, pouting.

Felix smiles. He rolls his eyes at you, even though on the inside, he finds you absolutely adorable, taking a blanket from the side of the sofa and putting it over your cold bodies, tucking you both in. You feel warm against his side, your hand resting on his chest. He wonders if you can feel his quickening heartbeat, his stiff body and the nerves rising in his heart. Everything else disappears, the fight back home long forgotten and Han Jisung left somewhere home with his own family, the weight of your body overwhelming him when you fall asleep and that’s when he stops and thinks,

isn’t this how home’s supposed to feel like?

The halls of the university building are empty as Felix stands right in front of the closed door, silently pacing around the corridors and bumping his knee up and down. He just got his final’s results and even though his soul was supposed to be at peace, he finds himself stressing over you, currently sitting in the room behind the closed door in front of him, getting your final’s results from biology back. The professor decided to split your class into two groups for the finals so you can, quote, ‘focus better when there’s less people around’ and even though you managed to cheat on your exams without any problems, he still wonders if you did well and if you passed. 

Once the voices behind the closed doors get louder and louder, he figures it’s near the end of your lecture and he can finally see you again and ask you how you did. 

The last time he talked to you without the stress of finals breathing onto your back was back on Christmas break-- more than a week ago. Ever since then, you two have been meeting in the middle of the night again, preparing for your upcoming tests. You didn’t really manage to talk a lot about anything else and even though Felix didn’t mind, he still missed your mindless rambles and weird jokes you used to crack when you weren’t stressing your mind off. 

The door opens and reveals people coming out, a few of them wearing a toothy grin on their faces as they glance on the paper in their hands, a few of them frowning as they pin their eyes to the ground. It’s not easy to differentiate the ones that passed and the ones who did not do that well and even though Felix feels sorry for them, he wonders why they just don’t cheat their way out of bad grades just how he does. It’s not that hard. It just takes a lot of practice. 

Once he finally sees your face, a big, toothy grin decorating your lips, a big stone falls off his heart, a weight lifts itself from his shoulders, because frankly, you wouldn’t look so happy if you failed, right? You’re not a total psychopath.

“How did you-” 

His words are cut off from his mouth, all air kicked out of his body once he feels you so close, the soft skin of your lips pressed up against his in a happy kiss. He’s startled, to say the least. His cheeks are reddening in the instance and he doesn’t even know if time stopped or if it’s just the rising anxiety and excitement in his chest, but he bites down the confusion and kisses you back finally, closing his eyes and bringing you close by your shoulders. The kiss is a little sloppy and messy, but he doesn’t mind-- all that’s occupying his mind right now is you, your sweet lips, your mouthy kiss, your excited hands creeping up around his neck, your bag that fell to the ground next to his feet, your exam paper marked with the big red A+ flying around the two of you when you let it fall from your grasp, your hair tickling his cheeks, you, you, you.

There’s only you. In the air he breathes, in the ground he walks on, in his hands and on his mind. You’re everywhere. Intoxicating.

You pull away from him after a while, grinning at him. It still manages to startle him a little-- how just the small gesture can light up his whole world, how your smile can make him feel like he’s the luckiest person on this earth. He sees stars in your eyes and he wonders who put them there, hoping to be the one, believing he could finally be the one, with how you look at him and hold him in your arms-

but it’s Felix’s life we’re talking about. There’s only you, you, you and maybe somewhere, far away in the distance, there could even be him, but who’s always there for sure is Han Jisung.

Han Jisung staring at the two of you from the open door, mouth agape in shock. Han Jisung with trembling hands, Han Jisung with his books clutched close to his chest as Felix’s heart drops and reality finally hits him. You were never supposed to be his to kiss. You were supposed to be Jisung’s-- his roommate’s, his best friend’s -- you fell for him long, long ago and that’s how it’s always been. 

He opens his mouth to say something, anything, to comfort his dear friend that looks like he’s heart’s being broken, but he finds no words in him to console his actions. He feels bad, he feels so, so guilty when their eyes meet, but he doesn’t manage to say anything before Jisung turns around the corner and leaves. 

The sound of Jisung’s quick steps is the only thing resonating in Felix’s mind like a bell, a signal for him that he fucked up, he did a really, really bad thing. 

His insides clutch and eyes water in the empty college corridor when he wonders,

is this how it feels to break someone’s heart?

You kick the small rocks beneath your feet, gazing into the distance. The cold in your bones makes you shudder, your eyes trailing around the neighbourhood so foreign to you, putting your hands into your pockets so you shelter your fingers from the frozen air. You think how this place looks exactly as you imagined it to-- tall apartment complex and a single big tree in front of it, the cars parked in the driveway obviously having their spot as the neighbours have lived together for a long time to know not to park anywhere else, because it’s more efficient this way. 

You’re waiting and waiting, hoping to see the one you’re waiting for soon, because you doubt your confidence will last you for any longer if you don’t talk to him now. You could lie and tell yourself it’s okay and that you’re not nervous at all, but after Jisung ran away the other day and his roommate followed him a few moments later, you feel nervousness creeping into your skin after not seeing or hearing from Felix for three days now. 

You remember him telling you that he likes to go for late-night convenience store runs every evening to get his favorite snacks. It wasn’t hard to find out where he lives-- it’s the 21st century, for god’s sake. You asked a friend of his friend and here you are, waiting  for him to appear in the door of his apartment complex, ready to talk to him about the events of this week.

Once you hear the door opening, you feel your head snap to its direction quicker than the speed of light, knees almost getting weak at the sight of Lee Felix standing there, confusion written all over his face once his eyes meet with yours. The frown forming on his face only deepens your stress as you wonder if he didn’t want to see you today, which, considering the fact that he’s been ignoring you for the past few days, might just be the case, but it still makes your heart break just a little when you hear him sigh once he makes his way over to you, the sound of his sneakers on the ground being the only thing heard in the middle of the night.

All the snow has melted-- as if all the bright things have left just in time with it, leaving you sad and cold, the clouds of your breath hitting the cold air being the only thing reminding you of the weather as you feel your body heating up in his presence. 

“Can we talk?” you ask, voice steadier than you expected it to be.

“I- I mean,” he starts, a shaky and husky voice hitting your ears, signaling that he probably hadn’t spoken to anyone for a long time now, “you’re already here, so I guess…”

You nod at him, averting your gaze quickly to the ground, when you realise you suddenly don’t know what to say. You try to search for words, yet none come out of your mouth. Your mind is blank and it seems like his presence took away all your vocabulary, but deep on the inside, you know damn well that if you don’t speak up now, you won’t have a second chance and you really have to get it now.

“Why- why…” you mutter, “why did you leave without saying anything the other day?” you ask.

The silence is overwhelming as you start to hate the sound of your own breath, opting to hold it for a few seconds as you await his response. 

“I mean, isn’t it obvious?” 

You shake your head in confusion, finally meeting his eyes again. “No.”

“Jisung… Jisung saw us. I didn’t feel like it was right,” he explains, cracking his knuckles in a nervous habit you noticed in him a long, long time ago when he first tried to teach you how to cheat in class without getting caught.

“What does he have to do with anything?”

“You two like each other.” he says bluntly, taking you off-guard.

The moment these words come out of his mouth, you realise not one, but two things. One of them is fairly new to you, the fact that Han Jisung liked you back was something you never knew you could experience, but even though you should be flattered, you realise it no longer holds a meaning in your heart. The second thing is connected to the first-- and that is, Lee Felix doesn’t know that you like him now. His foolish, silly mind convinced him you were still in love with his best friend, his confused and frustrated brain didn’t let him realise that for a long, long time now, the freckled boy in front of you has been the only one you thought about when you were falling asleep at night.

You don’t even know when it happened. You guess it just did. You wondered how it’d feel to know what exactly made you fall for Felix, what that moment was, but something inside of you is telling you that maybe, it was even more wonderful this way. Unexpected, but totally reasonable.

“Why would I be kissing you if I still liked Jisung?” you ask, the fear of directly confessing to him and getting rejected creeping up in your shadow.

“I- I don’t know-”

“Exactly.” you cut him off before he rambles and manages to find a stupid, silly reason in his head to justify his wrong expectations. You know how he is-- if he overthinks things hard enough, he’ll surely find an answer. There’s none, though, so you don’t dare to give him time to think about it and ponder on the thought for any longer.

“But that doesn’t matter now anyway,” he shrugs, putting his hands into his pockets.

You wonder what’s going on inside of his head right now. You wonder if he regrets what he’s done-- if he wants to turn back time and never let you kiss him. The nerves make you bite down harshly on your bottom lip and you only catch yourself when you feel iron in your mouth, quickly licking your own wound on the surface of your mouth and take a deep breath in. 

“Why?” you ask. 

“Why would it?” he says, eyes boring into yours.

“Because… I thought it meant something to you? I mean, it meant a lot to me, at least. That’s why I’m even here in the first place,” you chuckle airly, feeling your throat get dry.

“I’m not saying that it didn’t, I just think it had no point.”

His words feel like knives thrown into your chest, like a fire burning the pit of your stomach. You feel your legs getting weaker at his arguments, your fingers harshly tugging at the skin of your cuticles hidden in your pockets. You don’t trust your voice to sound steady this time when you speak, but you don’t care. Maybe it’s time to show your real emotions. Maybe it will change Felix’s mind.

“And why is that?”

“Because people like you don’t date people like me. You’re supposed to be in love with Jisung. You’re supposed to be dating him, he’s supposed to date you. You’re too good for me anyway.” he shrugs.

“Is this all about Jisung?” you ask, eyebrows furrowed.

You watch Felix sharply inhale in and out, averting his eyes from your figure. The distance between the two of you is unnatural, as if to singal how the two of you are slowly drifting apart. You see him fold his hands on his chest, preparing for what he’s about to say.

“It hurt him, back then. And I hate that. He loves you and I just.. I can’t do that to him, when I know  how much he cares about you.” he says.

Love is a strange thing. You hear Felix say how much Jisung loves you, but is that really true? Does Han Jisung even know you? The real you?

Does Jisung know how you look with your mouth full of fries and a greasy forehead? Does he know how you look when you’re stressed out of your mind because of finals? Does he know your favorite bistro, does he know your favorite movie? Did you cuddle up with Jisung on the couch just because you wanted to be close to him, comfort him and tell him you’re there just a few days after Christmas? 

Or does he just know the self you put up in front of him when you went to meet him? The put-together you that cares even about the sound of your own laugh, not wanting it to sound ugly in his ears? 

Han Jisung can’t love you. He doesn’t even know you.

And you never loved him-- just for the same reason. The feelings you had for him were merely a feeling of attraction, so far away from love.

But now you know how you feel about Felix, how his smile lights up the world and how his presence makes you feel understood. How even the silence with him speaks louder than a million words, how he knows you like the back of his hand and how he treats you like his closest friend. You know that what you feel when you’re with him is stronger than anything you ever have and although it used to scare you for a moment, now you’re ready to embrace it and live with it, if he lets you.

Lee Felix doesn’t tell you he loves you. Maybe you can see it in his eyes.

Why does he have to put everything above love? Why does he care about Jisung more than you? It’s breaking your heart. 

“Felix… I’m sure he’d understand. He’s a good person. I’m sure he’d want you to be happy.”

“Y/N, you don’t understand-”

“He’s a grown adult!” you yell out, the built-up emotions coming to the surface in the form of frustration, your words sunding spiteful and angry. Maybe you are furious, maybe you are full of fire right now, but it’s all because of the boy in front of you and the things he refuses to let himself enjoy.

“Why do you even care about it so much, huh? I was your fucking second choice all along anyway!” 

You look at him in shock, your eyes watering at the sight of the frown sitting on his face. Something inside of you breaks and you think it’s safe to say it was your heart, choking you up as you shake your head in disapproval. 

“Felix-” you protest, but there’s no use.

You see him turn around on his heel, opening the door to the apartment complex and leaving. It feels like you’re losing him, it feels like he’s gone forever. He turned his back on you, refusing all the love you were willing to give him, all the love you were offering to him right here, your heart in your hands.

He gave up on your love.

People in movies go out to party after a break-up to get drunk and numb their feelings. They either go to the club or go to a stupid college party, which is, coincidentally, your case today, but you’re not here to get drunk tonight. You’re not here to drown out your feelings and numb your pained soul-- you’re simply here to try to have some fun.

Your mum told you long, long ago that happiness is a choice. You could argue with her and tell her that depression and heartbreak aren’t a choice and that they, by themselves, are causing people the most sadness, but you had to give your mum a point. If you don’t choose to try, if you don’t do anything to at least try to stimulate your own brain, you can’t expect happiness to find you by itself. That’s just, sadly, not how life works, and you weren’t going to drown out in your own tears just because of Lee fucking Felix, because if you weren’t worth trying for him, he’s not worth any of your tears.

You appear on Lee Haechan’s end of the semester party. You have A+ finals to celebrate and although you would be much happier to drink to them with the one that basically helped you get through the semester, you won’t pass the chance to socialize. You worked hard and you did a good job-- you deserve a party. Alcohol truly isn’t the best for your brain, but you will just decide to call it selfcare. It’s not like you’re getting blacked-out drunk tonight anyway.

You manage to have small talk with a few people from your class. Though it’s not exactly what’s stimulating your brain, you don’t mind it. You barely know these people and you couldn’t care less, but you guess this is the downside of socialising. 

The alcohol in your veins doesn’t give you a chance to loosen up, though. You only feel your body warmer with the beer hitting your system, but your feelings still taste of salt, your brain not cooperating with your grandiose happiness plan and you think the people talking to you notice, since no one really tries to keep you in a conversation long enough when you start to absently nod at them and pay zero attention to what they’re saying. You don’t blame them, though. You’d probably do the same in their place.

Your feet move their way to the front door when you decide that maybe your mum wasn’t right, completely ready to go home and pity yourself for a few more days before coming back to life, when a familiar voice calls you from behind, making you freeze in your spot.

“Y/N, long time no see.”

Han Jisung watches you with glossy eyes, yet he tries to look nonchalant at the sight of you. It doesn’t feel like his heart is breaking when he sees you right here and there, chewing on your bottom lip, more or less, it feels numbing to his heart and his head. It’s like he expected it all from the start-- the outcome that once so surprised him. But after all this time he spent overthinking and dwelling on the memory of seeing you kissing his best friend, it made sense to him. 

“Jisung…”

He can see your eyes growing worried when you watch over him and he mentally slaps himself for not handling his emotions with more care back then. He could have spared you a lot of pain and trouble if he hadn’t reacted in such a way in the doorway of your classroom, but the truth is, Han Jisung hadn’t really known just how much a true heartbreak feels and nothing could ever prepare him for the physical pain numbing his chest. He didn’t know it could hurt so much. 

He doesn’t want to worry you. You are still his friend, after all, right? That’s all you always have been and he should have understood it from the first moment he saw you gaze at his friend so lovingly in the university halls one day. He thinks you, yourself, didn’t even recognise the emotion in you when you watched over Felix with so much care, with so many stars in his eyes and a big grin on your face. He could never compare himself to Felix.

He doesn’t want to worry you anymore, and so he decides to talk to you like a friend would. You looked like you could use a friend tonight.

“How have you been?” he asks, smiling at you. He hopes his eyes convey the emotion he feels-- how after all this time, he still feels comfortable with you and desperately needs you to do the same. He can’t lose another friend. Not to love. 

That happens every single time. Truth be told, Jisung used to have a problem with differentiating true love from platonic feelings sometimes. He used to think he falls out of love just as quickly as he falls in, but the truth is that it was never even love at all. Sometimes, it was just pure admiration. Feelings for a friend. And he managed to ruin all his friendships just because he started dating them. 

And then, he just kept searching and searching for the right one, because no one ever felt right. No one ever made him feel loved, no one ever made him feel love. It felt suffocating, but so, so addicting. He could never give up on trying to find love.

And then he met you. And it finally made sense-- it finally felt right.

“I’m… I’m fine, thanks,” you say, smiling at him with that smile that still, admittedly, made his heart race and swell with love. He’s not afraid to call the emotion by its name. It doesn’t feel wrong. He used to think he wants it to stop, but the truth is, it still feels nice. 

Love feels like loneliness sometimes. It’s a bittersweet feeling. But it’s still so, so addicting.

“Are you sure?” he asks. He knows you. He knows when something’s wrong.

He also knows your eyes have been searching for his roommate for the past few minutes of your conversation. He knows you want to meet him and avoid him all at once, love him and leave him-- it was a paradox. 

He knows his roommate way too well, though. He knows he can’t fall out of love with you. He knows, though, that he’ll never act upon it. Lee Felix has always been the sweetest person in this whole entire world-- putting the needs of others before his own. He can’t keep doing this to himself.He can’t keep doing this to you.

“I think you know the answer, Jisung. Why do you keep asking, then?” you bitterly snicker, going around him and escaping the noisy house. Jisung doesn’t know if you want to leave, if you want to escape his presence, but he can’t leave you just like that, and so he follows you outside, seeing you sitting at the doorstep, as if you were waiting for him.

“You don’t have to think of me, you know that, right?” he says once he takes a seat next to you, watching your expression change into a pained one. 

“It’s… I don’t know. It’s complicated. And Felix- he doesn’t think it’s right. I can’t force him into anything. It was his choice anyway,” you mutter. Jisung sighs heavily, the feeling your words on his chest heavy and solemn. He hates the fact that he is standing in the way of your happiness. He hates the fact that he is the problem, the invisible wall keeping you two from each other. 

“It’s simple, though.” he shrugs.

Your eyebrows furrow in confusion, a heavy sigh escaping your lips. He takes it upon himself to explain before you begin to tell him that it’s not, opting to open your eyes on his own.

“You two are in love with each other. So you should be together. Isn’t that simple?” he asks, smiling at you subtly.

You scoff and shake your head. “He gave up on us.”

“Did he, or did he just do what he felt was right?” Jisung argues. “You can’t keep hiding from each other. You can’t keep trying to ignore your feelings just because I like you. That’s not fair for either of you.”

You don’t argue with him this time. He wonders what’s going on inside of your head at the moment, with your eyebrows furrowed and your bottom lip trapped in your teeth. You look just like all the times he watched you during your tutoring sessions-- focused and lost in thought. It will feel weird to not see you in that way anymore, but he has to try.

The same way Lee Felix always tried for him.

“You’re too sweet, Han Jisung. What a shame our timing’s off.” you say, bitterness coating your voice. He looks up at you again, wondering what your words mean. “I used to like you back then, you know,” you smile.

Here it is, the strange emotion again. The emotion of almost physical pain, a hand squeezing his heart, a knife stabbed into his back. It feels like his world is crumbling down on him, because he’s stupid-- so stupid. He could have had you back then. He could have been with you all this time, only if he wasn’t late. He missed his biggest chance, the biggest opportunity, the happiest time of his life. All because he was too hesitant. 

He didn’t deserve you anyway.

“But now your timing’s right with Felix. Don’t waste that,” he says, biting through the pain.

Because the truth is, if anyone deserved love, it was his roommate. The one that refused you for him, the one that rejected you for him, the one that set him up on a date with you even though you invited him in the first place. The one who gave up on his love only so he wouldn’t hurt his friend. You could say that Jisung was too good for this world, but Lee Felix is the one that deserves the whole entire world, in his eyes.

Maybe these two were just too good of friends. Caring about the other one twice as much as about themselves. And that’s exactly why Jisung will get over this-- he’ll push you to his friend. So he could be happy, finally. 

“Jisung, I don’t know-”

“Do it,” he cuts you off, “reach out to him again. Try it. For me.”

y/n: meet me at the 8Bistro at 9 

Felix can’t believe himself when he finds his legs moving to the direction of the bistro at the edge of the town. He knows it’s the last one on your list, the one you invited him to so you could celebrate your finals in and he finds himself wondering if he could have gone here with you earlier only if the two of you didn’t share that kiss back then.

That damned kiss he couldn’t stop thinking about for the last few days-- even weeks, every time he opened his eyes in the morning and closed them when he was about to sleep. It kept following him like a curse, a thing he couldn’t escape, as if it was testing him like the snake tested Eve in paradise. Foreign fruit. 

You’re sitting there already when he arrives, fingers playing with each other as you gaze at the door in expectation. He sees your usual order already on the table, assuming you got here early, but it’s untouched as your knee bumps up and down under the table and you bite down harshly on your bottom lip.

He takes a seat, allowing himself to look at you again after such a long time. It feels like it’s been ages, yet you still look the same to him-- the same beauty that hit him when he first met you and shared his biggest secret with you.

“Why aren’t you eating? You have to finish off your list,” he mumbles awkwardly, motioning to the food at the table.

“I wanted to wait for you.” you say. Your voice is quiet, almost shy, when you speak to him. He wonders just how much he fucked up that it made you act this way. He knows it’s probably a lot, but considering he’s sitting here right now, he can still fix it.

At least he hopes so. 

“Did you.. Do you want to talk to me about something?” he asks, nervosity filling his veins as he feels his hands form a little swimming pool with just how much he’s sweating.

“Yes,” you nod, taking a deep breath in and out. He wonders if you’re just as nervous as he is. The answer is probably yes, considering your tense shoulders and restless legs, but he doesn’t comment on it as he watches you begin speaking again. “I wanted to tell you that I’m- I’m in love with you. And that it’s for real, and it’s for you and no one else,” you start, quickly wetting your lips and continuing again, “and I know you must feel like a second choice, or like you weren’t important to me at all, but that’s not true.”

“You helped me so much, really, but the more I hung out with you, the more I realised just how wonderful you are. And how your heart is so big, how you’re fun to be around…” you ramble, taking Felix by surprise with your heart-felt monologue, “and that Jisung is not the one for me, because, well, it was just.. it was just a crush. I didn’t know him. He didn’t even know me that well. Crushes… they don’t mean anything. They’re silly. But what I have with you, Felix…” you say, drifting your eyes away from him for a second,

“I know you. The real you. And you know me. You’ve seen me at my worst. You’ve seen me struggle and you know exactly how to help. You know me and I know you and the feelings I have for you are much more than a silly crush. I love you, Felix. And I don’t want to just forget about us.” you complete and Felix swears he can feel his eyes watering at your words. He chooses not to speak up, afraid of his voice breaking, afraid he’s going to embarrass himself in front of you. His emotions got the best of him and right here and now, no one else matters. 

It’s you. You that feels like home, you, the only girl he’s ever loved. You, the only girl that ever loved him back, you, who he foolishly rejected. 

You’re everywhere. In his veins, in his heart, in his foolish, stupid mind.

“Felix… I don’t want you to give up on us.” 

He looks up, seeing your sincere eyes and a look full of worry. You seem so wonderful to him, even now. You’re everything he’s ever dreamt of, a home without a roof and walls. With you, he feels at ease. He trusts you. He’s never felt this way for anyone before.

He watches you and he hears your laugh, he hears your whines when he used to tease you so much. He hears the sound of your memories when he chased you around in the snow. He hears the opening song of Howl’s moving castle, reminding him of the warmth he felt when you hugged him so close that evening.

He used to want to hate you. He should have known that could never be the case.

You’re all he needs-- all he wants. You’re everywhere he looks, in every beauty of the world and in everything that’s dear to him. 

You, you, you, you.

And so he decides-- it’s time to change his plan.

Lee Felix’s bullet-proof guide to loving you: 1) hold her hand, 2) get rid of the guilt, 3) lean in and kiss her.

“Does that mean you’re giving us a chance?” you ask, hopeful eyes glaring at him with millions of stars in them, sparkles swimming around in perfection.

“We’ll talk after you eat. You have a yelp review to write,” he laughs.

“Feli-”

Lee Felix’s bullet-proof guide to loving you: 4) shut her up by forcing french fries into her mouth.

“I love you too.”

[evertidings]

I just have to jump in here to request a ✐ for my beloved K 🙏💕

I hope you're having a good day!

— “it’s not easy. i’ve been thinking it over for years.”

"what's on your mind?"

"more like what isn't?" K responds. the words fall so easily off their tongue that it catches them off guard. a couple of months ago they wouldn't have dared give up information like that so willingly. they would have evaded the question, shut down and left the other person hanging.

but somehow, you've become the exception.

"give me one," you urge. despite the dim light of K's penthouse and the dark abyss of the night sky, your eyes glimmer brightly. "tell me one thing that you're thinking of. if you have so many, it shouldn't be that hard."

that's the problem isn't it? K thinks. it shouldn't be hard, but how could it not be when half of those thoughts are about you?

"are you really going to make me do this?"

you shrug. "i won't leave until you tell me."

K considers that. most people would take that as a bluff, but they've come to know you well for the past couple of months. whatever this is, you're not lying.

"fine," they concede. "i was thinking about what to eat for dinner."

it isn't exactly a lie. they were in fact thinking about what to eat for dinner, but that was before you showed up. before you texted saying you were bored. before K implied that they were too and you could come over. before you did exactly that and were knocking on their door.

they weren't expecting it. weren't expecting to have to deal with their feelings tonight.

whenever they're in your presence, it's like their brain stops functioning. decades of knowledge are gone as their mind repeats two phrases on loop.

i think i like you and i don't know how you've managed to do that to me. i think i like you and you have no idea how much it scares me.

"well, what did you eat yesterday?" you ask.

K blinks and it takes them a moment to process why you asked. dinner. they were talking about dinner.

"rice," they respond. "homemade. i was going to eat leftovers but now that you're here..."

they don't finish their thought process. they don't want to tell you that they don't know if their food will be good enough for you. it's such a dumb thought. they wouldn't be so insecure if it wasn't for...

emotions.

ugh.

they've only ever felt like this for two other people. two other lovers ripped away from them before they decided to close off themself off forever.

it wasn't an easy decision. for years, they spent countless nights thinking about it at night, wondering if they were making the right call. eternity for them is a reality, not just an exaggeration. did they really want to be shut off to their feelings for the rest of time?

in the end, they said yes.

"i don't mind eating rice," you say. "i'm not that hungry anyway, so as long as you have enough for a small bowl, we can do that. or we can just get takeout."

"would you rather takeout?"

your eyebrows furrow as K's eyes bore into yours, trying to read your expression. after a long pause, you answer, "whatever's easier for you."

"great." K turns around and walks back into their penthouse, sliding the door open with ease. "takeout it is."

and as they go over to their cabinet to rile through the various takeout menus they've collected over the years, they can't help but feel a sense of guilt settle over them.

because the only reason they chose takeout was so they didn't have to deal with the stress of you reacting to their cooking. to deal with your comments about how much you like it, or how much you don't. to watch you as you took that first bite and judged the taste on your tongue.

to think about what it would be like to do this more often.