#its a bit of wishful thinking ive never really let go of. for someone to reach towards me

[asahicore]

fast forward - pjs

pairing. jay x fem!reader

synopsis. After yet another romantic disappointment in the form of one Jake Sim, you go to the well you’ve always believed to grant wishes and ask for your one and true love to appear. That night, you go to sleep in your bed but wake up in a strange house. When you head downstairs, you find a man washing the dishes and telling you your favorite meal is waiting on the table for you. You’ve spent hours glaring at the back of that head, you could recognize it anywhere—it belongs to none other than Park Jongseong, your high school sworn enemy... and future husband, or so it seems.

genre+warnings. high school au, the type of e2l where they never really hated each other to begin with, they act like they're academic rivals even though they're not particularly academically gifted, jay has a thing about german the language, sunoo and kazuha besties, heeseung is a loser, jake and sunghoon are assholes sorry, ive liz is german, 02z get into a white-boy locker-room fight, attempts at banter etc, they're a little bit silly

word count. 26.6k

a/n. had the idea for this listening to fast forward by somi LAST SUMMER... and only wrote it this summer and only posting it now <3 i hope u guys enjoy reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it !!!!! jay is an absolute cutie here pls love him as much as i do.... as always let me know what u think and remember to vote for @zreamy president in the upcoming elections, shes the only one i trust to beta-read and hence to run a country <3 no it doesnt matter that shes scottish put this woman in the white house

There is only one thorn on the otherwise immaculate rose that is your life.

Every morning, you wake up feeling refreshed from eight hours of restful sleep. You go downstairs to the kitchen, a boiling cup of milky Earl Grey tea already waiting for you, and eat breakfast with your brother Jinwoo and father. Your mom dashes in, placing a kiss on your and Jinwoo’s foreheads, and on your dad’s lips, saying she’s late for work but will see you in the evening. “Have fun at school,” she bids every morning without fail. Your dad teaches Korean Literature at your school, so the three of you drive there together. He watches amusedly as you and Jinwoo bicker light-heartedly on the way there—even in the pits of his puberty, you and your brother get along like two peas in a pod. He still tells you about everything he learns at school and fills you in on the drama in his class, up-to-date with everything even though he pretends not to be interested.

You’re always one of the first to arrive at school, so you scroll through your feed or finish up some homework as you wait for your classmates to file in. Your friends circle your table and you chat about the last episode of the show you’ve been watching until the bell rings and they leave you for their assigned seat.

Class starts with your teacher handing out the math tests you took last week. “Jay and Y/N, great job, keep it up,” he says as he walks past you and the boy in front of you, and hands you your paper. Relief floods your body as you take in the bright red 82 in the top right-hand corner—not the best of the class, but enough for you to be satisfied. 

Good friends, good grades—nothing extraordinary, but it’s a life you dare say any high school senior would want.

There’s just that one thing. The thorn in your side that won’t stop poking.

You glare at it as it whips around in its seat and takes a peek at the grade on your paper before you get to snatch it away from view. It only gives you three seconds to rejoice over your grade. 

“Aw, Y/N. Good effort! Maybe you’ll do better next time!” Jongseong coos, holding up his test for you to see and glare even harder at. 85. Not that big of a difference, but it makes you want to punch the faux sympathetic pout off of his face. 

You’re about to spit something just as petty back at him, but someone whispers your name, and you turn your head in their direction. Beside you, Jake is smiling at you as he asks what grade you got. Your attention is swiftly taken off of Jongseong, whom you don’t even notice dramatically rolling his eyes, huffing in annoyance, and turning around. 

“82,” you whisper back, holding up your paper for Jake to see. His friendly, absurdly handsome smile makes your ears burn. “You?”

The corners of his lips fall down into a sad pout—the kind that makes your heart melt rather than gets on your nerves like someone else. “68,” he says. Leans in over the gap between your tables. Your heart jumps uncontrollably around your rib cage. “Do you wanna go over it together during the break? I think I need some help.”

One-on-one time with Jake Sim? You don’t need to be asked twice. You nod silently, almost mesmerized by Jake as his grin widens. He leans back in his chair. “Perfect. I’ll see you in the library, then.”

“Library, yeah,” you echo dumbly, but thankfully, your teacher tells you to all quiet down and starts the lesson. 

You’re antsy all throughout the rest of your morning classes and lunch break, so nervous that you barely manage to finish your yogurt. Of course, your friends, Sunoo and Kazuha, have a field day with this, and even you can’t help but laugh along as they jump between reassuring you that it’ll be fine, slapping your shoulders with excitement and making fun of your uncharacteristic quietness.

Jake arrives at the library five minutes after you, looking around the room before he finds you at the big round table in the back of the library. Your brain is too riddled with anxiety for you to make more small talk than “Hey,” “Hey,” “How was your lunch?” “Good, yours?” “Good.” And so you just jump straight into it.

You’ve only had a couple minutes of quiet explanation on your part and heavy nodding on Jake’s when Jay appears at the entrance of the library. He spots you and Jake immediately, and without any hesitation whatsoever heads towards you and sits down at your table, right across from the two of you.

“Hey, Jay,” Jake greets in a friendly manner, but Jay only responds with a nod of his head.

“Oh, don’t mind me,” he says when he notices you glaring. “I won’t bother you.”

As if he could be anything other than a bother, you think, but courteously keep to yourself. The childish rivalry you and Jongseong have got going on has no business spoiling a rare hour of alone time you get with Jake. As you go over the exercises he had the most trouble with on the test with you, your eyes often drift over to Jongseong as if to check on him—you’re cautious like he’s a spider in the corner of the room that might spring on you at any moment.

And indeed, the moment your gaze leaves him for more than a minute as you explain an intricate theorem to Jake, he’s out of sight, and panic shoots through you. Where the hell has he suddenly gone off to? you wonder, but not for long.

“There’s a much easier way to do this, really,” says a voice from behind you, and of course, it’s none other than Jongseong himself, quite literally butting his way into your tutoring session. Right between you and Jake, he bends over and rests his elbows on the table, taking Jake’s pencil from him and describing the theorem in a way that isn’t that much simpler. Your eyes shoot bullets into the side of his face while he, unbothered, explains this and that to Jake, who glances at you a couple of times but otherwise does not seem so perturbed by the sudden change of tutor. Either Jongseong doesn’t notice your glare or doesn’t care, because he doesn’t budge.

Just when they’re done with the exercise and you think you’ll get Jake to yourself again, another voice appears from behind, a much higher, girlier one. You notice the hand on Jake’s shoulder first, until slowly, your eyes drift to the face—you recognize Yunjin, head of the cheerleading squad, and she’s smiling at you, a smile that at once tries to cover and betrays her surprise at seeing you and Jake together. She doesn’t acknowledge you any more than that, gaze going back to “Jakey,” asking him if he wants to head to class together. You check the time—five minutes before the first bell rings. What do they need so much time getting to class for? It’s not like any room in this school is more than a three-minute walk away.

But Jake doesn’t even look back at you, just says “Sure!” with far too much enthusiasm for your taste as he packs his stuff. “Thanks, you two,” he says, looking at Jay first, then at you. You think his eyes linger on you for a second, but just like that, he’s gone, him and Yunjin walking side-by-side.

You watch them leave—they look good together, the cheerleading captain and the soccer team’s star. The white Vans she’s wearing have a bunch of red love hearts on them that look drawn on, and you think, Of course, Jake is the type to date someone cute, someone fun, someone who would draw on their shoes. Not someone like you, whose idea of a good Friday night is lighting up a scented candle and reading your favorite novel for the nth time. When they’ve left the library, you slump in your seat, crumpling the sheet of paper you had drawn a bunch of graphs and formulae on to make things clearer for Jake. Jay awkwardly clears his throat and finally returns to his seat, looking at you with his lips pressed in a tight line.

“Y/N?” he asks tentatively, and the sound is too much to bear, so you pack your things and head to your next class early, too. Your mind is racing with a million thoughts a minute—who is that girl to Jake, how come you’ve never seen them together before, how come he was so eager to leave with her, what was that smile she gave you about? In the fifty-five minutes of your biology class, which you uncharacteristically don’t pay any attention to, you’ve convinced yourself that they are crazy in love and that none of Jake’s actions or words towards you had ever meant anything, that you’d liked him so much you’d dreamt up the possibility of his liking you back, too.

Your next lesson starts—the smile Jake gives you as he walks into History is so bright, it dissipates any clouds hanging over your head. You do believe in male-female friendships, but despite yourself, you can’t help but think that anyone in a relationship wouldn’t give someone else such a perfect, warm smile. It just wouldn’t be right. And so, you reason with yourself that simply walking to a class together didn’t mean two people were a couple.

For an hour, you stare at the back of Jake’s head, and although you do eventually come to the more sensible conclusion that a smile may just be a smile, you also think it's unlikely that he and Yunjin would be a thing. If they were, why would they hide it? Jake is so nice, you wouldn’t be surprised if he’d exaggerated his enthusiasm upon seeing her. You’re sure you still have your chances. He even says see you tomorrow when class is over and slips out of the room to go to soccer practice. 

You feel like you’re walking on cloud 9 as you head from History to your next class—but when you remember that the next class is German, your mood drops significantly. Because the universe has it out for you, you and Jay are two of just ten students in your year taking German as your second foreign language option, everyone else having gone for either French, Japanese or Spanish. Your reasoning for it is that your dad has had an obsession with Germany since his year abroad in Bavaria, and twelve-year-old you had wanted to make him happy. Eighteen-year-old you regrets it slightly, but at least now your dad is ecstatic every time you tell him in German that the dinner he made was really tasty. Why Jongseong decided to take it beats you—he’s probably just insane.

But because you don’t really know anyone else in the class, and because it’s your last period of the day, you have no friends to run off with once the lesson is over, and he gets to bother you all the way from the classroom door to the staff parking lot. 

You’ve barely finished bidding Auf Wiedersehen to your teacher and Jongseong is already harassing you. “So, I didn’t take you as the type to be into guys like Jake Sim.” He says Jake’s name with such disdain, like he thinks he’s so much better than him, or like he hates him. It confuses you just as much as it annoys you; Jongseong didn’t seem to have a problem with Jake earlier at the library.

“And that’s your business, because…?”

You don’t look at Jongseong, who’s quickened his pace to keep up with yours, but you can feel the smirk on his face. It’s insufferable. “Oh, it’s none of my business. I’m just surprised, is all. You guys are so… I don’t know, different.”

You scoff. “If you think I’m not good enough for someone like Jake, I’d rather you tell me straight up, Jongseong. Or actually,” you say, looking up at him with a dry smile. “Keep it to yourself and leave me alone.”

He looks offended by your words, and it only adds to your already immense annoyance—he’s the one who just insulted you, so why is he looking at you with those stupid furrowed eyebrows?

“I never said that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

“No, Y/N.” He grabs your wrist and makes you face him, your stomach flipping in surprise that you quickly cover up. When he releases you, you cross your arms over your chest and wait for him to speak, keeping your eyes trained on a spot behind him. “I don’t think he’s too good for you.” 

This makes you look at him. You have to admit, your curiosity is piqued. Not like Jongseong to say anything even vaguely in your favor. “He’s just…” He sighs, searches for the right word. “Well, he’s just a bit of a dick, isn’t he?”

You freeze for a second. You’re so taken aback, your scoff comes out more as a laugh—Park Jongseong, king supreme of all dicks at this school, just called Jake Sim a dick?

“I’m sorry?”

He sighs again, as though you’re the unreasonable one. “He’s so… smug. A wannabe class clown and thinks he’s the shit because he’s on the soccer team. Have you seen the way he swaggers around school?”

You look at him with fake sympathy. “Jong, are you jealous?”

“Pfft. No way. I just think it’s a shame you keep going after these dudes who are not even worth your time, or whatever, so yeah…” he says, voice trailing off and looking down at his feet as he speaks. Hands in pockets and blank expression on his face, you can tell he’s trying to look cool, but the way he’s avoiding your gaze is a dead give-away. Even his ears have turned red. Jongseong is having one of those shy moments he has when he’s trying to be nice to you. Clearly, a simple act of kindness towards you is so hard for him that it radically changes the way he behaves. 

Like when you were fifteen and you just couldn’t get this stupid art project right, so he stayed behind for three hours after school with you, helping you draw and paint and cut and glue. 

Like when you were sixteen and your grandma just passed away, making you miss a week of school, and without a word, barely looking at you, he gave you a stack of handwritten notes of all the lessons you missed. To this day, you’re not sure how he did it—you weren’t in the same class that year.

Like when you were seventeen and Park Sunghoon rejected you in the middle of a crowded hallway. You’d run off to the girls’ bathroom to cry it out, but Jongseong quickly found you and spent the entire period cursing Sunghoon out instead of being in English, like you were both meant to be. He was uncharacteristically nice to you for a few days after that, never starting an argument for no reason or interrupting you when you spoke. When you snapped at him, telling him it only made you feel worse that he treated you differently, he smiled and told you how stupid you looked when you cried. It made you laugh more than it should’ve.

Like now, when he suddenly decides that Jake Sim is also a wrong choice for you. “Him and Sunghoon are good friends, you know that?” he says. “Birds of a feather, and all…”

So you know that Jongseong is not all bad. He has his redeeming qualities. He can even be nice sometimes, when he so wishes. But those moments are so few and far between that when he returns to his usual insufferable self, you wonder if you’d dreamt it all up. Which is why you can’t quite take him seriously right now. You roll your eyes and resume walking towards the parking lot, but of course, he continues to follow you. “Why do you even care who I go after?”

“I don’t-”

“You clearly do, otherwise you wouldn’t be bothering me like this.”

“Well, if all your attention is taken up by that douche, who am I going to go up against?”

“That’s what you’re worried about? That I stop arguing with you?” you say, disbelief clear in your voice.

“I’m offended, Y/N,” he starts, his sarcastic tone making you roll your eyes again. “That our little rivalry matters so little to you.”

“We’re not even the top students of our class, for God’s sake, we’re not fighting over anything.”

“I’ve actually got the best grades in German, thanks very much.”

“Whatever. I wouldn’t call it a rivalry so much as a mutual dislike of each other, because one of us woke up one day and decided to start going against everything the other said.”

“At least you’re self-aware.”

The exit to the parking lot now appears to you like the gates of heaven. You don’t even bother replying to him, thinking that he’ll just leave you alone now that you’re here. But as you step outside, he places himself in front of you and blocks your path, arms splayed out, eyes wide like he’s just seen a ghost.

“What are you-”

“Have you done the German homework for tomorrow?”

The sudden change of subject gives you whiplash. “What? No, Miss Schumacher assigned it just now-”

“Well, given your tendency for getting the word order all wrong, I can already tell you you’re not gonna have fun with it-”

You pinch the nose of your bridge, trying to calm yourself down before you lose what’s remaining of your mind. “Jongseong, were you actually dropped on the head as a baby? Go away. My dad’s gonna be here any second.” You try to walk around him, but he steps in front of you again. You peer up at him, undisguised annoyance in your eyes. Where are your dad and brother when you need them?

“I’m just saying, you’ll probably need help with it-”

“I won’t. And if I do, I’ll just use Google. Now get out of my way,” you say, and manage to duck under one of his arms.

Then you see it.

Well, actually, it takes you a second to understand what it is you’re seeing. At first, you think it’s one of those horny couples thinking they’re being really discreet by going to the staff parking lot to make out, when in reality they could be caught by any one at any time. They’re just far enough that when you do a double take, you realize that you do know the back of that head; that fluffy mop of brown hair. You sit behind it every History period, next to it every Maths and English period.

The girl is up against the wall, and you can’t really see her, what with her and Jake’s tongues being down each other’s throat and his body blocking her from your view, his hands on her hips, her arms around his shoulders. All the works. She’s wearing a cheerleader uniform, so she could be any of twenty girls—but you’re pretty sure only one of them wears a pair of white Vans with red love hearts on them.

Your heart sinks to your stomach.

You’re frozen in place when a whistle rings in the distance, and Jake and Yunjin separate, giggling to each other as they jog to wherever the sound came from. The sports field, probably. It’s Monday; the cheerleaders and the soccer team share the field for their practice. 

Jake spots you and Jongseong staring at them. He waves quickly, awkwardly at you, still smiling even when surprise coats his features. Yunjin tugs on his hand and just like that, they’re gone. 

“Y/N-” 

Jay’s voice fades in the background. You want to get away from this situation as quickly as possible—it’s embarrassing enough seeing the guy you like and thought you had a chance with kissing a girl that is arguably much more on his level than you are, but having Jongseong of all people not only witness it, but try to protect you from it, God knows why, makes it impossibly mortifying. You speed-walk to your dad’s car, huffing as you plop in your seat and slamming the door behind you. Your brother is already sitting in the passenger seat, and you don’t even argue with him about it. When you only give single-word replies to his questions, he shrugs and returns to playing Clash of Clans on his phone. 

The moment you get home, you fish a five cent coin from your purse, change into mud boots and grab your dog’s leash. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

After half-an-hour of trudging through leaves and soft ground, muddy from many a rainy November night, you and Pablo, your massive, fluffy airhead of a German Shepherd, find yourselves at the well in the middle of the forest. Ever since you were little, you have attributed magic powers to the well—not that anyone told you any sort of myth about it, but you remember reading a story about a magic well and decided that your well would be magical, too. You’ve never wanted to abuse its powers, so you’ve used your wishes conscientiously: things like getting a certain present at Christmas (when you were nine and the most important thing ever was getting the Monster High doll you wanted) or not stuttering during your presentation in class (when you really didn’t want to embarrass yourself in front of Park Sunghoon and his cool friends). Every wish you’ve made has come true. Whenever a faint voice of reason tells you that it’s because you always ask for very realistic things, you squash it and continue to believe in the well.

Because today, you’re not asking for something realistic. 

Today, you’re asking the well to show you the way to love.

You’ve grown up watching The Notebook and Pride & Prejudice. Your parents are high school sweethearts who are still, twenty-five years later, happily married. You devour romance novels and binge-watch Asian dramas, the more unrealistic and romantic, the better. You are convinced that soulmates exist, that love always finds a way, that it is there for anyone to see. That it can take form in a childhood friend, an archnemesis, a total stranger.  

But for some reason, it hasn’t shown itself to you yet, no matter how valiantly you’ve looked. 

You’re absolutely sick and tired of it. It is Jake kissing another girl, it’s Sunghoon leading you on for months and then rejecting you in front of everyone, it’s your ex-boyfriend-who-shall-not-be-named, your first love and first heartbreak, dumping you after a year and getting with the girl he had told you not to worry about a week later. At a party a few months later, he’d said, word for word, “At least I didn’t cheat on you.”

Coin lodged between your hands, you interlace your fingers and press your palms closely together, eyes screwed shut in desperation. “Hey,” you start simply, because you and the well are good friends. “It’s been a while since I’ve asked for anything, so I hope you can indulge me… This is gonna sound so cliché, but I’m really tired of getting fucked over by boys — excuse my French — and I just wanna meet the person who’s right for me, you know? Mom’s always reminding me that I’m only eighteen, and that I’ve got plenty of time to meet someone, but I just feel like if I don’t find someone now, I never will. And if I get fucked over again — sorry — I’ll just lose hope and write off men for the rest of my life. So help a girl out, will you? I’ll leave it to you how you wanna go about it, but… just show me that there’s someone out there. Please.”

When you open your eyes, you need a few seconds to adjust to the darkness. You toss the coin in the well. It doesn’t make a sound as it hits the bottom, as if it has been absorbed within the old brick walls. You know better than to question it—the well works in mysterious ways.

You’re quiet that entire evening, making up an excuse of a tiring day at school when your parents ask. Really, you’re just thinking about your wish, whether it’ll work, what might happen. You half-ass your homework—Jay was right, the German exercises throw you into a bout of despair, so you quickly close your textbook and bury yourself in your sheets, falling asleep hours earlier than you usually would.

--

For some reason, the first thing you notice when you wake up is that it’s still dark outside. It must be the middle of the night, you think. It takes you a few seconds to realize that you’re in a completely strange room.

Instead of your floral-patterned sheets, you find yourself covered by delicate silk sheets that your parents would never agree to buy you, no matter how adamantly you argued for the benefits of silk for your skin. If skincare experts online had convinced you of one thing, it was that silk would do wonders for your obstinate acne. You slide out of bed and find a pair of slippers on the floor, as if waiting for you. Even the pajamas you’re wearing are fancier, more grown up than the ones you have at home, a set composed of a pinstriped button-up and shorts. You look around, for some reason more surprised and curious than panicked. You could’ve been kidnapped, for all you know, but all you care about right now is this room. Rather than the pink and white walls that have surrounded you since childhood, covered with pictures of you and your friends, postcards of artwork bought at museums, and posters of your favorite movies, the walls here are beige and mostly bare, except for a painting of Japanese cherry blossoms above the bed and a family portrait on the opposite wall, above a wooden chest of drawers. 

The family portrait. A woman, a man, and what you can only assume are their children. They look like twins—two girls. Can’t be older than three years old. Out of the four faces, you recognize two of them. You recognize them far too well. One of them is yours, of course. You look slightly older, by a decade, maybe? You’re glad to know that you won’t fall off after twenty-five, like much of social media has led you to believe. 

The other face you recognize immediately, too, but it takes you a few seconds to truly believe it.

It belongs to none other than Park Jongseong.

A dry chuckle falls from your throat, as if someone has just made a very insulting joke at your expense and you have to pretend you find it funny. The well has a very odd sense of humor, you think. It’s probably just a prank, a magic-induced nightmare before the real thing. Except this already feels real, disorientingly so. The fabric on your skin, the picture, the room. It all feels too real, more tangible than any dream you’ve ever had.

You take a step closer towards the picture, as if looking at it harder will make Jongseong’s face fade into that of another man, the real man that will become your husband and father of your children. But alas, his features remain the same, frozen in time by the photographer’s camera. He, too, looks older—and not only does he not fall off after twenty-five, he becomes all the more handsome for it.

Is this how you find out that Jongseong was handsome all along? You stare at it until the familiar face becomes practically unrecognizable, like repeating a word so much it stops feeling like one. The straight nose, the almond-shaped eyes that seem to have softened overtime, whereas his jaw has remained as sharp as ever. Have his eyebrows always framed his face so perfectly? Has that dimple always been there? 

You look around again, and the bright numbers on the bedside alarm clock catches your attention. They read 9:57 p.m., but it’s the date that makes your stomach sink—today is still the 18th of November, but ten years later. You stare at the clock, at the unfamiliar number, a date so far into the future you can’t wrap your head around it. You could barely envision life after high school.

Downstairs, the sudden clang of pots and the sound of a tap running manage to rip your gaze away from the alarm clock. An overwhelming curiosity tells you to follow the noise. This is all a dream, so there are no consequences if you explore a bit more, right? 

You’ve never been in this house before, and you have no idea where your feet are taking you until you find yourself in the kitchen. It’s the only lit room in the house, and you’re creepily standing in the dark under a wide archway that connects the kitchen to what looks like the dining room. A man has his back to you, washing dishes and putting them out to dry on a rack next to the sink. He’s wearing a white cotton sweater, one that you feel you recognise without ever having seen before, and a brown apron is tied around his neck and waist. 

The first thing you think to yourself is Oh, his haircut hasn’t changed. In almost every class you share with him, Jongseong has made it a point to sit either next to you or right in front of you, so you’ve spent a lot of time glaring at the back of his head. You wouldn’t be surprised if he started developing two eye-shaped bald spots there. His hair is still short and spiky at the back and on the sides, longer on the top. When he lets it grow too long, it sometimes covers his eyes, and he obnoxiously keeps having to push it back like a heartthrob in an 80s movie. 

Something like a memory flashes through your mind, blurry like those images you aren’t sure came from a dream or from real life. Your surroundings are unclear, but Jay’s face is nestled against your neck, your hand in his hair. You can feel the softness of the close shave against your palm as clearly as if you were touching it right now. You ask him why he’s always kept it that way, and he replies that it’s simple to maintain. Then in classic Jay fashion, he adds, “And it makes me look awesome.”

Another memory, a clearer one, this time—this definitely happened. It’s halfway through sophomore year, a random Tuesday, and Jay walks in, holding his head high and looking smugly around himself. The bastard got a new haircut. Long gone, his messy, unorganized flop of black hair that looked like it didn’t know what it was doing; hello, sleek undercut. It accentuates all of his best features, which is terrible news for you. You had never even thought of Jongseong as someone having “best” features, but now they’re being thrown in your face. His nose. His jawline. His smile.

It ruins your day, and a few after that. You can’t quite put it into words when your friends ask what’s wrong at lunch—or rather, you don’t wanna face the humiliation of uttering something along the lines of “Park Jongseong looks good with his new haircut, and it’s bothering me.”

Here, it’s a familiar sight in an unfamiliar environment, the back of his head. Without really thinking, you take a step forward. Jongseong starts at the sound of your slippers against the marble floor tiles, but his face relaxes into a smile when he sees you.

“Oh, it’s just you, honey. I thought you were sleeping.”

Just you. As if the two of you being in the same kitchen is normal. You guess it must be, to this version of Jongseong. To him, you’re not the annoying girl he strives to best in every class—you’re honey. 

“I was,” you say, walking around the kitchen island to join him by the sink. Something in you needs to look at him, really look at him, maybe pinch yourself or pinch him to be sure you’re not going crazy. Maybe you caught wafts of some ancient algae that lives in the well and made you hallucinate?

“I left a plate out for you in case you woke up. Made your favorite. The girls weren’t so happy, seeing as it’s the third time this month,” he says with the special kind of smile reserved for parents talking about their children. The girls. A mention so casual, so obvious, your heart hurts. “But I think I got it really right this time,” he continues. “Honestly, it might even be better than the original.”

He goes back to washing the dishes and you watch the sponge in his hands as it scrubs away tomato sauce, the soap as it runs from the plates into the sink. A knot forms in your stomach, something like a deep sadness that overwhelms you all of a sudden, and tears form in your eyes, threatening to fall any second.

When you haven’t budged in almost a minute, Jongseong starts to say, in an intimate, almost worried voice, “Aren’t you going to eat, honey?” but when he sees your wet eyes, the tremble in your lower lip, he shuts the water immediately and dries his hands. With his thumbs, he wipes away the tears that have started falling from your eyes. “What’s wrong?” he whispers.

You can’t reconcile the man in front of you with the image you have of the boy that torments you in every class you share. You can’t reconcile the genuine concern in his voice with the snarky tone you’re met with every day. And yet, they respond to the same name, their features are identical, if not for the years that separate them, the stress of adulthood on one and the carefreeness of youth on the other. 

Your body reacts automatically to the soft touch—never in a million years would you let the Jongseong you know come near you like this, but here, nothing feels more natural than his hands on your face, your shoulders, your hair, as though they’re just as much his as they are yours. You realize the emotion in your stomach is not sadness—tears fall, but you’re not sad. You’ve never felt as home as you do now, and if one thing romantic novels have taught you, is that this must be love.

You look up at the man in front of you, eyebrows furrowed as you search his face for confirmation or some sort of an answer. There’s a tremble in your voice when you speak next. “I just… I think I love you, Jongseong.”

He chuckles. “Well, we established that a while ago, didn’t we? What with getting married and having kids. But I’m glad you still feel that way.”

The mention of marriage and children doesn’t faze you nearly as much as it should. You’ve only got one thing on your mind. “Do you love me too?”

You expect him to laugh—not out of cruelty, but because the answer is so obvious, it almost doesn’t deserve to be answered seriously. Like when your brother asks if he can have one more of your cookies and you tell him you’ll cut his hand off. Sometimes you think it’s easier to be sarcastic than be unabashedly nice to someone. Especially with Jongseong, whom you don’t expect kindness or patience from, you wait for him to stay something like, “No, that’s why I’ve stayed with you these eight years.” 

So when instead, he says, “More than anything on this Earth,” voice low and vulnerable, tears flow even harder. 

“Sorry, it’s probably just my period,” you say through sobs, although you have no idea where in her menstrual cycle this version of you is.

Jongseong chuckles again, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “You do get emotional around this time.” And you cry more, because you can’t believe someone other than your mother knows you so well that they know what your period symptoms are.

Rubbing soothing circles against your back and whispering soft words in your ear, he holds you for as long as you need to calm down. When you finally do, he tells you to go sit on the couch, that he’ll finish up the dishes then heat and bring your food for you. You think you’ve got your emotions under control, but the moment you bite the pasta, cooked to perfection with the most succulent tomato sauce you’ve ever had, sweet with a little kick of spice and a generous amount of parmesan cheese, tears start to fall again as if you had an endless stock of water behind your eyes.

“This is so good,” you mumble.

Jongseong smiles, his gaze full of affection miraculously directed at you as he tucks away strands of your hair so they don’t get in your eyes or in your food. “I’m glad, baby.”

You react to the nickname viscerally, words tumbling out of your mouth before you can even understand them. “You haven’t called me that in ages.” You widen your eyes at yourself, wondering how this was something you even knew. But when you look at Jongseong, all he does is smile more.

“You’re right, I haven’t. I guess I was reminded of college. You cried all the time back then. As much as it pained me, I can’t say I wasn’t happy to be the one you always came to for comfort.”

You haven’t been through college yet, so you should be unable to tell whether this truly happened or not—and yet, the memories of the body you’re in all confirm what Jongseong just said. But it feels impossible—going to university with him, letting yourself be vulnerable enough with him to not only cry in front of him but let him comfort you. Whatever could have happened in the years between the present you know and your time at university for things to change so drastically?

But before you can make sense of any of it, Jongseong speaks again. “Why? Do you like it when I call you baby?”

Your stomach flips. Heat rises to your face at his words, the tone with which he said them, the things he was alluding to—you know that having children means you’d popped your cherry at some point, that you’d had sex with Jongseong specifically, but to be confronted with the fact was something else. 

“Maybe,” you mumble, and proceed to stuff your mouth with pasta so that you can’t incriminate yourself further.

He puts on a recent movie, something you should arguably be paying attention to, since you’re literally getting a glimpse into the future of cinema—you could steal the idea, go back to your present and sell it for an outrageous price.

But Jongseong’s presence next to you makes it impossible to concentrate on anything but him. The warmth emanating from him, the scent of his perfume envelop you, give you a sense of just how real this all is—despite how comfortable being with him like this feels, you’re still not convinced you’re not just in an unsettlingly vivid dream. You take one of his hands in yours, examining each finger, turning his hand over, tracing the lines of his palm, smoothing your thumb over his nails—it’s an undeniably human hand. Warm against yours, slightly rough. He’s started using hand cream, you think, all these winters when his dry hands would crack because of the cold coming up to your mind, teenage Jongseong’s hard refusal to wear any sort of cream to protect himself. Memories bob up to the surface: fixing his cracked hands up with a plaster, your tear falling on his hand, the both of you in your school uniforms in what looks like the school infirmary; awkwardly gifting him some hand cream the Christmas of that year, not looking at him as you hand him the small package. Saying, “It’s a waste of plasters for something that could be fixed so easily.” Him treating you to warm, spicy tteokbokki because he felt bad for not having gotten you anything, even though this was the first time either of you had ever given the other one a present.

As your fingers trail up from his hand to his forearm, his shoulder, his jawline, more memories flood your mind. Clumsy first kisses; squabbles of the kind you were already used to; lazy mornings in bed; hours spent in your kitchen or his, before you shared one, cooking dinner together; the way you felt when he proposed, a feeling so intense remembering it is almost unbearable now. Your eyes and fingers examine his face in detail—even though you’ve seen him almost every day since the start of high school, this feels like the first time you really perceive him. The delicate bow of his lips, the strong nose, the softness in his eyes when he looks at you. Your heart beats uncontrollably as you hold each other’s gazes, but you feel inexplicably relaxed at the same time, two nearly opposing realities fighting each other inside of you—one in which you and Jongseong regarding each other with such affection is unthinkable, the other in which it is daily routine.

“Movie not to your taste?” he asks, voice gentle, breaking you out of your stupor.

“Hm?”

He nods towards the TV screen. “I see you’re not paying much attention.”

“No. I have… things on my mind.”

He raises an eyebrow, a smirk slowly growing on his lips. “Yeah?” You think your heart might actually flatline when he brings you in closer to his chest, and, face buried in your hair, says, “You know, I’ve been thinking that the twins might want a younger sibling to play with soon enough…”

You’re not sure whether he actually wants a third child or if this is weird dirty talk that apparently turns parents on—all you know is that this is something future you will deal with, not high school senior you. 

You whip up your head at him, eyes wide in panic that he mirrors immediately. “Or—or not. Later. Later?” You nod fervently, and the worry dissipates from his handsome features. “Okay, later,” he whispers, kissing the top of your head before returning his attention to the movie. 

A couple hours later, you’re laying in bed in the dark together—you can tell Jongseong is falling asleep by the regularity of his breathing and his stillness, but you’re wide awake. You don’t know how you’ve managed to spend all this time with him, acting like the wife he knows and loves, without imploding. But suddenly, the idea of waking up in your childhood bed, surrounded by your pink-and-white walls, going downstairs to be greeted by your brother and parents, sends a wave of panic through you. You haven’t felt this comfortable in a long time—Jongseong’s arm draped over your waist, the fact that you could reach over and feel his skin against your palm if you wanted. You don’t want to go back to a time where you hate him. In fact, you don’t know if you could hate him after this.

“Jongseong?” you say softly, the syllables unfamiliar on your tongue, even though the name rings brusquely through your head for the best part of every day.

It takes a few seconds, but he reacts eventually. “Hm? Did you just call me Jongseong?” he murmurs sleepily, as if you’d just called him Robert or Christopher and not the name his own parents gave him.

“Yeah.”

He chuckles. “Now that’s something you haven’t called me in ages. Makes me feel like you’re mad at me,” he says, turning over and burying his face in the crook of your neck. His hair tickles your skin, and one of your hands comes up reflexively to feel the softness of his close shave.

“...Jong?” you try.

“That’s a step up, but not quite what I want,” he mumbles.

You’re silent for a few moments. “Honey,” you say tentatively, voice a mere whisper.

“That’s better.” You can hear the smile in his voice.

“Will you be here in the morning?”

“Mh-hm. It’s Saturday tomorrow.”

“No,” you say, feeling out of breath. “I mean, will you be here?”

You’re aware you’re not making much sense—and yet, Jongseong needs no further explanation. “Of course, baby,” he starts, voice soothing. “I’ll be here tomorrow, and the day after that, and every day afterwards. ‘Til death do us part, remember?”

You let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”

“I love you, Y/N.”

“I love you, too,” you find yourself saying, and, more importantly, meaning. It’s the last thing either of you says before falling asleep.

--

Tears are streaming down your face when you wake up the next day. When you open your eyes, pink and white obnoxiously stare back at you. The clock reads 7:12, just three minutes before your alarm goes off, and unfortunately for high school you, the night hasn’t given in to Saturday morning—it’s Tuesday, and you have to go to school and act as if you hadn’t just had the weirdest, most realistic dream of your life. You don’t even get a weekend to shake this weird feeling in your stomach off, you’re going to have to face Park Jongseong full force. At least, this will become your friends’ favorite bit for the foreseeable future.

They’re already sitting in the classroom when you get there, animatedly chatting to each other. You plop down in your seat in front of them, and when they see the sullen look on your face, ask you what’s wrong.

“Did you wake up during the night to play Hay Day again?” Kazuha asks, eyebrows knotted with genuine worry.

“I’m not that person anymore,” you reply. “No, I just had a really weird dream. More like a nightmare, really. It feels like I didn’t get any sleep.”

“What was it about?” Sunoo asks.

Your eyes dart back-and-forth between the two of them as you brace yourself for their reactions. Not wanting anyone else to overhear, you lean in conspiratorially. They mirror you. “I was married to Park Jongseong,” you whisper. As expected, they burst into laughter immediately, and you lean back in your seat, crossing your arms in annoyance. “It’s not funny.”

“It’s very funny,” Kazuha retorts. “It’s ironic, even, considering how much you hate the guy.”

“Exactly!”

“But I guess even you know how ridiculous it is that you hate him, if your brain is able to imagine yourself being married to him,” Sunoo adds, shrugging. “It’s a good reminder that you’re literally the only person in this school with a vendetta against him.”

Kazuha nods energetically. “He picked up a pen for me, once. He’s a nice guy.”

You look around the room in panic. “Keep it down, will you?” you hush, despite the fact that no one is paying any attention to the three of you. You sigh, resolving yourself to telling them the entire truth. “But guys, I’m scared. I think this might be a sign.”

Their eyebrows perk up. “A sign that your hatred of him has actually been disguising a crush this entire time?” Sunoo asks, feigning innocence.

“No—what? Where did you get that idea?”

“Nowhere. Go on.”

“Whatever. Come here,” you say, gesturing for them to huddle again. “It’s the well.”

“Oh my God, Y/N, you’ve actually lost it,” Kazuha says, fascinated by your stupidity.

“I’m not going to tolerate any well slander, this is serious. I just wanted it to reassure me that there was someone out there for me. And then I had that stupid dream.”

Kazuha and Sunoo exchange a look like they’re parents trying to announce to their daughter that she’s adopted. “Y/N…” Sunoo starts.

“This is crazy. Like, love philters and writing Park Sunghoon’s name a hundred times are one thing, this is…”

“Crazy,” Sunoo said, nodding along. “This is crazy. There’s no other word for it. Your eighteen years of boyfriendlessness have finally caught up to you.”

“You guys don’t get it. What about that time I asked it to give me a good grade on our Literature exam and I literally came first out of our class? Or when I told it I missed Jung Hae-in and his military discharge announcement came the next day?” you say, aware that the look in your eyes is only confirming their suspicions—but you need someone to believe you, or at the very least understand you.

“One, you’re a good student. Two, that was pure coincidence,” Sunoo explains.

“But girl, if you want to marry Jay, that’s fine. You’ve got our blessing,” Kazuha says, shrugging.

“Yeah. He picked up her pen, once,” Sunoo adds.

“And you know, you guys clearly have some sort of chemistry.”

You scoff. “If you think that him refuting my every word and finding every opportunity to make fun of me, then yeah, I guess you could say we have chemistry.”

“You guys have banter,” Kazuha says as if it’s obvious.

“Oh, please. Banter is cute. I want to kill him every time he opens his mouth.”

Your friends both roll their eyes. “While I understand that most men are better off staying quiet—no offense, Sunoo—”

“None taken.”

“You have to admit Jay is not nearly as insufferable as you make him out to be,” Kazuha says.

“Are you kidding me? He’s always acting like a child. Rubbing it in my face when he gets a better grade, trying to start arguments for no reason, sucking up to teachers, stealing my erasers, for God’s sake, you’d think he’s twelve. I know that I’m not on the majority's side, but I seriously cannot understand how other people tolerate him at all.”

Sunoo sighs. “Because he’s nice to everyone. He never hesitates to help people, he’s even funny, sometimes, and—well, look at him.” He nods his head towards the door, and when you turn around, Jongseong is indeed walking in the classroom. “He’s not a bad-looking boy.”

“Gosh, Sunoo, maybe you should marry him,” Kazuha says, but since you laid your eyes on Jongseong, you’ve stopped listening.

You feel weird. You look at him, and you feel weird. It’s the same feeling you had during your sleep last night, a feeling that paralyzes you from head to toe, that starts in your stomach and spreads to your entire body, weighs you down in your chair. 

“Hey, guys,” he greets simply, and his voice wraps itself around your heart and squeezes. You can’t do anything but watch him as he takes his seat next to you, plopping his bag on the table and taking his notebook out. He looks at you, watches you watching him, then swivels around in his chair.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asks your friends.

“She had a dream that she m—”

“Do not finish that sentence, Zuha, if you want to live to see another day.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she replies, a satisfied little smile on her lips.

Despite yourself, you’re still staring at Jongseong, trying to figure out what the hell these emotions are that are raging up a storm inside of you. Instead of ignoring you, he turns to face you, resting his elbow on the table and his chin in his palm as he stares back at you, smirking. “What’s up, Y/N? Has it finally dawned on you how devastatingly handsome I am?” he asks, and you frown, because he’s not so far off from the truth.

“Please, kids, it’s 9 a.m., don’t flirt right in front of us,” Sunoo says, despair in his voice.

“She’s the one who started it,” Jongseong replies, still looking at you, his smirk growing.

For some reason, this startles you out of your trance, and you look away from him like you’ve been burned, preoccupying yourself instead with your notes for this class. “In your dreams, Jongseong,” you mumble.

“More like in yours,” Kazuha says, her and Sunoo giggling.

“Zuha!” you exclaim. Jongseong looks at you with raised eyebrows, and with his infuriating capacity to put two and two together, you’re scared he’s figured out what she meant, but you’re literally saved by your teacher who walks in at that moment and starts the class. 

The second the bell rings to signify the end of the class, you hurriedly pack your things and mutter an excuse about needing the bathroom, trying to get as far away as possible from the boy whose all-too familiar scent had messed with your thoughts all class, whose every brush of his arm against yours had made your heart race uncontrollably.

--

It hadn’t just been a dream. It couldn’t have been.

Just like there was no doubt the 28-year-old Jongseong from last night had once been the annoying boy you knew, the 18-year-old Jongseong was sure to one day become the husband of your dreams. A devoted partner and father, his presence comforting, his good looks indeed devastating, unwavering.

There was no mistake to be made. The well had worked its magic.

Whether you liked it or not, you would end up marrying Park Jongseong. You, of all people; him, of all people.

Was there already something of your future husband in the boy that snickered when you mixed up your genders in German class, or would he one day spring out of nowhere? Apparently, you’d be around to find out.

But for now, how to act around him? It felt unfair that you were privy to this knowledge of your shared future while he was ignorant of it. Blissfully, perhaps. You couldn’t imagine that he would rejoice much at this news.

Your mind is somewhere else the entire day. At lunch, your other friends try to get the thing that’s obviously bothering you out of you, but Kazuha and Sunoo are there to tell them not to bother. You’d needed to tell someone about it, but you don’t want the entire school to know about your marital premonitions. The two knuckleheads you call your best friends are already doing a good enough job teasing you about it—”There’s your husband, Y/N,” when Jongseong walks past; “So have you thought of baby names? Kayleigh and Mackayleigh, perhaps?” unsolicited, during Physics. You turn around to check on the culprit — because yes, Jongseong is the culprit here, you, a mere a victim — and when he notices you staring, nods at you as if to say, What’s your problem?, trying to look threatening in his white lab coat that’s three sizes too big and protective goggles.

It doesn’t help that Jongseong has a way of hovering around you. Even in classes in which your teachers assigned the seats for you, he’s never far from your seat. The two of you sit next to each other in German, your last class every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. But today, the seat next to you is empty—what would’ve been a cause for celebration just yesterday is now a source of worry. You’d seen him just two hours ago in your previous class together, so where the hell was he now? He’s lucky that your teacher is an old German lady who always spends the first ten minutes of the lesson rambling about something in dialectal German no one understands but nods along to anyway. When he walks into the room, five minutes late, she just says, “Hallo, Jay,” and continues with her story. It’s about her first school trip to Berlin when she was fifteen and the country was still divided. You think.

He winks at you when he takes his seat and you roll your eyes. You pretend to listen to your teacher for thirty seconds, then hit him gently with your elbow. “Where were you?” you ask without looking at him.

He doesn’t answer immediately, probably surprised you initiated a non-hostile conversation with him for once. “I was just hanging out with my friends, something you clearly wouldn’t understand.”

And your friends wondered why you hated him?

“Still having imaginary friends at eighteen is really concerning, Jongseong. You should see someone about it.”

When you glance at him, he’s already looking right at you, smiling. You’ve never felt so conscious of your side profile. 

“Why? Were you worried?” he whispers, kicking your foot with his.

You look at him, horrified—where the hell had he gotten that idea? How was he so spot-on? You scoff, trying to diffuse the tension inside yourself. “No.”

He kicks your foot again. “I was five minutes late and you started to worry?”

“No. Stop.”

“I didn’t know you cared about me so much, Y/N.”

This time, you give him a harsh look, one that lets him know you really mean your words—“Stop it.” Finally, he relents, getting the assigned homework out now that the teacher has actually started the lesson. Your face softens—he looks hurt. Guilt tugs at your heartstrings.

Despite what you might say, you like the way things are with Jongseong. If some people always need to be crushing on someone, you always need to have someone you perceive as an enemy—it was Na Jaemin in elementary school, because he’d once made fun of your incapability to climb the monkey bars; Shin Ryujin, in middle school, for kissing your crush during a game of spin-the-bottle at your own birthday party; Park Jongseong, since freshman year, for simply existing. Your reasons for disliking him are trivial, you’ll admit. You weren’t sure you could even place a finger on what had first triggered your disdain towards him—one too many awful jokes, one too many times raising his hand in class and rattling off a perfect answer, then looking around himself proudly, one too many roars of laughter heard throughout the entire cafeteria. The fact that no one else seemed to be bothered by him only added to your aggravation. He just got on your nerves, and it seemed that you openly showing your dislike of him — him, who was so used to being loved by everyone around him, pampered by his family, praised by his teachers, popular among his peers — was enough to make him dislike you, too. So, after a few failed attempts at trying to be your friend, because Jongseong was unable to not be friends with everyone he met, he didn’t simply give up. 

If he couldn’t be your friend, then fine, he’d be your enemy.

At least, that’s how it appears to you, still now. It’s never gone dangerously far, but if there’s an opening to tease you or get on your nerves, he’ll do it. Not passing you the ball during soccer, or conversely, only aiming for you during dodgeball, not sharing his textbook with you when you forgot it unless you beg, loudly clearing his throat when you speak in class. And, lately, pouring salt on your wounds in the form of reminding you how impossible you and Jake Sim are. His motto must be if there’s a will, there’s a way. And when it comes to making your life hell, his will is infinite.

Everything is upside-down now. The question of how your relationship can possibly go from this to that obsesses you. It feels like you’re more capable of sharing a funeral, dying at each others’ hands, than a wedding. 

“Jong, your textbook.”

He squints at you. “Funny how I’m Jongseong when you hate me, Jong when you need a textbook,” he says, sliding his book closer to himself.

“It’s not my fault your name is a mouthful,” you retort, trying to pull it back to the middle of the table, but he’s quicker than you.

“Then maybe you should call me Jay, like everyone else on Earth.”

“Where’s the fun in that? Now give it here. Please?” you ask, mustering your best smile. Any other teacher would’ve scolded the two of you by now, but Ms. Schumacher is peacefully going on about the importance of word order and punctuation in the German sentence, oblivious to her two students bickering in the back row. Jongseong usually never sits at the back of the classroom—only here.

He gives in, smiling back, but there’s something behind it, something that tells you nothing good is brewing in his brain. “Only because you’re so pretty.”

Normally, this kind of remark would’ve warranted a slap on the arm or an array of insults, but if today is anything, it is not normal. You look at him like you’ve been stung, visions of your not-dream coming to you in flashes like you’re the titular character on That’s So Raven—the affection in your husband’s eyes, the kindness in his words, the sincerity in his smile. Again, you’re left to wonder if this man is already taking root inside of the boy next to you, if Jongseong’s future capacity to love you presently exists in his heart.

Does your future capacity to love him already exist in your heart?

You watch as his smirk softens into a grin, your flusteredness and lack of a response clearly amusing him, then as he circles the exercises Ms. Schumacher is assigning for the lesson. She seems to have forgotten there was homework due—Jongseong will be sure to remind her of it quickly.

He kicks your foot again, tells you to focus. His ears have turned red.

You wonder if those capacities haven’t existed from the start.

--

As much as you love a good friends-to-lovers story, characters hiding their feelings out of fear of ruining the friendship have never failed to frustrate you — just tell her, you dummy, it’s obvious she likes you too — and yet, you’ve never related more than now.

Whatever it is that you and Jongseong have, you don’t want to lose it. It adds entertainment to your otherwise average life. 

“Good thing she didn’t pick on you while we went over the homework, ‘cause you clearly put zero effort in. And I wouldn’t have helped you, even if you’d asked, by the way.”

You hum absent-mindedly as you put your notebook and pencil holder in your bag. Are you sure that these are even your feelings in the first place? Just because the well put a silly idea in your head doesn’t mean you have to believe it like it’s scripture. If what you saw is real, then it will happen in its own time. Things don’t have to start changing right this instant.

“Gosh, Y/N, what’s up with you today? You’re so boring,” Jongseong continues, following you out of the classroom. 

“Just tired,” you reply. Wouldn’t it be unnatural if you were to radically alter the way you behave with Jongseong? Love should come about organically. Sure, his presence has always provoked some kind of reaction within you, but that’s usually been annoyance. Whether he’s stealing the fifth eraser you’ve bought that month or running on the soccer field, beads of sweat running down his temples, hair sticking out everywhere, victoriously smiling when his team scores—you’re annoyed. Whether he’s sticking up his hand higher than yours or going to the school dance with Ahn Yujin—you’re annoyed. When you learned that she’d been his neighbor since infancy and that she had a boyfriend, who went to another school and only trusted Jongseong to take her to the dance, you were still annoyed—this time at yourself for feeling even the tiniest bit relieved that nothing was going on between them.

And this — his quick steps trying to keep up with yours, his dumb story about yogurt coming out of Heeseung’s nose today at lunch when they were laughing too hard — yes, you’re still annoyed. But you realize you’re not annoyed at him.

You’re annoyed at how he makes you feel.

“Y/N?” he says, but you’re too deep in your thoughts, only vaguely registering the sound until he repeats it, louder this time, and grabs your hand, making you abruptly stop walking. “Are you sure everything’s okay?” he asks with genuine concern in his voice. “You’re barely listening to me. I mean, it’s not like you usually really do, but you’d have told me to get lost, like, five minutes ago now…”

He chuckles self-deprecatingly, but despite his words, you’re focusing on something else yet again. His hand on yours, his loose hold on your fingers. Your brain is yelling at you—hold his hand, hug him. It’s like there are still traces of the 28-year-old version of you you visited yesterday, urging you to behave like her and not 18-year-old you. 

So, the well had let you know that you need not look much further to find what you wanted. Here it is, in the form of a boy you have convinced yourself you hated, and hated you, and yet, he’s holding your hand, asking you if you’re okay, worry knotting his eyebrows together. 

Hold his hand. Hug him. Instead, you retract your hand, let it fall limply by your side. Jongseong’s eyebrows shoot up.

He’s so close, the supposed love of your life. You don’t know how to reach out to him.

For now, you smile. “Get lost, Jong.”

--

you guys how the hell do i act around jongseong now that i know our fates are romantically intertwined

kazuha i think not treating him like the number one public enemy would be a good start

you so what… be nice to him? how do i do that

sunoo oh my god y/n when she has to treat another person like a regular human being

you he’s not just another person!

sunoo okayyyyy i see you little miss repressed feelings

you i hate u

kazuha just don’t roll your eyes at everything he says anymore and don’t start arguments for no reason

you he’s the one who starts them… but okay i’ll try

--

“Let’s pair up for the reading analysis today. You can stay with your deskmate or pick a partner, I don’t mind as long as you get the work done. I’m talking about you, Chaewon and Yuri. This is English class, not a gossip session.”

The second your English teacher has finished speaking, Jongseong swivels in his chair. “Let’s partner up, Y/N?”

“What about me?” Jake asks, eyes darting back-and-forth between the two of you.

“You can partner up with Minju,” Jongseong replies, pointing to the girl he’s usually seated next to. “Look. You guys will be great together. Say hi, Minju.” Minju waves shyly at Jake, braces on display as she smiles ecstatically. It’s not everyday that she gets to talk to one of the most popular guys in school.

Jake reluctantly switches seats with him, glancing back at you and Jongseong who just grins at him, fake friendliness plastered on his lips, until he turns around again. Your new partner’s smile softens and reaches his eyes when he looks at you. “Hi.”

You have to look away—you feel your face burn under his gaze. “Hi, Jong.”

He tilts his head. “What? Do you hate me so much that you can’t even look at me now?” he asks, and you can’t tell whether he’s joking or genuine.

You frown. “I don’t hate you.”

“Oh? That’s a recent development.”

“I guess,” you mumble after a few seconds. Is it really? You suddenly can’t remember if you ever really hated him, or if you’d exaggerated your own feelings.

His smile widens. “Well, good. I mean, you were going to have to realize at some point that I really am funny, smart, endearing, handsome-”

“Back to hating.”

“Let’s start the assignment.”

You agree on reading the passage first, but you realize halfway through that not a single word has been absorbed. “Hey. Why did you switch seats with him?” you ask, whispering so as not to be overheard.

Jongseong shrugs. “I thought you wouldn’t want to work with him, considering…”

“Right.” You’re silent again, but only for a bit. “What’s it to you?” you mumble. 

He scoffs. “Sorry for trying to be considerate.”

“That’s not—”

“Let’s just focus on this.”

His sudden coldness vexes you. You know you should let it go — don’t start arguments for no reason, and all that — and you know it’s childish, but you can’t help yourself. You have certain reflexes you’re not particularly proud of when it comes to one Park Jongseong. “Let’s just focus on this,” you repeat, mocking his grumbling tone of voice and shaking your head like a puppet.

He glares at you. “Can you not act like a toddler for once?”

“Can you not be a dick for once?” you bite back.

“Y/N, Jongseong, I’m sure you’re having a fascinating conversation on the use of chiaroscuro in the text?” your teacher asks, a look of warning on his face.

“Yes, sir,” you reply, embarrassed.

“Yes, so much chiaroscuro,” Jongseong mumbles, resting his cheek on his knuckles. When the teacher has turned away, he kicks your foot. “See, you’re getting us in trouble.”

“Do you even know what chiaroscuro is?” 

He hesitates. “That’s not the problem here. You are.”

“Well, maybe if you didn’t-”

“Y/N, Jay, final warning.”

“Sorry,” you both say at the same time. With one last glare at each other, you finally get to work.

So your plan to start getting along with Jongseong isn’t in full-force yet. On the drive back home that afternoon, you reassure yourself that these things take time. When the moment is right, the two of you will grow closer.

--

But increasingly, it feels as though the right moment will never come.

Two months have passed since your visit to the well, and things between you and Jongseong have not changed. Not really, at least.

You still bicker like cat and dog — it goes without saying that you’re the cute puppy and he’s the heartless cat — and he gets as much on your nerves as ever, especially now that you know that the potential to be nice to you, to love you, even, exists somewhere inside him. Somewhere deeply hidden perhaps, but somewhere nonetheless. Of course, after telling yourself that what must come will come of its own accord, you haven’t done much to change the dynamic between the two of you. But if you used to see your retaliations against him as necessary to your survival, you now find some sort of enjoyment in them—some might call it Stockholm Syndrome, you perceive it as a step in the right direction. You’ve followed one of Kazuha’s pieces of advice: you don’t roll your eyes at him anymore, simply because you don’t feel the need to. You argue with him with a smile on your face, his attempts at insulting or annoying you have started to make you laugh.

He doesn’t say anything but seems to gladly welcome this change. If you get a lower grade than him on a test, he doesn’t try to stick the knife in further, but genuinely offers to go over it with you later. If you give in after two hours of tearing your hair out over a German exercise and text him for help, he doesn’t make fun of you. If he says something particularly arrogant or makes a really bad joke, all you need to do is give him a look, and he’ll mumble an apology. 

Could it have been like this the entire time? you wonder, watching him across the schoolyard as he and Heeseung hunt for Pokémon. Just a couple months ago, you would’ve scrunched your nose at the sight, making fun of him for his childish interests. Now, you notice the way he laughs, audible all the way to where you sit with Kazuha and Sunoo, the way he jumps excitedly and points at things only he and his friend see, and all you feel is endearment.

“Look at you, look at that,” Sunoo says as he hits you on the forehead with his metal spoon, startling you. He tuts. “You’ve got love dripping from your eyes, sweetie.”

“Sunoo, that’s disgusting.”

“Love? I know.”

“No, your spoon. Your saliva’s all over that,” you say, and all he does is eat another mouthful of his yogurt while staring wide-eyed right at you. When you look back at Jongseong, he’s high-fiving Heeseung. You wonder which creature he’s caught now. In the library yesterday, he spent thirty minutes showing you every single one he had captured so far instead of revising for the upcoming Physics test.

“Yeah, we know you’d like someone else’s saliva more,” Kazuha chimes in, and the two of them snort.

“It’s not like that,” you say, biting into an apple slice.

“Oh yeah? What’s it like, then?” Kazuha asks.

“We’re… becoming friends,” you say, but you’re not sure who you’re trying to convince more.

“Y/N, I’ve had to watch the two of you giggling to yourselves in the library one too many times to believe you’re friends. I know your homework’s not that funny,” Sunoo argues.

“Friends can giggle with each other!” you exclaim, but your friends are inflexible.

“I would tell you to get yourself together if you giggled at me like that,” he says.

“I saw you twirl your hair the other day,” Kazuha adds.

“I never—When?!”

She shrugs. “The other day.”

You deflate, crushed under your friends’ accusations. “I wouldn’t twirl my hair…” you mumble. You decide to busy yourself with your apple slices, not even bothering to find out what Kazuha and Sunoo start snickering and elbowing each other about.

“Hey,” a familiar voice greets, making you look up. Jongseong smiles at you and steals an apple slice from your tupperware as he sits down next to you, Heeseung across from him.

“Hi, Jong,” you say, sitting up straighter. You offer a piece of fruit to Heeseung but he declines, saying he doesn’t like apples without peanut butter.

In front of you, your friends exchange a look, and you’re immediately terrified of what they’ll do next. Leaning in, they place their elbows on the table, and Kazuha starts them off. “Jay, you and Y/N know each other pretty well, right?”

Jongseong glances at you, eyes wide. “Uh, sure.”

“Have you ever noticed her, say, twirling her hair?” Sunoo asks, tilting his head innocently at the poor boy by your side.

You’ve never seen him look so confused. “Um, yeah, she does that when she’s concentrating on something, sometimes…”

They lean back. “Huh,” Kazuha says, studying Jongseong’s face.

“Interesting. Very interesting,” Sunoo says, slowly nodding.

You glare at your friends. “See, that’s different,” you tell them. “I was concentrating on something, not doing… whatever you guys had in mind.”

Jongseong looks at you. “What did they have in mind?”

You answer before either of them can dig your grave any deeper. “Nothing. It’s nothing. We were just having a stupid conversation.” You muster your most convincing smile, and the subject is finally dropped.

No one says anything for a few moments, until Heeseung decides to speak up: “You should’ve seen Jay earlier, Y/N. He caught this super rare version of Pikachu earlier, it was awesome.”

“Dude…” Jongseong murmurs.

“What?” Heeseung asks, his enthusiasm quickly dissolving into confusion. Jongseong just shakes his head. Thankfully for all of you, the bell rings then, and you head to class. The three of them walk in front of you while you and Jongseong fall back a step.

“Why were you guys sitting outside? It’s freezing today,” he asks you. Walking side-by-side like this, you can’t help but notice the inches he has over you, the broadness of his shoulders in comparison to yours.

“They turned the heat way too high in the cafeteria, so we came outside for some fresh air,” you explain. He’s right, the air is chilly today—it’s a few days into December, and the temperatures have been accordingly low.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Your heart skips a beat. One of the side effects of not being at each other’s throat anymore was that you got more and more often to be privy to this side of Jongseong—attentive, considerate, kind. What you once thought were his moral attempts at not being so mean to you all the time, you found out was actually his real nature. He wasn’t a prick who was sometimes nice, he was a nice person who turned into a prick with you. Whether the fault lay on him or you was another debate.

“No, I’m alright,” you say, but your body decides to betray you and makes you sneeze three times in a row.

“Bless you,” Jongseong says, laughing. “Here.” You try to stop him, pushing his hands away, but he takes his gloves off and forces them in your palms.

“I’m going to be inside for the next four hours, Jong, I’ll be fine. Keep them.”

“No, it’s okay. Just so you can warm up quicker.”

You eventually give in, putting the gloves over your hands, laughing at the extra fabric that hangs off the tip of your fingers. But when you look at Jongseong’s now-bare hands, something catches your attention. Stopping in the hallway, you grab one of them, examining the cuts on his knuckles. “You need to wear hand cream, Jong, your hands are too chapped.”

He lets you turn his hand over, smooth over his skin, do the same thing with his other hand. “Men don’t wear hand cream,” he says, a grin on his lips.

You burst out laughing. “I think that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Seriously, though, I don’t like the way it feels. Too sticky.”

“You just need to get a quick-absorption one.” Then, you make the terrible mistake of looking up from his hand and meeting his eyes—you gasp silently, his gaze and soft smile transporting you right back to that night, the images of 28-year-old and 18-year-old Jongseong mixing into each other, becoming indistinct from each other. Your gaze drifts down to his lips — chapped, too, when they’re usually plumper, rosier — and his hand, still in yours, balls into a fist. The second bell rings and you both take a step back, eyes meeting again for a brief moment before looking down at the floor. With uncharacteristically shy, embarrassed words of parting, you make your separate ways to your next classes.

“That was beautiful, Y/N,” Sunoo says, waiting for you by the door, and you walk past him without so much as a glance.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

--

sunoo jay and y/n almost kissed earlier

kazuha WHAAAAT

you KIM SUNOO.

kazuha WHEN?????

sunoo right before class after the lunch break y/n was sooo embarrassed afterwards lol

you we did NOT almost kiss you’re talking out of your ass

kazuha i can’t believe i missed this fml

you YOU DIDNT MISS ANYTHING NOTHING HAPPENED

sunoo be serious u guys we’re standing inches apart

you were* and no we weren’t

sunoo oh stfu it was autocorrect i saw it w my own eyes y/n… you WERE literally holding his hand and staring into those beautiful eyes of his

kazuha sunoo…?

sunoo what can’t a man acknowledge another man’s objective attractiveness if i was y/n i would’ve folded the moment i saw him

you literally one of the first times he talked to me was to make fun of my handwriting

sunoo yeah he’s on his tsundere shit i fw it

you …

sunoo anyways zuha you shouldve seen it when the bell rang they practically leaped away from each other and u didnt know what to do w yourselves afterwards likeeee it was so obvi what you both were thinking of

kazuha cuuuute

you i resent these accusations.

sunoo istg if u dont kiss him next time i will

kazuha ???

you SUNOO?

sunoo WHAT

--

Something happens a few days before the start of winter break.

Ms. Schumacher is absent, gone off to Germany to visit her family there—she has enough seniority in the school that they let her abandon her responsibilities as a teacher once in a while. A week is too short a period of time for them to bother finding a substitute. It’s usually your last class of the day, but you have to wait around for your dad to be done working, so while most of your classmates have gone home early, you sit with about six other people in the unsupervised study room, absent-mindedly jotting down tid-bits of dialogue for your new story idea, too preoccupied with Jongseong’s absence to really pay attention to anything else. It’s fifteen minutes after the hour, but he’s nowhere to be found, although you know for a fact that he takes those weird Molecular Gastronomy cooking classes your Chemistry teacher offers for extra credit every Thursday after school, so he should be here. And anyways, if he’d gone home, he would’ve texted you something like, Have fun sitting around for an hour, I’m gonna go do awesome stuff with Heeseung, even if awesome stuff meant playing Mario Kart or drinking Sprite and holding a two-person burping contest.

You’re so engrossed in your own thoughts that you pay no mind to the sudden ding of a phone in the room, followed by some gasps and heated whispers. The exchanged words go through one ear and out the other—There was a fight? In the locker rooms? It must be bad if they were sent to the nurse before the principal… Huh? Over who? So he took both of them on? Damn, I didn’t know Jay got like that. He seems so well-behaved.

Your head whips up at the mention of your friend’s name. “Jay? Did something happen to him?” you ask out loud, the whispers dying down immediately as everybody stares at you. 

Gaeul, who was in your class last year, is the only one who answers you. Holding up and waving her phone, she says, “They say he got into a fight.”

Jongseong? A fight? It sounds like a practical joke. He admitted to you he once started crying watching Heeseung playing Call of Duty, it was so violent. You shake your head. “He-he did? With who?”

Gaeul and the girl next to her exchange a concerned, almost guilty look. “Jake and Sunghoon.” The crease between your eyebrows deepened. You don’t need to ask anything else before she adds, “They’re at the nurse’s station. It sounds pretty bad…”

That’s enough for you to leap out of your chair and run to the nurse’s station. It seems the news has spread impossibly quickly among your year group—even Kazuha and Sunoo are already blowing your phone, asking you if you’ve heard, if you know how Jay is. You ignore them, reminding yourself to text them back later, until one message from Sunoo in particular catches your attention: It apparently started because Sunghoon said something about you, Y/N. They’re saying Jay got angry.

The nurse is busy on the phone when you get there, her back to the entrance, so you’re able to slip in unnoticed. You head to the adjoining room where the beds are, all three of them taken—you walk by Sunghoon first, his arms crossed over his chest and pointedly not looking at you, then by Jake, who calls out your name. You glare at him and pull on the white plastic curtain that separates his bed from Jongseong’s. They’re already going to hear you, you don’t need them seeing you on top of that. 

Jongseong sits up with a grunt when you appear at the end of his bed. The sight of him makes your stomach flip, and not in a good way, for once—his left eye is swollen and circled by a deep purple bruise, shiny with ointment, there’s a cut on his cheek, his lower lip is busted, his right hand is wrapped in bandages. “Oh my God,” you whisper as you help him up, voice breaking. He stares at his hands, jaw locking when you gently place one palm on his good hand, the other on the side of his face, moving it this way and that so you can take a better look at his injuries. He winces, and you let go, resting your hand on his shoulder instead. “What the hell got into you?” you whisper vehemently, unable to decide if you’re worried or angry or both as tears form in your eyes.

He tries to shrug, but even that seems to hurt. “Don’t shrug, Jongseong, tell me what happened.”

“I’m Jongseong again now?” he says, attempting a smile, but only one corner of his lips rises.

You sigh. Even in this state, he has to be a smart-ass. “You’re Jong when I need a textbook, Jongseong when you get into stupid fights,” you reply, and he smiles wider but immediately winces, hand coming up to the cut on his lip. You notice that his hand is still riddled with cracks, and whether they’re due to their dryness or to this fight doesn’t matter—”Wait here,” you say, and go rummage through some drawers for plasters. “She forgot some spots.” You feel Jongseong’s eyes on your face as you patch him up to the best of your abilities.

“I don’t want to tell you what happened. I’ll do the job of hating these idiots for the both of us, so don’t concern yourself with them,” he says, apparently not caring that the idiots in question can hear his every word.

He keeps his promise—you never hear another word from him about the cause of the fight. 

Later, you find out through other means, namely Sunoo’s questionably remarkable ability to unearth any and all gossip, that in the locker rooms after Phys Ed, someone had started Jake on the topic of Yunjin, who had been recently revealed as his girlfriend. They’d apparently kept it secret because it was just fooling around at first, and only later had gotten serious enough for them to parade around the school as the couple. 

It had been an unremarkable conversation until Jake said, “You guys know Y/N from our class? She saw us in the staff parking lot once, and I was sure we’d be busted then. But she didn’t tell anyone.” And just like that, the conversation turned to you, someone who was usually never a topic among these boys, jocks, soccer players, “the kind of people who peak in high school and still have a superiority complex at forty,” as Sunoo describes them. 

He has a harder time explaining what happened next, can’t quite look you in the eye as he recounts what was said. “So, this is what they say, apparently someone said that you used to be obsessed with Sunghoon, then with Jake, and Sunghoon said you… Well, he said you were pathetic, that asshole, and that you had been so easy to lead on, then Jake joined in, saying the same things, basically, how funny it was seeing you so obviously in love with him when he would never give you a chance…” He looks at you worriedly, but you tell him to go on. “And so that’s when Jay got up and just straight-up punched Jake in the face. And while Jake was trying to figure out what happened, Jay punched Sunghoon, and then they both got on him, pushing him, but when he wouldn’t stop throwing punches, they started fighting, too. I think they all got some good ones in before the other boys were able to break them apart and the P.E. teacher arrived…”

But that would be later. Now, sitting with Jongseong in the nurse’s station, tears falling onto the plasters you place on his hand, nothing matters but him. You don’t need the details—he’s hurt, he got hurt over you, you feel as though every cut on his body may well have been done by your own hand. You’ve never felt so guilty for something you didn’t do. Your voice trembles when you speak; you’re unable to look at him, at his busted eye. “I just don’t want you to get hurt for me.”

Without missing a beat, he says, “What else would I get hurt for?”

You can only meet his eyes for a split second. Even like this, he manages to look at you with the same softness that has haunted you since the night you met 28-year-old Jongseong, that has rendered all thoughts of anything other than him meaningless since the day your gaze drifted down to his lips just weeks ago. “Jong…” is all you can mutter as you look down at your hands holding each others’, your lips trembling.

He raises his bandaged hand, still not used to his dominant side being ineffective for now, then lowers it when he realizes. Clumsily, he pats your hair with his left hand. “Don’t cry, please…”

Jake’s head pops out from behind the curtain. “Y/N, I’m really sorry—”

“Not right now, man,” Jay quickly interrupts. Jake pathetically disappears behind the curtain again.

“Just promise me you won’t do this again.”

“Y/N…”

“Promise me,” you say, more demanding this time, sticking out your pinky finger. Jay, hesitant, looks between your outstretched finger and your face a few times, but eventually gives in.

The nurse, upon coming to check on the boys, catches you with Jongseong and chases you out immediately. You sulk back to study hall, where everyone’s head perks up the moment you walk in. “They’re okay,” you reassure vaguely, and unenthusiastically answer their many questions. It’s only a few minutes until the bell rings, and you’re free to go then.

--

jong so… guess who got a five-day suspension

you you idiot what did your parents say?

jong they’re not happy i have to do all the household chores for a month

you boo-hoo

jong not sure why i came here thinking i’d get some comfort…

you … are you feeling better?

jong a little bit the nurse gave us some really strong painkillers but i’m okay because there’s a pretty girl that’s going to drop off the homework for me after school every day :)

you oh did you ask chaewon to do that?

jong um no i was talking about you ..if that’s okay

you haha i know i just wanted you to say it straight up

jong ykw maybe i should just ask chaewon

you i’ll see you tomorrow jong!!

jong :) see you tomorrow pretty 

 --

The months that separate your return to school and graduation come and go in the blink of an eye. Jongseong can’t come to school the last day before the holidays or the first four days after, and he’s grounded in-between. Things change bit by bit with every day you visit him—To give him the homework, you tell his parents, although there isn’t much to do when the semester isn’t in full swing, and you could’ve easily sent him pictures. The first time, you spend more time scouring the pictures and trinkets in his room than actually talking to him, and awkwardly give him a half-hug when he tells you he won’t be able to hang out at all during the break before practically running out of his house, your heart beating a thousand miles a minute from the innocent contact. By the fourth time, you lie together on his bed and talk about your plans for college, your hands sitting centimeters apart on the navy sheets. You haven’t dared touch his hand since that day in the nurse’s station.

You’re window-shopping with Kazuha when you spot the hand cream you had seen yourself gifting Jongseong in your well-given vision. Buying it is one thing, actually giving it to him is another, an awkward, stuttery situation in which the wrapping done by the store employee suddenly seems over-the-top and out-of-place. But Jongseong seems to like it—it’s the last day of his suspension, his black eye is now a yellow-ish color, he can smile without risking splitting his lip in two. He applies it immediately, tells you he’ll make sure to wear it every day until the end of winter. You find yourself wishing there was something you could give him for every season so he wouldn’t go a day without thinking of you. When you leave, he bashfully thanks you for making sure he doesn’t fall behind and says he’s excited to see you at school the next day. You hardly know what to do with yourself, so you squeak out a “me too” and slip out the door.

His first day back is a Friday. It starts with Mathematics, a class in which you sit by each other. You remember the first week of classes when Kazuha and Sunoo had ran to sit with each other, expressly because they knew that if he saw you were sitting alone, he’d take the seat next to you, just to better torment you all year. You’d resented it then; it couldn’t make you happier now. Your body is humming with nervous energy, your foot tapping relentlessly against the tiled floor. When he appears in the doorframe, you wave at him as if he’d forgotten his seat in three weeks of absence. His elbow brushes against yours as he sits down.

Between the two of you, friendship blossoms over these months. To the detriment of everyone around you, you continue to bicker as you always have, but it’s now clearly done out of habit, out of affection, even, than out of actual dislike of each other. He and Heeseung slowly integrate your small group of three, and before you know it, it feels as though there have always been five of you. Together, you welcome spring.

In January, to thank you for helping him to pick out his mom’s birthday present, Jongseong treats you to some tteokbokki, which you said you’d been craving all week. He orders the spiciest one, then has to take a sip of water between every bite. You laugh at his teary eyes and red face while you devour the bright red rice cakes easily. 

In February, he makes a show of giving you and Kazuha and Heeseung and Sunoo some homemade chocolates, saying it’s a friend thing. You find out that evening that the others each have five in their box—there are twenty in yours. It’s one of the things that makes you second guess what sort of feelings he has for you. For years, you’ve been convinced he harbored strong feelings of disdain for you; now, he seems to enjoy your friendship. You’re scared to read too much into anything, because if Jongseong is well-liked throughout school, it’s for a reason: he’s nice. To everyone. Even to you, too, nowadays. But if nice is giving five chocolates, what is giving twenty?

A sudden realization hits you in March—Jongseong appears at your door, drenched from the rain, a bag of your favorite snacks in hand. “You weren’t at school today. I had to find out you were sick from Kazuha,” he says as if she was a random classmate of yours and not your best friend, as if he should be the first to know about these kinds of things. Your mom rushes him in, finds him so charming in the five minutes they converse that she decides he should stay over for dinner, and as you watch him laughing with her, you think, I haven’t thought of 28-year-old Jongseong in ages. I’ve only thought of you. And although you can trace the start of your feelings to that dream-like experience you had, you can now say with confidence that it’s not the only reason for them.

College application results come out in April, right on his birthday. The five of you celebrate together at an American-style diner, gorging yourselves on crispy bacon and chocolate chip pancakes. Kazuha is going back to Japan, almost a decade after moving to South Korea—”I’m gonna miss you guys, but I miss takoyaki and my grandma more right now.” Heeseung has been accepted into the Engineering department at the country’s top university. You, Sunoo and Jongseong are all heading to the same place: you for Screenwriting, which you’ve known since you were one of the winners of the scholarship contest last October, Sunoo for Communications, whatever that is, and Jongseong for European History and Literature with a minor in German, that freak. It’s a good university, and it’s not far from home. The way Jongseong tells you about his acceptance sticks with you: he doesn’t say, They accepted me, too, or, I’m going to the same university as you. He says, We’ll be together.

May is filled with afternoons at the park when you should all be studying for exams. Your mom keeps asking when she’s going to see “that wonderful boy” again. Your friendship with Jongseong has given him new ways of teasing you—after four years of near-kleptomaniac tendencies, he’s finally stopped stealing your erasers and has instead started to let his gaze linger on your face, to call you pretty when you least expect it, to tuck your hair behind your ear. You hate it most when he asks you whether there’s something from your romance novels or movies that you want him to recreate. “Is there a field big enough nearby that I can walk through at the break of dawn, Mister Darcy-style?” he’ll say, or “I’ve always wanted to try that upside-down kiss from Spider-Man. It’s a classic, really.” 

Summer comes early in June. You need to bring a two-liter water bottle and a hand fan to your exams, and you’ve never felt such relief as when it was all over. After endless pictures with your parents and siblings, just your parents, just your siblings, then Kazuha and Sunoo, together, then separately, then with Heeseung and Jongseong as well, Kazuha forces you and Jongseong together, watching with a smile as he shyly wraps an arm around your waist and you awkwardly throw up a peace sign. It’s your first picture of just the two of you.

In July, you and Jongseong unlock a new first: saying goodbye. He’s leaving to stay with his American family as he does every summer. You show up at his house the day before at four p.m. “to help him pack,” you say, but it’s Jongseong, and he finished packing two days ago. So instead, you sit on his desk chair, he on his bed, and you fight back tears. “You’re coming back, right?” you ask, like he’s leaving to go to war and not Seattle. Amusement and affection flicker in his eyes. “Of course I am. I wouldn’t throw four more years of being a pain in your ass away, would I?” he says, and you smile, because you know it’s going to be much more than four years.

But he doesn’t just leave you with a few nice words. Avoiding your gaze, he hands you an envelope. Inside is a single ticket, a two-month membership for your city’s arthouse cinema that you can only go to when they have student deals or when your parents have had enough of your begging. You can’t even begin to imagine how much this must’ve cost. “Jong…” you murmur, in awe at the thin slip of paper between your hands. “This is incredible. Thank you so much.”

Jongseong looks down at his feet, fighting a smile as he kicks the invisible rocks that obviously litter the floor of his bedroom. “I thought you’d get bored without me around, so, that way you can entertain yourself, I guess… And if you run into any film bros next year, you’ll have seen as many pretentious movies as them.”

You burst into laughter then, and, without thinking, wrap your arms around his neck, thanking him over and over again. It takes him a second, but he wraps his arms around your waist and says it’s no big deal.

As you walk down the path from your house, he calls out your name. “Don’t be a stranger,” he says.

You smile. “Never.”

So, he’s not here for summer. Kazuha is working in her parents’ ramen restaurant to make some money before leaving, even Heeseung leaves two weeks into July for Seoul to visit some relatives there and get accustomed to life in the big city. You only get to laze around with Sunoo, but even he eventually leaves for his grandparents’ house by the sea, making you promise you’ll come visit him at some point, otherwise he’ll “die of boredom.” 

It’s August now, and your brain and body alike buzz with restlessness. You go to the cinema almost every day, making the best of your subscription. If you’re not going around your house looking for spider webs with your vacuum cleaner, you’re riding random bus lines and discovering parts of your town you’ve never set foot in before. If you’re not making your way through your never-ending pile of unread books, you’re creating your own stories, finally taking the time to properly outline and draft the one-line ideas you’ve had sitting in your Notes app, preparing yourself for the start of your degree. Your mind is taken up with love stories. From Romeo & Juliet to Dirty Dancing to Book Lovers, you can’t get enough of the genre. You become particularly obsessed with stories involving time travel, rewatching After Time and Lovely Runner like they contain some precious knowledge. By the end of the month, you’ve turned your life into an eight-episode TV series—a desperate girl makes a wish on a star only to discover she is fated to marry the one boy she hates most. You know you’d watch that. You send Sunoo and Kazuha the pilot, and after calling you insane numerous times but also heaping on praises, Sunoo says this: lol your going through jay withdrawals.

It shakes you so much you’re not even compelled to message back you’re*.

But he’s not wrong. The more you let yourself admit it, the more you realize how true it is: you miss Jongseong. You text once in a while, you’ve even stayed up late talking on the phone a couple of times, but you miss him, his corporeal form, having his gaze on you, having the possibility but never the courage to touch him. Every day, there’s something you want to tell him about. The cats huddling around a young neighborhood kid as he pours milk into a bowl, the clearance sale at your local library, most books for one buck only, the actor from an 90s Hong Kong film you swear has the exact same smile as him. You don’t want to bother him, so you write letters instead. Some you send, some you don’t—the ones you keep hidden in your drawer usually hint too obviously at your feelings for him. Some of them don’t just hint and contain lines of your declarations: I miss you, everything I see reminds me of you, I want to check that your bruises have healed completely even though the last trace of them faded months ago. You keep these letters a secret, even from Sunoo and Kazuha, who would never let you live down such woebegone, down bad behavior.

You do it because it feels good, getting all of your feelings out on paper. You’re a romantic at heart, so you’re prone to over-exaggeration when it comes to things like these—but everything that you write remains based in truth. You’d started with a postcard of your hometown, jokingly writing, Don’t forget where you came from. How is it over there? and he’d actually replied with a postcard of his own, filling it from top to bottom. You easily went from these small postcards to multiple pages of stream-of-consciousness-like writing. You think it’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done—although you’re not sure he feels the same way, considering he still writes to the German pen pal Ms. Schumacher had assigned him in your first year of high school. No one else’s correspondence had lasted more than four months because she’d immediately forgotten to make sure you kept in touch regularly.

I ran into Jake Sim at the city library, you write one day. You’ve replied to everything in his latest letter, so you’re now catching him up on your recent adventures. He was checking out some books about Linguistics, of all things—he bought me bubble tea afterwards and told me that the injury he got last April was actually a relief. Did you know his father was a big name in soccer here? Apparently, he never wanted to be a soccer player that badly, and he wants to do Linguistics and Social Anthropology, who would’ve guessed it. He’s like Troy Bolton if High School Musical was about Humanities and not singing. Anyways, you probably don’t want me to go on and on about him, so I won’t, but we did talk about that fight you guys had back in December. He apologized for it, to you and me both, although he didn’t go into much detail — Sunoo is still the only one who’s had the balls to tell me exactly what happened, and he wasn’t even there! — and I was reticent at first, but he seemed genuine. He said he didn’t even hang out with Sunghoon or Yunjin or any of those people anymore, that it was only out of convenience really, and that he hopes starting university will be like turning over a new leaf. Well, he could be full of shit, who knows. As I sat there listening to him I wondered what it was I used to see in him. He’s nice enough, but we only spoke about him for the entire hour. He asked me no questions that weren’t “and you?” so it was a bit exhausting. 

But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you.

You look at your words, smiling to yourself—this is one of the times where you find yourself erring from the topic at hand, instead indulging in sappiness and nostalgia. You write about how your opinion of Jongseong has changed over these months, how it wasn’t seeing him as your husband in all those years that had really shaken things up, but rather that day in the nurse’s station, the frightening colors around his eye, his attitude like it was natural that he would get hurt like this for you. You write, Have I been wrong about you this whole time? I thought you harbored the same negative feelings towards me as I had you since the moment you’d laid eyes on me, but all of a sudden, here you were, bloody, bandaged hand holding mine. Even with your busted eye, you looked like an angel next to all that white in the nurse’s station. I’ll never forget your words that day. Would you really not get hurt for anything else, Jong?

“I’m going to the Post Office for a package soon, Y/N. Are you done with your letter?” your mom calls from the staircase landing.

“Give me five minutes!” you call back.

You forage through your drawer for a new sheet of paper and re-write your letter, making sure to leave any compromising parts out and fold both letters into neat squares—one that will cross the seas and reach Jongseong, one that will live out its days in the darkness of your crowded drawer. You’ve run out of envelopes, so you go look for one in your parents’ office. Your mom calls out your name again, impatient to leave — if she sends her package off before twelve p.m., it will get to the receiver tomorrow, and she’s hell-bent on getting perfect five-star Vinted reviews — so you hurriedly put your letter in the envelope, close it, stamp it, and write Jongseong’s name and address on the back. The other letter you absent-mindedly throw in your drawer with the dozens of other letters in which you’d crossed the line.

--

A few weeks later, like an apparition, Jongseong stands before you again.

He’s tanner from months under the Washington sun, from afternoons spent at his family’s lake house, on their boat. His hair is slightly shorter and suits him even better; you don’t recognize any of the clothes he wears. He grumbles as his mother goes back-and-forth between hugging him, staring at him worriedly and reminding him to call at least twice a week while his father unpacks the trunk. “I’ll only be a thirty-minute train ride away, Mom,” he says. 

He’s still Jong.

You moved in yesterday, and you’re now waiting for your new roommate, who, after five minutes of deliberating whether she should bring a jacket or not and finally decided against it, changed her mind the minute she stepped outside. 

It’s been two months since you last saw him. Shortly after sending your letter, you’d gone to stay with Sunoo’s grandparents for a week, just a day before he was set to come back from Seattle. Amid packing and other preparations, you haven’t had time to see each other. Is it okay if I respond to your letter in person? I think I’ll be too busy these two coming weeks, he texted you. You replied that it wasn’t a problem, you told him which dorm you’d been assigned and found out his was the one next door.

When he notices you staring, he does a double-take. You wave at him, and even from this distance, you see the blush that creeps up his neck and takes over his face as he shyly waves back. You’ve never seen him like this—he’s always been either arrogant or friendly, never… flustered. He makes a motion as if to say, I’ll text you, and heads inside the building with his parents and all of his luggage.  

Indeed, he texts you some hours later while you’re sharing a piece of strawberry and matcha cake with your roommate Liz, whom you find out is half-German—Jongseong and your dad would probably love her for that simple fact. Some of the first things she’d asked you were what your astrological signs were and whether you wanted her to pull tarot cards for you when she was all done setting up her side of the room. Between that and her dyed blonde hair, you’d felt comfortable telling her all about Jongseong, the well and your dream. Unlike your skeptical and sarcastic friends, she’d nodded along to your every word, a serious expression on her face. “A sign from the universe,” she’d called it, and she gasped in excitement when his name appeared on your screen.

He sends you a link to a freshers’ week event, some potted plant sale happening on the main campus square, and asks if you’re free to go with him tomorrow. I need something to liven up that depressing room, he writes.

So that’s how you find yourselves among green plants of all shapes and sizes, searching for one that’s both low-maintenance and appealing to the eye. You’re glad that you have something to actually do—if you were just sitting at a café and having a conversation, you’re not sure you’d be able to stand the awkwardness. You’d chalked up his behavior on the day of his move-in to nerves, or to surprise upon seeing you so unexpectedly. But apparently, it wasn’t a one-time thing. He keeps clearing his throat as if he were sick with some cold, won’t look into your eyes for more than split seconds at a time, and in complete opposition to his usual confident, deliberate speech, talks in a quick and disorderly manner. And he’s either really caught a cold, or his ears have just permanently turned red. You ask him if something’s wrong a couple times, but he violently shakes his head, says, “No, what could be wrong?” then looks at you as if you might tell him what’s wrong.

When you’re alone again, you wonder what on earth could have happened over the summer that could make him change his behavior with you so radically. Did something happen in Seattle? Maybe he met someone there and doesn’t know how to tell you. Maybe you went overboard with your letters, he doesn’t want to be friends anymore, he wants to let you down easy but doesn’t know how to tell you. Or maybe—maybe you got impossibly pretty during those two months, and absence does make the heart grow fonder, as they say, and every thought you have about him, he has about you, but he doesn’t know how to tell you.

In any case, he’s hiding something.

The theory that he might want to stop being friends soon falls flat—the invitations to other freshers’ events keep coming, be it free wine & pizza taster sessions from the Wine Society, karaoke nights with the Taylor Swift Society or a shark movie marathon with the Bad Film Society, and he never turns you down when you tell him there’s something you want to visit in this new city of yours, even when the thing you want to visit in question is a bakery you have to queue in front of at seven a.m. if you want to get a pain au chocolat. In your defense, they turn out to be the best ones you and Jongseong have ever tried—although, to be fair, neither of you has been to France.

Things progressively return to normal. He’s able to make eye contact for more than three seconds again, he listens carefully and laughs along when you tell him about your week by the sea with Sunoo, he fills you in on what Heeseung’s been up to. One thing remains different, however—when you throw quips at him, he usually would’ve delighted in coming up with a better, wittier response, but now, he’ll roll his eyes at best, look at you amusedly and stay silent at worst. “Won’t you even entertain me?” you ask him once, to which he replies that you’re doing a good job entertaining yourself as is. 

Instead, he becomes more earnest. As per usual you badger him with questions like Aren’t I so pretty right now? or Isn’t my outfit so cute today? to get a reaction out of him, and if during your high school days he’d either fake a puking sound or look you up and down and grumble I guess, he now smiles and simply says Yes, you are, Yes, it is. It seems impossible to keep track of his attitude: one day, he’s one thing, the next, he’s another person entirely. 

It annoys you. You take his changing demeanor to mean that now that he’s a college student, he won’t indulge in your childish squabbles anymore, as though he was above all of that now, when just three months ago he was stalking your parents’ Facebooks to find unfavorable photos of you from when you were thirteen and using them as reaction pictures in your friends’ group chat. You think of your graduation day, of the box he’d given you, all done up in wrapper paper and a bow—he had filled it with every eraser he’d stolen from you over the years, he’d even gone so far as to date every single one of them, from the second of October freshman year to the twenty-eighth of November of your senior year. You didn’t count them, but there had to be at least a hundred. At the time, you’d just thought it was funny—but what if the gesture had meant something deeper than you’d realized? What if he was marking the end of something with that box? No more playing around, we’re adults now. But classes have barely started, you don’t know your way to the off-campus library, you aren’t a different person to who you were just weeks or even months earlier. Why is he acting like he is? You look at him, and you see the boy whose fault it was you had to buy a new eraser every week—who knows how many books you could’ve bought with that money. But when he turns to look at you, too, and your eyes meet, you’re suddenly assailed with the memories of that night, the kind eyes, the soft smile. 

Does his future capacity to love me already exist in his heart?

Your heartbeat speeds up and you have to look away.

--

From your letters, it seems to be much hotter back home than in Seattle—you talk of sunburns, of afternoons spent inside with the fan on maximum speed, of ice melting instantly and watering down your Coke Zeros, whereas Jay can walk around the city pleasantly and needs to bring a jacket if he’ll be out until late after sundown. And yet, as he reads your latest letter, his skin prickles feverishly, from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. He’d excitedly torn the envelope open the second it arrived in the mail, heart thumping as he counted the pages, at least three more than usual — he was always happy that you wanted to talk to him at all, so the fact that you had this much to tell him sent him over the moon — but he would have never expected what was awaiting him inside.

With a smile on his face, he read your replies to the questions he’d asked you last time, your reactions to everything he told you about, the live Mariners game, the lake house, the rides on the boat. He imagined you as you sat at your desk in your room he’d only seen once, when you’d held a small party for your birthday and he, having arrived first, was honored with a tour of your house. He imagined your smile, the way you played with your hair when you focused on something, wondered whether you pondered every word before you wrote it down as he did or whether you poured your thoughts out onto the page without hesitation. His smile faltered when Jake Sim’s name appeared in your neat handwriting, but he was relieved to find out your description of him now was miles away from the one at the start of the school year. 

Then you start writing about him. Him, Park Jongseong, and your words startle him so much, it’s like he’d forgotten he was the recipient of this letter in the first place.

But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you. 

He’s been lying comfortably in his bed, but he sits up the moment his eyes take in these words. If there is one topic the two of you have practically never broached, it’s this exactly: your relationship, the changes it’s gone through this past year. Except for a few mentions made in jest here and there, you’ve always conveniently ignored the fact that not so long ago, you were at each other’s throats. At least, you were at his throat, and Jay let you be, let you think the hatred went both ways, when in reality all he wanted was to keep you close one way or another. To him, anything was better than indifference.

But here you are, writing about how you feel about him, not in hints, not in jokes, but actually telling him black and white what goes through your head when you think of him—in other words, everything he’s been dying to know ever since he met you and especially ever since you started warming up to him a few months ago.

I have never told you about that night because I know it’ll just be more fodder for you to endlessly tease me, and I haven’t even mentioned it in these letters that I write and don’t send. Sometimes I debate the ethics of it—if I know something about our futures, isn’t it right that you know, too? But then again, I still hesitate whether what happened was real or not. As with anything, the more time passes, the more I forget about it. What kind of cheese you’d put on the pasta, the movie that played in the background, whether the stairs were carpeted or wooded—these details have evaded me by now. All I clearly remember is your face and how I felt, seeing it then, seeing it the next day at school, ten years younger, the same exact person in what felt like a different universe. As much as I tried to deny it, I know now that it was no coincidence—I was talking about it with Sunoo and he said that sometimes, we want something so badly, we conjure it up for ourselves. He’s not always a dimwit. And he’s right, the kind of love I felt from you in that dream — or not-dream — I’ve yearned for it ever since I first watched Pride & Prejudice, the 2005 film to be precise, when I was ten. But with you? That was what I couldn’t believe at first. I don’t think I need to explain why—you were there, I think you knew how I felt about you for over three years, it’s not like I tried to hide it.

Then you turned up and the sight of you was enough to bring back all the feelings from that dream. You must’ve wondered why my behavior with you switched so suddenly—well, a glimpse into marital bliss is sometimes enough for a girl to make some changes in her life. Yet I valiantly tried to convince myself that any flutter of my heart around you was due to this stupid dream, to a version of you my brain had conjured up because it was starved for affection, and you happened to be at the forefront of my mind, even if not for the right reasons. But it was no use. I had entertained the possibility that this future was really mine, and I couldn’t go back to seeing you as the boy who annoyed the living daylights out of me.

But Jong, if you weren’t you, I would’ve been confused for a week and then I would’ve gotten over it. I stayed confused for a while, and everything you did only served to confuse me further. I started to notice you more, to see you for who you were and not for the idea I had constructed of you in my head, I stopped taking note of only the things that reinforced this idea. And that changed everything.

Let’s get it out of the way: as much as I hate to admit it because it proves you right, I saw that you are indeed devastatingly handsome. It devastates me every time I have to look at that stupid, wonderful face of yours. And if aging is something you’re worried about, don’t be. I’ve seen you at 28, and let’s just say that your jaw somehow only gets more chiseled. I’ve realized that you don’t just participate in class to be a prick — except for when you contradict me in Literature, I know you only do that to piss me off, and yes, it works — but that you actually care about what we learn and that you don’t want the teacher to feel like they’re talking to a classroom full of students made out of bricks. I’ve also realized that you didn’t specifically pick German to be the one subject where you must beat me at all costs, you just actually really like German, even if I’m still undetermined as to why. And I can finally admit to myself—you are funny. Sometimes. There were so many times I had to stop myself from laughing at one of your idiotic puns because I could not bear to give you the satisfaction. That feeling when the worst person you know makes a funny joke, and all that. And as much as I’ve mocked you for it, I do actually like your laugh. I like that you’re only loud when you laugh, or sneeze, or get excited over something. You don’t scream, you don’t get angry, and I think that’s a lot for a boy fresh out of puberty. Or for any boy, really. 

But above all, you’re kind, Jong. I think it’s the best thing about you. I think it’s the best thing anyone can be. I see it in your patience with Heeseung when he starts one of his rants better reserved for Reddit than real life, I see it in the way you took Sunoo and Kazuha in stride, even though they’re a bit rough around the edges sometimes, I see it in the way you guide the freshmen at the start of every year, when all anyone does is complain about them, I see it in the gentleness with which you let down the girls who confess to you, even the more persistent ones. I used to think they were crazy, but I understand them more than ever now. I also used to think that all those kindnesses meant that the ones you occasionally showed me meant nothing more than that—occasional kindnesses. You were just a nice guy, occasionally so to me. But you sort of ratted yourself out when you gave me those twenty chocolates for Valentine’s.

Or, really, what made things clearer was that fight in December. I guess I was wrong—you do get angry. I remember a thought I had at the time: just when I think I know you, you do something to shake it all up. You punched two of the star soccer players of our school in the face because they said some mean, unimportant things about me. Thinking about it now, I still don’t understand it. Was it another one of your acts of kindness? 

And then I thought of those other times you helped me out. Do you remember them—the art project, the handwritten notes after my grandma passed away, you tearing Park Sunghoon a new one in the girls’ bathroom. I’m sure there are many more that I’ve dismissed simply because I did not want to see you in any other light than the one I’d decided to shine on you. 

Maybe I’m rewriting the past here, but I’ve been thinking about something lately. The theme today seems to be honesty, so I’ll lay myself bare and tell you something I haven’t told anyone yet, not even myself. The more I write, the more I become aware of its truth. I like you, Jong. I think I have for a long time, longer than either of us thinks. Maybe that’s why I kept buying erasers.

I don’t have the best memory — I suspect iron deficiency, it runs in my mom’s side of the family — but I do remember this. The first time I saw you. I haven’t noticed your face changing in real time, but I’m sure I’d laugh at how much of a baby you looked back then. Although I didn’t fare much better, I’m sure. Well, you’re the one that has all these embarrassing pictures of me, you freak, so I’m sure you could tell me. Moving on… 

I found you really cute. You were chatting to the person next to you, maybe it was Heeseung, I didn’t look properly—I only looked at you. Don’t laugh at me. It was the first day of high school, there was a nervous energy in the air, but you seemed happy to be there. You know I don’t have hordes of friends like you do, I don’t walk through life with people naturally gravitating towards me. I’m okay with it now, but it was something I struggled with back then. Kazuha, Sunoo and I have had each other since our elementary days, and I never needed more than that—but fifteen is the prime age for comparison, and as the weeks passed and we got used to being high schoolers, I listened to everyone sing your praises, I watched as you talked with all of our classmates, even our teachers, like you were old friends. But we sat next to each other in a couple of classes, and you wouldn't talk to me outside of partnered work. I, who wanted to be easily charmed by you like everyone else was, who thought maybe you’d help me come out of my shell. But it felt like sitting next to me was torture to you, like the boy whom I watched speak with ease to everyone else disappeared when I was around. And so — and I’m not proud of this — every smart remark in class, every joke that had the entire class roaring, every high five you gave out in the hallway, I started to despise them. And by association, I started to despise you. After that, it was easy to find fault in everything you did, my contempt was only enhanced by everyone’s admiration. But I’m not alone here. It went both ways, didn’t it? I don’t think you liked that I didn’t like you and openly showed it, so used to being everyone’s favorite person you were. I remember how you showily tried to be nice to me after that, maybe you just wanted another friend, but I didn’t let you. I don’t blame us for how we acted, only for taking so long to get our heads out of our asses.

(I have to say, I also have a thing for hating people. Remind me to tell you about Na Jaemin and Shin Ryujin one of these days.)

Anyways, I think it’s because I had liked you so much at first that I could then seemingly hate you so much. But I never hated you, Jong, not really. I’m sorry if I gave you that impression. Can I take it all back now? 

Now that we’re entering university soon, I can’t help but look back on high school. This is what I want to know, but I’m not sure I’ll ever have the courage to ask you, because if your answer is the one I suspect, I don’t know how I’ll handle all the regret in my heart.

Have I been wrong about you this whole time? I thought you harbored the same negative feelings towards me as I had you since the moment you’d laid eyes on me, but all of a sudden, here you were, bloody, bandaged hand holding mine. Even with your busted eye, you looked like an angel next to all that white in the nurse’s station. I’ll never forget your words that day. Would you really not get hurt for anything else, Jong?

Your letter abruptly ends here, no concluding remarks, no wishing him a fun time in Seattle and looking forward to his next letter, no sign-off. It was as if someone cut you off before you could say everything you wanted, but then why send him this seemingly unfinished letter? It is all the more bizarre since your letters are usually meticulous: you write on every other line, it looks like you take your time with every single letter, the only disturbance in your otherwise perfect handwriting is your going back-and-forth between cursive and script s’s. But this particular letter looks rushed, your lines are sloppy, some words need to be read a few times over to be understood. What kind of state had you been in, writing these words? Jay’s heart swells, thinking that you were as moved writing as he was reading. He even looks through your letter again, wishing to find a tear stain somewhere, but there are none. Maybe he’s been watching too many of these romantic period dramas you always go on about.

He has to pace his room when he’s done reading your letter, but he feels trapped inside these four walls, so he dashes outside, saying that he’s getting some air when his relatives ask him where he’s off to in such a rush, and walks around the block five times. When he’s back in his room, he rereads your letter, eyes taking in each and every word slowly and carefully, making sure he doesn’t misread anything.

You like him. You, Y/N, like him, Jongseong, it’s a fact, it’s real, you said so yourself, you went into quite some detail about it, he can’t believe it, but it’s real, it’s written right there on the page, if anyone dares tell him he’s fooling himself, he can prove them wrong, you’re the one who said it.

The smile doesn’t leave his lips for the rest of the day, he can barely eat, he’s already full of happiness. He reads your words over and over before falling asleep, committing them to memory, dreaming about them, about you.

You. How should he respond to this? Are you even expecting a response? You seem to know he’s not impartial to you, either, although that’s an understatement. 

In the following days, the thought that you hadn’t meant to send him this letter nags at him. The abrupt ending, the absence of your usual Love, Y/N. The fact that this had come out of left field—none of your previous letters had even a romantic undertone, no matter how he tried in his own to hint at his missing you, the most reference to seeing each other again you would give him was It’ll be better to show you this in real life. The act of sending letters itself didn’t feel very platonic, but you never went there, so he didn’t, either. He had secretly yearned to have you this close all these years, he would never forgive himself if he ended up chasing you away now with his over-eagerness.

You had landed on something very real in your letter: I don’t think you liked that I didn’t like you and openly showed it, so used to being everyone’s favorite person you were. I remember how you showily tried to be nice to me after that, maybe you just wanted another friend, but I didn’t let you. He cursed his fifteen-year-old self, that idiot who couldn’t even speak to a girl no matter how much he wanted to, just because she was so pretty, he was afraid of saying something stupid and messing it up before it even had a chance to start.

On days when you’d had particularly nasty or petty arguments — it could get pretty bad, at the start, before you both started maturing and realized how ridiculous you were, especially with your classmates telling you to keep it classy — he’d stay up all night, wondering why you hated him so much in the first place, what on Earth he could’ve done to warrant such vitriol. Now, finally, he knew, and he could only resent the fact that no one had invented time machines yet, so he could nip his useless ego in the bud; so he could tell younger Jay not to take it personally, that you had your reasons for disliking him, that even if you hadn’t, the world won’t end if someone doesn’t like him like everyone usually does. 

Because, he hates to admit, that was what had done it for Jay. He couldn’t stand that someone — not just someone, but one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen, a girl he’d been hyping himself up to talk to every day, but never found the courage to — didn’t immediately fall for his charms. And not just that, but even showed just how much she disliked him. You looked him up-and-down with disdain, made disgusted faces at his jokes, rolled your eyes when he spoke up in class. It made him burn with anger, but he also weirdly enjoyed it—at least, you were paying attention to him. So, he amped it up. Talked louder, laughed louder, hovered around you. He even stole your erasers, wrote the date on which he’d taken them, kept them in a box on his desk that he looked at every time he studied at home. He aimed to beat you in every class you shared, even though neither of you cared that much about grades—the annoyed look on your face when he boasted about the two points he’d gotten over you was enough satisfaction.

All in all, he behaved like a child, and you reciprocated in like.

Until you didn’t.

It was a random Tuesday when something in your attitude towards him shifted. It wasn’t a complete 180, but he noticed everything about you, so even a slight change of your tone was obvious to him. You started using your nickname for him more often than his full name—he never told you, but of course he loved that you didn’t call him Jay like everyone else, that you had your own way of addressing him. It was a sign to him that the two of you had something special, even if it was on the opposite end of the spectrum of what he wanted with you.

He again spent sleepless nights wondering what had caused this change: was it something he had done, or something within you? It was a welcome change, that much was sure, but he was initially too confused to take it in stride. He’d long made peace with the fact that he’d never have you the way he really wanted, so he was fine with whatever this was—but now, you were changing, your interactions were tinged with something like shyness, the distance between you felt greater than ever. He tried to keep up his smart-ass appearances around you, but you only indulged in your old habits once in a while, as though you had grown tired of arguing with him, even of giving him the time of day.

So he resolved himself to adapting his behavior to yours. If you stared at him intently like his face was a puzzle you were trying to solve, he let you, rested his head on his palm and smiled as he stared back at you. Finally, he had an excuse to look at you without you threatening to punch him or saying a picture would last longer. He knew they did, he’d had to resort to scrolling through Sunoo’s and Kazuha’s Instagrams to find any photos of you. Yours was private and at the time, you would’ve probably cursed him out if he’d sent a follow request. If you seemed too annoyed or upset over something, he’d leave you alone, he’d do something nice to let you know you didn’t need to have your guards up at all times around him. If you seemed to silently call for a truce of hostilities, he easily complied.

Then, after a few weeks, your petty arguments resumed, but those too were different—if before they felt filled with real disdain and irritation, they now seemed to be a comfortable habit to fall back on, almost like a fun hobby. Those, too, Jay readily welcomed.

And so things changed in a direction Jay had never thought would one day be possible. You gave him no explanations, nor did he ask for any, and soon he stopped losing sleep over the why’s and the how’s and simply let himself enjoy the fact that you now had the semblance of a friendship, that he could compliment you and pass it off as amical teasing, that he could learn things about you like what you spent your weekends doing, what your relationship with your family was like, whether you were a dog or cat person, whether you wanted to visit his farm in Stardew Valley. 

Unsurprisingly, this only enhanced his already pathetically strong feelings for you. He worried over how to make sure this wasn’t some sort of 30-day friendship trial you had wanted to test out. He reveled in the fact that his top university of choice was the one you had already been accepted to. He now knew what it felt like to have you smile at him, smile because of him, and he never wanted again to live in a world where this was not a daily occurrence. 

He now sort of has an answer—your letter doesn’t make it very clear, it makes him think again that you really had not meant to send it, but you seem to have had a dream. A dream of him, 28-year-old him, to be precise, of your life together—he’s not sure. At this point in time, he doesn’t care much, either. Whether it was a dream or a real vision of the future that you had, all that matters is that it allowed you to see him in a new light, a light which he had hoped for years would one day appear to you, and it had changed things. And now, you liked him.

You said so yourself.

He’s at a loss for words. He can’t concentrate for long enough to put all his thoughts in order, he can’t make himself calm down and write his feelings down. He has to pack to go home, once he’s home, he’ll have to pack for university. But it’s only two weeks from now to the day you meet again, and it’ll be better to say what he wants to say in person, anyway.

Is it okay if I respond to your letter in person? I think I’ll be too busy these two coming weeks, he texts you.

And then those two weeks pass like two seconds and you’re there, a few meters away from him. All the speeches he’d prepared in his head, from grand declarations of love to laid-back admittances of Yeah, I like you too, you’re cool, I guess, they all vanish from his head. For fourteen days he’s been going through scenarios upon scenarios of your reunion, what you’d look like, what he’d say, how you’d react. But now that he can actually see you, now that he would just have to walk a few steps if he wanted to touch you, hug you, kiss you — hoping that was something you wanted to do — he freezes. He forgets how his body works, the part in his brain that’s meant to manage language ability fails him. HIs mom calls him over, urging him into his new dorm building, and all he can do is wave back at you like an idiot.

When finally he musters the courage to text you, what he hopes will be the day that starts your romantic relationship turns into the day Park Jongseong realizes how much of a loser he is. For the first hour, he can’t look at you, he can’t get through a sentence without stuttering out half of his words, he runs out of things to say in record time. All he can think of is how easy it’d be to grab one of your hands, hold it in his and walk around this stupid potted plant sale as if the two of you were two halves of a whole. He doesn’t even want a potted plant, his roommate already has five, he just wanted an excuse to see you. He steals glances at you when you’re looking elsewhere, and he notices everything about you tenfold now that he can, now that caring about you doesn’t need to be in vain any longer. He tells himself that he just needs to calm down a bit, even when you have the confirmation that the person you’re about to confess to already likes you, revealing your feelings to someone is always nerve-wracking, the two of you haven’t seen in each other in a while, he’ll talk to you once his heart gets out of his throat.

But you’re acting normal. Suspiciously so. You’re acting like you never told him you liked him, like nothing has changed between you. He rereads your letter the second he gets back to his dorm. He’s not crazy, it’s written right there, I like you, Jong. I think I have for a long time, longer than either of us thinks. He knows the words by heart now, but he checks them anyway. So why are you acting like you never said anything? Had you really not meant to send that letter? Did Jay actually intrude on your private thoughts by reading words that had never meant to be seen by another soul?

You continue to behave as you usually would around him, but if he couldn’t go back to vicious bickering when things changed the first time, he can’t go back to friendly bickering now that things — for him — have changed a second time. He doesn’t even want friendly to be in your shared vocabulary anymore. 

So he stops giving in. If you make fun of him, he just stands there with an unimpressed if amused look on his face. If you pedantically correct him on something, he just nods his head and accepts it. He can tell you’re bothered by it, but he needs to show you that he doesn’t want to go on being just friends with you—he wants to compliment you without having to pass it off as teasing, he wants to stare at you with hearts in his eyes without having to look away when you catch him, he wants to spend every waking second of every day with you, he wants to hold your hand, hold you. 

He could wait for things to change slowly again, but why wait when he could help things along?

--

It’s nine p.m. on a Saturday and you’re sneaking Jongseong into your dorm. Liz is away for the weekend, gone back home to celebrate her aunt’s birthday, so you have the room to yourselves. It took some convincing to get him to come — What if we get caught coming in, What if your T.A. sees us, What if I get reported to campus police — and so when your verbal reassurances failed to work, you resorted to blinking up at him through your lashes and that did the trick.

Jongseong was in many ways unlike any other man you’d ever met; in some other ways, he was the exact same.

Plastic bag of the tteokbokki you’d asked for in hand, he looks around the deserted hallways like someone might jump out of nowhere and beat him to a pulp at any given moment. At this time of the week, everyone’s out partying or holed up in their dorms, presumably either to rest or because of a lack of friends so early on in the semester. You grab his free hand and hurry him along to the elevator—once inside, it takes you a few seconds before you realize you’re still holding it, and you retract your hand quickly while he just smiles. 

You settle yourselves on the floor—comfort is not worth getting gochujang sauce on your white sheets. You sit criss-cross in front of each other, the food between the two of you, and catch up on your first week of class in-between bites of spicy, gooey rice cakes and fish cakes. You wonder, if one day you and Jongseong are no longer friends, how long you will keep associating tteokbokki with him.

When you tell him that you and Jake share a class, Introduction to Film Studies, he gives you a look. “What’s that face for?” you ask.

“Did you guys sit next to each other?”

You chuckle. “Of course. We only knew each other in that room, it would’ve been weird not to.”

He continues to stare at you. After a while, he muses, “You’re not…?”

You halt in your tracks, rice cake at the end of your plastic fork hanging in the air, halfway between the container and your mouth. “Whatever you’re thinking, the answer is no.” Still in love with him, interested in him again, you don’t know the exact details of Jongseong’s thought process, all you know is he has nothing to worry about—if it’s something he worries about.

When a smile slowly grows on his lips and he nods, saying, “Okay, good,” you let yourself think it might be.

Later, you’re ten minutes into a senseless blockbuster movie when he suddenly pauses it. It snaps you out of a trance—his hand was awfully close to yours, so is his shoulder, his thigh, his knee, everything, really, and you haven’t been able to concentrate on anything but the warmth radiating off his skin and the intensity with which you crave to feel it intentionally rather than accidentally. When he speaks, there’s something serious in his tone that makes you nervous. “Y/N,” he says as he turns to you, and now his face is awfully close, too. There’s still many centimeters separating you, but in this tiny, barely lit-up room, he feels closer than ever before. “Do you remember when I said I’d reply to your letter in real life?”

You tilt your head. “Yeah, that was ages ago.”

“Well, I thought I’d do it now.”

“Now?”

He takes a deep, shaky breath. “Now.”

And then those safe centimeters suddenly disappear, and Jongseong’s lips are on yours. It’s a brief, chaste kiss, so quick you wonder if it even happened when he leans back again.

“I like you, too,” he says, and your heart stops.

“W-what?” is all you can say back, eyes wide like he’s just admitted to killing someone rather than reciprocating your feelings.

His confident facade quickly crumbles. “God, this was so much cooler in my head, I-I’m sorry.” He pulls something out of his sweatpants pocket, pages folded over and over into a tiny square. As he unfolds them, you recognize your paper, your handwriting—but what do your letters have anything to do with him kissing you, of all things? “I don’t think you meant to send this. But I’m glad you did.”

He hands you the pages and your eyes skim over the words, not detecting anything out of the ordinary, until—But it got me thinking about your fight again. Reflecting on it now, I can say that it was a turning point for me in my perception of you. You remember this line, because you had made sure to strike it and everything that came afterward out when you rewrote the letter that you would actually send Jongseong. So how was he giving you this? 

“I-How do you have this?” you ask, voice trembling. You feel as though your heart overflows with all kinds of emotions, and so your eyes follow, tears staining your lower lashes. 

But Jongseong is not one to let you hide things from him. “Hey, no, it’s okay,” he says, warm hands coming to cup your face. “Look at me.” You have no choice but to oblige—his gaze is somehow both soft and stern, a mix of concern and determination. “Did you mean what you wrote in here?” You nod. “Then everything’s okay. You don’t know how happy I was reading this.”

The tension in your body slowly starts to fade. “Really?”

“Really. I cherish every single word in there.”

“Really?” you repeat, and he chuckles.

“Really.”

Your heartbeat speeds up as you gaze into his eyes, as you let yourself bask in the affection and endearment you find there. You can’t quite comprehend what’s happening. The letter, the kiss, his confession, your inadvertent confession, it’s all a mess in your head; so sudden, but such a long time coming at the same time. You never imagined that things would change so quickly—less than a year ago, you thought Jongseong was the most irritating person on this planet. After meeting his 28-year-old self, you thought it’d take ages for the two of you to be on such good terms. But now, just a week into your first semester of university, belly full of tteokbokki and Sprite, you like each other enough not only to be in the same room without hurling insults at each other but to actually be smiling at each other, willingly at that.

Your eyes drift down to his lips, just like in the hallway all those months ago, and the words slip out before you can stop them. They’re a mere whisper—”Kiss me again.”

Jongseong doesn’t need to be told twice. Still cupping your face, he bridges the gap between the two of you again, and this time, when your lips meet, they don’t come apart so quickly. It’s your first kiss, and it’s nothing short of magical, better than any romance novel could’ve prepared you for. His lips are warm and soft against yours, moving slowly, gingerly; as if he’s scared to take any wrong step, he lets you control the pace, follows every tilt of your head this way and that. It’s a relief that he seems to know as little about this as you do—his hands haven’t moved from your face, yours are on his knees, all you can do is focus on the movement of your lips, to think of anything else at the same time would be overwhelming. 

“I’ve liked you from the start,” he suddenly says, face still so close you can feel his breath on your lips as he speaks. 

“Hm?” you hum, body reeling from the kiss.

“I’ve liked you from the start,” he repeats, grinning—he looks relieved, like he’s been waiting to say these words for a long time. “I can’t believe this is happening after all these years. Or at all, really.”

“I think I did, too.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that in your letter.”

Your eyes widen and you bury your face in your hands as Jongseong laughs. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?” you mumble.

He smooths over your hair with one hand, brings your face back up with the other. “Don’t worry. I won’t ever make you regret this.”

Your brain and heart are too all over the place for you to come up with a coherent answer, so you lean in and reconnect your lips to his. It’s already becoming your favorite sensation, feeling him smile into the kiss, threading your fingers in his soft hair.

Time passes delicately like this, the two of you on your single bed, in the sheets that you bought three weeks ago. A lot of it is spent kissing and learning how to fall into each other’s rhythm, but you also spend hours talking, comparing situations and how you’d experienced them. You thought his occasional acts of kindness were done out of guilt, evidence that he did have some morals; he was trying to show he cared about you. He thought you’d despised him from the moment you saw him; you reiterate in more detail than your letter what really happened, you say you wish you knew then what you know now. 

“But I never hated you, Jong. I think I wanted to believe that I did, but I never actually did.”

“You glared at me everytime I walked past like I killed a member of your family.”

You groan, ashamed of yourself. “I did, didn’t I?”

“You did,” he says, chuckling, placing a kiss on your forehead. His arms are around you, your head rests atop his heart—you’ve never felt more comfortable in your life. “But it’s okay. We’re here now, and I don’t want us to have any regrets about high school. We had a good time, didn’t we?”

You tilt your head up to look at him. “I’m sure you did, stealing all my erasers.”

He lets out a hearty laugh. Clearly, he’s very proud of his feat. “Hey, I gave all of them back.”

“And what am I going to do with a hundred erasers, Jong?” you ask, laughing too, pecking his cheek aggressively—your way of punishing him for a grave deed.

“Keep them as a token of my love for you,” he says, and your breath falters at the mention of that word. “In fifty years, it’ll be a sign that I’ve liked you since the beginning, I just had a funny way of showing it.”

“Fifty years, huh?”

He grins. “Fifty, a hundred, whatever. You’re not getting rid of me.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

You’re both smiling so wide, you can barely manage a kiss. He trails kisses from your lips to your ear. Holding you close, he whispers, “It’s always been you, Y/N. Always and only you.”

There may be thorns on the otherwise immaculate rose that is your life, but Park Jongseong was never one of them—all along, he was a bud waiting to bloom.

--

The more time passes, the more you wonder whether that night you had seen in your vision will ever come. There’s been evenings similar to it—crashing the minute you came home from a long day on set, telling yourself you’d take a fifteen-minute power nap only to wake up three hours later and coming downstairs to find your husband cooking dinner, cleaning the kitchen, taking care of your son or simply watching TV, but waiting for you, always waiting for you. He seems as happy now watching you come down the stairs as he was then finding your face among all the students flocking out of lecture halls. 

The details are blurry now, but many small things seem to be different from what you’d seen. He still tries to recreate your favorite meal, but it’s not pasta all'arrabbiata, it’s laksa, because your first date as an official couple was to a Malaysian restaurant, not an Italian one. He’s still the best father you know, but you have one son, not twin girls—although that offer to “give him a younger sibling to play with” is always on the table. Even the house you live in is different from the one in your dream, which has now become nothing more than a funny anecdote you share with people when they ask you the story of how you and Jongseong met.

You think of Sunoo’s words from all those years ago: Sometimes, we want something so badly, we conjure it up for ourselves. Had 18-year-old you been in such denial over her feelings for Jongseong that she’d had to convince herself a magical well had bestowed a crazy dream upon her to admit that, yes, there was something there, something other than childish hatred?

It doesn’t matter anymore. Months pass without you thinking about that well, anyway. 

Tonight, you come home late from work after having had to do last-minute changes to the script for your current project, a movie that starts shooting in a few days. Jongseong texted you that he was going to bed an hour or so again, so you’re greeted by a plate of japchae covered in film paper. The post-it note stuck to it reads, I’m afraid of the repercussions of too much curry consumption on our son, so no laksa tonight my love. Hope you like it. Come to bed quick. You were starving a second ago, but you decide food can wait—other things can’t.

You tiptoe up the stairs and into your son’s room, breathing in the scent of his hair and placing a kiss there. His hair is still worryingly sparse, but if he’s anything like his dad, it’ll come in a bit later than the other kids. You always thought babies with a full head of hair were freaky, anyway. He doesn’t budge a bit, sleeping like a log—his dad is another story, shuffling in bed the moment you step into your shared bedroom. He opens his arms wide, a silent invitation.

“You’re home,” he says as you attach yourself to his body, your leg hiked up over his, your face buried in the crook of his neck, your thumb caressing the start of stubble on his cheeks.

You smile. “I am.”

© asahicore on Tumblr, 2024. please do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works. support your creators by reblogging and leaving feedback!

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[jacaerysgf]

wrong pick!

Reality tv star!Jacaerys x Reality tv star!Reader | 2.8k wrds

Jace has been paired up with cassandra since the beginning, thinking their bond was pretty strong he felt as though he had nothing to worry about but he was soon proven wrong. and he quickly finds out theres always been someone else in his corner.

too hot to handle!au, fluff, mild angst, confessions, blooming love, first kiss, jace pov, acts of service, she/her prns used for reader, slightly proofread

[its pretty late into the game so they have the watches if you know what im talking abt some things in this fic wont really make sense if you don't know the show, used outer banks characters names cause i was watching it while writing it dont mind me, ive also never watched the show ive only played the games so idk what goes on, im very rusty i havent properly written something in months im sorry if this is lame no taglist cause idk if people care anymore. does anyone even read these authors notes anyway enjoy!]

Being on too hot too handle was turning out to be a lot more fun than Jace had originally expected. He had met someone he truly thought he connected with. or at least he had thought so not even an hour ago but now he was storming away from the outdoor lounge pit with a furious look on his face as Cassandra calls after him.

He’s never been one to break rules, even on a show like this when moneys draining from the pool left and right he doesn’t dare let him be the reason it gets knocked down a couple thousand. When he paired up with Cass he had been worried at first since she had seemed like the sexually driven type but she seemed respectful of the fact he had no intention of breaking any rules. He wanted that money to be able to provide for his family back home so this meant a lot to him. Yet after they had gotten the green light she seemed to be more persistent in her attempts to get them to break the rules and he was not interested in the slightest which pissed her off.

She had come into the bathroom as he had just gotten out of the shower, the two flirted a bit and she had tried to kiss him to which he backed away. He truly didn’t mean anything bad by it but she had took it really poorly and stormed off from him, he tried to calm her down and she just blew up on him. He had realized the two had completely different thoughts about their relationship and she clearly did not like him the way he liked her and he lost it. She didn’t respect him, she could barely even remember the things he had said to her which was more than enough for him.

When she realized he had gotten truly upset with her, which he hadn’t done before, she tried to back peddle but he simply stormed off leaving her to call after him. He wishes he was more thankful she didn’t follow him but a part of him stings that she didn’t even care to come after him. He walks along the beach side until a familiar figure comes into his view and smiles at him. Kiara, one of the original contestants here like him, who quickly paired up with JJ another contestant, and the two had become good friends.

“Heard some yelling all the way over there,, everything good?” He drops down to sit in the sand next to her and sighs. “I don’t know. I think me and Cass are done.” He tries not to get hung up on the fact Kiara doesn’t really seem surprised by the news. Was it obvious to everyone but him they weren’t going to work? She sits quietly for a moment, Trying to put the right words together before she speaks. “Are you upset?”

“I don’t know. I think so? I feel like I should be more upset.” “I’m sorry dude but I don’t even know how you put up with Cassandra so don’t feel bad about not feeling bad.” He turns and glares at her, his mood souring slightly. “She’s not as bad as you all seem to think. she,, can be nice.” Kiara laughs with disbelief and looks at him expectantly, “Sure,, like when?” A soft smile falls on his face as he recalls a moment in particular in mind. “I had been complaing about how my favorite shirt was all wrinkled and she steamed it for me.”

A look of pure confusion crossed her face. “What are you talking about about?” “It was awhile ago I had fucked up my shirt-” She quickly stops him placing her hands on his chest as she fully turns to look at him. “No dude I know what you’re talking about what do you mean Cassandra did that?” Now its his turn to be confused. Kiara full on belly laughs as he tries to understand what’s going on. “Ugh She’s gonna kill me for this but dude it was never Cassandra doing that stuff. Its Y/n. its always been her doing all that shit for you. Got a huge crush on you.”

Jace’s face is unreadable as he attempted to process this information. He had always assumed it was Cass since she was the one he had been complaining to about it to and she always liked doing little things for him without taking credit,,, right? There has been so many little things, little comforts, little actions done for him after he’s complained about it that he’s always just assumed was Cass and his stomach sinks at the idea its never been her. Kiara has no reason to lie to him. She’s your best friend here and he likes to think the two of them are good friends too. There’s no way she would be trying to set you up.

It was all you.

Kiara watches him with an amused expression as he tries to put the pieces together. He quickly stands and Kiara’s face grows into a knowing grin, “See you later!” He barely acknowledges her as he quickly sprints back towards the villa. Kiara looks out towards the ocean and shakes her head, speaking out loud more so for the camera than for herself. “She’s gonna kill me.”

His head is racing, his mind twisted up in knots as he finally arrived back to the villa. He flinches when he sees Cassandra has thrown herself a pit party, some of the other contestant comforting her as she sits and cries into her hands. All heads shoot up when his footsteps hit the pavement. Cassandra perks up and quickly rushes over to him, stopping him when he tries to walk away. “Jacey please lets talk,” “We’re done Cassandra. There’s no need to talk.” Her eyes widen in horror as he tries his best to gently move her out of his way but he stops him, “Please Jacey baby lets not do this to us-” “There is no us.” He spits out before storming past her into the villa house, ignoring the way she’s calling after him.

Jace’s eyes dart frantically around every room he enters until everything goes still once he finally sets his eyes on you. You’re sitting in the lounge pit, JJ on one side and on your other side sat Pope, one of the other contestants. Whatever conversation the three of you were having completely pauses as all eyes had turned towards him. He takes a moment to finally look at you. He’s seen you around often sure but he never had truly stopped to look at you. You're another one of the original contestants just like him. He remembers meeting you on the first day, The bright smile you had on your face, the way you made him a special drink at the bar and sent a wink his way. It had been the best drink he had ever had. He had always thought you were beautiful but right now he couldn’t take his eyes off you.

“Hey dude, you need something?” JJ is the first to speak up, sitting up slightly from his lax sitting position prior and looking at Jace with raised brows. Jace however did not spare him a single glance, his eyes lasered onto you as you attempted to act nonchalant about his presence in the room.

You’re wearing your hair differently today.

“Can we talk?”

Despite not addressing anyone directly everyone knows he’s talking to you. You glance over at pope who shrugs and another glance at JJ who looks equally as bewildered as pope does before nodding lightly and standing to follow Jace out the room. No words are exchanged between the two of you until you reach a private terrace just outside the villa. When he turns to face you you give him an awkward but friendly smile as you attempt to not take this situation too seriously. “Sooo, What's up?” you pop the p at the end and grip your hands tightly together behind your back.

You had just heard him and Cassandra fighting outside everyone did quite frankly. You almost wanted to go run after him but it would be too out of character, too obvious.

“I know it was you.”

Your friendly demeaner falters ever so slightly at his words instead contorting into confusion as you tilt your head at him. “What was me?” He takes that step closer to you and by instinct you lean away from him ever so slightly. “I know it was you who steamed my shirt.” Your face completely falls and he watches your face twitch as you attempt to come back with a statement but he doesn't let you.

“I know you had decided to make skewers that might because I had been complaining about missing my families yearly barbeque this year. I know you were the one who had found my missing t-shirt after I ripped apart the whole house looking for it;” With every claim that leaves his mouth he takes a step towards you he takes the slightly step towards you and you take the smallest step back.

At this point your back at hit the cloudy glass door and he was right in your face. He could hear your heart pounding but he’s sure you could hear his too, to anyone else it would see like you were completely unbothered by his words but he can see the minor glaze in your eyes which tells him everything he needs to know.

Before he can say anything else one more particular memory pops into his mind, he can’t believe he had ever forgotten about this. You go to open your mouth to deny his allegations during his moment of silence, the eye contact and closeness the two of your were sharing was killing you but he quickly stops you.

“And worst of all, I know you were the one who put my name down in the anonymous poll.” When your eyes widen in horror he fights back the grin that grows on his face.

Got you.

It had been about two weeks ago. They had been having a costume party and Kiara had suggested they do a ‘Who’s the hottest?’ anonymous poll, one for the girls and one for the guys. Since the couples had been pretty strong at that point and it was pretty deep into the game it was originally brushed off as a lame idea since everyone would just chose who they were paired with but Kiara managed to convince everyone since two new bombshells had just arrived yesterday.

Everyone had technically been right and most people picked who they were paired up with except one. Jace had two votes. that pretty much killed the night as Cassandra blew up trying to figure out who had voted for jace. She had never suspected you since you were pretty much always paired up with pope and pope had gotten a vote. So she automatically targeted Cleo, one of the new bombshells, who later took the fall for you and claimed she had voted for jace. He never thought anything about it, it was a harmless game. Plus Cleo had come up to him and said she wasn’t really interested she just thought he was hot, so he ended up getting pretty embarrassed by Cassandras outburst but brushed it off as he really caring about him.

He watches you gulp and look down as you try to collect yourself. He can practically see the wheels churning in your head as you attempt to come up with anything to say. Suddenly you look back up at him. your face hardened as you even slightly glare at him. “So what?” His gaze turns into something more affectionate at your admission and your face softens, “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” His hands had come to grab your forearms lightly as his words are let out in a light whisper. You turn your head away from him as you try to ignore his burning gaze into the side of your face. “You’re with Cassandra. I would be the bad guy if I tried to break that up.”

He releases one of his hands to grip the side of your face to turn you back towards him. “I wasn't in the beginning.” Your eyes turn away from him as you mutter something under your breath he can’t understand. He pulls your face towards him and he hears your breath hitch. “You can tell me.”

“She beat me to it.” He blinks rapidly as he doesn’t understand what you mean before his eyes widen in realization. The first retreat had just been completed, you and Cassandra had been deemed the stand outs from it and were given the opportunity to pick one person to go on a date with. Before you could even speak Cassandra picked jace first, he remembers agreeing to the date thinking Cassandra seemed interesting he had never even considered you were planning to ask him as well.

You had ultimately ended up picking pope who happily agreed. He had now realized you simply settled and picked pope because he had already been taken out and everything else seems to fall into place. You and pope aren’t a couple, everyone with eyes knows that the two of you are just really good friends who happen to get paired up together since there's nobody else around for the either of you as everyone is already paired up. And now pope has become infatuated with Cleo leaving you alone for the last two retreats. You had no interest in any of the bombshells that walked into the villa or any of the original contestants because you liked him.

He finds his chest tightening as he takes a deep shuddering breath. “I'm sorry.” You flinch as if he had slapped you and lightly shook your head. “For what?”

“For thanking someone other than you for the things you would do for me. For not knowing it was you,” You are quick to cut him off “You were never meant to know don’t feel sorry.” If anything that makes him feel worse. He breathes as if his throat is constricted. “Why?” You sigh in defeat, your beautiful eyes downdated. “As I said you and Cassandra are a thing and I'm not someone who likes to get between-” “Me and Cassandra are done.”

As your face contorts into something unreadable he pulls you to press your body directly against his. “The things that I had thought were the reasons that made me fall for Cassandra were actually done by you. I have no attachment to Cassandra know that I know its always been you all along. The one I should have been looking for, the one I should have gotten the green light with.” Both of your breathing turns erratic as the tension is palpable between you. “I want to try things with you. I don’t know how everything will turn out but I want to give whatever this is a shot. If you’ll let me.”

He gives you as long as you need to try and compose yourself. He watches as your eyes flicker all over his face for any sense of dishonesty but you can’t find anything because there is none. You can only see the pure affection dripping out of his pores and gulp. Once you open your mouth to speak you are cut off by a familiar light gleaming on his face.

Green.

He manages to contain his shock, despite his declaration he makes no move to close the distance between you and does not speak a single word. You decide words are pointless now as you grip the back of his head and pull him into a deep kiss. He eagerly meets your enusastic kiss and wraps his hands around your waist to hold you close to him. After what feels like eternity the both of you pull away and stare deeply into each others eyes, not even noticing the green light fade away into black.

“Lets give it a try.” The two of grin like giddy children as you press your foreheads together. No more words are needed to be spoken at least for now. He’s sure once the two of you leave the sanctuary of the terrace there's going to be a storm inside the villa but for now he can enjoy the peace and quiet alone with you.

[cloudcountry]

SUMMARY: to blanc, you are the change he needed, and your pressing secret won't change that.

WARNINGS: mentions of mortality, blood. Vampire stuff.

COMMENTS: ok ok so @vivislosingitagain here is my thought process YOU like biting people and sucking their blood so YOU are a vampire. and HEY GUESS WHAT vampires are IMMORTAL kind of. and im pretty sure blanc is really fucking old so i think mortality angst would work great with him BUT WHAT IF HIS PARTNER WAS AS OLD AS HE WAS AND BIT HIM. that's the post.

also im so sorry if blanc is out of character i have seen this man three times in the routes ive played + the prologue oops.

It’s a clear night. The stars are bright in the sky, just as they were hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Blanc doesn’t know if they’ll ever change, but he takes comfort in their consistency. They’re stationary, unmoving, unshifting, just like him. He’s always been in Cradle, long enough to see the shattering of bonds between the armies and the first Alice fall. He’s seen the skirmishes and the blood and the carnage.

And he’s seen you, the one who followed him into the rabbit hole and into Cradle.

He remembers thinking you were cute. He remembers Oliver scolding him for speaking his mind, and he remembers you tearing your eyes away from him, a shy smile on your lips. You’ve always been alluring, in a way he never anticipated, and it makes him wonder if someone from the Land of Reason can really be magical like the people of Cradle.

It’s no use though—he knows the passage of time will take you away. He knows love (what he feels for you, there’s no doubt about it) is a powerful force, but it cannot break the way the sun and moon rise and fall, it cannot stop the stars from dying light years away, it cannot stop your inevitable aging.

He knows this, and yet he can’t let go. He greets you in the morning with a soft pat on your head, leaning over your bed as you stretch and yawn. His gaze softens when you rub your eyes and look over at him, and you’re looking at him like he’s the only thing you ever want to see.

He’s so selfish—he wants so badly for you to only look at him.

For someone so keenly aware of how mortal you are, he knows he's being awfully flippant about it. It’s the folly of man, to be so foolish as to yearn, but there’s always the possibility that fate will take pity on his poor soul and listen to its cries for his love to stay.

And so, the next night, a night that should be no different from any other, he breaks his routine. He keeps you up late, chatting over tea as the full moon rises in the sky, asking you if you want to go home. He watches you as you go quiet, your previously bright smile fading into a thoughtful frown. You’re staring into your tea as if it can give you the answer, and Blanc hopes the tea will give you the same answer he would.

I wish you would stay. I wish you would stay with me. I wish you would think I’m worth it. I wish that if I had to be hurt then you would be the one to hurt me because I’ve never loved anyone like you and I doubt I ever will. I wish you would be the one to thrust this dagger into my heart so fate doesn’t have the chance.

“...I want to stay with you.” you say, and Blanc knows you’re hiding something from him but he can’t bring himself to ask when you already look so worried.

“Are you sure?” he asks, reaching across the table to place a hand on yours.

Your head jerks up and you meet his gaze with parted lips—almost like you want to tell him but are far too scared.

“You can tell me anything.” he stresses, squeezing your hand gently.

“I’m not...” you purse your lips, looking away again as you choose your words carefully, “I’m not having doubts about staying here, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Blanc holds back his sigh of relief in favor of another inquisitive glance. Your brow furrows and he knows you feel his stare, your cute canines poking at your lower lip as you gnaw on it pensively.

“I have a secret I don’t think I’m ready to share yet.” you say softly, turning back to him, “I will someday. I just...need time.”

Blanc laughs, a sound that's full of relief and love and sounds like the wind chimes that hang in your no longer temporary bedroom’s window, the ones that have been there since you came and will be there when—if—you leave.

“Darling.” he breathes, staring straight into your eyes with so much love, “I have all the time in the world.”

The full moon sinks beneath the horizon and the sun comes up again. The teacups from the night before have been cleaned and placed back on their shelves, and the cake you two cut slices out of remains in the fridge. There are still traces of you within the house—your skincare is still in the bathroom, your toothbrush is next to his, and your chair still has a cushion of your favorite color. None of those things have been removed because you didn’t leave.

You’re still in your bedroom, sleeping soundly, but this time Blanc is there with you, his arms wrapped around you. His body is tangled with yours, your legs intertwining as the bed sheets knot themselves around your limbs. Your head is resting right over his heart, the part of him that’s pounding away for you. Gently, he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear and stares down at your sleeping face, the face that shows him all of your thoughts and emotions, the face that belongs to the person who loves him enough to stay.

He wakes you up with a kiss on your forehead, a kiss on the bridge of your nose, a kiss on your left eyelid and a kiss on your right, a kiss on your jaw—

He sighs when you start to stir, propping yourself up on your elbows. The bed sheets fall off your body like water cascading down the side of a cliff, and your bleary eyes have never looked more beautiful. He lays there, admiring you in the morning light as the wind chimes chime, the soft breeze from the cracked open window ruffling through your hair.

You shiver.

“Darling,” Blanc calls, placing a hand on your shoulder, “Good morning.”

You smile when you turn to look at him, and you allow yourself to fall back against the mattress next to him.

“Good morning.” you murmur, your nails tracing the curve of his cheekbone before tucking a strand of hair behind his ear, “You look so handsome.”

Ever the charmer, he’s rarely been charmed himself. And so he does the only thing he deems appropriate, and thanks you with a kiss on the back of your hand.

Weeks pass, and Blanc finds himself growing into this new routine. You're a sign of change, that he knows for sure. His own room remains vacant for the most part unless you decide to pull him into his room instead of your own when you’re ready for bed. It makes no difference to him where you go, only that he can follow you like the lovesick fool he is.

Except you’re not leading him to either of your bedrooms tonight.

You’re leading him outside, under the pale moonlight and into the chilly nighttime breeze. He looks up at the full moon and holds your hand a little tighter.

“Thank you for giving me time.” you say, the wind swelling as it passes between the two of you and further into the night, “I’m ready to tell you what I’ve been hiding from you now. It’s...not fair to keep it from you any longer.”

“I understand,” he smiles softly, cupping your cheek, “Go ahead.”

“I’m a vampire.” you say, and it takes his brain a few moments to catch up, “I’ve...found it hard to get blood in Cradle but since meeting with Kyle’s he’s managed to get me blood when I need it. I don’t like drinking from animals or people but it...has to be done for me to stay alive.”

Blanc’s brain is whirring as you spill your guts to him, your mouth moving faster and faster as you explain how despised vampires are in the Land of Reason, how people view them as monsters and how you’re certain you’re cursed.

Cursed. What a funny word to say to him.

“Is that why your canines are so sharp?” he blurts, leaning closer to your face.

You stop talking, bending backward just a bit at his sudden closeness.

“I—I’m sorry, what?” you ask, looking confused.

“Ah, well....I always thought they were cute.” he smiles kindly, brushing his thumb over your cheekbone.

“I...” you blink owlishly before shaking your head in disbelief, “Blanc, I just told you I’m a vampire.”

“Indeed you did.”

Your mouth falls open as if looking for the right words to say, and yet you come up with nothing.

“You can feed from me if you wish. I don’t want you to suffer any longer.” he offers like its the most natural thing in the world.

Still, you say nothing.

And then he murmurs your name, as soft as the flower petals brushing against your ankles.

“I don’t want to use you like that. I don’t want you to be a food source for me.” you grit your teeth, staring at the ground like you couldn’t be more ashamed, “I don’t want to be the monster the Land of Reason made me out to be.”

“You’re not. I give myself to you willingly, and I'll do it over and over again.” Blanc murmurs, hands slipping away from you.

It takes you a moment to realize he’s slowly undoing the buttons on his shirt, leaving his collarbone open to the nighttime breeze and your eyes.

“My love.” he opens his arms for you and his shirt slips off his shoulder, leaving his skin vulnerable—

“I give myself to you.”

And he pulls you into his chest, as he whispers words of love telling you that you can bite him, drink from him, take all that you need and that it will be okay because he’d give you everything if you asked for it, and that you changed his life for the better, you brought springtime’s flowers and winter’s shimmering ice and summer’s warm sunlight and autumn’s delicate, beautiful leaves to a life that was so repetitive and boring until you arrived—a life that belonged to the man you see before you but not anymore because its yours and it will always be yours.

Tears prick your eyes as you kiss his skin, worshiping each freckle and small scar you can reach. Your canines poke insistently at his skin and you ignore the urge for one, two, three, four, five seconds before your mouth opens and you bite down, hoping the small gasp that leaves his lips isn’t one of pain. You’re careful not to take too much but it tastes so good and who knew drinking from the one you loved could make you feel so happy and full.

Blanc looks up at the moon as you feed, happiness and adoration blurring his vision as he thinks about you, you who trusted him enough to bite him, to tell him who you were, you who stayed behind for him even though you could have left.

He stares up at the moon and sighs because he’s in love. He’s in love with you.

And after you’re done, after you pull away and lick the puncture marks to soothe them, after you press a dozen more kisses to his skin, Blanc still loves you. His blood is smeared around your mouth but he pulls you in anyway, kissing you with everything he has because you deserve nothing less than that.

And he loves you.

Over and over again, he loves you.

He doesn’t know how long he’ll be aging or how long you will have by his side, but he knows that if you will forever be his constant, he’ll come out okay in the end.

[jihyoruri]

❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ ❚ 𓍢 LOVEFOOL ahn yujin x idol!reader

🪽★ ͘ ⴰ in which yujin realizes that the girl that the girl that’s caught her attention is the same annoying younger sister of her ex member that told her she needs dance lessons

warnings: yn is apart of new jeans and is sakura’s younger sister, fluff, yn is described as a brat, swearing

all yujin can think right now is how stupid she is.

of course the yn that she’s fallen for is the little shit head that told her that she needed “dance lessons” a couple years back.

yujin was definitely in shock when her and wonyoung knocked on the door to the lesserafim dorms and instead of being met with one of the members at the door, yn opened it, the girl that she’s been talking to for the last couple months.

also sakura’s little sister.

“hey unnie, what are you doing here?” yn asked with a smile on her face, opening the door wider so wonyoung and yujin could come in.

“I should be asking you that,” yujin says standing in front of the girl awkwardly earning a confused look from yn as wonyoung walks deeper into the house, leaving them at the front.

“you mean chilling at my older sister’s place?” yn says tilting her head, yujin would’ve thought that was adorable but due to the circumstances that was the last thing on her mind and it was now her turn to look confused.

“you never told me kazuha was your older sister,” she replies dumbly which causes yn to let out a big laugh.

“my last name is miyawaki not nakamura you dummy.” yn says in a playful tone looking up at yujin and pushing her shoulder softly.

wait?

“oh…”

“yeah oh,” yn mocks before grabbing yujin’s hand and placing the older girls arm over her shoulder, “now let’s go, she’s actually been wondering who ive been talking to, I can’t wait to see the look on her face," yn says mischievously and again yujin would’ve found it adorable if it wasn’t for the circumstances.

"oh, also my members are here as well."

yn who yujin now remembers as sakura’s brat of a little sister is the same yn that’s practically her girlfriend, how did she not see the similarities? yn is still very much a brat the only difference is that yujin now finds it cute rather than repulsive.

and the last names, gosh was she really blinded by love to not realize that yn had the same exact last name as her former member?

yujin wonders if yn still sees her as a bad dance, yn is an amazing dancer one of the best yujin has ever seen, was yn just suppressing her thoughts now that she liked yujin?

yujin doesn't know why it bothered her but it did, if yn really did still think she was a bad dancer it would completely ruin her self confidence, who knew when you liked someone how much power their opinion could have over you.

"hey, you okay?" yujin looks down to see yn looking up at up her still lucked under her arm, "are you nervous? come on its just sakura who you should be worried about is minji-gosh I can already see the glares." yn rambles.

"I'm okay," yujin smiles at yn hesitantly, thoughts still clouding her mind as they reach the living room where everyone is.

the talking that filled the room stoped when they entered the room, sakura's eye widening when she takes notice of yujin's arm over yns shoulder.

"yujin, you're the girl?" is the first thing that comes out of sakura's mouth, yujin can feel the new jeans leaders gaze on her but that's the least of her worries right now.

"yeah..." she responds nervously, yujin really wished now wasn't the time that all of this was being unwrapped not with all the thoughts that are circulating her mind right now.

"why is it so quiet?" yn asks with sass in her voice like always causing everyone to start back up their conversations while sakura gets up from her seat on the couch and walks over to the couple.

"is this for real?" she whispers, "you guys genuinely like each other?" both girls nod, yn with a little bit of more attitude because is that even a question?

sakura turns to yujin, "you know she's quite the handful right? can you handle her?"

"she can handle me just fine thank you very much." yn butts in leaning into yujin's side as yujin nods.

sakura stares at them for a little longer before letting out a sigh, "as long as you guys are happy I guess,"

"we're gonna have to set some ground rules, but that's for another time, we're gonna play just dance come on."

dance? why did that sound like the worst to yujin right now.

yn squeals and removes herself from under yujin's arm and jumps onto sakura's back as the older girl walked away, "I'm gonna crush everyone."

yujin trails behind them, this should've been an enjoyable moment but not with all these insecurities circling her mind.

she walked into the room and gave everyone a greeting and smile as they set up the game before taking seat beside minji who leans over to her, "we're gonna have to set some ground rules."

yujin lets out a sigh "yeah, I figured."

yujin kept to herself as everyone had fun playing the game and just as yn said she destroyed everyone, it was at the point that everyone was trying to forbid her from playing for the next couple of rounds but it was all fun and games, yujin wished she was in the right state of mind to enjoy this moment with everyone else.

"hey," yujin is snapped out of thoughts by the voice she loves the most, she looks up to see yn sitting beside her while everyone is still discussing kicking yn out "wanna verse me?"

that did not sound enjoyable at all.

"no, it's okay," yujin says quietly.

"are you okay?" yn asks worried, and that's a tone that you'll barely hear from the younger girl, "your vibe is completely off right now."

"I'm fine."

yn shot yujin a look that screamed "get real" before standing up and grabbing yujin's hands and pulling her into the hallway nobody even noticing to deep into their deep discussion.

"okay, tell me what's going on." yn said crossing her arms over her chest, "and don't give me any bullshit"

yujin lets out a sigh and mumbles so quietly that yn couldn't hear her.

"what?"

"If I'm gonna be honest I completely didn't put together that you and sakura unnie are sisters so seeing you here today really brought it to light but then I remembered what you said to me a couple of years ago about how I needed dance lessons and it didn't bother me much back then you were just really annoying but then now with how much I like you and I wonder if you really think im a bad dancer yujin says rushingly while yn looks at her in shock.

"yujin," she whispers her face softening as she grabs both of the taller girls hands, "of course I think you're a good dancer."

yujin just stares at yn as she continues, "you really remembered what thirteen year old me said to you? thirteen year old me thought you were the cutest girl ever but decide to tease the hell out of you because she couldn't handle having a crush."

yujin feels a smile make its way to her face at that, "you had a crush on me for that long?" she teases quietly as yn rolls her eyes, "yes, and im sorry for making you think that you weren't a good dancer, you're amazing"

"yn apologizing, this is a once in a blue moon experience." yujin smiles pulling yn closer to her who just laughs and rolls her eyes once more, "yeah, yeah don't get used to it," she responds before softly placing her lips softly on yujin's who kisses her back right away chasing yns lips when she pulls away from the older girl laughing.

"lets go back before minji untie realizes were gone and loses her head." yn says interlocking her hand with yujin who nods understandingly.

"evern though she's younger than me she's really scaring." yujin says as yn drags her.

"lets not focus on her and lets focus on how im gonna crush you in just dance, that you'll want dance lessons."

that should've made yujin offended but all she could do is smile and look at the younger girl fondly.

she really was a lovefool.

[barbwritesstuff]

I never send you an ask before but I kinda really wanted to do this.

Almost exactly one year ago, I found „Blood Moon“ and let me tell you it changed my life. It was the first text-based interactive fiction I have ever read and since then there was barely a day I did not read one.

Blood Moon is so good that I re-read it for weeks and it was also the first time where I saw actually naturally, good LGBTQ+ Representation in fiction, and not just in fanfiction. When I noticed that Marco is trans, I almost cried in surprise because finally there was a character like me and he was not represented in a bad way or where his whole character ark is that they are trans. Just a normal guy that happens to be trans, which influences his character and life and is a part of him but not everything he is because he is so much more.. a werewolf for starters lol.

Also an old lesbian couple who are badass. An older sister who is in the protector role for once. A human, pregnant woman who is just as badass as the werewolfs around her and demonstrates that being pregnant does not mean someone is sick and cant do anything anymore. A nonbinary leader that is not treated as a “woman light“ person but actually nonbinary.

And that just the characters! On top of that there is a plot that is just so good. I read the story and was just constantly surprised because I did not expect anything. What do you mean the Alpha dies? Suddenly my long lost father shows up? A werewolf drinking vampire blood? A fucking vampire court? My choices change who dies? I can die? The story does not end when I die?

Also seemingly little choices can change the story? Like depending how I react the pack already expects me to challenge to be an alpha or not.

Granted, it was my first time reading interactive fiction but still. Because you did such a good job, I went out to find more IFs. And, as I said, it changed my life. I found so many good stories. From only one chapter demos to completed books. Never once did I found a space so naturally inclusive. They way tumblr allows you do interact with other fans, asking questions to the author and interacting with them. I found so many new comfort stories and characters, its amazing. I finally have real joy when reading fiction again. No matter how bad I feel, there is always a story I can go to. Which does include Blood Moon and Thicker Than.

All my MCs in almost every story are named „Lucas“, as long as the name fits in the story, because thats is the name I chose in Blood Moon in my very first playthrough. Except in Thicker Than because that kinda felt confusing.

Then I finally found Thicker Than. Ive been following your blog for awhile now and even if the demo was just a few chapters, I already was incredibly exited to read it and you really did not disappoint. Again, so many things happen that I do not expect. They way some characters are only there if you choose specific choices. How your relationship to the characters really influences the story. Having different powers. Being able to decide what kind of vampire you are. The different backgrounds. A child?!? I get that Nathans Route is a bit controversial apparently but I think it is actually so good. Because it is not predictable (for me) and thats life. Yes it is a story but the story plays in a real world and sometimes things happen no matter how much we wish it would be different. This is peek storytelling in my eyes.

This whole writing and coding must be sooo much work and I am incredibly grateful for you that you are doing this and even let us read this for free. Especially this much. I totally expect, and would have understood it, if you stoped the public demo right after the battle or even before. But I am still happy that you didnt.

All this just to tell you thanks for opening me up to this world and your hard work on these stories. And I really hope you are doing well because you fucking deserve it.

I honestly don't know how to respond to this. 💙😭 Thank you so much. Seriously, thank you. I really needed this today.

[kittysdestination]

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in my opinion, fd2 is the best film in the franchise,, but it has SO many flaws its unbelievable. it would have been such a good film if they focused less on certain topics and more on character development and interactions;;

ive spoken previously about interactions in wished rory and kat had in the film but i went a bit off topic, so now i would like to pick up from where i left off and continue.. this time, i want to try and talk about interactions all together, not just with rory and kat, but with different characters instead.

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number one;; evan lewis

evan lewis was immediately introduced as a cocky lotto winner, but had little to no screen time due to him being the first kill.. even before his death, he pretty much had no character to him other than “oh!! he won the lottery!!” which to me is pretty much bs. yeah, i understand that final destination never really focuses on character development all that much, more specifically for the first kills.. examples being carrie, jason and whoever the fuck that lady was from fd4.. im excluding candace from fd5 because she at least had SOME character to her. and also todd for the same exact reason.

it just annoys me in some way that the first deaths are never really given any character plot other than they die first, which to me seems.. useless?? i mean, watching a character die is supposed to be sad, right? it took me six whole rewatches on fd2 for me to give a fuck in the SLIGHTEST when evan died because he was given NO LORE. the only reason i actually started caring about him was because i read a fanfic where he actually had a purpose and my perspective on him had pretty much changed since. anyways ive rambled for too long, now lets get to the interactions he DESERVED.

⟡ thomas burke and evan lewis;;

these two SHOULD have interacted. every single person who survived the route 23 pile up was in the interrogation room alongside kim.. except for evan. he was with that other police man, but i don’t understand why? i mean, ive watched fd2 more times than i can count and i still don’t understand the whole purpose of him going in a separate room, just for the conversation between the two to just.. not be shown. im actually not sure if it was confirmed what was said in this little meeting but if someone can let me know the actual reason evan was excluded i would greatly appreciate it,,

that aside, i do believe officer burke and evan should have interacted in some way, especially in the interrogation room. i am well aware the two technically DID interact from when thomas told evan (and isabella) to get back into their cars,, but thats not absolutely groundbreaking for evans character.

i also would have loved to see evans reaction to the entire “death is after us” statement, it would have been ACTUALLY relevant for his character.

⟡ rory peters and evan lewis;;

okay maybe im a bit biased for wanting these two to interact😬 the only reason i believe they would make good friends was because i read it in an ao3 fanfic😭 god FORBID i crave content smh!!!

but yeah all giggles aside, these two would have MATCHED so well. like, the scene with rory at some fuckass party watching the pileup being documented on tv is almost the EXACT same vibe as evan having a bunch of people call him up whilst hes.. idk DYING😭

if you really think about it, theyre kind of in the same situation.. or maybe im just reaching for a reason these two would work as friends but PLEASE hear me out.

evan gets a bunch of phone calls from girls, most likely exs, only communicating with him because of his newly won money. i also believe there was a few phone calls from his friends as-well also calling for the same reason,, anyways, back to the whole “party” with rory and the girls, it somewhat reminds me of evan. HEAR ME OUT OKAY!!! the girls are only with rory because he has drugs. i KNOW thats a stretch but PLEASE!! stay with me on this idea i BEG.

it could be evans situation but instead of money, its drugs and probably alcohol too. i WOULD also mention that nobody seemed to give a fuck when rory said “you see babies, i was there!” when the pileup documentary thingy came on screen.. but yet again everyone there was probably too coked off their asses to care anyways so maybe i wont mention it, but the idea is still there that they were only there for drugs.

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number two;; tim carpenter

tim was SUCH a cutie character!!! his only flaw being he didn’t really interact with the main cast other than his mother.. but then again, i can understand that.. because allegedly he was supposed to be six years old in the original script, yet they changed it. im not too sure if that fact is TRUE but i will stick to it just incase it actually is..

anyways, unlike evan lewis, he actually had SOME memorable scenes alongside a well constructed lore. its not the BEST, but then again.. he is a background character who is set up to die, but still, hes a child, he could have blended in so well with the main cast!!

he is a kid after-all and i would have LOVED to see each character interacting with him. it would be like a family gathering where you have to talk with youre cousins who youve never met😭

anyways, onto the interactions!!!!

⟡ eugene dix and tim carpenter;;

i would have LOVED to see these two interact. i recently came up with a headcanon for an au where everyone survived, and eugene was tims teacher. even tho its only a headcanon,, i still would have loved to see interactions with these two.

i suppose they did have one in the interrogation room where eugene pretty much took over bludworths role and explained deaths plan, and then leaned down and scared nora. icl that scene makes me GIGGLE. and after a bunch of rewatches, it seems like tim was somewhat amused by eugenes antics, on the other hand nora was absolutely petrified.

okay wait im going really offtopic but that scene alone reminds me of another horror movie kid around about tims age.. johnathan from terrifier 2 (and 3, but for this comparison in strictly sticking to the second movie) ,, i know this is probably a HUGE comparison but still.. johnathan was amused by art the clown and other true crimes, which is quite similar to tim in a way. tim was seen fucking SMILING when he asked kim if death was after them, and after that whole interview thingy, he read STEPHEN FUCKING KING TO GO TO BED😭 theyre such similar characters you HAVE to believe me

⟡ kat jennings and tim carpenter;;

okay maybe im just completely biased because i love kat so much and i want her to be included in everything because i love her so much ohmygosh.. but putting my love for kat aside because i dont want to waste time ranting about kat instead of tim, i will het straight to the interaction.

this isn’t so much a serious interaction, i just remember reading a few weeks ago on tumblr, i don’t remember the exact blog but i remember the prompt. “imagine if tim tried to scare kat whilst she was on the phone and she just straight up punched him” oh i GIGGLEDDDD. and it made me wonder, what other possible interactions could these two have?? i mean, nora has interacted with kat before, maybe in an au in which they all lived nora would actually trust kat to look after tim for a while.. okay im going so fucking off topic and im not even sticking to the topic oh my god😭

okay icl im out of things to say for tim, my apologies.. ive ALREADY been ranting for a full HOUR and im fucking exhausted💔 so from this point on, im sorry if my writing is rushed and im skipping over stuff or im just not making any sense, its gone midnight and im TIERD.

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number three;; kat jennings

i was originally gonna go in death order until i realised i would have been bored out of my fucking MIND talking about nora.. no offence, i do love her character a LOT but in literally half asleep and the last thing i need is to talk about a character that bores me, so we are skipping right to kat because i LOVE her!!!!!!!!🩷🩷

anyways, kat is probably one of my favourite characters EVER so i apologise beforehand if im not making any sense in this part of my rant. kat gets me SUPER worked up and i start stimming a lot, and i lose focus and. oaughh it just gets a bit complicated for me. so yeah, i do apologise if this section is incredibly messy.

⟡ rory peters and kat jennings;;

oh of COURSE i bring these two up, but is anyone really surprised at this point? theyre SO dear to me its unbelievable how much i love them!!!!!!

im aware i already posted a mini tangent about interactions i wished these two had but i only included like 2 and then went off topic, so i want to expand on what i said previously.

first of all, these two LACKED interactions. an interaction between the two that i think is incredibly necessary is rory reacting to kats death.. it would have been absolutely soul crushing to watch but holy shit it would do a lot for their character development.

rory quite literally asked kimberley if kat would be okay as shes trapped in the car.. just for him to not gaf when she dies??😭 then what was the point in these scene if his reaction to her death isnt even shown?! fuck, i dont even think he NOTICED kat died. he walked off to do lines after his little chat with kim with i SUPPOSE was the writers way of setting up his death.. but still, a reaction to her death would have been fine even if it was from afar..

i think its pretty obvious by now i crave interactions with these two. i’ll take whatever i can get.. seriously. an interaction before kats death? hell yeah!! an interaction on the highway before the pileup? fuck it, why not. a really detailed interaction where rory comforts kat (when she comes back from the elevator malfunction) the same way he did for eugene after his suicide attempt, and the scene ends with the two realising they’ve actually misunderstood eachother and dont even hate eachother all that much?? fuckyeah!!!!!

the writers had so many opportunities with these two, yet they settled on some bickering and a half assed interaction over valium..😭

ok you know what fuck this, ive been ranting for an hour and 30 mins and im not even half way through 💔 i was originally gonna do interactions for every single final destination 2 character until i realised if i actually did that then i wouldnt get any sleep because for some reason i decided to start writing this in the middle of the night??😭 and dont even TELL me to pick up on it in the morning i literally have no motivation in mornings dont even get me started🙁

okay now im just complaining ANYWAYS before i wrap this up i just wanted to mention i am VERY WELL AWARE that the writers most likely couldn’t add these interactions due to it making the film unnecessarily long, and plus, im sure 94% of fd fans do not give a shit about characters and their interactions and their impact on the story.. they just wanna see them die😭

[seokmn]

chapter VIII : beers and late night talks

wc: 1.1k words

“so,” you said after taking a sip of your beer, looking at the night sky above you and seokmin, “one of my friends found his soulmate today”

seokmin only nodded, taking a sip of his beer before speaking up, “did it bother you? the fact that another person in your life found their soulmate and you still have no string with someone?”

“yes and no. im happy for him, i truly am.. but i got a bit jealous, not gonna lie. i felt the need to have the same experience, you know?” you looked down and scoffed, “ive always been so nonchalant about the fact that i dont have a soulmate, i always thought ‘oh, thats fine. i can still live my life’, but the past couple days ive been finding myself thinking about it, watching couples from far away… it kinda sucks”

“what if you were never okay with it? what if you were lying to yourself this whole time? or maybe you were fine with it because of your friends’ support, but sometimes only support is not enough?”

you looked at him and he looked back at you, his facial features glowing in the moonlight, you looked back to your lap and then to the city view, “maybe its a bit of all that you said.. i dont know. its not like im dying to have a soulmate, i just wish i knew how it feels to be loved, but i avoid getting into relationships”, you sighed, “i think that we can fall in love and people can fall in love with us, i truly believe we can have happy relationships with other people, even if theyre not our soulmate, but the relationship wont last long because those people are not made for us. we are destined to die without a lover, so all we can do is enjoy the short moments those people can give to us and we can give to them”

“so why do you avoid getting into relationships?”, seokmin leaned closer to you, his eyes full of curiosity as he took another sip of his beer.

“because if i fall in love with them i wont be able to move on. you see, every person has their own identity, their own opinions, their own habits that can be so dear to me. you can never replace anyone.. it hurts too much having to let someone go and leave someone," you fixed yourself in your chair, "there's a quote of one of my favorite movies that i really relate to, 'i tend to see in people little details, specific to each of them that move me and that i miss, and ill probably always miss'. i had a lot of platonic relationships that didnt work out, fake friends, etc.. and it hurt too much when they came to an end. if it hurts me so bad losing a friend, can you imagine how losing a loved one will destroy me? i’d rather stay lonely than go from relationship to relationship just because the cant stay. i know none of them is the one for me, because i dont have ‘the one’ and im nobody's 'the one'”

“woah…” seokmin leaned back in the chair and looked at you with wide eyes and you chuckled, “i think i went too far, didnt i?”

“a bit, but i liked your thought about it”

“what about you? why are you in a relationship if she already has a soulmate?”

“because.” seokmin sighed, “okay, not only because. its complicated, she used to be the only one who knew that i dont have a soulmate before you come to my life, but there’s a reason for why we date.” he paused, clearly wanting to change the subject, “...why do you work at a bookstore? is it your dream or…?”

you shook your head, “my dream is to write a book about my life as someone who doesn’t have a soulmate, but i think im still too young and too naive to write a book about it yet. i want my book to be life changing to the readers, just like the one i gave you was to me”

“i think your thoughts about it are quite interesting, so why not write now?”, he asked opening another can of beer and handing it to you, you mumbled a thank you and took a deep breath, “i have a journal just to write about this ever since i turned 18, but writing a book is something else, is something way more serious. i want people to praise my writing, to praise my thoughts and my work in general, i still need to practice my writing and all of that. but what about your dream?”

“im already living my dream,” seokmin smiled, “im an actor, i act in musicals”

“really?! are you famous? i never heard about you, at least i think so, maybe i just forgot..”

“how do i say that im famous without sounding like im bragging?” you both chuckled, “i’m also known as dokyeom”

you gasped, recognizing the name dokyeom, “my best friend went to your musical! she loved it!”, seokmin smiled shyly, “im glad to know she loved it”

“im sorry i didn’t recognize you, but i know nothing about the musical theatre industry and i never really payed attention to it…”

“its okay, it felt good to be treated as a 'normal' person, please don’t change just because im famous”

“relax, im not like that”, as you said that, you saw seokmin sighing in relief and you chuckled at the sight of him being relieved.

you two kept talking until late at night, if it wasn’t by your constant yawns, the conversation would keep going until the sunrise.

“you seem quite tired, we should call this a day”

“i agree.. im almost sleeping here”, you chuckled, “im sorry for ruining the night again. i really wanted to keep going with the conversation”

“come on, dont say that. im getting sleepy as well and the night has been nothing but amazing. its quite late now, do you want me to walk you home?”

you shook your head, “i dont want to bother you”

“please, i want to make sure you get home safe”

“okay, if you insist.. lets go, its not far away from here”

he nodded and you two left the rooftop of the bookstore, going outside the place and starting to walk towards your house right after you locked the bookstore. the comforting silence filled the air, but you noticed that from time to time seokmin would look at you, as if he wanted to say something, but he would always end up looking away and remaining silent.

after a few minutes of walking you suddenly stopped and looked at him with a smile on your face, “its here”, seokmin looked at the house and smiled a bit, “so i guess i should get going. it was great seeing you, yn”

“it was great seeing you as well, seokmin. bye!” you waved at him as he started to walk away.

seokmin called a cab and during the whole drive he couldnt stop thinking about you and your words, he admired how you were such an interesting person, he also thought a lot about how cute you looked while you explained to him why you didnt want to write your book just yet and while he was walking you home. fuck, what if he is becoming attracted to you?

prev - next

INVISIBLE STRING

in a world where when you turn 18 you share an invisible string with your soulmate that only you and your respective soulmate can see it, seokmin, also known as dokyeom, is an actor in the musical theatre world that doesnt have a soulmate and keep it as a secret. meanwhile, yn works in a bookstore and doesnt seem bothered at all by the fact of not sharing a string with someone. is it possible to change the destiny and find your soulmate even tho you dont share the invisible string with anyone?

[babyzzai]

bungo stray dogs cglre labels ִֶָ 𓂃⊹ ִֶָ

note: she/her pronouns for sigma bc thats a girl 🤞🏻this will be in all of my posts, im a tfem sigma truther.

atsushi- flip with no lean // i feel like atsushi needs to vent his feelings by regressing, and has a deep desire to be loved and cared for since he never received that love and care when he was really a child, and i also think thats the reason hes a caregiver! he wants to love and care for and protect others the way he wishes he couldve been, its very healing for him. his regression age is 4-5! i also believe he regresses to some kind of pet- im gonna say probably a tiger because im basic, but specifically a tiger kitten, and i like to think if he transforms into byakko when regressed its just a baby tiger kitten 😭💕

dazai- regressor // dazai has cptsd from the mafia and for reasons we probably dont wven know as the audience, and i think hes a trauma regressor because of that. hos regression age is 0-2. i like to see him as a pet regressor as well, and hes OBVIOUSLY a little kitten! i saw someone headcanon him as otter regressor too and im never gonna leave that alone either so hes a kitten and an otter

kunikida- CAREGIVER!! he just strikes me so smack in the face as a caregiver. with kunikidas trauma from when he was a teacher it makes me think hed cope by taking care of kids/regressors, to prove to himself in a way that the kids’ deaths werent his fault. i also think he funds comfort in giving rules and schedules to his littles, when youre any sort of caregiver, even with literal kids, kids need structure, and being able to provide that structure would make him feel secure. i also think he loves all littles ofc, but has a preference for babies.

ranpo- oh. this man is a regressor all. the. way. // i think ranpo regresses for two reasons. one, because hes traumatized from his parents’ sudden deaths at a young age and the trauma he endured from living on the streets, and two, because hes autistic! i think ranpo is a permaregressor as well!! his regression age is 6-9! also a puppy and a kitten regressor!

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akutagawa- i think hes a regressor // however i dont think he likes to admit it, and i dont even know if he understands it. he also is a puppy regressor, specifically a doberman.

chuuya- flip with caregiver lean!! // chuuyas label is VERY important to me omg. i believe chuuya is moreso of a caregiver because its just in his nature. hes a very caring, loyal person, and he wants to make sure that those he loves are safe from harm. growing up with the sheep as their king, he needed to care for them and watch out for them, especially little kids, so its kind of just ingrained into him to take care of others. however, i think also when chuuya is really stressed and has had a hard day/hard time he needs to let go and be little! when he does regress, his little age is 4-5! absolute puppy regressor as well, hes just a little baby doggie! he LOVES doggies when regressed too, his fav show is paw patrol <2

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poe- i think poe is also neutral // idk ive just never felt strongly about him being either a caregiver it a regressor.

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fyodor- neutral // i cant see him in a caregiver role at all, and i can kindaaaa see him being a regressor but i just think its not all that fitting imo

nikolai- hes a regressor!! // and oh boy is he a mischievous one- nikolai in my mind is a bit older, about 8-10, and hes quite the chaotic kid haha. he LOVES to play pranks, scream at the top of his lungs, and when hes being taken care of he LOVSS to do magic shows too!! i kinda wanna make a post about my little nikolai hcs now… :3 i think honestly nikolai is just a silly guy, he needs a place to get all that silliness out! and thats by being a kiddo!!

sigma- flip with no lean // i dont know why but sigma just gives such mother energy. like i can imagine her loving her little calling her mama, and snuggling into her chest, and giggling softly into her hair. theres no logical reasoning i have i just feel it in my bones lol. but i think shes had a stressful life, and she has a lot of things she needs to process, ie. being born from the book, not knowing who she is or where she came from, dealing with the angels, etc. and i think in order to makeup for her not being aware of any sort of childhood she regresses to around 2-3 to make those memories and experience the childhood shes not sure if she ever even had. i can see her as a bunny regressor too!!

[cherrydipp]

haiii cherrycola hcs here u go theyre not beta read idc ive been collecting them thats all

- forbidden lovers 😴😴

- would drive around town together. in the musical script it mentions cherry with her head out the window, enjoying the breeze as she rolls up to the drive in. i think she would have the time of her LIFE. with sodapop and his car. sticking her head out the window, letting the cold breeze blow her hair wild — causing it to look almost like fire in the night sky. sodapop would die for her ong hes in absolute awe. its a miracle he didnt crash with how often he looks away from the road when she’s like this.

- sodapop and cherry would go horseback riding together. cherry — who does barrel racing, and sodapop — who’s been tending to horses since he was a kid, head off to the rodeos together. sodapop makes sure to keep the girl close by his side, normally with a hand around her waist or by wrapping his arms around her neck/upper body from behind. i imagine if they were to get married and live together they would get stables and a horse or two.

- cherry would get soda some super expensive gift for christmas and he’d give her a handmade card because its all he can afford… (jk)

- i could see her being his tutor when they were in middle school

- sodapop the typa guy to ask his girlfriend (cherry) to do her skin care routine on him. she turns it into a spa day where he’s pampered and taken care of all for him to fall asleep as shes applying a thick mask to his face. his hair is pushed back with like her fluffy bear headband and hes just like “honnnnkk, mimimi” in her lap.

- cat gf and dog bf coded

- cherry was never really big on physical touch. sodapop, however, it’s all he’s ever known. he’s not good with words or articulating his thoughts. it’s difficult. like the words in his head get jumbled up and stuck in his throat as he starts stuttering or stumbling over every syllable — feeling as if no amount of words could ever describe how he feels. instead, he expresses that through touch. constantly hanging off cherry, keeping her hand tucked in his, holding her and stroking through her long red hair as she lays on top of him, laying on top of *her.* wishing he could crawl into her skin and just absorb all of her warmth, feel every part of her skin on his. his love shows no boundaries. slowly but surely, he’s coaxing the girl into physical touch. she finds herself missing the arm around her waist when he’s gone, or the feeling of his chin pressed against her shoulder — a soft peck placed on her cheek.

- jack and rose (titanic) variants

- kyles and zoe (ahs coven PRE BUS INCIDENT) variants

- honey (hon), baby, and sweetheart warriors.

- the first time cherry visited the DX for gas was when she was DESPERATE. she would never go to the east side for anything, but she just so happened to be cruising by on a low tank. she knew who sodapop was, since he was regarded as “the dropout” around town but had never really met or seen him. maybe once or twice passing in the hallways, but nothing she could recall. however. this was the first time they officially met. she was expecting someone like dallas winston to be pumping her gas, so she entered with a stern face and tone of voice, bracing herself. however, when this handsome, subtly clean-cut looking boy hopped out from underneath a car and scurried over to her [tripping but catching himself (something he does NOT like to be brought up)] and greeted her with a toothy grin and “howdy,” she immediately felt guilty. they talked for a bit before another car pulled up, and by the end she was completely flustered and batting her eyelashes at him like a fool.

- cherry feels secure with sodapop knowing he doesn’t drink or really do any drugs (besides the occasional cigarette every once in a while, but he made sure to explain to her it was just to look “tuff.”) knows she doesnt have to worry about him acting all floozy and embarassing himself — or be afraid of an angry outburst.

- sodapop can NOT stop fidgeting. it’s terrible… and he honestly uses cherry as if she were a fidget toy at times. he would be like squeezing her cheeks, pinching the tips of her fingers, wiggling them back and forth, flopping her wrist, tracing up her arm, like legit would draw one line all around her face its crazy. they’re just laying down (supposed to be watching a movie) and he’s just got his head propped up on one hand on his side. using a finger to trace from her nose to her eyebrows and so on. shes just like “hon…. what are you doing….” “‘m just lookin’ at how pretty you are.” “looking or feeling?” “….both.”

- literally sad pou and happy pou

- sodapop is SO infatuated by her hair. like he can’t get over how red and long it is and how it looks perfectly styled, even after she just woke up. makes sure to tell her all the time (words of affirmation def one of his giving love languages, cherry recieving due to the lack of praise she recieved from her parents + bob). loves touching it because it’s just so… soft? honestly he paws at it and ruffles it up to tease her. which she swats at him like an angry cat.

- honestly afraid of how much he loves her. because of sandy and that one unnamed soc girl in the musical. but he knows he has nothing to worry about because it’s *her*.

- would be absolutely in love with her cat, Kitty. actually gets so distracted when she’s around

- rip curtis parents you would have LOVED. cherry valance. mrs curtis would always pick on sodapop and be like “how did’ya manage to get such a lovely lady with table manners ‘nd everythin’, but you ain’t even able to wipe your mouth with a napkin!” she giggles softly and he just looks up like “huh 😮”. also i think cherry would have felt so uncomfortable the first time meeting them. shes never been in a home so kind warm and loving. where everyone is intertwined and connected. i think she would have cried to soda that night, and that would be when she told him about her home life. he held her and just let her cry, comforting her as much as she needed.

[lowandlonesomelow]

•south park headcanons•

(or, rather, me rambling about this character and not proofreading afterwards.)

estella havisham

same as always. character may be read as aged up due to topics / timeline and whatnot, but no explicit age mentioned and nothing mdni.

--depictions of this character may not be canon accurate or how others/media portrays them. it is merely how i saw this character in watching the show and/or how i personally interpret them.

{{--estella is a character based off of one from a book, not just southpark. however, i have not yet gotten around to reading said book. and until i end up reading great expectations, this is based off of what ive seen from the episode 'pip'. these may be edited/i might make a separate post with my corrected or tweaked headcanons as i read the book.}}

•as a child, she had a large dollhouse.

i personally see her as one to like order and tidiness in her home. due to the conditions ms havisham's home was in, she never got the cleanliness she wouldve liked. to her, her dollhouse was a home she could decorate and fix as she wished. i think she woudve had a few dolls to go along with it, and envy the fact they got to exist in a space as nice as her dollhouse, and estella got the home she had.

•not too rude.

alright. for this one i feel like its a bit odd and i really could see it either way, but every time i watch the pip episode i view estella as someone who truly is not as 'mean' as she lets off. i believe ms. havisham pushed that insulting, rude, heartbreaker personality on estella far too much. every time estella called pip a string of insults, she said it in a way i interpreted as a learned manner. as if it were just words she learned sound good together. i suppose it could also be seen as estella's insults being second nature to her, but i think there was no intent or meaning behind her words. just her trying to come off as mean. and, yes, i do think she is a mean person. i think her personality is naturally rude, but i do not think it is as rude as some media portrays her as. i dont think she would only say insults to people. i think she still would insult, yes, but i dont think she would yell insults at someone for saying hi to her. (i dont think she would be the most sociable person, so said person might get responded with dirty looks and bitter tone, but not full on insults just for walking up to her.) though, her rudeness is a major part of her character, and i am not taking it away from her. i like her because of how she acts in that episode.

•she was rude to pip in the episode as a way to defend him

in the pip episode where pip went to first meet ms havisham, estella calls him rude names all along the way to ms. havishams room. yet, i dont recall her insulting him as much as the episode progressed. i saw this as estella purposefully being as offputting as possible so pip would not want to stay for the job. i believe she thought that by being mean to him, he would not want to take the job. as, her 'anger' seems to have dissipated slightly as the episode progressed, i think she did not want pip to fall into ms havishams trap. i see estella as one to have hated the idea of the genesis device and the heartbreaking. in my mind she truly just wanted to be her own person.

•as a teenager, her room is filled with dolls, toys, &c.

i think, once she finally managed to escape from ms havisham, she would have toys. to live the childhood she may have wanted, but never got. she may not play with them, but i think she would have those antique porcelain dolls with the curled hair. the pretty ones. i think she would like pretty things, things similar to the dress she wore in the latter part of the movie. they help her 'heal' her inner child.

fin.

////thats all for this post. however, not all i have for this character. i just think ive written alot already and my hand is aching. though, within this and the last post, i may make the number four a reoccurring amount of 'headcanons' per post. {i quite like the number four, it is inbetween my two favorite numbers-2 and 8.} that is, if i continue to post and dont end up deleting these in a weeks time...

[polyamorousmood]

Hey there :)

So I have no problem with my bf dating other people, and recently hes started having sth with someone else. Good for them! Legit, no problem with that by itself

But.. now I'm being left on read a lot, like majority of the time it feels like, no matter the topic or time. I just feel.. forgotten, I think, or replaced idk. But it feels pretty bad.

I dont want them to think I'm jealous or mad, I just wish he would still show me the same attention/care as before. Ive talked about how left on read makes me very insecure, due to fake friends and person past experiences before so I dont want to bring it up again.. but it hurts. Idk what to do?

Bad news, babe. You're gonna have to say something again. The good news though is that you can productively procrastinate it, because there's some stuff I want you to do first.

But before I get into that, I let having a cool opening distract me from very important other things that need said: That sucks, and I'm really sorry, but you can make it through this.

Now then. Time to productively procrastinate a difficult conversation. Look, I'm procrastinating it more by making it a read more! (It, um, it is A Lot. I took "blogging platform" literally on this one😅)

It sucks. Believe me, it bothers me too when I can't hear from my partner📵📴 because they're with my meta. It has been A Problem I've had to work through, so I think I'm actually pretty qualified to give advice on this.

Some of what I have to say is going to smart (old-timey word for sting) a bit, so I want to make it clear that I understand where you're coming from, so you can trust the part that stings is necessary. I imagine its something like this:

You relationship with your boyfriend is great! So great, you're happy for him to have someone else to love! That's. That's so rare and incredible, its a love beyond what most will know. And then he takes that love and wads it up and throws it in the back seat to make room for this new schmuck. The love is still there, it's just... in the back seat. And you never thought that would happen, because the relationship is so good! And you already said something, so you worry you're being a nag, which you don't want, because you ARE happy for them, you're so happy for them... except when you're not because you can't be happy when he can't be bothered to text you back. Its not really so much to ask, and you EXPLAINED why its important to you, so why doesn't he seem to care? You communicated, you did your part, and it was hard and scary! Surely harder than texting you back would be! And you don't want to feel like this, but. There's this anxiety that... shouldn't he want to text you back? Isn't that how he would act if he really did still care about you just as much?

Any of that resonate? I don't know you, so maybe some of it was way off base🎯, I don't know. But I hope enough of it was close enough to right that you know I get it when I say:

This isn't just your boyfriend fucking it up. This is, in part, probably you asking something unreasonable. To give you the exact same level of time an energy as when it was just you too is a big ask. To be able to supercede his time with the other person any time you want is a big ask. If you're only okay with your boyfriend having someone else if it doesn't cut into your time at all, how okay with it are you actually?

So before you talk to him about it, you gotta step back. Its not that you're wrong for feeling sidelined. But a poly relationship just isn't going to be the exact same as a monogamous one. It it were, I wouldn't have bothered making a blog, and I wouldn't have needed to because I wouldn't have a trail of loving, wonderful, burnt to ashes monogamous relationships behind me. Let's take a deep breath together. Pause here if you need.

Now, there are some questions here that do affect what I think would be fair. For example, if you're living with your boyfriend, and he's taking you for granted, always texting the other person when he's with you, you don't have any special time with him anymore, and then when he goes out its radio silence. That's a very different situation from you being in a long distance relationship so texting is your main form of communication/bonding and now he's got a new person that lives near him so he's with them constantly and now, what are you, chopped liver? for example. I'm going to give a list of things you might be doing that's unfair, and I want you to take a minute and evaluate as honestly as you can where you fall on that. This is a self-reflection, not an accusation, so please resist any temptations to get defensive (if you even feel them). I recommend taking out a pad of paper and committing to an answer for each. Some you may not be doing at all! Some okay maybe a little. And some now that you think about it, yeah actually, you're doing a lot. That's okay. You not handling it perfectly is okay, and doesn't mean we can't ask the boyfriend for accommodations still.

Are you valuing 1:1 time with your boyfriend as much as you're valuing (negatively) the time he spends 1:1 (not texting you) with his partner? IE, are you more bothered by him not texting you than you are appreciative when he takes time for you?

Are you texting him compulsively out of anxiety instead of because you have something more important to discuss?

Are you accidentally infringing on his other partner's time?

Are you trying to infringe on his other partner's time to reassure yourself that you're important to him?

Are you texting him to "test" him?

When you communicated that you didn't like being left on read, did you properly convey how big of a problem it is for you and what your expectations were?

When you communicated, did you allow space for negotiation and to work on the problem, or was it more like a list of demands?

Are you misplacing your feelings somehow? Is there something else that's bothering you that you don't feel comfortable bringing up?

Are you letting your anxieties run you? Is there something you could be doing to address your feelings?

Are you forgetting to weigh other allocations or shows of love he's making or you?

Is there anything else internally you might be overlooking in regards to this?

Whew! Heavy stuff. But you made it!🎉 Now, we'll dig into how his actions are making you feel. That last set was about what you could be doing better, and this one will help determine he could be doing better. But just like we weren't making accusations about you, we aren't making accusations about him either. We are assuming good faith on your boyfriend's part. This is still ultimately about your feelings and what reasonable accommodations could be made for them.

Do you feel the time allocation for you vs his other partner is fair? Why?

Does he seem to text them back more than you?

Does it seem like he's not taking your concerns seriously enough?

Does this issue look like a larger pattern? If so, what? How will that look long-term?

Has he made specific promises he hasn't kept to you in regards to this? If so, what were they and how hasn't he lived up to them?

Do you feel he's made adequate time for you to discuss concerns, or do you feel like he tries to rush through them?

Do you think he gave you a reasonably clear expectation of what him dating someone else would look like (or did he make it seem "nothing will change")?

Has he not responded to something critical?

Is there anything else he's done in regards to this that doesn't sit right with you?

You did it! 🎉Now we can officially start working on problem-solving. I imagine that was a lot more than you bargained for, for such a simple problem as "I want a text back," but its important to get everything laid out. This helps in a lot of ways. It helps guard against striking on a "solution" that isn't actually sustainable. It makes sure you're starting a discussion in good faith. And hopefully, it will help minimize having to return to the issue.

For the sake of formatting, we're going to address the questions for you first, then the questions about him, then how to have the hard conversation, then workarounds that you may not have considered that aren't really your or his problem. I actually think that third group has some of the better "quick fixes", if you can find one that works.

Starting with the questions about what you could be doing better, in order, skip any that don't apply:

Re: valuing 1:1 time -- Make active efforts to appreciate the time you do have more. Use this time as a guard against negative thoughts when he is unable to respond ("We spent all day together yesterday, a few hours today without hearing from him is fine")

Re: texting compulsively -- Be more vigilant about self-soothing. I find self-talk to be most effective for me. I cannot possibly cover everything here, but it sounds like it stirs up fears you're losing your partner. Since you cannot guarantee that will never happen, I find it most helpful to reassure myself I will be okay even if I do lose them. Another option is to make a reassurance bank, where you can store and see evidence of his affection without asking it from him. Your mileage may vary. If you really struggle with this, there's always therapy.

Re: accidental infringing -- Be more mindful of what you send. Save things that are non-urgent to discuss later, when you have his attention anyway.

Re: deliberate infringing -- Stop it. It will only strain things and make the outcomes you don't want more likely. See self-soothing. Find something else to distract you that you can put energy into.

Re: "testing" him -- See above. I know, its easier said than done. Do the hard work. That shit can ruin your life.

Re: didn't adequately express importance -- Well, its a good thing we're about to talk about it anyway! Really think through how you can explain how badly it makes you feel. We'll get into that more when we discuss How To Have the Conversation

Re: list of demands -- Well, its a good thing we're going to talk about it anyway! This time, see it as a negotiation. Ask him if that's feasible, or if its too much. But open to trying alternate solutions.

Re: misplaced feelings -- Take the advice on How To Have a Conversation and apply it to the thing that's actually the problem.

Re: managing anxieties -- Again, you'll have to find a way to self-soothe somewhat. That's not to say your partner shouldn't meet you halfway, but you do have to do your half.

Re: forgetting other expressions of love -- Literally make a list of all the things he's done/is doing for you. As many as you can think of. Add to it often. Pick a couple and do a deep dive on why that mattered so much to you and how you felt. Tell him, too. You gotta be grateful consciously, bro. This applies to all of life

Re: anything else -- Take that into account. Work on that, too, however you can. Be honest with him about your shortcomings when you address it.

A lot of these will require upkeep on your part (kind of mirrors🪞how texting you back consistently requires upkeep on his, huh?). Be prepared to discuss the changing you're going to make and have an actionable plan for them. Okay, his turn, same as before:

Re: fair time allocation -- does he need to make more time for you? Do he need to make protected time that is only for you? You said you feel forgotten, replaced, so maybe this is part of it.

Re: unequal texting -- first, consider why. If he lives with you, he's probably going to have to text the other person in front of you sometimes. If you still think its too much, again, protected time for you may be appropriate, he may need to do a better job keeping his New Relationship Energy (NRE) in check. Be prepared to discuss this, possibly including him defending himself!

Re: not taking concerns seriously -- Well, its a good thing we're discussing this again! Make sure you have an actionable, measurable metric he can do to show you progress here. (IE ❌"I need you to care more" ❌ but ✅"When you're unable to respond, I need you to say that you're busy so I know you thought of my needs" ✅)

Re: bigger patterns -- You will have to tell him you're concerned about those too. If it could become untenable for you, this will probably be a recurring discussion. Consider scheduling check-ins where you say one thing you think is going well and one thing you're worried about, for example.

Re: unkept promises -- here, you are super justified in being mad. Try not to be anyway. Try to be curious and interested in addressing the root problem. Ask him what got in his way, what middle ground he's confident he can manage. It is you and him vs the problem, even here, not you vs him.

Re: inadequate room to discuss -- Set expectations before the talk, and remind him of them if he forgets. (IE "I know this isn't nice to hear, but I need you to let me say my piece and talk through solutions, even if it takes awhile." and "I said I needed to talk through the solution. This sounds nice, but I'm concerned about X. How can we make sure that doesn't happen?") Consider reserving specific time to discuss it, consider reserving recurring time to discuss any problem, if you need it.

Re: didn't set expectations appropriately -- ask. Ask what this would ideally look like to him. If he's having trouble getting started, point out some differences you've already noticed, and ask if he thinks those are the new norm.

Re: didn't respond to something critical -- Establish a way he can see what is critical and what isn't. This might be texting something that can wait, but calling for something important, for example.

Re: anything else -- address that too. Give him a chance to explain himself. etc.

Okay, you've done everything up to this point alone. You're prepped. Now How Do You Have The Conversation?

For this type of stuff, I recommend the WIBS format. That is, "When [something happens], I feel [feelings] Because [explanation] So could you please [change]". But of course, it can't be that simple either. Critically you CANNOT say "you" before the "so could you please". The example I'm about to give is going to use the texting issue specifically, but if you've done the soul searching and found there's a bigger problem you want to address (which ngl, sounds like there might be something bigger based on what you sent), adjust accordingly! This is good general advice for any tough conversation. Anyway, here's what that might look like on the texting thing:

"When I am left on read, I feel anxious and betrayed, because I've had a lot of friendships completely fall apart, and that's always how it started. So could you please make a point to text me something when you read my message, even if its just 'lol' or you saying you want to discuss it later."

But wait a minute! That doesn't include any of the bullshit I just made you do. What the hell am I trying to pull? Okay okay, so we have to modify this a bit. Our new format is going to be something more like this: "When [something happens], I feel [feelings and impact], because [explanation]. I have tried [things you've tried], and I am still struggling because [reason why that hasn't helped, including what you could do better]. So I was hoping to look at some more solutions, like, would you be willing to try [change]." Which might in practice look something like

"When I am left on read, I feel so anxious and betrayed I start spiraling thinking the relationship is doomed, because I've had a lot of friendships completely fall apart, and that's always how it started. I have tried dropping some hints and self soothing, and I'm still struggling because this is a really bad anxiety that I didn't have to deal with before recently and even with the hints I'm not getting the response rate I would like. So I wanted to talk about it and see if you'd be willing to try making a point to text me something when you read my message, even if its just 'lol' or you saying you want to discuss it later."

And then! The discussion continues. Maybe he says "oh my god, yeah, I didn't realize it was bothering you that much, absolutely I can do that" and maybe he says "I'm with you all the time how is this still a problem?" or maybe its "actually, [other partner] gets really anxious when I text, which is why I don't respond unless its important. I figured I could talk to you about dinner plans any time" and whatever the case is, you keep talking until you've set on clear goalposts and have reassurance they feel okay to all parties. So in order, your responses might be something like "are you sure you can manage that? I was really worried by my hints not being picked up on that that was the reason", "I know its a problem. That's why I'm talking to you about it. If that's not a good solution to you, let's come up with something else, because the way things are is really hard on me," and "okay. I don't want to make [other partner] anxious either, but this isn't working for me, can we find something else to try?"

Allow him to explain, be prepared to explain more yourself, and be willing to try a variety of solutions. Acknowledge

Is this my longest post yet? Maybe! Wild. Let's top it off with something easier: The Hack Solutions🧑‍💻. Sometimes, anxiety isn't logical, and goofy workarounds can be super helpful! Here are some off the top of my head, but feel free to get creative, too! Not all of these may be feasible, not all of them may help. But a lot less work than some other solutions so worth mentioning!

You said being "left on read" is what bothers you. Can you just... turn off read receipts? Or switch to a messaging app that doesn't have them? Can he just not read your texts until he has the time to respond?

A lot of phones have a driving mode, that will send an automated reply to texts. Can he turn that on when he's with his other partner so you get a reply like "hey I'm busy rn, but I'll text back later!" and would that help?

If you just want to feel more involved, maybe it would help if he just like, took a picture of his pizza to send to you. Reminds you you're thought of, doesn't require conversation.

Something that I've done with friends is write like, a dozen short affirmations/reassurances, and have them keep them in a special spot. When they need to feel loved, they can take one out to read. This has worked PHENOMENALLY for them, and still protects your partner's time away while allowing you to get love direct from your partner WHENEVER you want.

Can he just kick it with you both concurrently?

Can you have a friendship with your meta where you text THEM like "tell [bf] to text me back real quick" and then your bf doesn't feel bad about texting in front of the other partner because they're telling him to do it?

Classically condition yourself. Like, every time he leaves you on read, eat a chocolate. And then sometimes instead of it being "boyfriend won't text me :(((" it'll be "oooo! candy time!"

ai yai yai! That's all I have, though! Come back if you need help working through some specifics. I'm very happy to help however I can. Its not your fault you're struggling with this. Most polyam relationships have to deal with this to some extent, but with a little effort, you can make it through. Best of luck to you, friend. 💙💖🖤

[cimmerian1275]

A little insight from me when it comes to drawing

Over the past year or so, ive gotten allot of people asking me "how do u do that?/i dont understand how you can draw this??" & "how do you draw so fast?" & "i wish i could be as productive as you" & "how are you so good at art?" <- to name a few of the most common comments i get.

——————

I never have a good answer for that in the moment because i overthink and spiral. But i can ramble my thoughts about it here.

I dont THINK i draw very fast, comparatively to some other people my art style/method that ive developed up over the years actually makes drawing for me take longer than it would for someone else.

Theres definitely artists out there who take a longer time to draw than me, and artists out there who can draw much faster than me.

But for me personally? Im probably somewhere in the middle.

I technically do draw very fast with the amount of details i can add in a short span of time, but 50% of the time spent drawing is actually me sketching, adjusting the sketch, using the liquify tool, resizing and rotating things a bunch of times, resketching the sketch and basically creating a whole rough draft of the artwork before i even begin drawing the actual lineart.

If my artwork took 2 hours to complete, i can guarantee you the first hour was just the sketch.

And after explaining that 👆 it makes it easier to explain "how are you so good at art?". For me, being good at art is... tough to explain because the way i view "good art" is probably different to how others think it is. Itll be a long info dump but ill circle back to that at the end.

——————

I unfortunately have a bit of a perfectionist streak and a very spur of the moment "if i can, why not?" attitude and that heavily influences my art. This is where being neurodivergent (think adhd, autism) becomes a very important factor to consider during my art process:

If the inspiration hits me to draw *something* in a cool dynamic pose that the art gods just beamed into my brain, ill go "ohhh hey that would look awesome!" which then turns into "why not draw that right now? whats stopping me?" ill pause whatever im doing and leap into sketching out that idea. I am a tragedy when it comes to impulse control.

This part is where i inevitably get doomed by my own brain xD

I have two options ahead of me:

1, 'Start drawing right now before the idea runs away' OR 2, 'Let that idea float around in my head for a few weeks, procrastinating how awesome it would be but never actually act on it'

And when i pick option 1?

Ill forget and drop whatever half baked plans i had for the day, ill forget i havent had anything to eat in the last 10 hours, ill forget i should probably go outside and touch grass. Ill lock in, grab my pen and get comfortable because i wont be moving for a couple of hours.

Ill leap into sketching that idea while its still hot, because i know if i just sit there and let myself procrastinate about it, ill never actually draw anything.

I can spend around 2 - 5 hours on average just non-stop drawing when it comes to bigger projects. I absolutely suck at taking breaks, and i only ever do when i get thirsty or begin to feel my brain telling me it needs some enrichment (which is usually just getting up for a snack or drink). Take this with a grain of salt because im no professional or psychologist, but i like to think that i have found my own personal ways weaponize my adhd/autism to aid me with art.

(Lots of people are probably going to relate to what i say next, so buckle up! I need to do some explaining first so you can understand how my brain works)

I tend to lose focus, SO EASILY, i can switch up conversations really fast without a sweat and enjoy it. I can be reading, listening/humming to a song, and have a secret third option where a corner of my brain is thinking of fanfic and art ideas all at the same time. Ill zone out in the middle of a book, a show, an artwork, and start procrastinating about the randomest of things. Ill spend a good couple of minutes trying to stack my pillows just right to sit in a comfortable posture, ill get pissed off if theres itchy fabric brushing against my drawing arm and ill drop everything to fix that, ill keep fluffing up that blanket on my lap until its in the exact right position.

These things often make it difficult for me to sit down, get focused, and start drawing...

But i actually have a good list of tricks that make it possible for me to avoid distractions and comfortably lock in on drawing. And oh boy, when i lock in i reeaaaallly lock in.

——————

Some common problems i face when drawing, that you might have trouble with aswell:

🔶 Ill have an art idea hit me, but by the time i open up the program i use to draw its already nyoooomed back into the void it came from: IT SUCKS!! I lost the idea and cant grasp it in my imagination :C but ive got a strategy i use to grip that idea and keep it in my head long enough for me to draw. And its MUSIC. I love scrolling my playlist for the right song/playlist that fits the "vibe" of what im trying to draw, and i often associate an artwork to a specific song. Some examples of what happens when i just looped 1 song (or playlist) the entire time as i drew it: - 'Odysseus' - 'King Of The World' - 'Falling Feels A Little Like Your Flying' - 'Let The Wind Carry Us' - 'Gold' - 'First Flight/Flight Over Alps' - 'To The Ends Of The Earth' For ALL of these big artworks, i owe so much to music for enabling me to lock in and get that idea down on paper. Not every artwork is based on 1 song though, sometimes ill just have a playlist on shuffle in the background instead as i draw away. I find music helps slow down and focus my thoughts long enough for me to imagine what im actually trying to draw.

🔶 Ill stop midway drawing and lose focus, just zone out for seemingly no reason: Ive discovered when that happens for me, ive simply gotten lost in a decision making process at some point while i was drawing. When i eventually notice ive zoned out, i pause what im doing and take a step back to think... "What was i trying to do earlier?" -> I was trying to decide what part of the artwork i was going to draw next, theres a few things i rlly wanna draw now but i can only pick one! I got lost imagining how both options would look when i do them, and once id stopped to procrastinate about those my thoughts had taken the wheel and spiraled into a ditch instead of actually going ahead and drawing it. This is really common in my case, and its often about 5 songs later that ive noticed im just sitting here staring into space thinking about a fanfic i read 2 months ago and how much i loved it, and not working on the artwork in front of me xD

🔶 Ive lost the motivation to start/finish an artwork/project: Happens all the time, and its horrible, i have projects, commissions and owed art that people are waiting for... yet i cant seem to find the will to work on them. I dont really have advice for this, but i want to drop some wisdom on you and say that Its okay if you cant seem to draw that right now. You dont need to put everything else on hold to finish this, you can start a fresh project instead of continuing that old one thats looming at you from the corner of your files. Dont allow yourself to feel burdened and pressured to complete something, dont let the mere thought of losing motivation turn something you love to do into something you hate. (this is probably not effective advice for anything with a due date, but it can still help in a roundabout way) Ive come to think that when youve lost motivation, your brain is simply just still loading the ideas and motivation, theyll come to you in time. Its like waiting for a massive game to install or update, its going to take a while, but youll still get it in the end. When your motivation finally returns, you can be satisfied that youll enjoy what your drawing again! Maybe you just needed a break from it, maybe your brain needed a moment to work up the courage.

I still have artworks that are MONTHS in the making, and that people are still waiting for, but im content to know what when my motivation returns to finish those ill actually be able to put genuine effort and joy into completing them. Meanwhile, ill keep drawing what im currently motivated for so that i dont get rusty <3

🔶 ARTBLOCK!!! *falls into the void/dies for a month* The thing thats always peeking over my shoulder and asking if its time.... From my perspective, i perceive art block TWO ways:

Exhausted mentally, burnt out <- OR -> Literally art-blocked, your stuck without ideas, trapped in a rut D:

Exhausted and burnt out? Too dead inside to draw? Thats the universe knocking on your door saying you reeaaally need to take a vacation, listen to it. Burning out is NOT fun, and the longer you push past your limits the longer youll have to spend recovering from it. Having breaks for a couple days to a week every once in a while does wonders for my sanity.

Literally facing art-block, ideas not idea-ing? Ive discovered that my brain is asking for enrichment when i face that, it wants to try something new and exiting and fresh, it wants to stretch its muscles and stop drawing the same old boring stuff youve been drawing for the past couple of weeks.

Try drawing in a new artstyle!! Maybe change what brushes you draw lineart with, make them thicker, or thinner? Try a brush with a unique texture to it. Draw with a smaller/larger canvas than usual, participate in a daily art challenge or event? Spontaneously draw someones OC that you like. You just need a breath of fresh air and to mix things up a little bit <3

🔶 Hyperfixating so much that i forget to take care of myself: Half the time I WILL get really bad hyperfixation on a bigger artwork because im in the zone and i locked in too hard that its become obsessive, and it often feels like...

"If i dont finish this or keep drawing, my anxiety spikes like theres something after me and theres this unwarranted sense of NEED to do good and get that artwork done"

Thats the big driving force that gets me to be productive with my art. Depending on how you view it, it can be seen as a good or bad thought process. This is usually a good heads up that im getting close to a burn out when im finally done with that artwork, and i really NEED a break. Stop for lunch, or dinner, grab a snack and walk around a bit.

——————

To the people who say: "how are you so good at art? how do you do that?", "i wish i could be as productive as you", "tell me how/teach me your ways"

Im gonna be sappy and say its NOT straightforward and this is definitely not the answer youd expect, but im good at what i do because ive taken time to look at myself and understand how my own brain works.

Im good at art because ive spent all this time getting SUPER introspective, picking my own brain apart and discovering that: "when i do this, it makes me enjoy drawing! If this makes it enjoyable it means i can draw more" and that ultimately leads to "When im able to draw more, im constantly growing and improving my skills from all of the experiences im gaining, i now have the motivation and passion to do THIS because im actively enjoying it"

If i know what distracts me, what makes me lose motivation, what causes me to burn out, what i dont enjoy drawing... and ive learned ways to overcome those obstacles? Thats what i think enables me to be a good artist and be so productive.

Im gonna be cliche and say LOTS of practice is also literally the only reason why im where im at today. Sure, i already had a boost at the beginning because i was naturally artistic and its probably genetic somehow with all the artistically talented people in my family, but its because ive put work into refining those skills and honing them that theyre actually GOOD. They would be useless if i hadnt done anything to build them up.

You dont need to have a predestined skillset to become good at art, your just a little behind and have a longer learning curve. Ive watched a close friend of mine over about 5 years, go from really bad scribbles and awkward looking doodles to practicing and discovering they have a really good knack for colors and shapes.

I like to think "whats actually stopping me from learning to draw?", whats stopping me from downloading an art app and messing around, whats stopping me from doodling in the corner of a book, whats stopping me from stealing sticky notes and scribbling on them, whats stopping me from wanting to improve more and more? Too many people are close-minded and negative with "i dont have any devices to draw on" so what? grab a book and pen, i started with traditional art myself. "But i dont have pens or drawing books?" that sucks, but whats stopping you from grabbing a stick and even drawing in the dirt or sand or snow?

[supercriminalbean]

Sneaking around.

Derek Morgan x GN!Reader.

Summary: Derek and Reader start a relationship but keep it secret because their Dad is David Rossi.

Warnings: Kissing, swearing, drinking, (I think thats it, let me know if ive missed anything)

Words: 2.4k

Derek knew dating you would have its risks, but he didn’t really care. How could he because whenever he looked in your eyes he felt at home and that his world is perfect and

full of love. He met you one night at a family night hosted by David Rossi. Dave decided it was time to introduce his team to his kid, one he had kept hidden from most of the team, knowing it was safer to keep his family hidden away from the spotlight.

Morgan was given a stern warning from Rossi just minutes before you were introduced, of course Morgan promised to stay away from you, knowing the reputation he has. But the moment his eyes set on you, he regrets making that promise because he has never seen someone as gorgeous as you. The way your smile just brightens up the whole room, the way your laugh is the most addicting sound he has ever heard, he wishes he could hear it every single day. That night is filled with the team getting to know you, you don’t know how but you find yourself being drawn towards Derek Morgan. Your dad had warned you to stay away from that man, according to him he's a good man but Derek Morgan can be a bit of a player. You can’t help but laugh at your dad’s warning, you're not after a relationship, especially someone on your dads team, plus you're a little bit of a player yourself.

That night is full of talking and getting to know your Dads team, so you know who has back when he's in the field. Somehow that night ends with you being invited to a Doctor Who marathon with Penelope and Reid the following week and the next day you're going to go and help Derek Morgan pick out some window frames for his house he’s renovating. 

~~~

You met Derek nine months ago, and you two started dating six months ago. You both decided to keep it to yourselves for now, none of you wanting to tell your Dad about it. You both hang out and go on dates on the low, having to make sure you're not ringing him when he’s near your Dad at all. You enjoy being secretive with him, enjoying the private moments with him. It becomes hard at the dinners your Dad hosts, doing your best to keep your distance from him, not being allowed to hold his hand or lean into his side, it sucks. Especially tonight, tonight is your six month anniversary and somehow your Dad decided to do another pasta night and it would look suspicious if you both ditched tonight. So here you are, standing in the middle of the living room, talking and laughing with Aaron and Penelope. Glancing outside to where your other half is, he’s sitting down on the outside table with Jack and Henry, helping them with some sort of project, and your heart can’t help but melt at how good he is with kids as you finish your glass of wine.

“Ciao ragazzino, can you get some more wine from the cellar for me” Dave calls out, walking out of the kitchen, his eyes landing on you. Looking over at your dad you send him a quick smile, wiping your mind off your boyfriend.

“Sure thing Dad” Smiling you quickly make your way downstairs to the wine cellar. You take your time grabbing the bottles, enjoying the quiet.

“Need some help?” His loud voice makes you jump.

“Jesus hell Derek” Huffing feeling annoyed as you turn around to look at him. Spotting him leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed with the biggest cocky smile on his face.

“You need to be less jumpy cupcake” Derek chuckles as he walks over to you, his eyes sliding over your body before landing on types pretty eyes of yours. 

“Hard to do when you sneak up on me” You grumble softly as you let him pull you into his arms, resting your head in his chest.

“I missed you” He whispers softly as he kisses your forehead, resting his head onto yours. “I haven’t seen you all week and I wasn’t even able to hug when I finally saw you today”

“I know baby, but you know why I can’t tell my dad yet” Biting back a sigh as you could just imagine your Dads lecture if he found out. 

“I get it pumpkin, but I still don’t like it” He slowly pulls away, his arms resting around your waist.

“Maybe next week we can tell, maybe it's time” You smile lightly as you look up at him, meeting his kind and loving eyes.

“Good, because then I can hug you whenever I want” he chuckles before kissing you smoothly.

“What a flirt Derek” You can’t help but laugh when pulling away. 

“Come on, you better get back before they wonder what you're up to” Derek chuckles, passing you the bottles of wine before following you out. 

~~~

You make your way back to the living room, via the kitchen leaving a bottle of wine for Dave, bringing the rest back with you, topping up your own glass. When you enter the living room you're glad to see Derek is already there and talking away with Reid and Garcia. You stand by yourself for a while, you can’t help but stare at Derek, the way he is with his friends always warms your heart, the way he is just always himself makes your heart flutter. 

“I thought you may have gotten lost down there” Aaron smirks to himself as he comes to stand beside you unnoticed, your eyes too occupied with something else across the room.

“Oh I just couldn’t find the right wine he wanted” You lie quickly, without a glance at Aaron, knowing if you did he would easily read straight through you. Your uncle has alway been the best at reading your lies especially when it comes to your love life.

“Huh, I thought your Dad kept them in alphabetical order” Aaron smirks more when you finally look at him, your face heating up under his stare.

“He does, but I don’t like reading wine bottles”

“Oh right, well I think Dave wanted to come and check on you. Luckily I managed to distract him, isn't it?” Aaron's grin widens just slightly as your eyes narrow.

“Are you implying something here, Aaron” You have to hold back a smile as you stare him down.

‘Only that it's been over six months now that you have complained about anyone while babysitting Jack for me” He looks so cocky when you don’t respond right away.

“Well, cockneys doesn’t suit you Uncle Aaron” Groaning softly as you sip on your wine. 

“Oh come on, you can’t hide from me” Aaron laughs softly, his eyes lingering on you. He can’t help but appreciate the look in your eyes as they turn back to Morgan, the same look Morgan had on his face every single time he’s texting away on his phone.

“You two should just tell Dave already, If i have figured it out, it won’t take him long” 

“Yeah but he told us to stay away from each other when we first meet” You grumble before looking up at Aaron for advice.

“Yes, but this was before you two look at each other like no one else exists, just tell him, he’ll understand” Aaron smiles, but smirking over at Derek then back at you. “But maybe warn Mogan, that if he hurts you it's not just Dave he needs to worry about” Aaron sips on his wine before glances down at you, where you're rolling your eyes.

“Yeah yeah Aaron” Rolling your eyes before smiling. “He could take you both anyway”

~~~

As the night goes on, it's filled with laughter and drinks, once dinner has finished everyone is seated on the couch. You're not sure how much alcohol you have consumed tonight, you stopped counting after glass number four and Garcia brought out tequila. Aaron and JJ have left already, claiming they have to get back to their kids, leaving Dave on ‘Dad’ duty. The team starts playing truth or dare, excluding Dave who has headed off to bed already, making sure that everyone knows where to sleep for the night.

A takes a few rounds and some shots for the game to get interesting, Spencer was staying sober and laughing at his overly loud drunk friends. 

“Okay okay, (Y/n) your turn” Penelope exclaims, putting her glass down, grinning at you “Truth or dare” 

“Hit me hard Pens, dare” Laughing as you lean into the couch, all four of you are sitting on the floor, while Spencer watches from the couch.

“Ohh okay Ems, help me think” Penelope whines leaning into the women, who smirks evilly at you.

‘Oh no no, you love evil” Smirking back at her, never one to back down from a challenge.

“I dare you to kiss the hottest person in the room” Emily sniggers as you glare at her.

“If you just want me to kiss you Emily all you gotta do is ask” Your laugh turns into a groan, as her smirk widens.

“Oh we all know it's not me you were staring at all night” Emily teases back while Penelope giggles while throwing some ‘Ohhhhhs’ at you. You glance over at Derek who is smirking widely at you before wiggling his eyebrows making you laugh. Pulling yourself up on to your knees, you crawl carefully over towards him.

“Well hi” His smirk is adorable as he cups your face.

“You're annoyingly cute” Giggling softly as you press your lips against him firmly, almost losing yourself as he starts kissing back, his arm wrapping around you pulling you into his lap. Cheers erupt around the room, forcing you two to finally pull away, snuggling down in between his legs as you all look around the room laughing with them.

~~~

“So this is who you're dating then” Penelope grins at him.

“Wait you two are dating, like officially” Emily mouth falls open as she gawks at them.

“How the hell did you figure that out Babygirl?” Derek groans softly, wrapping his arms around you, resting his head on your shoulder. 

“Oh come on” Garcia scoffs before smirking. “It wasn’t hard, you’ve been smiling at that phone of yours to much lately and also you haven’t spoken about anyone else but (Y/n) since you meet them”

“Aww you like me” Laughing sweetly as you lean into him.

“No I love you, dummy” He rolls his eyes as he laughs pressing a kiss against your neck.

“Aww you love me”

“Okay that's cute, but sickening” Emily fakes gags before smiling.

“So does Dave know?” Reid asks.

“No, no one knows about us,” Morgan answered.

“Well, not no one, Aaron figured it out tonight” Groaning softly, as you tell Derek.

“Oh great, my boss knows” Morgan huffs out a laugh as he leans backwards.

“He also threatens you with bodily harm if you hurt me” A soft chuckle slips through your lips as your eyes start closing, the alcohol making you sleepy.

“Oh, an overprotective uncle and Dad, goodluck Morgan '' Emily laughs as his face drops.

“Funny Prentiss” He pokes his tongue out at her, before slowly standing up pulling you with him. “We are going to bed,” Morgan informs them, his arm wrapping around your waist.

“Penelope beat you to it” Spencer smirks, as he grabs a blanket. You three all turn around to spot an asleep Penelope, cuddled into Emily's side.

“Guess I’m sleeping here tonight then” Emily laughs, taking the blanket from Spencer, snuggling down for the night. 

~~~

Dave wakes up to a quiet house, walking out he spots Emily and Penelope cuddled up on the couch, a blanket spread over them and an empty bottle of tequila on the coffee table. Dave chuckles softly as he leaves them before, walking past the guest room where he figures Spencer and Morgan are before heading to your room. He opens the door slowly, hearing low voices coming through, he guesses your awake. He peaks in quietly and he wishes he never did.

“What the fuck” He exclaims, his eyes almosting falling out of his head with how wide they are. He wasn’t wrong, you are awake and currently laid on top of Morgan, pressing your lips against him. Both you and Derek’shead shoot towards the door with fear, your heart pounding away. 

“Ever heard of knocking” You gulp thickly as you stare at your Dad, rolling off of Derek quickly, thankful you both were still fully dressed. 

“Downstairs, five minutes” Dave glares at Derek before walking out, the door closing with a slam.

“Well that went well” Derek groans as he sits up, meeting your amused look.

“Hey at least we had clothes on” Laughing softly as you hug him, kissing him gently. “You ready?”

“Don’t have a choice, do I cupcake?” He smirks lightly, standing up.

~~~

You both make your way down stairs, hand in hand. Making your way to the patio where you can see your Dad is. You both take a seat opposite him, taking a deep breath.

“So how long has this been going on” Dave sighs, looking up at you both.

“Six months” Derek informs him, a small smile on his face.

“Six months” Dave huffs, holding back a smile of his own before glaring at Derek. “I told you to stay away from them”

“I know, and I tried but I can’t resist them Dave, they're different and this isn't just some fling for me I promise” Derek smiles just a little more as he speaks, his hand squeezing yours.

“Better not be”

“It's not, I love them” Derek smiles, glancing over at you, always loving the way your face lights up when he says it.

“And Dad, I love him too” You smile back at Derek, his growing even more.

“Okay okay I’ve heard enough” Dave smiles, shaking his head. “Well Derek you know if you hurt them, I know how to kill you and make sure no one ever finds your body” 

“Dad you don’t need to threaten him, Aaron already did that” Laughing quietly as you inform your Dad, his face dropping.

“Aaron knows? Excuse me, I need to make a phone call” Dave grumbles as he stands up walking past you two. “Oh yeah welcome to the family Derek” Dave Pats his shoulder before walking out.

[valleygirlmukuroikusaba]

why is kaito even poisoned anyway.

like his backstory is kinda normal ish so ig the drawback is if u have a safe backstory so ig get fucked by the narrative because no way someone as influential as kaito could win

and idk undiagnosed poison probably was like. he really wish people could help him like kaito does not like suffering. he helps people to alleviate their suffering bc that’s like something no one else could really provide him.

and while maki’s suffering is addressed.

maki has no real way of curing him. and like if maki knew about the poison like maki would do everything she can to figure out how to cure him but she doesn’t know. anything abt poison or diagnosing people. and no one in v3 has medical related knowledge

she cared for sick kids but what about the sick kids she cared for that she couldn’t save? after all she needed to become a assassin to protect the kids because they can’t save themselves. so like

caring for a kaito she knew she could never save. but realizing that maybe she would still be able to save herself and kaito wouldn’t want to see maki agonize over his health.

it would probably be painful for kaito to see her be so concerned and desperate to try to make things right

maki often feels like she needs to sacrifice herself bc her life only exists to protect. to be violent in the face of the world in order to protect

but idk she was so close to having a second choice. a choice not about sacrifice or protection

new information that maybe she would try to stray from her backstory by doing not what she was designed to do. but do what she wants to do

and yeah kaito can be a bit overboard with the existentialism. space is awesome but he doesn’t hate where he is rn(aside from people killing eachother but it’s just more sorrow than hate)

he just doesn’t feel like anyone can save him from his own poison so he’s completely trying to reassure himself that the path he is heading isn’t a leap into the void.

but he does look back and realize that he might want to stay. but the poison. ughhfhd the poison the people aren’t the issue it’s the damn poison what the hell

and maki just wants to stay where she is.

and she wants to provide kaito that kind of shelter that she’s sworn her life on making room for in a world that would probably kill her if she ever lets her guard down

so the point is uhhhhhhuhhhhhh poison he just got here poisoned bc he would be too powerful otherwise.

a prevention measure of keeping hope from being spread. to keep the game going just a bit longer.

keebo plays the role of hope but he wants to destroy the game from being frustrated by being held back despite his good intentions.

but kaito wants to save the game. save maki because she needs the game to overcome her own fear and do the thing that kaito could never provide for himself.

end the killing game without destroying it but by simply living in it

and that’s why maki is a farming sim gamer.

but also kaito might be a bit farmsim pilled

bless farming simulator people . see farming simulator people got whole bunch a stuff going on. go build farm grow a apple tree and look at the sky.

the stars shine brightest where there’s no light to obscure the view.

i know bc ive left this city and its fucking awesome.

and it covers from one horizon to the next and really seeing it in person just hits different.

okay i was talking abt danganronpa but whatever but its a vivid memory just like closing my eyes to remember just how that looks. i think abt that a lot

[wienerbenis]

dude the worst part about the tcc is seeing the exact same people, like in my time of being in the tcc ive seen atleast 40 cals which the most percentage of them are trannies and claim to have DID, oh and the eric and dylan introjects or whatver theyre called, they all act the same and its like, how many of you are there?? i dont see a point in even interacting with them, theyre just there to exist for their pretty blog banners and strawpage intros. no personalities.

the acedmy maniacs are weird enough for me not to hate on them but theyre starting to get on my nerves almost as much as those other degenerates, but keep being yall you weirdos.

and i hate how much of the tcc is just people thirsting over the perpetrators but i mean what did i expect really, but STILL, mabye its just me, but ive never found them attractive(mostly talking about dylan n eric here) being a queer guy myself, i only found them cool , i guess thats just me, but look, i mean like, fine, thirst over them all you want, but it gets to a point where it’s annoying, we’ve already heard the: “omg hes so hottt “ a thousand times, get creative. PLEASE.

and the fanart too. god, i wanna be nice to the artists i really do, but its getting boring, really. its good, but its getting repetitive, put them in a kebab shop or something and make an alternate universe where instead of shooting up a school they make kebabs with laxatives inside of them and so instead of killing them with guns theyd kill them by making them shit their organs out. and draw all of that. yea

edits? i cant hate, no matter how corny and cringy they are i adore the edits. im super biased

and props to the ones that enjoy the more obscure cases, if you go out of your way to find the obscure cases, i like you.

oh and dont get me STARTED on the snowflakes, dude, you’re in the tcc, your favs were most definitely racist homophobic transphobic, why are you so pressed when someone says a slur ?? 🥀

and the ones that actively post about zero day and enjoy it and then write tcc dni in their bios 🥀🥀 r we srs. you’re actively enjoying characters who are school shooters. idgaf if its just media and not irl, its based of the real case bru. just let the tccers interact. we dont bite. well most of yall probs do. most of yall have rabies.

most of the normies think that the tcc is full of wierdos who get off to school shooters. half of the tcc is like that, but, i really wish the tcc could be seen as edgy and corny weirdos who love hate the perpetrators instead. you are not inlove with the dead perpetrators. you just like the adrenaline of liking someone/something that you shouldnt, being in love with the perpetrators/murderers is just a phase, but researching about the cases and recreating it is forever ❤️🥀

go recreate what your favs did, do humanity a favour and erase atleast some bit of the dirt that is the human race, and or yourself, mabye youll finally feel like you have a purpose, to cleanse this earth of its grossest and most perverted creations

(or just go jerk off and cut yourself and whine about your miserable life on tumblr to people that dont care and post suicidal posts to get atleast a bit of attention from randos online, the attention your parents never provided you with)

that or decide that living this miserable life isnt worth it and decide to get better (or just kys)

thats it for my rant

benis out 🥀

[wilsons-three-legged-siamese]

another fic of mine woah 😩

fandom; house md

can be interpreted as non slah or slah between house/wilson

summery; wilson is dying, being taken care of a person. but wilson cant remember who they are.

word count; 1.3k

tw; major character death.

a/n: i dont have ao3 so it shall not be put up on there. if it is notify me, ill say if i have given permission as if someone asks i probably will say yes.

this was based on the song "rises the moon - liana flores"

rises the moon.

days seem sometimes as if they'll never end.

its august. the 20th if we're being exact. coming to the close of summer and the opening of autumn, usually being my favourite time of the year. cozy sweaters, warm socks and scarfs, the perfect weather. usually sunny with a nice breeze. well, i wish i could enjoy it. instead, im stuck in bed, my breathing laboured and my body shaking. though, this year, summer was my favourite.. june. i really enjoyed that, when i could walk without aid and just, enjoy life. ever since mid july, ive been deteriorating quicker than an abandoned building, which has been agonising. i want the pain to go away, please. it hurts..

but i dont want to die.

from the bedroom, i hear the singing voice again, a soothing melody. their voice smooth and deep. i sigh softly, it being a sort of comfort for me, knowing at least someone was there and i wasn't alone. their humming and muffled singing drowns out the continuous beeping of the heart monitor besides me. they had stolen the machine after faking being ill in a walk-in clinic, once the doctor had done to complain to the dean about them being an ass, they smuggled the monitor and brought it back. the good ol' days hm? that day was probably the most ive complained and laughed for a long, long time.

a mass than sat on the bed, the weight shifting slightly on the mattress. i ket out an involuntary groan, my back being slightly unsupported.

"hey, i made some broth for you.. its 1, and i think you should at least try and drink it for me," they murmured.

the bowl, of what i assume was broth, was set down on the small table besides me. soon enough, long, lanky arms were wrapped around my middle, gently pulling me up to sit up. wait.. what time did they say again.. 1 was it? only.. 1?

the sun digs its heels to taunt you.

the rim of the bowl was scarcely pressed to my lips, the bowl being slightly hot. i signal them to tip it a little so i can take a sip. and so i do. and holy shit..

thats fucking amazing.

the warm, soupy liquid runs down my throat, a sort of feeling i dont get that often, especially being warm. the way he flavours mix together is phenomenal, the spices and the subtle beef. its flavourful, but not enough to freak my taste buds out, which happens all too often now.

"is it okay?" they ask, their voice soft and gentle.

i hum with a slight nod.

but after sunlit days, one thing stays the same:

rises the moon.

days fade into a watercolour blur.

its been.. maybe a week? my sense of time is so off, it could be a week for a few days.. lets say its been a few days - to make me feel better. im now slipping in and out of consciousness, which is concerning in itself. i dont know how long im out for at a time. theyve been becoming more and more worried about me. i mean, there was always an elephant in the room, hell even when i was first diagnosed. but, the elephant has been growing larger and larger than before, making it hard to ignore. we have to adress it sometime.

but its hard to breathe.

then im awoken by a coughing fit.

it shakes my whole body, racking everything as i shut my eyes tight, desperately trying not to wake them up behind me. but, of course they woke up, they always do. i tried to savour the two, lanky but muscular arms around my abdomen, as they were warm and comforting, but soon, all i could feel was pain.

"are you okay?" they ask, their voice still a bit groggy from sleep.

i hum, my voice still hoarse even though i barely made a sound.

this just reminds me of them, i swear something to do with an infarction to the leg. but i cant quite remember.. or remember them.. their face is slightly recognisable, but not by a lot at all. my memorys been wracked up.. pisses me off, i wanna know whos caring for me. i wanna thank them, using their name, recogising their face.

memories swim up and haunt me.

"hmm.. mm!" i hum, trying to catch their attention.

they run over, quickly turning me on my side and holding the bucket to my mouth. i start to cry as i retch, vomiting harshly into the bucket, they rub my back gently, mumbling words of encouragement and reassurance softly to me. finally, i stop. glancing down at the small puddle of bile and saliva, i frown slightly.

look into the lake, shimmering like smoke.

i look into their eyes. my, coffee like brown into their, ocean like blue. scared and helpless meet concerned and determined. they run their skinny, pianist fingers through my frail hair. they always wanted to care for me, secretly.

rises the moon.

"close your weary eyes, i promise you that soon the autumn comes to darken faded summer skys." they pause for a moment. "breathe, breathe, breathe."

almost immediately after hearing that, i start to cry, just a full on breakdown. they quickly embrace me, wrapping their arms around my middle. i dig my face into theit shoulder, tears still rolling down my pastey cheeks. its nice.

oh to be hugged like this again.

days pull you down just like a sinking ship.

its been a day? maybe.. i dunno anymore. it might've been 2, 3, 4 a week, who knows - not me thats fot sure. it might be september now, i last remember it was august, that seems like yesterday. them, my carer, whatever, i dont know their name anymore. i dont know who they are, i cant see.. its all blurry and fuzzy, so is my memory. i cant remember the last time i ate..

floating is getting harder.

"im sorry.." they mumble, their voice snapping me out of my thoughts - though it was barely above a whisper.

their thin fingers run through my hair again, gently letting it fall between the gaps and repeating.

oh, i forgot to mention, i also cant speak.. or breathe for that matter. i think the tumor - or tumors more like - have begun to press against my trachea and esophagus, making his hard to both eat and breathe. wheezing has become a normal, daily routine.

considering my condition,

i have tonight,

and thats it.

because of my fate, i keep repeating a phrase i once said to a child as they went through chemo. they had no parents, i was the best thing they had..

but thread the water, child, and know that meanwhile: rises the moon.

days pull you up just like a daffodil.

its the next day, i think. its really hard to just think. the weezings gotten worse, i feel awful, like horrendous. its awful... maybe i am ready to die. i can just subtly feek them holding my fraile hand, stroking their thumb over my knuckles. only barely. im scared, terrified more like. i dont even know who they are, but im scared for them.. they'll miss me definitely. what will they do when im gone? i dont know..

uprooted from its garden.

once again, i feel consciousness slip from underneath me. which is normal, very. but this wasn't normal.. i could still hear.

"they'll tell you what you owe," they mumble. "but know even so, rises the moon."

i try to smile, a small twinge of my lips. but nothing happens. i try to tell them i love them, but again, nothing happens.

"you'll be visited by sleep. i promise that the autumn comes to steal away each dream you keep." they choke back a sob.

"breathe, breathe, breathe." houses voice sobs.

they're house.

but its too late to tell him i love him.