#its still sort of ambiguous at the end

[heart-bones]

anyway I finished this last night and I cannot think about anything else, it was S O. ‼️‼️

Strangers In The Dark

“If you need me, I’ll stay.”

Once Gotham’s population was eight million strong, then earthquakes transformed it into No Man’s Land. Only three million remained.

Years later the city plummets under a million during The Joker’s Last Stand - not that anyone knew it would be the last.

A new enemy rises from the ashes, one that rips the family apart, and Dick awakens from his coma only to find himself caught in the middle of it all.

[canonkiller]

do you consider your self made?

[technicolorxsn]

the body has to be gideon right??????

[cinnaminsvga]

Harana | Jungkook

harana (n.): the act of wooing someone by serenading them

→ summary:

Unwilling to settle down with you after five years of dating, Jeon Jungkook decides to break up to chase after his dreams. In the aftermath, you leave your hometown, desperate to forget your past and relearn what it means to be on your own. Two years later while on your way to work, you pass by a familiar voice singing songs about a girl he had left behind.

{or alternatively: Jungkook still sings the love songs that he wrote for you. He still means them, too.}

→ genre: busker!au, exes to lovers, angst, humor → warnings: jimin is insane and kinda crude (he has some issues going on), jungkook is a pathetic wet bunny but he's trying his best, oc has So Many Problems, so much arguing and yearning, ambiguous ending??? but my god there is hope!! the humanity of it all!! → words: 16.1K → a/n: HOLY SHIT IM BACK (kinda) and happy new year!! yeah ok its march but im relearning how to form coherent sentences so be patient ;w; this is the first installment of my hfoh series that i teased a LONG time ago... i made it a resolution to complete this series by the end of the year before i kms (Keep Myself Safe) so here's to a brand new year :D (oh god @ universe pls be kind)

part of the “heart full of hugot” series

Two days before the incident, your shower nozzle decides to explode.

Okay, you have to admit that statement is a little misleading. Shower nozzles, in all its nonsentience, do not randomly decide to explode no matter how much you try to defend yourself to your landlord. Maybe your grip had been a little too harsh that morning, or maybe hanging 5 pounds of hair products on the handle had been a bit too much for the old sport to handle. Or maybe, just maybe, the universe was warning you about the incident.

Whatever it was, it doesn’t erase the fact that your shower would be out of commission for the next week or so (though your landlord seems adamant about prolonging your suffering as long as possible). Until then, you’re going to have to find some other ways to keep the grease and grime from building on you. Heavens know that you already have a thriving ecosystem living in the back of your couch—you don’t need another one growing under your armpits. 

Lucky for you, you have friends. More importantly, you have friends who have showers. There is one problem though—all your friends live on the other side of the country. 

It’s been two years since you moved to the Big City™️, but you have done little to grow your social network. Call it introversion or depression, either way, you have no more contacts on your phone than you did when you left your hometown. Well, except for one person, if you could even consider him one. Frankly, you didn’t have a choice.

“Welcome to my humble abode, stinky,” Jimin greets you as you enter his house. Your nose is instantly assaulted by the smell of Bath & Body Works® Sweet Pea, reminding you once more why you didn’t consider him a friend. 

“Hey,” you reply gruffly, shucking your ratty shoes near his entrance. Your shoes look incredibly out of place amidst the sea of designer Chelsea boots and a singular pair of thigh-high heels. You take a glance at his living room, already feeling worse about yourself tenfold.

You had met Park Jimin by complete accident, much like how his mother probably felt when she first saw him too. You had never known anyone quite as… interesting as him, to put it lightly. 

When you got your job as a hostess for a luxury bar and restaurant, you figured you wouldn’t make many friends with your coworkers. Everyone was so… pretty, but in the shiny, untouchable sort of way. Almost all of the servers were as gorgeous as the models you’d see in magazines. You hadn’t known that the owners only hired a certain “demographic” of people for their restaurant, and you were equal parts flattered and disgusted that you’d somehow made it (though you suppose your bullshitting skills were all to thank). 

Unsurprisingly, even the bartenders were gorgeous, including one Park Jimin. He did have an aura to him that screamed “I’m a cut above the rest and I know it,” but that could just be the gold chains dripping down his neck. You almost mistook him as one of the patrons who mistakenly made his way behind the bar, and knowing the sort of clientele you’ve had to deal with so far, you wouldn’t have been surprised. It took a couple of weeks before you finally found out who he was (and what his fucking problem was).

Jimin was a part-time bartender with a full-time job as a bitch a self-made entrepreneur. Which is to say, he sold… tasteful photos of himself on the internet. You had nothing against his line of work. In fact, you would go far as to say you didn’t give a shit what he did outside of your shared workspace. But if there’s one thing Jimin is, it’s that he hates being ignored. 

So when you were adamant about not oohing and aahing at everything that makes Park Jimin perfect, he made it his self-appointed mission to befriend you. Or at least that’s what he claims, but given how he treats you lesser than the shit that cakes his cheeks, you have a lot of doubts. Perhaps he’s never made an effort to make a friend, hence his inexperience with being a decent human being. Or perhaps he’s just an asshole, but who is to say? The point is: he’s the only person you knew in this godforsaken city who would likely allow you to use his shower without being awkward about it and that’s that. 

The worst part about being an acquaintance with Park Jimin was that he lived in the richest area of Downtown but he wasn’t old money, that’s for sure. His entire essence screamed overconsumption, and his myriad of little trinkets littered across his apartment confirmed your previous assessment. You wouldn’t be surprised if you opened his freezer and found ten types of ice sorted assorted by color and shape like the extra bitch that he was. 

He made his money through sheer force, and it would have impressed you if he wasn’t, you know. Him.

“Bathroom is over there. I placed a towel and other shower amenities that you can borrow,” he says pointing to a door with a large “FART ZONE: ENTER WITH CAUTION” sign taped to it. You don’t ask.

“Thanks,” you say flatly. You wait patiently for his out-of-pocket comment. 

Like clockwork, Jimin smirks. “Sure thing. I gave you the super heavy-duty stuff. Figured you’d burn a hole through my expensive towels with how stinky you are, with your yeasty cu—”

“Aaaand I’ll be done in a few minutes. Thanks again Jimin,” you interrupt, making your way to the bathroom and slamming the door with as much force as you can muster. You hear something fall as the door shuts, and you vaguely hear Jimin mutter something about his “fart zone” signage. 

You begin to prepare your shower routine, humming lowly as you go about your business. You try to ignore the suffocating scent of ten million diffusers entering your nostrils, wondering for the umpteenth time if Jimin is suffering from long-term olfactory dysfunction. 

“Focus, Y/N. The quicker you shower, the quicker you can get the fuck out of here,” you whisper to yourself. However, in your haste, you knock over Jimin’s towel by accident. When the towel falls, a sheet of sandpaper slips out from underneath it, and you stare bemusedly until it finally hits you.

“YOU ARE SUCH A LITTLE BITCH!” 

From behind the door, you can hear Jimin’s infamous cackle. “Did you find the loofah? I got it just for you, darling!” he shouts back through his laughter, and you just grumble back in response. How on earth no one has strangled him to death, you have no idea.

“Whatever. I’m gonna shower now! Go beat off or whatever the fuck you do in your spare time,” you grouse, stripping as quickly as possible.

When the first droplets of water hit your body, you can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. You had both anticipated and dreaded going to Jimin’s house, but you desperately needed the shower. So you go through your routine, trying to find some semblance of relaxation throughout the process. However, it seems that Jimin was yearning for a little bit of attention as he chose to recline on the other side of the door and chat your ear off. Peace was never an option, it seems.

“Hey, Y/N! So why haven’t I seen you at work recently?” Jimin hollers from his living room. Despite the wall separating you, his voice manages to retain its volume.

You squirt a large glob of Jimin’s (expensive) conditioner onto your hands. “What do you mean? I go to work every day. You were the one who hasn’t been clocking in.”

You can hear Jimin scoff. “Um, correction! I went to work last Friday, which so happened to be your day off. If I didn’t know any better, I would have assumed you were avoiding me.”

And right you are, you think. But instead, you say, “Yeah, what a coincidence. I’ll be back to my regular schedule on Monday, though.”

“So that means you didn’t see the Justin Bieber wannabe stationed outside the restaurant then?” Jimin asks, voice miffed. “The guy suddenly sat down by the entrance window and a whole damn crowd started to appear! The absolute nerve of these people—don’t they know Park Jimin was just past the doors?” 

This provokes Jimin to go on his long epic soliloquy, which you’ve learned to drown out over the past two years. He could go on hour-long tirades if he wanted, and any interruption from you would just bounce off his nonfunctioning ears. And so, you allow his voice to fall to the back of your mind, similar to white noise if it wasn’t so grating.

However, this was likely your greatest mistake. If you hadn’t been so exhausted, or if Park Jimin hadn’t been so damn annoying all the time, or if the stars had aligned just right… Maybe you would have been forewarned about the incident. It’s as if the universe was screaming at you to pay attention, but alas… You were standing on the proverbial highway, unbeknownst to the incoming traffic because you had your metaphorical AirPods on.

So there you are, completely showered but none the wiser to your impending doom, naively looking to the future with unsuspecting eyes. Even if you had known of what was to come, would avoiding it even be possible? In hindsight, you suppose not, but you still kick yourself for being so blind. If only you’d steeled your heart, then maybe you wouldn’t have felt like vomiting in front of a crowd of innocent bystanders the very next day.

xxx

Monday comes and your shower still isn’t fixed. Jimin makes the benevolent gesture of allowing you to use his shower in the meantime, though you’ll only partake in his offer as minimally as possible. He does mention that he’ll need at least an hour’s notice, warning you about “accidental voyeurism.” You shudder to think of what sort of horror you might find if you did visit him without warning, and you pray for the continued well-being of your retinas.

On your way to work, you’re too busy watching cute videos of animals to notice the unusual flock of people idling close to your workplace. When you get closer, however, the growing commotion is enough to rip your gaze away from your phone, and the sight of the large crowd makes you stop in your tracks. 

It is 4 pm and the usual line of waiting patrons should not start piling up for another three hours, so this confuses you more than anything. You shuffle closer, squinting at the crowd until you notice that they aren’t lined up at all; instead, they have congregated into a large circle, but you are too far to see what they are surrounding. 

An accident? You worry, wondering if something terrible happened. You tiptoe above the heads of people, subtly moving forward to take a better look. Curse you and your curiosity. You take a deep breath, bracing yourself to see something grotesque or astonishing, but instead…

It’s worse.

Inching closer, you can begin to hear a soft thrumming of a guitar and a gentle singing voice that causes alarm bells to ring in your ears. The warm melody digs up old memories of a time long past: of ballads sung outside your childhood bedroom window, of promises whispered under Spiderman sheets, of tender caresses tucking stray hairs behind your ears… They flood your senses, but all you can feel is dread.

It can’t be who you think it is. You accidentally elbow a guy on your way to get closer, unsteadying his grip on his phone. 

“Hey, watch it! I’m filming a totally not-staged TikTok over here!” He yells, but you can hardly pay attention to him when you feel unnaturally drawn to come closer, still. 

You’re nearly at the front, with just a couple of teenagers standing between you and the (not-so) mysterious street performer. But the distance is enough, and your breath catches. You can see him—

Black hair partially hidden under a bucket hat. Boots bigger than Pangaea and a pair of eyes equally as large. Dark ink snaking down his arms, peeking out from under oversized sleeves. Piercings that could rival Park Jimin on a good day. He isn’t facing you, but you can still see his big doe eyes, gentle sloping nose, and pretty lips stretched into a handsome smile.

Your heart is thundering in your chest. This can’t be happening, you panic. After two whole years of rebuilding and reshaping yourself, relearning how to be yourself and not… not just his girlfriend.

Jeon Jungkook stands before you, busking in front of your workplace of all locations. The universe could not have been any crueler to you.

You—you had been known as nothing more than Jeon Jungkook’s high school sweetheart. Buried memories of snide comments from jealous teen girls fill your mind, reminding you of the time when you were coined a simple side piece to the main attraction. Decor, as they would call you. Nothing more than a girl who happened to snag Jungkook before people realized he was going to turn… hot. A hot guy who could sing. An inevitable chic magnet, as they would call him. 

And now, years later after much therapy and soul searching, your worst nightmare is standing in front of you in the flesh. This is what you will eventually dub the incident. 

At that moment, however, there is little to no time to dwell on naming this ongoing core memory. All you can feel is the adrenaline pumping through your veins, as well as the nausea rising up your throat. You stumble backward, blatantly shoving onlookers away as you struggle to find some air to breathe. In hindsight, you probably should have backed away as subtly as possible, but you hope that your dyed hair might be different enough that Jungkook wouldn’t know it was you if he had glanced your way. 

Even when you stagger towards your work establishment, the walls cannot perfectly muffle his soothing singing. You can’t make out the lyrics to his song too well, but his unmistakable voice is hard to ignore. Working as a hostess, your station is also coincidentally as close to the door as possible for maximum torture. 

This can’t get any worse, you think as your mind races with conflicting emotions. You thought you had moved on, thought you were past the pain and the memories, but seeing Jungkook again, unexpectedly, stirs up a storm of feelings you thought were buried deep. Anger, hurt, betrayal—all rush to the surface, threatening to overwhelm you.

But there is no time to unpack all that baggage right now. Time will continue to march on, and your job is still on the line. How can you have the time to have a mental breakdown when you were still living paycheck to paycheck?

But even as you try to push Jungkook out of your mind, his voice echoes in your ears, his image burned into your memory. It's as if the universe is laughing at your misery, reminding you that despite all your supposed growth, you are still just you. 

Painfully and pathetically you.

As you struggle to pull yourself together, a familiarly loud voice rings outside the edge of your consciousness. “Hey, Y/N! Fancy seeing you here…” Jimin greets you, his usual jovial demeanor halting midway when he sees your panicked expression. He clears his throat, perplexed. “Umm… Are you alright there, girl? You’re looking a little pale.”

You do not even have the mental capacity to wonder why Park Jimin was miraculously early to his shift, nor why he seems genuinely worried for you. Rather, all you can do is wave him off and use what little time you have before the restaurant opens to steel yourself for hours of melodious torture. 

“I’m fine, Park. You should get to work,” you grit out, wiping your sweaty palms on your uniform. Normally, Jimin would have teased you about the obvious wrinkles on your skirt. 

“You’re not the boss of me,” Jimin huffs, always the contrarian. He thinks better of it, however, and softens his tone. “Are you feeling sick or something? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

You freeze, perhaps giving yourself away a little. “I’m fine,” you repeat. 

“You know, if you refuse to elaborate, I’m going to have to retract your shower privileges,” Jimin taunts with a smirk. 

You feel a migraine growing by your temple, making you wince. God, why must men be the source of all your problems?

“I’m just… a little annoyed by the busker outside the restaurant,” you eventually admit, trying to be vague. Unfortunately for you, Jimin hates beating around the bush and would never take your crap if he knows something is up.

Unable to withstand the weight of his unimpressed stare, you clarify, “He was someone I used to know, that’s all.” You aren’t going to be any more specific than that, though you imagine Jimin gets the picture. You zip your lips, hoping to whoever is causing you pain that Jimin would somehow let the matter drop and leave you to your misery.

You brace yourself for his onslaught of questioning to come, and… it doesn’t happen. Instead, when you glance at Jimin, he is mysteriously stone faced. You wait for him to speak for what feels like a few minutes, but he doesn’t show any signs of wanting to tease or ridicule you. He simply watches you with a pensive expression. You can barely stop yourself from staring back at him, slack-jawed at his silence. 

Of course, you aren’t just going to question your luck, or what little you have at least. So, you stay silent back and fidget uncomfortably.

Finally, Jimin seems to snap out of his strange reverie. He fixes you with a bizarrely sympathetic grin, patting you affectionately on the back. “I see… Well, if you ever need a drink tonight, head over to the bar for a little sip. I got you covered,” is all he says in response before sashaying away. 

That was so fucking weird. You want to chase after him, perhaps beat the truth out of him. Jimin is nothing but a scheming dick, and you aren’t about to let him roam free with such sensitive information about yourself. Just as you’re about to stomp his ass (perhaps to relieve some of the building tension from your weary soul), your manager pops his head from his office door. 

“Y/N! Make sure you’re logged into the booking system. There’s going to be a party of 20 coming in about an hour,” he reminds you, shooting you an apologetic look. You nod back with a sigh, swiping the booking tablet from the hostess desk and scrolling through the logs. Sure enough, it is going to be a busy night despite being a Monday evening. Perhaps a little busier than usual, in fact.

Whatever. You will use whatever distraction you can get, and perhaps the approaching noise from the restaurant patrons will be enough to drown out the sound of his voice. 

You aren’t religious by any means, but you pray to whatever higher power exists that Jeon Jungkook doesn’t somehow decide to enter the restaurant. Stay outside, you plead. Outside the restaurant and your life, if possible.

Throughout the evening, you do your best to push aside the memories that threaten to resurface. You greet customers with a smile, lead them to their tables, and ensure their dining experience is pleasant despite the anxiety poisoning your insides. It's a routine you've perfected over time, a shield against the chaos of your emotions.

As the night wears on, you can feel Jimin's eyes on you from across the restaurant. You sneak glances back at him, and you blanch at his pitying gaze. If the restaurant had been slightly less crowded, you would have flipped him off. 

He’s probably enjoying my suffering, you think darkly. Unwilling to give him the satisfaction, you straighten up and do your best to appear more unaffected. Just as you do so, you can hear Jungkook perfectly hitting a soulful high note. 

“I’m so sorry for thinking I was strong,” you whisper to the universe. “Forgive me for my insolence.” You clench your fist in anguish, ignoring the confused looks from the customers in front of you. 

By the time your shift comes to a close, you are completely and utterly drained. You feel like a snail that has been continuously salted over the past eight hours, and you cannot help but cheer in relief when the clock finally strikes two in the morning. You have to wait for the last few diners to make their leave, but otherwise you are ready to let your bed swallow you whole. 

You stand by your hostess desk, leaning your head against it with a defeated sigh. Jungkook’s voice had died down only a few minutes ago, and you hope that by this point he has mercifully left the premises. You want to take a peek to make sure, but just as you’re about to make your way to the door, you feel a hand on your shoulder stop you in your tracks.

“‘Sup, bitch.” Jimin still has that weird, pitying gaze pointed at you, though his words don’t match it. “Are you okay to go home alone tonight? I can bring your dumb ass home if you want.”

You shove his hand away, ready to bite his head off when you think better of it. If Jimin drives you home, then that lowers the chances of seeing Jungkook down to pretty much zero. 

“You know what? Thanks,” you grouse. Jimin smiles at you winningly, and the image of it brings a shiver down your spine. You hit him, creeped out. “Hey. Stop that, will you? You’re being really weird?”

Jimin scoffs, crossing his arms. “Me? Weird? At least I don’t look like a damn firework ready to explode just because my cringelord ex-boyfriend is singing sappy love songs outside—”

“Shut the fuck up,” you seethe, stomping on his foot. He yelps in pain and slaps your shoulder in retaliation. 

“Ouch! Watch your ogre feet! My shoes are worth twice your monthly rent I’ll have you know,” he bristles. He breathes deeply, likely finding his inner calm (which you doubt exists). “But because I’m so nice, I’ll ignore your earlier transgression and blame it on your underdeveloped amygdala.”

You don’t know what’s more surprising: the fact that Jimin knew what an amygdala was or that he was forgiving you in the first place. “Whatever. Let’s finish closing up and then head out. I’m exhausted.”

You make quick work of your task and when you’re ready to head out, Jimin is already waiting by the backdoor. He’s twirling his car keys with a finger and gestures for you to follow him. As you make your way to his car in the back parking lot, you catch sight of a lone figure standing next to a beat-up pickup truck. He’s leaning against it, his hands busy tuning a battered guitar.

Your breath hitches, and you immediately feel nauseous. Of course the incident has yet to end. The night is young, after all.

Jimin accidentally slams the backdoor closed, and the noise wrenches Jungkook’s attention away from his ministrations. Immediately, his eyes lock with Jimin before finally turning to you. 

Your heart skips a beat as he gazes at you, your mind racing with a hurricane of emotions. You hadn’t expected to see him again so soon, especially not after the tumultuous encounter earlier in the day. What did you say earlier? That “the chances of seeing Jungkook was down to pretty much zero”? 

The chances of seeing Jungkook is low, but never zero, your mind unhelpfully supplies.

There is a long period of awkward silence. Jungkook has his mouth slightly agape, his hand subconsciously lowering his guitar to rest against his truck. To your left, Jimin’s breathing quickens slightly. You, on the other hand, are trying your best not to projectile vomit in this damned parking lot. 

Jungkook is the one who decides to break the delicate silence. “Is that you…?” he calls out hesitantly. 

Don’t say my name don’t say my name don’t say my name don’t say my name don’t say my—

“Y/N,” Jimin interjects. His gaze is steel cold, uncharacteristic of the carefree boy. He slings an arm around your shoulders, gently nudging you towards his car. With your view still fixed on Jungkook, you miss the way Jimin shoots the other boy with a playful smirk. “C’mon, babe. Let’s go home.”

His words startle both you and Jungkook. “Wha—? Jimin?” you splutter, flushing at his flirtatious undertone. You want to curse him out for his strange behavior, but all the shock has left you mute. 

Jimin all but shoves you into the passenger seat. But just as he’s about to slam the car door, you hear Jungkook call out your name. It’s fleeting and quiet, but you heard him crystal clear.

It breaks your spirit to hear him say your name. For a moment, you feel as though you are floating.

When was the last time he called your name? And so softly, too? If you could replay that moment over and over, would you be able to catch some signs of tenderness in his voice? When you close your eyes later that night, would your dreams show you that he had been gazing at you with yearning? Was any of it true?

As Jimin starts the car and pulls away from the curb, you steal one last glance out the window, only to find Jungkook staring at you with an arm outstretched. You continue to watch him until his figure disappears into the night. 

You are quietly immersed in your own thoughts, the whirlwind of emotions intensifying your persistent migraine. Unaccustomed to silence, Jimin decides to give his unsolicited two cents, as per usual.

“Geez. Didn’t know you were into the whole starving artist type. If I’d known, then maybe I’d stop trying to brag about my fortune to you,” Jimin scoffs. “If loser buskers like him impress you, then maybe I should—”

“Would you shut the fuck up for once in your fucking life!” You explode, whirling to face him with a glare. Jimin has the audacity to flinch, but he doesn’t take his eyes off the road. 

“What the fuck? Why the hell are you mad at me?” 

“What the hell was that back there? ‘C’mon babe.’” You mimic his voice with a sneer. “Why on earth would you do that? Now he thinks that we…”

“Why do you care what he thinks? He’s your ex, remember?” Jimin cuts you off, but you can’t even refute him. He continues, “Figured as much. And judging by how spooked you’ve looked all day, I have to assume that he was an asshole, right? Why else would you accept my offer for a ride home if you really wanted to avoid seeing him?”

You shrink under his accurate assumptions. Damn, were you really that easy to read? “I… I mean, yeah but…” You clear your throat, still feeling wronged by him. “You didn’t have to act like a weird prick in front of him!”

Without warning, the floodgates burst forth. You begin to ramble, the thoughts that have been weighing you down pouring out of you in waves. “Jungkook was my ex, yeah. But he wasn’t an asshole. On the contrary, he was really sweet. The nicest guy in my school, at least. Wouldn’t hurt a fly, that sort of person. I dated him all throughout high school and he was a great partner.”

Jimin hums skeptically. “Then why the messy break-up?”

“It wasn’t messy!” You retort defensively. 

“Could’ve fooled me!” Jimin snorts. “I also frequently act like a trembling kitten when I see my exes,” he says sarcastically. 

You ignore him. “The reason we broke it off was because he wanted to pursue his dreams to become a singer after high school and I wanted to do other things. It was a mutual break-up! Honestly, I’m glad that we did. Too many girls wanted him and all the unwanted attention was getting on my nerves. I was glad to find a reason to end it all,” you explain, hoping you didn’t sound as shaky as you felt. What you said was mostly true, though you left out the important bits to yourself. Mostly to save some of your dignity intact. (Truthfully, you just didn’t want to admit things you weren’t ready to face.)

“Then if you’re so glad, why do you look like you wanted to shit yourself? It ain’t adding up,” Jimin fires back.

“It’s just—” you stammer, trying to find a reason why you were so bent out of shape after seeing him. “I-I was caught off guard, I guess. I knew he was pursuing his dreams to sing and all, so I expected him to leave the country. I wasn’t expecting to see him outside where I work, of all places,” you mutter lamely. You have your head bowed, biting your lips from the nerves. Again, you weren’t totally lying. 

Jimin is silent for a moment, contemplating your admission. When he looks so calm like this, it’s hard to get a read on what he’s thinking. As Jimin speeds down the highway, the street lights illuminate his face in a strange way, and for once, he looks like a stranger. His steely expression makes you nervous, for some reason. 

Eventually, he asks you a question you would never have expected. “And he just let you go?”

You pause. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Jimin huffs, irritated. “He just up and left without a fight? If I were him, I would have…” he trails off, his jaw clenching. 

You don’t know where this Jimin came from. Under the moonlight, Jimin looks livid, but that can’t be right. Jimin, mad for you? Sure, you’ve seen his anger directed towards you, but this? Everything’s gotten so complicated, and you are just about ready to succumb to sleep and hope to wake from this nightmare.

The rest of the drive to your house is silent, save for the sounds coming from passing cars. Jimin pulls up to your apartment complex, his mysterious anger finally subsiding. 

Just as you’re about to reach for the car door handle, Jimin places a hand on your shoulder. “Listen, Y/N. I’ll talk to management tomorrow morning. I know the manager well enough that I can probably convince him to do something about that ex of yours. He’s busking on private property, so it should be easy to get rid of him,” Jimin says, tone serious. He swallows, and for a moment you think he looks a little nervous. “If that’s what you want, I guess.”

His kindness scares you. You want to tease him, ask him where Mr. Bitchy and his $2000 Chelsea boots had gone. Anything to make this air of severe sincerity to abate. This new Jimin feels suffocating. But instead, you nod your head stiffly. 

Jimin makes a pained expression for a moment, but it’s quickly replaced by his usual playful smirk. He slaps you upside the head, laughing heartily at your stunned face. 

“Get some rest, babe. I’ll see you tomorrow evening,” he chuckles, reaching over to open the door for you. You scramble out into the cold city air, taking one last look back at him through his window.

He rolls it down, leaning forward to flash a toothy grin at you. “Hey, stop with all the angst, pookie. Wouldn’t want my favorite toy to get sick from overthinking. Who else would I bother at work if not you?”

You snort, both endeared and irritated in equal measure. He’s right. Everything was going back to normal tomorrow, you’re sure of it. You flip him off with a cheeky grin before making your way to your apartment.

Everything is going to be okay. Jimin says he’ll do something about it, and for whatever reason, you feel like you can trust him on this. Surely good fortune was soon to be upon you. 

xxx

Jimin had texted you while you were still sleeping:

Spoke to Manager Jeong about your little problem. He said he’ll deal with him.

You breathe a sigh of relief, your body feeling significantly lighter. Your sleep last night had been tumultuous and restless. You feel more tired than you did when you went to bed, but all your weariness fades once you read Jimin’s text. 

Once you make it to work, you find that management has gotten rid of Jungkook somehow. Added with the fact that your landlord has promised to look into repairing your shower (no guarantees, but you want to stay optimistic), today has been significantly better compared to yesterday. You even catch yourself humming as you set up your workstation, a small smile gracing your lips.

Jimin has a later shift this evening, and you find that you are somewhat disappointed for once. Your overwhelming gratitude is surely the only reason, otherwise you would never admit to wanting to see him at any given time. 

You are in the midst of texting Jimin about all the good news when your manager passes by your desk. You are quick to pocket your phone away from his prying eyes, ready to defend that you aren’t slacking off… but his demeanor does not reveal any ire. In fact, he looks rather pleased for once.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Jeong. What’s up?” you ask, suspicious. You instinctively fold your hands behind your back; it is a subconscious effort on your part to keep your distance from him. Something about your manager always gives you a bad feeling when he looks a little too happy. 

He grins widely. “Everything is going splendidly, Ms. Y/N. In fact, I think today might just be our lucky day!”

Never during your time working here has his and your luck ever coincided. “Our lucky day?” you echo.

“Why, yes! I spoke with your lovely friend and coworker Jimin this morning,” he starts, and immediately your alarm bells ring. You don’t even bother correcting him about the ‘friend’ part like you normally would. He continues, “He gave me a brilliant idea about the busker who had been performing in front of the restaurant the past two days.”

You nod slowly, not quite understanding. “Yes… The busker has been quite… the spectacle,” you say carefully. Somehow, you know calling Jungkook a ‘nuisance’ would have been the wrong choice in this instance.

Manager Jeong beams. “Exactly! You must have noticed the amount of people we served yesterday despite being a Monday. Additionally, almost all of those new customers requested outdoor seating no less!”

You feel the world tilt on its axis. What is he on abou—?

“What are you talking about?” you exhale.

“Don’t you think it would be even better for business if we got that busker to perform inside the restaurant? Why, it’s a brilliant idea and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it first! Our live band has always been missing something special, and perhaps a vocal accompaniment is the exact answer to our problem! Think about it, the atmosphere would be…”

Manager Jeong continues to prattle animatedly about his plans to your unhearing ears. There must be static or cotton plugging your head because you cannot possibly understand anything he is saying. Jungkook? Inside? Performing at your restaurant? But Jimin said he had spoken to the manager about getting Jungkook away from you! None of this makes sense. 

“That makes no sense,” you verbalize, unknowingly cutting Manager Jeong from his monologue. He halts in surprise, as if now just realizing you were standing there (much less capable of interrupting or disagreeing with him). When he snaps out of it, you sense that familiarly sinister aura emerging from him in waves. You belatedly realize he must have mistaken your outburst as antagonistic.

“Well, Ms. Y/N. Whether it makes sense or not, we have hired Mr. Jeon to perform live at the bar stage for the next four weeknights. If, for some unknowable reason, I am incorrect,” he pauses to emphasize his words, “then his services will be promptly terminated. However, judging by his popularity from simply standing out in the cold and singing silly love songs, I am sure that worry is unwarranted.”

Behind you, the telltale sound of the main door swinging open catches you even more off guard. You do not even have the chance to turn to face the newcomer, only managing to register the gust of cold wind that accompanies their entry.

And so, you hear him before you see him. 

“Hello?” Jeon Jungkook greets quietly.

Even without turning, you can imagine how he looks, how he stands, how he feels, how he tastes—

Manager Jeong claps his hands gleefully. “Splendid timing! Speak of the devil…” The older man nearly skips towards Jungkook like a youthful school girl, accompanied by his uncharacteristic squeals of excitement. 

You can feel his gaze on you, almost tangibly. With nothing but your shreds of dignity left intact, you force yourself to face him. 

He’s still so tall, is all your mind can helpfully supply as you stand feet away from your high school sweetheart for the first time in two years. He’s still wearing the same bucket hat from the night before, semi-shielding him from view. Despite that, you catch a small flash of white graze his bottom lip as he chews the soft flesh nervously.

“Hi, Y/N.” He addresses you directly, completely overlooking your manager without a single glance. Despite his hat, he still has his eyes lasered on you, as if not quite believing you were there. You hate how his attention makes you shiver all the same. 

Even though he ignored your manager (which would have been a major dispute had you done the same), Jungkook still receives a friendly handshake in return. “Mr. Jeon! I’m surprised you know Ms. Y/N, though I’m sure you must have spoken with her when she was escorting guests to the outdoor seating the other day.”

You had actually gotten your co-hostess to seat all the outdoor seatings yesterday, but you weren’t going to mention that.

Manager Jeong claps him on the back, inadvertently causing Jungkook to stumble forward closer to you. He looks up at you then, eyes bugging out of their sockets like a rabbit caught in a bear trap. You stagger backwards in turn, barely concealing the anxiety on your face. Oh fucking hell.

Your manager is none the wiser, of course. “Well, this makes my job much easier! Since you’re both acquainted, I’ll let Y/N show you the ropes. The band doesn’t start their set until later in the evening, but you’re free to take a look at the stage and other parts of our facility in the meantime,” he says, chuffed. Meanwhile, Jungkook looks like he’s been shot by a freeze ray. 

Then, your manager points a sharper gaze at you. “Ms. Y/N, treat our super star well. I know you won’t disappoint me.”

Fucking superstar… You can only nod in defeat. “Y-Yes, sir…” you whisper, clenching your uniform with your fists. It is the only way to keep them from shaking like a leaf. You watch as his figure disappears behind his office door, leaving you to fend for yourself. Powerless, you train your gaze to the floor, unwilling to meet Jungkook’s eyes. 

But the nerves are taking control of your body, screaming at you to eject, eject, eject!

“Sorry, I have to go to the toilet,” you splutter quickly, almost tripping over yourself on the way to the restroom. You dimly wonder if Jungkook is going to think you’re leaving to throw up, but you can’t find any self-respect left to care. All you need is air and space to breathe—preferably away from him. 

You slam open the stall, hardly checking to see if anyone else is around before locking the door shut. You sit on the toilet, plant your face between your knees, and scream. 

Should you go home and use sickness as an excuse? But even if you did, you still had shifts every weeknight. You would have to see him eventually. You can pray all you want that Jungkook will be fired by the end of the week, but even your delusional mind can never fathom the idea that anyone would willingly want to send Jeon Jungkook away. Plus, you remember that the regular band that plays at the restaurant has been wanting to get a singer to accompany them for ages, and you know just how damn affable he can be. They are going to love him, and you hate him for that.

It is clear to you that there is no other option:

You pull out your phone to quickly open up Indeed on your browser, frantically hunting for any openings that might fit your measly qualifications. However, you have to pause in your search to deliberate. Wouldn’t it be better to move out of the country? You had been so naive to think that moving cities was enough distance between you and Jungkook—going across the ocean is the obvious answer. Should you start up your Duolingo lessons again and hope that you can somehow survive in a different continent with only a few dollars to your name? 

You shut your phone in despair. Whether or not your plans of escape are feasible or not, in the short term, you are stuck with having to suck it up and just learn to ignore your ex-boyfriend’s presence. Surely you can force out a fake smile or two, especially with how much practice you’ve gotten after working with unbearably entitled customers. 

Taking a step outside of the restroom stall, you head to the sink to splash some cold on your face. You stare at the mirror, confronted by a girl who looks two seconds away from having a Netflix Original-esque meltdown. You rake your fingers through your hair, doing your best to look like you aren’t about to rush into incoming traffic. To no one's surprise, it doesn't work.

“Okay, I got this. Just pretend like he’s just some guy, because at the end of the day, he is just some guy,” you mutter to your reflection. She looks back at you unconvinced. “He may have broken my heart into little bite size pieces, but who cares! HE’S JUST A GUY!” You repeat the phrase over and over again like a lunatic, in a desperate attempt to cognitively alter your brain chemistry.

At that moment, one of the other stalls in the restroom creaks open, and a girl you recognize who works as one of the dishwashers walks out. You both have a silent eye conversation as she quietly studies your crazed expression and crumpled work uniform. 

Eventually, she awkwardly clears her throat, pointing to the only sink in the restroom. “Uh, sorry to hear about your, uh, guy problem. Could I use the sink please?” 

You hastily back away, allowing her to take your spot. You don’t even have the energy to apologize for your spectacle, just bowing sheepishly to her before making your way back to the main hall. If she rats you out to the rest of your coworkers, then that gives you another reason to move out of the country. Maybe you should consider a name change while you’re at it.

When you exit the restroom, you half expect Jungkook to be waiting for you by the door, but find that he isn’t anywhere nearby. He isn’t by your hostess station either, and you thank your lucky stars for once. Even if your manager had asked you to show him around, you’re sure that Jungkook can find his way around just fine. Plus, the stage is at the corner of the restaurant and is sufficiently far enough that you wouldn’t have to make eye contact with him if you were careful. 

You don’t know which greater entity has been messing with your sanity these past few days, but you hope that they can show you mercy just once—a brief reprieve, if anything. 

You clasp your hands in prayer. I’ll eat more vegetables, I’ll remember to floss, I’ll call my parents from time to time… Just please let me survive tonight. 

“Remember, Y/N… He’s just some guy,” you reiterate through gritted teeth. If a passing coworker happens to overhear your demented chanting, then you pay them no mind.

You walk towards the entrance, flipping the sign to open. You feel like a video game character when you glance at the clock, which signals the start of your shift. You can imagine the red bold text hovering above your head: 8 more hours until freedom. 

This is just like playing Five Nights at Freddy’s, except you’ve only watched the movie and you suspect your life is probably worse than whatever Josh Hutcherson had to survive through. 

You take a couple heaving breaths to brace yourself for what will be the longest eight hours of your life. You’ll show Jungkook just how well-adjusted and mature you’ve become. You are a professional, and not even a boy with angelic vocals will make you crumble. After all, what’s the worst he can do? 

xxx

He could, in fact, do a lot worse than you thought. 

“I have many regrets being born at all,” you mutter bleakly, three hours into your shift. 

Jungkook had started singing only an hour ago, so you had been filled with false confidence at first when the restaurant was filled with nothing but ambient chatter and soothing jazz music. You felt more and more confident as the minutes ticked by and your anxiety slowly melted away. You even forgot that he was somewhere in the back, likely warming up or whatever it is that singers did before a performance. 

However, your brief moment of courage shatters almost immediately when Jungkook finally takes the stage. 

At first, you did your best to tune out his voice, but it’s especially hard when whoever was in charge of the sound system decided to crank his volume to an excruciating level. You wanted desperately to grab some napkins and shove them in your ears, but you suspected that your customers (and manager) would be unappreciative of that gesture. And so there you lay, forced to wallow in Jungkook’s melodious singing like a criminal strapped to an electric chair.

But how much more pleasant an electric chair would be! Why on earth was Jungkook so adamant to sing sad love songs the entire time? Why couldn’t he be like his other singing contemporaries, who loved to write songs about getting bitches and making money? At the very least, even if he wasn’t quite a platinum selling artist just yet, surely he was constantly sharing beds with anyone he pleases? Couldn’t he sing about that?!

(In the back of your mind, you wonder if it would be less painful to learn that Jungkook has slept with multiple people… Because then, it would mean that he had moved on while you stood alone on your island, stranded and yearning.)

You didn’t want to think too deeply about his lyrics. However, you're only human. So when your mind barrier failed and you caught snippets of his singing, you noticed a pattern. There was always a girl in his songs. She was omnipresent, and Jungkook was always pleading for her. Begging and aching and wanting. But most all… he was always repenting. In every song, he always whispered a pious apology. 

You feared what would happen if you turned around in those moments of weakness. You were terrified of admitting something, of letting words spill that had been trapped in your throat for the better part of two years. 

Lucky for you, salvation comes in the form of one Park Jimin. Though, can you even count him as your savior when he had also inadvertently caused your demise?

Jimin doesn’t even have a shift today, so you’re more than surprised when his bright blonde head stumbles through the restaurant doors. His expensive coat is askew and his signature designer shades are nowhere to be found. He is panic incarnate—an expression you have never seen on his face before.

“Holy fuck,” he greets, his chest heaving as he struggles to catch his breath. His profanity startles the elderly couple waiting to be seated, their glares menacingly sharp. To his credit, Jimin doesn’t even seem phased.

In lieu of an answer, you gesture vaguely behind you. You can imagine how dejected you must look. “Holy fuck indeed,” you sigh.

It takes a moment for Jimin to regain his bearings. He straightens up and pats down his coat, but his hair is still tousled by the wind. If not for the fact that he has a car, you might have thought he had run all the way here. 

“I am so sorry. I didn’t know this was going to happen,” he starts, genuinely remorseful. “I texted Manager Jeong this morning and he said he’d get your ex to leave, but I didn’t think he’d offer the damn bastard a job!”

“Mind your language, Park. I’m still at work,” you scold. You try your best to ignore the scrutinizing gaze of the elderly couple. You lower your voice. “And don’t apologize. I know you’re an asshole, but I doubt you’d actually prey on my downfall like this. I know you’re not into public humiliation.”

Jimin brightens slightly at your joke, but he still looks like a guilty puppy who'd been caught shitting on the carpet. “Yeah, well. I happen to enjoy tormenting you and I won’t let some upstart Charlie Puth wannabe ruin your life. That’s my job.”

You smile wryly at him. “Well, that’s too bad. Jungkook’s been singing for a few hours now and I’m pretty sure Manager Jeong is going to keep him long-term. He might have broken my heart, but damn does he have vocals. I'm sure you'll have plenty competition when it comes to 'who can make Y/N's life feel like hell.'”

Jimin doesn't smile back, but instead studies your face for a moment. Then:

“Do you think if I offer to suck Manager Jeong off, he’ll fire him?”

“What the fuck?” You nearly yell out in surprise, your jaw dropping to the floor. Judging by his serious scowl, you know he's actually considering it. By now, the elderly couple waiting to be seated have left the premises.

Jimin continues, unperturbed. “I know he secretly wants me, based on how his wife seems to have a personal vendetta against me. He definitely wants a taste of my bus—.”

“Stop, I get it!” You wave your hands to make him shut up, heat rising up your cheeks. “Never say that string of words to me ever again. You have just inflicted ten years of suffering onto my poor brain.”

“Hey, I’m just offering solutions here!” Jimin pouts. 

You stare at him, unimpressed. “Save it. You tried solving my problems already, so let’s just accept the fact that there’s nothing else for me to do but to suck it up. It’s time for me to put on my big girl pants for a change.”

“I mean, I could do all the sucking instead, but you’re being a little bitch about it,” Jimin mumbles. He’s lucky you didn’t hear him this time, lest you give him something to really whine about.

“Anyway, I guess this is my life now. Nothing to do except hope that he never tries to interact with me or I can find another job,” you shrug. 

Over your shoulder, Jimin fixes Jungkook with an icy glare that is cold enough to give you the shivers. For the first time that entire night, you hazard a glance back at the stage, finding that Jungkook is already looking back at you.

You whip your head back forward, perspiration forming down your back. For fuck’s sake, this guy.

“Well, let me know if he tries anything. I’ll beat that little freak into the floor if he tries so much as breathing the same air as you.” Jimin huffs, puffing up his chest with false bravado. You can’t help but laugh at his empty threat, knowing that Jungkook could probably bench press Jimin without breaking a sweat. Jimin's muscles are only for aesthetics, after all.

“Don’t worry, he hasn’t actually spoken to me actually. He can keep singing his sad little love songs, I really don’t mind,” you say, like a liar. Jimin snorts, wholly unconvinced.

“Well, if you need me, I’m heading to the bar to grab a drink so I can stare at your ex uncomfortably until he leaves. See you!” Jimin bids you farewell with a cheery grin as he skips a little too happily inside the restaurant.

Why'd you have to befriend the largest lunatic in the city? You massage your forehead with a groan, willing away your growing headache. 

The rest of the night trickles away like molasses. Jungkook continues to sing his heart out, save for an hour intermission where he presumably takes a short break. In his absence, you hear Jimin guffaw loudly, his laughter too sharp to be considered happy. You faintly hear Jungkook shy stutters in response, and you momentarily consider running in to interrupt.

Why? Did you want to save Jungkook from Jimin’s unnecessary harassment? It’s not like Jimin is doing it out nowhere, he was just trying to be… a good friend?

You pause to ponder. As much as you hate to admit it, you know why you want to help Jungkook. But Jimin on the other hand? Why did he want to help you? Questions begin flowing through your head like a whirlwind, and your nausea increases. God, when was your next therapy appointment again?

You save those questions for another day. As you look at your watch, there are only thirty minutes left until two in the morning. You tap your foot impatiently, smiling curtly at departing customers as the restaurant slowly emptied. As they left, you overhear some of your regulars giggling amongst themselves, whispering about the cute new singer and his charming demeanor. 

The last nail on your coffin has been hammered. Yeah, Jungkook isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. 

With the restaurant closing soon, it sounds like Jungkook is ready to end his set as well. 

Throughout the night, Jungkook rarely made a point to speak. The only time he didn’t sing was when he quietly introduced the title of his next song and the band swiftly began the first opening notes. For his last song, however, Jungkook decided to give a little more backstory for his final song. 

“Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for listening to me for the night,” Jungkook says with a soft voice, his tone awfully shy despite his powerful belting throughout the evening. The few customers left give him a warm round of applause, and you hear the familiar sound of his timid giggles spill from the restaurant speakers. 

“This will be my final song for the night. Most of the songs I sang today were covers, but this one is an original. I…” He hesitates for a moment, and something pulls you to turn despite the alarm bells ringing in your ears. You face him, and just like earlier in the evening, he is already looking back at you.

This time, you don’t look away; he does. His eyes flit to the ceiling, and he licks his lips from nerves. “I… I wrote this song a long while ago. I’ve never sang it in public before and I never thought it would ever see the light of day. Until, well…”

He stops again. This time, he gestures to the guitarist in the band, silently asking to borrow it. With a guitar in hand, he smiles a little more confidently at the small crowd of people. He begins strumming the first few notes, and your heart stops. “I hope everyone had a pleasant evening. Get home safe and have a great rest of your week. My name is Jungkook, and this last song is called…”

Before he can sing the first line of his song, you make a break for it.

You slam the restaurant doors open, and the stinging cold air immediately pierces their fangs into your skin. Your coat is still inside, but you can’t bring yourself to reenter. You take a long breath, the chill barely registering in your mind with how loudly your heart is pounding in your ears.

Hearing the opening to that song was enough to bring you back in time, three years ago:

You are in his childhood bedroom, his walls littered with concert posters and his floor a mess with unfolded laundry and guitar picks. The afternoon sun is streaming through his windows, bathing him in gold. You have an exam the next day and he has cram school to go to, but you’ve both chucked your books somewhere on his desk, left forgotten. 

He has his eyes closed, concentrated. You’re both on his small twin bed, squished together side by side and thighs touching. You have your head on his shoulder and he has his hands on his guitar. He strums a few chords experimentally and sings a melody that only the two of you know.

(Not anymore.)

“Are you writing a new song?” you ask, voice a little scratchy. Neither of you had spoken for the past few hours, just basking in the setting sun and Jungkook’s indistinct strumming. But now, his chords sound more sure, more certain of something.

“Yeah, I just thought of it,” he hums. He opens his eyes a smidge, a smitten smile on his lips. You mirror him. 

“What’s it about this time?”

His brows furrow. “I’ve been trying to write about other stuff, you know? Namjoon-hyung tells me it’s important that songs have meaning and impact.” He pauses in his strumming, looking a little conflicted. “And I get what he means. Art is all about saying something, but… I can’t help that there’s only one thing I ever want to talk about. Is that so wrong?”

You chuckle, understanding what he means. You nudge your head against his cheek, grinning from ear to ear. The fluttering in your chest has become routine to you at this point, but he somehow always knows how to increase it tenfold. “God, you’re such a sweet talker. Really, Koo. There’s no need to serenade with love songs—I’m already yours.”

He looks back at you, brimming with tender affection. “I know,” he responds. Then, he takes a pen from his bedside table, and begins writing.

During those years of dating him, you always thought that If he was a waterfall, then you were a teaspoon. You desperately tried to be enough for him, but you’re barely able to fathom the depth of his devotion. Everything about him was excessive, and you could seldom understand how he managed to contain himself. He was born to share himself, to tear bits of his soul so that the world may understand him, love him. His songs were a testament that he was trying to do that, and you always felt so lucky to be able to receive him, wholly and fully.

How cruel was it that Jungkook uses that same song to rip open the barely healed scab on your heart, leaving you bare and stinging and raw all over again.

You have no idea how long you've stood there in the cold. It must have been barely a few minutes when Jimin finds his way to you. He wordlessly shrugs his coat off and places it on your shoulders, but you make no move to acknowledge him. 

You hope your silence is enough for Jimin to infer that you are not in a conversational mood, but he’s nothing if not impatient. He forcibly pulls you to face him, his hands warm even through your clothing.

“Hey, you good? Did something happen?” He asks with barely concealed irritation, but it’s not directed at you. Still, you flinch at his scathing tone, shrinking in on yourself. In your daze, you vaguely notice his resemblance to an angry baby chick. 

“It’s nothing. Go back inside, I’ll be right there,” you mumble lamely, weakly pushing him back towards the restaurant. Jimin does not budge, instead leveling you with a hard stare. This time, you’re sure his irritation is for you.

“You idiot, you literally ran out like someone was out to get you. Of course it’s not nothing,” he grouses. 

You sigh tiredly, shaking your head at him. “We can talk later. It’s almost closing time and I just want to go home and sleep.”

Before Jimin can argue further, the door to the restaurant opens once more, but it isn’t a leaving customer. 

“What the fuck? What are you doing out here?” Jimin all but shouts at Jungkook. He holds up an accusatory finger at him and uses his other hand to nudge you behind him as if to shield you. 

Jungkook winces, instinctively stepping back. Despite being a few inches taller than Jimin, Jungkook’s timidness makes him look smaller. “I… I was just worried about her—”

“Don’t you have a song to finish in there? Talk about professional,” Jimin spits out. Jimin maneuvers you so that Jungkook can’t see you, but you manage to catch sight of how his gaze follows you unfailingly.

“I finished up my set. It’s closing time.” Jungkook responds coolly. He’s still a little quiet, but you can sense some of his natural composure rising to the surface. When he needs to be, Jungkook has been known to stand his ground—usually when it comes to matters involving you.

At this time of the night and after hours of mental torture, the last thing you need is to watch your two worst nightmares duke it out in front of your work establishment. You are beyond exhausted, and you hardly have the fortitude to withstand another minute of their voices ringing in your ears. 

Your eyes well up with tears of frustration, causing the two boys to freeze up in panic. You don’t give them the chance to fuss over you; instead, you haphazardly wipe your cheeks before roughly pushing them back towards the restaurant. 

“Get back to work, you idiots.” Your voice sounds warbled even to your own ears, but you push past your overwhelming emotions in favor of getting back inside to close up. Hell, you might even call in sick tomorrow, just so you can cry pathetically into your bowl of cereal in solitude.

“I’m not even on the clock today!” Jimin complains faintly, but you only push him harder. 

When you all reenter, you walk back to your desk and pointedly ignore the two of them until they awkwardly float away from your orbit. Despite the distance they give you, their gazes are still fixed plainly on you and they feel like knives digging into your back. 

Eventually, all the final customers of the day take their leave, and your remaining coworkers start dimming the lights and bidding their goodbyes. From the corner of your eye, you see Jungkook bowing respectfully to the band, who were giving him friendly pats on the back for a job well done. Jimin walks toward you, his car keys dangling from his left pinky. 

“No thanks. I’ll take the bus home today,” you declare before he can offer a ride. Jimin opens his mouth like a goldfish, flapping his lips dumbly as he stares at you in shock. You have no idea why he’s so surprised, given how you’ve been making it obvious that you need some space.

He looks like he wants to argue again, but thinks better of it. A singular moment of restraint from Park Jimin, which is an act you once thought impossible. Maybe he does care about you more than you thought. 

He stiffly nods at you, shoving his hands and keys into his pockets. He still has a frown on his face when he tells you to text him when you get home. You flip him off with a shaky smirk in response, a feeble attempt to bring some levity back to your now tense relationship. It works a little, and Jimin brightens up significantly. How simple-minded of him.

With a flippant wave, you leave work and head towards your bus stop. At this hour of the night, the streets are mostly dim, save for some street lamps and bars that stay open longer than your restaurant. There are always some people milling about, enough that you never feel too on edge about how late it is. Still, your bus stop is often empty, leaving you to mull over your thoughts in peace.

You are in the midst of jamming your earbuds into your ear when a presence makes itself known beside you.

Is it possible to go through the five stages of grief in under a second? You suppose not, but it’s hard to tell what sort of emotions swim through you when you come face to face with Jeon Jungkook again.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” you mutter under your breath. You pause the song playing on your phone to glare at him with as much venom as you can muster. 

Jungkook holds up his hands in surrender, doe eyes wide like prey. “I-I’m heading home too! I’m not following you, I swear!”

You groan internally. Figures that you and Jungkook take the same bus home. But hold on— “Don’t you have a car? I remember you were parked near the restaurant the other night,” you note, squinting at him.

Jungkook looks sheepish as he rubs the back of his neck. “Oh, yeah. That car was my hyung’s. He lets me borrow it sometimes, but he needed it tonight.”

“Sure…” You level him with a skeptical frown. You remember his hyung, but don’t recall him ever owning a car. You aren’t even sure that his Namjoon-hyung is allowed by the country to drive a car, much less own one. 

He could be lying, but you don’t want to give him an excuse to continue any conversation. So, you busy yourself with your phone and keep your head bowed away from him.

When the bus arrives, Jungkook makes it a point to sit a few rows behind you. Thankfully, he has a better understanding of social cues than a certain Park that you know. He leaves you alone, but your entire body still feels like a rope pulled taut. You have to convince yourself not to look behind you, your morbid curiosity scratching your insides raw.

You are in the home stretch now, and it’ll only be a few more minutes before you get to your stop and make your way to your safe haven. Hell resumes the next day and the next, but at the very least you’ll have your home to yourself. No one could take that away from you.

Again, this is where you learn that tempting fate is never a good idea.

When you exit the bus at your stop, you can hear his footsteps following you. It’s hard not to notice, especially when his large and distracting boots make such a distinct racket that makes him so Jungkook. 

You hasten your pace towards your apartment complex, your shoulders hunched and hands shoved into your coat pockets in an attempt to hinder the bile rising from your stomach. He had promised that he wasn’t following you, but that proclamation seems to be standing on feeble legs with how long he’s been on your tail now.

Your street is filled with rows of low-rise apartment buildings, so you hope that if anything happens, you can yell as loud as you can and alert some compassionate neighbor to come to your aid. (Not that you think he would ever physically harm you, but… You can’t say the same about your mental state.)

Your home is just two buildings away from where you are, but Jungkook still seems determined to follow you to the end. You all but skip the remaining feet to your apartment entrance, your breath coming out in puffs as you finally muster up the courage to face your supposed stalker and give him a piece of your mind. 

“If this is some convoluted way for you to find out where I live, then you aren’t being very subtle about it,” you say, your chin held up high despite the growing urge to vomit pathetically in front of your ex-boyfriend. You have your hand rested on the doorknob, just a moment’s notice away from bolting into your house if the need for a quick getaway arises.

To your surprise, Jungkook wasn’t following you as closely as you expected. He had stopped trailing you about two buildings down, his own hand poised on the door with a look of genuine shock.

You both stand there, staring at each other as mutual understanding dawns on the two of you. 

Everyday, the universe learns of more creative ways to be cruel.

“Oh…” Jungkook’s voice falters. He looks simultaneously frightened and amazed, as if he too finds this entire situation unbelievably harsh. He swallows thickly, looking at you and back to his door in quick succession. “Well… This is a strange coincidence,” he murmurs. 

You want to believe that this was his entire fault, that Jungkook had somehow managed to track you down to haunt you for the rest of your days. You want to believe that he’s a crazed stalker who is willing to find where you work and live so that every hour of your wretched life is filled with nothing but reminders of what-could-have-beens. You just want someone to blame instead of just the cosmos—you want someone tangible to hate so that your suffering can be given some sort of identity. You want to give your mourning and hurt a name so that you can learn how to heal.

You want to believe all of that, but it’s hard to do so when Jungkook looks so incredibly uncomfortable, as if he’d rather melt into the shadows and never be seen again. 

In all your memories, you have never seen Jungkook look so small.

You heave a big sigh, your fingers grasping the door knob so tightly that you half-expect it to be dented from the force. You linger for a moment, your mouth opening but nothing spills out. 

What is there to say? What do you say to an ex-boyfriend that you haven’t seen in two years, who is suddenly so deeply entwined in your life once more? Do you tell him goodnight? Tell him to stay away? Tell him to come home with you?

Jungkook looks equally as conflicted. His lips are pursed tight with words left unsaid. You aren’t sure whether you want to punch the confession out of his mouth or seal them up forever. It feels like eons before he finally breaks the silence with a mirthless laugh.

“I… I just wanted to say—back at the restaurant. When I sang that last song,” Jungkook begins, and his voice feels loud because of how empty the streets are. For a moment, you are reminded of a cathedral you once visited during a vacation, how sacred silence can be. The world holds its breath, waiting for him to speak.

“I meant it all. Every word. Every lyric. I never stopped…”

He trails off, shrugging his shoulders. He stares at you helplessly, but you don’t know what to say. You don’t want to listen any more, but your feet are planted to the ground. You’re frozen like a deer in headlights, forced to brace against him as he crashes into you. 

He continues, “And when we broke up back then… I never wanted that to happen. You broke it off before we could even try something—and I hated how I didn’t fight for you harder. I let you misunderstand me because I was afraid you wouldn’t want to stick around if I didn’t succeed. I convinced myself that I was holding you down, but I never gave you—us—a chance. I never stopped regretting it since.”

“Me? Break up with you?” You echo incredulously. That statement is enough to break you from your trance, the telltale signs of indignation rising up your chest. “How dare you suggest—Me? You were the one who broke up with me, asshole! You were the one who broke my heart and decided to up and leave to god knows where! Only to miraculously respawn right next to me, groveling at my feet with sad love songs as if that’s enough for me to forgive and forget? Fucking entitled bastard,” you seethe.

Somehow, Jungkook manages to shrink more, like a bunny with his tail tucked between his legs. “Yes, you’re right that I broke your heart but… When I told you I was moving away to try and become a singer, it was always with the intention of staying together. I know it would have been difficult, but I wanted you to be with me through thick and thin. But when you misunderstood and took it as a break up, I let you go because, well… I was scared that it would happen eventually. Who wants to date a broke busking fool anyway?”

He laughs, but it sounds watery. He sniffles, and you hope it's only because of the cold. “I tried looking for you, but you blocked me everywhere and no one from back home seemed to know where you went. So I just accepted that we’d never see each other again… Until a few days ago, that is.”

A misunderstanding? Is that what everything boils down to? Years of trying to build yourself back up again, relearning what it means to be happy—all the fallen domino pieces in your life trailing back to a single moment in time? All because Jungkook was scared that you didn't love him enough?

You’ve never felt angrier in your life. You fear what you might say if you continue to stand outside there, face to face with the singular person strong enough to whittle you down to the bone. Jeon Jungkook is all soft smiles and sweet songs, but how come he’s always able to knock you off your axis? Few people on this earth can stitch you up and break you down in equal measure, but somehow, Jungkook manages to do all that and more.

Then, comes the guilt. Had it been all your fault? That you hadn't returned his love in equal measure? Had you secretly given up on the hope of being on his level? Always looking down on yourself: unable to move past your insecurities. Were you terrified of being his side piece, his girlfriend, forever?

Who are you, even? And where do you stand?

(Beside him, is what you want to answer. You don't know if that's the right choice.)

You can’t bear to look at him, least of all answer him. Without another word, you shove your house key into the door before slamming it shut despite the late hour. If you awaken any neighbors, you’ll apologize later. For now, all you require is sleep and hope that this has been all a terrible nightmare.

xxx

Reality is a bitter pill to swallow.

Jeon Jungkook continues to sing at the restaurant, and after only two days of repeat stellar performances, your manager decides to promote him as the official vocalist for the band. It hurts to admit that you're not the least bit surprised; you might have a hard time looking at him, but you can never deny his talent. 

His song list has added a larger variety of genres ever since his first performance. That is to say, he isn’t always singing about lost loves and tragic couples every night. Perhaps it is due to some requests from customers or his other bandmates, but it doesn’t stop him from sprinkling one or two love songs into the mix. 

He doesn’t sing any original songs ever again. That, at least, is a small mercy. He doesn’t make any moves to speak with you either, despite the daily awkward trips back home after the end of your shifts. Whether that’s because he’s given up on you (again), or he’s waiting for you to make the first move, you don’t know. Frankly, you don’t think you have the energy (nor courage) to do anything about it.

It’s a few weeks after Jungkook’s first performance at the restaurant, and closing time is approaching. You appreciate Friday nights the most because it means you’ll have two consecutive days to relax and avoid your problems. It’s also the busiest night of the week, when white-collar workers decide to drink and eat for as long as the night allows them. Busier nights mean more distractions, and you’re willing to deal with twenty Karens over one Jungkook.

During nights like these, your manager occasionally asks you to fulfill some waitress duties when there aren’t enough hands on deck. Normally you’d hate it, but earning the extra tips is enough to keep your grumbling to a minimum To this day, your landlord has yet to do anything about your broken shower, and you’ve finally conceded to the fact that you’ll have to be the one to do something about it. 

As you inform the customers in your area that the last call for orders is approaching, you sneak a glance at the bar to see Jimin dutifully performing his job. That is to say, he’s flirting up a storm, getting women and men alike to blush from head to toe as he serves their drinks with a salacious smirk.

What a swindler, you think to yourself, snorting when he makes eye contact with you. He gives you a cheeky salute, mouthing something as he gestures to the back door.

Despite the semi-fight the two of you had all those weeks ago, Jimin was never one to argue about the same topic two days in a row. When you saw him the next day after your confrontation with Jungkook, Jimin was back to all smiles. You still catch him sending death glares towards Jungkook on most nights, but he doesn’t bring up the matter with you anymore. For that reason, you’ve gratefully settled back into your weird, banterful friendship with him. Even if there’s still a lingering tension between the two of you that you refuse to acknowledge.

You nod thankfully back at him, excited to go to his house and take a much needed shower. At this point, going to his house has become second nature to you, and it gives you an excuse to not see Jungkook at your regular bus stop every day. You have half a mind to never fix your shower for that reason, but of course there is still the problem of having to deal with Jimin every time you need to bathe. You hardly consider yourself an impatient person, but Jimin likes to toe the line far more often than necessary.

You’re down to your last two tables before you can close up shop when your manager suddenly barrels right into your path. You nearly drop your tray of dirty dishes to the floor, holding in a loud yelp as your suspiciously stern-faced manager halts you in place.

“Ms. Y/N, may I have a word with you for a moment? It’s regarding your paycheck for the month,” he barks, lips downturned. He appears disgruntled about something, and it sends a worried shiver down your spine. And here you thought Fridays are meant to be fun. He doesn’t wait for you to reply before he stalks back to his office, an unspoken command for you to follow. 

You unload your dishes in the kitchen before making your way to his office. The small, dark room is cramped with overflowing file folders and coupons from multiple take-out places. You accidentally step on a stack of papers, and upon further inspection, seem to be a pile of applications for new hires. You distinctly remember complaining to him months prior about being understaffed and him replying that no inquiries were coming in.

As you approach, your manager shuffles through your coworkers pay stubs, and you notice yours and Jungkook’s on top of the piles. 

Manager Jeong clears his throat. “Well, Y/N. It seems to be your lucky day. As you know, we split the tips based on your hours and what sort of duties you fulfill. With the new hire we have as our in-house singer, we’ve had to split it one way more to accommodate his arrival. However, he has recently requested to me that his portion be reallocated… to you, Ms. Y/N.”

Your jaw drops immediately. “I-I don’t understand, Manager Jeong,” you sputter. 

Manager Jeong snorts, bemused by your reaction. “Don’t understand? Well, I suppose you’ll have to ask Mr. Jeon if you want his reasoning. Regardless, since we normally deposit your salary straight to your bank account, would it be alright if I hand you his tips in cash for now? He only informed me about his request an hour ago, and the accountant has already clocked out for the week.”

All you can do is nod dumbly back at him. With a huff, your manager presses a white envelope into your hands before promptly ushering you out of his office. “Well, that's settled. Out you go! Have a good weekend, Ms. Y/N. Don’t forget to lock the register before you leave!” He calls out before slamming his door in your face.

It takes you a moment to reanimate back to life. You stare at the white envelope for a long while, unable to fathom the scribbled out name of Jeon Jungkook replaced with your own name. Then, you crumple it into your fist before stomping over to where Jungkook and the rest of the band are in the middle of packing it up for the night.

Jungkook looks up from his guitar case when he senses you fast approaching. For a fleeting second, a smile graces his handsome face before it’s smacked away by your crumpled envelope. 

“Keep your fucking cash, Jungkook. What the hell is your problem?” You fume, cheeks heating from agitation. Jungkook splutters for a moment, prying the envelope away from his face and looking at it in bewilderment. When he sees it clearly, recognition dawns on his face, followed by guilt.

“It’s just… my way of saying sorry, I guess.” He answers you meekly, neck flushing red in embarrassment. Behind him, the rest of the band grow silent at the scene before them, and you debate on telling them to mind their own business when they quicken their pace to leave.

“Well, keep your apology to yourself. There’s nothing to apologize for,” you correct him with a frown. To offer an apology is to offer accountability. You aren’t sure if you’re ready to hear him say that. 

“No, it’s a sorry for… using you, I suppose.”

“Using me?” You repeat, dumbfounded. “For what?”

Jungkook smiles wryly back at you. “For inspiration?” he clarifies. For being the reason I can sing? He leaves that part unsaid, but you can almost imagine him saying it. 

You feel heat rising to your cheeks again, but this time you aren’t quite sure if it’s from embarrassment, anger… or something else.

Unable to conjure up a response to his simple confession, you stomp away from him with a pounding heart and shaking hands. You continue the rest of your closing shift routine instinctually, your body moving on autopilot as Jungkook’s words continue to ring inside your head. When all is said and done, Jimin makes his way to your station with a questioning stare, but you wave him off in favor of stomping ahead of him to the parking lot.

In his car, Jimin rattles off about his latest exploits and purchases, his grating voice a comfort for once. You hum noncommittally during his stories when appropriate, but you suppose your usual indifference feels different, even to Jimin's untrained ears. 

At his house, you drift to his bathroom immediately. You already have a shirt button undone by the time you get a handle on the door when Jimin’s hand stops you in place. You can feel his warmth emanating against your back as he slowly pulls the bathroom door close. With a tired sigh, you reluctantly turn to face him and find him standing closer than you expected.

He has an arm resting above your head, effectively caging you. You feel your shoulders sag. Damn, here comes another confrontation. Why can’t everyone just leave you alone?!

“Talk to me,” he says. No, he demands.

You push him away weakly, but he hardly budges. “Nothing to talk about,” you lie. Had you no filter, you’d be word vomiting all over the place ages ago.

Jimin groans, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “Enough with the emotional constipation. I’m here to listen, alright? No teasing or anything, I’m all ears and maybe a shoulder to cry on. Just don’t stain my Chanel top too bad,” he jokes.

You puff out a short breath—a sorry excuse for a laugh. “Don’t you get it? I don’t want to talk about it, and that’s that.”

“It’ll make you feel a lot better, though,” he offers.

You scoff. “What makes you think that? What if I just want to ignore all my problems forever and never grow from it? Is that so bad?”

Jimin pushes himself away from you, raising his hands in mock defeat. “You’re so fucking annoying. Can you stop running away from your problems and talk to me? Hell, talk to Jungkook for all I care! Just stop being a doormat and speak your mind for once in your damn life!”

“What are you, my therapist?” You brush past him, shower all but forgotten. You begin toeing your shoes back on, ready to head home tired and smelly. At the very least, you won’t have to deal with this stupid annoying asshole any longer. 

Jimin strides back towards you, but for once he doesn’t do anything to forcibly stop you. Jimin has always been gruff with you, not afraid to push and pull you in any which direction. It’s part of the reason why you can’t take him seriously, even though you’ve recently realized why he was always being such a prick towards you—

“Yeah, I’m not your therapist. But for better or for worse, I’m your friend and I—I fucking care about you, alright? And it sucks seeing that good-for-nothing stick his nose in your business and act like he can do anything without any repercussions.”

Is Jimin being for real right now? “With how often you look at yourself in the mirror, you’d think you’d be better at introspection,” is all you say to that. You shove your feet into your shoes, not caring that you’ve probably put them on wrong. Maybe it’s because it’s Friday and the fatigue from the week has finally settled deep in your bones, but you can’t help but leave one last scathing remark to drive the final nail in the coffin.

“You know, if you were a little nicer to me, maybe I would talk to you. Hell, maybe I’d like you back. But no, just keep being your domineering, asshole self and I’ll keep being the same fucking doormat bitch you know and love,” you spit, turning towards the door and away from his face. You’re not even curious to see how he reacts. “I don’t need protection, alright? When I tell you to stay out of my business, you stay out of it. So don’t try and pretend to be my knight in shining armor.”

There’s an ocean of silence, enough to hear a pin drop. The urge to apologize surges to the surface, but you stamp it down. He’s petty all the time, so now it’s your turn.

Okay, maybe that’s a little too mean on your part, but you’re exhausted. Perhaps it is true when they say you should never act on your anger when it’s past midnight. But can anyone blame you? You’re only a girl, and girls need to snap too. 

When he responds, his voice sounds weak. Park Jimin, weak? It's almost unthinkable. "Why don't you trust me?"

Isn't it obvious? you want to say. But some mercy remains within you. You'll pick up the pieces another time. Instead, you rasp out, “Good night, Park. I’ll see you on Monday.”

The walk of shame back to your house is long and arduous. Your phone dings thrice, likely signaling texts from Jimin, but you turn it off without checking for sure. For once, the weight on your shoulders is slightly lighter. You huff out a dry laugh, realizing belatedly that maybe Jimin is right—maybe speaking your mind has its benefits.

There’s a small park in your neighborhood that you always pass by. You don’t remember the last time you spared it a second glance, but this time you notice a lone figure swinging back and forth, arching dangerously higher than what you would consider safe. From a distance, all you can make out are the person’s comically bright boots, and you have a sinking suspicion you know who it is without seeing their face.

Cosmos, or whoever it is that controls my life, why must you braid our strings of fate so tightly? You ask, but as always, it refuses to reply.

Against your better judgment, your feet bring you closer towards him. He has his back towards you, his feet pumping him higher and higher and you half expect him to swing in a perfect arc like a gymnast on parallel bars. You have to keep your distance a bit, lest you get the wind knocked out of you by his signature stompers. 

You clear your throat, and the boy stops mid-swing and nearly catapults himself into the spongey, playground floor. Hunched over and wheezing, Jungkook directs his shocked eyes at you with a comical stare. 

You raise a hand in greeting. A peace offering, maybe. “Hello—”

“I swear I’m not stalking you!” Jungkook interrupts as he scrambles to his feet. He bows deeply in remorse, the action so endearingly him. “S-sorry, I’ll make my way home now…”

“I don’t own the park, Jungkook. I was just saying hello…” You snort, wringing your hands uncomfortably. You grind your shoes into the ground, the sound of crunching leaves breaking the still air. “A-and… to say sorry, for earlier.”

“Sorry?” Jungkook repeats, confused. When he realizes what you mean, he waves his hands frantically. “No, no! Don’t be sorry! It was my fault for being so inconsiderate. I understand how you might misconstrue my actions, and I made things more awkward. I’ll consider your feelings more in the future…”

In the future… You cough, unwilling to meet his bright and honest gaze. If you stare too long, you fear you might go blind. 

“I come here to the park often, when I feel too cramped inside my apartment,” Jungkook explains, frantic energy radiating off him in waves. He’s gesticulating too much, a clear sign that he’s trying to hide his nerves. You remember how he would do the same thing in high school, whenever he had to present his projects in front of the class. 

You hold a hand up, a weak attempt to get him to calm down. “I’m not here to interrogate you. I just wanted to…” What is it that you wanted to do?

The two of you just stand awkwardly like that, similar to a few weeks ago when you discovered you were neighbors. You’re grasping at straws in your head, both conflicted for wanting to tell him something and running away. Even if you were to talk to him, what would you say? There’s a reason you told Jimin you didn’t want to talk—frankly, it’s mostly because you have no idea what to say or feel. 

But you do know, the universe responds. 

I ask you questions all the time, and this is how you respond? 

Either that, or you’re going insane, the universe remarks.

Jungkook pulls out his phone, his fingers fumbling as he unlocks it. He takes a furtive step towards you, but thinks better of it. There’s a few feet of distance between you, but it feels like worlds apart. Close and yet so far. You recall how you’d easily pull him towards you in the past, how being together felt as natural as breathing. 

“I know you absolutely hated it the last time I played my original song at the restaurant, so I refrained from performing any ever since that night. But that didn’t stop me from writing them. I was fine with keeping them locked in a vault forever, but…” He hesitates, searching you for any signs of discomfort. When he sees the carefully blank look on your face, he continues with trepidation. 

“Can I try a song for you? You don’t have to say yes, and you’re free to tell me to fuck off and I’ll never even look at you ever again. Just…” He flails one last time, a choked sob making its escape from his throat. 

Are you hopeless for wanting to say yes? Or were you reverting back to your old self who relied on him and believed in him so heavily? If you wanted him out of your life for good, you would have quit your job at the first sight of him. Maybe you were masochistic. Or maybe were you hopeful for a new start, a chance to rekindle a relationship that you’ve secretly always wanted to repair.

You have so much life ahead of you. Many more mistakes will be made and maybe they’ll haunt you when you’re older. But would it really be such a terrible gamble to take one more chance? 

You nod, and seal your fate.

He presses play, and the soft strumming of a guitar fills the empty playground air. 

Not for the first time, you wonder how it can be so easy for Jungkook to be so… honest. He spills his heart in every song that he writes, and you know he’s never been a great liar. He can’t help it, being genuine is in his DNA. This crashing waterfall, this boy with overflowing emotions—he sings what he thinks but feels terrified because of it. You might not understand his honesty, but you know that fear. You know it all too well.

He beholds himself to you—raw and unfiltered. A little battered and bruised, but still Jungkook. Behind everything, still the boy you’ve been yearning for.

Maybe this song is what will give you enough confidence to admit everything to him, too. As you stand there, listening to his mellow voice sing confessions to no one but you and the stars, you think you grow a little more courageous that day.

Maybe you won’t be able to tell him tonight. Maybe not tomorrow, nor next week either. But as you gaze back at his hopeful eyes, you know deep in your heart that you’ll find the words you’ve been looking for.

“I’ll keep waiting for you, if you let me.” Jungkook’s voice floats gently to you, and settles in your open palms. This time, you don’t let go

xxx

Months later, Jungkook stops working at the restaurant when an offer from a major record company arrives in his mail. Apparently, a big shot from the local radio station had pitched him to an employee at that company and they were all pleasantly surprised to find a hidden gem at a random bar and restaurant.  

In your apartment, you stare outside your window and to where his home is—well, where it was. You wonder if he finished packing his things, ready to make the big move tomorrow. You stand up with a stretch, sparing a glance at your still broken shower. It would be nice to have one more shower at his place… And after that? Maybe you should start looking for a nicer apartment; somewhere far away might be nice.

Your phone rings, and you see his contact photo light up your screen. With a smile, you answer.

“Come over, if you want. I won’t make you,” Jungkook assures you. 

You laugh lightly, already halfway out the door. 

[netherfeildren]

How to Endure Ardor:

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: Joel teaches you how to love him.

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: Post outbreak; QZ Joel Miller; I'm saying this, but the setting is sort of ambiguous anyways, Stream of consciousness, Character Study, Alternating POVs; PIV sex; The troubles and toils of breaking up and then making up with a fucked up old man; Uncaring Joel; Mentions of painful sex; Toxic relationships or situationships or whatever you want to call it; I think I'm addicted to the idea of a Joel who'll never love you and I should probably see a doctor about it

A/N: she remembers how to write, who'd of thought!

Word Count: 1.3K

Read on AO3

This is a lesson:

“Tell me again,” she says, and it’s a begging.

A begging like what? Something that carries shame and smallness in the shape of it. Stay a little longer. It humiliates him for the wretchedness it pulls from him. Joel, please. Seeping blood the color of her supplication. Please, she says, please. And who else says please to him anymore? Who asks him for anything anymore but her? The only ones who ever had are long past and gone, and he can’t even barely remember they were ever really there to ask anything of him to begin with—can’t remember what it feels like to owe someone something and want to give it to them in a way that will actually make him. 

Tell me what again? That I want you? That I’ll stay? That I love you? I’ll come back, he says instead, the only thing he can promise and keep. And he wonders if it humiliates her too, the way he lies, the way he runs, the way he swears, the way he always comes back and comes back but never returns with the things she needs. A humiliation just like it is a begging. 

The thing they have: it’s strange, fickle, honest in its lies, very, very ugly. An ugliness that is shocking in a world gone to rot already. The sky doesn’t shine anymore and they bask in it. 

But also, and, the thing they have: it’s physical, saving.

This is obvious too, even if only to them.

He slides inside and you’re what? Hot and wet and slick, and—yes, a thing like a dream, but still only a thing. Something to have, something close to desire, but not quite, more like biological want. Woman turned possession. In his mind this is an excuse, a reason, a begetting. Like, what—like what? Like when you want a thing very badly but it is very bad for you, and you need to make up any excuse to have it, lie and lie and lie—to your mother, your best friend, the mirror—a begetting like that. Easy to understand only if you’ve been there. 

It started simple, it started like nothing, it started like the first time you meet someone and you know they’ll matter, you know they’ll mean something. So it started like what? Like a lie. 

Shifts at the QZ, long and toiling and reminders of the sort of life that died in an outbreak of monsters, only if for how unlike that past it was. Humans or fungus or—

—men who hurt—you, men who refuse your love, Joel Miller.

The crutch of your age, of you being weaker or smaller or in need, him being easily felled, wooed, easily conquered by something young and given without a try because there was never the opportunity for trying before. 

Now, it is like this: you take my cock and you take my come and you take my nothing, and I give so little and yet you still find a way to take and take and take, leech of a girl, dream of a girl, hungry. And with the excuse that it’s only in a way you contrive for your own self. But in the end, what does that make you? What do I make you into? 

These are the things he asks himself. 

Perhaps she goes away for a time, tries the route of escape, of variety. But when she inevitably comes back because addiction is riddled always in the same sorts of ways: did you try different bodies? Did you try different flavors and sounds? Did you look for me in all of them? 

The answer is usually yes.

At reunion’s turn: he rolls her over to face her, Joel, damp and panting and trying to be something—perhaps better, more honest—after a season of variety and honest attempts and shut eyes. He’s so hard for her, always is. 

Again: he slides inside and you’re what? His, undeniably. Not yours. Something to want but not desire because it’s too romantic a notion, and yes, there’s a difference even if he can’t put into words what that difference specifically is. Body and heart, perhaps, definitions that differ between disparate anatomical parts or levels of deniability. 

Nothing either of you have ever been able to put into words when lust and love aren’t things you can even say out loud for the shame of them, even if they exist within said same anatomy. 

You come together, the season passed, the separation passed but still kept at hand for the next time the closeness becomes too much. 

“Tell me again,” she says, and this time he remembers what she’s asking for.

“I fucking missed you, baby. Missed this pussy.” Because he can’t say it’s her heart he missed. Because Joel Miller does not have honesty in his arsenal. 

He spreads you wide, knee to shoulder so it hurts and pulls, so it’ll be sore and reminding tomorrow. The slap of his pelvis against the back of your thighs is obscene, wet and lewd, a string of girl cum keeping you connected, such togetherness, curve of your ass to the root of his cock—the two of you are together again. 

You know what I thought, when I tried to go away, you say. He doesn’t want to know, but he doesn't tell you so either, only slides in again, the mouth of your womb right there, threatening. I’m never going to feel like this again, and I hate how certainly I know that. He wonders if the unsaid part is that he’s the recipient of that feeling, the hate. 

He wonders if the pinch inside him is hurt. He wonders if the throb is love. 

All he says because he can’t say the rest is, I missed you, I missed you, and if he could look himself in the mirror—something that’s twenty years past lost—he’d ask: are you alright? Just tell me you’re okay. And it sounds in your own voice and with your own care and the feel of your own warmth. Is there anything I can do?

Other times, he sees himself through your own eyes, and then he knows for certain that the throb is love 

So he makes up for lost time, hard—and if it was a thing he knew how to be— loving. Mouth to cunt first, primed and soft and begging, making you come again and then another once more, then inside of you. Slow, splitting you open, red cunt like a wound, balls slapping wet, pulling out to watch the gape of the space he’s carved for himself. His cock is so hard and missing you something desperate. And he’s reminded of what it is to really miss something in a way he hadn’t been in twenty years of apocalypse, he’s forced to realized that it’s been so long since he’d had something to love that he’d not realized the feeling of missing that long past someone had gone away, only faint memory remained. 

Violent, is what this makes him after that realization—thrusts turning hard and punishing. How dare you give yourself to me? How dare you then take yourself away? You come around him again, the gift of your orgasm. How dare you not be able to accept the little I’m able to give when I’m trying so desperately fucking hard to give you even just this? 

He fucks you mean, he fucks you in the way of a man who doesnt know how to say the things he needs to say, in a way that’s confusing, that could make a less discerning woman feel only the hurt. 

But then again, you know him.

Fucks you in a way that is a little bit like love.

And so, amidst all of it, there is an honesty amongst the lies. A truth unspoken that they both know—I’ll come back because I need you, because you’re the only one who can give me the things I'm not strong enough to ask for out loud. 

You’re not sure which of the two of you is the one saying it.

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

Updates Blog

[shigayokagayama]

What are the biggest losses between the manga and anime? I just finished watching mp100 and I'm curious what the manga has!

ok biggest losses are kind of hard to define because like. anime and manga are two inherently different mediums and there are a good amount of cuts that improve pacing and then a good amount of cuts that people sort of argue over the merit of so im just going to go for biggest differences. i would also highly recommend reading the manga just because it is a pretty different experience tonally along with the minor plot differences and cut scenes + theres a bunch of omakes that both flesh out characters that dont get too much focus and have some really good bits in them. putting the rest of this post under a cut bc i ramble

mogami arc

this one is kind of inescapable i feel like but the anime version of the mogami arc had a LOT of things trimmed for a couple different reasons. season 2 already got an extra episode in order to do the fire scene as a cliffhanger so with the way things shook out the director had to choose between a. cutting a bunch of stuff out of separation arc to make it one episode so mogami arc couid stay three episode or b. cutting a bunch of stuff out of mogami arc so separation arc could stay two episodes. imo they made the right choice, whats even the point of adapting mob psycho if you dont get confession arc right, but some of the cuts to mogami arc will be dearly missed and others will be fought over to the end of time. cuts include:

minori being established as a brat in a video everyones shown and the video being part of how reigen deduces shes possessed (reigen deducing her possession in the manga is generally just a lot better done and after you read the manga the scene in the anime feels so awkward because you know whats missing

the psychics deciding to band together to beat this little girl to death to save themselves and shinra stepping between them to protect her and getting utterly thrashed, not by mogami, but his fellow psychics

reigen trying to convince mob to leave without him and call for help while he distracts him which leads to this

the general mogamiland section lasting a lot longer and being more brutal (notably the stray cat mob feeds getting killed in front of him)

mob getting fucking torn to pieces by spirits during the fight instead of ambiguously dying offscreen

generally would recommend if nothing else reading the manga version of this arc and confession arc because i feel like these are the only two where you lose like. a significant amount of the story and themes from the cuts. speaking of....

2. WHY THE FUCK DID THEY CUT THIS I WILL BE MAD UNTIL I DIE

maybe its just because i reread this arc on its own probably 50 times before the anime came out but this is the only arc where the cuts actively piss me off because there is absolutely no reason they had to do it. they cut a bunch of important shit, left in things that didnt need to be there, and added scenes that contribute literally nothing to the overall point. if they just did any one of those things or combo of two of those things i wouldnt be as mad but it feels like they put a bunch of filler in then speedran the actual story

cut #1 that pisses me off: HOMOPHOBIA?????

THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A HEART IN HIS EYE. WHY DID THEY NOT INCLUDE THIS. THIS IS THE CULMINATION OF TERUS ARC. THIS IS HIM SEEING THE PERSON HE HAS IDOLIZED AND DEIFIED IN HIS HEAD AT THEIR LOWEST AND STILL CHOOSING TO LOVE HIM, AND THROUGH THIS HE IS CAPABLE OF BEING LOVED EVEN THOUGH HES NOT PERFECT BECAUSE NO ONE IS. WHY WOULD YOU CUT THIS?

cut #2 I NEED WHOEVER CUT THE DIALOGUE FROM THE FIRST PANEL IN PRISON

the lack of inclusion of the first panels dialogue along with the cuts to the mob and shigeo conversation (WHICH WE WILL GET TO) make me think the person who adapted this arc fundamentally misunderstood what was happening. this line. is. THE POINT. THIS ISNT SOME SEPARATE SCARY THING. THIS IS MOB. HE IS CHOOSING TO DO THIS BECAUSE HE IS SCARED AND ANGRY AND HURT BUT HE IS IN CONTROL OF HIS ACTIONS AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN.

cut #3 HE DOESNT WANT TO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR HIS ACTIONS

this entire conversation is so good and i was looking forward to watching it voice acted for so long and its just. gone. for me the "i am shigeo kageyama who are you" reveal felt like a gut punch because the opening being "i knew i would be needed" made me go "oh hes like possessed or his powers are sentient or something" and this conversation was the slow unraveling of my view of these as two separate people and instead as a scared, traumatized teenager who has convinced himself that the parts of himself he hates are something else outside of his control instead of an intrinsic part of who he is because if he's convinced that the parts of him that are able to feel desire and frustration and anger and malice are him then he'll lose all these relationships he's worked so hard to cultivate as his perfect, non confrontational self. and of course that isnt true. all his friends and loved ones are making their way to the center of a damn hurricane because they see he's in distress and want to help him. but he cant see that so he pushes them away. ugh. mob. protagonist of all time.

cut #4 WHY WOULD YOU CHANGE THE COMPOSITION OF THIS I CAN LITERALLY SEE HOW THIS WOULD BE ANIMATED IN MY MINDS EYE W

can you imagine how beautiful this would be in motion. just. god.

cut #5 HE WAS TALKING OUT LOUD. REIGEN HEARD ALL THIS

:(

cut #6 the bowling arc

so the scene where reigen takes his shoes off is supposed to be a lot more solemn bc like. taking your shoes off before killing yourself is a trope in japanese media (ive heard it started in media and bled over into real life but i might have it backwards?). reigen knew he was probably going to die. anyway i cant take this scene seriously because of this edit

the bowling arc.

cut #7 WAAAAAAAAAAAA

WAAAAAAAAAAAA *sniff* AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

cut #8 homophobia again

rip pensive fruity tea sip

cut #9 mob threw the cake directly in reigens face on purpose

i literally experienced every stage of grief realizing this got changed. why. its so perfect. why would you change this.

3. World Domination arc

so WD arc is in a very interesting place where it had a lot of scenes cut but unlike the other two most of the cut content youre like. yea probably best not to include that. ill start with the good content that got cut then go into the weird content

serizawa got his power drained by toichiro. i am quite sad this scene didnt make it in because its sorta heartbreaking

teru fighting off the claw assassin is shown and we see that teru can both make shadow clones AND hold a barrier while attacking, he seems to be the only esper with this ability!

the reason dimple could tell mob's family was alive is that there was no sense of grudge at the house which would have been left behind by people passing in a violent manner

mob briefly goes unconscious during the start of the toichiro fight and dimple possesses him and says "shit"

dimple possessing mob shoots shibata with a gun

we get mukai lore.

it doesnt make any sense and just raises more questions but we get it.

toichiro has a team of telepaths to recap where everyone is because this arc took an entire calender year to update

literally everyone shows up to fight shimazaki. i cannot stress enough how many people show up to fight shimazaki. it would be faster to list espers who dont show up to fight shimazaki

the middle school delinquents show up and start fighting the claw grunts literally completely out of no where and this is never brought up or referenced ever again

when mob and ritsu get home ritsu says all their stuff is in boxes and they need to hurry and redecorate the house before their parents get home which implies that shou packed the entire households worth of belongings into boxes and hid it somewhere before lighting their house on fire which is such a funny mental image that i cant even be mad at it. loony toons ass plot point.

4. other random interesting cut things

takenaka is just generally more of a bitch during alien arc. "ah i think they took him" remains one of the funniest goddamn panels in the manga

peak

alien arc overall is a lot funnier in the manga, i have a slight preference for the manga version just bc theres a lot of really good bits that didnt make it to anime but the anime version is so heartfelt and nostalgic it makes me happy

between omakes and small things that got cut or changed for the anime teru just feels way more fleshed out in the manga. like. anime teru is a completely different person. its hard to explain if youve never read it.

the all girls school part originally went right before the ghost family stuff and was the beginning of mob's existential crisis about why spirits and people get different treatment but tbh it works well where it is i just wish it werent. like that.

the scene where ritsu and teru shake hands was teru draining ritsus power which he seems to have learned to do from encountering ???%

teru.

ow

thats all i can think of off the top of my head, im sure ill realize i forgot something some time after posting this but. yeah. read the manga its good

[pomefioredove]

new fav twst fic author just dropped lmao I love you sm 😂 💕

btw can I ask for an angsty fic abt reader being scared of falling in love w someone? yk like instead of butterflies in their stomach, it feels bad, demeaning and gross? like, in the end they don't realize they're in love bc of how afraid it makes the reader, but ends up sucking it up bc of a valuable friendship? yk, like love it-hate it?

but pick whichever character u want, feel like this would work out w a few of them 👀

thank you!! and OHHH I love this genre of angst... I'm very like this as a person. my immediate reaction was vil but I've done a similar prompt with him in the past so I'm branching out

summary: all is fair in love and war type of post: short fic characters: lilia additional info: ambiguously romantic, angsty, reader is gender neutral, reader is not specified to be yuu but kinda is?

Love and hate are emotions too close for comfort.

It's times likes these that remind you of why Aphrodite and Ares were always tangled in affair, why the hands of love and war fit so nicely together.

Red is the color of both romance and blood.

The heart doesn't distinguish between the heat of passion and the heat of battle, and there's really nothing quite pleasant about that feeling: it's sticky, uncomfortable, warm and wet, making a home in every divot of your skin. It dries on you like blood.

Sometimes, you wonder if being stabbed would be easier.

After all, physical pain, perhaps, is preferable to the dizzying sensation of a beating heart, so noticeable that you can almost taste it from the back of your throat.

...This unwelcome, intrusive feeling, a thief in the night, a sudden loud noise, something that no amount of deep breathing and waiting can seem to quell.

It's not so much longing as it is torture.

You resent yourself for feeling this way. For the way your stomach turns, as if sick, every time you see him.

For the way you can't seem to stop thinking about it, about him, about every little thing he does, about every little question he leaves you with. It's a form of obsession, though one you struggle to resist.

Some days you fantasize about interrogating him until he explains all that he is, so that you might understand why it's him, of all people, him.

But that would never work.

Lilia Vanrouge enjoys keeping the fine print to himself, always leaving you guessing, always leaving you hungry for more. He does it on purpose, he knows, but he enjoys playing this game of cat and mouse far too much to ever finish the kill.

...At first, you did see it as a sort of game. Now, it feels more like a trap, and one that you so eagerly and stupidly walked into.

And yet, still, you can't find it within yourself to resent him. You can't find a way to accuse him of sorcery, of bewitching you, because you know, deep down, that this is your own doing.

You were the one who set the trap. Who started the war.

It was you, you, who blindly ran into battle, armed with nothing but your wits and the pit in your stomach. You were destined to lose from the beginning.

This... feeling. The one that makes your stomach turn, that makes you dizzy, that poisons your mind and senses and turns you stupid and hungry and obsessive, it's your own doing.

And you could just as likely kill it off, swing your blade of reason down on its sickly, thin neck and just be over with it.

But you won't.

And that's the other half of the battle.

For as much as it haunts you, as it tortures you, as it makes you toss and turn at night fantasizing about answers and wars and traps, you want to lose. You want to play this game with him.

Now, it's simply a question of who will strike the final blow.

[hannieehaee]

18+ / mdi

content: friends to lovers, sub!seungkwan, sub!reader (but not as much as him lbr), smut, f reader, non penetrative sex, grinding, too many run on sentences, etc.

wc: 1521

masterlist

bestfriend!seungkwan and you, who have insane underlying sexual tension that neither of you is willing to talk about but everyone else can see.

the way you two jokingly argue with each other, constantly scolding the other one second, and cuddling chest-to-chest the next.

kwannie who envies any type of attention you give his members because you're HIS best friend and you should be doting to him only.

kwannie who gets annoyed at the sight of you giggling endlessly at chan's jokes and unknowingly flirting with vernon, who doesnt realize his best friend is in love with you and is wishing him a very inconvenient evening for even daring to steal you away in his presence.

kwannie who gets fed up of watching you go to yet another member and strike up conversation (flirting with mingyu ?? seriously ?) from afar and drags you away under the vice of 'why are you hogging my friends? get your own!' and leads you to a more secluded area.

you, annoyed (but not really) at his antics, start to pick a fight with him, enjoying the unserious back and forth you tend to have with each other.

it's all going as usual; both of you still in denial about the tension between you and the reason for your constant discomfort at seeing the other in near proximity to anyone else. that is, until things take a shift.

the atmosphere seems different somehow. this time, kwannie seems to be taking your lighthearted flirting with his members to heart; something that you had never encountered in your years of friendship.

"why are you always flirting with them?", he whines. "do you think its fun watching MY best friend ditch me the moment she sees a pretty boy walk by? what about me??"

this is now a good ten minutes into the argument. one that is usually light-hearted enough to take place in front of the other members and ends in the members teasing seungkwan about his dependency on your attention. this time, however, seemed different.

"what about you, kwannie? you know it doesnt mean anything. theyre my friends too, they know its not serious," you argue back, feeling nervous at the serious tone of his complaints.

"its not that, its just..." he cuts himself off. "even they see it, but you dont. why is it always them? .. why wont you look my way?"

that last sentence stops you in your tracks. whatever rebuttal you had in your mind suddenly going away, not knowing how to respond.

unsure as to whether that was a confession or simple frustration at having to share his best friend, you stare blankly at him, breathing heavier than ever.

"kwannie .. of course i look at you. i love you, you're my best friend," you try to salvage the situation in the most ambiguous way you can, not knowing where this is going.

he lets out a heavy sigh, looking down at your shoes, unwilling to make eye contact with you, something very unlike the seungkwan you know.

"kwannie .. ?", you inquire and step towards him.

"we'll always be friends, right?", you nod at his question, urging him to continue "so it's okay if i talk freely? we'll always be there for each other, right?", he asks rhetorically, nodding at his own question to reassure himself.

he takes a deep breath as he walks towards you. "you know .. jeonghan hyung told me over and over to just tell you, that you would love me regardless and that i'd never lose you. but i guess you might already have some sort of idea, don't you?", he smiles sadly at you, timidly extending his hands towards yours.

you accept the embrace of his hands and nod back; head down, feeling vulnerable at the situation.

seeing as he's already put his cards on the table (kind of), you decide to walk the rest of the way for him.

you step forward and run your hands from his hands to his arms to his shoulders, closing any distance between you. he seems slightly surprised at what seems to be your reciprocation, but quickly recovers, not wanting to ruin the tender moment.

like in any teenage movie, you both stare down at each other's lips, breathing heavily at the thought of finally getting something you've wanted for years.

you make the first move and softly press your lips against his, causing you both to instantly moan against each other's mouths. it escalates quickly after that. with mouths open, and tongues desperate to get a taste of one another. your hands moving from his shoulders to his hair, pulling him as close as possible. his landing on your waist, finding their way under your shirt softly but desperately scratching at your skin.

your kiss becomes so needy and desperate it's almost impossible to call it a kiss anymore. incessant moaning into each other's mouths and spit covering both your lips. your resolve breaks first, causing you to push him into the nearest surface, which takes form of a sofa bed located behind seungkwan. you push him down, readily straddling his waist and pressing yourself even closer to him.

if seungkwan had any thoughts in his mind prior to you kissing him, theyre even further gone now. he has no control of himself as he runs his hands all over your back, wanting to remain respectful of any boundaries you may have, but going insane at your lips on his and your crotch laying so so closely to his.

you take notice of his desperation and pull off your shirt, making sure to take your bra off with it. you receive a reaction you had only ever dreamed of before.

seungkwan's desire and desperation are clear in his eyes, with his eyebrows furrowed and a whine escaping his mouth at the view of his best friend's chest bare in front of him.

"p-please, god. fuck. can i- please. please let me ..." he whines nonsensically, hands and mouth nearing your tits but not quite touching them before getting your permission.

with no verbal answer you grab his hands and fondle your own breasts with them, moaning at his whines and pleas to get his mouth on them; something which he does soon after.

grinding your crotch against the very obvious bulge in his navy shorts, you whine at the stimulation from his mouth desperately licking your tits, teeth softly pulling at the sensitive buds as he whines at the taste of your skin.

"kwannie .. fuck kwannie dont stop fuck please ..." you breathe out, shoving his face closer to your chest, grinding even faster.

despite your frustration at wanting even more pleasure from seungkwan's body, you disconnect yourself from him to remove your pants and instruct him to remove the rest of his clothes. he whines at the sudden interruption, but hurries to undress himself as soon as he sees you expectantly watch him with just your panties on, wanting you back on him as soon as humanly possible.

with now only two thin layers separating you and seungkwan, you feel the pressure of his dick against your clit even more, causing you to whine into his open mouth.

you know your grinding may be more pleasurable for you than for him, but the pleasure makes you so delirious you cant bring yourself to stop, grinding even faster and shoving your tongue in his mouth, hands harshly grabbing onto his shoulders for better accuracy in the rutting of your hips.

"kwannie- fuck please i promise i- shit. i'll do whatever you want, just let me- please let me finish. it feels so fucking good," you cry, speeding up even more, completely drunk in the feeling of your clit deliciously grinding against his pulsing length.

he seems to not mind it, even helping you meet your undoing by grabbing onto your hips and pushing them against his crotch in order to optimize your pleasure. his mouth is open, letting out whines at the thought of all the pleasure he's causing you by just sitting there.

unbeknownst to you, seungkwan is also nearing his end, felling insane pleasure at the friction caused from the canting of your hips against his. he's the first to find his high, whining into your neck as your never ending grinding continues its course atop his sensitive dick.

it's soon after that you also reach your high and deflate against his warm chest, weakly running your hands into his hair, pulling him for an uncharacteristically sweet peck.

"thank you," you breathe against his cheek. "i wasnt sure where that argument was going, but im glad it ended here," you giggle as you feel his chest shake from his own chuckle.

"sorry i was so dramatic, but i guess it worked in both of our favours so .. you're welcome," he jokes, running his hands up and down your back soothingly.

after a few more teasing comments back and forth, you help clean each other up with whatever wipes and tissues are at your disposal and dress yourselves back up.

it was safe to say that after this, flirting with his members was strictly prohibited.

a/n: i love seungkwan more than life itself which is why i feel kinda bad writing such filth abt him but i also want him so bad so .. anyways this was not proofread bc im too lazy to reread this many words over again. pls lmk if theres anything that makes zero sense that i should change tho <3

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Dystopia

How to Research Your Dystopian Novel

Basic Features of a Dystopian Story

Takes place in the future (although it could be an alternate history, too)

Features a huge disparity between the haves and the have nots (or thrusts everyone into abject poverty and survival mode)

Has an oppressive government (but, on the flipside, there could be apocalyptic anarchy and the oppressive element could be the possibly of death at every turn, i.e. The Road by Cormac McCarthy)

Features society’s complete reliance on government (or, in the absence of government, every individual must fend for himself)

Includes an enforced groupthink consciousness (individuals are obligated to think like everyone else and accept propaganda or they are punished)

Limits information and individual freedom

In a dystopian world, the villains are in control.

Evil triumphs over good, at least in the beginning…and the middle.

Perhaps, by the end of the story, there is a spark of hope, but even that may be ambiguous and up for interpretation.

A dystopian novel is definitely not a feel-good fairy tale. It’s one that’s rife with struggle (both internal and external), and often features martyrdom.

All dystopian novels, the good ones anyway, share a sense of crushing hopelessness that, perhaps even the protagonist can’t combat.

For these reasons, a dystopian story is most effective when you focus on the theme, and then use that theme to draw parallels to the reader’s present. Orwell was a master at it.

Give Thought to Your Theme

The theme of a story is its big idea.

In a dystopian novel, the theme is usually one of the following:

Oppression

Repression

Control

Rebellion

Survival

What is the idea that you’re trying to convey in your story?

What sort of statement or observation are you making about society?

EXAMPLES

If your novel tackles the idea of an oppressive government, research oppressive governments of the past and present.

What are some real life ideas that you can incorporate into your dystopian world to emphasize your theme?

To examine how low humanity can sink under the fist of an oppressive government, start studying Nazi Europe and the Khmer Rouge killing fields of Cambodia.

When you look at these shameful times in our human history, pay attention to how these regimes came to power, and how they maintained power.

On the other hand, if your novel tackles rebellion, start studying the Nat Turner slave rebellion of 1831 or the storming of the Bastille of 1789.

Make special note of what caused these rebellions, and also consider the experiences from both sides (the rebel and the rebelled against).

When you settle on a theme, pull examples from real history to create a stronger narrative.

Create Realistic Characters

Your dystopian novel should feature a cast of compelling characters.

The protagonist should be relatable, but never perfect.

The antagonist may be evil, but never one-sided.

When you’re creating and fleshing out your characters, take time to consider how they view their society.

EXAMPLES

Your protagonist was born into the dystopia, and has no other reference point, so he accepts it without question.

Or maybe your protagonist had a life before the events that created your dystopia, and mourns for it.

You’ll need to research your characters.

Understand each character's backstory.

What history do they carry with them into your story?

Sure, you’re researching “fictional” characters, but it’s still a real process, and a necessary one if you want to create a rounded, consistent character.

It may be a good idea to "interview" your characters. A few questions to ask include:

How do you feel about your society and why?

Who do you trust and why?

What rules do you like and why?

What rules do you hate and why?

While it may feel silly, remember that the interview is confidential.

Only you and the character have to know.

This information may or may not make it onto the pages of your novel, but it will help you shape the motivations of your characters.

Remember that these characters aren’t transplants from our time and world-- they live and shape the world of your novel, and won’t always have the same mindset as your reader. The characters should act according to their own logic.

Lay Down the Law

What laws does your dystopian society abide by?

Even in the most anarchic worlds, there are rules--even if these rules forged and followed by just your protagonist alone.

But, if your dystopian novel deals with an oppressive government, they’ll definitely be a ton of rules that society must follow.

What are they? How should you create them?

Consider the following:

Study the laws of both totalitarian governments and police states

Make a list of the laws that keeps the ruling elite in power

Make a list of punishments for not keeping the law

From caste systems to cannibalism, you’ll find an exhaustive list of ways that the ruling class has preserved the power balance in their favor.

How can you implement these rules and their consequences into your novel?

Also, decide on the method of control.

How does the antagonist exert control over the protagonist? (Can be a government or an oppressive element like diminishing resources).

Is it through propaganda?

Is it through police raids?

Is it through poverty?

Finding Ideas for Your Dystopian Novel

Stumped and not sure how to find ideas for your dystopian novel? Turn on the news. We’re basically living in a dystopian landscape anyway.

What stories grab you? What do you care about?

Child slavery, privacy, the environment, lack of resources, immigration?

Exploit that idea by setting your story 50 or 100 years into the future.

What’s the inevitable (or probable) end of this idea?

This can serve as the basis of your story.

Remember to Build the World

World building is particularly crucial in a dystopian novel.

In your dystopian novel, you’re introducing a completely new world that the reader isn’t familiar with.

What does the world look like? Are there mountains and mist? Is the world dull and gray? Is it a dense, green jungle?

What caused the world to look like it does? Was it an earthquake, a war, a robot apocalypse?

What resources are limited? Sunlight? Water? Food?

Don’t just focus on one small part of the world:

The reader should have a sense of what’s happening throughout your dystopian landscape.

For a dystopian novel, world-building must come from your rich imagination.

That’s because this world doesn’t exist yet and definitely doesn’t have a Wikipedia page. But, this doesn’t mean you can’t research your world’s landscape.

Example: If your novel takes place in a desert, you can research deserts to learn more about the people who live in that environment, including what they wear, what they eat, and how they survive the harsh conditions.

Read Other Dystopian Novels

Finally, familiarize yourself with the very books that define the dystopian genre.

By reading and researching these books, you’ll have a better understanding of what your reader is hoping for when they read your dystopian novel.

When you read the following dystopian novels, do so with an analytical eye. Critique it:

What worked? What didn’t work? How would you change it? How was the pacing? What was the theme? What motifs did the author use to convey the theme?

Source ⚜ Writing Notes & References ⚜ Hate ⚜ Worksheet: Dystopian World More References: Worldbuilding ⚜ Plot ⚜ Character ⚜ 100 Sensory Words

[antimony-medusa]

Gonna be honest with you though if someone outright says “don’t ship my character with other people” or something to that extent regarding smut or whatever I don’t think there should be any ambiguity

I get your point about the nature of fanfic being inherently encroaching upon people’s images so that levity should be extended to otherwise uncommon avenues but I really believe hardline boundaries should be respected, end of, no discussion. If I see people violating creators’ boundaries for their characters Or themselves (and these can be intertwined, it’s not up to the audience to pick apart their boundaries, cuz I’ve seen people try to do that) I’m not going to judge them fairly and I feel like neither should you.

Lines can be crossed and intimacy (not even necessarily romantic!) is a very different monster than the other avenues of storytelling because of how it involves real life relationships seeping into character relationships. Its’s uncommon for people to be like “I wrote A’s character being tortured because I feel like A is tortured in real life” but they Can and Often do that with ship work. So I don’t know, I feel like you’re not affording this the right nuance.

Alright, so, this is another post I'm gonna slap with a discourse and long post warning right away, buckle in.

Yeah, I hear what you're saying, and this is not an uncommon opinion to have! It's still the opinion of twitter/x so far as I know, and I think it's probably the opinion of the bulk of dsmp fans here, as well. I know my posts get notes once they start circulating in hermitblr, but I don't kid myself that I have the majority view. I am posting to explain my views expressly because I know a lot of people don't agree with me!

And in this case we do have a difference of opinion. There's two sort of points as I see it in your posts— we have hardline boundaries about shipping/nsfw from some people, and everyone in the fandom should be abiding by those no exceptions or be thrown out of the fandom; and we have shipping boundaries but not boundaries for other things because shipping is uniquely boundary-crossing and terrible and invasive, in contrast to anything else we can do in fandom.

Taking the second part first, I just don't think that's true. Let's not forget, boundaries discourse started with SMPLive and SMPronpa, and it was not the shipping that caused the discussion, it was the death games. The first real fandom reckoning we had with the notion of boundaries as mcyt fandom was over gore and murder and portraying people in violent ways. Shipping was barely a blip on the radar. The way the discourse has developed now, shipping is framed as the absolute worst thing anyone could ever do with your public image, and everything else is fine, but that is not the case for everyone. Recently the Pirates SMP creators were asked repeatedly for their boundaries (bothered on twitter, really) until they gave them and thus we saw people being fine with shipping but not wanting family dynamic, or being against both shipping and gore, or being fine with shipping but not wanting to be gender bent or trans headcanoned, etc. Not everyone feels the same way about the same things, despite the us-american cultural viewpoint that romance and sexualization is uniquely bad but gore and torture is fine, that everything else is fine.

Like, if we're looking at DSMP, I think there are a lot of creators who would feel just as strongly if not stronger about fics in which their character died of a terminal illness than they would about a fic in which they kiss someone, for understandable reasons. But I see those tropes in the tags regularly!

I think if we are honest with ourselves, if we are going to hardline boundaries about things that are uniquely invasive or bad to do to a creator's character with the view that we are putting all of this up for the creator's approval, we need to accept that this excludes us from writing anything where a character is abusive or is tortured or dies of a terminal illness or is psychologically broken or is age regressed or is neurodivergent or is queer if the cc is straight or trans if the cc is cis or cis if the cc is trans or straight if they're gay— the list of things that would be weird to do in the face of the real guy is really long. And it has most of our favourite tropes on it!

I love writing autistic philza. It would be really fuckin' weird to go up to Philza and tell him about how I write his character as whumped and autistic. Come on now. (But that's within boundaries, so that's— fine? I really don't think it's fine!)

Which is why my stance is that we should be thinking critically about these things, and keeping the fandom seperate from the creators. Some of these things are just not for the creators. They're fine but they shouldn't go on twitter. Y'know?

The idea that shipping draws uniquely on the real person and leads to invasive behaviour but nothing else does— that nobody does "I wrote A being tortured because I think A is tortured in real life"— Look. I have been in the fandom a long time. I remember how all the abused tommy narratives fed right into people assuming his family in real life were abusive— and talking about this on twitter! Where he and his family could see! People did this with WIlbur and Techno too!

I remember people reading about trans tommy and then truthing that the creator either was transmasc or was going to come out as transfemme any day now, publically, on twitter and in his chat. I have seen people she/her tubbo to his face on twitter, with fancams. I have been in chat when people who have clearly assigned Phil "dad" start asking WILDLY invasive things in TTS. If you think that shipping is the only fandom behaviour that can lead to people drawing directly from the streamers for their work and treating the creators weirdly about it, you simply have not been paying attention.

The way the fandom insists on treating benchtrio as children despite the fact that they're almost twenty and viciously attacking their friends for treating them as adults and chiding tommy and tubbo and ranboo for inappropriate behaviour. The list goes ON.

So. The recieved DSMP wisdom is that we should TTS the streamers to check if it's okay if we write a fic in which they die of cancer. We should DM them on instagram to ask if it's okay if we write them as a gender or sexual identity they don't share. We should show up in their twitter mentions to ask if it's okay if we write them as a physically abusive parent.

No????????

My view on that is that it is frankly bizzare it is that we have decided that "asking creators for detailed instructions regarding porn or gore" (especially in TTS! When they're fucking at WORK and can't step away! Stop doing this to the hermits!) is normal and fine and responsible but "post your shit in appropriate places and leave the creators out of it" will make you a monster.

Once again, the experience of someone coming up and saying "i think of you as age regressed" and someone saying "i found this fic where you're age regressed" and someone saying "can I write a fic where you're age regressed" is not that different. In all cases you know that the person has been thinking about it and putting it out there, and in all cases you didnt seek out this information, it was brought to you. In all cases it's weird. Just do not bring this information up to them!

If you just think about it for a while, you see that there is an entire host of things that would be weird to force into the view of a creator, especially when you consider that half the time we got these clips from TTS information when we have no idea if the person answering knew the context of what they were being asked, if they were specifically aware of the creator/cc divide that the fandom works with, or if they felt pressured into it. Oh yeah, let's take a TTS clip from Tubbo when it was 2 in the morning for him and he was deep in a minecraft mod when someone asked him about alters and delusions and he was like "oh you mean like— when they can't help it? I guess that's fine." That definately counts as freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic and specific consent to show him anything we want at all times forever. That's never going to make him uncomfortable.

Think a little here.

So I think there's a lot of the fandom that we should not be putting up for the approval of the creators, and if we don't have a firm answer on if they would like potential edge cases, we should probably be thinking about it and keeping it away from them (and I would err on the side of caution), we should NOT be showing up in the TTS to ask them about narratives in which they're institutionalized, or making them a GOP conservative in fiction, or if Wilbur was canon about seeing them as a bottom, or whatever bizzare thing someone is cooking up now. Honestly if you think to yourself "I don't know if the creator would like seeing this", I would be much more comfortable if the two choices we were picking between there were "simply don't write it" or "write it but keep it away from them", and "harass the creator for an answer on this subject and only write it if they say yes" never entered the equation at all.

And to return to your first point, if we already have a class of fiction that we are keeping away from the creators because basic intellectual curiosity would show that it would be weird to show someone, I don't think it's the end of the world to go "okay, creator doesn't like NSFW, so we also keep the NSFW away from them, keep this shit off twitter, block them if you create it, don't show it to them" and then we archive lock it and continue on our little weirdo on the internet ways.

Now, I don't expect to convince you of this, the phrasing of your post does not indicate that you're open to discussion on this topic. That's fine. Nobody has to agree with me. But I grew up conservative christian, and I have already had people try and get me to throw people out of the community for their perceived sins where I was like "well, I really don't think this is that bad", and I'm really resistant to being forced to do that again. I don't think it's a healthy way to run a fandom, to be shunning people for what they're doing in fiction. Harassing creators in chat? Sure, I will block them from my events as untrustworthy. That's hurting someone in the real world. Writing something that I don't vibe with privately on the archive for an audience of 50 people? That is not doing harm to real people. As long as they're not showing it to the creators, I don't count that as offensive.

How's that for nuance.

[fozmeadows]

As someone who hasn't read the works of radical feminists like Simone de Beauvoir, could you explain what's wrong and what bothers you about biological essentialism? I'm curious about your opinion after reading your post on radfems (and I'd like a perspective that isn't so based on biological gender essentialism, which I honestly have a hard time moving away from because I don't understand other perspectives well). 👀

The problem with biological essentialism is that purports to answer the eternally unanswered question of nature vs nurture in a wholly one-dimensional way - ie, with biological sex as The Single Most Important Aspect Of Personhood, regardless of any other considerations - while simultaneously ignoring the fact that biological sex is not, in fact, a binary proposition. We've learned in recent decades, for instance, that intersex conditions are much more common and wide-ranging than previously thought, not because scientists have arbitrarily changed the definitions of what counts as an intersex condition, but because our understanding of hormones, chromosomes, karyotpying and other physical permutations has expanded sufficiently to merit the shift. So right away, the idea that humanity is composed of Biological Men and Biological Women with absolutely no ambiguities, overlap or middle ground simply isn't true. Inevitably, though, if you mention this, people with a vested interest in biological essentialism become immediately defensive. They'll start saying things like, oh, but that's only a tiny minority of the population, they're outliers, they don't count, as though their argument doesn't derive its claim to authority from a presumed universality. To use a well-worn example, redheads are also a tiny minority of the population, but that doesn't mean we exclude them when talking about the range of natural human hair colours. But the fact is, even if humans lacked chromosomal diversity beyond XX/XY; even if there were no cases of cis men with internal ovaries or cis women with internal testes or people with ambiguous genitalia - and let's be clear: all of these things exist - the fact is, our individual hormones are in flux throughout our lives.

There are standard ranges for estrogen and testosterone in men and women (which, again, vary according to age and some other factors), but two cis men of the same age and background could still have completely different T-counts, for instance - meaning, even the supposed universal gender factor isn't universal at all. More, while our hormones certainly play a major role in our moods and cognition, so do a ton of other genetic and bodily factors that have nothing to do with the sex we're assigned at birth - and on top of that, there's nurture: the cultural contexts in which we're raised, plus our more individual experiences of living in the world. One of the most common, everyday (and yet completely bullshit) permutations of biological essentialism comes when parents or would-be parents talk about their reasons for wanting a son or a daughter. Very often, there's a strong play to stereotypical assumptions about shared interests and personalities: I want a son to play football with me, for instance, or: I want a daughter to be my shopping buddy. But even within the most mainstream channels of cishet culture, it's understood that these hopes are not, in fact, grounded in any sort of biological certainty. The dad who wants a sporty son might be just as likely to end up with a bookworm, while the mother who wants a little princess might find herself with a tomboy. We know this, and our stories know this! For the entirety of human history - for as long as we've been writing about ourselves - we have records of parental disappointment in the failure of this child or that to embody what's expected of them, gender-wise. More than that: if biological essentialism was real - if men were only and ever One Type Of Man, and women were only and ever One Type Of Woman, with recent progressive moments the sole anonymous blip in an otherwise uniform historical standard - then why is there so much disparity and disagreement throughout human history as to what those roles are? The general conception of women espoused in medieval France is thoroughly different to that espoused in pre-colonial Malawi, for instance, and yet we're meant to believe that there's some innate Gender Template guiding all human beings to behave in accordance with a set, immutable biological binary? And that's before you factor in the broad and fascinating history of trans and nonbinary people throughout history - because despite what TERFs and conservative alarmists have to say on the matter, our records of trans people, and of societies in which various trans and nonbinary identities were widely understood (if not always accepted), are ancient. We know about trans priestesses from thousands of years before Christ; the Talmud has terms describing eight different genders, and those are just two examples. All over the world, all throughout history, different cultures have developed radically different concepts of femininity and masculinity, to say nothing of designations outside of, overlapping with or in between those categories - socially, legally, behaviourally, sexually - and yet we're meant to believe that biology is at all times nudging us towards a set, ideal gender template? There's a lot more I could say, but ultimately, the point is this: people are different. While some aspects of our personhood are inevitably influenced by genetics, hormones, chromosomes and other biological factors, we're also creatures of culture and change and interpersonal experience. The idea that men and women are fundamentally different, even diametrically opposed, at a biological level - that the major separator in terms of our personalities and interests isn't culture, upbringing and personal taste, but what's between our legs - is just... so reductive, and so inaccurate.

We can absolutely have common experiences on the basis of a shared gender, but gender is not the only possible axis of commonality between two people, let alone the most salient one at all times, and the idea that we're all born on one side of an immutable biological equation that cannot possibly be transcended makes me feel insane. According to modern biological essentialism, intersex, trans and nonbinary people are either monstrous, mistakes or imaginary; all men are fundamentally predisposed to violence, all women are designed for motherhood, and we're meant to just hew to our designated places - which, conveniently, tend to echo a very specific form of Christian ideology, but which in any case manifestly fail to account for how variedly gender has been presented throughout history. It's nuts.

[flightfoot]

Any fic recs of Adrien dealing with the fallout of finding out his dad is hawkmoth?

Oh yeah, this is a popular plotline and tends to lead to some great fics!

---

Bubblegum Soul by @wehadabondingmoment

"The impulse to throw away his ring, to slam it on the ground and watch its metallic splinters chap away at his soul, got more tempting by the second. Maybe, for a moment, he would learn what it meant to be alive." (Or: Hawk Moth has been defeated and Adrien is suffering more than ever. Armed with unhealthy coping mechanisms and the knowledge that he apparently isn't human, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery.) (Except that his father isn't quite ready to give up just yet.)

Poor Adrien. His father's defeated, but that doesn't mean that he's alright. Dealing with finding out that he's a sentimonster via his father attempting to order him around... that's harsh.

And it doesn't help that while he gets one ring back pretty quickly, he doesn't realize that he has a second amok...

If you like angsty sentiadrien fic, this'll be right up your alley! It's M-rated, but I'm not sure why. Maybe because Adrien's just kind of in a bad headspace?

---

Disintegrated Pancakes by @scribeofrhapsody

Adrien had started expecting the family breakfasts. He had NOT been expecting his father to collapse in the middle of one.

I’m shocked I haven’t seen more of this sort of thing, with Adrien finding out his father’s Monarch via seeing the Cataclysm wound. I love that Alya gets involved in this, being the person Adrien runs into after fleeing the room, and then Adrien getting to talk things out with Gabriel and Nathalie. Thankfully Gabriel is at least not completely incapable of being reasoned with here, or things could have gone worse than they did. It’s a nice little read, though with an ambiguous ending (at least at the time when I write this).

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all of your flaws and all of my flaws (are laid out one-by-one) by @coffeebanana

Ladybug and Marinette have both been acting strangely since Monarch’s defeat, and Chat Noir would give anything to know why—to be able to help them. He just…didn’t expect his answers to come when Ladybug drags him to his father’s statue in the middle of the night along with a bag full of spray paint.

If you felt unsatisfied with Adrien being left in the dark about Monarch, with Ladybug lying about Gabriel being a hero, this is a great fic to read. Marinette’s breaking down keeping this secret, seeing people treat Gabriel as the hero she told people he was, until she finally snaps and has to do SOMETHING, has to tell SOMEONE the truth. 

Which Chat takes pretty well! He knows how persuasive his father could be, and he’s mostly just relieved at finally hearing someone say that Gabriel wasn’t a hero. It’s still a lot to cope with though.

---

Of Crisp Days and Crispier Cakes by @scribeofrhapsody

Gabriel wants to not be sick. Adrien wants to make a cake. Nathalie wants a chill birthday. Maybe they can help each other. Maybe it’ll be a disaster.

So this starts off as just the cute fluff fic of Adrien and Gabriel attempting to make Nathalie a birthday cake that the summary indicates, but soon evolves into a more action-filled drama fic when Gabriel makes the terrible decision to akumatize a cashier while sick… a cashier who happens to be in the same shop as Nathalie and Adrien. Who are willing to put their secret identities at risk in order to save each other.

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After Irritation Do Us Start by @scribeofrhapsody

It was the most difficult decision of his life, but Gabriel did it. He let go of Hawk Moth. He moved on from Emilie. Now, all he wants is to enjoy life with his son and new wife. Unfortunately, a certain nephew of his seems to be determined to unearth what Gabriel needs to remain buried.

I love this look at what could have happened if during the season 3 finale, Gabriel had decided enough was enough and given up on being a supervillain, moving on with Nathalie instead. How much better things could have been if he’d just decided to stop - though Adrien still wouldn’t be happy to discover why Hawk Moth had suddenly stopped attacking.

Oh yeah, there’s an OC here called Gerald who Adrien’s puzzled by, since he’d never heard of this guy before the past year. At the end of the story you find out why he’s included in the story. It’s not a major thing, but it is kind of funny and fits well with the rest of the story.

---

Family by @unecoccinellenoire

“You know,” Nino grins, “if you need advice on being a big brother in a year or two I’m sure I could help.” The bottom of Adrien’s stomach dropped out. — Adrien struggles with the concept of his father and Nathalie having children.

So this is a world where Adrien and Marinette managed to defeat Gabriel, taking his Miraculous, with them giving him an ultimatum: they won’t out him as being Hawk Moth so long as he doesn’t cause any more trouble and does right by Adrien. Gabriel does, in fact, move on finally to Nathalie, giving Adrien a lot of mixed feelings to deal with. He still loves them both despite everything, but he’s also angry at them and he definitely does NOT want them to have children, both because he thinks they’d like any biological child they had more (he’s also harboring guilt from indirectly being the cause of his mom’s death), and because frankly, they screwed up too much with Adrien for him to want them to inflict that on another child.

And then there’s also Adrien dealing with the realization that he’s a Senti on top of that and wondering why he and Felix look the way they do, what Emilie’s reasons were.

It’s mostly just Adrien getting to talk things out, navigating this emotionally fraught situation he finds himself in now that the dust is settled.

----

and I thought I heard you sing by @into-september

When Hawkmoth has been defeated and unmasked, Marinette is left with two problems and no solutions. First, that Adrien is further out of her reach than ever before, and no-one can tell her how to get to him. Second, that Cat Noir is far more troubled than she knew, and the only thing she can do is wait for him at the place they agreed to meet.

It’s your classic “Hawkmoth’s defeated and taken into custody but that means Adrien’s in for a rough time” sort of fic. Everyone’s worried about Adrien and wants to give him what comfort and support that they can, but he’s being hidden away from everyone (which I mean, honestly that’s a good move), so that’s not really possible. Plus, Ladybug’s noticed that Chat’s having a tough time in his civilian life, which worries her.

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If only I could break free by megetstoread

It started with Adrien being upset about going away, but led to a lot of revelations.  

Another Sentiadrien fic here! After telling Adrien that he’s being sent to London, Gabriel takes advantage of Adrien being distraught to akumatize him. Luckily Ladybug’s right there and deakumatizes him before he can even do anything, but it shakes both her and Chat, leading to her allowing him to tell her a lot more about his home life than usual, and for her and Adrien to investigate to see whether there might be more to Adrien’s inability to stand against his father than just psychological abuse.

---

The Parable of the Caller by @nemaliwrites

A week after Hawk Moth’s identity has been revealed, Adrien finds himself with nowhere to go, nothing he can do, and worst of all, strange gaps in his memory he can’t explain. In a stroke of luck, he stumbles upon a burner phone filled with voicemails from one of the Saviors of Paris: Chat Noir himself, who disappeared following Hawk Moth’s arrest.

But with each new voicemail Adrien listens to, he’s forced to confront the fact that there might be some kind of connection between himself and Chat Noir — and discovering it might leave him more broken than before.

I absolutely adore this fic, it’s a fantastic character study for Adrien! Basically in this universe, Ladybug and Chat Noir talked about who should be Guardian, with Chat eventually convincing her that he should be the one to take it on, primarily due to the whole “the Guardian gets amnesia about Miraculous-related matters” situation, and wanting to protect Ladybug from that. Then he finds out Gabriel is Hawk Moth, they take him down, and he relinquishes the Miracle Box and his guardianship to Su Han - all without having a Reveal with Ladybug, since well, he’s not in the greatest shape mentally at the time.

It’s a real treat to see Adrien’s thoughts and feelings about one of the Heroes of Paris leaving him all these voicemails, treating him like this close friend for reasons he doesn’t understand, and just seeing Chat Noir as this outside person. He’s got a very different viewpoint on Chat when looking from the outside than he would from the inside, with being able to see his heroic and good qualities far more easily when he doesn’t know that he is Chat.

Also Marinette’s struggling in the background of the fic with the loss of her partner and guilt over sending Adrien’s father to prison. It gets touched on at various points, and you can tell that she’s having her own story off to the side that we’re just not entirely privy to, what with this tale being told entirely from Adrien’s perspective.

---

drowning (in plain sight) by @buggachat

Everybody had expected Monarch's defeat to be a moment of triumph. Nobody had expected Gabriel Agreste, unmasked and mind frayed from continual abuse of the miraculous, crying out to all who would listen and making Paris certain of one thing:

His son, Adrien Agreste, is one of his sentimonsters.

And now he's missing.

Nobody can find him— not even the superheroes, and not even his closest friends. But Marinette, Nino, and Alya aren't ones to give up so easily. They'll find him, no matter what it takes.

(But, geez, would it kill Chat Noir to lend a hand?)

I’m sure everyone saw this one coming. If there’s one thing buggachat’s good at, storywise, it’s capturing raw, tumultuous emotions, frantic breakdowns as the characters desperately try to navigate bad situations. This was a real treat to read, as I’m betting most people reading this will agree, given just how popular the fic has been. It also has a ton of fanart, both by buggachat and by random fans, if you go looking for it (there’s a drowning in plain sight tag which I’d advise perusing). 

---

Not a Monster at All by @book-sandwich

Adrien Agreste overhears a conversation he shouldn't, and a revelation sends him falling onto the terrace of the only person he can trust: his good friend (?) Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Takes place sometime after the first two episodes of season 5!

As you can probably guess from the title, this is a Sentimonster Adrien, Monarch takedown fic. Adrien’s going through a tough time, and Marinette’s just trying to be there for him as his whole world’s collapsing around him. Unfrotunately, they still don’t know what the object is, or how likely Gabriel would be to control Adrien if he hinted that he knew the truth, which leaves Adrien in a precarious position - still not having done an identity reveal doesn’t help matters.

It’s a really solid fic for the genre, though since it started up before the later parts of season 5, there are a few things that don’t match up with the canon information we obtained later on. 

---

Under Oath by @eoscenes

In the aftermath of Hawk Moth's defeat, Ladybug finds her heart torn between her schoolgirl crush and her superhero partner ― who returns, after an unexplained hiatus, more irresistible than ever.

⋆☆⋆

Gabriel Agreste is unmasked, and Paris rises up in the aftermath.

Marinette Dupain-Cheng must weather Paris' anxious protesters, ravenous reporters, a scattered team of judiciary investigators, and her conflicting feelings for two different boys. In the eye of this storm is the elusive Adrien Agreste, the primary witness in his own father's trial, who might just hold the secret to finding the Peacock Miraculous.

(If only she wasn't in love with him.)

Meanwhile, locked away in Le Grand Paris hotel, Adrien grapples with his responsibilities to a city that can't decide if it hates or loves him. Keeping his daytime persona and Chat Noir separate entities becomes even harder when Ladybug, whom he has finally decided to get over, starts visiting him at night, determined to figure his secrets out.

(If only he wasn't in love with her.)

When an unknown figure returns with the Peacock Miraculous, Ladybug and Chat Noir will have to save their city once more — or lose each other trying.

I love how this fic shows Adrien just breaking down over the reveal of Hawk Moth’s identity, he’s in a Very Bad Place for a substantial portion of the fic, and being a suspect and witness in the case does NOT help. It’s got the most detailed “Adrien suffering the consequences of the backlash to his father’s prosecution” plot that I’ve seen.

Still, things get better with time, slowly, gradually. It’s not all at once, or a completely linear road, but he’s got his friends, even after everything.

---

run boy run by Anonymous

Nino was sprawled on the floor of his room with Alya when his phone chimed, in the quiet of a premature autumnal sunset. It was one of those lazy evenings that had become rare lately. Contrary to popular belief, he and Alya could get studying done when in the same room, and he was elbows-deep in late assignments, which meant his phone was on Do Not Disturb, which meant the notification could only have come from one person. ADRIEN 🐈: cmoe ove rnow ADRIEN 🐈: like riggt now ADRIEN 🐈: plag NINO: that is literally incomprehensible NINO: wait is that you plagg ADRIEN 🐈: mov faster

So this is a “Adrien finds out that his father is Hawkmoth and consults with Nino about what to do” fic, with Nino throwing Hawkmoth off Adrien’s track, though inadvertently at his own expense. Love Nino’s perspective here, and I always enjoy a good Hawkmoth-takedown fic!

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When the Morning Comes by @into-september

Gabriel Agreste has been unmasked as Hawkmoth, and the girl who was fighting him all these years turns out to be Tom Dupain's daughter. And standing between them is Adrien Agreste with his life in shatters that Tom Dupain has no way of piecing together. But baking is at least a place to start.

I love how this not only digs into Adrien’s character, but Tom’s as well, especially how both of them have been estranged from their fathers. I haven’t seen that come up much.

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missing person (at the window) by @coffeebanana

Adrien expected to spend another night staring at the ceiling and ignoring his friends' messages, as he'd done every night since his father was unmasked as Shadow Moth. But when Ladybug falls through his bedroom window, he gets a little more than he bargained for.

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This Distance Between Us by @coffeebanana

After defeating Monarch, the search for the Peacock Miraculous brings Ladybug and Chat Noir to a hotel room in London. But it's hard to enjoy the victory when Ladybug can't figure out why Chat's been so quiet, why he seems so sad. How's she supposed to help if she has no idea what's wrong?

This is a great Sentiadrien fic, with Chat freaking out about it and feeling like he’s not worthy of Ladybug’s affections, but not telling her what’s actually wrong because he thinks she won’t want him anymore if she knows. Of course, he’s wrong about that. Also there’s a pretty intense confrontation with Felix, pissing Chat Noir off is a bad idea.

---

Waiting series by @11jj11

First fic: Waiting

Every night Ladybug sat atop the Eiffel Tower, waiting for her partner.

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Temporary Place To Stay by walkingonthestars

Caline Bustier hears the news. Caline Bustier worries about her student, whose father has just been exposed as Hawk Moth and arrested. Caline Bustier impulsively takes in said student. Caline Bustier does not know the half of what she's just gotten into.

[sea-changed]

i. Reading Looking For The Good War has, among many other things, I think really helped me to clarify and articulate what I find so disquieting about "Points" as an episode. (Which is not all of it! There are certainly plenty of scenes that I find fascinating and/or enjoyable to watch.) But:

"It is much easier to tell a sentimental war story with a happy ending, in which valor eclipses causes and reconciliation triumphs over everything--a comedy, in other words--than it is to tell another, unsentimental kind of story." (page 89)

This is what it is, exactly--"in which valor eclipses causes and reconciliation triumphs over everything" could more or less be the logline of "Points." This is most egregiously evident to me in the scene of Nazi general's surrender, but the scene where Winters tells the Nazi officer to keep his sidearm is also I think highly indicative of this drive towards reconciliation, however rotten, above all else. And Samet articulates that wonderfully, and articulates as well the cost of this type of narrative:

"Yet sentimentality does more than shape the way we commemorate wars. It informs all those cultural and sociological attitudes in the shadow of which wartime and postwar policies are crafted, and it prevents a more productive and enduring sympathy that, in cooperation with reason, might guide our actions and help us become more careful readers of war's many ambiguities and false seductions." (page 83)

ii. The layers of dislike I have for the Nazi general scene are manifold; the mirroring of Winters and the Nazi general and thereby Easy Company with the Nazi soldiers feels incredibly sinister, perhaps most aggressively so in its weird push to rehabilitate the Nazis as soldiers, and thus to both foreshadow (within the world of the show) and echo (in the world of the audience) the archetypal defense that Nazi higher-ups would put forward at Nuremberg and beyond, that they were just following orders.

iii. The mirroring of Winters and Easy Company with the Nazis is clearly intentional, and somewhat bizarrely explicit ("You've found in one another a bond that exists only in combat among brothers") and maudlin (the panning shots over the Nazi soldiers' faces and wounds), and by the end the urge to parallel the two leaders and the two armies--indeed, to collapse one into the other, in order to make them functionally the same--seems to cause a sort of scriptwriting amnesia about who these words are actually being said by and to. Once again the greater historic context makes this especially chilling, Operation Paperclip being perhaps the most salient point to evoke. (I am also haunted, forever, by a statistic that Michael C. C. Adams cites in The Best War Ever, that a September 1945 survey of American GIs found that 22% believed the Nazi treatment of Jewish people to be justified. Granted, this survey would not have been taken using modern sampling methods, and who knows what the sample size was to begin with or what soldiers in particular were being surveyed. But still.)

iv. The scene leans heavily into the idea of a unique soldierly bond that unites not only each individual army within itself but bonds the two armies together. ("You've found in one another a bond that exists only in combat, among brothers who've shared foxholes, held each other in dire moments, who've seen death and suffered together.") Besides being disquieting for reasons I state above, I think it's notable that the Nazi general's speech emphasizing the brotherhood of soldiers happens directly after the short scene between Winters and Sobel, wherein Winters chides Sobel on a point of military ritual ("We salute the rank, not the man"). Sobel is outside the brotherhood; he doesn't understand how to be a soldier; whereas the Nazis are within the brotherhood, so much so that they are allowed to articulate its terms. (This is egregious no matter what, but becomes all the more so when it is framed as a Jewish man being excluded from the "club" of military brotherhood while WASP Americans and literal Nazis are allowed in.) (Meanwhile, Liebgott occupies a sort of bizarre placement in this scene, there to ventriloquize--indeed, perhaps neutralize, or even legitimize--the Nazi general's words, but not speak for himself.)

v. This gets to another point that Samet makes that stuck out to me, about the inherent tautology of military culture. She quotes William Styron, who in a 1964 review of General Douglas MacArthur's memoir said:

"Anyone who has lived as a stranger for any length of time among professional military men, especially officers, is made gradually aware of something that runs counter to everything one has been taught to believe—and that is that most of these men, far from corresponding to the liberal cliché of the super-patriot, are in fact totally lacking in patriotism. They are not unpatriotic, they simply do not understand or care what patriotism is. [...] A true military man is a mercenary [...] and it is within the world of soldiering that he finds his only home." (Samet quotes Styron on page 233; I'm quoting here from the full review)

The point of being a soldier is to be a soldier; the point of the military is to have a military. She also has this to say--especially saliently, I think, for obvious reasons--about Ambrose, and his perspective specifically in Citizen Soldiers:

"By means of emphasis and convenient omission, Ambrose preserves his focus on unity, not division; right, not wrong; liberation, not subjugation. Paradoxically, given that he makes so much of American idealism, he often subordinates a consideration of causes altogether to a veneration for the magnificence of the army itself. The creation of that army, rather than the victory it made possible, becomes 'the great achievement of the American people and system,' just as the nation's 'greatest nineteenth-century achievement' had been, according to Ambrose, 'the creation of the Army of the Potomac' rather than the end it eventually secured--the abolition of chattel slavery." (page 46)

Here we are back to the first Samet quote from above: valor eclipses causes and reconciliation triumphs over everything. To be a military man--to be part of the club, the brotherhood, the "bond that exists only in combat"--is to "subordinate a consideration of causes altogether to a veneration for the magnificence of the army itself." The country and the cause that the Nazi general and his soldiers fought "bravely, proudly" for become sublimated, while that bravery and pride, stripped of more specific meaning, is extolled. What matters, by the time this scene happens--and it's the last scene in the core section of the episode, followed only by the close of the frame structure with Winters and Nixon and then the baseball scene-cum-epilogue--is not the American cause that Easy Company was fighting for, and certainly not the Nazi atrocities they were fighting against, but rather a reconciliation that views the experience of war as preeminently important. Sobel, who did not experience combat, is dismissed; the Nazi general, who did, is legitimated.

vi. And that, I think, is the core of the message that Band of Brothers promotes. Fandom often refers to the show in passing as propaganda, but I'm not sure that really gets to the heart of what it is, in the end, saying. I would suggest that it's not merely propaganda; it's a recruitment poster. It's not selling truth, justice, and the American way (or if it is, it's doing so only incidentally); it's selling the experience of being in the military as a transformative and ultimately positive one, that unites (a certain subset of) men through the unique crucible of battle, beyond any concerns about what, exactly, one is fighting for. So long as you know when and how to salute, you too can be a part of the brotherhood.

vii. All of which gets back to the scene earlier in "Points," when the Nazi colonel surrenders to Winters. The colonel first makes the explicit parallel between the Nazis and the Americans, and between himself and Winters in particular: "I wonder what will happen to us, to people like you and me, when there are finally no more wars to occupy us." He serves to explicate here more or less exactly what I was saying above: he sees himself and Winters united as military men, above and beyond their particular countries and causes.

Winters doesn't look thrilled about the comparison--but then almost immediately tells the Nazi colonel to retain his surrendered sidearm. I suppose this is supposed to read as magnanimous and fair-minded on Winters's part, but it also serves to reinforce the Nazi colonel's own words, validating the colonel's prioritization of their shared military positions above and beyond their allegiance to the countries and ideologies they were (at least nominally!) fighting for. As the scene itself shows, giving up a sidearm is an expected part of the surrender process, both practically and symbolically; by refusing it Winters is stepping outside military precedent--indeed, bending over backwards--to help the Nazi colonel retain dignity as well as firepower. On its own it is, I think, a frustrating and uncomfortable scene; in the broader context of the episode it sets up and reinforces the Nazi general's speech later on and the ways that Winters and the show itself find meaning in paralleling and reconciling the Americans and the Nazis with one other. (The Nazi colonel knows how to salute; and when he does so, Winters salutes him back.)

viii. Of course it's historically true that American soldiers tended to identify with German soldiers and civilians much more than they identified with people from Allied countries, as Samet herself and even the veteran interviews at the beginning of "Why We Fight" document. (And I don't believe that paralleling the Americans and the Nazis is necessarily something to be dismissed out of hand.) But because the end of "Points" is so overtly sentimental, paralleling the Americans and Nazis serves not as an indictment of American soldiers' amorality but rather as a rehabilitation of the Nazi soldiers and officers as soldiers and a paean to military culture divorced from meaning or cause. As Samet says--"valor eclipses causes and reconciliation triumphs over everything." The military, as an institution, whether it be American or Nazi, becomes the greater good of the war; while the causes those militaries were fighting for become not only secondary, but recede entirely.

[cryptidghostgirl]

Hello hello!! You're probably swamped with asks, but if you have the time and energy, you should do a slow burn Alastor x reader set in the 1920s where the reader is a performer at mimzys speakeasy and that's where Alastor goes to chose his victims. He sees the reader for the first time and immediately thinks that they are his next victim but he keeps getting thwarted by small incidents, such as the reader leaving early and him barely missing his chance. After a while he notices small things about them and their personality after sort of observing them, and then they meet and he loses his interest in killing them. Of course the slow burn happens, the drama ensues, he's still a killer but keeps it a secret and then after a while the reader finds out. You can choose if you want a happy ending or not, but I had that idea in my mind and your one of the only writers I see that could do it justice. Thanks for sharing your talents!!! Your amazing and gifted in ways that inspire everyone who interacts with your blog🫶🫶🫶

A/N You’re literally so sweet?? Wtf?? I love you?? Thank you??? I hope you like what I did with this fun and fluffy idea!!! ahhhhhh!!!! also, I am running with the ambiguity of the ending. I am such a little slut for ambiguity.

Burn (Human!Alastor x Human!Gn!Reader)

Pairing: Alastor x Reader

Warnings: SLOW BURN. SLOW. BURNING IMAGERY. A LITTLE OVER THE TOP ON THE BURNING IMAGERY THING. Dead bodies, blood, murder, killing, mentions of stalking. This one got away from me a bit.

Word Count: 4,197

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Ravenous, that was the word. Not in the way where everything dissolves, leaving only the object of your affection. Not in the way that someone is controlled by desire. Hungry in the way fire eats paper, in the way kindling catches light. Starved in the way that leads to a progressive repeated sense of the word, a starving. A constant state of being famished that turns into a well loved and cared for blaze. Alastor burned.

The box of matches pulled from the pocket had been Alastor going to the bar, all those months before. Nearly a year now, once he sat and really thought about it. He had been going to Mimzy's little speakeasy on the outskirts of town since it had been just that, a little speakeasy on the outskirts of town rather than the full fledged, illegal club she ran today.

Back when it was a speak easy, there had never been a problem. On that fateful day, though he hadn't known it then, the club had changed its form. It had become the kindling. Sitting down at the table had been pulling a match from the box and Y/n.... Y/n had been the rough hewn striker paper he lit it on. It was all so obvious now, looking back. The expression 'hindsight is 20/20' existed for a reason.

So, Alastor had entered the club (matchbox out of pocket). As soon as Mimzy had spotted him, she had run over with a bright smile and a glass of whiskey on the house as always. Alastor had always liked Mimzy. She was wild and positively hilarious when she wanted to be but, at the same time, she had a good head for business. Her morals were just wobbly enough that Alastor felt comfortable with her, a camaraderie he felt with no other.

The lights had gone down suddenly and Mimzy, cutting herself off mid sentence, had turned to the stage in excitement.

"Good show tonight?" Alastor had asked.

Alastor never came to Mimzy's club for the music. She knew he didn't care, not really. Still, he had the curtesy to ask and so, she whipped back towards him.

"You betcha." she grinned up at him, "I just got this new kid? Came from all the way up north, can you believe that? Anyway, they have a set of pipes like you wouldn't believe! Just the bees knees, I tell you."

Grabbing Alastor's arm, Mimzy dragged him to a table by the stage. Alastor sat down across from her (match from the box) with an air of mild reluctance. Mimzy tapped her hands on the table impatiently.

A spot light flickered on and a scrawny young kid stepped onto the stage. He couldn't be much younger than Alastor or Mimzy themselves but he was one of those people that always look younger than they are. He had been working for Mimzy for a while now but, Alastor had never bothered to learn his name. He was simply 'Mimz's Manager' in his view of the world. The kid cleared his throat, leaning in towards the microphone which had been placed at center stage.

"How are we feeling out there tonight?" he asked the room at large and there had been a miscellaneous cheer from the room at large, "Well that's good to hear! We've got a real treat for you tonight folks. All the way from the Big Apple, we bring you, Y/n!"

The kid left the stage and a new figure stepped out from the shadows (revelation of match striker paper). The minute Alastor saw them, in the well cut suit that shone dark in the light, he knew. They were perfect. Slim, but not too fit and shorter than he was. Morally ambiguous enough in their aims that they had come running from New York to work at a speakeasy. This 'Y/n,' if that was even their real name, was his ideal next victim. Alastor smiled in the dim light as somewhere off stage, a piano began to play.

"I'll be loving you, always" the person sang and Alastor was taken aback.

Mimzy had been right. He had never heard a voice like it before. They sang with an emotional depth that could be heard from few. Somehow, they still managed to keep it sounding like music.

"When the things you plan Need a helping hand I will understand, always, always"

Mimzy leaned across the table to Alastor, her eyes alight.

"What did I tell you?" she whispered.

Alastor nodded his head to the side in vague agreement.

"Not for just an hour Not for just a day"

When they finished their set a half hour later, it was to raucous applause. The house lights raised and with them, Mimzy stood from her chair.

"I'll be back in two shakes." she promised before disappearing off into the crowd.

Alastor leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking beneath his weight. Contemplatively, he took a sip from his drink. The time before a kill was nearly as an enjoyable as the act itself. It was ritualistic, it brought him closer to god.

Before he knew it, Mimzy was back, dragging the singer behind her. They looked slightly frazzled, their hair a bit messy and their brow furrowed.

"Mimzy!" they exclaimed as they struggled to keep up with the woman holding their wrist in her vice-like grip.

Their speaking voice was... different than Alastor had expected. From the way they had sung on stage, he had thought it would be sharp, loud, ebullient. Instead, it was rather soft. Alastor couldn't help but think of the creek out back of the house he had grown up in.

"Al, meet my new favorite!" Mimzy announced, coming to a stop beside Alastor.

"I..."

The situation had been unexpected to say the least. Alastor had had a long day. He hadn't come here to socialize, he came here to drink. Now, he was at a loss for words, the haze of sleep and irritation clouding his mind.

Y/n looked at Mimzy before fixing their gaze back on him. The took a step forward, fixing a smile on their face, and held out their hand.

"Y/n."

So it was their real name. The one they presented to the world, at least.

Alastor smiled, standing from his seat and taking their hand in his.

"Alastor."

They had a firm handshake. There was something authoritative about it, something just a bit too confident.

"Pleasure to be meeting you." they said.

"Quite the pleasure." Alastor nodded.

They broke contact and Y/n turned to Mimzy, suddenly seeming very tired.

"I'm gonna head, Mimzy." they hummed, their voice nearly drowned out by the cacophony surrounding them.

Before Mimzy could say a word against their statement, they were gone. The crowd sheltered them from sight almost immediately. After that night, Alastor started coming to the club a lot more often.

He always sat in the same seat, the table near stage left. It was right next to the exit. Anyone getting off the stage had to go right past him. It was a calculated choice. Step one of his little projects, so to speak, had always been learning more about his victims, finding out their patterns.

The problem was, Y/n never seemed to do the same thing twice. Every time Alastor would think himself ready, would ready everything for the action, something different happen. The first time, it had been that Y/n had simply managed to slip out earlier than normal. Mimzy was always introducing them to someone or another after their shows, delaying their departure. That night, it seemed, they had somehow been able to avoid the mayhem.

Another time, the problem had been that Y/n had stayed at the club too long. Alastor was a working man and once the clock hit midnight, it was time to cut his losses and go home. A third time, Y/n had just happened to call out sick the very night he had gotten everything back in order.

A month in, and Alastor was ready for his fourth attempt. He sat at his usual table, drinking his usual drink. When Y/n left the stage, he kept his eyes trained on them as always. It went like clockwork - Mimzy pulled them away, they tried desperately to escape and eventually, they succeeded. That was when everything went south again.

One second, Y/n was by the bar and the next? Gone. Alastor got to his feet, tossing a bill or two to the bar tender and disappearing out through the door. He was determined. Tonight had to be the night. If tonight wasn't the night? He was done. Alastor was not a foolish man, he knew when he was beat.

Quietly, nothing but the sound of cicadas and the occasional echo of a car from elsewhere in the city accompanying him, Alastor slipped down the ally he knew the club's back door let out into.

"There you are."

Alastor spun around.

"I was beginning to think you wouldn't show."

Y/n leaned casually against the wall, the dark fabric of their dress blending softly with the night. When Alastor didn't reply, standing in their gaze like a deer in headlights, they stood themselves up and walked the step and a half it took for them to be face to face with him.

"I'd like it if you stopped following me. Or, trying to follow me. It's getting kind of old.'' (match struck paper, match remained unlit.)

Alastor resumed his composure. Sliding his hands into his pockets, he leaned forward, fixing a teasing grin onto his face.

"Oh, would you now?"

Y/n, much to his surprise, held their ground.

"Yeah, I would. Whats your interest in me anyways?"

Thinking on his feet had never been an issue for Alastor. Besides, he really did have some questions for the illusive singer. Or, he had one question for them. One that might lead to others.

"Oh, you know." he hummed, straightening back up, "All the way from the 'Big Apple.'"

Y/n scoffed at his parody of their nightly introduction to the stage. They crossed their arms, glancing off to the ally's entrance as a drunk couple stumbled by.

"Yep."

"Why?"

Turning to face him again, Y/n narrowed their eyes.

"Why do you wanna know?"

The hint of an accent. At least he knew they weren't lying about where they came from.

"I suppose you can call me a curious fan."

"I think being a bit less of both those things would suit you."

They fell into a brief, nearly uncomfortable silence. Letting out a sigh, Y/n was the one to break it.

"Look," they began, "I know you're friends with my boss and all but... I am going to go back into that dive and I am going to stay there until you are long gone. I'll stay the night if I have to, d'ya get it?"

Alastor's smile tightened.

"Loud and clear."

"Good."

Y/n didn't see Alastor for another week. Slowly, the tension that had permeated their every waking moment since meeting Alastor that first night, the constant ache of his eyes on their back, began to fade. Just a little, but it was enough. When they saw him sitting at the bar almost two weeks after their little altercation, the amount it had faded was just enough to make them angry at his return.

Alastor hadn't really meant to come back. His plan was to give it a month, maybe even two. His plan was to come back and resume life like it had been before he had ever even known Y/n existed. His mind had other plans.

He had tried to find another target, occupy himself with a new victim. There was something unsatisfying about it, he couldn't quite get his head in the game. Every time he went to trail a potential victim, he heard their voice ringing out in the silence of his mind.

There you are.

Alastor had been killing for about three years now. He had a good number of victims under his belt and was in no ways a newbie. Even back when he had been one, no one had ever caught him out like that before. There had been a couple close calls, sure. There always were but waiting for him? Thwarting his plans repeatedly? Beating him at his own game?

"I thought I told you to leave me alone."

Alastor looked up from his glass of whiskey, smiling politely up at Y/n. He could feel the anger radiating off them in waves.

"Mimzy would be rather sad if I just up and disappeared like that, no explanation."

He caught sight of her across the open space and waved. With a bright smile, Mimzy waved back before returning to the conversation she had been embroiled in. Alastor turned back to Y/n.

"Oh, wouldn't you hear that? You're getting sober. Congratulations."

"Ah, but there is still the music and that wonderful new singer who came down from up north not too long ago."

Y/n took a deep breath, calming themselves.

"It's not that hard of a question to answer. Or at least, it shouldn't be for most people. What, are you on the run from the cops? I heard life is oh so dangerous in those big cities up there, after all. Maybe part of the reason was you."

"If I answer your question, will you leave me alone?"

Alastor was silent for a short moment before he replied.

"If I like the answer? Sure. I'll leave you alone."

In a single, sharp movement, Y/n dragged the stool beside him out and sat down. Tapping their fingers on the table, they got the bartender's attention and ordered themselves a drink.

"You want to know why I left New York?" they hummed thoughtfully, "It's because of guys like you."

A shock of sudden nerves fought through Alastor's system. Did they somehow know? After all this time, had someone figured it out? After just under two months?

"Guys like me? What ever on earth do you mean?"

"You know, pretty boys. Pretty boys who turn out to be creepy boys that don't know the meaning of the word 'no.'" (match struck paper, match remained unlit.)

It wasn't the first time Alastor had been called pretty or handsome or something of the like. In fact, he knew he was pretty. It was part of why the whole ruse worked. Normally, however, when people told him he was, it was accompanied by far too much blushing and looks to the side. Y/n held his gaze firmly the whole time.

"So, you're escaping an ex? A jaded lover?"

"A jaded 'someone-who-watched-me-perform-once-and-decided-it-meant-we-were-married'? Yeah."

The bartender placed the drink in front of Y/n. They picked up the glass, downing it in one go. They grimaced.

"You like my answer?"

"Hmmm... no." Alastor grinned, ear to ear, "I don't think I do."

Y/n sighed.

"What is it you want from me?"

Alastor's brow furrowed in confusion. He was very good at keeping the inside from showing on the outside. The question had just caught him so off guard, or maybe it was something about Y/n that had him on his toes, he couldn't help it. They kept seeming to make his head spin.

"Want from you?"

"Money? Sex? Fame? A fall guy? What."

"I don't want anything from you." (match struck paper, match remained unlit.)

Y/n eyed him suspiciously. The answer had been automatic. Alastor himself was struggling to comprehend the words that had left his mouth. He wanted to kill them, right? What he wanted from them was their life, right? That was what he had been working for over all these days, fighting for. He knew it was true so why did the statement not feel like a lie as it had traveled from his tongue?

"Yeah right." Y/n placed their hands on the bar, pulling themselves to stand, "I totally believe that."

"Just your time, Songbird. Just your time."

They turned to him.

"I don't understand you."

"You don't have to. I don't understand you either."

They paused.

"It frustrates me." Y/n admitted, "Who even are you? I don't know anything except your name."

Alastor gave their now empty chair a pointed look. Y/n stood in contemplation for a few seconds before they nodded their head once, seemingly to themselves, and took their seat once again. Confidently, they tapped two fingers on the lip of their empty glass.

"Another."

(match strikes paper, match lights.)

Alastor was the match, Y/n was the paper. The club stopped being kindling the moment the pair took their conversation outside its boundaries for the first time, about a month or so later. For a while, there was no kindling, there was just match and paper. Alastor liked it that way.

It had been hard enough to come to terms with the fact that he really did have no interest in killing them anymore. That the moment such an idea occurred, he could see them in his minds eye, smiling or picking at the hem of their shirt the way they did when they were nervous.

The kindling reappeared when Alastor realized the match had been struck in the first place. That was a whole other thing. The friendship suddenly seemed easy, the loss of bloodlust directed toward them was like nothing in the face of a realization like that. Once he recognized the flame, Alastor stopped being a match and Y/n stopped being paper. The match became the little flutter of their stomachs when they caught sight of one another, the tension of the moments where they could make contact. Y/n and Alastor were kindling now and they were standing oh so very close to that dangerous flame.

It was Alastor's sleeve that caught fire first. It happened when they had gotten caught in the rain. Y/n had opened their umbrella and, seeing Alastor had none, insisted he join them in its cover. Alastor had, of course, refused. With a roll of their eyes, they had grabbed his hand and yanked him forcefully into place beside them. Alastor hadn't realized they had only touched once, when they first shook hands, until Y/n's skin made contact with his once again.

The worst part about it all, was that it made sense. It made so much sense. They were quiet, contemplative, and calculative. Before long, being with them felt like being with an extension of himself in an odd way. Alastor couldn't quite describe it, he didn't have the words.

Y/n always seemed to notice things no one else did. When Alastor had forgotten his umbrella the next three or four times it had rained, they had confronted him.

"Almost like you're doing this on purpose." they had hummed softly.

Though they didn't look at him, Y/n knew Alastor was blushing.

"Shut up."

The next thing to catch had been Y/n's collar. Y/n had been chatting with him, sharing a drink before their set and they had lost track of time. At the sound of the stage manager, Alastor still did not know his name, beginning their introduction to the stage, they had jumped up in fright, hurriedly tightening their tie which they had loosened in the casual atmosphere. Noticing that the action had caused part of their collar to fold awkwardly, Alastor had gotten to his feet as well. With a gentleness he had not made use of since his mother died, he had fixed Y/n's collar.

"Wh-" they had stopped mid question, having realized what he was doing.

His hand lingered on their collar. Y/n's eyes traveled up his arm, at last meeting his own.

"Thank you."

Those big wide eyes, full of curiosity and comfort. Alastor could get lost in those.

"Y/n!" the stage manager announced.

"Shit!" they exclaimed and the magic of the moment was broken as they pulled themselves away.

All it took was that. It wasn't much but, fire has a way of working with what it has. When a few days later Y/n had stepped out into the street without looking, being too caught up in the story they were telling Alastor, and he had pulled them back just as a car passed, it was too late. The house couldn't be saved, the flames had gone too far. A few blocks later, after thanking him, Y/n had realized they were still holding hands. They stopped, pulling Alastor to a halt beside them.

"What are we doing?"

"We're going for lunch. Are you quite alright? You were the one who sugge-"

"No, Alastor. I mean: what are we doing?"

Alastor followed the path of their eyes to their interlaced fingers.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

There was a pause. The world turned around them.

"I don't... I don't know if I can do this anymore."

Alastor took a deep breath before braving the sight of their bewildered and slightly saddened face once again.

"I said all I wanted was your time."

"That's the problem."

Y/n let go of his hand, running their own through their loose hair.

"That's the problem, Alastor." they said again.

"What is?"

Y/n had a habit of telling him the most serious things eye to eye with a stoney demeanor. He was surprised to see them break from this confident custom of theirs as they looked away, their arms wrapping protectively around themself.

"I want more. I want you to want more."

Alastor was stunned, he was speechless.

"I... I'll see you tomorrow, Al."

Before they could make it more than a step away, Alastor grabbed their shoulder, spinning them to him. Y/n looked up at him, confusion painting their features with the most delicate brush.

Alastor struggled, he fought. Still, there were no words.

"Don't you get it?" he asked, "I want your time. Y/n, I want you."

Alastor kept finding himself in trickier and trickier situations. First there had been trying to kill them, then the hurdle of not wanting to kill them. Friendship had given way to its own bag of worms and now that they were more than friends?

He had thought that it all would stop. He had thought that if things ever worked out the way they had, everything would be okay. He had forgotten his nature.

At first, hiding the killings was just as easy as it had been before. It did not stay that way. Alastor was good at hiding things, always had been. That wasn't the issue. What was the issue was that he cared about Y/n, he didn't want to hurt them. Keeping secrets... well, his mother had always told him that no one ever fools anybody. His mother was a wise woman. His mother had been right.

Y/n had stopped by as a surprise. They had a home cooked meal in a basket and a bag over their shoulder full of records they thought he would like. When they stepped into the foyer of Alastor's large, garden district home, they had called their usual greeting.

Alastor's heart had stopped at the sound of their voice. He froze, his cleaver still firmly wedged between the shoulder and chest of the man he was chopping into pieces for easier disposal. Hoping it was his mind playing tricks on him, he waited. They called again.

"Al! I have a surprise for you! The surprise is me! And also? I made you dinner. Come out! I know you're home!"

Under any other circumstances, them showing up like this would have filled him with unbridled joy. However, it wasn't any other circumstances. It was these circumstances. Alastor was covered in another man's blood. There was a body just a few rooms from his beloved. Either way, they would find out the truth. They were a nosey thing, always so inquisitive.

"Alastor!" he heard them call again.

They were closer now, much closer. He watched in a mixture of horror, despair, and a twinge of excitement as the doorknob jiiggled.

"Alastor?"

How would Y/n react to such a sight? Would they cower in fear? Was their love alone enough to hold them here, to tie them to him in loyalty? Would they run to the cops? Would they cry? Would they ask to help? Would he have to kill them too?

It was sickeningly delightful, all the unknowns. His heart pounded violently in his ears. The door swung open.

"There you are!"

Ravenous, that was the word. Not in the way where everything dissolves, leaving only the object of your affection. Not in the way that someone is controlled by desire. Hungry in the way fire eats paper, in the way kindling catches light. Starved in the way that leads to a progressive repeated sense of the word, a starving. A constant state of being famished that turns into a well loved and cared for blaze. Alastor burned.

"My dear! How wonderful to see you."

----

TAGS:

@willowshadenox @i-love-jafar @elfyeet @reader3 @lazygirlfanfic0-0 @kahlan170 @wendyphan01203-blog @fairyv-ice @clarakainda @lunaramune @mcueveryday @luxky-aish @peterpankat @corvid007 @juskonutoh @simpingsohard @sethianaa @gabile18 @slytherin4ever @skyeliteratures @zombiesnips-blog

Sorry if the end made you angry,,, I just think the not knowing is so much more fun!

Also the song is "Always" by Irving Berlin.

[heliads]

Heyy can I get Four x fem!reader, where four can see sher struggling and offers some private lessons, you can take it from there xo

as a fic writer, i love taking it from there (xo)

masterlist

Four is not particularly suited to kindness. He never has been. That’s part of why he never fit in with the other Abnegation, after all; his inability to carve away pieces of himself to give to others stuck out like a sore thumb. That, and the fact that he hated their two-faced duplicity with a passion so burning that it left him choking on the smoke. 

He’s always figured that even if he was Divergent, even if he contained multitudes of other factions within him, he never once showed a shred of Amity, either. Kindness, generosity, none of these have ever described Four. He certainly shouldn’t be wishing for it now. 

Yet, when he looks across the Dauntless training room, which is strewn with the fighting figures of initiation’s latest round of transfers, he doesn’t feel that usual call to apathy. Not now, at least. Four had supposed it would come later, when the initial interest of new faces had worn off and he was left with irritation prickling under his skin, that fidgety sort of feeling he gets when people refuse to do what’s good for them.

Four has never been the most patient, even if he is forced to play the long game of waiting and hiding due to his status as a Divergent. It makes him insufferable, or so he’s been told. Usually, Four just assumes he’s better off alone and not reaching out to anyone. Fewer secrets are shared when no one knows about them in the first place.

That doesn’t explain why he’s ignoring that favored precept of his in favor of staring at one of the initiates yet again. Four tells himself that he doesn’t do favorites, that he treats all of the trainees with the same blunt criticism and harsh words. It makes it easier that way. He once knew a few instructors who would place bets on their favorites, but they always ended up losing more than their money when their chosen trainees didn’t make the cut.

Dauntless may not be a place that encourages its pupils to choose safety over fun, but Four always betrayed that particular principle while leading initiation. He’s only been at it for a year or two, he can’t afford any screw ups now. That’s why he would do well to ignore that one initiate in the corner. It would be his best choice, but for some reason, it’s the one path he refuses to travel.

As if Four has ever been known for his rational thought. There’s a reason he’s not in Erudite, after all, why he scorned every faction one after another until he could only ever end up here in Dauntless. Dauntless, where at last he’s the one in power, where he’ll risk his life again and again because at least in this faction people wear their hatred firmly on their sleeves instead of hiding it behind some ambiguous political game.

Perhaps Four isn’t one for politicking, then, but that’s no surprise. He does what he pleases, he likes who he likes, and when Y/N L/N happens to glance up at him when she finishes a round in the fighting ring, she doesn’t look remotely shocked to see him looking at her again. No one is, but then again, no one notices Four’s attention except Y/N herself.

Y/N is a transfer. Y/N is an initiate. Y/N is the one person that Four really should be avoiding, but can’t seem to manage it. He doesn’t know what it is about her that keeps calling his interest back to her again and again like the snap of a hypnotist’s fingers, but his heart refuses to explain. His head has tried to make amends, but his heart keeps on traitorously beating, still seeking her out after every time Four promises himself he won’t trust that magnetic pull to her again.

She never follows up on his attention, which makes her better than him, at least. She knows the rules. She’s also a little bit afraid of him, Four thinks, which hurts him more than it should. Y/N seems to be frightened of nothing in this world but him, and that is why he can’t bear to look away. Should he glance over at her once and find her willing to stand near him, maybe he would be able to guide his breathing back to a normal state, his heartbeat to return to rest once more.

It has yet to happen, however, and Four thinks he knows why. See, he knows what he thinks when he encounters Y/N, the curious storm of emotions all centrally positive that linger around his heart, but she has absolutely no idea of that. She wouldn’t, because whenever Y/N looks at Four or any other Dauntless training instructor, she thinks not of them as people but as physical manifestations of her initiation rank. Her rank, which happens to be pretty damn close to failing.

In all his time in this world, all his experience with heroes and cowards, fighters and thinkers, Four has no idea why Y/N’s rank should be that low. He knows what his eyes see, of course; fights lost, punches not thrown, but it makes no sense to him. Four is accustomed to the dropouts of Dauntless initiation, the ones who would rather go live with the factionless than stick through training. They’re nothing like Y/N, not in the slightest.

Those kids, those unwanted former initiates, they’re afraid. All of them, they’re afraid. Terrified to throw a punch for fear of bruising their knuckles, hesitant to step in a ring lest they take more hits than they dole out. They lose before they even try, but that’s not Y/N.

Y/N is brave, like he said. Braver than Four, probably. He would love to see her fear landscape if she could manage to make it past the first round of initiation. It would probably be pretty close to empty, what from the way she stares down even the most dangerous threats without a blink of an eye. Four has a brief terror that he might open her fear landscape just for it to hold him and nothing else, but he forces that thought away just as quickly. He doesn’t know that. Nobody does.

Y/N is brave, and that’s what makes this so hard. If she had half the spirit that she does, if she flinched away from every blow like the others, Four could brush her off like the other trainees. She would blend into the crowds, and he would go throughout his life without this trial of conscience that he’s undergoing now.

That’s not the case, however. Instead, Four looks at her and he sees the strength of Dauntless, the bravery, the need to get ahead. Y/N should be at the top of the rankings, but she isn’t. Four has a theory for that, though. Despite the fact that Dauntless loves to pride itself as the equalizer, that its initiation lets anyone from any background succeed, that simply isn’t the case. At the end of the day, trainees with more experience will pick up skills far faster, and that means they’ll always win.

That’s why cruel Candor and Erudite manage to make the transition so well. Y/N lacks that experience, and so although she’s learning things at an excellent rate, she can’t beat the prior knowledge of the others. Four remembers one time in which she’s been struggling with knife throwing. He had given her one hint and just like that, she was hitting the bullseye every time.

If Four wants to keep Y/N around a while longer, that’s what it’s going to take. More of that advice, more of that help. Y/N has the ability to change this faction just like him. Four just has to make sure that she makes it through initiation long enough to make that work.

Four isn’t supposed to have favorites. He does, it’s her. That’s why, despite days of him telling himself that he won’t get involved, he finds himself making up his mind. Still facing torment in his own head, Four drops by the training room later that evening, hoping some time alone with a punching bag and his own bruised knuckles will clear up his mind.

When he opens the door and sees Y/N there still, practicing her hits, he knows then and there that he has no choice. Four walks briskly through the training hall until he’s by her side. He watches her form for a few moments more; she knows he’s there, he can tell by the stiffness of her shoulders, her guard is already up.

He speaks at last, words echoing around the spacious room. “Punch more from your own strength. You’re pushing the bag, you don’t want to do that. Snap your fist forward instead.”

Four demonstrates with one quick hit. Y/N nods, mirroring him. Four has to bite back a smile. The change is immediate. A voice in the back of his head tells him that if he just stayed a little longer, helped a little more, she’d become a better fighter overnight. It’s not hard to convince himself to linger by her side.

“Good,” he murmurs, “now, try hitting with more combinations. Four hits instead of two. You’ll disorient your opponent.”

Once again, Y/N does as he says, and once again, she does it perfectly. That’s another problem with initiation, Four thinks, it’s impossible to help every student as much as they need, what with the incoming class of transfers growing so rapidly every year.

Y/N practices a while longer, then relents, taking a step back and giving Four a quizzical look. “Why are you doing this? I mean, I appreciate the tips, but I don’t think you do this for every initiate.”

“I don’t,” Four confirms, “maybe I just want to see you win tomorrow. Is that such a surprise?”

Judging by the expression on her face, the answer would be yes. “Last time I checked, you were supposed to make sure everyone had an even playing field. I didn’t think private punching lessons were included in that.”

Four has to try his utmost to smother a laugh. “They’re not. Still, I wanted to.”

“You wanted to,” Y/N repeats contemplatively, “what, you got tired of seeing me get my ass kicked all the time? I know you watch my rounds more than the others, that must be it.”

Four swats her gently on the shoulder. He’s just as surprised about it as she is; nothing they’ve done has brought them close enough for soft friendship. Still, it feels right. Maybe that means something.

“Self-pity doesn’t treat you right,” he says, “I like it better when you’re walking around like you own the place. Sometimes I think you do.”

Y/N laughs. “And melodrama has never been your strong suit. I think I like it, though.”

Four likes it too. He raises a brow, inviting her sarcastic remarks once more. “Does that mean you’ll allow the lessons to continue? You won’t keep pushing me away with your own disbelief?”

“I’m still debating,” Y/N retorts, but she’s grinning and that makes it much better.

Four leaves the punching bag, not her; he walks to the ring instead. Climbing easily up, he extends an arm for Y/N to join him. She takes his hand without a second’s hesitation, and Four has to fight all parts of himself to hide the swarm of warmth that cloaks his insides when he realizes her fear of him is gone, if it was ever truly there at all. Perhaps he was just looking for excuses to stay away, knowing nothing would work for long.

Y/N puts up her fists, interrupting his musing. “So? Are we fighting or not?”

“Of course we are,” Four says, getting into his own opening stance.

After that, he loses himself in the even rhythm of punches and kicks, blows and strikes. Sometimes he calls out tips and tricks, other times he lets Y/N learn from what works well and what doesn’t. Even after the night ends, when their strength gives out and they both walk away with new bruises and old grins, Four knows one thing for certain:  this is not the end of Y/N’s time in Dauntless, nor her time with him. No, their story is just starting. It is one that he looks forward to with all his heart.

divergent tag list: @rogueanschel, @with-inked-solace, @gods-fools-heroes, @23victoria, @manyfandomsfanvergent, @ilovexavierthrope

[niki-phoria]

YOU'RE MY HEARTBEAT

pairing: leon kennedy x gn!reader (no pronouns used) genre: angst word count: 674

warnings: mentions of blood/broken bones

notes: had an idea and couldn't stop thinking about it so enjoy :) based on the el gigante fight, couldn't figure out how to mention the wolf :// ambiguous ending unless you read part 02

you feel paralyzed - almost as if roots have crawled up from the floor, planting themselves around your feet and twisting around your ankles until you’ve all but been cemented into the ground below. and maybe you are. after all, you had been infected with whatever parasite has taken over the island, turning who you assume were regular, happy people into mindless monsters with the only goal of attacking and killing. 

the beast before you growls; its arms flex as it revs up, preparing itself for yet another swing in your direction. thankfully, it’s now that your body finally catches up with your mind, leaving you with just enough time to duck out of the way, only narrowly dodging the tree the monster slams into the ground beside you. you scramble to your feet, shaky hands gripping your gun tightly though you doubt bullets will do any real damage.

leon takes the opportunity, firing a few shots of his own into the creature’s back. it howls in response, twisting around and stomping towards the man. 

you follow leon’s lead. aiming at the monster’s head, you fire as many shots as your gun allows into its flesh. despite your best efforts, however, it seems to ignore you entirely. dust clouds your eyes and fills your lungs when it beats its fists against the ground, angrily screaming. you resist the urge to cough, scrambling back up to your feet. 

a pang of terror strikes through your body like lightning when the dust around you settles. it feels like one of your nightmares has come to life. leon kneels on the ground, still trying to gather his bearings. a small pool of blood has already begun to gather on the ground near his left leg. through the cover of darkness you can still clearly make out the way he winces as he forces himself to stand.

dread fills you. leon isn’t moving fast enough. the monster is stronger - it’s clearly used to fights like these. leon is simply a man. a hurt man. no amount of training or grenades or guns will ever change that. and he isn’t moving fast enough.

the monster is fast approaching. if you didn’t know better, you would think it’s getting a sickening sense of satisfaction from this. leon is simply another win for the scoreboard. another kill to add to its count.

your body is moving before you even realize. your heart beating wildly in your own ears serves as a sick sort of soundtrack. movie scenes flash through your mind. you can almost see it now - the beloved hero, sacrificing themself to save the life of another. their choked goodbyes whispered through trembling breaths and teary eyes. their head lulling to the side to signify: this is the end. the hero is dead.

you can only pray your story has a different ending.

it all happens in a second. the world blurs. you feel leon’s body against your hand as you shove him out of immediate harm’s way. you feel your knees press into the cool earth below you. you feel your own heart beating rapidly in your chest. you feel… everything.

leon’s pained scream of your name echoes loudly in your ears. there’s a loud crash - the horrid noise of your own bones cracking and bricks being smashed from the force - and, maybe even worse, the gut-wrenching bloom of pain immediately spreads throughout your entire body. you’re sure you’ve never been more aware of each individual nerve ending hidden in between layers of muscle than you have been right now; all of them scream at you. your head spins.

splinters and chipped pieces of rock dig into your arms as you pitifully attempt to push yourself up. your chest heaves as you desperately try to force air back into your lungs. you’re dizzy. disoriented. even in your admittedly poor state of mind, you can tell: something is horribly wrong. leon’s voice is just barely loud enough to cut through the ringing in your own ears. and then, the world disappears.

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