#just frustrating not even knowing how 2 put my characters in situations anymore

[talkorsomething]

keep trying, in little ways, to push for my creativity back.

Keep not getting there / pushing too hard through it.

...

Not sure when it'll get better at this point.

[mari-lair]

the recent chapter was decent, but when I realised akane wasn't the yoshiro after convincing myself he was for a month i had to close the tab stare at the ground and like. process for a few seconds. how i wish he had been... i did enjoy mirai trying to save his life though, and teru recognising that they hadn't been going to their full strength because maybe they didn't care about the yoshiro, because as you said, they had been presented at a higher level and we didn't see that in chapter 109

I always had doubts about him being the Yorishiro, with Akane having 2 bodies and the supernatural one already being stabbed in the chest before, so even that reveal was more of a "oh, okay. Makes sense" feeling.

It's... kind of sad... my experience with this chapter. With this arc.

The only thing I like is Mirai saving Akane, and how rich with character quirks, values, and experiences, Akane's fight with Tsukasa is, it goes beyond just his judo skills (and Elise will talk about it when she has the time) But I'll be honest, I have no hope for this arc, no wish to think about it and theorize it or anything.

I am here for terukaneaoi and the way Aoi hasn't shown up even as a small panel since the clock was frozen is... very telling... Akane's 'betrayal' with Teru also saddens me, for the more I look at it, the more clear it becomes that it is a tool, not a conflict they planned as a means to clash ideals, learn more about each other, or strengthen/restructure bonds (like Aoikane in chap 69 or Kou and Teru in chap 87). When Aidairo does want to create character conflict, they are amazing at it! Which makes Akane and teru feel... that much weirder.

I never expected Teru to jump and try to help Akane, he is handcuffed and without his sword, but I did expect him to have some kind of thought about the situation while he watched Akane be beaten up in front of him.

We get no reaction panel about what he thought of the fight. At all. Akane isn't in immediate danger when we do see his thoughts but it still feels... Strange to frame chapter 108 in a way that highlights how much Akane's betrayal affects Teru on a personal level, to make chap 109's gag revolve around Teru being THAT angry with Akane and then... Make Teru not spare Akane a single thought.

Teru even takes into consideration Nene's lifespan, but absolutely nothing about Akane. No cursing him. No "oh he did almost die like I wished for, idk how to feel a bout that". No "it feels strange to not be able to do anything, just watch". No, "I guess he is a clock keeper not the boy i thought I knew". No "i'm glad he is not dead". Not even "he should have died", as cruel as it sounds, it would still make way more sense than just... Nothing.

He doesn't even refer to Akane by name.

Teru is someone who has taken things personally since his very introduction, unused to change and prioritizing his relationships over his duties (not exorcising Hanako so Kou doesn't get mad at him. Putting the intire school at risk cause Tiara wanted him to clean up a mokke in chap 39. Letting Akane punch him in chap 71, etc-)

He is pathetic and unexperienced when he takes things personally, he wants to be reliable and admired, he doesn't know how to handle not getting what he wants (especially with Akane, who always obeys). Even when he tries to be detached his pathetic nature still show up. It had been consistent.

But the guy that locked himself in his bedroom and hid under the covers for a whole day after his fight with Kou seemingly got over Akane betraying him in what must have been 1 hour without talking about it ? I know Akane is not as important to Teru as his family but it's insane that he got over it without even thinking about it or being able to move in any way to let his frustrations out.

The worst part is that even when I suspend my disbelief and go along with the idea that Teru "isn't taking things personally anymore and is in professional mode cause the situation is dire!" it still makes no sense.

Akane's betrayal should have filled his head with questions about the situation, about what changed, but Teru never even tried to connect his vague talk with Akane with the clock keepers seemingly being nerfed.

Why 'now?' feels like an important question. One that should stick, but Teru ignores it.

Which again. Goes agaisnt what is established of his opinion of Akane.

Why would he neglect the words of a colleague he considers wise? Of someone he is treating as fully part of the clock keepers now? Someone he always wanted to hear his opinions before even in his 'professional and smart' mode? Someone whose opinions we have been told he doesn't dismiss even when what Akane says clashes with his upbringing as an exorcist? I am just supposed to assume he is treating Akane as any other supernatural now? Is the betrayal an insta 'everything that has been established no longer applies' free card...?

So yeah, sure... This is a big improvement from chapter 109 but it has the same core problem as chapter 109, at least to me: Aidairo has no interest in exploring Teru as a character in this arc. Aidairo wants the spotlight fully on the broadcasting club, and they will tweak his character whenever it's convenient to set the stage. Just like Nene had turned into a kid with minimal agency, Teru has become a presence that doesn't ask questions, unless said questions will move the plot.

Feelings will also be reduced to what moves the plot, we don't need to know how he feels about being in a position with no power, no sword, and minimal knowledge for the first time in this manga. There is so much they can explore completely disconnected from Akane, despite putting a spotlight on their relationship in chap 108, but there is nothing for Teru's character.

Even when Tsukasa points at Nene, whom he isn't angry at, he has no reaction. He does not care about this guy targeting the little baby girl after witnessing Akane be dragged on the floor.

Of course he doesn't. This isn't about him, is a Hanako set up, Teru can't have even a panel of spotlight on him that is about his character, can't bring attention to his fall out with Akane, less the reader get any expectative from it, or take space in a manga that currently isn't about him.

Teru is a tool first, and a character second in this arc. Chapter 109 stuck him in a dumb gag box. Chapter 110 stuck him in a smart guy exposition box. His personality is picked apart when it is convenient not when it makes sense for a character that has been molded for 100 chapters.

I don't care about this plot. I care about my favorite characters, and how they would react to the circumstances the plot been put on. That's my priority. It isn't Aidairo's. Even if Teru does have a relevant role later, it's still clear that exploring his character isn't Aidairo's priority in this arc.

I told chapter 109 to make me care about the arc, and chapter 110 is way better but not enough to make me care. Which is very sad, I wish it did :(

...This was already a depressing enough answer as it is, I don't want to talk about it.

[uglylittlebug]

IM INTERESTED ABOUT UR AU !!!MEE MEEEEE!!

Tell me everything! Or wait no, let's start slow.

1) how'd u come up with ur au and 2) how is everyones dynamic with each other and splinter!!

U said splints was an asshole so tell me about :))-🫘

RAAAGGHHH!! Alr, shit under the cut

1) I knew I wanted to make my own tmnt iteration, didn't rlly have any huge thots behind my ambition tho lol. I started designing the turtles and then I kept redesigning until I found something I liked (tbh I might change a few things as I go) then came other characters so that was fun. And then I just wrote a shit ton of notes in a shit ton of Google docs, note pads, and sketchbooks. I don't rlly know man, I'm just coming up with stuff as I go along

2) super excited u asked this bc I actually have stuff written down about it lmao

Bro dynamics:

Raph and leo

-they fight a lot, there is a certain misunderstanding between them. They don't seem to see how similar they really are

-eventually they will see it and their bond will grow

-leo doesn't understand why Raph is the leader yet he is the favorite

-raph gets frustrated with Leo but it's out of care for him and his loved ones

Raph and donnie

-they just get each other idk

-raph sometimes hangs out in dons lab and draws

-they both have issues with anger and lashing out but Raph is better at hiding it

-they constantly tell each other to fuck off, shut up, etc but it's always playful

Raph and mikey

-pretty much just rise raph and Mikey, just make Raph more like idk chill

-they like to cook/bake together

-mikey honestly helped Raph with a lot of things he was dealing with mentally

Leo and Donnie

-its a love hate relationship tbh

-obvi they care about each other but they just have a hard time expressing it

-leo doesn't rlly understand Donnie and why he is the way he is. He feels like he's just putting on a show and being way too sensitive about stuff

-eventually he will understand him more

-they dont always agree with each other

-donnie hates how devoted Leo is to splinter

-im not going to go into detail on this rn but there was a situation during training and it did not go well

Leo and mikey

-they fight the least but when they do its something, two dudes who dont have a hard time expressing their opinion but do have a hard time expressing themselves

-they always apologize after (usually) and will watch tv together or something

-will definitely get into some shit if left unattended

Donnie and mikey

-donnie likes his personal space and Mikey likes donnie's personal space

-donnie often lashes out on Mikey, similar to 2012 Donnie. But he apologizes and explains himself after

-mikey always seems fine but he is sort of scared of Donnie when he does lash out. He's seen what he does to himself (Donnie will bang on tables, stomp on his feet, hit himself, scratch or bite himself etc) and he feels dumb for fearing this but he is worried Donnie might hurt him

-donnie likes to ask Mikey a lot of questions for his inventions and stuff, Mikey likes to offer his input so it's like a fun little thing for them

Bros and splinter:

Raph

-2nd fav child

-splinter made him leader since he is the oldest

-splinter puts a lot of pressure on raph since she's the leader and the oldest

-when the turtles were younger Raph was the one taking care of the others. He hates splinter bc of that

-splinter always told Raph that he must protect the others (referring to Donnie and Mikey) because they are "weak" and "unfocused"

-raph knows that it's fucked up but is obviously still going to protect all of her siblings bc he cares about them

Leo

-fav child

-splinter sees the most potential in him bc he is the most focused, skilled, and obedient

-doesnt understand why splinter didn't make him the leader if it is clear that he is the favorite child

-even though he is the fav, he doesn't like splinter anymore than the others

-he knows splinter hurts them (emotionally and physically) but is too scared to lose his position as the favorite if he speaks up

-he feels that if it weren't for him being the favorite the others would be hurt more

Donnie

-is prob the least fav but it is unclear who is between him and mikey

-is ignored for the good things but if he screws up splinter makes sure he feels like a screw up

-things about Donnie that piss splinter off:

-focuses on tech rather than training

-"talks back"

-stims, physically and sometimes verbally

-sensitive to sound, texture, etc

-is clumsy and "constantly" getting hurt or sick

Mikey

-usually goes under the radar with splinter

-mikey is easily distracted while training so that upsets splinter

-mikey tends to cry when he's angry so splinter never takes him seriously bc he is "showing weakness"

I think that's all I have for now, ty so much for the ask tho!! I had a lot of fun answering it

[tojikai]

Okay I finally finished all of your stories!

Permanent mark is officially my favorite:,)

Thoughts;

See at one point, i was like let y/n heal and have them get together afterwards but then i was like “damn he fucked rie for two months 💔😔😟” and idk but something about her’s and suguru’s relationship is so tragic to me, i so badly wanted them together somehowReader should’ve gotten with suguru! I wanted their endgame so badly 😭💕 Everyone feels bad for satoru but nope i mostly feel bad for y/n and suguru, I wish they would’ve gotten together first, I don’t hate y/n either her, I saw some people hating on her and while i disagree on her sleeping with satoru while he has a gf, i can’t find myself to dislike her, and she actually might be my favorite “y/n” of yours.

both sundered and permanent mark satoru’s are so confusing and make me sigh deeply

Questions I have regarding the story surprisingly 😅:

- What was satoru whole thought process during the breakup and cheating

- Did he still love y/n at that point

- What was his reasoning

- Did he think abt y/n while rie/regret or like want her?

- Why did he put her over y/n??

- Basically what’s up with the whole situation

- Did he ever love y/n over her? Why would he break up with y/n over her?

- Did he love or want her more? Regarding rie

- Did y/n not make him happy anymore, what happened?

- Was there problems in their rs?

Note:

Thank you in advance if you answer, i probably already said this but your stories were a delight to read<33

I can’t wait to read the future stories you might have in store for us if you do:3

its nice that some people try to understand pm!yn and her actions. I also think it's understandable that many are frustrated about what she did. most of the characters in pm are driven by strong emotions that they made bad decisions, i could say its the theme of the whole story. they can be very confusing since not everything's mentioned explicitly, which i deliberately did bc i like that readers have to absorb something in order of them to really understand it. im happy you enjoyed pm !! 1. tbh satoru's mind was a mess the whole time, he hated himself for cheating on yn. at one point he felt like the breakup was meant to happen so he could finally be w rie but w rie he felt like something's wrong, almost as if he's still considering yn in everything he does in his new rs. he reached a point where he doesn't know if it's really what he wants or if he's just doing it bc it's already there. hearing abt suguru and yn shook him into clarity lmao

2. he still loves yn even when he was w rie.

3. like reason for going w rie? he thought thats what he wanted. he felt like it would complete something he never got to finish, but being away from yn took a bigger part of him than he thought it would.

4. he's always thinking abt yn even when he was w rie. he thought its just bc he felt guilty for cheating. but it was more than that. while he felt right being w rie, it's just different w yn. nothing feels wrong w yn whilst w rie, there's always a feeling that he's not really into it.

5. bc he thought that it was the right thing to do since he became rie's bf. satory appreciated her a lot when she stood w him even when everyone's judging them. he felt like she risked everything just to be w him and so he wanted to put out something equal.

6. lmao idk how to answer this but yeah ik, it's messy.

7. nobody asked satoru directly but if someone did, he'd be admitting to himself that he loves yn more than rie even when he and the latter were in a rs. he broke up w yn bc 1.) he already cheated, 2.) he thought he wanted to be w rie. 3.) bc he didn't think things through.

8. he loved rie. just not the way he loves yn and not as much.

9. he's the happiest w yn. he didn't realize it immediately when he left bc his and rie's rs was still young and it was still honeymoon phase and cloud9. after that, he had questions and lingering thoughts and feelings that he chose to push aside until he snapped (hearing abt sugu and yn)

10. no, there are no problems in their rs. that's why yn crashed out.

that's all !! thank you so much for the kind words and support ~!! <33

[dark-n-moody]

Nostalgia (pt. 2)

Summary: You were called to sit and watch Richard Ramirez’s court cases, but when he stared in your eyes, you couldn’t help but feel a certain way…almost nostalgic…

Character: pronouns she/her (y/n)

Word count: 872

Author's note: Thank you guys for the likes and the support! <3

It's been a week since you've had that epiphany in court, after seeing the serial killer Richard Ramirez. And if things couldn't get any worse, this time, you won't just be seeing him, you'll be talking to him. There's no time or way to back out, as you have just been told a few days prior that this was also a stupid requirement for law school. Sometimes you would find yourself sitting there wondering what you've put yourself into by going to law school.

You've watched the other two videos of his interview with Inside Edition as well as with Mike Watkiss. You had to prepare yourself by studying how he acts so you wouldn't be surprised by anything when there. The only light being shed in this situation is that you won't be alone; your fellow colleague, Evan, will do most of the talking, or you hope so for your own sake.

Approximately an hour later...

As you walk down the jail unit, you felt uneasy. Evan started to put his hand on your back for comfort when he looked at your face. You always have speculated that he had some crush on you, as it was evident in the way he treats you.

"You okay (y/n)?" He asked, his face looking alarming.

"Uh, yeah I'm fine, just a bit nauseous," you lied.

"Is there anything I can d-" you cut him off, "I'm good, really" you said shaking your hands and walking away from him so you can escape the feeling of his hand on your back.

"It's right down this way," a cop that was escorting you two said, pointing to a door on the left.

Feeling even more unsettled, you breathe in and just when you're about to walk into the interview room, Evan grasps your hand stopping you in place.

"What?" you say, frustration hinted in your voice.

"I just want you to be in the right mindset for this interview. I can do all the talking if you want." He said.

"I'm gonna have to do some talking too Evan," you huffed.

Avoiding him to talk anymore than he already has, you walk into the interview room. Richard was there, with his long black hair and long legs. It was a rare sight to see him in his prison uniform- an orange jumpsuit. He looked up at you and smiled, with some of his teeth missing. This was the first time he smiled at you, and you knew he remembered you. The eye contact didn't feel like anything as it did the last time you were in court with him. As Evan walked in from behind, Richard jumped up to shake his hand first.

Weird...you thought.

You proceeded to sit down across from the chair Richard was in. You could hear him in the back introducing himself to Evan, with a Spanish accent hinted in his voice.

You snapped back into reality when you heard Evan introducing you.

"And this is my wonderful colleague (y/n)." He said, his hand out in your direction.

"Nice to meet you, (y/n)" Richard said, his hand out to shake yours. Hesitantly, you reached out your hands and shook his. His hands were warm, and felt welcoming rather than evil, considering those hands took part in killing more than 13 people. You quickly let your hand out of his grasp and he proceeded to sit down.

"So, (y/n) and I are here on behalf of our requirements for law school. We aren't the government officials or anything just yet," Evan chuckled.

Richard on the other hand, had remained a straight face and said "I see..."

You butt in, starting the interview, in hopes of getting this over with so you can go home. "Ahem, so Richard, how would you describe these past few weeks? Do you think your lawyers are trying their best with the appeals?"

Evan darted a look at you, shocked that you just started off rapidly.

"Mmmm, I know what my fate is, so I don't really care whether they're trying or not. After all, I'm a serial killer, what appeals would even work?" He grinned at you.

You got frustrated quickly. You forgot that he had this tendency to indirectly answer questions or not at all and just talk about something completely different.

Evan could tell that your face has changed, so he decided to take the reply in his own hands.

"Well, do you even listen in court? Do you not care that you're going to be put on death row? To my understanding, the lawyers are trying to prevent you from dying..." he said.

Instead of Richard to answer the question, he shifted in his seat. You can tell there's agitation growing in him. If he weren't in chains and cuffs and had a pistol next to him, he would definitely shoot you both in the head in a snap.

The cop that was stationed to stand in the corner of the room shifted his belt a bit, making sure to be ready in case Richard unexpectedly acted out.

You decided to go on with a more daring question instead...a question that Mike Watkiss nor Inside Edition could not get answered...

part 3 confirmed and coming soon!

[creativriot]

Oughhh considering everyone is posting their sonic 3 thoughts

Basically it was better than I expected but not exactly a cinematic replacement for SA2

-I keep seeing people referring to the “Talk about a low budget flight! No food or movies? I’m outta here!” As a snapcube reference like no babes that’s from the original game I-

-upwards akira slide goes crazy

-absolutely adored the visual nods to the Shadow the hedgehog game. Also love how it looks like they tried to get the shadow meteor to look as black-armsy as possible considering Black Doom was absolutely not going to show up here.

-I honestly feel like they executed Maria’s death the best way they could, finding a balance to have it be like…caused by GUN without having a soldier absolutely lock in his shot on a child. Bro said fuck them kids fr 💀

-while #notmygerald the writing for the dude was better than I initially anticipated.

-there are moments where the film just doesn’t feel…confident? Like it cuts to a joke after having a serious moment way too quickly instead of letting the moment sit, and it’ll flashback to a scene that wasn’t too long ago to make sure you remember what they’re talking about. Straight up the moment where Shadow points to his chest telling sonic to finish him off only for Sonic to realize what he’s done would’ve been way more impactful if it wasn’t interrupted by a flashback.

-While I would prefer to have the beast in the flesh, having the biolizard be a goofy b movie kaiju in an old film was kinda cute ngl.

-insert joke about shadows punch not being enough to kill Tom. Like yea I knew they weren’t actually gonna do it but c’mon man don’t play with me like that- (/j/j/j if you like the human characters that’s more power to you)

-as excited as I was to see the GUN Robots in love action, it wasn’t really that good of a replacement for the Final Hazard fight but like! It still did what it needed to do! And honestly I’m a sucker for robots. and honestly even though it isn’t the perfect translation to Adventure 2 to the big screen as I had wished it’s not like I can’t play SA2 anymore.

-while I’m absolutely elated they didn’t chicken out and make GUN the good guys, I feel like their moral ambiguity could’ve been fleshed out a bit more. Like initially when commander Rockwell (had to google her name lmao) was looking for the Eclipse canon key and seemed frustrated that it wasn’t on the commander I was expecting the twist to be she had plans to use it for her own goals and it was gonna be a three way race between Sonic, Egg-men and GUN.

-to be honest there are plot points and whatever that felt like they needed more time to be developed but this is a movie so whatever

- THE SCENE WHERE SHADOW LOOKS SO CONFUSED, SCARED AND HURT WHILE BEING PUT INTO CRYOSTASIS??? /pos

-personally didn’t get the scorpion Vs mantis thing? Like I get the part that they’re scientists, brains over brawn and whatever but the exact choice to execute it like that felt a lil…idk strange? But anyways I wanna believe the whole Gerald scorpion thing is a potential nod to Spinball- I wanna believe.

-dunno how to feel about Gerald’s death like as funny as just ceasing to exist was nothing is ever gonna top that he deadass canonically died by firing squad 💖

-Yea like a Pavlovian bell I started getting emotional when the soundtrack started referencing the Final Scene track from SA2. SA2 was such a good game dude I hope it gets some sort of remaster at some point. Fuck dude. But on that note THE CREDITS SAID CITY ESCAPE? I MUST BE DEAF AS FUCK I DID NOT HEAR THAT SHIT 😭

POST CREDIT THOUGHTS

-As much as I expected Eggman to get killed off because of the whole Carrey retiring situation, a tad bit bummed because In my mind the perfect metal reveal would be if sonic & co. Didn’t know, and during a confrontation with ‘eggman’ the Liquid Metal melts away to reveal our favorite metal blue boy. Alas 😔

-yea obsessed with Metal showing up in the post credits sequence. I’m not sure if it’s implied sonic went fast enough to travel to the future? But like. I’m hoping that it’s not JUST Amy and she like takesss sonic to meet her friends so we can get a live action big n cream? I heard some people hoping for blaze and like yea.

-please I need SCU big. He better have whiskers and he better be the sweetest boy under the sun.

-METAL OVERLORD IN SONIC 4 OR BUST 🗣️

-felt the shadow reveal was abit lacking. Like yea ofc they’re not gonna kill off the biggest cash cow SEGA has. They could’ve at least used the “he’s still alive” reveal to introduce at LEAST OMEGA. On that note I’m curious how they’d execute his character IF they do 🤔

TLDR JUST PLAY SONIC ADVENTURE 2 /j

[palatial-monstrosity]

So you wanna write a novel…

I decided to write this after a post by @corpsepng asking how people plan their stories. It got out of hand so I made a separate post!

This is the system I used for planning, which is the result of mixing various strategies and amount of planning. The concern that "if I plan everything then I do not feel motivated to write" is valid and good news, there's ways to defeat that specific situation while reaping the benefits of planning the story beforehand.

THE BASICS

Step 1: the main character

Disclaimer: for simplicity, I'll assume only one main character but it can be adapted for more.

It's useful to know a few things about your mc before starting. Try to answer these questions:

Who are they? What does a typical day of their life look like? (ex, are we talking about a young wizard, a 50s housewife or a grizzled old warrior?)

What are they good at? (everyone is good at something, no matter how small and unimportant it may seem)

What do they want? Everyone wants something, even if it's just peace and quiet.

What do they lose if they quit? This will tell us a lot about the stakes of the story. Ultimately, is it about survival, belonging, respect, etc? It has to be quite important for your character, because if they change, they do it to save it.

What is their main flaw? This will greatly influence the story, so spend some time on this. In the context of your story a characteristic may be a flaw even if we would see things differently: maybe your character needs to become a cold-blooded killer to protect their family, maybe they need to be less generous, maybe they trust people too much… remember, context is king here.

Step 2: the environment

Who is their main antagonist? It could also be nature, magic or some organization, but there has to be someone opposing your character or there's no story.

How do they behave? What makes them succeed (until they don't, or they do)?

What is the setting? Again, go for the meaning here, not just the aesthetic. If your character needs to become a cold-blooded killer, maybe they're surrounded by monsters, zombies or something else that cannot be reasoned with. Or maybe you can reason with them and your MC has been successful in the past and thinks that's possible, until it doesn't work anymore…

Step 3: The ending

You need to know how the story ends, my friends. Some minor details may change, but the more you know about it, the easier the work is (and the less you'd have to rewrite, which is frustrating)

THE BASIC STRUCTURE

Once you have these elements, I strongly suggest you become familiar with the character arc, as it will be a useful guideline. You can divide your story in 5 or 3 parts, as you prefer, both work (I'm currently using a 5 acts structure).

Here's a very quick outline:

1 ACT The basics. Introduce the character and make us root for them, tell us what's happening and how it will affect them. Show us their flaw and we'll put 2 and 2 together. Introduce the main allies and antagonist, though you can add more important characters later.

2 ACT Your character tries to solve their new problem (bring the ring to Mordor, fight against the evil Empire, etc) and fails. They lack allies or refuse them.

3 ACT A huge failure makes them sit and stop for a moment - they either change for the better, or go down the road to tragedy (I am simplifying things a lot here) If they change, allow them to catch their breath as a reward.

4 ACT Their change was not complete/perfect and now the antagonist has become harder to fight. Your MC is on the road to failure again, one last time. And this time, everything seems lost. Hope seems to disappear.

5 ACT Your MC finds hope again, and finds out how to win against the antagonist. Not everything is lost. They regain old (and new) allies and fight. It is hard and there are losses, but they have changed (where, we might add, the antagonist has not), and they win. Or they don't, if you set them on a path to tragedy.

Once you've sketched a rough outline of these acts, the fun begins!

Take the first act and divide it in chapters, taking notes of what you want to show. I do this scene by scene, but in a very simple way. I might write "MC fights, he is injured because he refuses to kill his enemy" and this will be my way to show that his flaw is that he is too merciful. I do not go into details about the fight just yet.

Once you finished this for the first act, pick your very first scene. This will be the hardest one as it needs to set, well, everything. Where are we, who is the mc, etc. This might need a few rewrites. Once you've chosen what you want to show, I want you to THINK about it. All the fucking time. At the bus stop, in traffic, in the shower, at lunch, whatever. Think about how you'd write it. How would you start it, how will you show us that it's night and we are in a deep dark forest, or that we're in an office building at dawn, whatever. The first scene might take a few days of this, but it will be easier as you go. It is important that you get at the very least one night of sleep between the thinking and the writing as sleep organizes stuff in your mind. Only then, sit down and write that specific scene. You will notice that it will be different from how you originally planned it: maybe you added a side character, maybe you decided it's not night but sunset, etc. Your brain will give you new ideas! And that's great. After you've written that, well, start thinking about the next scene, and so on, and so on… I currently manage the thinking for the next scene + the writing in the same day ( I write first thing in the morning so I get that part out of my brain).

MISCELLANEOUS ADVICE

your character's opinion aren't your opinions. get crazy, it will be fun.

everything you write will be on your mc's point of view, so they will notice things differently than you would. They might notice things that are ordinary for us, or they might have different views on things like religion, family, sexuality, etc.

Recommended reading

It's just three books, read at the very least the first two books as they will be incredibly useful for the character arc and to write compelling characters:

Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc: The Secret to Crafting Extraordinary Screenplays by Dara Marks

The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human, and How to Tell Them Better by Will Storr

Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them by John Yorke

[rathologic]

sorry if you've discussed this in detail b4 but I'm curious how you feel about marble nest as a game/text especially compared to P2...

I don't have a ton of thoughts on it really! I think it's frustrating that the "all a dream" nature of The Marble Nest makes it hard to connect into any discussion of how it reflects on "real" p2 - its being subjective to Dankovsky is kind of an excuse to retcon any of the game. its 2019 (bundled) release was a huge downgrade; beyond cutting out a lot of content including the House of Death quest, rats, and the "break marat's neck with your bare hands" cutscene, and making the lighting/shaders homogeneous with release p2's shaders, its addition of the stamina bar turns walking around from a necessity of motion where the player didn't need to worry about their speed into a pointless stamina management minigame that constantly diverts the player's attention. just visually and ludologically 1.5 stars worse and yet IPL asks you to pay for that version & also the 2016 one isn't downloadable anymore. 👎

I enjoy the focus on townsfolk/unnamed NPCs over the People list (and am excited to see this continue in the upcoming route), especially the portrayal of the major characters as chess pieces implying that they're seen in a strategic-manipulation kind of way, and how the same treatment extends to the NPCs you interact with in order to get the true ending. in short, the way that having to select specific actions and get specific endings for plot threads overrules the Bachelor's personal will and his care for people in the pursuit of "winning" / the truth, in the same way that his tooltip thoughts about the adherents are secondary to their roles and usage in the game he's been playing... very characteristic of him :-)

tmn is 95% of all characterization we have for p2 Georgiy so as a note, I love Georgiy's writing in the marble nest, he's awful but he's one of the only p2 characters who has a defined philosophy and will actually explain it to the player and attempt to achieve his own goals at your expense. it's literally not georgiy's fault that haruspex route copied his deal for its OWN antagonist. similarly, Aspity's great in it it's nice that she got to have a character and express her view of death at some point before being flattened into a mother figure for the haruspex. eva comes pre-fridged in this one so we don't get to see the hole generated by her absence, only how sad the bachelor feels walking past her house, which could've been at least mentioned in the cathedral part but my theory is the writers just didn't know what they wanted to do with her yet. other notes:

the graveman is one of the best and coolest game design features they could've added & fixes tmn's most annoying aspect in a way that adheres to the bachelor's constant themes about time

the meta aspect of being a video game played by the player is handled much more cleanly IMO by the time loop than by 2's theater play framing

even with unlimited sprint, walking is The weak point - while it's mitigated a little by having so much wandering NPC dialogue and frequent event changes, it's a lot of time and attention spent without even the reward of (having a use for) trash pickups, and I think the district's sound design could've been improved to add variety. boats fix this in the haruspex route

the graphics and mechanics don't take precedence over the narrative content / dialogue so it feels way more solid and put-together. including how every piece ultimately fits together... the use of limited characters and physical space works to ensure that each conversation brings in something unique :-)

AND the kids have a high measure of control over the game situation & ability to speak for themselves, as it were. & it even connects to and ultimately explains a piece of lore (the nuts) and introduces characters (marat and dora) beyond the bounds of what 1 had established, without breaking anything fundamental

in general I think it was excellent as a demo, pretty good as a game in the pathologic franchise, and definitely a worthy use of (checks notes) 8.15 gigabytes of hard drive capacity. and the important thing is that it's fun

[cloveroctobers]

My thoughts for S3 of the Bear after my first watch 😮‍💨 *CONTAINS SPOILERS!*

I think I get what they were trying to do with this season although I still said, “what the hell was that?” After I finished the finale last night. Binged tf out of it and it’s Saturday! I picked it up when they mentioned, “subtract,” in that one episode. I’ll have to give it a rewatch and WILL once I start writing for this season. This season was heavily past focused and how that led all these characters to their current states. That works in some senses when it comes to the kitchen and the drive to be the best of the best.

However it did fall short in some moments where characters should have had more of a story or say in situations (thankful we got to see how Tina got to the bear, which is a great episode! Relatable even.) and it feels like the progression they made in season 2 feels diminished almost. Idk if they changed writers this season or not but I don’t like how they made Sydney feel small to Carmy’s false promises in S2.

I guess that was their way of creating a parallel to Carmy’s experience coming up in high end restaurants but it completely erases what they worked for. A partnership. Don’t get me wrong, Carmy is clearly not well (who is?) but I wouldn’t be mad if Syd dipped again atp—yet I’m sure that’s what some want anyway. Although S2 ofc ended rough and had to bleed into S3 it still left a frustrating view for the audience. You can argue this or that but clearly things are missing.

Carmy doesn’t even mention or acknowledge that he now has a niece? Sugar’s pregnancy symbolizes new life, new beginnings which was what S2’s message was mixed with purpose. I didn’t expect S3 to be all sunshine’s and rainbows considering its title but damn! No pictures sent to him either? Guess that was just a moment for Sugar and Donna—which is fine! We get to hear how each sibling came into this world and how that’s a metaphor for how they live(d). We got to see Donna attempting to actually be a mother, listening to her child and stating that she’s trying to be better even though it’s hard and that Sugar won’t be like her towards her own nameless daughter. But not even a phone call to his sister? Nothing. Perhaps that was deliberate because Carmy’s “focus,” is always on the kitchen instead of his own empathy when it’s time for service. It makes him dissociated, mean, and only his decisions/voice matters.

It was powerful to actually see Carmy shed a tear. It’s evident that the man is going through pain, he’s grieving for everything, not just his upbringing and Mikey, but for who he once was; someone who has the talent and is willing to learn how to be the best but even better than that. He’s got that trauma that’s going to last forever, just like Donna said, Carmy took forever to come into this world and by then the Berzatto’s were already damaged.

Carmy knows he can create and put that into his cooking. He’s been trained to put his all into his craft but I don’t think it’s anything he’s passionate or even joyous about anymore. He’s doing what he thought everybody thought he couldn’t do—at least that’s what he says in S1? In reference to Mikey. He initially wanted to do this with Mikey but then we learn that Mikey isn’t into it really. He just took over because their old man was a deadbeat and left it to be their problem. That’s typical oldest sibling energy, taking on the role to be who everyone looks up to and has all the answers but they take on the load of everyone’s shit as well. It all became too much for Mikey in the end. Which is significant to the Berzatto’s, its problems on problems without anybody knowing how to effectively communicate as a family. They’re used to being loud and that’s how Carmy moved through his time at that New York restaurant— was that the one named, “The French Laundry?” There’s a lot to unpack so I forget some details sorry. Chef Asshole was basically a trigger to how Carmy was raised and apparently that made Carmy “better,” and he should be thankful that chef asshole basically beat the shit out of him physically, mentally, and emotionally but that just added another fucked up scar to him.

So Carmy subtracts.

Subtracts from the fact that he apologizes to Richie over voicemail once they’re back face to face but clearly Richie isn’t ready to forgive. They’re just coworkers at this time, that love is buried in that freezer. Richie doesn’t care about any personal shit that Carmy has going on (Cl*re), he subtracts from his own version of love he tries to give to Carmy. He sets Carmy off with anything he disagrees with and it’s pettiness because he also doesn’t know how to talk to Carmy which again gets erased once we get to the end of S2. Richie also once told Carmy that he’s all he has. It’s automatically an attack when Richie has no problem being vocal and Carmy constantly explodes and Richie is the easiest target since the way they normally communicate is screaming at each other.

Carmy has a chance to connect with Marcus and he does during the “legacy,” episode and Carmy takes his words about taking the bear to great heights as a way to honor Marcus’ mother in a previous episode. They all show up at the memorial more than a funeral because a black funeral isn’t like this tbh! That’s another conversation though! Yet once it’s time to call it to start service, Carmy turns it all off and begins screaming at Marcus again when he’s running expo.

He does this to Tina too, ready to stand over her when she’s making the pasta dish but thankfully Sydney takes over because we know he would have turned into chef asshole 2.0 if Sydney let that slide. And we don’t even need to get started on how he’s treated Sydney so poorly this season since he’s going through shit and doesn’t know how to handle it.

Sure it’s a bit of an excuse but I loved Sydney telling him that she’s not his babysitter. He needed to hear that. They also erased them having more one on one time and made it more subtle which hasn’t gone unnoticed 🍅!!! But we love that Carmy’s dish was Syd’s best meal imo!

The conversation with Chef Andrea Terry about her telling him what she would have told the younger version of herself, that it’s okay to not know WTF you’re doing but that also makes you invincible is probably a set up for season 4 but that can also send everyone further spiraling as well depending on how the writers decide to spin it.

Then we end with the review being up. It’s anything but good based on Carmy’s reaction, at first I thought it was Syd’s decline of the contract but it’s been the review they’ve all been dreading. Mostly Carmy and actually Uncle Jimmy, since he’s also not communicating or being honest that the bear might actually be over too.

So that does leave the debate of: does everything that you’ve worked extremely hard for have to be lost in the end because you’re simply lost yourself in this world but at least you’ve tried? Like Chef Terry once said.

Carmy constantly feels like what he’s doing lately is a waste of time (throwing out dishes that visually look nice, not reaching out to cl*ire—although personally I’m not a fan of that ship but he fucked up regardless because you don’t treat people like that, not staying in budget, the break down of the boxes, all these things he’s set up on his own and his team that are trying to follow his lead but it’s not turning out the way he wants it to, etc) even with everything he’s given to be such an excellent chef. Is he finding cooking to be a waste of time to true or is that just everyone being in his head? Yet again. Can things always be figured out or is subtracting ultimately the solution?

Guess we’ll have to see.

[kiss-my-freckle]

I don't know how to reconcile some people and their thoughts on TVD. Stefan let (allowed) her to die, not once but twice. Not even touching upon everything that I can go and on about in the first 2 seasons. It's so clearly Damon (was her person) from 2x6? She's like this guy is such a MF asshole, and he loves me but there is no way I could be with him. But she could. Because she kept him in her thoughts and heart.

I don't see the argument that she didn't fall until 3x1. She took her time, yes, just like many historically epic romances do. The slow burn was lovely to watch yet all was ruined by the writing. How do we not see that she was already ALL in by early season 3????

This is my biggest frustration passing season 3. The finale! WTF. Why would she choose Stefan. Writing to please the Stelena fan base. There is no other logical reasoning. It's like when you watch a horror movie and you're all in, until you realize the mistakes of the characters are completely unrealistic even in a high stress situation, and you are no longer emotionally involved in their survival. GEEEESH.

I'm literally not sure how anyone is a Stelena fan.

I do get the Damon hate because even though most people don't think on a complex level for him (understanding his trauma) he did do very, very bad things. Turning Vicki is not one of them because I do think he did this out of "compassion"?

Stefan puts her in danger more often than not, and mostly with his secrets and lies. 1x6 was the first time this was shown, that's why Damon threatens Elena. He proves a point before he warns her to be careful who she invites in the house. This continues for a long time, and not just in the first season. Elena's comment from season 2 carries over into season 3, that's why she literally wakes to start training with Alaric. "I need to wake up and know that the people that I love are safe. I need to feel safe." She can't be with Stefan anymore, and she knows it.

"The problem's Damon. When I'm with him, it consumes me." They made it clear in season 3 that Damon was gonna be her death and her life because he is both the problem and the solution. That's why he sires her to kill Connor so she can suffer the hunter's curse, then he's on the bridge to save her from suicide. He consumes her and he replenishes her, that's why he's starving her just to feed her.

She doesn't fall for Damon until her birthday, but they have this connection… let's just say they're in a world all their own, that's why Stefan continues to be jealous. He can't touch it and it bothers him. "I sent him because lately it seems like he's able to get through to you in ways that I can't. You'll listen to him." That's why I laugh when Stefan says this in season 4 because it's always been that way for her and Damon. Like the argument she and Stefan have in season 2, when he talks to her about building his tolerance for blood. If not for Damon, Stefan wouldn't be feeding on her blood in season 2. He's feeding on her blood because she listens to Damon. When Stefan confesses to Damon that he's been drinking Elena's blood, he has no idea that's not the only thing he's confessing to. He's blind to the truth of Damon's role in it because he couldn't hear them talking, he was still on animal blood at that point.

Even though Elena fell in love with Damon on her birthday, she was terrified of loving him. It's not until Stefan rips into her that she realizes it's reckless to love either one because they're both vampires. She's then terrified of losing Stefan's friendship in choosing Damon. She chose Stefan, Tyler, and Caroline because they're her family. Her true choice was taken from her when Stefan and Damon decided who was gonna be home with her and who was gonna be out of town with Klaus' body. When she's on the roof with Stefan in 4x1, she speaks to "if" because she knows her forever is with Damon, and she has the time to rememdy her lies because she has an eternity lol

[tojikai]

I have a small message for some readers: stories and characters develop. People are going to change for the better or the worst, that’s just how it goes. Naomi wasn’t always the perfect girl (she never was), and with Gojo that’s up to you. Some people feel like he hasn’t done enough or doesn’t deserve Y/N for what he’s done to her, shit even Gojo himself feels like he doesn’t. That’s totally valid. But it’s weird when some readers are frustrated that characters try redeeming themselves or turn out to be terrible or even just make mistakes 😭 no one is perfect, that would make for a boring story. honestly this behavior happens sometimes and I just don’t get it. That anon that was victim blaming gojo for almost getting r*ped and excusing naomi really got under my skin and I felt like I had to say something. ANYWAY.

One thing I wanna say is, good for his dad. He’s finally doing what he should’ve done earlier. Staying together for a kid is never a good idea, they can always tell and it’s better to live with two parents that are happier apart than miserable together. Satoru probably saw how his father tolerated his mother and it skewed his view on relationships. But not anymore, I hope they both cut that parasite out of their lives for good. I hope that they can both go no contact easily but poor Satoru is gonna need years of therapy to undo the damage she’s done.

I’m so nervous about what Toji is going to say to Satoru. I’m actually feeling like Toji might tell him that he wants to give Satoru another chance with Y/N. Another reader pointed out that Toji had the luxury to live out their happy family and I know he would want Y/N and Yui to have that opportunity. Toji has his faults but he’s a good person and I said a couple chapters back he wants Y/N to be happy.

I DO THINK he should be letting Y/N make these decisions to be honest but I don’t even know what Toji is gonna say so let me stop before I get ahead of myself LOL

Satoru was too lenient on Naomi but it’s his decision to make on what he thinks should happen. A legal battle would just put the entire situation at the forefront of his life for months, maybe years and he just seems tired of it all. I just hope she leaves and doesn’t ever come back, she’s done enough.

Through it all, I wonder what Y/N wants. Would she be willing to give Gojo another chance? Does she even still love him like that? We’ve been a bit in the dark about her actual feelings for him, we just know what she’s been thinking. She’s a very reserved protagonist, even to us as readers I think. Toji can make her happy, I think she knows this too. So if a decision was to be made by her, I wonder what she’d choose.

I’m hoping that this zoo hangout can give them some peace and clarity for their future. Whatever it is, I know you’ll do it justice. This next chapter is either the final one, or the second to last one and I’m so excited!

Thank you so much Kai, this chapter was incredible and I hope uni is treating you well 🥰 much love to you and I appreciate your work so much. Be well!

hiiii, this is so on point. just like real people, these characters change depending on the situation they go through and information they acquire. i feel like some readers wants someone perfect, but having perfect characters could literally end an angst story in a chapter or 2 so that's less fun 😭 as for toji, he really wants yn to be and he can make her happy, it's just that their situation isn't really helping or allowing it to happen smoothly 🥹 satoru was being a soft about what he wants to happen to naomi for the sake of peace. man's just tired and other than that, he's blaming himself for it too. it's like he's thinking that it wouldn't have happened if he didn't drag it long :(( As for yn's feelings, i hope chapter 8 can deliver it well, it's in there !! anw thank you so much for this, im grateful for all of your support to me and this story<3 i hope you're doing well~

[teenwolffan-with-nolife]

Jealousy

Word Count: 2,832

Characters: Derek Hale, Scott McCall, Stiles Stilinski, Noah Stilinski, Lydia Martin, Reader (gender neutral)

Pairings: Derek Hale x Platonic!Reader; Scott McCall x Platonic!Reader, Stiles Stlinski x Platonic!Reader

Warnings: angst, death, very small fluff at the end

A/N: okay either I forgot how to write, or my brain just hyped up this for no reason at all :/

A/N 2: it’s like riding a bike... writing will come back, right?

Masterlist

“We need to figure out a plan where we can all be safe. This isn’t gonna work if you can’t focus,” Scott was getting slightly, frustrated, sitting next to you while he put his hands in his head.

“Oh, come on, you have to admit this is a little funny,” you were holding back your laughter, seeing a look of anger on Derek’s face, and a look of annoyment on everyone else’s.

“How is this funny, (Y/N)?!” Stiles exclaimed.

“It’s hysterical because some dumbass bozo decided that a group of teenagers is the biggest threat in Beacon Hills!” you let out a small snicker, seeing Derek roll his eyes.

Stiles turned Lydia’s laptop screen to you, showing your name.

(Y/N) (Y/L/N) 35 

No one on the entire Deadpool was nearly as much as you, your alpha was 15 million less than you. 

“That’s even funnier! Scott, my powers are a joke compared to yours! Besides, if we’re so high up, do you really think any idiot would actually come after us? We’re powerful, we’re a werewolf pack with a true alpha, a banshee, a kitsune, a were-coyote, and a witch! I can’t even control my powers, we’re all dangerous,” you scoffed, leaning back into the chair.

You saw Derek huff as he stood up, pushing off the couch with force before walking to you, holding your wrist tightly.

You could feel slight pain, ignoring it.

“Did I do something to upset your royal highness?” you gasped dramatically, feeling his grip on your wrist tighten.

You saw Scott stand up, tense, from the side of your eye while your head hit the wall behind you.

“Oh, are you about to kiss me?” you asked, a small smirk on your face.

“You’re not fucking indestructible. We are all in danger, you were all trapped in the school and almost died, you think this is the time to dick around? That this is the time for jokes?! We’re all in danger, these hunters are ruthless,” you saw his eyes glow blue, feeling your throat tighten before you ignored it.

It’s okay

“Every single threat we’ve ever faced, we’ve gotten over. We are good at this, hunters are shitty. Why not add a little humor while we’re at it?” you replied.

“Satomi’s pack is dead! You still think we can get over this?! They’ve been alive for decades!” he yelled.

“Derek, stop-” Scott started.

“They never learn. They never listen. We are in danger, (Y/N). When we find your body, when your name is crossed out on that fucking list, maybe then you’ll learn your lesson. Maybe you could stop being so fucking cocky and arrogant. When you’re dead,” you felt your heart drop, trying to keep calm before you pulled away from Derek.

“Just because your life is fucked doesn’t mean you have to take it out on everyone else,” you saw Derek clench his fist, while Scott quickly pulled you away, just in time as Derek’s fist collided with the wall behind you,

“That’s enough, both of you. We’re not going to find (Y/N)’s body like that, we’re all going to get through this, we just need a plan. (Y/N), we need to be serious,” Scott started.

“Serious as Sirius Black?” you said.

Derek glared at you before Stiles groaned audibly.

“You know what? Maybe it’s time to take a break and go home. We’ll talk about this in the morning,” Lydia said.

Stiles nodded his head in agreement, while Derek’s tense figure softened slightly.

“I agree with Lydia. It’s time for all of us to go home,” you gave a smile and wave to the pack before making your way to the door.

Scott pulled you aside before you entered your car.

“Hey, Scotty,” you smiled.

“(Y/N), look. I know this world is terrible, I know how you think up there. But you need to tone it down. We just need you to be serious for five minutes. Meet me in the middle here, what if one of us isn’t here next time Derek decides he wants to punch your face?” you could hear a worried tone in Scott’s voice.

“Well, we just pray that I’m never alone with the sourwolf,” you sat in your car while Scott sighed.

“Fine. I get what you’re saying. I’ll tone it down,” he nodded his head, thanking you before making his way to his motorcycle.

---

You yawned softly, turning on the lights as you dropped your bag to the floor.

“Hey, I’m home,” you called out to your siblings, getting silence as a response.

“Don’t pretend to be asleep. Get your asses down here!” you said.

You walked to the kitchen, seeing the dishes left all over the place, including some broken glass left on the floor.

You began to feel nervousness in your chest before you made your way up the stairs.

“Hey, Olivia, Liam? Is anyone here?” you opened their room doors, your heart stopping. They weren't there, they were nowhere in sight.

Both of your siblings knew and listened to your rules no matter what, it was a side effect of paranoia after your parents died. You made all the rules, they listened no matter what.

You felt your throat tighten, dialing your sister’s number, then your brother’s. They both went to voicemail.

You ran down the stairs, running your fingers through your hair as a small whimper escaped your lips. Your vision blurred as tears flooded your eyes. You wiped them away, taking shaky breaths before calling Scott.

The call went to voicemail, but he sent a text back.

You gathered your belongings once again, running out of your house.

---

Your breathing was shaky, you ran out of your car as you rushed up the stairs, about to enter the loft before you heard Derek yelling at Scott.

“They're going to die, I don’t know why we’re pretending (Y/N)'s not going to. They’re arrogant, they're cocky, they can’t stay serious for longer than two minutes-” you put your hand over your mouth to hold back your cries.

“(Y/N) has a different way of coping, that’s all this is. Their parents died, they have to take care of their siblings, they try to take care of all of us. I say let them be,” Scott replied.

“No. I want them out of the pack, all they are is a burden at this point.”

You’re wasting time, (Y/N)

You couldn't bring yourself to open the door, to ask Scott for help. Not right now, at least.

You found yourself running out of the loft, instantly freezing as you were met with the barrel of a gun.

Your eyes widened, putting your hands up as you froze.

“Get in the car,” his voice sounded calm, while your eyes glowed purple.

“If you try anything on me, you can say goodbye to both of your siblings,” you felt a shiver up your bones as you clenched your jaw.

“Olivia and Liam, was it? Oh, you should've heard them crying for you, it was pathetic,” he scoffed.

“They’re children-” 

“And they’ll have a chance to live if you come with me right now,” you felt a tear slip down your face, nodding softly.

You walked in front of him, keeping your hands up as your heart began to race in your chest, sitting in the van before the man handcuffed your wrists.

---

Your bruises covered the majority of your body, you sat alone at the Sheriff’s Station. Your hands were shaking, you tried to keep your focus off the events from the past two weeks.

You instantly remembered the events from last year, sitting in this exact position, at this exact place. 

“No, I-I didn't see them come in,” your throat tightened, you looked down while Sheriff Stilinski stood in front of you.

“So how did you know something happened?” he asked softly.

“I was… I was doing my homework, I heard this pound bang. I-I thought my siblings were playing but then-” your voice wavered as you stopped yourself, holding back your tears.

“I heard crying, and now…” 

You closed your eyes at the memory, letting out a shaky breath.

“(Y/N), we need to know what happened,” Noah asked softly.

He leaned down in front of you, your entire body remained tense.

“I can’t talk about this right now,” your voice broke.

You could see the surprised look on Stilinski’s face, you weren't much of a person to be serious, as the pack was familiar with.

You were the jokester, the class clown. The dead weight. You soon found out that if you focused on the humor in every situation, your mind would be too preoccupied to think about the pain. But there wasn't any humor in this, only your stupidity.

If you listened to Scott, your siblings would be alive. If you were serious for 5 minutes, you could have helped the pack come up with a plan.

But now you sat alone at the Beacon Hills Department.

“Stiles is almost here. How do you feel about staying with us for a while?” he asked softly.

Sheriff Stilinski always treated you like his kid, always taking care of you. He knew that you would feel bad, returning to your house all alone.

You nodded softly, while he nodded, giving you a small smile.

“Is there anything important that I need to know?” Stilinski asked softly.

You could see your hands shaking, while you clenched your jaw.

“I don't know what they did… I-I don't have my powers anymore,” you tried to keep your voice strong before his face fell, wrapping his arms around you.

“I’m so sorry, (Y/N). I promise you that we’ll find them and make them pay.”

“(Y/N)?” you saw Stiles walk into the station, Scott following close behind.

The two of them ran to you, wrapping their arms around you tightly. You held back your cries, burying your face in Stiles’ neck before taking a deep breath.

“Hey, let’s go?” Scott asked softly.

You nodded, while Scott held your hand, beginning to take your pain.

“It’s fine,” you pulled away from him.

He paused for a second, before nodding softly.

Stiles gave a look to Scott before the three of you walked out of the station.

---

“Do you have any ideas?” you looked up at Scott talking to you, seeing the rest of the pack giving you a look.

“There isn’t anything we can do. We just need to be able to defend ourselves,” you explained quietly.

“Lydia, have you figured out how to shut down the…”

Your mind drifted from the conversation, you remained quiet and curled up on the couch. Stiles sat next to you. The entire pack kept their eyes on you, you know they pitied you. Even Derek remained silent about your actions, the two of you haven't fought all week.

“So then one of us can stay here and defend you-” Stiles started.

“I don't need anyone to defend me-” the two of them began to argue briefly before Scott sighed, stopping them.

“(Y/N), can you stay here with Derek?” Scott asked softly.

No, I hate him, he hates me 

You found yourself nodding before you cleared your throat to speak.

“Yeah, that’s fine. We’ll see you tomorrow,” Stiles pressed a small kiss to your forehead before he and Scott left.

You turned to face Derek, seeing a tensed look on his face.

“I can show you to the extra room,” he said softly while you nodded.

---

You kept to yourself mainly, keeping your focus on your work. Derek would even forget that you were there. He would occasionally try to talk to you, you were surprised to hear him cracking a joke.

You had grown slightly annoyed, you knew he felt guilty. There was never a time he didn't make you feel bad about being happy or making jokes. 

You held a gun in your hand, something that you weren't used to yet. With Derek losing his power, he was unable to defend himself, you had yet to tell the pack about you losing your powers.

You sighed, resting your head on your hand.

“Hey,” you clenched your jaw, hearing Derek’s voice as he approached you.

“This is kinda funny, you know. You having to protect me like this,” you tried to keep your focus off Derek, feeling your throat tighten in anger slightly.

“Hey,” you sighed deeply, looking up at Derek.

“I’m really sorry-”

“Shut up,” you clenched your jaw. Derek had a slight look of surprise on his face.

“I’m sorry, I-”

“Stop,” you shook your head.

“(Y/N)-” 

“We were never friends. Why are you trying to be nice all of a sudden?” you stood up in front of him.

“I just want to see you happy again,” he said softly.

“Are you fucking joking?” you scoffed.

He stayed quiet, giving you a soft look while you crossed your arms.

“You’ve always made me feel bad about having a smile on my face, for trying to be happy. Isn’t this what you fucking wanted?!” you raised your voice, while he clenched his jaw.

“This isn’t what I wanted to happen-”

“No! They murdered both of my siblings in front of me, they took my powers. What the fuck did you think was going to happen?” you shouted at him, feeling your heart race.

“Your powers? (Y/N)...”

“Yeah, you’d rather you just found my body, right?! When my name is crossed off on that fucking list, so then maybe I can learn my lesson, right?!” you yelled.

“That’s not what I meant, (Y/N)-”

“Why? Because you’d rather kill me yourself?! You could’ve done it the other day, when you tried to punch me, if Scott hadn’t stopped you,” your eyes watered as your voice wavered slightly.

“(Y/N)-”

“I heard you telling Scott about how you wanted me out of the pack! How I’m a big fucking burden! So, please stop pitying me and just leave me the fuck alone!” you yelled.

“I know how you feel, (Y/N). My family’s dead too, (Y/N),” he said softly.

“You wanna compare?! Did someone murder your parents? While you were in the fucking house, too dumb to realize until it was too late?! Have you been taking care of your younger siblings for a year, a-and because you can’t do anything right, they get kidnapped and you watch them die. I can hear their voices, Derek. They were screaming, they cried for me to save them and I couldn’t do anything. Don’t pretend you know what I’m going through, what this feels like because you don’t. None of you understand,” more tears fell from your eyes as you continued to yell at Derek before you ran your fingers through your hair, letting out a shaky breath.

You let out a small cry, putting your hand over your mouth to stop yourself.

Derek wrapped his arms around you tightly, taking you by surprise.

But you didn’t care. You were in too much pain to care. You were too tired to care.

He stroked your cheek softly, holding you tightly as he rested his head on top of yours.

“You’re right, I don’t know how you feel. I never will. That doesn’t mean that I’ll let you go through this alone,” your chest was aching as you scrunched your eyes tightly, a small cry escaping your lips.

“Out of all of us, I’m the closest to understand how you feel, how to lose your entire family, and feeling like it’s all your fault. But, it’s not, (Y/N),” you buried your face in his neck as he continued to caress your back, pressing his lips to your forehead.

“And I’m sorry that I was such a dick. I never hated you, I could never hate you. I was just jealous,” he said softly.

You looked up at him while he stroked your cheeks, wiping away your tears.

“If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I promise I’ll never screw it up, and I promise that I’ll never hurt you,” you nodded as he pressed his lips to your forehead once again.

“It’s getting late, we should probably go to sleep soon,” he said softly.

“I can’t fall asleep,” you sighed.

“Then I’ll help you,” he nodded.

He walked you to his bed, laying down next to you before wrapping his arms around you once again.

“You’re safe, I promise,” you nodded softly, closing your eyes.

He continued to hold you, listening to your heart rate and breathing before making sure you were asleep. He sat up on his elbow, looking down to face you. Your face was covered in dry tears and snot, he could see your pain while he sighed softly.

“You’re safe now,” he muttered softly.

He turned off the lights, before laying back on the bed, falling asleep next to you.

[stellar-imagines]

HEADCANONS REQUEST: ❝super saiyan S/O.❞

[ Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia ] [ Characters: Midoriya Izuku, Bakugou Katsuki, Todoroki Shouto ]

「Headcanons of Midoriya, Bakugou and Todoroki with S/O who has a quirk similar to a Super Saiyan from Dragon Ball Z.」

MIDORIYA IZUKU 

♤ Midoriya is always interested in quirks, he will never pass up a chance to discover new quirks and their abilities. He was surprised to learn that it wasn’t actually a quirk and that you were just born like this. Superhuman strength, durability, speed, and reflexes. Seeing all that in person was just unreal, Midoriya is already in love. After all, this guy is weak for strong women like yourself. He’s dying to know more about your abilities ties and superhuman traits. But you know how it is for him, he’s very nervous around girls.

♤ Already has his notebook open when you decide to tell him about how your power actually works. This boy will listen to every single word you tell him, making sure he never missed any details. For the things he missed, he would ask you to repeat it. You'd go on and on about how you became a Super Saiyan, the science behind S-Cells, and different forms of a Saiyan. He'd ask you a lot of questions as if he were a student and you were a teacher giving a lecture.

♤ You are what Midoriya aspires to be in the future. You were strong, skilled, and able to hold your ground when facing villains. He admires you greatly and it shows through how he always seems to stare at you while you're training. This results in him not being aware of the things around him, sometimes he'd end up getting injured. His admiration and respect for you slowly turned into affection. It was his friends who pushed him into confessing.

♤ When you both started dating, this boy is still in the “Oh my god, I can’t believe someone as amazing as you is dating me.” stage for 2 whole weeks. He finds it very unbelievable that you accepted his confession. Midoriya puts a lot of effort into your relationship. This guy has a lot of dates planned in mind but he’s too nervous to ask you out. He will try to bring it up casually, making sure you were free during the weekend. Dates with him are always fun, he’s easily amazed by a lot of things and you can’t help but think that its kind of cute.

♤ Training sessions with him are just different. Midoriya was no longer the shy, timid, and easily flustered boyfriend anymore. He’s brash and reckless. This guy goes all out with you, because he knows how strong you were and that it will take a lot for him to defeat you. He gets a bit frustrated when he gets close to beating you in training, its kind of cute. Due to the similar nature of your quirks, you're always giving him a piece of advice that helped him countless times.

BAKUGOU KATSUKI

☆ You got this boy whipped from the getgo. Bakugou couldn't take his eyes off of you for even a second. The way you fought and moved during training struck a chord inside him. At first, he was shocked and began to think how unfair the world was, blessing you with such a great ability. After learning that you were basically just inhuman, he wasn't a happy man. He declares you as his rival in front of everyone, and from that day onwards, he's constantly asking you to spar with him.

☆ Despite all that, Bakugou is really weak for you. He admits that you're strong and the most likely to become a great hero to reach the high ranks in the future in Class 1-A. But he never tells anyone that of course, he'd kill himself if that slips out. As time passes, Bakugou couldn't control the growing affection he had for you. It didn't take long for him to realize his feelings thanks to his friends. It eventually led him to confess to you.

☆ Bakugou is very frustrated that you're much stronger than he is. He's very prideful and kind of had this imagination that he'd be the one protecting his S/O. But seeing how strong you were, it was evident that you're able to defend yourself without any help from him. But he's super proud of you and he doesn't bother hiding that fact. He's proud to be dating you but is very against PDA. Don't get me wrong, he loves giving you kisses and hugs but he prefers things like that to be more private.

☆ He loves training with you, its one of his favorite way to spend time with you. Bakugou had always wanted a sparring partner and someone who would join his workout. The two of you would train on hand-to-hand combat most of the time. Sometimes he would take you to the gym where you both will do the same sets together. The two of you will help one another with your reps, he particularly likes having you sit on his back while he does some pushups. 

☆ You like to call it Super Saiyan and a form that transcends human and closer to becoming God. Something about being able to reach the most powerful form of a Saiyan. You explained to him about the different forms of a Saiyan as well as the science behind S-Cells required to take on the form of a Saiyan. It confused him from time to time and he eventually gives up. You just explained it in the simplest form and just told him that your hair stands up whenever you enter Super Saiyan mode.

TODOROKI SHOUTO

♡ Definitely not the type to get overwhelmed with how strong you were. It didn't change the fact that he finds your superhuman abilities to be quite interesting. He has never heard of someone not having a quirk and was just inhuman. Todoroki gets curious about your quirk which caused him to initiate a conversation with you. He's not the type who would challenge people and call them his rival or anything. But he's always expecting something amazing from you.

♡ Seeing you in action multiple times made him fall in love with you more and more. He just likes watching you in action, how you were always adapt in different situations. You always performed well during training and surprising him with things that he thought were impossible to do.

♡ Todoroki has no idea how this Super Saiyan thing of yours work at all. Believe me, he tried his best to understand how it works. But once you began going on about S-Cells, Super Saiyan forms, Ultra Instinct, and whatnot, he's already lost. As your S/O, he wants to know everything about you, especially your quirk — ability. You've assured him that it was not necessary but he makes it his goal to decipher your superhuman abilities. So if you feel someone staring at you while you train, don't worry, its just Todoroki.

♡ Todoroki doesn't train that often but if you happen to be the type who would train after classes, he would gladly accompany you. Sometimes he would sit there and watch you, occasionally clapping when you pulled off some cool move. Sometimes he would join you, whether it be sparring or normal workouts in the gym. Todoroki is a great gym partner because he always helps you stretch and keep up with whatever you do.

♡ It doesn't show in his face, but Todoroki is thrilled to be dating someone as amazing as you. He slowly learns about the nature behind your superhuman abilities, as well as the things you could do with it. He shows his affections in an awkward manner but his love for you is so obvious to everyone. He would stare at you unconsciously and buy things that reminded him of you out of instinct. He's not the PDA type and is more of the type who would spoil you with gifts and surprises.

Total: 1313 words Published: 18.09.2021

Thank you for requesting! ｡٩(ˊᗜˋ)و*｡ You cannot believe how long I had to sit and listen to my friend's explanation on Super Saiyan and stuff...... But I played Dragon Ball Legends before so I know a thing or two We hope you liked it! ― author Lou

Thank you for requesting it! I don't watch Dragon Ball Z and all I know is Kamehameha. Hope you enjoyed this! ― author Natsuki

Requests are closed! Matchups are closed!

Please do not mind the grammar mistakes and typos.

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E123 (Feb. 2, 2021)

After last week’s thoroughly relaxing and brief episode, tonight’s guests are Sam Riegel and Liam O’Brien!

Brian, to Sam: “You look like Tim Curry moved to Nantucket to become a sommelier.”

How did Caleb and Veth approach the ally-ship with the Tombtakers? Sam: “I mean, we got some information, and I think we got a little closer to Lucien and knowing whether he has any of Mollymauk inside of him, which is I think the most important knowledge that we’re seeking right now. Is there someone to be saved inside there? We got glimpses, and we got a little hint that Mollymauk is maybe still in there? Maybe? And we got a little more insight into their plans, so that was useful.” Liam: “We know why we were having that fucking dream.” Sam: “But other than that, it was just a road trip with assholes.” Liam: “All our plans have been ripped in a new direction, and it’s just been improvisation.” Sam notes that it feels like we’re always about to rip into Caleb’s backstory, but haven’t yet followed that thread all the way through. Liam: “It’s partially frustrating, to be sure, but also I like the idea that-- his whole shit has been selfish, it’s been dealing with the trauma that he’s been through and not the greater world, and that’s been shifting somewhat.”

Does Caleb think the book was worth it, and is he still interested in reading more? Sam: “How do you ask Caleb not to read a book?” Liam: “Caleb has spent enough time with the Nein to know you shouldn’t put a hand on a hot stove. After what happened with the book, he knows it’s a terrible idea. But maybe. But it’s a really bad idea. But reserve judgment, but it’s a really terrible idea. I think that Caleb is very aware that mages and people like him very easily fall prey to their curiosity and it can lead to bad places. But there is still that amount of scientific endeavor where you think there is value in knowing and learning, and maybe we can ride that line. He was True Neutral at the start of the campaign, and maybe he’s Chaotic Good now, but part of him is hubris, even if it’s a little bit, still.”

What about Otis has drawn Veth’s focus? Sam: “I mean, he’s a little shit. She was curious about Otis because he’s a small like she is, and in talking to him, he seemed to be real creepy, but he was just creepy and distant and didn’t value his past or family or anything like that. She sees someone who’s like her, but so not like her, and maybe that scares her a little bit more.”

How does Caleb feel about Beau being on this ride with him? Liam: “The dream is another example of how Caleb had very narrow vision of the things he wanted to do. It used to seem so massive to him, but now... To have Beauregard involved feels right. If anyone in the group is going to stop him from grabbing something he shouldn’t, it is probably Beauregard. She’ll punch him in the fucking face to stop him, which I think he needs, to a certain extent. They’re two different kinds of nerds, and I kind of like that, that this group of nine philosophers, they’ve reached out and somehow grabbed the two nerds in the party.”

How do Caleb and Veth see the Somnovum? Sam: “I mean, they seem real bad. Anything that’s a quorum of powerful entities heading towards your planet to unleash an energy of any kind, typically bad? I assume they’re bad, or at least the Tombtakers wish them to do ill.” Liam: “I think they want the kind of peace that comes from snapping your fingers and turning people to dust. Caleb sees them as a cautionary tale; they’re the worst-case scenario for arcane inquisitiveness.” He sees Allura Vysoren as the antidote to that.

Why the staunch refusal to use Halfling Luck? Sam: “I don’t like Luck! I just don’t like Luck. I think it’s cheap, I think it’s a cheat, I think it’s stupid. It just feels like a do-over.” Liam: “I am your antithesis! If I ever voice a halfling, I am going to hammer that feature!” Sam: “What I love about D&D is that you don’t know what’s going to happen. If you roll bad, okay, that’s it. If you roll well, it makes the success more enjoyable to know that it’s a pure success and don’t one where you’re like well actually... it’s so stupid. If someone was about to die, I would probably use the fuckin’ Luck feature. Well. It depends who. If it was Travis, yeah, no, he’s fucked, sorry.”

Liam drops that he’s picked Sam’s character class and race again for a hypothetical campaign three. Sam: “It’s not what I was thinking for future characters, but I’m excited to explore.”

Cosplay of the Week: an amazing Mollymauk by KatofValkyrie!

What was it like to bring the Tombtakers into the tower? Liam: “It is complicated, because he does not like him. Lucien’s just a fucking dick. But Caleb also knows that Molly’s in there somewhere. That tower’s only for the M9, and Lucien’s not in the M9. Their situation with these people is shitty, it’s terrible. Caleb doesn’t feel like they have the upper hand. He doesn’t like that they’re even going on this journey per se, because life is bigger than his bullshit. He feels like they’ve been losing over and over again, so it was a gamble to try to get on equal footing.

What spurred Veth into making sure she and Yasha have some one-on-one time? Sam: “Yasha hasn’t been getting a lot of moments to shine. Now that she’s back, I just got the impression that Yasha feels out of place sometimes, or timid, or unsure of herself. When Veth was Nott, Nott certainly had her share of those moments. I think she sees a kindred spirit and wants to make sure that she’s been giving all the opportunity she can to flourish and thrive. Dani, you’re just laughing at my mustache, aren’t you?” Dani: “Yes, that’s the only thing I’m laughing at through this whole bullshit.” Sam denies all knowledge of trolling, but eventually admits, on the topic of Yasha and Beau getting together: “They’ve made me wait this long... I’m going to make them wait a little bit longer!”

What was it like to show his friends the upper floors? Liam: “I kinda expected somebody to sneak up there before that. That being part of the tower is not even a conscious choice of his, it just is. The reason Caduceus has creeped Caleb out for a long time is because he talks about how-- Caduceus is a really kind person and wants Caleb to let go of the past. And in a really simplistic way, turn that frown upside-down. And that’s just not who Caleb is, and it’s not who everybody is. There is something to be said for trying to stay open and positivity, but thinking you can shut out the past, especially a traumatic one, is just not true. When things happen to us, we carry them. But to candy-coat it and say, ah, I’m free, or everything is good, or I’ve turned the corner... life is way messier than that. It’s not flipping a switch, it’s not bad-to-good, it is such a work in progress. Even when you make strides and start to get to a better place, you can backslide a lot. So the tower is who he is, and the tower is 7/9ths love for his friends, and 1/9th hope, but there’s still a percentage of him that carries everything from the past, and knows that he should, and knows that he should not go back to where he was. And the way to do that is not to say everything is rainbows, but to remember it. The tower is just like an extension of who he is. He’s never going to forget the past, and he’s never going to be like, I’m good, or I’ve turned a corner. He should remember the past, and he should do better, always.”

Does Veth still believe it’s possible to get Molly back? Sam: “Well, she was a person trapped in another body for many years, so has some experience there, and definitely believes that the spirit and soul of Molly is in there and just needs to be unlocked somehow.”

Fan Art of the Week: an amazing group shot by HarpySN!

How are Caleb and Veth dealing with their guilt and fear about being in the middle of this? Sam: “It definitely was a deep conversation that might have repercussions going forward. The problem with all of what we’re doing now is that we don’t have time to deal with our petty problems anymore. It’s all high tension all the time!” Liam: “It’s true; they’re not in control of their situation at all anymore.” Sam: “It’s good to have these check-ins, but it’s not like we can do anything about them. We’re reactive right now.” Liam: “He’s not happy with where they are, but they wouldn’t even be this far if the goblin hadn’t pulled him out of the mud. So part of it is, you saved me from where I was and got me on my feet again, and now it’s disconcerting to see it all just get knocked sideways by something he never could’ve predicted. I think Caleb felt nostalgic for when things were simpler, in a way, for them, when we’re both troubled drifters.”

What was it like to see Gelidon’s return? Liam: “I am the least superstitious person at the table. Ashley’s dice suck.” Sam: “It was fun fighting a dragon!” Liam: “Two massive battles in one episode, neither of which came away with a victory. I guess surviving is a victory.” Sam: “I’d forgotten about the dragon, honestly.” Liam: “I loved it. I was so upset at the idea that we were going to stealth and not get into it.”Sam: “Mercer doesn’t keep a live dragon around and not do something with it. That dragon’s coming back.”

How do Caleb and Veth feel about going to see Essek? Sam: “He can be very helpful, I believe, but as Sam Riegel, a player of D&D, I’m super suspicious. What the fuck is Essek doing up there, so close, now? I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him. And I can throw him pretty far because he floats.” Liam: “I 100% agree with you. I do not understand what Essek could bring to what we are going through. I know the audience loves him, I love him too. He’s a really cool character. But he’s fucking toxic. He out of curiosity caused a war between two nations. And Caleb has been changed for the good by the M9 from months of travel with them. Essek has had none of that. Caleb has changed for the good, but not because of people like Essek. Essek is where Caleb came from. We kept the lid on the pot during the whole treaty at sea and it almost all went fucking sideways, and only because we pressed him into a corner. I hope that guy finds some sort of balance and peace for himself, but I do not see how his input here would be helpful. There’s other heavy hitters that I would try to pull in.”

Liam notes that the Cloven Crystal is in the Bag of Holding. Sam: “Do I have Fluffernutter, or is Fluffernutter gone?” Liam: “Nope. 300 pounds of fireworks? Gone. A dead mage, a threshold crest, and fireworks.” Dani: “Your basic essentials.”

[saintobio]

It's hard for me to agree with yn saying she's become worse than gojo. Her INTENT has to be considered. She wanted to protect herself and not suffer anymore from this hell and lie of a marriage.

His intent when he treated yn as a punching bag for his frustrations was spite. A person who didn't know what she was getting into when she married him😞

I still think gojo is the worse one out of the 2. If were placing them on a moral scale then yn is white that can go to gray when pushed there. Gojo is gray going into black and he chooses to walk there.

The only thing that can be judged was her hiding the kid BUUUUTTTT if she didn't would she have had the peace she deserved? Would gojo respect boundaries and leave her alone?

Anonymous said

Not people saying they don’t like y/n anymore after what she went through… like yeah she fucked up keeping sachiro from him, but that was the first selfish thing she did for herself. I know that satoru changed for the better, and that’s amazing, but y/n truly suffered from him being so callous and spiteful towards her, with the cheating and the comments. And the worst part is that he never came clean to her about the stuff with Sera and why he even married her, regardless of if his motivations changed. I think they could’ve had a chance had he came clean from the jump, but he thought he could put a bandaid on the issues their marriage had. Did you guys forget bora bora? And the fact that he literally through their marriage away? Not to say that he didn’t have character development, but think about how that affected y/n and her mindset. Her trust issues were understandable and her heartbreak was absolutely valid. She didn’t handle things in the best way sure, and criticism is totally valid too, but the best place to stay on the situation is neutral bc satoru hurt her to the point where she felt that was all she could do, and she hurt him by hiding his son from him. Both are in the wrong and both need to truly heal.

So Saint, I’m not asking who ends up with who, but I just want to know if the characters, especially gojo and y/n will be okay, like not in their relationships, but will they have sorted through their personal issues in the end? I really just want them to be okay as people and to have peace of mind. I’m glad you’re back and I hope both sides of your pillow are cold!!

Anonymous said

I'll sticky by yn until she does something REALLY fucked up by my standards.

And we have to go back again to the yn controversy both inside and outside the story😩

Here's something to think about.

When does a victim become a bad? Should yn be a self sacrificing person and let gojo see her and her son despite her OWN personal feelings? Her discomfort. The betrayal pain she felt when the truth of their marriage revealed. So now that gojo is the one suffering should what yn went through in their marriage be forgotten to make way to focus on gojo's? Not to devalue gojo's suffering but i honestly can't have that much sympathy for him because of of the things he did at the start of sn😒

This really brings up this gender issue where woman are expected to be self sacrificing and nice in rl and in fiction no matter the abuse they face. We're always expected to be forgiving and give 2nd chances no matter how we feel.

Anonymous said

Idk why people hate on mc, I mean aside from lying i don’t think she did anything wrong. Cheating is pretty serious trauma which I experienced myself. And about toji and her? She at least deserves to be happy, my girl barely was happy for 28 years of her life. I’m sorry but I support her

Anonymous said

Hello!

The chapter you posted is amazing!

I honestly understand how OP feels at the moment I don’t really understand all the hatred for her rn when mostly all of us were rooting for her to leave Hojo ,

Like I wouldn’t want my child to be raised by a man who cheated on me and hurt me consistently and tried using me for an emergence to then divorce me and Marry his mistress ,

Im not saying what OP did was right either but at the same time Gojos actions are his own doing

Anonymous said

I'll give gojo's mom a pass since she may not know the FULL story but geto, he was there during bora bora. He saw yn almost drown to find the ring and confronted satoru after he was done fucking sera raw after finding the ring or while it was happening.

I get that gojo is his friend and he'll stick by him than our mc yn😒

i like how one anon pointed out that the best way to view their situation is by staying neutral bc both sides were wrong and it’s not a competition to say who had it worse in order to justify one side more than the other. like nope, they both suffered. both have been selfish, whether they have reasons or not. it’s a matter of finding their common ground minus all the lies and resentment. (so fo answer ur question 2nd anon, yes hopefully they’ll learn to sort things out but i def won’t finish this series with a loose ending this time)

i don’t completely agree with yn’s actions nor do i agree with gojo’s (i gotta stay neutral bc i’m the author 😹) it’s just that i feel like some people are on this ‘hate yn train’ without understanding the depth of the situation. only some, though. others have good enough reasons.

[damselofblueroses]

Bambi, Ch. 2, Ghost

You are my Bambi, girl, I am your candy, tell me what are you waiting for?

Summary: As an archaeologist who works on the Ancient Greece, you were on the verge of excavations’ session. While you have been preparing your team, you learned that your institute decided on your team has to work with another team as they wanted the outcome as a collaboration. The head of other team was your biggest rival, a scumbag in your eyes: Byun Baekhyun.

You two were supposed to work together for three months, in a Greek Island, Chios.

Could you manage to not kill Byun Baekhyun for three months?

Chapter Summary: Byun Baekhyun and the Reader remember the day they spent in UN Village together while they are heading to Chios. (Guys, this chapter, which is dedicated to the beginning of their relationship, is going to be two parts, otherwise it is going to be more than 20k lol)

Word Count: 11k

Content: AU, heavily Greek mythology, enemies to lovers.

Warnings: Well, the story contains NSFW/Smut, please minors do not continue.

Note: This story will be 7 or 8 chapters if I will not change my mind in the meantime. It is inspired by my major; however, I do not have a complete knowledge on archaeology, I am a historian. If I will make a technical mistake, please let me know. I am willing to receive any kind of feedback; you are more than welcomed to drop a message.

Series Masterlist

Chapter 2: Ghost

5 years ago, Hannam-dong

Even if I want you so much it drives me crazy

You ghost

Even if I want and call for you all night long

You came to me and left without a word

You ghost, you ghost

You want to go crazy all night, you plead

You ghost

You disappeared again without a trace

“What type of sadistic and sick person could say that we have to work here?” you cursed between your teeth, you jaw clenched because of pure anger. “How do they expect us to do our job in the middle of fucking super-ultra-rich people?”

“Get used to it.” Junmyeon flinched your forehead, but his frustration was oblivious, even though he was doing definitely better than you. “Where is Baekhyun?”

“I do not know.” you recklessly pointed to the expensive cars on the road. “Maybe he was looking for a sugar mommy.”

“As your sunbae,” Minseok hit you. “I would like to remind you to hold on your manners.”

“Someone has to give a speech on manners to him.” your eyebrows knitted together. “Not to me.”

“Both of you,” Kyungsoo nonchalantly spoke. “need a really good beaten session, since both of you have no idea on how to behave.”

You threw the book you were holding to Kyungsoo, but he was too quick and easily saved himself from your unexpected attack.

“I am here, right?” you hissed. “Where the heck is that bastard? He always disappears when it comes to work, why do you hold me in the same esteem with him?”

“Because you are definitely a copy of Baekhyun.” Chanyeol laughed at your god-fucking-damn-it-so-horrible face expression. “Let’s face with the fact, Indy. Everyone knows that Baekhyun is a disciplined student, just as you are, badmouthed, just as you are.”

“Are you talking about me?” Baekhyun popped out of nowhere. “I heard you are praising me less than the way I deserve.”

Your face could be described as disgusted, but this would be the kindest way of telling how your appearance was. Actually, you wanted to punch his narcissistic self-perspective, to shake his cage in order to give him the lesson he deserved, but you did not want to be scolded by Junmyeon again. You just walked away from him, needing to put a safe distance between yourself and Baekhyun.

God, if you could run away to space, you would do it in order to not infuse with the same air with Baekhyun.

You disliked him, you disliked the way of his well-being, you disliked his velvety voice, his lame jokes, his sharp remarks, you disliked everything about Byun Baekhyun.

And you hated yourself because of finding him very handsome. Sometimes, you caught yourself, staring at Baekhyun, forgetting how to breath properly. His face was like a gift of God himself; his body ratio made you to say oh-my-fucking-god.

Thank God, he had the most annoying character, because if he had a good personality, you knew that you would fall in love over the heels with him.

“What kind of idiot chained us here?” Baekhyun asked to Junmyeon. “Fuck’s sake, what the heck we are going to here? Digging beneath the Richie riches’ villas?”

Chanyeol bite his lips before looking at you, silently reminding your own words and his remarks about being very same with Baekhyun. You did not back off, staring at Chanyeol with all frustration went through your veins, causing Chanyeol to laugh. Baekhyun hit his head, then walked towards Junmyeon to take his own tool bag.

You hated him for this, too. He was acting like he was a superior, like he was better than any of you, and what got your nerves badly was no one scold him as they would scold you if you would do the same things.

“Yeah, I am like this scumbag who does not carry even his own stuff, huh?” you literally sizzled between your teeth, Chanyeol and Kyungsoo heard your annoyed voice, but they preferred to keep their silence. Your hate was not a secret for the team, everyone was aware of the fact that putting you and Baekhyun was a dangerous decision since he also loathed you.

But to your dismays, you were the brightest students Sejong could always play on.

“Seriously what we are going to do?” Baekhyun repeated his question because he really did not have a single clue.

“Didn’t you read the mail Sejong sent us?” Jongdae asked him, raising one eyebrow. Baekhyun shrugged his shoulder, you bit your lower lip in order keep your frustration under your control. What a bastard!

“We have to visit UN Village, there are seven neighbourhood where we have to go and collect the permissions of the residents.” Junmyeon run his hand through his hair. He was already on the verge of cracking since he was the one who had to deal with a lot of capricious upper-class members in order to complete this fucking task. He wished nothing but changing his path, he started to think like the field was not his cup of tea, but before resigning from leadership, he wanted to find a good candidate who could lead the team.

He wanted you to be that leader. You and Baekhyun. Heretofore, Junmyeon laid his eyes on both of you and your abilities persuaded him to nominate your names when he could propose an election. He did not want to be a fieldperson, he wished to stay in his office, but at the same time, he could not inherit his legacy, Godfuckingdamnit Junmyeon’s did his best in order to engrave his name as one of the most successful captains, to anyone but the best. Yet, Junmyeon had no idea how to put you in good terms, since you were like a cat and dog, and Chanyeol, that giant idiot, used every opportunity to fan the flames, even that silent Kyungsoo enjoyed watching intangible scuffles between you and Baekhyun.

Junmyeon has been sensing that the team was becoming aware of the situation and camping as two different poles. Jongdae, Shinhye and Minseok were setting off closer to you while Chanyeol, Kyungsoo and the newbie, Jongin have been shifting to Baekhyun’s side. Damn, Junmyeon could not let it to be happen. He needed all of you under the same umbrella, especially you and Baekhyun had to stay together. He was seeing a great potential of you, if you could combine your powers, you were going to be the perfect team. Period.

“Let’s split into teams.” his eyes wandered around all of you. “We are eight, if we can divide ourselves into four teams, we will finish the job easier and quicker.”

“Yeah, you are right.” Kyungsoo approved. “I am going to take Chanyeol.”

“Are you my superior, dumbass?” Chanyeol hit his shoulder, but he was laughing. “I am with Kyungsoo.”

“Good.” Junmyeon inhaled. “Shinhye, you are with Jongdae.”

You automatically stirred next to Minseok, however you shuttered after hearing Junmyeon’s next orders.

“Indy, you and Baekhyun are together, Minseok, let’s go.”

“What?!” you immediately stopped and hissed at Junmyeon. “Am I with who?”

Jongdae realized the storm before seeing the clouds, clever as always, he disappeared while dragging Shinhye with him. You even did not notice, but Chanyeol’s smile widened, Kyungsoo smirked, and they rushed to their own direction.

Only four of you were standing on the pavement, you were throwing daggers to Junmyeon with your eyes. Baekhyun was nonchalantly looking at Junmyeon, while Minseok could not find a way to break the tension.

Junmyeon was cool as a cucumber.

“You are with Baekhyun.” he repeated his words, sounding like he was condemning you with execution. “What? Do you have a rejection?”

“Yes!” you exploded without thinking. “Why shou-

“Believe me,” Baekhyun interrupted your words, he was indifferent to your frustration. “I did not beg for being in the same team with you.”

“Did I claim that?” you swiftly turned on your tiptoes. “Did I say you are eager to be with me?”

“It would be the greatest joke you could make.” Baekhyun winked to you. “But you are not so into the entertainment, right?”

“Baekhyun,” Minseok noisily cleared his throat. “I am not sur-

“What do you know about me?” you heard your own voice. “This is why we cannot work together, you always make assumptions out of your ass, instead I work as organized, with the facts and tangible proofs.”

“What do you know about me?” Baekhyun coldly smiled at you, you could not describe its impacts on you, that smile had you wanting to punch him at the same time ignited some fires in your lower stomach. “We barely talk, have you been watching me all the time?”

“You wish.” you took a deep breath. “You are not worth my time.”

“Oh,” his eyes glimmered with a menacing luminescence. “I am deeply wounded.”

“If you are done,” Junmyeon raised his hands to the air. “We have to work.”

“Jun-

“Young lady,” Baekhyun barged on. “They did not teach you this, so it’s up to me but we are not in kindergarten anymore.”

You had to admit, no one could get your nerves till now like Baekhyun did.

You had to admit, you hated being called as a kid. Junmyeon’s eyes blown up when Baekhyun labelled you as a kid, before he could open his mouth, you stared at Baekhyun.

“I can see why we could be a team.” you took the directional instructions from Junmyeon’s hand. “A kindergarten kid has to take care of a cry baby while the adults have to work.”

Baekhyun’s eyebrows furrowed, but you wholly ignored his visible annoyance, and started to walk. Junmyeon was looking at your back with a little bit concerned face, but he knew that he did what he had to do.

You were going to scold Junmyeon in the following hours of the day, however, now your job was teaching a couple of lessons on manners to this scumbag who has been walking beside you.

You spent the first hour in a total silence, talking only if the occasion called for it. The tension between you and Baekhyun was solid, someone could cut it with a knife without any problem. Baekhyun was bored to death, he never plan to have a day like this, he wanted to enjoy everything he did, he thought he could be with Chanyeol or Kyungsoo, having fun to death.

Instead, he was trapped with you.

The only girl he loathed to the bits.

He could not endure to hear your voice, even though you talked with the residents very kindly and respectfully. He had to admit that you were doing a good job, but it did not change anything he felt for you. He had been cursing Junmyeon since he put you two in the same task, however, he knew that if Junmyeon wanted something from Baekhyun, he would do it without question. Baekhyun could be many things, but he was loyal to his friends, and Junmyeon had a special place in his heart.

Also, behind the curtains of his hate, he could see why Junmyeon gave you to him. Although you were an abominable bitch, an obnoxious creature, a walking blasphemy, and a hate crime, Baekhyun did not think you could be an offspring of a lovely or healthy relationship, he was sure your parents were diabolical beasts, to his disappointment, you were reallyclever.

He wished you could be more reliable person, so he could work with you.

Baekhyun did not like to confess, yet he was aware of the fact that he desperately needed his own Evelyn O’Connor. Someone who could play the game with him, as his trustable partner in crime. He was extremely close to Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, but they were not equal to his wits and ambitions. Sometimes he was brassed off the conversations, time to time he found them boring and lame. His logic was faster than his mates, actually he was longing for nothing, but someone was equal to his high-speed brain.

You could be the one he was searching for, but you were made of poison, greed, and wickedness. Even if he would be blessed by the Heavens, he could not agree to work someone with you.

“Your Highness,” he heard your fucking voice. “We have to visit at least twelve houses more; do you mind hurrying up?”

“The only thing I mind is your fucking attitude.” he gritted his teeth. “Give the plan to me.”

“So, you can destroy everything I organized properly?” you smirked. “I do not think so.”

“Organized?” Baekhyun cocked his eyebrow. “Organized, my ass. Didn’t you lose Park Sangwan’s house? Twice?”

“Look who is talking.” the red of embarrassment slightly painted your cheeks and ears. “The one who had no idea about today’s plans.”

“At least I did not lose my fucking way and circled around the same house almost for half an hour.”

“And the award goes to Byun Baekhyun for his greatest achievements.” you gave back the wink to him, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “Oh, breaking news. No achievement no award.”

Baekhyun took it personally since you two competed to each other as the finalists of last academic year. Your project was accepted as the winner while Baekhyun received only a certificate. You hit the lotto, he had to watch you, walking to the stage with a bright smile tugged on your lips.

Still, he could vividly remember the little smirk you gave to him that night when they announced your name.

“You did it consciously.” his jaw clenched. “That night. When they called you as the winner. You immediately turned to me just to annoy me.”

“It seems, I achieve my goal.” your smirk widened, a glistening layer of fun covered your face. “Were you disappointed?”

“Yeah, of course.” he did not miss a single second. “I was disappointed of the professors, I was believing they were cleverer than me, but their choice showed me they were nothing but idiots.”

“Could you smell the air, Baekhyun?” you asked with a serious face. He was confused for a second, you never ask a question to him or call him by his name, but before he could register, you tucked the words in his throat. “Oh, jealousy, my favourite.”

“Darling,” Baekhyun swallowed hard. “There is no single living soul who can be low enough to jealous you in this universe.”

That was not quite truth, because Baekhyun not only remembered your revengeful smile but also how you were looking like that day. He could paint you on canvas by closed eyes, and he would not miss a single detail.

And he was a little bit jealous on that day. Not only because he lost over to you, but also because of the people around you. You annoyed him not only with your award, but also with your closeness to the other men.

Despite of your usual oversize clothes or no makeup policy, you chose to present yourself in a different style. Your hair was perfectly combed, your makeup highlighted your face features, and you were wearing a little light blue dress which tightly caressed your body. Baekhyun, or none of your classmates knew that you had curves for example till that night and to Baekhyun’s dismay, you had a really good body. You were a minion, your beauty was very soft and although he really hated to admit this, you were a view for the spectators. Maybe not the prettiest, but you had something had people looking at you, liking you, desiring you.

You had an aura which was enough to make your biggest enemy to silently acknowledged that you were attractive.

“Maybe, there is no one.” you shrugged your shoulder. “But youwere eager to low yourself, huh?”

You did not forget the look on Baekhyun’s face when Professor Kim called you to the stage. You were sure as fuck, he was cursing you but also there was something else, glowing in his eyes. Something you could not describe, but you could see the same emotion in your reflection when you saw Baekhyun with that crowd of girls.

Rarely.

But still you knew that feeling.

That ceremony was hard for you, of course you were over the moon because of your achievement, that project opened you some fresh opportunities and proved that despite of being a junior, you were more than a bachelor student. You proved your talents and abilities to yourself by winning the first place, you completed a step, made your first goal come true.

And you nailed Byun Baekhyun’s coffin. It was worth of every minute you spent sleepless, your tears and sweats, the hours in library, the hours in front of the plan of Gyeongbokgung Palace and search for the most logical and safest ways of conducting an excavation around the palace.

Your ideas were chosen over Baekhyun’s ideas, and you were aware of the quality of the solutions he proposed.

You were proud of yourself.

It was the bare truth that Baekhyun’s face were singing to you just as your favourite band could sing, seeing his face just like someone fed him with cucumbers was equal to being accepted into your dream field, Chios’ excavations, as the chief archaeologist.

But you were annoyed.

You could not happily taste your success. You could not feel its flavour on your tongue buds.

Because of that bastard looked fucking magnificent in that bloody black suit.

You have been told about the dress code you had to follow, however no one, not a single soul managed to catch his level of looking good in a suit.

You were annoyed because your taste in men was exactly equal to Byun Baekhyun. He had everything you could ask for, he was devilishly charming, there was even no need for words to describe him, he was beautiful.

And he was the only one you hated the most.

Every girl in the room was drooling over him, to your dismay, just like you. You felt that feeling in your stomach, a pain which was spinning, spinning, and spinning, causing a tornado inside of your stomach.

Was it jealousy?

“I already noticed your ignorance about the feelings.” Baekhyun could not control himself anymore and grabbed your shoulder, turning you to the opposite direction. “We have to follow this fucking street, or we will be lost again.”

“Have you been observing me, Baekhyunnie? That’s so cute.” you ignored the second part of his words, just starting to walk on the direction he instructed to you.

“Observing you takes a minute, baby girl, since there is nothing to see.” he answered but he found it interesting when you called him as Baekhyunnie. “You are a spoiled brat.”

“Hop, that hurts.” you pouted, pressed your fist on your chest, faking a whimper. “Would you like to tame this spoiled brat?”

You started to think that you went nuts.

“In your dreams.” Baekhyun laughed, but he literally lost himself in the fucking possibilities you could be tamed by him. “You have to wait a couple of centuries for someone who can be willing to be with you.”

You chuckled but preferred to keep your silence after his words. Damn, your sudden quietude caught Baekhyun’s attention more. Why didn’t you not attack to him? Why didn’t you give him a sharp answer as you should have?

Why you chuckled like there was a line at your door?

Was it?

Baekhyun pondered that instead of the fact that you were generally with a small group of friends, to both of your dismays your common friends, he did not see you with strangers, so there could not a queue for your hand.

Could it be?

And why the fuck he should have care if there is a crowd for you or not? No one could want someone like you if they did not lose their mind.

But he cared. Fuck, he cared more than he wanted.

Because to his disappointment, he knew that there was a real cavalcade of knightly candidates for you.

“Okey,” you checked the time. “After this one, I am going to have lunch.”

“We are going to have lunch.” Baekhyun gritted his teeth. “I hate eating alone enough to endure your presence.”

“Didn’t you tell me there is no one who could want to be with me?” you snickered. “But you have no reservations about having lunch with me?”

“Imagine the situation I am in.” he grumbled. “The day gets better and better.”

You decided to annoy him, pushing him to the edges as much as you could do. The first response that came to your mind refusing him, but the other option was funnier. You could play with Byun Baekhyun, you could take your revenge by being a pain in the ass.

He said that he could endure your presence.

You could make him regretful of his words.

There was a very little smile tugged on your lips which you were not aware of, however, to his dismay, Baekhyun realized it.

Her lips are rosy and plump, he thought to himself. Even though he called you a spoiled brat, he was not sure of if you were a brat or not. Kiddos have not the type of lips, calling people for the kisses, like you. There was something, even during your cocky performances when you tried to beat the life out of him, although you always kept that dull and bored expression and acted like Baekhyun was not worth of your time, but there was something just in you.

Baekhyun swallowed down his own vomit when he admitted it to himself, and you have caught his glare.

“What?” you purred. “Can’t you take your eyes off me?”

“Who the hell wants to watch you?” he quickly collected his thoughts and put them in a fucking trail. “I am looking for a restaurant where we can have good food.”

After a permanent mutual ignorance session for years, his next words caught you off your guard.

“You like local foods, right?” he asked. “I guess the second shop on this street is famous for jjangmyeon and tteokbokki.”

Well, you had to admit that his questions made your brain a little bit foggy. How could he know that?

“Yeah.” for the first time in history, you did not come up with any sharp answer. “How about you?”

“As long as there is no cucumber or extremely sweet cuisine,” he started to walk. “I am fine.”

You heard that Baekhyun is really not in good terms with cucumber.

“Feel you.” you murmured in your mouth because you hated cucumbers as much as you hated Baekhyun. He swiftly look at you, you accompanied him on the street.

“We should celebrate.” he teased. “I said something, you just answered, and we did not have a fight.”

“This is a privilege for cucumbers.” you shrugged your shoulder, but you also felt that he did not buy your nonchalant tone. “I cannot stand them, mum loves it too much, I mean what type of person can love a cucumber? If I need water, I prefer to drink it.”

Your observation made him tilted his head back in that rumbling laugh of his, you were unwilling to join, but the corners of your mouth turned up slightly.

“Here we go.” He, as a gentleman, opened the door for you, you responded with the most neutral expression you could muster. “Oh, no thanks?”

“Thank you.” you rolled your eyes, however, despite of your strongly negative feelings against him, you do not like rudeness. “Sorry, that was insolence of me.”

“Your apology is fully accepted.” he winked, you hated that cocky tone, you hated yourself for falling into his trap. You passed him, went to a distanced table where it placed in the corner. You did not want to be seen as having a lunch with Baekhyun by your teammates.

Corner was fine.

“Oh, no.” he grabbed your arm, manhandled you to the tables of the center. “I will not let you escape. If they see us, let them to see.”

Your eyebrows knitted, your lips pressed to each other enough to form a thick line on your face, you could almost taste your growing anger. But at the same time, you realized that feeling his hand on your skin increased your heartbeats, you wanted to scream with self-hatred, but you bite down on your tongue as his hand quickly wandered to down, to your waist. He directed you to the most visible table from outside while you were fighting yourself in order to control your fucking pace of breathing.

Please, this could not be true, I could not be excited because of his touch, you thought.

This was not happening, what the fuck was happening?

Baekhyun was not so different from you, even though his face expression was not changed for a bit. He forced himself to take control, but it was really hard for him.

Your hate was reciprocated, right? You guys could not spend even a bloody minute in peace, the only thing you had was annoyance.

So, why you perfectly fit in his embrace just like you were made just to be under his arm?

Why Baekhyun wanted to tight his arm around your waist?

Why could you not say anything even though Baekhyun was literally holding you?

Why you felt like you were in the only place where you had to be for the rest of your days?

“Hi.” you heard the waitress who was a really beautiful girl. “Welcome to Sung’s String. How can I help you?”

Even though finishing her sentence, she begun to eye Baekhyun. You rolled your eyes and reached to the menu; to be honest, this show was not funny after seeing it for the million times. Every time, Sejong Team went outside for a drink, for a gathering or even for a museum trip, girls and sometimes boys gazing the members of Sejong Team just like they were idols or actors because of their good-looking. Eh, they were not wrong, you had to say that the Sejong Team included really, really, and really handsome boys from Baekhyun to Chanyeol, from Kyungsoo to Jongdae and these boys’ superiors were Kim oh-my-godJunmyeon and Kim lord-help-us Minseok.

Well…

You were already got used to the reactions coming from all around when Sejong Team showed their faces. You knew that both of insiders and outsiders of Sejong Institute called your team members as the Flower Boys or a shitty nickname like that.

“I would like to have a jjangmyeon without cucumbers, and a tteokbokki.” you turned the menu off. “With a light coke.”

“Coke?” Baekhyun mimicked you like he could not believe his ears. “Are you kidding? Everyone knows that you have to drink jasmine tea in order to help digestion.”

“Have you been majored in nutrition?” you gave him your bitchy resting face. “Shut the fuck up.”

“No coke.” he wholly ignored you and turned to the waitress who was watching him as drooling. “Please, we want two bowls of jjangmyeon, two tteokbokki, also please we would like to have kimbap and kimchi as the garnitures and of course a pot of jasmine tea.”

“Yeah!” she sounded weaker after Baekhyun conducted all power he had in his eyes to her. “Anything else?”

“I guess we are fine for the time being.” Baekhyun smiled to her, causing a flush of redness on her cheeks.

“I will be back as soon as possible.” the girl literally purred, Baekhyun’s eyes shined after her reaction. Little bastard. You did not want to think about it, but his visible joy had your stomach churned. You inhaled and took your book out of your bag.

“What are you doing?” Baekhyun glanced up at you, reached to take the book from your hands. “Having lunch together means conversation, are you going to read?”

“Give the book to me, Byun.” you kicked his foot under the table. “I know you do not know how to read and enjoy but that’s a good habit to have.”

“Yeah, I know that habit of you gives nothing but lonely hours in library.” he had no limits of shooting his arrows. “Have you ever tried something different for a change?”

“Like what?” you tried to get back your book. “Following your great example and dedicate my life to your favourite sport? Sorry, I have no interest in running after women by lolling my tongue out of my mouth.”

“Baby girl,” Baekhyun put your book in his leather bag. “You have no idea whose tongue lolls out of the mouth.”

You could not decide on what you hated the most. Baekhyun or the girls after Baekhyun? You concluded as both of them were equally horrible in your eyes.

“I am sure your stories are incredible.” you inhaled. “But I really do not like to hear the anecdotes of miserable women. Could you give the book back before I gauge your eyes off?”

“Nope.” he grinned. “I can bet on you are still a virgin but tell me if you have an affair or not, I would like to pay my condolences to your partner.”

He was already written as the first name in your list of most-hated-people, but suddenly became the first man to be written as the first enemy of a lifetime.

“Did you finish your own list of dead partners?” you raised one eyebrow. “Thinking of its length gives me chills.”

“No dead.” his grin widened from one ear to the other. “They just had some temporary heart problems due to the performances I gave to them.”

You opened your mouth to slap his face with the words, but the waitress came back to your table with a huge tray. She was placing every bowl and plate, actually fucking Baekhyun with her eyes, you literally hardly suppressed your instincts, telling you to warn her immediately.

But you were not honest with yourself about why you wanted to warn her. In the deep of your mind, but in very deep, you had been starting to realize that you disliked when the girls threw themselves to Baekhyun because you wanted them to stop. You did not like the scene because you did not want to share Baekhyun’s gaze with another person.

You were lying to yourself without realizing what was the real problem of you.

You loved Baekhyun from the beginning, even though he was a fucking tease and a bloody smartass. There was no other man for you, if someone could cut your chest, the only thing would be seen in your heart was his name.

But that would be the heaviest self-enlightenment, and you were definitely not ready for such as a thing. That’s why you unconsciously continued to trick yourself by disguising your own feelings from your own eyes.

You got the chopsticks and decided to have your lunch instead of burying yourself in the maze of thoughts. Baekhyun realized your discomfort, but he had no idea what the real reason of your mood was, whatever made you unhappy was more than okey for him. He could be happy as long as you were sorrowful.

“You still not give an answer to the question.” he was persistent on pushing your limits. “Do you have a relationship?”

“Why are you curious?” you took a mouthful amount of jjangmyeon. How much you wanted to stuff these noodle strings into his throat, suffocating him to death. “If you want to send a bouquet, please note that I love blue roses.”

“You are really a virgin, huh?” Baekhyun diabolically grinned, you could swear on you saw the red halo over his head.

“Darling, you cannot make me angry by stating what is obvious.” you smiled back, there was no reason holding it back, you were always open on these issues, and a sick part of you wanted to tell him to see his reaction. “Yeah, I am a virgin.”

“Do you conservatively follow a church?” his chin dropped a few inches. “How could it be possible with all the boys who try to seduce you?”

Well, you did not expect to hear this.

“Come on,” Baekhyun continued. “I always see you with a bunch of men, do you really think they are following you only for friendship?”

“On the contrary of you and your limit-does-not-exist type of libido, people can build the bonds of affinity.”

“Only when they do not search for an open door to sneak in.” Baekhyun pointed his chopsticks to your face. “Telling you, I can name at least six permanent names in the waiting room.”

You did not see the hidden meaning of his words, however, Baekhyun was already became regretful, he silently prayed for your ignorance and blindness were going to keep him safe. Because he gave you the biggest clue of his interest in you by stating he could give even names.

He still did not understand how he could know everything about you or why he always put a brick on the ways of the candidates for you, but he did. Hell, he was unapologetically finding a way to prevent the boys who liked you and no one could understand it was Baekhyun. He always came up with a solution in order to intimate them, put them back off. You were not aware but Baekhyun always appeared around you when he thought a candidate was close to you more than he supposed to be.

He already put his stamina on you as his girl, but he was not aware of his own actions. He was not aware of what he has been doing, how he was persistently looking for you, searching for your face in every class or harmoniously living with your voice. It was like your breathing was singing to his ears, and he was dancing with your melody.

Baekhyun did not understand but he was yours.

“I am not sure what you think,” you sipped from jasmine tea with self-confidence. “But there is no such a fucking waiting room.”

“You are really blind.” Baekhyun chewed a rice cake, generously dipping it into the gochujang sauce. “Don’t you think Oh Seunghwan is acting like more than a friend? Or Jang Jeongbun? Jesus, even you really cannot be that much idiot.”

Baekhyun was right for the first time in history. You were nothing more than a retard because you really did not understand the behind the scenes of his words. He was unconsciously giving you the signs of his interests in you, but you were so naïve to see.

“They are my friends, Baekhyun.” you rolled your eyes back. “I know grasping the nature of different relationships is hard for you, but people can be nothing but friends. No need to add tensions or searching for hidden meanings.”

Every time you vocalized his fucking name, Baekhyun felt its impact went straight to his dick, and he hated himself for that.

You were not the type of people who could be okey with the target of teasing. You wanted to play, you wanted to be enhanced by it, sinking into the waves of the game.

And even Baekhyun did not admit it in his head, he believed you were the most attractive girl he has been known because of you always corresponded to his moves and cards.

“How about you?” you immediately played your reverse card, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “I heard that you and your gorgeous looks which made entire school swoon and fantasize about you? Are you really called as the sexiest human being on the country?”

Your voice was the strongest indicator of your disbelief, he could be the biggest moron on planet Earth, nothing more nothing less.

Also, you were aware of those comments on Baekhyun more than you wished for. You kept everything you heard about him in your head, in the safest and the most secret file of your brain, refusing to think but keeping on unconsciously think about those speculations. You found them very suspicious, but not because of Baekhyun did not deserve to be called as the sexiest human being, you found those fantasies as unlikely because of Baekhyun had not that macho man stuff people were somehow attributing to him.

You had grown so sick from all of these dreams and comments, coming from every corner of school since Baekhyun was like a star.

And now, you had him seemed quite displeased with your tease.

“Only on the country?” he raised one eyebrow. “Shit, it seems I am not doing well.”

“Baby, you are coming after Park Chanyeol.” you sighed in joy of dancing on your tiptoes. “That’s a quite achievement, when you think.”

“Chanyeol?” he sighed in annoyance; you knew that you trapped his ego in a small box. “Coming after Chanyeol?”

“Yeah.” you gave the most nonchalant look to him. “Well, I can tell that’s quite unfair since Flower Boys includes really strong names such as Kyungsoo or Junmyeon but… Poor girls, they have to be lunatic to put you after Chanyeol.”

“What do you think about these extremely distorted images of us?” Baekhyun angrily took a mouthful of jjangmyeon.

“Do you ask my list?” you crossed your hands over your chest, cooing with gleamy eyes. “I cannot believe that Byun Baekhyun, asking me, a poor peasant, for her list.”

Baekhyun’s eyes darkening, and you were not sure why your mood was changed from the pure need of mocking him to an excitement which you could not ignore. His voice was really screechy and boyish when he asked your list, and his voice giving you a different kind of pleasure. Not the pleasure of scolding him, but the delight of toying him, pushing him to the edge.

But you did not analyse your current feelings, instead, you rushed to deliver your actually-not-existent list.

“We are talking about physical features, right? But I am going to rate everyone also with their characteristics.” you smiled. “For me, the first name is Chanyeol. I mean, look at that face he has, and his body ratio is excellent, but he has a golden heart. Then, of course Kyungsoo, he is fucking handsome, therefore, he is a great guy.”

“I really pity your tastes of men.” Baekhyun’s discontent with your made-up list was palpable, and the dissatisfaction of his tone was like honey left out in the morning sun.

“The number 3 is Junmyeon as always.” you wholly ignored his comment. “No one can say anything against to Kim Junmyeon, he is the definition of aesthetic. Minseok and Jongdae shared the same number in my list, and that’s all.”

“You forgot me.” Baekhyun snorted, his voice made you lifted your head. He was so tense; you never see his jaw clenched at this expand. What’s up his ass? you silently though in your head.

“I did not.” you were cool as a cucumber. “You are not in the list.”

Till now, you guys always ate each other, digging the graves for each other, always fighting always scolding always throwing invisible daggers to each other. However, you have never ever seen those dangerous lights, dancing in the pupils of Baekhyun after your words.

It was difficult to wrap your mind around the fact that you found this Baekhyun as more attractive than his usual-self and unfortunately you already found Baekhyun very desirable. Even though you would never even let yourself to think about being intimate with him, his eyes stirred something inside of you, ignited some fires close to your lower stomach.

“I am sorry to hear that.” you also never heard this cold voice tone of Baekhyun, and you heard almost every negative version of Baekhyun’s voice which he spared only to use against you. “Let’s finish the meals, we have to be back to work.”

“Yeah.” you nod, lightly smiled. You managed to make him mad, you achieved your goal to annoy him so bad.

Why did you feel bad?

Why did you want Baekhyun to continue on the game?

Why did you feel regretful?

Why did you want to cry?

When Baekhyun’s phone started to ring, you almost completed every house in the list Junmyeon gave to you.

And you spent the last two hours in a total silence. It was eerily, Baekhyun’s lips firmly presses into each other like he sworn on not to talk again. You were not so different, but inside of your mind, something was gnawing your inner peace.

You were not happy, even you coped with the most difficult task, shutting Baekhyun’s mouth.

But you were not happy. You did not feel like you got the prize.

Instead…

You were extremely sad, and you felt like you let the trophy to slid between your fingers.

You had to feel like you hit the jackpot, but quite opposite, you were miserable.

You were especially afraid of losing Baekhyun’s attention, your own heart was aching at the way you told him off.

Still, you were lying to yourself and trying to conceal what made you afraid, you were not honest to your conscious, however despite of your efforts, you knew something was wrong with you after his transformation after you showed him the door.

You were a coward; you were not accepting the solid fact that you were in love with Byun Baekhyun and what made you afraid was nothing but losing him.

However, you were also sure on Baekhyun had a place in your head, making you shutter, had you shaking in your shoes. You could not name where to put his name, but you knew he had a place in your life.

And you were horrified by the possibility of losing the chance of hearing his voice. Even if his cocky remarks were the only words you could rip from him.

“Yeah?” Baekhyun answered to the call, for a second, you were happy to hear his voice again, but he walked towards to the last house you had to visit without waiting for you. He did not do this, even in the beginning of the day. You took a deep breath, you did not know why the heck you were really sad for his sudden coldness, godfuckingdamnit didn’t you hate and always despise each other? You mentally slapped yourself to gather yourself up, but it was pointless, you rushed to catch him.

You were aware of there was a painful squeeze in your chest, but you could not understand the reason of its presence or how you could get rid of that.

“Junmyeon told us to retreat.” Baekhyun informed you without looking at you. “After this house, we have to run back to the meeting point.”

“Okey.” you nod, hated the meek voice tone you produced but your mind was not on the case, you were questioning your own feelings and firm beliefs about Baekhyun.

Baekhyun was not better, to be honest, he was worse than you.

When you nonchalantly told him he was not in your list, he wanted to puke everything he devoured during lunch even though tteokbokki was his favourite food. He wanted to punch himself on the face when you counted the members of your fucking list, he wanted to smack his head into the table.

Chanyeol? Kyungsoo? Damnit, even Junmyeon found his way to sneak into your list, but Baekhyun was not there.

He was always sure of he would be landed in every list, but he never think that being in your fucking list was the most important for him.

Why did he care if you were not seeing him as a man or not?

This question swirling in his head had his mind shattering.

As much as he was happy to see you wiggling like a worm under the fires, he could not control his reactions against the problem. When he saw you trembling over a case, he was the first one always popped out of nowhere to fix the problem in the darkness and never let you learn that it was him. He did not let even Junmyeon to help you, putting aside Chanyeol or Kyungsoo.

Baekhyun was the one who had been saving your ass like he was your invisible rescue call.

But you did not name him in your fucking list.

It drove him into crazy. The lack of your attention. He never mean that alerting you on his helps or care for you, but at the same time, he never think that his efforts would be equal to nothing.

He hated himself as much he hated you.

While you were walking back to the meeting point, both of you were lost in your own darkest thoughts. You were carefully paying the attention in order to not to have immersed each other, however both of you wanted nothing but screaming to each other, enough to have the fiercest fight till now.

You wanted to lose yourself in Baekhyun just like he was dying to bury himself into you for his dear life. However, both of you were very good at muting the voices of your hearts and minds.

“Indy! Baekhyun!” you heard Minseok, turning to his voice. “It is going to be a blizzard; we have to find a shelter.”

“Ha?”

“The forecast was clear as fuck.” Chanyeol pointed Junmyeon who was glued to his phone. “Jun is looking for a hotel for us since we could not go back.”

“We can take the cabs?” you were puzzled, a blizzard would be bad, but it did not mean that you had to spend the night here. “I mean, we are not living in a different city.”

“Yeah, you are right.” Shinhye crossed her arms over her shoulders, trying to keep herself warm. You had to admit, although you did not feel it till now, the weather was really cold. “But the cab drivers refused to drive into the city center. They advised us to stay here.”

“How about using metro?” you asked. “It is not so hard.”

“If you want,” Junmyeon hissed at you, holding the phone over his shoulder for a second. “You can try your chance, Indy. However, we are going to spend the night here. Safe and warm.”

“He is right.” Kyungsoo smiled at you. “I prefer to be warm and dry, sorry.”

You took a look at the team, and everyone was approving Kyungsoo’s words like they were bloody zealots.

“Okey, dumbasses.” you sighed in annoyance. “But we do not have even fucking pyjamas.”

“You can always take your clothes off.” Chanyeol winked at you. “Who says you need a pair of pyjamas to sleep?”

“Shut the fuck up, Chanyeol.” a sudden blush spread over your cheekbones, Chanyeol could not help but burst into laughs.

Baekhyun was determined to ignore you, but he could not help himself.

“Yeah, number one.” he muttered between his teeth, enough to be heard only by you. “Golden heart.”

Your chin was dropped for a few inches after hearing his annoyed voice tone and vindictive comment.

Could it be the reason of his unexpected coldness?

Could he be jealous of your invalid expressions and your fake list?

No way.

He could not be.

Your heart skipped the order of beats.

“Okey,” Junmyeon interrupted your thoughts. “We are going, if we are lucky, we will be in the hotel before the bloody snow will sweep down on us.”

“Let’s go!” Shinhye grabbed your hand, dragging you beside of herself. You submissively followed her footsteps; however, your mind was distracted by Baekhyun’s last words.

Could it be?

“This is heaven.” Jongdae rubbed his tummy. “Thank you, Jun!”

“No problem.” Junmyeon smiled and looked at all of you, to be honest, after a really good and delicious dinner, everyone was knocked out over the table.

Except you and Baekhyun.

“If you want you can go to your rooms.” Junmyeon said. “Since we were fortunate to find a single room for each of us, I do not think we have to play rock-paper-scissor.”

“Ah, having a room for myself.” Minseok laughed. “I do not have to hear your snorts, Junmyeon.”

They were sharing the same flat, everyone laughed after his teasing, Junmyeon too.

“Look who is talking.” he beamed. “I am so happy that I am going to have one night without your damn showering rituals.”

“Tell us about it.” Jongdae whined. “Pleeeassse.”

While Junmyeon and Minseok had been giving details of their flatmate stories to the team, making everyone to enjoy the environment, you were deeply sink into the pool of thoughts.

What a day, you thought. And why I feel like I am desperate?

Also, Baekhyun was not enjoying the unexpected banquet, instead he was quite enough to draw attention to himself. Chanyeol was on the verge of asking what the heck was wrong with him, but Kyungsoo kicked him under the table, pointed you with his eyes. Chanyeol’s wit quickly grabbed the matter, and he devilishly grinned.

You gave a hard day to Baekhyun, and he had no intention to change a thing between you and Baekhyun.

He always believed that you were secretly liking each other, but as you were nothing but stubborn bastards, you concealed your feelings towards each other.

Chanyeol definitely had zero motive to interrupt the fight between you, if it meant you would understand your mutual feelings.

Junmyeon also sensed the tension between you and Baekhyun, but he was not the type of persons who could wait on his corner.

“Baekhyun? Baekhyun!” Junmyeon called out him, waking him up. “How was your day? Why you guys are silent as dead?”

“We completed the task.” Baekhyun answered sourly, the corner of his mouth jumping downwards faintly. “As you assigned me and her.”

Baekhyun deliberately avoided using the pronoun of us.

“And it was a hell of task.” he continued. “I am so tired.”

“Even if you are fucking tired,” Jongdae raised a rejection. “You never shut your mouth, tell us what the heck is gnawing you?”

The bloody girl who sits next to you, Baekhyun thought but he was clever enough to keep the filter between his mouth and brain as valid.

“The girl I gave a promise for this night.” he forced himself to beam. “Because of this fucking weather, I have to arrange another meeting with her.”

Your heart churned, his reply had you wanting to slap your face. Harshly.

And you thought that he could be jealous because you named Chanyeol!

You were nothing but such an idiot.

An idiot who did not know a single piece of shit but acting so superior.

You were a goddamn idiot.

Chanyeol’s eyes narrowed after hearing Baekhyun’s shitty words, Kyungsoo wanted to punch Baekhyun’s face so bad, Junmyeon’s dislike of Baekhyun was obvious but he did not say anything, just sighed in desperation.

You felt nothing but another flash of pain as someone hit your abdomen.

“Are you okey, Indy?” Jongdae leaned over to you, whispering. You shook your head positively, smiling slightly. “You did not throw yourself into even desert.”

Your love for deserts was not a secret amongst your friends as Shinhye, sharing Jongdae’s concerns, handed you a bunch of cloudy puffs, filled with lemon cream. You took one of them, although you had no appetite, you forced yourself to eat the puff in order to put your friends at ease.

He was your biggest enemy and rival, right?

Why you were so devastated, almost on the verge of being hysterical?

You were not aware of you had been hypocritical with your feelings, and you were running away from your own heart. That’s why your hands were shaking, your heart was drumming into your ribs and aching as hell.

You were not ready to face with your heart, but you were also too naïve to save yourself from the pain it caused.

“Was he really harsh on you?” Jongdae murmured, his eyes was nothing but full of worries. “I am sure you could put him in his place but still…”

“He was not.” you said. “And you know me, nothing cheers me up but kicking his ass.”

“Glad to hear that.” Jongdae inhaled but the worries did not leave his face. “So why are you so down?”

“I am really tired today.” you sighed, tucking another puff into your mouth as you mentally punched your face in order to take the fucking control of yourself. “But if I will eat enough amount of these pastries, I will be like a bomb.”

“You are already like a bomb.” Minseok joined into the chat. “You look like on the verge of exploding.”

You unwillingly laughed at his damn right assumption.

“You know what?” you sniffed. “I am dying for a good drink. Would like to join me for a soju break?”

There was no single soul who could oppose to propose of grab a drink in your team. Jongdae jumped out of his chair, Shinhye was born ready and Minseok was the strongest drunkard.

“We are heading to the bar.” Minseok happily announced. “If you guys want to join, perfect, if not, good night to all.”

You were always impressed by the eagerness of Sejong Team to jump into any opportunity for a drink. Everyone, every single soul of this team, had a strong will to consume a respectable amount of alcohol. Less than a minute, everyone gathered up and headed to the elevators in order to visit the terrace of the hotel.

You had been wondering how rich Junmyeon was, even though he was a senior in college, or which kind of relations he had under his belt.

Jesus, you could not pay your attention during the dinner, however the hotel you had been staying was nothing but a touch of luxury. You had a strong guess on the payment bill of this place, however you preferred to keep it to yourself as you knew that Junmyeon did not like talking about the wealth lies beneath his fingertips.

But the bar was intimating.

Minseok, Jongdae and Kyungsoo were having a fierce conversation about the administrative offices of Roman Empire, Shinhye were with Junmyeon as they were talking on the next project that they aimed to present for the Head of Department. Chanyeol, only God knew how the heck he found that, was playing a guitar and you, as dwelling in an extremely comfortable armchair, tucked yourself into a blanket like a sushi roll, were enjoying the sudden calmness around yourself. The dim lights, from the chandeliers dangling from the ceiling, casting mirages across the hall, showing the wooden tables scattered between the chairs and beautiful, fresh cut flowers in their elegant vases.

It is not Korean but Chinese or Japanese, you thought, however with your bad eyesight, making an observation about the porcelain and its design was impossible. Also, you were a little bit slothful at the very moment to move your butt, you wanted to indulge in the soju you were holding, not anything else.

You felt a hand on your shoulder, warm but unfamiliar, your head jerked to face the owner of touch.

Baekhyun was looking at you, however his eyes were different from his usual self. There was no intention to mock with you, his eyes were clear as the snow drops that covering the streets right now.

“May I sit?” Baekhyun asked to you, catching you off guard with an unexpected kindness. You nod, feeling a sudden increase of the level of excitement, but kept your mouth shut. “Thank you.”

Thanking you? Byun Baekhyun?

You perked up, starting to prepare yourself for the fight, despite of the considerable amount of soju flowing in your veins, you were ready to guard yourself.

His elbow brushed your forearm when he was rolling his body in order to adjust the chair next to you.

You were shocked by the reaction your body gave to the moment, the only thing he did was sitting on a fucking chair, but your cheekbones were on fire.

His hips, damn his hips your inner voice was hysterically whispering in your head.

“May I ask to which muse I owe this honour?” you searched Baekhyun’s eyes for a glint of dismissiveness, however this was the very first time you have been the target of sincere, chocolate brown and deep irises.

“I have a question for you.” Baekhyun quickly ignored your offensive joke. “Why I am not in your list?”

He may as well have tossed you inside of a volcano, kicking you into the pool of lava, the impact would be the same. Your heart prompted to your stomach, they churned together, your throat and lungs tightened so bad, enough to cut your air by yourself.

You open your mouth, but nothing come out, just a bubble.

“I do not know how to translate that.” he sneered however you were at a loss. You could expect a lot of words from Byun Baekhyun but questioning the reason of his absence in your fucking list was not one of them.

“There is—” you bite your lower lip to stop yourself, you were on the verge of confessing that there was no list, you just tried to poke his ego, but thank God, you still had a piece of sanity to hold on. “I do not understand. Why do you care my list?”

Do I look like I fucking know? Baekhyun wanted to shake your cage, he wished nothing but screaming at you with all power he had in his lungs. He had no idea why he was mad at you, but he was out of rage and the only reason was you.

“Because I am curious.” he leaned his elbows onto his knees, cocking one eyebrow to you. “And what I hate most is being ignorant to a case.”

“I know.” you spoke without thinking, your mind was delving into the current problem you had in order to find a balanced answer, so you did not realize what you exactly said.

Unfortunately for you, Byun Baekhyun did not become your biggest rival by being blind or deaf.

His lips slightly curled upwards.

But the gentleman he could be, he did not corner you for the time being.

“So?”

It did not mean he would not try to push you in order to get what he wanted.

“Is there a rule saying that every human being has to be interested in you?”

You were not aware of it, but your voice was cracking, and your breathing became heavier, quickened and there was a sheen of sweet on your forehead.

To your dismay, Byun Baekhyun did not unconsciously mark you as his girl without studying you to the bits.

“Humanity is a different topic.” he widely smiled. “I wonder about you, sweetheart.”

Your breath stuck in your lungs because of the endearment, even though you were aware of his teasing of you.

“You are not my type, Byun.” you dead serious.

“Ah, your type is Chanyeol, right?” he smirked, turning his head to the tall brunette who indulged himself into the guitar. “Should we alert him to your interest in him?”

“Goddamn, no!” you hissed at him. What kind of trouble he was aiming to knit on your head? “Do you know the definition of privacy? You are invading personal boundaries, dumbass.”

“I do not think so.” Baekhyun shrugged his shoulder. “If you like Chanyeol, Chanyeol has the right of be aware of your interest.”

“Okey, even a scoundrel like you cannot be crossing the limit of respect like this.” you moved to stand up, giving the most dangerous look to Baekhyun. “I do not have to lis-

“Hey, Chanyeol!” Baekhyun called him with a high-pitched voice. Chanyeol lifted his head, distracted by the unexpected scream of Baekhyun.

“What?”

“Nothing!” your hand immediately tugged onto Baekhyun’s knee, squeezing it tightly in order to warn him. “You are playing so good, keep going!”

Chanyeol laughed at your words.

“You do not have to scream like that, Goddamnit.”

“Tell it to your friend.” you rolled your eyes back, fuming with anger but covering your face pretty well. You turned to Baekhyun, your eyes telling him that he was in serious danger if he was not going to shut his fucking mouth up.

Baekhyun did not care your silent warning, but your hand on his knee was a real distraction for him.

“I know that he is not your type.” he murmured, watching your hand, small, pale, and soft, Baekhyun did not want to confess but he wanted to latch your fingers to his. “Is it Kyungsoo?”

“Do I interrogate your preferences of girls, damn?” you literally gritted between your teeth. “Leave it.”

“I have no intention.” Baekhyun turned to Kyungsoo, narrowing his eyes. “Let’s ask if you are Kyungsoo’s type.”

“What the fuck are you, cupid?!” you grunted, and your hands moved without your consent. You grasped Baekhyun’s jawline, your fingertips were brushing his ears. “I said, leave it.”

“If you want to shut my mouth,” Baekhyun beamed, ignoring the fact that your touch meant for a lot than he could expect, he was going to think about it later. “Tell me why I am not in your list.”

“No one can desire someone like you!” you exploded. “An arrogant, dandy, selfish boy who does not know nothing but bringing trouble to others. That’s why you can never be in my list, even I have to choose between you and an octopus. For the records, I hate octopus, but I would go for it, if it means the other option is you.”

“Oh, you hurt me.” Baekhyun’s eyes glimmered with the sparks of unnamed feelings. He leaned forward, enough you to feel his breath fanning your lips. “You know what, sweetheart? You are so aggressive only when you have a secret which have to stay only in your head.”

“W-what?”

“I am definitely in that list.” Baekhyun claimed it with confidence, but it was just the appearance. Inside him, his heart was definitely shuttering, cracking into pieces, he had no control over himself, he could not understand his sudden behaviours. “I am in your list, if there is a list.”

Your eyes widened, and pupils blown up.

“Jesus.” you snorted. “When you lost your fucking mind?”

“You are a pretty bad liar.” Baekhyun was making assumptions out of his ass in order to get a reaction from you, he was not fucking sure if he was in the list or not, but everything he said actually rang the true bells.

“And you are a lunatic.” your intense eyes pinned him down, and the frowning lips caught your attention, but you forced to came back to your senses as soon as possible. “You will never be anything more than a lunatic.”

You attempted to stand up, but he was incredibly swift to catch your wrist, pressing you back to the armchair.

“Tell me, sweetheart.” he held your wrist for his dear life, caging you and to your disappointment, coming closer to your face, causing your ability of speaking to be faded immediately.

His godfuckingdamnit lips.

“You have been having doubts on me since the day we met, your driving force is giving me hard time.” his breathing was fanning your cheekbones. "Confess now, why are you pissed at me all the time?”

“Hell, you do talk like you are so different. Aren’t you the one who always finds a way to be trouble for me?” you raised one eyebrow, letting him to realize the game was reserved for two people. “If it means liking someone, since when you have been fallen in love over heels with me?”

“You have no idea how much I want to place your heels over my shoulders.”

Your chin was dropped, his words had you turning into a mummy who was trying to register into his remarkable sentence without a single brain cell.

You had to come up with the best answer you could give. You had to find the best response to him, and it had to be a perfect balance of sharpness, cockiness, and matureness as it had to be said with the resting bitch face.

And you heard your own voice.

“Ha?”

“You heard what I said.” Baekhyun intensively gazed at you, the proximity between your bodies had your body quivering and trembling at the same time and his fucking knee slightly, almost insensibly pushed your legs apart.

“You are really nonsensical, Baekhyun.” you inhaled, doing your best in order to ignore all the jolts all over your body, numbing your mind but also setting the skin on fire. Every time you said his name, Baekhyun felt something turning in his lower stomach. “What the fuck you want from me?”

“You did not name me in your list.” You could not believe your fucking eyes, more importantly, you could not believe you were still listening his gibberish like a kindergarten kiddo. “But, I am better than everyone else here.”

His voice dropped the slightest, making you shiver.

“Would you like me to prove it to you?”