#just horror and angst out of nowhere lol

[an1muuarts]

it was around 1:30 am when this was recommended to me

and it was actually scary wtf

(also cw for drug overdose if youre gonna watch it)

[guiltyasdave]

hold on to this lullaby

chapter 4 • series masterlist

pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

summary: An injured Joel and Ellie stumble into your home in the middle of the night. Against your better judgement, you decide to help them.

word count: ~2k

tags/warnings: post outbreak, slow burn, found family, age gap (sorry not sorry), able-bodied reader, angst, reader has a sad sad backstory and ptsd, hurt/comfort, fluff, eventual smut, nightmares, implied death of a character, the angst is once again angsting, reader's thoughts have suicidal undertones sometimes

a/n: girlie is once again going through it. i know that we're moving at a very slow pace but the chemistry is growing, slowly but steadily :)

shoutout to @toomanytookas who left the most thoughtful analysis on the last chapter, and noticed how the doors being open or closed works as a metaphor for the state of their relationship. looking back, that is very true, but truth be told, it wasn't a conscious writing choice on my part lol. i love it so much though and am now using it very purposefully, so thank you for bringing that to my attention and just for being so incredibly kind <3

follow @guiltyasdavenotifs for fic updates and find my full masterlist here :)

dividers by the lovely @saradika-graphics 🤍

You’re running through the woods, running, running. Searching for something, someone, that you know you won’t find. 

Keep them safe. Promise me. We’ll be there soon. 

No one’s safe. No one’s coming. No one’s there. Your hands are wet, dripping with red, leaving a trail behind you. You trip, falling down to your knees, hands sinking into the earth. There’s nowhere to go, nothing to find. 

Still, you have to keep running. Running running running, searching searching searching. Keep them safe. Promise me. 

You’re used to it. 

Eyes flying open to suffocating, disorienting darkness, gasping for breath in the stale air of your room, the blanket much too heavy on your body. The images that your subconscious conjured up, still playing behind your eyelids. Your heart racing, your mind struggling to find its way back to reality. Lying alone in the darkness, only gradually able to discern your dream from your real life, the horrors blending into one another too intricately, too smilar to be separated. 

You’re still gasping, tears burning hot in your eyes and leaving wet tracks on your face. But it’s not dark, this time. And you’re not alone. The blurry shape of Joel slowly comes into focus, illuminated by the soft glow from the lamp on your nightstand. The weight of his hand is still resting on your shoulder, anchoring you to the present, and you realize that he must have shaken you awake. That you must have been loud.

You’ve wondered before, if you’re making noises, if the sobs that wrack through your body in your dreams follow you into reality. There’s never been a way to find out, before, but now it seems like they do, loud enough to travel through the closed door and wake Joel up. 

Heat blooms on your face, fueled by shame and guilt, both for disturbing his sleep and for your behavior earlier.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, your voice stumbling over the words, thick with sleep and more tears. 

“Hey, no,” he replies softly, soothingly, his voice a deep rumble, his touch still firm on your shoulder. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

You shrug, too exhausted to argue. His other arm twitches at his side, reaching towards you before he stops himself, sitting back on his haunches, groaning quietly at the movement. 

“You wanna–” he clears his throat, shifting slightly, “you wanna talk about it? Or is there anything else I can do?” 

You quickly shake your head, eyes trained on your hands that are clasped in your lap. He waits for another beat, before he hums, his knees creaking as he stands back up. 

You miss the feeling of his hand on you as soon as it disappears, but you can’t possibly bring yourself to ask for that, so you swallow against the lump in your throat, watching his retreating silhouette in your doorway.

“Joel?” Your hushed voice travels through the dimly lit room. He halts at once, turning back around to face you, the lines on his face somehow softer than you know them. “Could you— keep the door open? Just a little?” 

You’re awake for a long time after he leaves, at first listening to the fall of his quiet footsteps retreating to the other room, the faint rustle of his sheets as he gets back into bed, Ellie’s hushed voice and his responding grumble, but you can’t make out the words. When it’s quiet again, you retreat into the swirling mess inside your head. Unable to turn the light off, unable to close your eyes, terrified of the darkness and the images it might bring back.

You’ve tried not to think about it too hard, afraid of jinxing yourself, but you’ve noticed that you’ve slept better since Ellie and Joel have arrived. It’s like their presence, the change they’ve brought to your life, is enough to keep your mind occupied, like a safety blanket has been draped over you, keeping the worst of it away from you. But yesterday’s events must have ripped holes into it, must have brought the past and its pain to the forefront again. 

You drift back off eventually, nothingness engulfing your tired mind and pulling you into a dreamless sleep that you’re thankful for. 

You’re roused by the sounds from outside the door, the movements of someone being up filtering through the gap that Joel left open last night. It takes a while until you get your bearings, until the memories all come back to you. The familiar fear, the panic. The unfamiliar presence of someone beside you, of a touch on your shoulder.

Following the sounds, you find Joel in the kitchen, preparing breakfast, something that you usually do. You watch him for a second, taking in his messy morning hair, the specks of gray, the furrow of concentration in his brow as he’s stirring oatmeal. The steaming cup in his other hand, almost dwarfed by his large fingers, that you know must contain coffee. 

His eyes widen for a second when he notices you leaning against the doorframe, scrutinizing your face, gauging the state you’re in. You try a tentative smile, taking a step towards him, nodding towards the pot on the stove. 

“Thought breakfast was my job.” You’re pleased with how normal your voice sounds, nothing like the mess from last night. 

Joel shrugs, the expression on his face just a smidge too innocent, too casual. 

“You’re doing more than enough for us. Thought I’d let you sleep in.” 

You don’t have it in you to start a discussion about it, and you wouldn’t know how to explain this to him anyway. How you don’t want him to do things for you, don’t want to know what it’s like to have someone else care for you. Don’t want to feel how nice it is, even in such small doses. How you’re overly conscious of the fact that it will get taken away again before you know it, that you’d do well not to get used to it. How you’re not sure if you’ll be able to survive having something nice ripped away from you yet again. 

So you smile, mutter a thank you, Joel, and when he suggests that you take a shower, that he’ll be finished by the time you’re ready, you agree. Suddenly, you’re aware of the night’s sweat that has dried on your skin, clinging to you and making you feel sticky. Suddenly, you’re desperate to wash it off your skin, to leave the last night behind you and not look back.

With the stream of warm water raining down on you, the stiffness in your neck eases a bit and your breath’s coming more freely again, pieces of the tension that’s been coursing through you since last night slowly melting away. Still, you keep shivering, no matter how much you’re trying to open your body up to the warmth surrounding you, to let it drive out the coldness that’s emanating from your chest. 

Move on, your own voice echoes in your head. Keep living. The promise you’ve made to yourself, that you’re trying to keep, even though some days, you’re not sure why. 

Your arms are wrapped tightly around yourself when you enter the living area again. You’ve pulled on one of your warmest sweaters, one that you’ve knitted yourself, over the course of several long, lonely days, with nothing else to keep your hands and mind occupied. Still, you feel cold. 

Ellie is up now, sitting on the couch, a bowl of oatmeal all but forgotten in her lap and her nose buried in one of the comics you gave her, the artwork on the cover all too familiar to you. She jumps when she sees you, hastily stuffing the book in between her thigh and the cushion beside her, a guilty expression in her eyes as she looks at you. 

“Sorry,” she mumbles before you can say anything, her hands clasped in her lap. It breaks your heart to see her like this, to know that she heard you last night too. How much your behavior must have scared her. That she probably feels responsible, even though your mind was already in a bad state long before you’ve even met her. 

It does hurt, seeing those drawings of galactic adventures that you’ve seen a million times before, with another pair of eyes glued to the pages. Another child excitedly recounting the stories to you over and over, until you basically knew them by heart and listened to them time and time again anyway, because his happiness made you happy. 

The pain of it weighs heavy on you, but not as heavy as the urge to protect her from being hurt, to wipe that guilt off her face. 

“The pages are gonna crumple like that,” you say, softly, hoping to convey with your eyes what you don’t have the words for. 

She slowly pulls it back out, shooting you careful glances. “Are you sure?” She sounds so young right now, so unsure of herself, and yet she’s trying to look out for you, trying not to hurt you, when she really shouldn’t have to. 

You’re nodding, convincing the both of you, that it’s fine, that you’re fine. 

“Yeah,” you smile. “That one’s good, enjoy it.”

You duck into the kitchen, mumbling about urgently needing a cup of coffee. You’re certain that Joel has heard your conversation, and that he sees how glassy your eyes are, but he doesn’t comment on it, just quietly hands you a cup, his fingertips faintly grazing yours.

It’s a subdued kind of day. Both Ellie and Joel are trying hard to act casual around you, but you feel the lingering glances, notice the looks exchanged behind your back, the cloud of worry that’s surrounding both of them. It makes you nervous, weirdly conscious of your every movement. And you’re still cold.

You end up watching another cheap action movie that evening, Ellie curled up on the armchair while you and Joel are occupying the couch. Your chin is resting on your knees, arms wrapped around your legs, eyes fixed on the small TV. But your mind is wandering, barely taking in the scenes playing out on the screen.

Your thoughts keep going back to how Joel touched you last night, how his hand had rested on your shoulder. How good it had felt, how you have the inexplicable need to feel it happening again. How warm his hand had been. You wonder if his touch might be able to finally stop you from feeling like you’re slowly freezing from the inside.

Another involuntary shiver runs through you. Joel’s gaze slides from the screen to you beside him. He doesn’t ask if you’re cold, being familiar enough with you by now to know that you’d deny it. Even as another wave of coldness passes through you, causing your shoulders to tremble slightly.

His brow is creased with worry as he wordlessly leans over to you, spreading the blanket that had been folded over the armrest that he’s leaning against over your shoulders. Your lips tip up in a grateful smile, the long lost feeling of someone caring for you engulfing you in more warmth than the blanket could ever provide. You allow yourself to get lost in it, just for a little while. 

The blanket faintly smells like him, you realize as you pull it tighter around yourself and up to your chin, inhaling deeply. A different kind of warmth is creeping up your cheeks and you turn your face towards the TV once more, oblivious to the way Joel keeps watching you from the corner of his eye. 

When you go to bed later that evening, you leave your bedroom door ajar once again.

thank you for reading <3 comments, reblogs and asks are love and make my day every single time!

[petrichor-han]

the debt of existence; choi yeonjun

PAIRING | ghost!yeonjun x gn!human!reader

CAST | choi yeonjun, kang taehyun, seo changbin (mentioned)

WC | 18.2k

GENRE | angst, (slight) fluff, horror, ghost!au, non-idol!au

WARNINGS | mentions of death & dying, explicit language, mc had abusive parents, flashbacks to said abuse (physical and verbal), smoking, ghosts/spirits, childhood/unresolved trauma, mentions of hoarding, mentions of murder & suicide, descriptions of a crime/murder scene, gore/blood

SYNOPSIS | you remember your childhood home as a landmine, filled with metaphoric bombs just waiting to go off at any possible second—there was a reason you never came back home to visit after you moved out at the ripe age of eighteen. years later, your parents are dead and gone, and you realize that you have inherited that very same house—complete with the spirit that has haunted it since before you were born. 

A/N | hello everyone!! this is my addition to the monster beside me collab hosted by @decembermoonskz​!! super late, the collab was unofficially dissolved ages ago, and not my proudest work, but i wanted to finish this fic anyways since i was mostly done with it before my hiatus lol. slightly inspired by the webtoon my boo by jeongseo. please reblog and leave feedback/comments, it would be much appreciated!! 🫶

request to be added to current and future taglists HERE!

listen to the playlist HERE!

MASTERLIST | THE MONSTER BESIDE ME

JULY 

The end of July is always slightly uncomfortable, you think. It’s the midst of summer, but perhaps that contributes to its unease, to the realization that everything in life is fleeting and temporary, but it is not a sad thing to think of, as it just is. That is how it always is and how it always will be. July is a reminder that everything comes to an end, even things that seem everlasting, like the pesky mosquitos that suckle at your plush flesh in the warm muggy evenings and the flashing memories of childhood that you can’t seem to forget when you eat a cheap cherry flavored ice pop. 

Or, that’s what you think a relatively normal childhood would seem like. Not that you would really know. 

Your childhood summers were a dull thing to look back on, and most of what you could gather from your scattered memories, presumably locked away because of how much you hated it, was an image of you sitting in your one joy from your bleak youth: the large bay window that overlooked the front yard of your house. The yard could have been beautiful, you’d always thought as much. It was a large, pretty space with endless room for growth. You often daydreamed about the fresh vegetables, the pretty flowers, the vines and greenery of your dreams that could have flourished there if given the chance. Your parents didn’t seem to share the same daydream, instead doing the bare minimum to upkeep their lawn. The grass was not dead nor was it suffering, but it was nowhere close to being soft and supple like your neighbors’ lawns, that much you could tell though you were never allowed to tread upon it. This was another thing that your beloved bay window was good for: looking at the neighbors. 

It wasn’t a creepy thing. You were a child. Your neighbors had children too, and they seemed to have a much more colorful childhood than you did. During these endless summer hours when it seemed like the sun would never set, you watched them with one small hand pressed to your window, your breath fogging up the already condensated glass, small pearls of water forming from the mugginess, forlornly watching the other children play amongst themselves. Whether it was dress-up or tag, or simply rolling around in the soft green grass of their pretty lawns, you wished that just once you would be allowed to go there with them. It seemed like a separate world to you, as if your window panes were a television and you were watching a show about a happy childhood. You felt like a stranger looking in. You were a stranger looking in. 

Once, and just once, you were invited to come down and play with them. You remembered it. That summer was a particularly harsh one, in terms of temperature, and your parents’ creaky old house had no relief provided. The most that you could do was sit by your window and hope that a breeze would come through. This was the only time you were allowed to open your window. Unfortunately for you, though your window was cracked open, there wasn’t the slightest bit of wind. The blazing sun seemed to shrivel up everything in sight, heat waves visible in the air. It made you feel drowsy as you slumped against the wall, pushing your window open more and more even though you weren’t allowed to do so. You kept thinking that maybe if you pushed it open just a little more a small breeze would come through and tousle your sweaty hair… maybe it would send a nice breath of relief through your clothes. 

“Hey!” 

You jolted out of your daydreaming, your half-slumber. 

“Do you want to come play with us?” 

You look out of your window, heart catching in your throat. A few kids that you recognize from the neighborhood stand right outside your front gate, one of them even daring to lean against the old, chipping, white wood. The one that shouted at you is holding a soccer ball in her hands, the white patches more gray now than anything, a sign of a well-used, well-loved toy. She turns it over in her hands as she stares up at you, eyes twinkling with playfulness. You’re panicking now, just slightly; you’d never been asked to play with them before and you don’t want to mess it up. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she says doubtfully, the corners of her lips now slightly downturned in a frown, as if she were worried about hurting your feelings. “We like to invite new kids sometimes. But you don’t have to come.” 

“I want to!” you find yourself shouting back, though your heart pounds loudly in your ears with adrenaline. You swear you can feel your own blood coursing through your veins in your arms and legs, your ears burning with excitement. “Are you sure it’s okay if I come?” Even though they were the ones that invited you, you still find yourself worrying that they don’t want you there, and you play with your fingers as you lower your gaze, half-expecting them to laugh and say that they didn’t want you there after all. 

“Of course,” the same girl says matter-of-factly, and you like her right away with her no-nonsense aura. She seems to be the leader of this small group, and you want so badly for her to like you, for her to take you under her wing. You lick your chapped lips as she gives you a small smile, motioning for you to come down. “What’s your name?” she asks, and just as you part your lips to give her a response, your heart soaring through the thick, humid summer air, you find yourself being pulled backwards roughly, your sticky t-shirt pulled up against your throat as you choke and gag at the harshness. Your small fingers scrabble at the fabric that’s pulled up against your neck, and you are thrust aside onto the wooden floor. You can feel the skin of your left elbow dragging against the bare floor, skinning it effectively, and you cry out, cradling your sore joint. 

“They can’t come out to play,” your mother says roughly, before slamming the window shut and turning back to you, her eyes blazing. “What the hell were you doing? You know you’re not allowed to leave the house when we’re not home. Do you want to get kidnapped?” She’s still in her work uniform, beads of sweat appearing on her moist forehead; clearly, she had had a rough day at work. 

You feel yourself curling into a ball involuntarily, afraid of your mother’s rough tone. Your elbow stings and you just want her to leave so that you can look at the damage. “I’m sorry,” you say, your voice hardly above a whisper. “I was wrong.” 

“No shit,” she scoffs, and she runs a hand through her hair, eyes shut as she sighs, annoyance clear in her tone. “Don’t let me catch you doing that again. This is what’s best for you, and you’re making me look like the bad guy. It’s for your own safety.” 

“I won’t do it again,” you promise, guilt pooling in your stomach. You don’t dare to stand up, for you know that she could very well physically kick you down again. With the look on her face, it wouldn’t be far-fetched. And you do feel horrible–she’s right, after all, you think. They don’t give you many rules to follow, and you’ve read stories where people are hurt by their parents daily. They have never broken your bones or hurt you when you didn’t deserve it. Your skinned elbow was your fault. 

You think that your mother might give you a good spanking anyways, even though you were sorry, but instead she just looks at you with her upper lip curled in exasperation, eyes narrowed at you as if you were a bug that were squirming around on her floors, and leaves your room, slamming it shut behind her so hard that you can hear the hinges groan. The tell-tale click of a key slipping into your lock tells you that you won’t be allowed out for a while. You swallow hard and pick yourself up off the floor, tears burning the backs of your eyes as you try to hold them back. Your elbow is bleeding, and you don’t have any bandages so you press a piece of tissue to it even though it stings to have any contact. You sit yourself back on the edge of your bay window and stare at a new crack on the left side of the glass, something that would always remind you of that bleak July day when your mother once again dashed your hopes of having friends in the neighborhood—all in the name of your supposed “safety.”

You can see that same crack from the front gate, which is where you currently stand. You fumble with the old skeleton key in the pocket of your jacket, feeling the humidity make the material stick uncomfortably to your skin. Your fingers smell like old metal and rust when you retract them from your pocket, and it makes you feel slightly ill as you back away from the house. 

Not yet. 

Instead, you walk back to your car that’s parked on the side of the road, reach into your other pocket that holds your car keys, and unlock your door. You can still feel the cool air that had been blowing; you’d left the car running when you went for a quick look at your childhood home. You slide into your seat and close the door behind you, sighing as you grip the steering wheel tightly with both hands and press your sticky forehead against the top of it. You feel like you’re melting into the vinyl seats, like your skin is stuck to it like a pest to flypaper, and you shift uncomfortably as you look up, eyes darting between the empty road in front of you and the house that holds some of your most repressed memories. You thought that you had the confidence to waltz in there and clear it out as soon as you got the call from the bank, but seeing it now made your blood curdle. Clearly, there were some unresolved issues that you didn’t even know you were dealing with, and they were preventing you from going inside and just taking a look around the damn place. 

You shift the gear and back up out of your subpar parallel parking job on the uneven, cracked road. Your GPS says that the coffee shop you’re due to meet Taehyun at is fifteen minutes away. That’s fifteen minutes to clear your damn mind and convince him to give up his next few weekends to do you a huge favor. As you drive away from the old house, it feels like a weight has been lifted off your chest. 

You can do this. 

An old pop song from the past decade erupts from your speakers, and you reach over to turn it down even though the nostalgia rush gives you waves of calmness, in a way you hardly remembered. The singer’s voice—you don’t remember the name of the one hit wonder—is warbly and slightly out of tune, but it’s just because of your shitty old car and its apparent inability to play songs in the right key. You tap your fingers against the steering wheel as you slow to a stop in front of a light, the bright red glare stopping you dead in your tracks. 

The unfortunate thing is that you remember this road all too well. Years of driving down the same old street in your beat up family car with your parents spitting insults at each other had carved every crack, every pebble of this paved road deep into the grooves of your brain. You don’t think you could ever forget it; you could probably drive through it with your eyes closed. 

The light turns green, and the distant sounds of your mother’s sobs and your father’s cursing dissipates as your tires grind against the old asphalt, stalling for just a moment before advancing. 

The rest of the drive is more relaxing, less familiar. When you were a kid your parents didn’t ever stop by these coffeehouses, telling you that all they did was guzzle money that could be used on better things, and the teenagers that both worked and frequented there were bad influences anyways. You, being a naive child, agreed even though you didn’t really know what the hell they were saying. And you had to pretend that you didn’t want to go inside those cozy looking cafe’s, with fires blooming inside that fogged up the windows in the most delicious way possible. Instead, you followed your mother’s lead as she tugged on your arm, leaving behind the physical warmth that you so craved in place of emotional warmth from her. 

You think of this as you mutter curses to yourself under your breath just like your father used to, trying to find a parking spot. Some jackass in an old silver car has parked over the line, and you roll your eyes as you realize it’s your jackass; as Taehyun steps out of the car and winces as he looks at the crooked parking job. He spots you and waves before climbing back inside and backing out sharply, nearly hitting you in the process, and re-parks—not nearly a perfect job, but much better than before. This also allows you to take up the second spot that Taehyun had taken over before, and you rub your eyes tiredly as you finally unbuckle your seatbelt. 

Cicadas chirp loudly at you, and a distant hoot echoes in your ears as you stare into the thicket of trees on the other side of the coffeehouse. “Rough morning?” Taehyun asks as you step out of your car. 

“Sort of. Kind of. Maybe. Not really?” You lean against the trunk of your car after walking around, pursing your lips as the sun-warmed surface bites at your exposed legs. Your shorts ride up your ass and you can’t help but think about how annoying summers in your hometown can be, sensory wise. 

“I mean, you look tired. That’s all.” Taehyun shrugs as you shake off your denim jacket and toss it in the backseat of your car, the mugginess finally getting to you. 

“What a nice thing to say to a friend,” you say sarcastically, locking your doors. “You look like shit too.” 

“I actually was up all night, so you’re not wrong,” Taehyun admits, jerking his head towards the coffeehouse, and the two of you start walking towards it. It’s much different than your distant memory of the cozy atmosphere during a childhood winter. In the summer it looks like a cool solace, shielded by old trees with decades of memories and gentle indie guitar music that can be heard from the outside as you get closer to the entrance. It’s charming, you think, as you run your fingers along the raw wood railing, the old stairs creaking as the combined weight of you and Taehyun makes it groan. “I always think I’m gonna break these damn things,” Taehyun says, as you successfully make it to the front entrance. 

“They’re always that creaky?” 

“Always. But they’ve never failed anyone yet, so I guess we have to trust them.” He opens the door for you, and a small golden bell above the door is triggered and it jingles as you walk inside. A rush of cool air seems to quench your thirst as it washes over your uncomfortably warm body, and you sigh with relief as the scent of iced coffee and fruity mixtures pleasantly enters your senses. You realize that it seems to double as a bookstore, as multiple shelves are crammed with both old and new books, lining the walls of the shop. 

“I’ve never been here before. What’re you getting?” you ask, squinting at the menu while you fan yourself with your wallet. 

“I always just get an iced Americano. You know me,” Taehyun says. The young couple in front of you finishes ordering and moves out of the way, and you let Taehyun go first so that you can scan the menu at least one more time before you’re put on the spot. 

The teenager behind the counter has two big buns twisted messily atop her head, and a sprinkling of freckles across her cheeks and nose bridge make her look younger than she probably is. A pen on each side secures her buns, and she takes one out, making the left bun flop down. “What can I do for you today?” she asks, and even though she isn’t annoyed her voice carries a tone that makes you squirm uncomfortably, as if you’d interrupted her. Her hair-accessory-slash-pen is twirled between her fingers as she looks at you. 

You blink at her stupidly before saying the first thing on the menu, and she asks if you want it iced or plain, and you wonder if having a plain drink was always an option before blurting out iced. She writes it down, smacks her gum loudly, and you move aside to let the elderly person behind you order next. 

“What did you get?” Taehyun asks, as his name is called and his iced americano is slid across the counter. He picks it up and takes a sip. 

“Something with iced tea, I don’t even know.” You glumly stare at the other teenager that’s busy making drinks, and your name is called just a few moments later. You pick up something with iced tea and honey and sparkling water (you think) and sit down with Taehyun at a slightly sticky table full of pastry crumbs. He sweeps them away with a brown napkin made of eco-friendly materials, and you sip at your drink, which surprisingly isn’t that bad, as he sits down across from you. 

“So why are you back in town? Didn’t you just get a job offer from that city a few hours away?” Taehyun asks nonchalantly. 

You grit your teeth; you didn’t expect him to get to the topic right away. But then again, it’s Taehyun. He’s always been more straightforward and blunt than most people, and you couldn’t say that you didn’t appreciate that about him. In fact, it was something that you did like about him. You use your paper straw to push around at the ice cubes in your drink, looking down at the shocked wood that your table was made up of. “It’s kind of a long story.” 

“I have time.” 

“Well my parents died, and they left their old house to me. So now I have to clean it out and either sell it or keep it.” 

“That wasn’t a very long story.” 

You manage a laugh, but you don’t really mean it or find any of this funny. “I know. It was just hard to say.” 

Taehyun sips at his coffee. “Well, that must be rough. I’m sorry.” 

“No need to be sorry. But if you really want to make me feel better, help me clean it out. They had so much shit crammed in that house that we never needed.” You smile at Taehyun’s eye-roll. 

“And that’s why you asked me to hang out.” 

“‘Course it is. You know me and my ulterior motives.” You use air quotes around this, and Taehyun has known you long enough to understand that this was something your late father insinuated about you a lot. He laughs, a pity laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. You pretend not to notice that your joke made him uncomfortable, and pull out a book on the shelf closest to you. If you still had time to read, you think you might have taken it home, but you don’t, so you put it back and play with your paper straw some more before looking back at Taehyun. “You don’t have to, by the way. I can do it myself.” 

“No, I’ll help. Besides, I think you need my help if it’s as bad as you always said it was.” He finishes his coffee and stands up. “What are we waiting for? Let’s just go now and get some of it over with.” 

Again, you feel slight unease at his eagerness to get on with the tasks at hand, but you push your drink aside and shrug. “Okay, why not?” you ask, though something in your brain is nagging at you to leave it to another day. You stand up, taking your half-finished drink in hand and tossing it in the garbage, feeling only a little guilty about it, and follow Taehyun out to the parking lot. “Want me to send you the address?” you ask, pulling out your phone, but he shakes his head. 

“Nah. I know it already.” It’s a nod back to the day he helped you move out while both your parents were at work, the day you turned eighteen. It’s a bittersweet memory, and you push it back into the void of your mind as you manage a smile towards your dear childhood friend, and then walk back around to your own car, sandals smacking against the uneven asphalt. 

You sidle back into your car seat, adjusting the air conditioning so that it blasts your sweaty face and neck, and exhale loudly as you start pulling out of the parking lot, spotting the old, beat-up, silver car that he got from his dad back in high school. You follow his lead even though you recognize the way back as soon as you get back onto the main road, away from the forbidden coffeehouse of your childhood, and you want to pretend like you’re completely oblivious to the familiarity. But instead, you let your thoughts guide you, and the weight of resurfacing memories rests heavily on your chest, tempting you to reach up with one hand and place it over your heart, squeezing gently at the fabric of your shirt as if that would relieve the tension. 

Taehyun has taken the parking spot that you had earlier, in the street in front of the old house rather than the driveway, which you reluctantly pull into. The sloping pavement makes your old car groan as you park it and step out, keys jingling in your hands as you switch it out for the singular rusty key you’d received in the mail a few days before; the only way to get into the old house. Your parents hadn’t bothered with modernizing it any, and since it had been built well over a century ago, its age was definitely showing, especially now that your parents were gone and the minimal upkeep that they did had diminished completely. You stared at the bland front lawn with distaste, the complete lack of any landscaping still leaving a bitter flavor on your tongue as you remembered the vibrant gardens of your neighbors in your youth. Though plain, it was now completely overgrown with weeds, the grass growing dark green and lush from the frequent rain, which only added to the muggy climate. You felt your skin crawl, already imagining all of the insects that probably called that jungle of a lawn their home, and you reached down to slap a pesky mosquito off of your ankle as Taehyun’s footsteps approached, crunching the loose gravel scattered across the driveway. “How long has it been?” he asked carefully, though you wouldn’t have really cared if he’d been blunt about this as well. 

“I got the key a month ago. I don’t know how long it's been since they actually died. Or if they’d lived like this even before they passed. All I know is that my mom died first and my dad died a little bit after.” You frown before brushing past Taehyun and using the key to open the separate garage, where your parents never kept any cars but rather an assortment of gardening and outdoor supplies that they never used, a hoard of untouched second-hand objects that you could use to tackle the mess outside. You puttered around until you found an old lawnmower, small enough that you were fairly confident you’d be able to use it even though you had little to no experience using one, and a few other gardening tools that you handed to Taehyun, which he immediately sighed at but ultimately knelt down and started pulling weeds using said tools. 

You trudged through the grass, feeling the long blades tickle your shins, as you pushed the lawnmower across it. It had turned on after a few tries, and was now eating up grass faster than a herd of hungry goats, though you had to continuously empty the bag inside to keep it from clogging. The scent of freshly cut grass reached your nostrils and it was gratifying in a way, to know that after all these years the front yard would finally look decent. It might not be fancy, but decently kept was good enough for you. 

Taehyun stared up at the sky after he finished pulling the last weed from his side of the lawn and squinted at the bright sun that was beating down on the two of you. “Any chance your folks left refreshments inside the house?” he asked jokingly, and you laughed aloud, haughtily. 

“It’ll be lucky if there’s no rotting food still left in there,” you said, turning off the lawnmower and stepping back to admire your work. It wasn’t the prettiest job ever, but the lawn was mowed, and the difference was clear. Already, the house looked better, even with the chipping paint and anciently styled structure. “But it wouldn’t hurt to check.” 

Taehyun trailed behind you as you approached the front door, a queer feeling passing through your body as you felt an old familiarity drape over you like a blanket. You slipped the key into the hole and unlocked the heavy front door, the chipping white paint flaking off as it swung open, creaking all the way. You made a mental note to repaint the door when you could. 

Pocketing the key, you stepped up into the house that housed your sadness for so many years, and immediately you felt guilt pooling in your stomach. It was clear that in your parents’ later years they hadn’t been able to clean very well, and a thick layer of dust covered nearly everything in the first few rooms you walked through, apart from frequently used items and the floor, which looked grimy and in need of a deep scrubbing session. There were piles of trash that had never been taken out, and boxes and boxes of more useless items that they seemingly never used. You wouldn’t call them hoarders, but rather collectors—they never gave up something once they got their hands on it, thinking it’d come in handy one day. 

Now that you thought about it, maybe they were hoarders. You ignore that thought and immediately think to just clear out everything cluttered and clean the furniture as much as possible to stage it for possible buyers. You have no qualms or doubts about selling the house; you had no good memories associated with it, no positive nostalgia. And you had your own place and made enough money that you could get your own house if you so pleased—which you didn’t want to do just yet—without the bad memories. 

“Wow,” Taehyun says, whistling at the mess. “We really have our work cut out for us, don’t we?” 

“Just thinking about it is making my head hurt,” you grumble. “I’m checking out the basement for a second, do you mind scoping out the kitchen?” 

Taehyun salutes you, a cheesy smile on his face as he turns to walk back to the kitchen, which is much closer to the front door, and you take it upon yourself to undo the chain on the door down to the basement and clomp down the old wooden stairs. It’s not a scary basement, especially in the daylight. It was mostly another place for your parents to stash old knickknacks and such, a storage room if anything. Windows lined the very tops of the walls, letting in just enough sunlight to warm the room and light it up so that it didn’t feel like something out of a horror movie. Though, you had to admit that it was creepy being down there alone—but you had that odd feeling upstairs, too. 

You exhale loudly, plumes of dust flying up from the nearest box, and you sneeze as you pick up a box that looks to be full of books. “Jesus Christ,” you mutter, rubbing your teary eyes, “I need some god damn air.” 

“So do I,” a nasally voice proclaimed, and you nearly jump out of your skin as you look around and spot a figure of a man in the corner. 

“Taehyun!” you shout, throat straining, dropping the box. The corners split open and books spill out onto the floor as you rush for the stairs, collapsing against Taehyun as the two of you collide. 

“Is everything okay?” he asks, concerned, gripping you tightly. His gaze falls upon the split box. “Did you hurt yourself when you dropped the box?” He examines your hands, your arms. 

“Don’t you see him?” you whisper, and Taehyun’s big eyes seem to widen even more, if that’s even possible. 

“See who?” he whispers back. 

“There. In the corner.” Your voice is cracking, eyes welling up with tears both from the dust and the fear. “You don’t see him?” 

“There’s no one there…” Taehyun says. His lips suddenly feel extremely dry, and his tongue darts out to wet them. “Maybe—maybe this was too much all at once. I think we should go.” 

You wipe your eyes with your bare arm and nod, letting him lead you up the stairs. 

“Wait! Don’t go!” the voice says again, and you look behind you, terrified, to see the man coming after you both. He moves oddly, his limbs jerking in unnatural ways as if he were not used to walking. You shriek, rush in front of Taehyun and drag him up the stairs, out of the basement, past the kitchen, out the front door and through the front yard. You don’t stop until you’re both hunched over in the driveway, sides aching and chests heaving. 

The front door had slammed behind you both even though neither of you touched it, and you make eye contact with Taehyun. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to use words to let you know that he’s saying he’s never coming back to the house. 

You wish that you could say the same, but instead your eyes say that you have to come back—just not any time soon. 

The sun is setting when you and Taehyun leave the old house, and every time you blink you think you see the tall man out of the corner of your eye. It’s like he’s following you, and you can’t shake him off your trail. The only time you feel safe is when you’re out in the daytime, when his supposed presence is suppressed by crowds of other people. 

But you can’t always stay safe. And so your last few July nights are filled with nightmares, the kinds that leave you sweating buckets into your sheets, the kinds that make you wake up with tears in your eyes. 

There is nothing you can do about it—except go back and see him again. 

AUGUST

Taehyun had taken up a summer job on the opposite side of town, and though he promised to keep in touch, you hadn’t really heard from him much. When he did message you, it was about mundane things, more often than not he talked about said summer job, in which he did nothing but keep the landscape of an old retirement home in shape. This reminded you of the work that the two of you had done on your own house, but the one time that you tried to bring it up to him he hung up on you and didn’t call you back until the next day. “It just freaked me out, okay?” he said exasperatedly, “just hire someone to clean out the house.” 

You scoffed at that for two reasons: one, you didn’t have nearly enough money for that, and two, you had a terrible nagging feeling that these nightmares wouldn’t subside unless you got to the root of the problem. Which of course, was the house and whatever it was that resided in it. 

You never really considered yourself particularly gutsy or brave, but the lack of sleep was starting to get to you, and though that job offer that Taehyun had mentioned offered to let you work remotely until the end of the year, you knew that the sooner you got this shit over with, the sooner you could move on with your damn life. So you hauled your ass to the hardware store and picked up a bucket of white paint that you were almost sure matched the shade of the front door, though it was almost impossible to tell for sure with how weathered and damaged it was, and the cheapest cleaning supplies that would still get the job done. 

But as soon as you approached the gates once more, you felt the familiar drop in your stomach. It was not the biggest house, as your parents were not wealthy, but the aura that it emanated made it seem equivalent to a castle with unscalable walls. The house had two stories, with a triangular roof that came to a main point right in the middle. You recognized the window at the left as your old bedroom window, and swallowed past the lump in your throat. All of the windows were dirty and fogged up with grime, especially the ones on the bottom floor, which were covered in handprints from the outside, presumably from people trying to look in now that it was vacant. 

The late summer sun was already beating down on you as you walked the short distance from the driveway to the front porch, weighed down by the cleaning supplies and paint. Though the weather was not the most agreeable, you could not call the experience unpleasant as you swept the floor of the porch and scrubbed at the windows, finally finishing with a fresh coat of paint on the door. You sat down on the slightly damp wood of the first step down, hugging your knees to your chest and picking at the drying paint on your skin. The lawnmower was still out on the lawn, and the grass was already growing back, though it was not remotely close to the length it had been when you first arrived. You reached down to pick at a few weeds that were growing taller than the grass, rolling over the rough stalks in your fingers as you breathed in the damp summer air. The day has been almost too peaceful, and you know that this will change as soon as you open the front door and step back inside. You know that the reason you saw him was because of what happened inside the house, not outside. 

“I don’t know what the fuck to do!” you shout at your phone. Your hands are pulling at your hair, scraping at your scalp frantically as you breathe heavily, your lungs feeling like they’ve shrunk and are unable to take in as much air as you need. As the last syllable rings in your ears, the silence from the other end of your call seems to be louder than your screams. You stare at the small screen laying atop the desk of your hotel room, shaking uncontrollably. 

“We know what this is coming from,” your therapist says gently. They ignore your outburst, which you are sure you’ll get complaints about. 

“What?” you ask, voice quieter now. 

“It’s because of the house. It’s because of your parents. It was just like what your friend said. It was too much all at once.” 

“What, so just because I couldn’t deal with being in a fucking house for ten minutes I imagined a ghost?” you snap, unfurling yourself from your previous position. Your bare feet brushed against the wooden floor, sending chills through your whole body as you thought about it. A ghost. 

“You’re still blaming yourself. It isn’t your fault that your trauma is resurfacing, you know,” your therapist says matter-of-factly. “Maybe this is a good thing. Next time you go back, why don’t you try talking to the ‘ghost’? They might have some perspective on what’s going on.” 

“So your solution is for me to accept that I’m fucking crazy. And now I have to talk to this ghost, that you don’t even believe is really a ghost, because again, I’m fucking crazy and this is all in my head. You’re saying that I’m a psycho and this is all a culmination of trauma, and my parents, and a bunch of other bullshit.” You rub at your aching temples. You’re mad now, you’ve forgotten about your fear. Anger has replaced it wholly, a misdirection, a distraction from the truth that you don’t want to accept. 

“You’re not crazy. But I do think that this ‘ghost’ is what you just said: a culmination of all of those things. It’s a ‘physical’ picture of your trauma.” 

“So what, now I’m a schizophrenic?” 

Your therapist laughs a little, drily. “No, you’re not. Schizophrenia isn’t something to joke about or be taken lightly. This is a trauma response. It’s very different.” 

You don’t reply, mostly because you’re pissed off at your therapist for insinuating that this is all in your head, because you know what you saw. And now that you’d had a few days to really think about it, you knew that it was real, even though Taehyun couldn’t see it, and your therapist is insisting that it’s some bullshit trauma response. 

The ghost in your house is real. You knew him all those years ago, and he still knows you now. 

The once-cold drink in your hand is now warming quickly from the sunlight reflecting off of the glass bottle. It’s only half-drunk, but you already don’t really want it any more, mostly because of the unease in your stomach at the thought of having to clean out the inside of the house now. You only started on the outside to procrastinate; they had let you know that repainting and such was not on your end of the deal. That would be taken care of by professionals. And now that you stare at your subpar paint job on the front door, you completely understand why. It looks cheap and messy, even though you did everything right. 

You’re staring at the door, trying to work up the courage to open it, when your phone begins to vibrate in your pocket, the sudden movement making you jolt. Plucking the device from said pocket, you immediately pick up the call, seeing Taehyun’s name flash across the screen. 

“Hello?” you ask drily, thumping the bottom of your warming drink against the stair you’re sitting on, the mindless clanks mimicking an old song you used to like. 

“Where are you?” he asks, “I’m at your hotel.” 

Uncomfortably, you gnaw at your bottom lip as you quickly scan the area. A slight breeze whips through your sticky clothes, and you clear your throat awkwardly before replying. “Uh… went out for lunch,” you said dully, “remember that Thai place we liked back in high school?” 

“Christ, you’re really bad at lying. Don’t you remember when it closed down four years ago?” You can hear Taehyun shuffle around and sigh deeply. “You’re back at the house again, aren’t you?” 

“Fine, I am,” you snap. “What else was I supposed to do?” 

“I don’t know, maybe hire someone like I said? I bet there’s a bunch of idiots here that peaked in high school that would love to do it. It’s not like people like Seo Changbin have much to do after their football career crashed and died before they even got to college.” 

“Why the hell are you so bitter all of a sudden? And Changbin was one of the nice ones, you ass. You know he’s happy now, fuck football for destroying his shoulder.” 

“It’s not good for you to be back there!” he says, exasperated. “Forget Changbin, that’s not the point.” 

You sigh loudly. “I… I know. But there’s something about this place that makes me feel like I have to figure some shit out—like, here. In the house.” 

“Have you talked to your therapist lately? It’s your unresolved trauma on the phone.” 

“And that’s why I have to resolve it now!” you exclaim, “Look, I’m going to be careful, okay? I’ll take it slow and if some more freaky shit happens I’ll leave. But you have to help me pay for a professional then, you owe me after I helped you score that date last year.” 

“First of all, they ended up fucking me over, big time. Second of all, I feel like a date isn’t equivalent to money. But thirdly—fine. Just… let me know if you need anything, okay?” You feel a lump in your throat arise at the sudden empathy in his voice, and how it softened at the end of his statement. As much as you were annoyed with him, you knew that Taehyun only wanted you to be safe, and he out of all people knew just how much of a toll this process would take on you. 

“I will. Now get back to work, your lunch break ended twenty minutes ago,” you tease. 

“Ha ha,” he says drily, over pronouncing the words with a bitter tongue. “Call me when you get back to the hotel.” 

You roll your eyes to yourself and hang up after confirming that you would, in fact, make sure to call him when you get back, and then you turn your attention back to the project standing in front of you. You know that it’s time to go back inside, and you have a new burst of energy thanks to Taehyun doubting you. Maybe that burst of energy is mostly from pettiness, but it’s there nonetheless, and you plan to make use of it. 

You take out the key—that nasty old key—and slip it into the lock. The door opens much quicker than it did last time; there wasn’t enough time for it to stiffen as it did when it had been left alone for some time, and the door opens. It’s a little underwhelming, surprisingly. You weren’t quite sure what you were expecting—something big and dramatic? Something straight out of a horror film? But instead, it looks almost welcoming. You think that if you hadn’t had such horrible memories associated with that same front hall, you would find it warm and inviting. The air inside is stuffy and musty, but the sunlight that streams in through the open front door illuminates the dust rising from the ground in a way that makes it look like the air is full of glitter, and it takes your breath away as you stare at the golden flecks dancing in the slight breeze. 

Looking around, you realize that your work might be easier than you previously thought. Though the entire house was grimy, and there were definitely boxes all over the place, most of their salvageable furniture and belongings had already been cleared out and donated—you having told the people in charge that you didn’t give a fuck what happened to any of it. It wasn’t like you wanted a floral patterned couch with an indent from where your father used to sit his lazy ass while he screamed his head off at you. 

You decided that starting with the boxes of miscellaneous stuff would be your best bet—once you cleared those out, it would be much easier to clean the floors, without the hassle of moving dirty cardboard around all over the clean floors. For a moment you hesitate, but then realize that your clothes are already covered in paint and sweat—and honestly, more than a few stains from your lunch too—so you sit down on the floor, trying to pretend like you didn’t hear the sticky sound that it made as it stuck to your pants. You reach for the nearest box, and find that it’s full of nothing but old magazines, which you scoff at and immediately push into an empty corner, dubbing it the “trash” pile. You were already quite certain that most of if not all the boxes would be making their way to that very same corner from the looks of it. 

It’s almost nice once you get into a routine. You rifle through a box, pulling out perhaps one or two trinkets you could donate, an old shirt here and there that isn’t in bad shape, and you even find a pristine lamp in one box, still covered in the plastic that it came in. 

You aren’t even halfway through the boxes when you grunt to yourself as you drag a particularly large and heavy box out from underneath what used to be your dinner table, falling flat on your ass as you lose your grip and fly backwards. “Ow,” you mutter to yourself, as you relent and open the box right there, giving up on trying to get it completely out from under the table. Much to your surprise—it’s a box full of old records, and a majority of the weight seemed to come from the record player that was right on top of all the stacked vinyls. You cringe a little, hoping that none of them are damaged, and you exhale loudly as you set the record player on top of the table and fumble with the cord for a moment before plugging it in and watching it start to spin, without any music playing. You wipe the sweat from your forehead with a dust-covered forearm before wiping your hands on your filthy pants and starting to flip through the plentiful choices you have in front of you on the floor. You can see lots of your parents’ old favorites—when they weren’t being absolute shit parents to you, they would let you look through the box, and then list their favorites. You would always pick one of their favorites, just to make them happy. And most of the time it would, for a little while. 

This time, you can’t help but select one of your mom’s favorites, and you silently slide the old vinyl out of its protective paper cover before carefully setting it down on the player, the needle silently spinning for just a moment before the song starts to play. It’s warped now—from so many uses or carelessness, you don’t know—but it’s that same song, and you can’t help but sink into a chair and just watch that black record go round and round in a circle as the lyrics you know by heart start to weave their way into your ears. 

“That was her favorite one.” 

No. You can feel it—that very same presence that was there on the day that you and Taehyun first explored the house—it’s cold, and it makes your throat dry up, and you feel stuck to the chair you’re sitting in. 

“You used to play it all the time.” 

“Who are you?” you whisper, shielding your face from said presence, even though its voice is coming from behind you. 

“You really don’t remember me then, do you?” The voice is mournful now—or maybe mournful isn’t the right word. It’s almost whiny. 

“Obviously not,” you hiss, starting to get annoyed for some reason. 

“Can you look at me then?” his energy matches yours, exasperation clear in his nasally tone. 

The fear has all but dissolved from your body now that you have braved an attempt at a conversation with this thing, so you turn your upper body around to face it straight-on, and there’s no hiding the shock that spreads across your face as you stare down the presence—no, the ghost—that you know all too well. 

“I knew you’d remember me if you saw me,” he said, “I haven’t forgotten you, though.” 

You hold a grimy hand to your forehead, breathing heavily as you think about it some more. Of course you knew this idiot—he was one of the only solaces in your entire childhood, apart from Taehyun, though he came into it at a much later time. Now that you think about it, this ghost was the only thing that came to mind when you tried to come up with any sort of happy memory before the age of fourteen or so. 

“Yeonjun, I…” you trail off. Saying his name alone was too foreign on your lips; the way it rolled off your tongue left a bitter taste in your mouth. You couldn’t finish what you wanted to say, because to be quite honest, you weren’t sure at all what you were going to say. Sorry I forgot about you for like a decade, even though you were the only friend I had for forever. How’ve you been? How was it hanging with my parents as they withered away and died? 

There was probably a way you could have sugar coated all of that, but you didn’t think about it too much as he just shrugged and looked off to the side. “Time passes differently for me, remember? I know it’s been a long time since I’ve seen you—even more so since we last talked, but I’m used to being alone, so it’s okay.” 

You feel even worse after he says that, and he only makes it worse as he corrects himself. “Oh, wait. You don’t remember, right. Well you see, I’m pretty sure that ghosts, especially ones that have been dead for a while, process time differently than humans—” 

“How did they die?” you blurt out, interrupting his rambling. 

Yeonjun freezes, hands stopping their visual explanation along with the vocal part. You watch his fingers twitch before he lowers them, and he kicks at the floor and sighs, loudly. “Come on. It’s been like ten years, and that’s the first thing you say to me?” 

“What am I supposed to say?” you ask, feeling guilty but defensive all at once. “What the fuck am I supposed to say to a ghost? A real, literal fucking ghost.” 

“I don’t know, man! I’m not like—stupid. You could ask me how I’ve been, what the hell I’ve been up to all this time, literally anything about me instead of your fucking parents!” He’s yelling now, his voice bouncing off the dirty walls, and you crumple up, limbs folding in, head tucked close to your chest, as he shouts. But he lowers his voice after that, and runs a hand through his hair, which looks no different than it did all those years ago. “I mean, fuck, dude. You were the only thing I had. And then you left. And now you’re back and—and you don’t even remember me. You don’t remember shit.” 

“I’m sorry.” It’s a shit apology, but Yeonjun seems to accept it as he chuckles bitterly. 

“I am too. But… I know it’s not your fault and—and I’m really happy that you got out of here when you did. I’m even glad that you had that guy with you when you first came back, I know that he was important to you back then.” 

“You mean Taehyun?” 

“Yeah. I remember the day you met him, and you were so excited that you had a real, live human friend for once.” Yeonjun shoves his hands in the pockets of his jeans and sighs. “I think that was when we slowly stopped… talking.” 

Of course, you don’t remember that much yet. You hardly remember Yeonjun himself—you just know that he’s important. For whatever reason. But you slowly nod as if you remember, but it doesn’t fool him and one side of his lips twist up in a bitter sort of smirk. 

“You don’t have to pretend like you remember, okay? Maybe it’ll come back to you. Or maybe it won’t, but either way, it’s fine. I’m just glad you didn’t yell at me and run this time.” 

“Sorry,” you say again. “I was really scared last time.” 

“You’re not scared now?” 

“No, I remember you now. Not—not a lot—but I know that you were important to me, so… I guess you can’t be too bad.” 

Yeonjun finally cracks a smile. “Damn straight,” he says, and the subtle twitch of his pursed upper lip sends a line of fire down your spine as you remember something so distant yet so tangible—and you can’t help but sigh with nostalgia. 

“Really? Iris again?” 

Your fingers fumble with the paper slip that your mother’s favorite record hides within as you jump at the sound of Yeonjun’s voice. “Yeonjun!” you scold, “I almost dropped it!” 

Yeonjun chuckles and floats down to the floor, so close to touching the beige carpet that his semi-translucent shirt nearly drags across it. If it wasn’t for his inability to collide with solid objects, he would have been laying belly-down on the floor across from you to maintain eye contact, seeing as how short you were when you knelt down to rifle through the box of records beneath the coffee table. “Come on, sugar,” he drawls, “it’s your sixth birthday. You should be able to choose what song you wanna hear.” 

Your little fingers tighten around the record, now half-slipped out of the case. “I don’t know…” you say doubtfully, hesitancy laced throughout your voice. “I’m never allowed to choose the music, you know that.” 

“It’s your special day!” he exclaims, floating upwards and spreading his arms out, as if he were taking in the sunshine on a lovely summer afternoon. “If not now, then when?” 

There’s something about Yeonjun that makes you want to listen to him. Not in the way that you feel with your parents—no, they’re demanding in a way that makes your stomach hurt when you’re around them, even if you’ve done everything right—but in an entirely new way. You know that he doesn’t have any malicious intent. Yeonjun just likes having fun with you, and there’s so little fun to be found around the house. And after all, he’s right. 

It is your birthday. 

So you set your mother’s favorite record aside, placing it carefully on top of the coffee table so that no one steps on it accidentally, and your stubby little kid fingers gingerly flip through the rest of the records before you settle on your favorite. 

It’s one of the newest ones in the box, with undented corners that are still sharp enough to cut you if you aren’t too careful, and no fingerprints all over the shiny cover. Your aunt bought it for you and told you to only listen to it when your parents weren’t around, so that you didn’t get on their nerves. It’s loud and punk-y and it makes you feel like a real big kid. It’s the music that you hear all of the older kids in your neighborhood talk about when they walk down your street and their loud voices carry in the wind up to your open window. 

There’s a rush in your head, and you swear you can hear the blood gushing through your veins with anticipation as your hands shake when you place the record carefully onto the machine. It starts spinning, and you drop the needle in just the correct place. 

Funky instrumentals and the loud, clear voice of one of your favorite singers travels through your ears as you clap in delight, and Yeonjun starts dancing in a silly sort of way to make you laugh. “See?” he said over the music, “isn’t this nice?” 

But before you could reply, you felt all of the happiness melt out of your body and disappear into the ground beneath you as you felt a large hand on your shoulder. Yeonjun’s eyes travel from where they met with yours, to the intimidatingly large figure that’s behind you. 

“Why don’t we take that out now,” says your father, in a voice that is terrifyingly calm. 

You don’t want to even look back at him for a second, so you quickly turn off the machine and pick up the record, trying to quickly put it back so that your mother’s favorite music can be put back on and it’ll be like nothing ever happened—but your father snatches the record from your hands before you can finish putting it back in the case, and you watch with shock as he snaps it in half with his hands. Little black plastic flecks fly through the air as he drops the halves onto the floor and uses his foot to crush them even further beyond fixing. 

“That’ll be you next time,” he says quietly, before walking away and disappearing down the dark hall to his room. 

You sit there in silence with Yeonjun as the first verse of Iris starts playing yet again. 

Well, maybe you didn’t sigh with nostalgia. Maybe it was something more like rumination—something that left a bitter taste on your tongue. Either way, you remembered something about Yeonjun, and that alone made you crack a weak smile as Iris continued to warble in the background of your reunion. 

— 

It’s mid-August before you try to ask Yeonjun about your parents again. You don’t really know why you want to know so bad—it’s a bit morbid, really—but you feel a pull in your chest that won’t go away. It’s similar to the pull that brought you back to the house and back to Yeonjun in the first place, and that is why you decide to ask him just once more as you’re scrubbing the kitchen floor. 

You’re on your hands and knees, working away at the sticky, dusty floor, and you already know that the knees of your jeans are completely soaked through from the way the denim is sticking to your skin. You’re using a sponge—one that was once a bright yellow, and is now an odd gray—to rinse away the sticky residue that clings to the linoleum. “You missed a spot there,” Yeonjun says, pointing to an uncleaned spot next to the refrigerator, and you roll your eyes and huff as you sit back on your ankles, wiping away the sweat from your brow with one soapy arm. 

“I know you can’t technically help, but you’re really getting on my nerves,” you say, tossing the grimy sponge into the bucket of soapy water. 

“I’m keeping you company!” he exclaims, “would you rather be alone?” 

“No,” you say, sulking. 

There’s a silence that settles between the two of you then, just for a moment. The only sound is the faint popping of bubbles in your bucket that sits beside you, until you take a deep breath and decide to just go for it. “Yeonjun,” you start, “if it’s okay… could you tell me what happened to my parents?” 

Yeonjun stills. You watch his eyes lower and his mouth twitch before he sighs aloud. “Are you sure you want to know?” he asks, “I thought you didn’t care about what happened to them.” 

“I don’t care about them,” you say quickly, “but… I just want to know.” 

Yeonjun settles right above the counter, floating just an inch or so above the grimy granite, and crosses his legs, leaning back as if he could use the cabinets as a backrest. “Well,” he says, “I can’t say for sure, but I’m pretty sure it was the smoking that was the final straw.” 

The small white and blue box of cigarettes sits in front of you on the coffee table. It’s about half-empty, half of the cancer sticks inside smoked away and settled in your parents’ lungs. You know that smoking is bad for you—you’d known ever since the second grade when there was a whole presentation about it at school, and a few of the kids had figured out that that bitter smell of tobacco was, in fact, coming from you. Thus, you endured a year and a half of kids teasing you about smoking, and when you protested and said that it was your parents that smoked and not you, it really only got worse—because for some reason, the kids found it comedic that you came from somewhat of a broken home. And worse, for some reason, even though this was completely, one hundred percent your parents’ fault, you still felt an urge to defend them. You lost count of how many times you pretended that your mom packed you your lunches, just like all the other kids’ moms did, when you were the one that had woken up before the sun had risen just to put together a sandwich and write a little note. “Have a great day, I love you!” the little pink post-it said, signed “Mom” with a flourish. You tried to mimic the way your mother’s handwriting looped and curved, how there were two little loops inside the ‘o’ because she always half-assed her cursive, and it ended up somewhere between print and script. Or, how you pretended that your father was to take you to the zoo the weekend after Shin Ryujin bragged that her whole family went on a trip to the aquarium. 

None of it was ever true. And as you stared at that little box, all dented from being carried around in your mother’s purse, in your father’s pocket, you felt a rush of hatred towards it, more hate and negativity than your little self had ever felt before. 

You snatched up the box, almost crushing—no, for sure crushing the cigarettes left inside—and you shoved it underneath the couch, huffing as you balled your hands into fists. 

“What are you doing?” Yeonjun hissed, “they’re gonna go crazy looking for those!” 

“Let them!” you whisper-shout, “I hate cigarettes! I hate how they smell, I hate how people think I use them, and I hate how my parents like them more than they like me!” You run past Yeonjun and towards the staircase, bare feet thumping against the stairs softly as your mother briskly walks past those same stairs, wondering aloud where her cigarettes were. 

“Where the hell are they?” you hear her shout, and you feel guilt tug at your heart as you squeeze your pillow to your chest. Her footsteps approach, less than a minute after you closed the door behind you, and you side-eye Yeonjun as he stares back at you helplessly. “Did you touch my cigarettes?” she asks as soon as she swings open the door, with such force that the doorknob slams into the wall and leaves a mark in the white paint. 

You’ve always been bad at lying, and this is why your mother grabs you by the hair and tosses you across the room, screaming that she just needed one to get through the rest of the day, and now she was fucked, absolutely fucked, all because of you. 

And all that Yeonjun did was watch, unable to help you fight back. 

It wasn’t like you wanted to anyways. You lay there on the floor where you landed once you were thrown, with silent tears trickling down your cheeks as your mother screamed at you, flecks of saliva spilling from her angry lips. 

“So… when did you start smoking?” 

“Shut up. I know you’re judging me.” You breathe out a cloud of smoke and rub at your tired eyes with your fingers that still smell like cleaning supplies. 

“It’s literally what killed your mom,” he said defensively, “I just told you that.” 

“Then let it kill me too.” 

Yeonjun doesn’t reply, and you can feel his eyes on you as you sit on the stairs that lead up to the hell-house that you know you have to finish cleaning, puffing away at the one thing that’s never let you down before. 

When you look back to ask Yeonjun why no one bothered to check on your dad after your mom passed, you drop the half-smoked cigarette. 

He’s gone. 

SEPTEMBER

September brings a slight chill in the air, an ever-so subtle reminder that summer is now over—technically, not officially. You thought that by finishing the ground floor before summer ended, you’d be off the hook for the colder months, but once you managed to break down the door to the basement again and find the hidden handle that led to the attic you realized you were kinda-sorta fucked. There was no way you’d finish this any time soon. 

After the day that Yeonjun disappeared on you, he’d only appeared every now and then, his voice weaker and more mature now, losing that childish Peter Pan-esque edge that you now realize he’d always harbored. It was like he’d sobered up, realized the weight of what was happening, almost. But he was still Yeonjun after all—which you now understood was a good thing, after recalling more and more fond memories with him. 

He’d guided you around and into all of the boxes that were stuffed against the wall in your living room and the kitchen, pushed up against the sides of the hallway, hidden away underneath both the kitchen and bathroom sinks, and you realized that even though you’d said you wished he would stop annoying you, the company was actually quite nice. When Yeonjun wasn’t making fun of you or berating you for smoking, he was good at holding a conversation. It was almost like you hadn’t been apart for over ten years, almost like he was a real, live person—your friend, that wasn’t a dead guy that inhabited your childhood home. Multiple times you caught yourself thinking that you should introduce him to Taehyun, that the two of them would get along quite well, before remembering what happened when they actually “met” that first and last time. It was bittersweet, remembering that Yeonjun couldn’t be seen by most other people, and even if they could, in fact, see him, there was a very limited number of things you could do with him, seeing as how he couldn’t leave the house or make physical contact with anyone or anything. 

And once the ground floor was cleared out, sparkling like it was almost new, he was the one who showed you which kitchen drawer the key to the basement was kept in, almost identical to the key to the front door. You finally got around to getting a key ring for the two, even putting two charms on the ring alongside the old keys—one, a shitty little beaded trinket that you remembered making back in elementary school, and two, a little plastic ghost that you found at the dollar store. The day that you got it you showed it to Yeonjun, shaking it in front of his face as he glared at you. “It reminds me of you!” you said playfully as he sulked. 

“I don’t look like that,” he insisted, “they’ve got it all wrong! What lame ass ghost looks like that?” 

But you named it Yeonjun anyways, much to his distaste, and he eventually, begrudgingly, accepted it. 

It’s a warmer day when you finally return to begin clearing out the basement, and you aren’t quite sure what to expect. Yeonjun had told you that it was pretty much the same situation as the ground floor, but a lot of them were opened and just filled with junk that was all garbage-worthy, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to get through even though there were plenty of them. You show up to the house whistling a tune that you can’t quite place, swinging your keys in one hand and carrying a bucket of cleaning supplies in the other. 

“I was wondering when you’d show up.” 

“Stop trying to scare me.” You glare at Yeonjun’s head that’s poking through the front door—now repainted once again, properly this time. 

“Just trying to have a little fun,” he says, lips curling up into a smile. You can’t help but smile too as you roll your eyes—you’d missed his silly side. It had disappeared a little after he saw you smoking. “Are you starting the basement today?” he asks, floating beside you as you shut the door behind you and walk down the hall to the basement door. 

“Yep,” you sigh, “and according to you… I have a lot to get through.” 

“I’ll be keeping you company, don’t worry doll,” he says, saluting at you. 

“If only you could help clean too,” you say drily, inserting the key into the large, golden lock and twisting. The door creaks open on its own once you take out the key, and you fumble around for the lightswitch, which you remember is right outside the door so that you can’t control the lights once you’re down there. 

The lights switch on, yellow and flickering, and a faint buzzing fills your ears, the effort of working apparently a bit much for the old wiring. “Ready?” he asks, following your gaze, looking down the long, steep staircase. 

“I guess so,” you reply, unease creeping into your mind. 

To be quite fair—you didn’t know anyone that would enjoy a creepy basement, especially one in an old house like yours—even during the day. The bare wooden stairs are slippery with dust, and you make sure to hold on tightly to the railing for safety even though that too is filthy. Cobwebs and little piles of dirt and miscellaneous crumbs gather in the corners of each individual stair, and you keep an eye out for spiders or other little creatures that might be roaming the area, thinking that it was abandoned by humans and therefore the perfect home for them. The old wood creaks loudly, and you worry that it might actually give underneath your weight, but each stair holds, and you finally make it down to the nightmare-inducing basement. If not nightmare-inducing for all of the horrible memories that were starting to come back to you, then simply because of the sheer filth. Yeonjun had failed to warn you of just how thick the layers of dust and grime were. 

“When was the last time anyone was down here?” you ask, coughing as you stir up particles by simply walking over to the nearest pile of boxes. You wave your hand in front of you, desperately trying to fan away anything that was threatening to invade your lungs. 

“I was here just yesterday!” he protested, before wrinkling his nose and backtracking. “Oh, you mean someone living…” You nod awkwardly, placing the bucket of cleaning supplies on the floor as you start to open up the closest box, which you realize quickly is just full of old shopping receipts. “Man… it’s been years, then. They stopped coming down here once they realized there was no more room to hoard shit. Everything here is at least a few years old, so beware of food.” He wiggles his eyebrows at you at the last part, and you chuckle, taking it as a joke until you find a box of canned goods so old that several of the containers have exploded, leaking rancid juice all over the box and even onto the floor. It’s long since dried up, but it’s still sticky to the touch, and you gagged at the stench. 

“I don’t even know what this originally was,” you complain, tossing the entire box into a large, heavy-duty garbage bag, “those idiots ripped off all the labels.” 

“Maybe… beans?” Yeonjun guesses, though it’s unclear. 

“Whatever, I’d prefer to live in ignorant bliss,” you declared, moving to the next box. This one, unlike most of the others, is taped shut, and you have to use the basement key to rip it open, having forgotten a pocket knife or any other tool that you could use to cut through something, especially something as tough as old duct tape. “Oh, Christ…” you mutter under your breath, as you pull out the trinket inside and hold it to the flickering ceiling light, “Jun, come here. Do you remember this?” 

“How could I forget? You talked to it like it was real even though I was right here,” he grouched, after floating over curiously and realizing what you were holding. 

“It has a name,” you sing, waving the little doll around. 

Yeonjun stays silent, floating beside another wall of boxes. His expression looks almost pained. 

“What’s wrong?” you ask, lowering the doll. 

“You do remember why you named it what you did, right?” he asks. His voice is strained. 

You sit down on the floor, ignoring the filth, and stare at the doll in your hands. It’s threadbare, grayed, and smelly now. It was all of those things back then too, but once you say its name you understand why Yeonjun is so upset. 

“That isn’t even a clever insult.” You wipe your eyes and stare up at Yeonjun, whose arms are crossed as he stares down at you. You’re sitting on your bedroom floor, crying to yourself about the assholes at school that just won’t shut the fuck up about the way you smell—hence your new nickname, Smoky. “It’s actually laughable how stupid it is,” he scoffs, and a particularly loud sniffle from you prompts him to settle down closer to the floor so that he can look you in the eye. “Come on, it’s not that bad.” 

“It could be anything,” you exclaim, “it’s just the fact that they use a name at all to call me out and stuff—it makes me feel singled out. It makes me feel like shit.” 

“Don’t—don’t say that word,” Yeonjun says softly, “come on—want to play some music? Or we could—” 

“No,” you interrupt, standing up and turning away from him. “I just want to be alone.” 

You hear Yeonjun sigh. It’s deep, and long, and you can tell you’ve hurt his feelings. You feel guilt pooling in your stomach as he tells you he’d be around if you changed your mind—he was only trying to help, after all. But you can’t help it. You really just want to be alone. You climb into your bed and curl up into a little ball on top of your covers, staring at your old gray stuffed cat sitting next to your pillow. 

His name is Smoky, too. 

You slowly reach out to pick him up, and then you’re holding him close to your chest and sobbing. It’s stupid, and you feel like a goddamn idiot. It’s just a word, it’s just something that people are using to get under your skin, and you’re letting them. It sounded silly when you explained it to Yeonjun, and it sounds silly when you repeat it in your head. But it doesn’t sound silly when it counts—when someone yells it out at you when you’re walking down the hallway, or when you have to work with someone in class. And that is something that you can’t make sense of, and you know Yeonjun will never understand. 

You’re shaken from your pity party when your door slams open—the door knob hits the wall in the same place it always does, further chipping away at the paint. “Are you really in bed right now?” your mother asks sharply, and you sit up immediately, wiping away your tears. She stands there in the dark hallway, one hand curled around the door knob and the other resting on her hip in a judgemental stance. “I asked you to clean the kitchen this morning.” Just like it always is when it comes to her anger, it’s quiet at first. 

“I forgot,” you say drily, not in the mood to do any sort of cleaning—or be screamed at by your mother. But you instantly regret your tone when you see a fire alight in her eyes at this opportunity to punish you. “I’m sorry,” you blurt out, “I’ll do it now.” 

“No,” she says, “you’re going to clear out the basement instead, and you can stay there tonight while you think about what sort of idiot would sass their mother. You really think that’s something we’re gonna allow? Do you like being punished or something?” 

“No,” you say meekly. You start to stand up, but it’s too slow for your mother, and she grabs you roughly by your shirt and starts pulling you down the hall. All you can hear is the sound of her heels clicking against the floor and your blood pumping in your ears. You almost trip over your own feet as you’re pulled down the stairs, and your ankle rolls as your mother sharply turns a corner. You grit your teeth instead of crying out. 

Your mother is breathing heavily as she fumbles with the lock for a moment before pulling open the door roughly, and she jerks her head, motioning towards it. “Go.” 

For some reason, that’s worse than if she were the one to push you. 

You step forward shakily, but with your bad ankle, you can’t catch yourself, and you tumble down the first half of the stairs, landing with a thud. You’re facing the wall, but you watch the light leave the room as your mother slams the door. 

“Are you okay?” Yeonjun’s alarmed voice asks, and you suck in a deep, shaky breath as you push yourself up into a sitting position, shaking. 

“What do you think?” you ask. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, but you just shake your head. 

“It’s not your fault.” 

The door opens once more, and you look up to the light, seeing your mother. Since the light is coming from behind her, her entire front is in the shadows, and you can’t read her facial expression. She’s holding something in her hand. You watch silently as she holds it up, looking at it for a moment before throwing it down at you. It lands in front of you, and she slams the door again. This time, you hear the lock click before she walks away. 

You can’t see anything, but you grope around for whatever it was she threw down. Your fingers brush against something soft and fuzzy, and you know what it is as soon as you pull it to your chest. Little Smoky, still damp from your tears. 

Smoky never sees the light of day again. 

“Poor guy,” is all you say as you stare at the limp cat in your hands. He smells like everything else in the basement now, reeking of mildew and rot. You wonder how you forgot about him, but then you feel guilty as you remember how you somehow forgot about a whole person—a whole ghost—and you slowly set him down. 

“So you remember,” Yeonjun confirms. 

“I’m remembering a lot these days,” you say honestly. “It’s—it’s shit that I haven’t thought about in years. A bunch of repressed memories.” 

“Is it hard?” he asks, “remembering, I mean.” 

“Most of it… yeah, I guess you could say it’s hard. It just reminds me of how miserable I was before I had my own life.” You smile, a little sadly. “But… that also makes me much more grateful for my happiness now, you know? I never thought I could be happy, and I proved myself wrong. It’s a good feeling.” 

“Yeah?” Yeonjun asks, looking up at the horizontal windows that line the tops of your basement walls. “Can you tell me what it’s like out there now?” His voice sounds a little distant, foggy. “What’s changed?” 

“That Thai place I told you about closed down,” you said, “and now that old store that used to sell handmade baby clothes is a Starbucks. There’s a new shopping mall, but everything there sucks and is way too overpriced.” 

But that doesn’t satisfy Yeonjun, and you know it. 

“The people—the people are still the same, Jun. Really. That’s partially why it was so hard to come back here and see everyone. It’s like I went back in time ten years. It’s like I’m still stuck here.” You swallow hard. “But really. I promise that nothing has really changed since you last saw it. Towns like these never do.” 

Yeonjun seems to shake off whatever far-away thought had overtaken him and clears his throat. “Right, yeah. Thanks.” He hides his face from you as he turns to examine another stack of boxes. “There’s a shit ton of coupons in here.” 

Your heart thumps painfully as you watch your friend try to hide his grief from you, and you feel bad for not thinking about what you said more. While working through your own feelings, you forgot to consider how Yeonjun felt, after all these years alone. 

“Really?” you ask, your voice wobbling as you start to cry for him. “Let me come see.” 

— 

Unlike the basement, you were never allowed in the attic. 

The attic was not a place you were forced into as a punishment. 

Because the attic is gorgeous, you realize. 

It’s by far the cleanest room in the house, though still covered in a thick layer of dust. However, it’s easy to sweep away and collect in a dustpan since there’s no sticky residue that it clings to, unlike the multiple layers of grease and other substances that had accumulated on the basement floor after years of neglect. 

Cleaning the windows first was a smart choice, allowing natural sunlight to peek through the panes of bubbled glass, casting wavy shadows on the hardwood floor. Indeed, it’s especially beautiful in the late afternoon sunset, when the rays are bright and warm and golden, the entire room looking like it was doused in honey and maple syrup and everything sweet and thick. It’s then that you don’t mind spending long hours there at the house, forgetting all of the bad that went on behind closed doors. For in the attic, in that sweet sugary autumn light, it’s almost like you can imagine a different childhood in that house, one that was happy and sweet—one that you wanted to savor on your tongue, instead of swallow past as soon as possible. 

Yeonjun flutters in and out of the room, making passive snarky remarks as you pull out vintage photo albums and memories that you hardly recognize. Really, you hardly even recognize them as something that your parents would want to keep around, not finding it to match the personalities that you knew so unfortunately well. They never wanted to make memories with you, not good ones anyways.

As you dig through old photo frames and trinkets, you realize there’s a surprising amount that you find intriguing, that you want to keep for your own. Naturally, you throw out all of the actual belongings, not caring about your mother’s high school yearbook or your dad’s old collection of Kangol hats. 

“What’s that?” Yeonjun asks, appearing next to you as you use your thumb to rub dust off of an old vase, revealing intricate hand-painted patterns beneath the layers of dust. 

“Something that belonged to my mom, I think,” you say, admiring it before setting it aside in a box, which is growing quite full of things that you want to keep. Yeonjun’s gaze falls on the box, and his expression hardens a little. “What?” you ask, frowning. “Why are you looking at me like that?” 

“I wish I could come with you,” he says, finally, after a few moments of awkward, expectant silence. You feel a lump form in your throat as Yeonjun stares down at the box of things, his expression conflicted. “I—I know I can’t, but… I’m really going to miss you, when you’re done here,” he whispers, a crestfallen look on his face. 

Your voice feels thick with emotion as you speak, but it comes out sounding almost monotonous. “I wish you could come with me too,” you say, even though you’re not sure how you would fare in life with a ghost tagging around constantly. Even if it’s Yeonjun. 

He smiles, a little bitterly—you can tell that he’s jealous of your life, of the fact that you get to live and breathe and walk around. “No, you don’t,” he replies, sighing. “And I get it. Really, it wouldn’t be right… to hold you back like that.” 

“You wouldn’t be holding me back,” you say, immediately, even though you know it’s not true—it was your initial thought. 

“Be honest, okay? I’m not going to be offended. And even if I was, it’s not like I can do anything about it,” he says, chuckling now, his good-natured attitude returning. 

“You’re already haunting my house,” you say, managing a small chuckle. 

“Hey, it wasn’t always your house!” he retorts, laughing, but then both of your smiles fade, slowly. You’d assumed, of course, that Yeonjun had lived here before you and your parents moved in, but you never really thought about how or why he died here. You’d never asked either, thinking it was probably rude to ask a ghost how they died. 

“But, uh… it’s yours now, of course. And it was yours for much longer than it was mine.” 

“Was it?” you ask, furrowing your brow at him. 

Yeonjun shifts uncomfortably, looking away. 

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” you say quickly, feeling guilty, “but… I guess, I do wonder.” You bite your tongue, hoping that wasn’t the wrong thing to say. But Yeonjun just sighs, and then looks up at you with a small, understanding smile. 

“Remember what I said about not needing to hold back?” he asks, smiling crookedly. You again manage a small smile. 

He bites his lower lip, running his tongue over it as he thinks. “I don’t know much,” he begins, slowly, “so I hope you’re not expecting details… but I do remember living here with my dad, long before you and your family moved in. I don’t remember how or when I died, but I remember a few things about what I was like as a person. That’s mostly it.” 

“What were you like?” you ask, leaning back against a stack of boxes and looking at him, a soft smile on your face. You can’t help it—he does look pretty in this light, translucent and almost silvery in the waning sunlight. 

“Like this,” he says, grinning, “just as handsome and perfect.” 

You roll your eyes, and for a moment you fully believe that he’s a solid, real person and you can reach over and playfully shove him to make him stop being annoying. Your muscles twitch as you almost move to do it. “Really,” you say, smiling, “what were you like?” 

His smile fades slightly, and he clears his throat. “Well… actually, I wasn’t as great. I was kind of a jerk, in school and everything. I had a lot of friends that were just as horrible as me, and we would go around and act like we owned the world.” He wrinkles his nose at the memory, displeased. “It’s really embarrassing to admit now…” 

“So you were one of those people,” you say, unable to hold back your smug smile. “I knew it. You gave off that energy.” 

Yeonjun groans. “Take that back. Please. I swear, I’ve changed.” 

You again resist the urge to nudge him playfully. “I’m just messing with you. You’re nothing like that now,” you say, chuckling. 

A cool breeze drifts over your bare arms, and you shiver, looking over at the open window. Night has fallen by now, and the warm syrupy light is completely gone. The room is only lit by a small lamp in the corner of the attic, with darkness creeping in every corner and crevice. Yeonjun looks truly silvery and translucent now in the moonlight, his features beautiful and sharp in the cool air. 

“I should probably go,” you say, after a little while. 

Yeonjun’s face doesn’t change for a moment, like he’s frozen in time, but then he just nods, so slightly that it barely looks like he moved. 

Without any further acknowledgement, you stand up, dusting off the seat of your pants, and leave Yeonjun amongst the last few boxes in the attic that you couldn’t fit into your car. As you lock your doors and sigh, feeling the weariness settling in your bones from the long day of work, you pull out your phone as a queer feeling overcomes you. Though you’ve never felt the urge to before, you’re suddenly incredibly curious about Yeonjun’s past. 

Is it an invasion of privacy? Perhaps. But like he said—he was already dead. 

Quickly typing out a search of his name and the general area, you’re surprised when dozens of articles flood in, all dating back to the early 2000s. And then, you see it. The words flash before your eyes in stark contrast, the images only adding to the disturbances, with flashes of red in a dilapidated, neglected house. 

FATHER KILLS SON. MURDER-SUICIDE. DEVASTATING LOSS TO THE COMMUNITY. WE MOURN THE LOSS OF CHOI YEONJUN, 18-YEAR OLD STAR FOOTBALL PLAYER WITH A FULL-RIDE TO AN IVY LEAGUE.

Your phone clatters to the floor of your car, slipping between the seats and leaving you in complete darkness. For a moment, you sit there in stunned silence before cursing under your breath and shoving your hand between the seats, feeling for the smooth screen of your phone. 

You find it quickly, and see a flash of an image before exiting out of your search. An incredibly dirty and dingy room, which you now recognize to be your bedroom, with a blood stained mattress and other dark questionable stains on the once-white sheets and on the floors below. 

OCTOBER 

Eight. Eight times. 

That’s how many times you’ve returned to the house since you found out how Yeonjun died, each time riddled with anxiety about having to face him and pretending like you don’t know the truth. Like you don’t have the answer that he’s been searching for all of these years. 

But each time, he failed to appear. You finished cleaning the attic with no company, and it ended up being a much lengthier process than you originally assumed—mostly because you found your father’s birth certificate shoved into a random folder with pages and pages of expired coupons, and you nearly threw the entire thing away without realizing, which resulted in you feeling the need to go through all of the trash again, just to make sure. 

Naturally, there were no other important documents in the trash that you’d already collected—and it ended up being a massive waste of your time. But it sent a wave of relief through your tired body, letting you know that nothing important had gotten tossed by accident. 

After clearing out the attic, you thought that Yeonjun might come back—if not to talk to you and be your friend, then perhaps to see the progress on the house he inhabits? Yet, nothing happened. Nothing as you finished sweeping the floors, nothing as you moved the last few boxes out of the attic and either into your car or the garbage, and nothing when you stand by the front door for a moment, your hand hesitating before opening it and leaving—hoping that he would come to say goodbye. 

It wasn’t the end—you still had your own bedroom to clean out. It was what you’d been dreading; both because it was a cesspool of bad memories in your own life, and also because of what you found out about Yeonjun’s past, and what had happened to him in that room specifically. It still sent a chill down your spine to think about the room, which was painted with dark red and other dark stains—a horrifying reminder of the crime that was committed there. You try your hardest to recall if you ever saw any stains or any signs of the disturbing event, but your mind comes up blank. 

You know that the only solution, the only way to ease your mind, is to go back to the house and finally finish what you started. Just as it were so back in July, after you were plagued with nightmares upon your first visit back home, after so many years. 

On a crisp autumn day in mid October, you return to the house, knowing that this would be one of, if not the last time. Just before you drove over, you’d been chewing your nails nervously as you spoke to Taehyun over the phone—you needed some last minute encouragement. 

“Summer’s over, you know. What about that job offer again?” Taehyun asks, his voice muffled over the phone—he was driving to work, and on the way he passed under a tunnel which always made his service choppy. 

“I got an extension, until the end of the year. They actually came to me about it, because they’re having a fresh start at the company come the new year,” you explain, as you pack up your cleaning supplies, preparing to head over to the house. “They said a lot of applicants dropped because of the sudden change in timeframe, but it worked out perfectly for me. Now I have until November to wrap everything up.” 

“Not December?” 

“Well, my lease for my new apartment in the city starts in December…” you trail off, realizing this leaves you with the rest of October and November, to finish cleaning, take photos, and actually put the house up for sale. The cleaning was just the first step—and you were lagging. 

“… Right.” 

You could hear the doubt in Taehyun’s voice, so clear that it made you squirm with shame. He was probably thinking that you should have hired someone—probably someone like god damn Seo Changbin—to just do the dirty work for you, instead of making yourself suffer through it. 

“I only have one room left to clear out before I can officially put the house up for sale,” you say defensively, picking up on Taehyun’s attitude. 

“I believe in you. You know that, right?” he asks gently, his tone different now—more pity, you think. 

“I know,” you say, trying not to be awkward. 

“It’s not easy. You’re doing a great job,” he says, softly. His voice crackles towards the end of the sentence, his service beginning to cut out more. “Hey, I’ll call you after my shift, alright? Let me know how cleaning the last room goes.” Through his spotty service and choppy voice, you can sense hesitation. You know he remembers Yeonjun too, but you haven’t mentioned him since the first day. Like your therapist, he probably assumed it was some sort of trauma response after all. 

“Alright. Have fun with the elderly,” you say, cracking a smile. 

“You know I won’t. That one old man keeps yelling at me because of the length of the individual blades of grass. He should just be happy I didn’t accidentally run anyone over,” he scoffs, before chuckling softly. 

“They really should have hired someone more qualified. And more empathetic,” you tease, hanging up as you hear Taehyun start to protest. Smiling as you pack up the last few things you need, you head out to your car, the cool autumn breeze whistling through the crisp branches, loosening colorful leaves that fall down like raindrops around you. You shove the box of cleaning supplies into your trunk and slam it shut, sliding into the driver’s seat and starting your car. Loud, grungy music plays over the radio, one of your old favorites that makes your heart almost ache with nostalgia, despite the less-than-depressing lyrics and tune. 

Which leaves you here—picking up the box of cleaning supplies and balancing it on your hip as you use one hand to grapple for the trunk, slamming it shut securely as you set the box down, breathing a heavy sigh. Luckily, it’s cooled down since July, and you no longer find yourself soaked in your own sweat from completing the smallest tasks—something that was purely impossible during the heat waves that torture your area during the summer months. 

Picking up the box again, you readjust your grip to make it easier to carry as you make your way down the small path. The lawn is freshly trimmed, thanks to Taehyun, who was willing to do the lawn work all summer as long as it meant he didn’t have to actually step foot inside the house, and as long as he could speed home afterwards—this was what told you he hadn’t forgotten about the incident with Yeonjun, upon their first and presumably last meeting. 

You're able to slot the big skeleton key into the brand new lock on the door and let yourself in, closing the door behind you with your foot. You trudge up the stairs step by step, making sure not to trip over your own feet and go tumbling back down. 

Finally, you reach your bedroom. You know that if you hesitate any longer you’ll never bring yourself to do it, so you just reach out and turn the doorknob, opening the time capsule of a room and entering, just as you did every day in your youth. 

Putting down the box of cleaning supplies, which had been getting steadily heavier in your arms the longer you held it, you take a deep breath, smelling the dust—there was hardly a hint of your old perfume, or your old laundry detergent—it was like a ghost inhabited this room. 

Perhaps it did—you think of Yeonjun again. 

“Yeonjun?” you speak softly, though you haven’t seen him since late September. For some reason it feels different this time as you call out for him—it feels like he really might appear. 

“You’re back. I thought you were done.” 

Yeonjun slowly passes through the door of your bedroom. He looks faint—or maybe that’s just the terrible lighting in the room from the singular flickering lightbulb, paired with the crappy natural lighting due to the setting sun. 

“You thought I’d leave without finishing the job? Am I someone that abandons things that are half-done?” you ask, trying to make your tone light and playful. Yeonjun looks up at you wearily, not returning the favor. 

“No… But it’s been so long. I thought it might be another ten years before I see you again,” he says softly. He drifts closer to you, slowly, as if it pained him to go any faster. 

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” you say, your brow furrowing. “I wouldn’t leave… not without saying goodbye.” 

“Is that what you’re here to do?” His expression darkens slightly, and he turns away, crossing his arms. “Are you done here?” 

You hesitate, your hand twitching as you almost reach out to him to try and comfort him—almost. “After I clean out this room…” you begin, but trail off, not wanting to finish the sentence. 

“You don’t have to sugarcoat things. I always knew this was coming, that you’d leave again—it was the plan from the start,” he says, harshly. “I’m not a baby either. I can take it. I know more than you think.” He flinches a little, as if he’s said something he regrets. 

More than you think? You walk around him so that you’re standing in front of him, facing him. “You’re not just talking about me cleaning the house,” you say, softly, knowingly. “How did you find out? When did you find out?” 

Yeonjun looks away, sighing. His eyes are dark and mournful when he looks back at you, his brow furrowing and his puffy lips turning down into a frown. “In one of the old newspapers in the attic… I was purposely looking through them after you laid them out that one day and left without throwing them away. I made the headline—and the front page, naturally,” he says, almost bitterly. “I didn’t want you to find out that I found out.” 

“Why? Did you think I’d be mad or something?” you ask, confused. “Is that why you disappeared?” Anger starts bubbling up in your stomach—you’re not mad that he found out about his own death, you’re mad that he disappeared on you when you have so little time left together in the first place. Didn’t he know that you were both running on limited time? Did he not say that himself? 

“I’m not ready to say goodbye to you!” he shouts, finally. This is the loudest you’ve heard him speak in a while, and it seems to take a toll on him as he folds over, breathing heavily. He looks back up at you after a moment, his eyes narrowed but sad in a way too. “You’re the only friend I’ve had since I’ve died. So you’re the only friend that I really remember, as the person—as the ghost that I am now.” His voice breaks. “It’s time for me to go, anyways. It’s not like we could have spent much more time together anyways.” 

“What do you mean, it’s time for you to go?” you ask, your lips tightening into a thin line as you feel your heart drop into your stomach. “You said—you said you didn’t know how all that moving on bullshit worked.” 

“I didn’t before, but now… I just feel it. I’m not supposed to be here any more,” he says, pleading with you. “Please don’t be mad at me.” 

“I’m not mad,” you say quickly, your voice harder than you intended it to be. Recollecting yourself, you clear your throat, only for it to be clogged again with tears and mucus as you thickly say, “I’m just not ready to say goodbye to you either.” 

Yeonjun manages a watery smile, and you lean forward to hug him, your arms simply cutting through his ghostly appearance. He smiles sadly down at you again, his fingers ghosting over the top of your head as he mimics stroking your hair soothingly. 

“I’ve never wished for anything more,” you say, fighting to keep your tears back. You don’t want to cry in front of Yeonjun, not when he’s already crying hard enough that you can see shiny trails of tears down his pale, translucent face. 

“What are you wishing for?” he asks in a choked voice. 

“You know,” you say, laughing bitterly as you fail to hold back your tears, warm salty droplets pouring down your cheeks. “Don’t be an idiot.” 

Yeonjun scoffs, looking away and crossing his arms before he looks back at you to smile through his tears once again. “And you know me. An idiot, through and through,” he says, roughly wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. 

For a brief moment, the two of you stand there and stare at each other in silence—Yeonjun as he remembers watching you grow up, and you as you recall all of the bearable memories with your best and only friend from your youth. There’s plenty of parallels between the two of you, as much as you hate to think about it—in a way, you almost represent what Yeonjun could have had, if he’d escaped his father like you’d escaped your parents. In the same vein, he almost represents the worst thing that could have happened to you, had you not gotten out when you did. As you two look into each other’s eyes, your lips still and unmoving as you communicate through language that’s deeper than speech, more intimate and knowing than any other form of communication known to man, you feel a sudden warmth. Your heart thumps in your chest, and you feel like this is it—the end of this torture, this fucking nightmare of a life. It’s like a weight is lifted off your shoulders as Yeonjun gazes softly into your eyes, fueling that warm and fuzzy feeling in your stomach. 

It’s going to be okay. He’s going to be okay. 

“I’ve always wanted to leave this house. I remember now,” he says softly. “But now, for the first time… I almost don’t want to.” 

Wiping your tears, you choke out a laugh. Yeonjun looks down at you with a tender expression, one that radiates pure adoration, as he leans down to press his lips to your forehead. 

You squeeze your eyes shut as more tears pour down your cheeks, not wanting to see the picture before you while being unable to feel it, but for a moment it feels real. You can feel the slight chapped skin brush against your forehead, the weight and warmth of his hand on the top of your head, before it all disappears. 

And when you open your eyes again, Yeonjun is gone, and you’re standing alone in the bedroom you two unknowingly shared for as long as either of you could remember. 

For the first time, you are completely alone in the house you were supposed to call home, and all you can do is sit down on the hardwood floor (ignoring the faint red stains by your bed that you’d never noticed before) and breathe in deeply, finally feeling at peace. 

NOVEMBER

Clenching your jaw, you try to reach further, your arm burning as you try to sweep the last few inches of snow off of your windshield. 

The first snow had surprised the town in the middle of the night. It had been unusually warm this year, the heat wave carrying on well past summer. Though it was nearly tradition at this point for the children of your hometown to trick-or-treat the day before or after Halloween due to the expectant snowstorm the week of the holiday, this year the children had been able to run free, without even the need for a thick winter jacket on top of their costumes. 

November had proven to be quite warm as well, but then the weather switched up on you like it was the plan all along, and now you were brushing snow off of your car with a dead tree branch, struggling to reach the top few inches of your windshield because the stick you chose was just a little too short. 

Giving up after a few more minutes of bending and stretching and cramping up your arm, you toss the stick aside and massage your aching muscles before getting into your car, grumbling to yourself. At least you hadn’t left your windows open overnight, like Taehyun had reportedly done—especially because your car is stuffed to the brim with all of your belongings. Finally, you’re heading off to the city to settle into your new place before you start your new job. 

But first, you’re meeting Taehyun for coffee. 

Driving down the same familiar roads, you feel new memories playing in the place of your old ones. Instead of remembering the way your parents would argue in the car and give you a headache, you remember the times you and Taehyun drove down this road together, loudly singing your favorite songs and not caring who heard. You can’t help but smile at the memory—you’ll have to remember to ask if he ever wanted to take a road trip together, when the weather is warm again and summer comes back around. 

The creaky stairs groan under your weight as you hop up the old wood, but they still don’t collapse, even with their loud protesting. 

There, Taehyun sits at a window seat with his iced Americano, scrolling aimlessly on his phone as he waits for you. He doesn’t see you until you stop in front of the table, smiling down at him as you unwrap your scarf from around your face. Your cheeks and nose are still a little flushed and raw from the cold, despite this. 

“How’s the car?” you ask, sitting down as you remove your gloves and place them atop your folded scarf, on the table beside you. 

“She’s fine, but a bit damp. And so’s the seat of my pants,” he grimaces, reaching down to feel the slightly wet seat of his jeans. “How’s the house?” 

“Sold,” you say, crossing your arms and grinning proudly. “There were a surprising amount of offers. I guess horror fanatics don’t mind the possibility of ghostly roommates.” 

Taehyun laughs, but then he rests his face in his palm as he props his elbow up on the table, looking into your eyes. “If anyone’s into it, horror fanatics would be… but was there really a ghost? I thought it stopped appearing after that first day.” 

Outside, snow starts to fall again, the beginning of winter making itself known. The already thick blanket of white covering the landscape starts to grow even more opaque and blinding as thick snowflakes swirl down from the ash-gray sky and join the millions before them, transforming the landscape that was a healthy green field of flowers just a few months before. 

“It’s a long story,” you say, your eyes twinkling. 

“I have time,” Taehyun replies, smiling. 

The little plastic ghost on your keychain rattles softly as you put the rest of your things down to settle in, and you smile softly at the namesake of your other best friend. 

“His name was Yeonjun,” you begin. 

DIVIDER CREDIT | @firefly-graphics

© petrichor-han 2024, all rights reserved  ​

[thelov3lybookworm]

Lucien who now lives full time in the Day Court knowing the truth (think white robes and cold crown and makeup omg) and who has been in love with IC reader since getting to know her while he was there.

She's now visiting on some Night Court business (research, negotiation, etc.), and he's decided to put on his full Lucien teasing charm to woo her.

Sunlight in a Bowl.

Summary: Did he just... no. Of course not.

•○●⛦●○•

A/n: I didnt realise how much i loved this idea until i wrote it 😭 thank you soo much my darling anon for sending in this request, i had soo much fun writing it lol, it was like it took no effort, came to me soo easy 🥹

also, posting this an hour early for funsies 🤭

i promised no angst so theres no angst @milswrites

anyways, enjoy!

•○🌑○•

The day court was beautiful.

That was all Y/n could think of as a sentry led her towards Helion's private receiving chambers, all other adjectives having flown out of her head the moment Azriel had dropped her on the border of Day court, from where she'd winnowed herself to the palace.

The white houses, the red and gold roofs, the sunlight shining from above and reflecting from pools of water and the Palace right in the center of it all, the colourful market in the town square...

It was safe to say Y/n was ready to move to Day court, already having forgotten that she was here on a mission from Rhysand.

She was ready, bags packed, no questions asked.

So busy was she gaping at the beautiful architecture of the palace, the artwork reigning her in like some trick of hypnotism, she didn't realise the sentry had come to a stop outside two large oak doors.

Unfortunately, that meant she smacked right into his back before she realised.

Her cheeks blazing, Y/n stumbled back as she glanced up at the male, who had an amused smile on his face.

"I merely stumbled. My dress is a little long."

He nodded. "Never said you did not stumble. I believe it must be hard to walk around in your too long knee length dress."

Blood rushed into Y/n's ears as she looked down at the dress that... only reached her knees, realising he was right.

Fuck.

She cleared her throat, standing at attention, avoiding his eyes.

From her peripherals, she could see him grinning as he knocked on the door, waiting until a voice called out to let them in.

The male opened the door, holding it open for Y/n. She hurried in, resisting the urge to just die as he closed the door behind her.

So much for making a good first impression.

Y/n shook her head, trying to dislodge the lump now forming in her throat at the upcoming conversation.

Being an introvert and shy was a hard job, one Y/n was very good at.

But being introverted and shy while being an emissary? Now that was the job of someone that Y/n would consider god.

And exactly why Y/n had been so against the idea of her becoming an emissary when Rhysand suggested it, knowing she would rather live a life alone in the middle of nowhere and probably become the next Weaver than become an emissary.

Alas, she was the only researcher Rhysand had at his disposal, so now she had been sent to read through as many libraries and books in day court as possible to aid in Feyre's second pregnancy.

It hadn't been confirmed yet whether the babe was winged, but Rhysand and the inner circle thought it best to start researching in advance just in case the babe did have wings and to prevent the second pregnancy ending up the same way the first did, and this time with no one to save them.

"Y/n! Always a pleasure to see you!" Y/n met the warm honey eyes that belonged to Helion, a smile spreading on her face unprompted.

"Helion." She greeted, walking forward and directly into his open and inviting arms, squeezing him back when he wrapped his arms around her.

"I hope the journey was not too hard?"

Y/n laughed, pulling away. "All I had to do was winnow, Helion, why would it be hard?"

Helion grinned, then turned to glance at something behind him.

With horror, Y/n realised that it was not something, it was someone.

Her panicked eyes shot to Helion, remembering that Rhys said Y/n wouldn't have to interact with anyone other than the day court high lord.

"Ah Y/n, meet my son, Lucien. Though I'm sure you've met before."

Y/n swallowed, then let her eyes wander to Lucien. Which, definitely not a good idea, considering Y/n was suddenly drooling and looking away like he had burned her eyes.

She had only looked at him for a moment, but that moment was enough for Y/n to have taken note of how ravishing he looked.

Ravishing?!? Get a grip Y/n.

Y/n attempted to calm her racing heartbeat by taking deep breaths, trying not to think of all the golden skin on display that was not covered by the white robe, the gold crown adorning the head of fiery red.

Trying especially hard not to think about the way his skin glowed with happiness and the beautiful, flirtatious smile adorning those plush, soft lips.

"We- we have met before."

"That's amazing! So if introductions are not needed, I'll take my leave."

Y/n knew her eyes were bulging out of her head at this point, but she did not really care as she gaped at Helion's retreating back. She continued to stare until he reached the doors, then turned to wink at her like he was in on a secret she was not.

Bastard.

Y/n, not knowing what to do, glanced at Lucien, who, in the perfect son-of-bastard way, sent her a cocky grin.

Y/n glared at him at that, pretending like the blush on her face was because of anger and not because she was shy.

"I don't know if Rhys informed you, but I will be helping you out today with the research."

Y/n's eyes widened, staring at him like he'd claimed to have met the Mother herself.

Which, Y/n would have been less surprised to hear, but that was the talk for another day.

"I- no one told me."

Lucien shrugged, that infuriating smile still on his face. "It came up last moment when my father had to leave to handle some important matters."

Y/n nodded sadly, mentally encouraging herself that she could do this.

With a sigh, she gestured at him. "Lead the way."

•○🌑○•

"Are you hungry yet?"

Y/n reigned in her sigh of exasperation.

For the past hour, Lucien had been hovering around Y/n, bothering her with stupid questions and trying to get her to go somewhere else. Where, Y/n could not for the life of her figure out.

She glanced up at him, finding his arms crossed over his chest, a careless grin on his face as he leaned against the desk she sat at.

She also noticed how he stood a little too close to just be acting like a caring host, but she ignored it, just like she ignored the bulging, mouth watering muscles in his arms.

"I am sorry Lucien, but my stomach does not consider me worthy of food at the moment. I will let you know once it decides I deserve to eat."

He laughed at that, his head thrown back, his chest vibrating with how genuine the sound was.

Y/n's eyes dropped to the strong column of his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing as he glanced back down to her, grinning. Y/n noticed the dimple that made an appearance in his cheeks, but she pretended she was still mad at his constant nagging and turned back to the thick bound tomes she had open in front of her.

Y/n got a moment of reprieve before he drew her attention again.

But this time he did not ask her if she was hungry or if she was thirsty.

No, he pushed off from the table, and Y/n watched him from the corner of her eyes as he walked to the back of her chair.

She was curious, of course she was, but also glad that he would let her do her studies.

Also sad that he was leaving, but no one needed to know that.

But suddenly, two arms were caging her in against the table, and Y/n startled at the sudden heat of being caged against the wood by someone who quite literally had the heat of autumn court fire in his blood and the warmth of day court sun in his blood.

"What are you doing?!" Y/n yelped, trying to keep quiet in the library.

His breath tickled the hair at the side of her neck as he leaned in.

"I am just wanting to inquire when your stomach will deem you worthy of eating."

"Oh my god." Y/n mumbled, her blood tinting her face red. "Stop it Lucien!"

"Not until you tell me you will go out to eat with me. Tell me, will giving you the sun in a bowl convince you?"

Y/n only kept getting redder in the face, and to try to cover it up, she slapped her hands over her face.

He tsked. "That sounded like it hurt."

Y/n paused for a moment, then mumbled out- "It did."

He laughed again, and something about having him so close to her, so free and vulnerable did things to Y/n. She spread her fingers, peeking out to find his eyes closed, his teeth glinting softly in the sunlight streaming in through the stained glass windows.

She stared at him, slowly letting her hands fall into her lap, not realising she was staring.

Or maybe not caring.

His laughter slowly died down, the sound still ringing softly in Y/n's ears until it faded away.

He met her eyes, happier than Y/n had ever seen, and gave her a soft smile.

"So?"

Y/n sighed, the sound so exaggerated she would have laughed any other time.

"Fine."

For good measure, Y/n rolled her eyes at him before she turned back to the dusty tomes sitting on the rich wood desk.

She could practically feel his grin as he dipped closer, planting a kiss on her cheek.

Y/n's eyes flew wide, turning to gape at him as he straightened.

"So, a bowl of sunlight. In the receiving room before sunset?"

Y/n choked out an okay.

The bastard had the audacity to wink at her as he turned and strutted away, his careless demeanour already enchanting Y/n's malfunctioning brain.

She watched his retreating back until she couldn't anymore, then straightened to stare at the words that now made no sense to Y/n because she was so busy trying not to think about the plans she now had for the evening.

Did he just...

Y/n blinked, glancing once to the archway he'd just disappeared into.

Did he just ask me out on a date?

Y/n shook her head.

No, it was just not possible.

Lucien? Asking Y/n out on date?

Y/n wanted to laugh at herself for even thinking that. Lucien would never...

Fuck.

Despite herself, Y/n began to smile, and hope.

What have I gotten myself into?

It was going to be hurting her brain to think so much about it, but she couldn't care less about it.

Still smiling, Y/n returned to her work, now trying to stop focusing on him and start doing the thing she was actually here for.

It's going to be a long day.

•○🌑○•

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[willowser]

now i wake up by your side—

bakugou x f!reader

wc: 2.8k+

tags: u.a. college au, canon-compliant, reader has a telekinesis/telepathic quirk, references (and potential spoilers) for the current arc in the manga, angst, a lot of secret hidden feelies

tysm to @alrightberries for giving me the opportunity to bring this lil thought of yours to life 🥺 your patience and understanding during the time it took me to write this is so appreciated it, and tbh you're the reason i'm even still here right now LOL you're so sweet, and i hold your kindness so close to my heart. i wish i could convey how much it means to me. i hope i did this even a lil justice !! happy birthday dear !!!! 🥺🩷✨️

Sero dreams of watching the sunrise on top of the Roppongi Observatory.

It’s a beautiful sight, one you’ve never seen with your own eyes, but you soak in the warmth flushing across his cheeks and the anticipated break of morning through the clouds. When he takes in a hefty breath, you feel the spring chill sting inside his chest, crisp and clear, like it’s you breathing instead of him, and it’s almost comforting enough to lull you to sleep, too.

But a clay pot shattering against a nearby bench has your eyes springing open, ripped from the haven you’d been lost to. 

You have to blink several times in order to fight through the exhaustion wearing you thin, but the evening returns to you in small, bleary doses. It’s the middle of the night—or at least it was when you’d first wandered out to the training field, and you can’t be sure how many hours have passed since then. Across the yard, you’ve successfully managed to carry four pots from the garden plot near the entrance all the way to your feet with your Quirk— but number five sits in pieces in the grass.

You’ll have to clean that up by morning or Eraser will make you run laps until you puke. Again.

Kirishima flits through your mind in a suit and tie: not as a Hero, but a spy of some kind, chasing down men with masks covering their faces and wielding a gun that looks odd in his hands, even in his own dream. Despite being back in the dorms, stories up and near the end of the hall, you can see it—hear him yelling out at the criminal to stop, feel the thud of the ground under his feet. His own determination blares through you like a freight train, as strong and damning as he is, and you fight to force yourself back inside your own shoes as you try to carry another pot.

Recovery Girl used to tell you that you did this to yourself: all your worry about losing sleep psyching yourself out of it completely, chasing it away before it even had the chance. When everyone is getting ready for bed, heading out of the common room and hitting the showers, you can feel that suspense building; what will come across tonight while everyone dreams? Fantasies? Or nightmares?

During the day it’s easier to drown out the foot-traffic of everyone’s thoughts—you do it without trying, now—but your brain needs rest, too. Letting go of control for even a second, just to get some shut eye is—

Something frightening is outlined in your peripheral vision, the dash of a pale shape you aren’t able to discern before it’s gone. The air turns metallic and stale and you can hear water sloshing, though you’re nowhere near the pools. All your blood rushes in your ears and your fingers curl, like you’re gripping your seat—gripping the edge of the couch in the common room, where you’d been sitting beside Mina when Kaminari put on that horror movie. The one with the—

“The hell are you doin’?”

Your eyes snap open for the hundredth time that night—show over, credits rolling—and it’s Bakugou. Standing only feet away from the new set of clay shards of your failure, tangible and real and staring at you with an intensity not even your dreams could mimic.

You blink, eyes stinging and heavy. You must look insane. “Oh, hey,” the voice that comes out of you is far-away, chartered off to distant lands, and he notices immediately, focus razor-sharp despite how late it is. “What did you say?”

Bakugou wrinkles his nose, like he’s offended at having to repeat himself. “I said, what the hell are you doin’? It’s nearly 2 in the morning and you’re out here throwin’ shit around in your fuckin’ pajamas.”

Almost on cue, the breeze brushes past your legs, chilly enough to have you shivering, and you peek down at them as if you don’t know what they look like. The sweater you’re wearing is from second year and the U.A. logo is half-worn off, but it’s the comfiest thing you own and if you’re going to be plagued all night by the forced intimacy of your classmates’ dreams—you at least want to be cozy.

When you look back up at him, Bakugou is pointedly looking away, taking interest in something other than your wimpy state of dress. 

It dawns on you then that he’s out here, too, in sweats and a simple back sweatshirt, hair a messy, golden halo in the pale, buzzing field lights. If you didn’t know any better, you’d almost think his face was a little rosy, but—maybe you’re seeing things.

Still. Being out and away from everyone, alone with Bakugou, makes your stomach tighten horribly. Like you’ve done too many sit-ups.

You try to brush off your sudden bout of shyness, because you know he’ll clock that in no time, too. “Well, I could ask you the same thing.” At the raise of your eyebrows, he only tchs, and casts you a filthy look. “But I think maybe I’ll just mind my own business.”

The face he makes is so awful and hot-blooded that you laugh, truly and earnestly, enough that a headache pulses to life. You wince, and the stream of pain that shoots down the middle of your skull brings back that image of Kirishima’s action-thriller: blood and knives, the sound of skin on skin, a fist against cheekbones, the ugly snap of breaking—

“Oi.”

Bakugou is closer than before, when you’re grounded back inside yourself. At least no pots have been broken this time. Less to clean up.

“Sorry,” you shoot him an apologetic smile that you know he must hate. “It’s just so—” your hand feels like it’s made of lead, but you drag it up to massage slow circles into your temple, trying not to grit your teeth and worsen the pounding in your head. “So loud sometimes.”

He’s silent until the pain ebbs out, and when you can blink without flinching, you peek up to catch how intently he’s watching your face. In the night like this, his eyelashes seem darker, longer, a kind of haunting beauty you would dream about, if you could get some sleep.

Again, you think of Kaminari’s horror movie, legs pressed against Mina’s under the heavy comforter she’d brought down from her room. It’s warm, the kind of pink, fluffy thing you’d imagine a girl like her to have—but it didn’t stop you from shivering every time you chanced a glance at Bakugou and found him already staring back.

The heat in your cheeks spreads to the back of your neck, so immediate that you think you might start sweating. “Dreams and stuff,” you murmur, by way of an explanation, “nightmares, sometimes.”

Bakugou's frown deepens, the muscle in his jaw tightening once as he grits his teeth. “What, you can just…hear that shit all night?”

“Usually,” you shrug, “It just comes in, you know? And I—” you steal another glance at him, aware, then, of just how intrusive you might sound. The veil of privacy is thin between you and others, and they don't often like being reminded of that. “Not for you, though. I don't—I don't get anything from you.”

And it's true, frustratingly enough. Not that you are ever intentionally peeking into anyone's head, but things slip through, occasionally—sudden reactions, wild, loose trains of thought. 

Bakugou's face twists, regardless, and you're reminded of all the times you've been forced to spar together, at Eraser's behest. One of the smartest in your class, quick on his feet and never without a plan; every time you've managed to get a hand on Bakugou, there's been nothing but a sea-shore calm.

It's hard to do and, at this point in your life, you've seen a thousand people try it—but he's the only one that's ever succeeded in keeping you at bay.

Nothing in his expression changes, but all your nerves spread to your voice until it shakes. “You're—I don't look in there, of course, but it's—you've always been…” Bakugou is terrible at taking compliments, you know that, almost as bad as you are at giving them. “Pretty, I guess.”

Awful, at giving them.

Embarrassment floods him, suddenly stained pink as he curls into himself. “Piss off,” he barks, and though he’s scowling at you in what must be disgust—you can’t help but to smile at how aggressively bashful he is.

You almost get the guts to make matters worse, just because you can. Admit how handsome you’ve come to find him, after the last few years, until his face is steaming in the sweet nighttime chill; the kind of intimacy you wouldn’t mind dreaming about again and again.

The absence of his thoughts are a comfort for your tired mind, has all the harsh edges of night fading into something a little easier to swallow, to breathe in. You know he does it on purpose as a strictly defensive move, but you almost want to thank him. For the quiet.

You don’t know if it’s from you or him, but when you reach a hand up to hover near his temple, the air buzzes between you, gently. Charged with that same thing that had you unable to look away from him in the common room only days ago. “In here, I mean,” you murmur, and the smile you pull on feels lame, but it’s as genuine as ever. “I don’t know, I don’t know how you do it. But it’s…nice.”

You’ve seen him die a thousand times.

Mostly in Midoriya’s dreams, sometimes in Eraser’s when he nods off during last period, but that horror—like many others, from that day—stains you all. When dinner is put away and showers are finished and the lights go out and the flood gates open, someone almost always relives the ugliness of it all; you’re more familiar with that moment than you are with any of your own.

Here and now, you close your eyes and see Jirou staring back at you, face beautiful and full of hope. You see Kirishima’s torn suit jacket and the blood on his cheek and the empty gun in his hand, the most dedicated secret agent. Aoyama is dreaming of his mother, something warm that makes you feel like you’re dazzling, too.

And yet—Bakugou is silent. Even right in front of you. Even after everything.

If anyone deserves the peace and quiet, you suppose it ought to be him.

“When’s the last time you got any sleep?”

You blink until his blurry figure is clear, and it’s like you can physically feel whatever energy you had left seeping from your body at the mere mention of sleep. “Maybe a morning or two ago,” you tell him truthfully, “I usually pass out after a few rounds of ‘throwin’ shit around’.”

Bakugou only stares at you as he digests the words, and once he’s gotten them down, he shakes his head before looking out over the mess you’ve made of the training field. With his head turned like this, you can take in the full weight of his scar—the one that’s wide and still baby-pink across his cheek. 

You almost get the guts to tell him he’s handsome. Almost.

Frustration is evident on his face when he looks back at you, but his voice comes out softer than you expect, like he's struggling to get out any words at all. “Can’t keep doin’ this,” he chastises. “Can’t be a Hero if you’re half asleep all the time. Gotta figure this shit out.”

“I am,” you give a lazy wave to your pots, “What’s wrong with this solution?”

“It's ass.”

“Alright, you have any better ideas, pretty boy?”

He bristles, visibly enough to have you snickering, and—you’re not sure what you expect of him; to continue his griping or leave you to your own devices, building his walls up high as he always does. Ever the fighter, ever the protector; maybe it’s a good thing, you tell yourself, because you’re weak like this and one of you needs to be thinking straight.

Despite his flush, there’s a playfulness to his grouchy expression, his raspy tone—and it has you leaning too far into things you don’t know how to name.

You never know what to expect of him.

There’s the slightest brush of skin against the back of your hand, and when you drop your eyes to the slowly-dwindling space between you—the rough pads of his fingers are touching you, gently. Softly enough to be the breeze, if it weren’t so warm.

You’re afraid to look at him, suddenly, like it will break whatever spell the night is casting over both of you; instead you press your lips together to stop their wobbling and the smile fighting to give you away. You’re waiting for that sea-shore calm, that quiet comfort, whatever it is he’s trying to offer you, strangely enough, in this moment. When you turn your hand over to catch his, the air buzzes again and the blood rushes in your ears.

You focus and—all you can see is your own face staring back at you. In a flash, like he’s cycling through his cards in a hurry, trying to find the best one.

You, across the arena during the entrance exam. You, in the locker room before the Sport's Festival. You, sitting in the common room during Christmas. You, ruined with tears and your own blood and covered in grime, on the darkest day of your life.

You, now. On the field in the stale light, prettier than you think you must look, for being so exhausted, the lines of your smile deep as you grin up at him.

—And then there's nothing.

The absence of noise is louder than anything. A stark, white silence that cuts through; a different world trickling away. A single touch and a little focus is all it takes to take root inside someone’s head and that’s always felt like a weapon, but now it feels like coming inside from a snowstorm, relief shuddering down your spine. Everyone else's fears and nerves and heartaches dissolve until they’re only a bitter taste at the back of your throat. Something far, far behind you

There’s just Bakugou. A strong silence that feels impenetrable, invulnerable to the outside. The steady beat of his heart is comforting in a way you didn’t realize it would be, has that bloody, dead-eyed image of him shifting into something else: another moment in Midoriya’s memories, of his silhouette standing in the sun, tall and fierce and alive.

Returned. Here and now with you, after numerous, unforeseen turns of events. You wonder if the ease surrounding you is his own, something else he’s sharing—or if this is just how it feels to be with him after so long. Maybe in the past it was different—you know it was; during the entrance exam, during the Sport’s Festival—but now you feel more relaxed than you ever have. A reminder that, no matter how dark the nights get, the sun is only just beyond the horizon. 

Returned, comforting and quiet.

(You won't know this until much later, but your hand will go slack in Katsuki's and his fingers will tighten around your own because he's not ready to let go yet. When your knees buckle, he'll already be there, awkwardly holding you up against his shoulder as his face flames and his eyes dart around the empty field, checking for any shitty snoops.

Ears is always up damn late, too, and there's a decent chance he'd get caught trying to haul you back to your room on the third fuckin’ floor, so there's really no better option than to gently lower you both to the grass. After a couple of minutes with no movement, the field lights will shut off and only the distant glow of the stars will remain.)

(You won't know this until much later, but Katsuki will arrange the both of you so that your head isn't slumped on the hard ground, but resting on the plush of his bicep, an arm around your shoulders so that the warmth can be shared between you both. His heart will pound hard enough in his chest to be worrisome, and every time you shuffle and scoot closer to him and nudge your nose into his sweater—Katsuki will fight to stay open and true, only honest with you in this wordless way.)

(You won't know this until the sun rises high behind your lids and your bones ache and he’s shown you things he could never say, but it's the best sleep you think you've ever gotten. With him, under the stars, surrounded by his calm and his constant.)

(You won't remember this but in your dream—your real dream, born from with solace Katsuki offers you—the morning will rise and settle in and he'll walk you back to your room despite the stares and in the elevator when you're alone, his lips will touch yours and you'll feel his  heart in your chest and his nerves in your stomach and his fear and relief all in one.)

(And right away, when you wake up, you'll finally have a name for this thing that's been blooming between you both for as long as you can remember—and he will, too.)

[thegnomelord]

if you want to do super angst, price and the 141 getting called away and leaving hound at a secure location because he’s nowhere near being ready to go back out on the field.

price thinks the rehab has been going well until the 141 are all captured and after hours of sitting in a dingy cell not even worrying about himself, worrying about you instead, either 2 things can happen:

someone walks in the cell with a recording of makarov’s men storming the ‘secure’ location, a clear picture of makarov amongst them and price can only watch in horror as they find you and you put up no resistance when makarov cradles your head, slipping a collar back around your neck as you follow him along like the loyal hound you were

or

he comes face to face with makarov, hatred fuelling his veins as he tries to escape from his bindings but with a simple whistle you walk through the door, barely even looking at price with eyes only on makarov as he commands you to sit in russian and you instantly drop to your knees, looking up at makarov for praise

Anon you and me are sharing brain waves lol I do have something like this in mind and I will 10000% be using this idea :Dd. And like Makarov putting the collar on, then telling you to shoot the psychiatrist that's been helping you heal and your mind stutters to try and think of a reason why you shouldn't, tries to not do it, but your body just moves on instinct to do what you're ordered to. Because Makarov's had YEARS to condition your body to react how he wants to, but your mind has only now started to heal.

God Hound's mental health is gonna be in the dumpster with these highs and lows. Just starting to heal and grasp the extent of what you went through only for it to come crashing down with just one order from Makarov. I'm a really big sucker for "it's gonna get way worse before it gets better." Trope.

Random idea that may or may not happen: Hound manages to break off from Makarov's influence/or his mind like won over his body and tries to protect the 141. So like Hound betrays Makarov, you're bleeding, and you just beg Price to please just kill you. Haven't you done enough? Haven't you been through enough? Bad dogs like you deserve to be put down.

And price, selfish as he is, just couldn't live with himself if he failed you again.

[zombyjuice]

NOBODY BETTER THAN YOU! - eunseok.🍨🦷🐆🍦 t(>.<t)

In which your boyfriend you recently just got back together with is coming over for the first time since.

bf!eunseok x fem loser!reader

toxic relationship, fluff, angst, smut! suggestions to the reader having depression (NOT ROMANIZING.) suggested cheating. etc..

so many things inspired/helped me make this so I’m just gonna . @melobin and @anquelic on insta and my playlist below took inspo from there too <33 lol!

“Eunseoks here…” one of your roommates sneered from the other side of the door you could almost feel the face they gave eachother. You hop up and rush to open your door with a wide smile on your face “Hey baby” your boyfriend, walking towards you, a hand in one pocket and a bag of Burger King in the other an extremely attractive smile on his face “hii” you practically melted pulling him into your room and hugging him tight.

“Please don’t fuck yet! Give it a week!”

“shut the fuck up!”

He chuckled kissing your forehead and pinching your sides, you loved it when he did that, made you feel so safe you could practically feel your heart melt watching his movements as he placed the bag on your table.

That feeling goes away in an instant as you watch him sigh as he moves some of your clutter to the side. This made your heart flutter with sadness and your brain go a bit fuzzy.

He understands you more than anybody really, he’s patient and he does seem to care for you, he understood all those months before you guys were ever official you’d disappear trying to decide if he’s the one and if you should give him the chance.

He understood the nights where you’d just sit in silence not wanting to be touched or talked to, and he understood the nights you guys would be talking like normal only for you to start crying out of nowhere, or the nights you’d scream and push him losing your temper only to end up in his arms letting him watch you crumble under him. “It’s okay baby, it’s okay I've got you, doing so well for daddy” “‘m not mad at you, okay pretty, it's okay”. He understood the nights when you were finally your silly self after spending a weekend alone.

He understood all your quirks and interests. Once he dragged you to one of his sets because he remembered someone working on it had a dog who understood multiple languages, remembering your rather odd fascination with it how. can they do that? And watching as you said sit to the dog in Spanish, French, and Japanese, complete shock and happiness painted on your face as you laughed and laughed, adoration painted on his.

So how is it that you caught him multiple times all over the girl, the same girl he had a pass with, rumor has it they were “casually” sleeping together before you ever entered the picture you know it was deeper than that. To him “it wasn’t that big of a deal and he was just being nice.” You had to constantly shift your morals just so you could be happy with him, he knew you hated it, he knew the disgust you felt with yourself every time you’d go back with him. But you loved him so it's alright.

You knew the irritation and anger that bubbled up inside of him when you'd ask “Are you unhappy in our relationship?” or “Am I annoying you? I'm sorry” but he loves you so he's got to deal with it, right?

And no matter how many times you believed he cheated he was stable, nothing in your life is stable but him. So maybe that’s why you feel you always go back to him. And only him. Because, to you, there's nobody better than him.

He turned to you already able to read your face “It's alright, today's our lazy Sunday isn't it? We'll clean a bit tomorrow but for now, cmere let's lie down”

The smile that was once on your face came back and you gladly took his hand as he led you to your bed and cozy. Watching some of your favorite horror movies and munching on Burger King you between his legs a hands squishing your thighs and head dropping down to your neck every now and then to suck a hickey at your favorite spots your hands would grab at his knees as you whimper and giggle. “quit it, they’re finally escaping”. He'd quietly pout and slightly rut his hips up against you visibly hard.

{2:49 am}

Your eyes meet your boyfriends and grab at his hand that's hitching up your inner thigh, yours visibly smaller “Should we play some-” he smashed his lips against yours, your first actual kiss of the night “fuck I know we said we wouldn't do anything, but shit you look so good, sound so good, need to fuck my babies in you, make you mine forever” he grabbed at your neck and slid it down to your arm, manhandling you under him.

You could only submit to him, knowing this would have happened by the end of the “night”.

“Can’t believe I spent so many Sundays without you, felt so wrong, I’ve missed you so much” he'd moan against your lips grabbing at your thighs and aggressively pushing them up as he grinds against you, whimpers slipping out of you “missed you so much more” you’d whisper mind going elsewhere remembering exactly why you spent so many night away from each other’s grasp.

“Let me fuck away all that nonsense,only have you think about this cock” as if he could read your mind “please”.

And just like that he’d do exactly what he said.

[glimmeringtwilight]

Daffodils p2 | Yandere Diluc x Reader x Dottore

this might be incoherent. i still dislike the ending but atp if i keep chipping away i'm going to abandon it lol

CW: referenced reader death (from p1), angst, captivity, yandere themes, body horror (mild for. y'know. my usual), minor character death, NSFW (not super explicit, and no specific wordage for uuu parts), cuckholding, blood, non-consensual voyeurism (diluc), dubcon, unhealthy relationships, unhealthy coping mechanisms (do not imitate)

Word Count: 2.6k

It’s a dreary autumn day when the master of the winery returns with you in tow.

The manor is quiet, still as the Snezhnayan winter that he trekked through for the past several sleepless days and nights to get you. More quiet, however, is you, who hasn’t spoken a word since Diluc dragged you out of that dimly lit, dilapidated lab stinking of chemicals that he found you in. 

He’s tried everything he knows on the journey back. You didn’t struggle once as he carried you back home– didn’t try to run when he’d rest with you in his arms– but you didn’t say a single thing to him no matter how hard he tried to get you to speak.

That’s fine. It’s shock, he supposes. He doesn’t know what that madman did to you, and if he didn’t have such precious cargo he would have gone back there and burned that place to the ground; charring the snowy, lifeless landscape surrounding it. 

But he has you. He has you now, and that’s all that matters. Even if your skin has lost some of its color now, dull and cold. Even if there’s a quiet ticking in your chest in place of a heartbeat. Even if you only ever look through him, now. It’s enough. 

This is what Diluc tells himself as he returns you to the room that had been your prison for months, as he dusts off the bars of your gilded cage before locking you back inside. 

You don’t say anything. But it’s enough, just having you. It’s enough, he thinks.

Adelinde keeps checking in on him now that he’s returned. Her face is always pinched with a quiet concern when she speaks to him, and the servants in the manor part like the sea against jagged stone when he walks past them in the halls. 

The estate seems to hold its breath around him; no longer a ghost, but perhaps something worse. As though the light he’d held against the darkness was snuffed out, and the shadow cast in its wake was long. But he’s fine. He swears it. He’s fine, now that you’re back. He’ll be perfect for you, the perfect gentleman; the man he swore he was but could never seem to be, before.

It’s enough to just have you. To hold you every night as he lays next to you, still in your bed like a corpse, listening to the ticking in your chest like a clock counting down to nowhere. Diluc finds himself dreading the ticking and seeking it out all the same.

Weeks pass like this, with Diluc unraveling slowly as he tries to cling to the crumbling memory of you, bastardized by his selfishness and immortalized in the husk of you he keeps locked in your room. 

None of the servants are allowed to see you. He hears them at night, whispering to each other when they think he’s gone to sleep. 

“He’s lost his mind.”

“Are they even alive, in there? I haven’t seen them at all. Adelinde said they–”

“Keep your voice down– are you trying to wake him?”

He hasn’t lost his mind. He has you here now, to ground him, to make him whole. Even if your body seems to be crumbling, tearing apart with every passing day.

You don’t say anything anymore. You don’t eat, but you choke down whatever food he forces down your throat, teeth clacking against silverware as you stare off into nothing. Most of his days are spent taking care of you, keeping you together, stoking the fireplace in your room to keep you warm.

You don’t seem to mind the cold, but he still forces you to sit by the fire, warming you up in a facsimile of living flesh. He tries everything– cleaning you carefully every morning before dressing you, tending to the sutures that never seem to heal.

But he can’t seem to bring you back fully. Can’t seem to warm the skin that cools quickly when you’re not kept by the fire, can’t seem to wipe that glassy look from your eyes, can’t seem to drown out the ticking in your chest.

Adelinde comes home one day from running errands to find all of the clocks in the estate smashed and left out on the front steps, some of the servants already tending to the mess as the master of the estate slips back inside the manor like a shadow of the setting sun. 

He can’t figure it out. You won’t talk to him, won’t hardly look at him unless he takes you by the jaw and forces you. He can barely stand to hold you.

It’s enough. It’s enough. It’s enough. 

But he knows it isn’t. He can’t bear living with the ghost of you, settling for the corpse he keeps in his bed. He wants you to smile at him like you used to. Needs to hear your voice again. Holding you close while you’re still so far from him is driving him mad. 

It’s another dreary day when he finally breaks. Rain pours against the roof of the estate, blazing trails down the window panes. You’re sat by the fire again as you always are, most days. 

Diluc kneels at your feet, his head buried against your knees as he begs you to speak.

“I love you,” He says. He reaches up, pressing a trembling hand against your cold cheek. He can’t seem to chase the snow out of you. You don’t respond. He tries again. “I love you.”

Your eyes flick to his, the barest indication of life in them– but you look through him all the same, as you have been for weeks, now. He sits up, eyes wild, and leans over you, grasping your face desperately. He can’t bear to look at it anymore.

Diluc pulls you close, burying his face against your nape and gritting his teeth at the smell of chemicals clinging to you. You still smell like that place. Like chemicals. Like the Doctor. No matter how many times he bathes you, no matter how hard he scrubs. It’s there. Always there. Faint, but still there. 

“Please come back to me,” He whispers, clutching you against his chest like you’ll slip through his fingers at any moment. …Like you haven’t already. “Please. I’ll do anything.”

For the first time in weeks, you speak. Your voice is hoarse, quiet and wispy from disuse. It’s like the sun peeking through the clouds after a long storm, a refreshing wind–

“Take me back.” You rasp, and his blood runs cold. When he doesn’t respond, you repeat yourself. “Take me back.”

Diluc stays there a minute, gasping through clenched teeth as grief and anger rattle through him. You don’t mean it. You can’t. You let out a quiet, pained sound from how tight his grip on you has gotten, and he pulls away like he’s been burned. 

He can’t look at you. There’s a ticking behind your chest, behind his ears– whatever it is the Doctor replaced your heart with– he can’t unhear it. Without a word, he leaves swiftly, locking the door behind him as he goes. 

When he returns, the fire in the hearth has dimmed to embers, and you’re still perched exactly how he left you. Like a doll. He breathes a shuddering sigh and moves you to the bed, laying you down and tucking you in with all the tenderness and care his trembling hands can manage. 

Instead of begging you to speak, he slips out of the room again, instructing Adelinde to look after you while he’s gone. 

He knows how to fix this: it must be your heart. Must be that facsimile of a beating heart stuffed into your chest that’s causing you to act so hollow and lifeless. If he can just find it, he can bring you back. He’s sure of it. 

Diluc journeys for another several days and nights, returning to the lab he’d found you in and tearing the place apart until he finds what he was looking for– your heart, preserved in formaldehyde and kept in a jar like some sort of sickening keepsake. 

There’s no sign of the Doctor anywhere, but Diluc doesn’t have enough mercy left in his heart to spare for the Fatui grunts unfortunate enough to get caught in his path. Blood stains his jacket an even deeper shade of red, sinking into the stitching deep enough that he’s certain even Adelinde wouldn’t be able to remove the stains. 

He burns the place down once he’s finished, true to his word, leaving the smoldering building behind as he makes the journey back with bloodstained boots and clothes, carrying the final piece of you; the missing puzzle piece in his hands.

Biting winds at his back keep his pace hurried as he rushes home; he has barely slept by the time he finally returns, the sun rising over the peaceful estate of the winery like a promise of hope. 

He’s delirious and exhausted from hardly pausing to rest throughout the entire journey home, but he has it– he has what he knows will fix you, bring the light back into your glassy eyes. 

The manor is quiet when he steps inside, and Diluc freezes when he sees Adelinde’s body laying at the bottom of the stairs, neck twisted at an unnatural angle and her expression frozen in horror. 

No-

His first instinct is to find you, stepping over Adelinde’s body despite the pang of grief that lances through his chest. Every step only turns his blood cooler in his veins, cutting through exhaustion and delirium like a blade.

The door to your bedroom is cracked and he throws it open, freezing as he sees what’s there.

You’re smiling. For the first time since he lost you, you’re smiling, eyes crinkled with warmth as the number two of the Fatui Harbingers looms over you like a malaise.

Floorboards singe underfoot, but Diluc isn’t given time to act before hands snatch his arms, ripping his Vision from him and tossing it aside. Whatever angered curse he was going to say is cut off by another pair of hands shoving a gag into his mouth, and it takes several agents to drag him into the room and force him into the chair set up by the bed.

There’s the sound of breaking glass as the struggle knocks the precious cargo he’d carried all this way from his hands, shattering against the floor. Whatever grief he may have felt at the sound  is drowned out by the sight of you as the Fatui grunts forcibly sit him down in the chair and start to tie him down. 

Rope cuts into his wrists and his legs as he’s tied to the chair; two of the pyro agents stay behind to keep him from thrashing or knocking the chair over as the rest slink back into the hallway. 

It isn’t until the last of the rope is secured, leaving the frazzled wine tycoon seething from behind the gag but unable to do much else, that Dottore finally speaks up. 

“I’m glad you could finally join us, Master Diluc,” The Doctor drawls, words dripping with condescension and cyanide. “I was beginning to worry.”

A knowing smile tugs at Dottore’s lips when he turns to see Diluc’s expression, distress creased in the lines of his brow as his attention remains fixated solely on you. 

Diluc sees now. That bastard is sitting in your bed, the bed you’re meant to share with him, as gloved fingers lazily toy with your nipples. The clothes you were wearing are haphazardly strewn about the floor. 

Dottore readjusts. Takes hold of your legs and wraps them loosely around his hips as he situates himself more comfortably on the bed. Diluc feels nausea roiling in his gut.

He can’t tear his eyes away when Dottore’s fingers drift downward, tracing over your stomach before dipping between your thighs. The soft sound you make burns him. 

It’s torture, listening to you. He’d wanted so desperately for any sound from you– anything at all– these past few weeks, but not like this. Not while you’re looking up at that monster like he’s the moon– the most life Diluc’s seen in your eyes in weeks– as he defiles you. 

Every noise seems to chip a piece of him away, cutting deeper than any blade could hope to manage.

As much as it rends him to watch, he can’t tear his eyes away, taking in the sight of you shuddering and moaning softly in response to another man’s touch. 

Something acrid and bitter swells in his chest– he can’t help but think that if it weren’t for him, you’d never be here. If he hadn’t stolen you, held on too tight so that you’d run away the first chance you’d gotten, you never would have died… Never would have wound up under the Doctor, on his operating table or in this bed.

Worse, still, is the selfish insistence he still feels. If he hadn’t taken you, he fears the worst may have happened to you– as though the worst hadn’t already come true. He did all of this to protect you– yet he’d failed to do even that. 

You eventually shudder in a way Diluc recognizes and he sags against the chair, feeling something crack inside him. This is killing him. As much as pain rips through his chest, he can’t help but cling to that rending heartache, tolerate it if it means he gets to see you smile again. You’re still in there– not a doll, not a ghost.

He loves you; he always will. Even this will never make him hate you– it’s not your fault that you’ve been caught up in the jaws of a monster. It’s not your fault that he’d failed you. 

Dottore adjusts, and whatever self-loathing Diluc had felt starts to wither at the sound of rustling fabric. No. No- 

He tries to thrash in his chair, held down by the two agents standing behind him with a firm grip on his shoulders. He tries to turn away, to close his eyes and shut out the world as the whimper from you that follows sears him like a brand. Hands dig into his jaw, prod at his eyelids with a force that threatens to blind him until he unwillingly opens them again. 

Months ago, when Diluc thought you’d finally settled, finally adjusted to your new life here, there was the barest beginnings of warmth in your eyes. Acceptance. Love, his heart hoped. He’s reminded of that again; you have the same embers of warmth in your gaze as you once did before the sky fell. 

That same look you’d once given him, but now it’s directed at the monster grinning down at you. He never thought that warmth could ruin him, but the grief that settles into his bones is a worse pain than one he’s ever known. 

The hope that he’d journeyed home with withers and dies at his feet like the heart the Doctor had stolen from you– to know it wasn’t merely literal is agony. His greed had been the undoing of you both. 

In the garden, the daffodils had died months ago; it was the end of their season. They’d planted sunflowers near where your grave once was instead, but those are dying too, afflicted by some disease or pest. 

Diluc had once hoped you’d go out into the garden to see them, but ever since he’d brought the ghost of you home you’ve only ever haunted this one room; days spent staring at the hearth instead of out the window like you’d used to. 

Jealousy is ugly and loud in his head, clinging to his throat like tar.

Perhaps he’s damned; he wishes that you hadn’t found the light that he’d stolen from you in another man.

[moni-logues]

Deer Tracks

Pairing: Namjoon x f. reader (Suri); A Fine Line couple

Genre: slice of life? a little angst a little fluff? established relationship

Summary:

Beautiful, sobbing high-geared fucking and then to lie silently like deer tracks in the freshly-fallen snow beside the one you love. That's all. (Deer Tracks, by Richard Brautigan)

Word count: 3.2k

Content: implicit smut (piv), that's really it tbh

A/N: Anon, this is for yoooooouuuu! And for anyone else who loves the AFL couple like I do lol my first babies, my special little creatures haha. I have genuinely had this bonus chapter/drabble/whatever you want to call it in mind since I finished writing the series. I have thought of it SO often and, truthfully, never got to the end, never quite figured out in my head how I was going to pull it together. But I'm happy with what I did and I hope you are too!!! Also shout out to sunny for finding this poem for me when I couldn't months and months ago.

*~*

You lay in your bed, staring at the ceiling, legs swishing idly against the sheets, as if making snow angels out of them, but only the bottom half. And there was no snow. And you weren’t having fun. Sleep wouldn’t come. You had learnt that. It wouldn’t come until the smallest hours of the morning, when exhaustion finally gripped you and pulled you under. Then you would wake a few hours later, unrested, and do it all again. 

It was self-inflicted. You knew that, too. You knew that you were doing this to yourself. You were sleeping in your own bed. Namjoon slept next door. You didn’t have to wonder if he was asleep because you could faintly make out the sound of his snoring even through the wall.  

Things weren’t going well and you weren’t dealing with it. You were making it Namjoon’s problem, making yourself Namjoon’s problem. He knew it was happening. You knew it was happening. He didn’t have the power to stop you. You didn’t think you did, either. Even though you wanted to. You could feel all your worst instincts clawing at you, invisible hands crawling over the edge of the bed to pull you apart, pull your life apart. You wanted to resist them and you wanted them to devour you, both at the same time.  

You loved him. You were in love with him. That was the problem. That was the thing that kept you up at night. The anxiety of it screamed at you and, sometimes, you could block it out; sometimes, he would kiss you and you would melt into him and everything felt golden; other times, more often recently, he would kiss you and you’d feel sick. Sick because you wanted to escape. Sick because you wanted him to stop seeing you. Sick because you loved him. Sick because he made you happier than you thought you would ever be again. Sick because it all terrified you.  

So you pulled away. You pulled yourself back into your shell, set up spikes around it, were erratic and irrational about who got access to you and when.  

You were sleeping in your own bed.  

* 

Namjoon had, weeks ago now, planned a sweet winter getaway. Just a long weekend. There was astronomical stuff happening: a big moon, some meteors, something that he would tell you about as you sat, breath puffing in front of you, huddled together outside a cabin, looking at it all. He had said you wouldn’t be able to see it well in the city; he was going to book somewhere remote, where the sky would be dark and clear. You had wondered why it mattered so much but matter it did, to Namjoon, so you had agreed, looked forward to it.  

Until you had realised you loved him. Until he had come home one day, late and tired, and a choir had started singing in your heart. There had been nothing special about that day, not at all, but you had looked at him and he had smiled at you—crinkly-eyed and deep-dimpled—and something inside you had bloomed. It was love. It was horror. 

* 

You wanted him to cancel. To say, ok this is a bad idea, let’s not go and spend 72 hours in each other’s company with no escape and nowhere else to go. Because you wouldn’t say it but you didn’t want to go. You were fighting with yourself not to run, not to scarper, not to dig yourself a hole in the ground and live there instead. You could convince yourself you were coping while you had work to distract you with (and Namjoon had his work, too). But a weekend in the country? You wouldn’t be able to get away from it if you couldn’t get away from him.  

There was a slightly tentative knock at the door. 

“Yeah?” you called. 

Namjoon poked his head around.  

“I know we talked about heading up a little later but they’re forecasting snow so I think we should get an earlier train, is that ok?” 

No. 

“What time is that?” 

“Probably around 9.” 

“Ok.” 

He nodded, hesitated at the door for a second, then nodded again, leaving you to it. You felt sick again. Terrified. Half of you wanted to run out to him, to tell him to please never, ever let you go. Half of you wanted to run.  

* 

The train was slow because the forecast had been partially right: it was snowing, but it was snowing earlier and heavier than predicted. The journey from the train station to the cabin was even worse. Namjoon couldn’t drive; somehow, you had gone all this time not knowing that. You had also forgotten that he had mentioned something about renting a car when he first brought up this trip.  

You hadn’t driven for years. Hadn’t needed to. Wouldn’t have been able to afford a car anyway. You were anxious. You were already anxious and now you had to drive winding roads on forested hills while the snow fell thick like cotton balls.  

“I’m not fucking doing it,” you said, as you and Namjoon stood outside the car rental place.  

“We don’t have any other way of getting there.” 

“Taxi?” 

“They won’t go. I already asked.” 

“Well then how do we get there? I'm not fucking driving.” 

“Suri, plea-” 

“No! I said no! I hate driving. I can’t drive! I won’t!” 

“You said you have a licence.” 

“Yes, I have a licence but I haven’t needed it for years. You seriously expect me to drive in this? I’ll kill us both.” 

Namjoon pulled his beanie from his head with a sigh and then fixed it back in place.  

“I’m sorry. This was not how I planned it. I didn’t know the weather would be this bad, but can you please drive? We can take it slow—everyone else will be driving slowly, too. I promise it’ll be worth it when we get there.” 

You knew it was an argument you couldn’t win because, short of going straight back home, there were no other options. With the way the snow was falling, it was even possible that there wouldn’t be any trains running anyway. You offered him your best scowl and stomped inside to pick up the keys. You wanted to argue, but you wanted to get out of the cold. 

* 

The journey was almost painfully tense. Driving, as it turned out, was quite a lot like riding a bike and, even with the snow, you coped pretty well: drove carefully, took corners slowly, made it to the cabin in a little under an hour. But you held onto your anger like a security blanket. It was, in some ways, a relief to be able to cling to it, rather than being tossed about in the waves of your anxiety. Anger was safe. Anger kept people away. Kept Namjoon away.  

You were hoping for blessed relief from the cold. You were expecting to open the door and be hit with a wall of warmth, fire lit, heating on, a small side lamp illuminating just enough of the space that you could find your way to the light switch. 

It was dark. It was just as cold inside as it was out. You stood in the entry way and clenched your teeth together while Namjoon fumbled with the thermostat.  

“I’m hungry,” you announced when nothing more had happened a minute later. 

“Ok, yeah, we can eat in a sec. Let me just figure this out.” 

“What do we have to eat?” 

“I don’t know, babe; I think there’s something in that bag.” 

Namjoon gestured vaguely to the pile of bags next to you, which told you nothing. You inhaled, preparing to heave an aggrieved sigh when Namjoon straightened and looked at you. 

“I know, ok? I know. I’m sorry. This isn’t like I wanted it to be either.”  

Sentences short, clipped, like he was fighting his own frustration. He probably was. You were being a brat. You knew it. You were making yourself his problem. You were pushing buttons.  

Somehow, this time, it didn’t feel like victory. It felt like defeat.  

You let your sigh fall and stomped past him, flopping onto the sofa still in all your winter stuff. He turned back to the thermostat. 

* 

It remained tense and quiet for the rest of the evening and when you (fully clothed with a jumper and socks on) slipped into bed next to Namjoon (also fully clothed), you had deflated. You couldn’t sustain your anger that long, not when Namjoon didn’t fight back.  

“I’m sorry,” you said, chewing on the inside of your lip, eyes cast down.  

Namjoon leant over and pressed a kiss to your hair. 

“I’m sorry, too. This isn’t what I wanted.”  

You bit harder on your lip when you felt it wobble.  

“I just thought it would be nice to get away. The sky isn’t even fucking clear because of the snow. I should’ve planned this be-” 

“No,” you said, interrupting. “I’m just being pissy.” 

“Yeah...” He paused. “About that-” 

“I’m sorry.”  

You didn’t want him to ask, didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to have to admit it, finally, that you loved him. Certainly not after that day.  

“I...”  

You hesitated because you could feel your heart thumping and that prickling sensation on your skin that said you were stripping yourself bare. “It’s just me. It’s not you. I... I’m not trying to be a dick. Well, I guess, I-... I’m sorry.”  

You risked a glance at him. He wrapped his arms around you and pulled you close. He pressed another kiss into your hair. You closed your eyes and felt your limbs loosen, something inside of you unlocking, allowing you to relax into the warmth of his body.  

“It’s ok,” he whispered. “As long as you’re here.” 

You nodded.  

“I’m here.” 

You raised your face as he went to kiss your head again and he caught your eyebrow. You didn’t give him the opportunity to laugh or say anything; you put your lips against his, turned your body towards him, and hoped you could say without saying the thing that burnt inside you. 

* 

It somehow felt like it had been a long time. That the nights that had passed since the last time he was between your thighs had stretched into weeks, elongated themselves in your memory and your body, so that every touch, every movement felt like remembering. Felt like something almost lost but found again. Felt, as it always did, like something coming together within you. Never more in your body than when he was, too. It grounded you. It brought you closer to yourself, closer to him, as though they were one and the same.  

“F-uck!” you cried, gasping and panting as you tried to hold on, wanting this to last.  

You were so close to it, to letting all that pleasure wash over you, drown you, take you under, but you didn’t want to go. Didn’t want to let this pass. You wanted to stay in this moment, this perfect moment, where it was just you and him and everything you did best.  

If it passed, you would have to confront it again: the fear, the terror that your love placed inside you.  

“Shit,” you swore again, but it wasn’t pleasure this time. It was frustration because you’d thought about it. Because now you were thinking about it.  

You shut your eyes. You couldn’t look at him without that painful heart swelling, that effulgent warmth that enveloped you, followed by the ice-cold trickle of anxiety. You loved him. You loved him. You loved him.  

Did he love you? Could he? Could anyone?  

Your breath hitched and you tightened your fingers around Namjoon’s arm, nails digging into his soft flesh. You could feel it welling, this feeling, these tears, brimming in your eyes, sticking to your lashes. 

The moment the first fell was the moment it all came loose. You came, cursing and crying, your body writhing, Namjoon firm and solid and stable around you. You came, hot and harried, clutching him to you like a buoy, as he held you secure and safe as he always had. You came unfastened, unbuckled, apart at the seams, flopping into him, just crying now, just crying.  

“Baby...”  

His voice was as soft as his body was not.  

“Are you ok?” 

You nodded, desperate for him to believe you as you continued to sob. He placed a hand on your head, stroking gently, the other rubbing small circles into your back.  

“It’s ok,” he whispered. “You’re ok.” 

And you loved him more because that was all he said. He didn’t push you for answers, didn’t make you reassure him. He held you and soothed you and let you be sweaty and naked and messy in his arms.  

You were shivering with the cold before the tears on your cheeks had dried. You both wordlessly re-dressed and snuggled under the bedsheets, still clinging to each other. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.  

You knew he already knew the answer. No.  

“I’m fine,” you answered, muffled against his hoodie.  

“Can we talk about it tomorrow?”  

You nodded, because it was easier to just say yes now, to push the issue into the future. You could avoid it then, too.  

* 

Sleep didn’t come. You knew it wouldn’t, even though the cold made you tired, even though you could still feel Namjoon in every one of your muscles. You looked at Namjoon, at his face, peaceful as he slept. Not snoring, not right now. Tipped on his side, broad shoulders curled inwards. You thought about what he might see if your places were reversed. Did you look cute as you slept? Could he have lain and felt like he could look at you forever? Did it make his blood feel sweet inside him, having you close to him?  

It felt impossible. Too easy. Everyone had said it was. Namjoon had said it was. Some of it had been easy, you thought. Maybe. The parts where it was you and him and no one else. The parts when you forgot to be self-conscious, forgot to supervise yourself so strictly. The parts when you just let yourself have it—happiness—even if you didn’t think you deserved it. 

You looked towards the window, where that curious glow of snow was sneaking around the edges of the curtains. It was still dark outside, but snow had a light of its own somehow, a peculiar way of shining by itself.  

You slipped carefully out of bed, wrapping your arms around yourself, and went to look. You pulled the curtain back and it was still snowing. Fat flakes fluttering slowly to the ground which was perfectly smooth and white. Unblemished. Untarnished. A blank slate. 

You looked at the dark lump of Namjoon’s body under the covers. You were a blank slate. You had said that. Namjoon brought colour onto it. You had said that. You looked out at this perfect snowfall, the silent padding as it placed itself gently on the ground. A blank slate. Beautiful. No one had disturbed it. Not even a creature.  

You had thought of your blank slate as empty. Blank because it held nothing. Blank with a freedom that scared you because you had been worn down and made to fear it. Your blankness made you hollow and worthless.  

But this snow wasn’t. It was full. It was generous. It was giving itself to the earth. You had chosen. You had made your choice and it was Namjoon. Was always going to be Namjoon from the moment you had met him. And you had stopped fighting that.  

You thought you had stopped fighting it but you had only paused. You stopped fighting it until you started again, until love blossomed in your heart just as everything on the surface started to bury itself underground. The richness and fullness of your own spring felt wrong, at odds with the earth and at odds with what you knew. What you had come to expect. What you had come to believe was all you would ever have.  

You looked at the snow. You looked at Namjoon. You practised. 

“I love you,” you said, barely more than mouthing the words but they still felt loud in the blanketed silence of the room. “I love you.”  

You looked at the snow. Still perfect. Fewer flakes coming down now, the sky no longer heavy with clouds. You had been so intent on the snow that you hadn’t noticed the moon: bigger and brighter than you’d seen it before. This was what Namjoon had wanted to see.  

“Hey,” you said, gently shoving against his shoulder.  

He groaned, rolling onto his back and rubbing his eyes. 

“What’s up?” 

“Come.” 

You tugged on his hand, pulled him out of bed. 

“Look,” you urged, pointing at the moon.  

Namjoon’s response was hummed as he adjusted to being awake. He shivered and pulled you into his body, back to his chest, arms around your waist.  

“The moon,” he said eventually. 

“Yeah, the super one.” 

“Frosty.” 

“Huh?” 

“Uh, it’s called the Frosty moon, I think. If I were awake, I’d remember.” 

You smiled and placed your hands over his, leaning your head back against him. 

“I love you.” 

Namjoon laughed and you froze, rigid as he let you go, as he turned you around. His hands moved to your face and he kissed you, warm and soft, a smile still tugging at the corners of his mouth. 

“I love you,” he replied, kissing you once more before he laughed again. “I fucking love you.” 

“You do?” Your voice was whisper thin, air caught in your throat. 

“Yes, I do! I love you!” 

The bubble of worry in your chest popped and it all disappeared, all that fear, all that doubt. He loved you. He fucking loved you.  

“I love you,” you repeated, looking at him this time.  

Even in the early-morning darkness, you could see his eyes sparkle, see the dimples in his cheeks. He mouthed the words back at you, picked you up and carried you back over to the bed. He wrapped himself tightly around you, lips against the back of your neck, your shoulder, your jaw.  

“I didn’t want to rush you,” he said. “I didn’t want to put any pressure on you, so I wanted you to say it first but, fuck-” he laughed again- “fuck, I’ve wanted to tell you so badly.” 

“You have?” 

“Yes, baby. I love you. I really fucking love you.”  

“I love you.” 

You stared through the darkness at your hands, clasped together just in front of you. The words felt fuller than you ever thought they could. You had thought they would feel like something being taken from you, like they would open up a hole inside you and leave you bereft but they didn’t. Each time you said it, you felt filled up. With every repetition of the words, you felt more whole. Coming together. Being brought together inside yourself, all your little broken pieces.  

You loved him. He loved you.  

You fell asleep quickly and slept soundly until late morning. 

[beefros-sin-bin]

Goodbye 2023!

Thank you to everyone who sent in submissions - I have so much reading to catch up on now! 🥩💜🥩

If you have more fics to recommend for the SinBin, keep sending them my way.

I was originally going to break everything by category into the various P-boys, but the majority are one specific character. So we have two categories:

Joel Miller Fics

Other P-boy Fics.

I've included the comments (if there was one) for each fic submitted, but kept the submitter anonymous.

Beefro & the SinBin 🚮🥩💜

Joel Miller Fics (in no specific order)

Left in Lincoln - @toxicanonymity

Left in Lincoln. It's no secret my love for this series, and for my favorite Joelkémon, but this story is one I love not only for the slow burn sexiness but the horror elements in general. The balance of fear and horror with the soft, beautiful descriptions of the characters and setting make it one I return to over and over. The musical references and influence on the story is just the icing on the cake 🖤 Or ice cream on the pie, in this case 🍑🌸 Ty for the beautiful stories Toxy, and community to obsess over our mutual obsessions 🥰🖤

Scarecrow & Fear Thy Neighbor by @xdaddysprincessxx

So my first rec is @xdaddysprincessxx and her Farmer Joel series 🚜 All of her work is amazing but this one is so fun and soooo hot! (Heed the warnings though if you choose to read) I'm biased because I got to hear about her writing process and contribute some of my own thots 🤭 But it's not only sexy af (just like her!) but scary too!!! Be sure to read the sequel too 😉 She's not only a talented writer but a wonderful human in general 🖤

Help I’m Stuck! By @nosesitter

Reader gets “stuck” in the dryer. Luckily her father in law Joel just so happens to find her and helps 😉 her. When I read this I finally got the whole “oh no I’m stuck!” sex scenario lmao I always found it kinda funny bc in porn they’d be stuck in ridiculous spots but this fic? Fucking hot as hell. I get it now 🤷🏻‍♀️

I can be your pretty girl by @walkintotheriveranddisappear

Okay so I’m almost positive she is tired of me recc’ing & talking about this series lol it’s the hottest fucking fic ever. I genuinely am obsessed. It has everything. She deserves a Nobel peace prize for this idc idc.

A Secret Worth Keeping by @multiversed-daydreamer

Vamp Joel. I repeat Vamp. Joel. 🥵 and his vampirism is a secret and readers blood is his krptonite and she has to keep what they do hush hush. It’s so goddamn delicious 🤤

Fall into Temptation by @joelsgreys

Whew okay where do I start? Reader is the pastors daughter. Joel is Joel. 😏 they end up falling for each other and having a beautiful love affair. That has to be a secret bc her father would forbid it! Duh! It’s spicy, they have to sneak around to meet up with each other (again I am paraphrasing ish I don’t wanna spoil lol) and the religious tones in it? My baby is feeding me. This heals my religious trauma. Feeds my daddy issues and desire to fuck this old man.

Deliver Me From Nowhere by @atinylittlepain

It is beautifully written, touching a delicate topic with such care, it is truly an amazing work.

Just This Once by @talaok

Okay hear me out: this one brings the angst. The emotion. I felt so bad for reader, bby girl just wanted love. It tore me up inside. I had tears.

Self Indulgent Tendencies by @strang3lov3

So this was actually the first fic of Bugs I ever read. And. I. LOVED. IT. I’m trying not to spoil anything but long story short; Joel catches reader and fucks her to teach her a lesson. (I am extremely paraphrasing this lol) it still lives in my damn brain 🥵

Meet Me in the Back by @atticrissfinch

Sleazy gas station Joel. That’s it. That’s all. He is so sleazy and ugh I need his dick. And so does reader after she gets it. And she keeps coming. Back for more that is 😉

All You Wanna Do by @atticrissfinch

Now I am an angst queen. And boy this one is not for the weak. It is dark, please please please heed the warnings on this one. But personally I love this one. She has truly ripped my heart out, made my chest physically hurt. She invokes emotion so well.

No One But Me by @koshkamartell

This is a small blog's series that deserves to be promoted!

The Wrong Way by @romana-after-dark

Raider!Joel Miller and Raider!Tommy Miller x fem!Reader

Other P-boy Fics (in no specific order)

Dirty Uncle Ezra by @bonezone44

😏 yea I said it. Dirty Uncle Ezra. Hottest fucking concept I’ve ever heard. He’s so dirty and sleazy and ngh I’m already moaning. Also this beautiful human is an amazing artist so plz check out their art work 💜 (a note from Beefro: the fact that the age tag on this is 56+ made me laugh out loud)

Pascals Pursuit of Love! by @elvinaa (all the P-Boys!)

The innovation! It has all the P boys Bachelorette style. It’s so much like the show, it’s got twists and turns, there’s funny moments, cute moments. I look forward to each week aka each chapter lol I love it so much.

Apple by @romana-after-dark

Bisexual!Dark!Santiago Garcia, Bisexual!Dark!Frankie Morales, and Bisexual!Dark!William Miller x fem!Reader

[coyote-nebula]

20 Questions for Writers

Thanks for the tag, @cuephrase and @wildsofmarch!

Also, thank you @motleyfam for locating the lost question lol

1. how many works do you have on AO3?

29

2. what's your total AO3 word count?

182,782

3. what fandoms do you write for?

Just Batman now

4. what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Spike (3,470 words) - the kudos leader by far. I gave Tim roofie trauma, invoked by being stealth drugged at home. Kind of a spite fic categorically, but I think I'd prefer awareness as an intention over spite 😂 this author's life has been a bit weird Tim in a Bottle (38,683 words) - Tim, trapped in an industrial freezer with Jason, is attacked by memories in the text equivalent of a bottle episode. I know it combines two tricky qualities-- extensive conversation in one room and flashbacks-- but it seems to work alright anyway lol Tap Out (8,002 words) - Jason and family attend a gallery event for Damian, and Jason reflects on trusting Bruce. Now that I think about it, this is quite a lot like both Spike and Tim in a Bottle 😂 Except Tim (2,772 words) - Tim gets lost in the woods with his abandonment issues for company. Featuring both Bambi and Lady and the Tramp references Harvest (30,129 words) - Bruce and Jason harvest some corn and engage in hallmark movie emotion-having. I like the punchability to huggability ratio Bruce has is this

5. do you respond to comments?

Yep! Sometimes, lol. I'd love to answer all of them, but I don't have the spoons. I still reread and kick my feet over them though

6. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Hmmm... Pretty much all my fics have some kind of comfort ending. I'm gonna go with a friend, though he may wander far, because of the guilt and injury it ends on.

7. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Again, they all strive for a relatively happy ending... so I'll say sweetgum, which is pretty angst-free to begin with.

8. do you get hate on fics?

Every once in a while, but nothing memorable. Mostly they're some kind of out of nowhere complaint about deviation from canon, at which I tap the 'alternate universe' sign and delete

9. do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I don't. Not my thing!

10. do you write crossovers?

I haven't... if I did it would probably be pretty niche lol

11. have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope. There is a pretty cool fic inspired by TiaB written in Polish, though!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not too long ago! Me and @batbirdies wrote Tip for a Successful Interview: Lie (Down) :)

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Platonic: whatever I'm currently writing, usually 😂Tim & Jason, right now Romantic: This isn't my thing as much, but I do get a lot of amusement out of an ace batcat ship concept

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

I stubbornly hold out hope for the completion of all my WIPs. That said, probably the Jason & Tim horror one lol

16. What are your writing strengths?

Weaving in flashbacks has gotten good feedback. In general, I think I'm pretty good at being concise (at least, I find editing off words a lot of fun)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Being a little too concise or obscure, sometimes 😂 losing clarity. Overcomplicating things until I either have an unwieldy WIP on my hands or have sacrificed my motivation for solving all the mysteries before I write the fic

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I've played with it a little. I think <using brackets> so the translation is in-text works best for me

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Star Trek: The Original Series, unless you count the thinly veiled MASH fan comic I messed around with

20. Favourite fic you've written?

make me a cradle (1,811 words) - wrote this in a semi-fugue state and I'm uncommonly satisfied with it-- Alfred's voice has a neat quality, it's sufficiently punchy, and it does exactly what I wanted it to do. It even manages a comforty ending! Ironically, it's my lowest ranking fic by kudos 😂 probably owing to the sensitive subject (attempted suicide) and being marked incomplete (with another sensitive subject, grief over Jason's death, promised). (Now that I think about it, I think I might have stealth released this also lol) Seriously considering marking it complete, though, since it stands well on its own. The mentioned follow up might happen someday, but the mood to write incredibly sad fic doesn't happen very often!

I will tag @batbirdies and whoever else would like to claim I tagged them 😂

[dragons-and-dwarves-are-nice]

To the Shadows that Cry Witch /// Chapter 3

Hello! Sorry it’s a bit late, I’ve been settling in the cottage I’m in on holiday. I can't wait for to post this part, since it's now finally starting to kick off! For those who have asked to be in the Taglist, just know you're on the guest list for my funeral, cuz you guys are the ones giving me motivation. <3333333

Summary: Magic was real, but it came at a price. So when two girls from England ended up in the one place they never thought they could reach, strange things began to happen. Good or bad? That's up to them to find out.

Tags: Kíli x oc/reader - Fíli x oc (POV to be written soon) - Thorin's company x ocs/reader (platonic) - fluff - angst - SUPER slow burn - crack - Bagginshield

Word Count: 1017 (Slightly shorter this time)

Warnings: Blood, Minor Injuries, Kate's having a slight panic attack but doesn't realise it lol

Taglist - comment or message to be added!

PLEASE START FROM THE PROLOGUE IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY OK LOVE U

Want some background music? Check out my Soundtrack Playlist!

Now available on Wattpad and AO3 (please let me know if links aren't working)

< Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 >

PART 1: Chapter 3 -

Error: Friend not found.

Throughout time, it was believed that bridges were gateways to other realms and dimensions, and this is what some people believed supernatural creatures such as ghosts used to cross into the world of the living.

Now would be a good time to be anyone but me.

 Chills swept up my spine and down my limbs as I felt frozen in place at the sight before me. Mind clouded with anxiety and confusion, I racked my brain to see if I could come to even a singular conclusion to why Kay had evaporated into thin air.

Breaking through my fuzzed up thoughts, I went with my first idea. Sprinting to where I had last seen her leaning on the other side of the bridge, I practically threw the top half of my body over the edge.

My wide eyes glared into the depths below, scanning intently for any sign that she had fallen in. A circle of ripples, bubbles, anything! But to my bewilderment, nothing revealed any indication that she had landed in the water. Well, now that I come to think of it, if she had fallen, there would’ve been at least some noise. Whether it was a splash, or her screaming as she fell.

I breathed a small sigh in relief as I semi-ruled out the possibility. But the unease swept back like a wave, as I remembered that I was currently alone, in the middle of the woods, with nothing but a thin waterproof coat to keep me warm.

—————————-

The next couple minutes was spent retracing my steps as I returned to the clearing, the whole time I called Kay’s name, straining my ears through the noise of the birds and trees for any sort of reply.

I eventually returned to the bridge, with the intent of returning to the car park to see if Kay had ended up there, and worst case scenario, report her missing.

I switched on my phone’s torch, in order to navigate my way back in the now dying light, whilst nothing but panic pumped at high speed through my veins, my head still clogged with questions about what happened.

Tears pricked at my eyes at the thought of my missing friend and being alone in the middle of nowhere. Nothing like this should happen unless it was a horror movie! What caused her to disappear? How did she vanish so quickly and quietly? I wiped at my glassy eyes, black mascara now smudged on my hand and probably my face. I pushed on and started my way over the bridge.

It was now dark, with only my phone bearing a sphere of light to illuminate what was in front of me. I lifted my head to look ahead, only to stagger to a stop, shock crashing over me for the second time this evening - only this time it was impossible to try and come up with an explanation.

It seemed to shimmer and glitter in the light of my torch, and all I could do for a moment was peer at it with nothing but bafflement as I tried to wrap my head around what I was witnessing. A shaky breath rattled through my lungs as I shuffled a tantalising foot forwards. Call me dumb, but crossing this bridge was my only way back, and this thing completely blocked the path.

It looked like a wall of some sort – transparent – as I could just make out the other side, but it swirled and morphed between white and grey, as if someone had taken the world’s biggest liquid veil and defied gravity by hanging it up in the middle of nowhere. Scanning it whilst moving my phone about, I theorised that this could most likely be behind Kay’s bizarre disappearance.

I slowly lowered myself to the ground, patting my hand about on the wooden floor for a stick I had spotted earlier whilst keeping a firm eye on the veil. I soon felt the knobbly bark and wrapped my hand around it before gradually straightening back up. I held it up in front of me, as both defence and a prodder and inched it forward with my shaking hand until it was no more than a half inch away.

Gently swaying the thin branch from side to side, I cautiously edged it closer each time, making the crazy decision to see if I could swirl what I guessed was liquid within this mysterious wall. That was, until the stick finally came in contact.

I let out a sharp cry of alarm as the stick was torn out of my hand and with a flash, it was gone. I let out a hiss, grimacing as I felt a harsh burning and opened my hand, only to see gashes where the branch had torn at my skin as the veil sucked it in at the speed of light. Clenching my jaw and taking deep breaths through my nose, I tried to put pressure on the wounds in an attempt to stop the blood that was now oozing out and running down my arm.

But what was most important, is that I now had a clear idea of what happened to Kay.

With newfound determination, I strode up to the veil, eager to find my friend. Coming face to face, it was only when I went to step forward, did I hesitate.

What if something bad happens as soon as I stepped through? I didn’t want both of us to go missing without a trace. What would become of our family, and other friends? I didn’t want to put that type of trauma on them! However, it would be worse if I returned alone, I don’t think Kay’s mum would ever forgive me for losing her daughter.

Coming to a final decision, I faced back towards the wall, trying my best to keep myself from faltering.

“I swear down if I don’t come back from this they better put me on Buzzfeed Unsolved.” I muttered to myself.

Reaching out again with my bleeding hand, I decided there was no turning back now, and with a deep breath, I touched the wall.

With a ferocious jolt, my feet were swept from underneath me, and before I could let out even a scream, I was thrusted forward into darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

< Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 >

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Can't wait to see you on the 7th April for Chapter 4! Also please comment if you want to be added to the Taglist <3

Taglist:

@opheliasdrowningg @mrsdurin @g1gglef1t @qmabailor @jupiterrdarling

(Message me if your tag isn’t working)

[merakiui]

Okay, but that last post? With Azul playing cupid? Was so sweet??? I keep telling myself that this is a yandere blog, but then you come outta nowhere and hit me with this. I now want more, but at the same time, I also love your darker stories too! Mera, why you gotta do this to me! I want pain I want fluff I want angst I want I want...! Basically, anything you write is practically gold! Now I want an outing with all four! ;;

Hehe thank you for liking the things I write!! I'm always so tempted to write more fluffy romance or silly harem shenanigans. As much as I love horror and yandere and all of the big brain plays that are made within the fics I write, I also love fluff and the stages of pining that slowly lead into a relationship and the sweetness of lovely things. It's probably why Azul thought 4 feels so romantic (before the plot twist lol); I wanted so badly to write something soft and romantic and sweet, but I also wanted to keep the yandere theme as all Azul Thoughts contain darker undertones hehe.

Riddle, Azul, and the twins would be such a fun group!!! The way that they all just bounce off of each other makes for such an enjoyable group dynamic. If the twins aren't siding with Azul to tease Riddle, they're changing sides and teasing both Azul and Riddle just to see who can get annoyed faster. And darling is between all of the mischief, sitting back and watching, most definitely enjoying the silly nonsense those four indulge in. It's so fun! Thinking about those four being in love with you and trying to navigate their feelings in completely different ways...... orz sometimes you need fluff to feed the soul. (ㅅ´ ˘ `)

[sessakag]

Fic Author Self Rec! When you get this reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, or some snippets from upcoming WIPS. Let’s spread the self-love! Love ya and thank you for all you do!! 💖

I love all of my fics of course, but some are very dear to me for different reasons.

Secrets of the Hidden Leaf - I love this fic, not only is it a ton of fun to write, but I feel like it gives me an opportunity to bring awareness and better understanding to a variety of lifestyles, the submissive lifestyle in particular as well as opening minds to different types of relationships such as polyamory. It's an educational fic buried in smutty goodness I suppose, lol. Then of course the drama/angst is incredibly fun to craft.

Monster - This was my first NaruHina fic and is really like my baby baby (cuz all my fics are my babies) but this one has a special place as my first foray into the wonderful world of NaruHina. This is where I get my fluffiest, despite the horror element 🤭I just love the NaruHina love and connection in here, and I enjoy filling in the blanks of the Otsutsuki with my own nonsense as well.

A Cure For Love - My first time writing M/M Slash dynamic (and certainly not my last) and I am having a ball! It's also another polyamory between Naruto, Hinata, and Sasuke. There are nowhere near enough fics with this trio, and too many that favor one part of the pairing and leave one of these sweetheart squeezed out of the relationship. I plan on adding a lot more NaruHinaSasu fanfics in the future for people like me that want to see this pairing more. I also love that this story gives me a lot of creative freedom. I can take so many elements of the Naruto world and morph it into this supernatural aesthetic.

Prey - A tribute to the dark side, this is a fic I sat on for a while because I didn't want to deal with drama over it's contents but so far I haven't had to deal with any. I can write my immoral, sociopathic Naruto just they way I want. I love Naruto, I love villains and I'm thrilled to combine the two. Surprisingly people LOVE this story and it makes me happy I wasn't the only one craving a dark tale.

NaruHina Fair Oneshot Collection - This was such a good time in my NaruHina writing journey despite the chaos of that month. I feel like most of the ideas I had floating around in my head or collecting dust on my laptop finally got a chance to breathe! I've always felt a bit down that I don't have time (and may never have time) to create every single fanfic I want to write and this collection of oneshots alleviated that feeling quite a bit! Whether I get around to fleshing them all out or not, I've at least published something to the masses and that is way better than never publishing them at all.

[badwithten]

PAIRING Seungmin x fem!reader

GENRE horror + angst

WORD COUNT 4.5k

WARNINGS death, stalker behaviour 

FEATURING Stalker!han

SYNOPSIS The first Christmas on your own wasn't going to be easy after the death of your husband last year. While rummaging through the attic for Christmas decorations you come across a box of his old things that you had never seen before. You hope to find some closure within but after reading his journal, more questions are asked then answered. Was his death an accident after all?

MASTERLIST

A/N this story is lowkey rushed as fuck, its such a cool concept i might explore in another story but this is all we doing for now lol

Your name is being called out from an unknown source, coming from every direction and nowhere at the same time. Your head spins trying to identify who is speaking to you. Although deep down you know, you know what his voice sounds like. It is burned into your brain, the voice of your very own guardian angel. Kim Seungmin. 

His voice was home. That warm breath in your own bed after spending the night away. The distinct taste of your coffee that only you could make right. The layout of your shower making sense, the order correct of products in relation to how you clean yourself. All these things make sense. All these things you found in Kim Seungmin.

Despite his voice being so close and so familiar, you knew this couldn't be real. As soon as you recognised the voice to be his, you stopped hoping that someone cared. It was only a dream. Kim Seungmin died last year, a fire at his workplace caused by faulty wiring. Five others lost their lives alongside him.  

Your heart almost leaps out of your chest, sending you flying up and awake. The alarm clock next to you reads 2:20 AM. You look over to his side of the bed, still empty. You're no longer dreaming. The nightmares have been getting worse lately and you have a suspicion it's due to the upcoming holiday. 

Christmas was a special event for you and Seungmin. Your families were small but having each other was enough. An entire day dedicated to each other. Your future lives together were encapsulated on this day. The children you may or may not have, personalised gifts that immortalised your love and the extra care put around your home. But this year, your home will be empty. You'd call your parents, put on some festive music and maybe pull out some old decorations. With a week til Christmas, you knew the last task had a time restraint.

The pain you felt around losing Seungmin was just as raw as the day you lost him as it is now. Nothing changed, you just got better at hiding it. You become good at masking your feelings, acting as if the unfortunate actions of the world around you didn't eat you up and rot you from the inside out. You suppose part of this masking would be decorating the house, allowing any neighbours to look over and think you’ve healed. 

Being the weekend you had all the time in the world to lounge around, starting your morning off slow with coffee and a shower before you tackled some housework. You avoided the task of going to the attic for the decorations like the plague, knowing his stuff was stored up there. But eventually, you'd done all the cleaning you could think of and no more cups of coffee could be drunk as an excuse. Dragging the dining chair down the hall to reach the attic felt like walking toward your own death sentence.

And that's exactly what this was, as soon as you crawled into the small space a box labelled “KIM SEUNGMIN'' caught your attention. All of this stuff was long forgotten, packed away in a manic state in an attempt to calm your anxiety. Although later you'd come back up to receive a few essential items you’d accidentally packed away, such as your house keys or lip balm. This box was still untouched. Your eyes travelled back and forth between the tangled mess of tinsel and lights back to the mysterious box. Curiosity got the better of you and you took the cardboard box back down to the land of the living where you placed it on the dining table. 

It was another half hour before you bought yourself to open it. You had a general idea of the contents of this box, as it was all stuff from your own home that you packed away. But the reliving of your husband's life was always something you needed to prepare for. This box contained contents from his office, his laptop, stationary, and a beanie that would've been left laying around. You give it a sniff before holding it to your chest. You still use this shampoo, it's a smell you experience every time you shower, but something about smelling it on him was different. You pull the beanie over your head before you continue. It's everyday things mostly, things you wouldn't connect to Seungmin unless you knew it was from this box. Finally, after piling officewear over your coffee table, you reach the bottom where a lonesome journal sits. 

It only takes a quick glimpse to see the notebook is only ¾ filled, the pages warped and used up to a certain point before they sit flat and clean. You open to the last page, scanning the paper and seeing the date. “28/12/2021”. The day it happened, the fire. You quickly shut it. That same fire builds up in you, you can’t bring yourself to read any more of the journal without being burnt. A rush of panic washes over you as you stash away all the things back into the box, pulling the beanie off of your head and shoving it away. Messily, nothing fits nicely as it once did. But everything needs to be out of your site and fast. Something falls but you don't look back, shoving the box back into the attic and closing it up. Your heartbeat calms slowly, bringing you into a dreamless sleep.

6 DAYS TO CHRISTMAS

A day had passed since you ventured into the attic and found the box. You had since seen the journal you thought you packed away laying on the wooden floor in your lounge. First, you ignored it, leaving it on a nearby shelf to collect dust. But it constantly caught your eye, screaming for your attention. It didn't take long for your walls to crumble and for you to give in.

1/1/2021

The start of 2021! First-year started as a married man and it feels good. I’m so lucky to start this year with her by my side. This year also marks my one year with the new company, which puts me up for a promotion. My hopes are high that I will be the one getting this promotion. It’s still early morning but I am happy and grateful to be here in the new year.

15/2/2021

My workload has increased to the promotion position but no pay rise has been mentioned. I want to speak up but know that it got Han fired for the very same reason. If what he claims is true, either way, the further away he is from me the better. If it was just me I would speak up and take the risk of being fired, but Y/N is dependent on me now. We are both dependent on each other. I don't know what to do. I think she can tell something is wrong as she has started talking about picking up a second job to help pay for the bills. I’d hate for it to come down to that.

3/3/2021

I got sunburnt today. I dread coming home or back to work. Just want to disappear into the ocean forever. 

His entries are random and sporadic, with some long detailed descriptions of his days that last the week. Other small one-liners that are only updated every few weeks. Pages are taken up by photos and drawings he has captured. His writing about Han threw you off. Han had a complicated relationship with the two of you. On one hand, he was your childhood friend who supported and was happy for you when you started seeing Seungmin. On the other hand, he had a burning hate for Seungmin, angry when he supposedly stole you from Han. You hadn’t even realised Seungmin had been working with him all that time and putting up with him. You saw nothing in Han apart from a friend. When he couldn't accept that he distanced himself from you. But it seemed he only got closer to Seungmin.

The last entry was upsetting to you. He didn’t want to come home? You didn't realise the internal turmoil Seungmin was living with for the last year of his life. He kept you away from his life and his feelings. You couldn’t decide if he had done this as to not upset you or if he had done this as a way to push you out of his life. Had he fallen out of love?

You settle on the first option, and you beg and scream that it is the first option. Your Seungmin, your best friend and your soulmate. You'd refuse to believe that there was any other option as to why he kept you out. You leave the journal next to your bed falling back into a deep sleep.

“Y/N?” The voice is back, still coming from somewhere unidentifiable but this time it's a lot closer.

And once again you recognise it immediately, knowing this is a dream you crouch down and hide yourself in your arms. “Go away”

“What?” The hurt in his voice sounds so genuine and as his footsteps come closer you question whether you really are dreaming or not. “Y/N please listen to me”

Looking up you see him standing over you, even a glimpse of his face is all you need to spring up and wrap yourself around him. Holding him tight for a few moments before pulling away. His face sits in your hands as you hold him still to examine him. Nothing seemed to have changed from a year ago. His hair loose and framing his face. His dark eyes filled with so much love and care. His mouth sits partly open wanting to speak but waiting for you to finish. Your thumb passes his lips, red in comparison to the snow-white touch of his skin. His large hands capture yours, holding them in between your chest and his.

“You need to listen to me” You nod encapsulated by his beauty. “You can’t read the journal anymore. OK? You need to promise me you won't read it any further”

“What do you mean?” This journal is filling you in on parts of his life you would have never known otherwise. And you miss him so bad. It causes you physical pain anytime you think about the fact you never get to hug or hold him again. Although these dreams soothe the pain, it's only for a moment before you wake up more alone and hurt than ever. 

“It’s not going to help you. It's only gonna hurt this fantasy of yours. It’s all a delusion Y/N.” 

“I’m not delusional” You frown at the accusation. “I know this is only a dream”

“That’s not what I’m talking about Y/N” A beeping in the distance brings you away from his speech. By the time you find him again, he's away. Out of reach. You cry out to him. Needing more, but he’s gone. And soon you wake up, looking over to his side of the bed out of habit.

Empty and alone. 

5 DAYS TO CHRISTMAS

Work drags on as it usually does. Most days your mind is focused on the work you need to complete before the 5 PM deadline. Today your mind is focused on the reading you’ll be doing once you're at home. The dream you had last night had your mind racing for answers. And you had a feeling the only way to achieve these were to read further despite the red flags going off in your brain. You don’t bother getting changed or starting dinner for tonight, instead, you grab yourself a glass of water and get comfortable on the couch, journal in hand.

13/5/2021

It's over. Everything I worked towards building my image to is gone! Today I got called into the office where I received an anonymous complaint about my work. Apparently, it was not up to company standards nor was it my own genuine work. I laughed at first thinking Park Jin-young would see past this considering he has been monitoring my work for my entire career and never had a problem with it. But instead, he is cutting down my hours and having my work more closely monitored. My desk has been moved closer to our general manager's office where the light flickers and gives me a headache. I can't stand it. I can’t tell Y/N. I don’t know what to do!

15/5/2021

My mind is still racing from the other day. I just can't understand it. If Park Jin-young had a problem with my work from the beginning, why didn't he say something earlier? Why keep this hidden for so long? I also don't understand who would’ve sent the anonymous tip? Was one of our contractors not happy with the work we were producing? Was it an excuse to get me fired? I will be spending more hours in my car. I can't tell Y/N.

4 DAYS TO CHRISTMAS

The journal had found its way into your work bag. There was more content contained inside than you had realised and you were determined to finish it. You pulled it out on your break, it sat on the table for a long while. Something you hadn't considered was the unknown words inside. Were they going to be as upsetting as the words read from the other day? Before you get a chance to open it up and read anything, more workmates join you in the break room. Minho chose to join you at your empty table, which surprised you. People avoided you like the plague after your husband's passing. Being labelled as a widow made people think any interaction with you would bring up the dead husband talk. Something most hated.

“Is that your diary?” Minho speaks in a monotone voice but you know he's only teasing. You smile.

“It’s Seungmins” You know what's gonna come next, the regret in his eyes and apologies spilling from his mouth. For once you wished he could be spoken about as if he wasn't a bad thing. As if he was a real person. Today was not that day.

“My apologies, I didn't mean to-”

“It's ok” You cut him off, holding the smile on your face as you sip the coffee you held in front of your face. “I’ve just been reading it now and again”

You can see his eyes searching for another conversation, but as you know, the dead husband really dampens the mood. You excuse yourself from the table, taking your things to the bathroom with you. 

27/8/12

I don't think Y/N has noticed my shorter hours. I spend most of my free time in my car filling in this stupid journal. All the things I wish I dared to speak. I have to take out my savings to pay my part of the bills. Seeing the number go down instead of up is upsetting but unless I stop being a coward, there's not much I can do about that. 

28/8/12

The same red Chevrolet Monte Carlo is parked across the road from our house. The driver is unidentifiable due to his hoodie and cap. It freaks me out but I know I’m jumping to the worst-case scenario. This could be another husband hiding his unemployment from his wife. 

5/9/12

It was our 1 year marriage anniversary today. I can't even feel good about that. I can't afford to treat Y/N the way she deserves. She needs better, I need to do better for her. 

28/9/12

It’s been a month and every day without fail the red car is parked near our house. I want to believe it's a neighbour I have not yet met but I never see the driver enter or leave the car. Whoever it is has nothing better to do. But then again, neither do I. 

3 DAYS TO CHRISTMAS

Ever since reading his last few entries, you keep an eye out for the famous red car. Although you don't know what the make or model he mentioned actually means. A red car outside your house would be enough to scare you. But every time you part the blinds to look or check the mailbox, there's no car.

It's a sense of relief that doesn’t last for long as your phone starts ringing. Your mum's contact photo flashes on the screen. You weren’t close to your family in the way most people your age were. But you didn't hate them, there wasn’t any trauma or arguments that kept you apart. But you had just distanced yourself from the world after you had lost him. Unfortunately, this included your closest family. 

“Hey mum” You try your best to sound happy about this call, but the smile drops from your face when you hear the voices from other family members in the background.

“Hi my darling, how have you been?” 

“Good thanks. Look mum I’m kinda busy right now. Can I call you back?” You only feel slightly bad about lying. You will call her back, eventually. Just whenever you can guarantee it's just her and dad. 

“Now hold on a second, I haven't heard from you all month. Can’t you spare five minutes for me?” She doesn’t give you a chance to reply before she continues with her lecture. “We are all so worried about you. Ever since you know who died you haven't been the same darling. I don't think its a good idea for you to be alone this Christ-”

“His name is Seungmin mum” The line rings in silence, her inability to help or support you speaks volumes through her empty reply. “I’ll call you later”

2 DAYS TO CHRISTMAS

17/11/2021

I finally did it! I confronted Park Jin-young about my hours! It didn't take much convincing considering how low-staffed we are but he agreed that my work had improved in quality. Maybe the lessening of hours was just a scare tactic. There's definitely something off about it but I can’t put my finger on it. At least I will be able to treat Y/N this Christmas. 

Your hand reaches for the silver necklace he got you last Christmas, something you hadn't taken off since. It wasn't anything super expensive from your knowledge, but it was priceless to you. The chain often got tangled, but you'd put in the work to keep it neat. For him.

You had errands to run today, it would be a rush but you needed to get them done before shops closed for Christmas eve. But as you make your way outside to your car, you see it. Your heart stops. The dreaded red car Seungmin has mentioned so frequently. Now, this could be any red car, but the driver is wearing a hoodie and glasses, the same way Seungmin saw him. You can't tell where this mystery man is looking thanks to the tinted glass covering his eyes, but you think it's fair to say he was looking at you. As soon as your eyes caught him, he looked away, starting his car and driving off in a rush. 

You're frozen in place. Who was this man and what did he want with you?

1 DAY TO CHRISTMAS

25/12/2021

This morning was the happiest I’ve felt in a long time. I’m at peace. I struggle to talk about how I’m feeling, even with Y/N. Things build up but this morning I was able to let everything go without blowing up. I feel so lucky to be able to experience such bliss. I wish every day was like this. But I return to work soon and so does Y/N. We made breakfast together and opened gifts in our bed. I don’t want to let go of this feeling.

27/12/2021

I got to spend another day with Y/N yesterday and as nice as that was I’m back to work and so is she. To be honest with you I am scared for what this day holds for me. The red car is outside the building and I can see the driver is Han. Which means he's back at work. But why was he at our house? I will confront him when I see him leave his car but to be honest I don't want to. I don't want to tell Y/N either. I need to but I can’t. I am still a coward and not even half the man she deserves. 

A hole is opened up in your chest that allows all the worries of the outside world to consume you. You're so lightheaded yet weighed down by anxiety all at once. A feeling of fear you truly never wish to experience again. Han Jisung worked with your husband. Han Jisung sat outside your house for months last year. Han Jisung was outside of your house yesterday. 

Discarding the journal, your shaking hands pick up the phone and dial 112. The phone rings for a long while, you struggle to even hear the line being picked up over your loud and fast breathing.

“112 what's your emergency?” The lady on the other side has heard enough horror stories for her lifetime, any piece of joy has left her which is reflected in her dull voice.

“My ex- Well he’s not my ex, this guy has been stalking me and my husband for over a year and I think he-” Your voice is erratic and out of pace, speaking faster than you can keep up with. 

“Slow down mam, is your husband there?”

“No, he's dead! It's unrelated but now this guy is after me!” Your back is pressed against your bedroom door, there's no lock so using your own strength is all you've got. “Please help me”

“Is he currently at your property?”

“No, but he will be, I just know it” Your sobbing echoes in the empty room, words barely escaping the crumbled mess that you are. 

“I’m sorry to inform you mam but without any urgent danger, I can’t help you. Contact your local police station and they should be able to send an officer to help you ok?” Dread fills your stomach, this isn't real. If she doesn’t believe you then who will? “Are you there mam?”

You press the big red button on your screen, letting your phone fall to the floor. Dragging your shaky legs up and onto your bed is a struggle. But soon you are hidden under the soft protection of your blankets. You curl up, another sob ripping through your body, this is where you lie. Waiting for death or sleep, whatever comes first. 

CHRISTMAS DAY

You wake up out of breath and aching. Your neck crumbled from the position you slept in. As you awaken your memory of last night comes to light and you rush to the front door. Making sure to secure it shut. Calming down you take a breath, your head is covered in fog and your eyes are swollen. The tears you shed last night are not forgotten this morning. Without your initial panic, you're able to do as you should've last night and call your town's police station.

“Reminder that this is not an emergency line, for an emergency please dial 112” You let the automated voice speak before it continues ringing to a real person.

“Seulgi speaking, how can I help?” She sounds young, which makes you feel guilty that she has to spend Christmas away from her family and deal with people like you. 

“Sorry to call on Christmas, but I believe I have a stalker and I have recently seen him outside of my house” Your words are a lot clearer than last night.

“Ok, am I able to get an address for that one?” You repeat back your address to her, feeling relief that someone is listening. “And do you have the name of this man?”

“Han Jisung”

Can you elaborate on your relationship with Han?”

“He had a crush on me,” The words sound childish coming out of your mouth, especially with the seriousness of the situation. “But I’m married, I turned him down. I recently found out from my husband he used to sit outside our house and watch us and I saw him watching me the other day“

“Why did you not alert the police last year? Or the other day?” Her tone is not condescending. It’s flat. She needs to know because it's her job but you don’t know how to explain your situation. She picks up on your unwillingness to answer. “I’ll send a patrol car now”

“Thank you”

“Have a good Christmas mam”

It was a waiting game now. Anytime now there was going to be a knock on the door and this would all be over. The anticipation and fear that was built up inside you would soon be split out onto someone who could protect you. In the meantime, you had one more page to read and you couldn't help yourself. You want to know what happened the day you lost your husband. It was notable enough for him to record. 

28/12/21

Han Jisung got his job back. Sort of. He started back at his old position but I’ve seen him working on maintenance around the building. I don't think he is qualified to but I am keeping my distance. I couldn't confront him yesterday but I am convinced he is here to mess with me and Y/N. I am writing this from my car, I can see him sitting in his. I am going to talk to him now. If he doesn't stop his behaviour I will be contacting the authorities. I need to do something about his behaviour, for Y/N. 

Sparks in your brain go off and things start to fall into place. Was Han the one at fault for Seungmin's death? From your knowledge, Han was very uninterested in any work that involved his hands. He enjoyed music and cooking, writing and coffee making. Even if he had gone through the necessary training, he had only been training for less than a year. He had no place working in a building that size. He had no place near Seungmin. He put his life in danger. It was Han Jisung who ended Kim Seungmin's life.

As your blood begins to boil, a knock on the door interrupts you. You wipe away the tears you didn't notice falling and head towards the front door. It all ends here, with the help of the officer behind this door you will put an end to the suffering Han Jisung put you through for the last year, unknown to you. 

You pull open the door and your eye immediately goes to the bright red car parked outside your house. Your heart drops as you make eye contact with the man in front of you. His gummy smile and charming eyes. Han Jisung is standing at your door. His hands conceal something behind his back. And although he's got his usual smirk on his face, his eyes hide something much more sinister.

“Merry Christmas Y/N”

[localvoidcat]

11 21 23! forrr hawthorne cause it has the most interesting name to me :)

11.) give a general summary of the plot/world/characters.

rudy hawthorne takes a job at hardell research institute, a place perfect for any aspiring cryptozoologist that doesn't mind spending their days in a tiny shack out in the middle of nowhere, alongside her new coworker keith devland.

most of the story is told through rudy rereading the old logs of her predecessors, and learning what happened to them before they disappeared. between this and her own investigations out in the woods with keith, it starts to become clear that the entities she heard about from the logs are real.

and those entities are coming right for the two of them, whether they like it or not.

21.) you have been given unlimited funds to make your story idea a reality. what are you sparing no expenses for?

voice acting/sound ambience 100%!! ive always imagined it as a horror podcast lol, so i'd want it to sound and feel spooky

23.) describe how everyones character gets butchered once in the public eye?

rudy: all of her character gets watered down into silly character. or axe-wielding woman. which is not her entire character keith: he's ignored. or viewed as a soft guy which is not true miguel: people would like him but they'd. forget all about him or focus solely on angst. again, not his whole character stanley: i dont think id trust an audience with him honestly, they'd completely misinterpret it as uncaring. not the whole thing isabel: they just wouldn't pay attention to lune i think osian: again, they'd see them as the anxious guy that went missing and nothing more