#long ass fics

[eienmoon]

So i was looking through the most bookmarked #harrom #tom/harry fic on ao3 and i realized something.... Tom/Harry shipper (my people) are absolutely unhinged (affectionate). The fic on the first page, so the most popular, are nearly all over 100k words with some being like 450k and everything. Do you know how long was the first Harry Potter book Harry Potter and the philosopher's stone 78k words. My guys are out there writing full books on this ship and I'm LIVING for it.

This was a message of love to all of you amazing writers i love you and thanks for making my days better!

[macdenlover]

Windows - Part 1/?

[fjordline]

since bringing mass murderer of incalculable lives Megatron on board the Lost Light was such a huge success, bringing mentally unstable ancient gladiator Galvatron on board will surely go just as well

[houseofpsychoticwomxn]

♱ 18+ smut !! ♱

thinking about smoking with simon while u ride him ᜊ( ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ᜊ

♱⋰ ⋱✮ he’s convinced he’s corrupted you, turned you into some ‘cockdrunk stoner’, shaking his head at your insistent whines in his annoyingly clothed lap.

“you can’t get what you want all the fuckin’ time.” he griped, stilling your hips that seemed to have a mind of their own. of course he was a hypocrite, still-lit blunt gripped between his fingers pressing into your sides.

“why not?” you pouted, using the hands planted on his chest to lift yourself up and back down again, intent on torturing him just as much as he was you. he could be mean — deny you completely just so you’d really beg him for it, even make you get yourself off on his thigh without any help while he watches, but he couldn’t deny the effect you had on him; currently prevalent in his tightening jeans. he took another drag before grabbing your jaw, exhaling warm smoke into your mouth as your eyes closed.

soon enough you’re grinding on his dick — just lazily rocking your hips while he watches you. you take the blunt from his hand before he gets ash all over the couch, turning it towards him after tapping it against the glass tray on the table next to you, holding it for him so he can keep his hands gripped tight on your waist. your pace only gets more lax as you get higher, a loud smack to your ass reopening your eyes for you.

“c’mon ride it like you mean it. attagirl.”

˚₊‧꒰𓆩 ♱ 𓆪꒱ ‧₊˚

[tarysande]

The best part about coming back to the source material after a looooong time is you sorta get a fresh look at canon in comparison to whatever the dominant strains of fanon have become. Or, in fact, whatever your own dominant strains of headcanon have become.

I mean, yes, Garrus “I’m not a good turian” Vakarian gets infinitely cooler (and more competent!) by pretty much every metric as the storyline progresses. He does. But fresh out of ME1 and into ME2 through his recruitment, I find myself genuinely amused by how thin the veneer of badass is over a pretty dominant core of straight-up nerd sprinkled with idealism mixed with self-doubt.

When you have Garrus in the squad all the time (and thus get all his ambient dialogue and remarks), you really pick up on the number of times he calls out bad behavior, unethical actions, cruelty, and rule-breaking, especially in ME1.

He’s not actually a hothead who can’t abide rules of any kind. In fact, most of the time he’s pretty pro-law-and-order, and he gets amusingly hall-monitorish when people are breaking rules he considers important and worth following.

Fundamentally, Garrus chafes when his sense of what is just is at odds with what the authorities do about that injustice (or what they stop him from doing). And I would hazard a guess that the reason his actions seem so intense or harsh or "of course we should have shot down that ship in the middle of the Citadel" is indicative not of his impatience but of the degree to which he thinks the authorities have failed to uphold that justice. We know he can be patient. He's a sniper. His whole modus operandi on Omega is precision kills without civilian casualty. But when that long fuse finally burns down, he goes from zero to shooting down ships in the middle of the Citadel in what looks (from the outside) like a heartbeat.

And yes, injured pride hastens the burning of that fuse; he doesn’t like losing. Or admitting defeat. Or failing.

Having just replayed his recruitment mission, a few things really stood out to me this time.

The merc bands really hate him--and they also reluctantly admire him (he's described as smart, resourceful, dangerous, idealistic, brave, slippery; they all agree they only way they managed to get this far is by isolating him and employing dirty tactics). I mean, there's literally a station-wide announcement that Omega can return to "business as usual" once Archangel is out of the picture because he was disrupting things so completely.

The way Garrus blames himself for the deaths of his squad is so freaking turian. Failure reflects on the leader who places his people in danger they can't handle, not the individual who fails. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Yes, Sidonis betrayed him, but the person Garrus blames the most? Is himself. For trusting Sidonis in the first place. For raising Sidonis to a position where he had the means and opportunity to harm others--and the weakness of character to turn coat, to save his own hide, instead of dying to protect the others.

Garrus mentions more than once that he was trying to emulate Shepard. And his tone always implies that he knows he failed because Shepard would never have let a Sidonis into the fold. Again, he's blaming himself. Like a good turian. Yes, he wanted to avoid the red tape and bureaucracy of C-Sec, but his code--Archangel's code--certainly aligns with Paragon Shepard's morality (with a Garrus Vakarian twist).

And since it wouldn't be meta without adding a Tara's Headcanon Twist ... I've always wondered why "Archangel" when it's such a ... human concept. But this time, when I noticed how he spoke about Shepard's influence, and how quickly he brushes aside the name when she asks him about it, I wondered if it wasn't actually his way of honoring the mythology of the dead woman whose example he was trying to follow. Not that Shepard is a God he's worshiping, but ... there is something about the way he talks about her. Garrus doesn't make himself over in the image of a God, though; he's the soldier, the right hand, the avenging angel responsible for carrying out divine punishments suited and proportional to the crimes committed, the rules broken, the selfishness or cruelty of the perpetrator.

[elliethefroggy]

What if Eddie had been a little less oblivious and had invited to Buck to trivia-karaoke night.

They’re all three going to hang out at the karaoke bar, and at first Buck’s nervous because Tommy is super cool, but once the trivia quiz actually starts, all the nerves go away, and Buck’s sponge of a brain has a chance to shine.

He gets question after question right, barely having to consult the two others. Eddie’s probably used to this side of Buck, but Tommy gets to sit there, mesmerised because not only is Buck exceedingly attractive but he also has brains (does Tommy have a competency kink? Who’s to say).

By the end of the night, Tommy’s probably forgotten all about trying to answer the questions, too busy watching Buck’s eyes light up every time he knows an answer (and those eyes light up an awful lot). Overall, the night goes well, and Buck’s amazing brain probably wins them a pitcher of free beer or something.

Because that night went so well, all three of them start hanging out more and more. Maybe Tommy somewhat discreetly suggests to Eddie that they invite Buck along, just so he has the opportunity to stare in Buck’s eyes some more.

But Tommy doesn’t do anything at about his developing crush, at least not right away.

Firstly it’s because Tommy’s trying to figure out just what the deal is between Eddie and Buck. Are they dating? Are they the most healthy divorced couple of LA? BFFs? Platonic soulmates? Not-so-platonic soulmates?

Maybe it doesn’t take him that long to figure out that those two are not together, but then he still needs to make sure that there isn’t some unrequited or very-requited-but-they’re-both-oblivious crushing going on between Eddie and Buck.

My guess it takes him a while to finally decide that they’re some flavour of queerplatonic life partners (he decides on this after a lot of subtle and not so subtle questions; Christopher is probably his most helpful informant).

(Realistically, Tommy would have probably just straight up asked one of them if they were together because Tommy seems pretty good at communication, but that’s no fun for me.)

But then, once he’s figured out that Eddie and Buck are definitely not a thing, he still needs to figure out what exactly Buck’s sexuality is.

Because, sure Buck’s only ever dated women and is such an ‘ally’. But Buck spends way too long looking at other men’s asses. Tommy notices this because he’s probably caught Buck staring at the same asses Tommy himself was just looking at (remember the hanger scene when Tommy very blatantly checks out Buck’s ass).

So now Tommy’s having to figure out just what Buck’s sexuality is. Is Buck gay? Is he closeted? Is he as straight as he claims to be? Is he repressed? Also what’s with all the flirting (because of course Buck’s going to be unknowingly flirting with Tommy; Buck just can’t help himself).

Eventually, Tommy and Buck are going to have some one-on-one bonding time without Eddie.

Buck takes him up on those flying lessons which means Tommy gets trapped in a confined space with Buck on a regular basis, having to deal with his growing feelings towards what can only be a golden retriever in human form. Buck is kind and sincere and so so earnest, Tommy has no choice but to fall for him.

But Tommy still doesn’t know where Buck’s sexuality lies, and he’s getting to the point where’s pulling his hair out in frustration, trying to figure it out. Because no way can a heterosexual man stare at Tommy’s lips that often. There is no straight reason for that, right?

He then makes the mistake of also offering Buck Muay Thai lessons.

He doesn’t realise his mistake until they’re both sweaty and shirtless. Buck looks very good sweaty and shirtless. But it’s fine, Tommy manages to cope, he just avoids looking at the large expanse of wet skin right in front of him. He’s not distracted by all that skin. He’s fine.

(Luckily, Buck doesn’t know enough about Muay Thai to notice how badly Tommy is fighting.)

Somehow they both get tangled up and they fall to the ground (I don’t know shit about Muay Thai). Buck lands flat on his back and Tommy ends up on top of him. Tommy goes to get off Buck immediately because Tommy’s not exactly light, but then he makes another mistake: just as he places his hands on either side of Buck to push off the ground, he looks at Buck’s face

Buck’s cheeks are nice and red (because of exertion? Because of Tommy’s close proximity? Both?), Buck’s breathing heavily, his breaths getting faster and faster the longer Tommy stays where he is. Buck’s eyes are near black, his pupils leaving only the thinnest band of colour.

Buck’s staring at Tommy, and Tommy’s staring at Buck. Then Buck once again glances down at Tommy’s lips as Tommy is lying over him, their sweaty chests pressing against one another.

And Tommy cracks.

He throws himself off Buck, getting to his feet, and crosses over to the other side of the mat to put some distance between himself and Buck.

When he turns back to look at Buck, Buck is still lying on the ground, now leaning back on his forearms, looking up at Tommy. Which is a sight Tommy would love nothing more than to see again.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Tommy says, “but are you really straight?” Which is definitely not how Tommy wanted this conversation to start, but sue him, he’s having a breakdown. “Sorry,” he repeats, “It’s just there’s been a lot of flirting and a lot of starring at my various attributes,” he tries again, poorly, “Not that I’m complaining; I would love nothing more than to have you stare at my lips and flirt with me for as long as you want. But I need to know where we stand before I lose my mind trying to figure you out.”

And the thing is, Tommy’s not the only one who’s been struggling these past few weeks.

Buck’s been dealing with these weird feelings towards Tommy since day 1. At first he just figured it was because Tommy was so cool (which he is), and then he thought it was because he was jealous that Tommy was spending so much time with Eddie, thinking maybe Tommy was trying to steal his spot in the Diaz household. But is wasn’t either of those things. Buck’s been wracking his brain for weeks, trying to figure out just what he was feeling towards Tommy.

And here’s Tommy, all sweaty and shirtless, so much glistening skin on display, and Tommy’s offering Buck a possible answer to all these feelings he’s been unable to name.

And what Tommy’s implying makes some sense. Buck thinks over all the instances he’s hung out with Tommy, compares his behaviour to the times he’s had crushes on women, and thinks maybe Tommy’s onto something.

Buck, who is a big believer of the scientific method of experimentation, figures there’s an easy way to test Tommy’s theory.

Buck slowly gets up from the mat as his brain goes into hyper-drive, processing the fastest sexuality crisis known to humanity.

Maybe Buck flexes a bit as he gets up because Tommy’s watching him and he’s always liked attention.

By the time he straightens up, the sexuality crisis has been dealt with and he’s ready to act on these newly revealed feelings.

He likes Tommy’s theory a lot.

“I have been staring at your lips a lot, haven’t I?” He says, purposeful flirty.

(Once again they have both been (knowingly or not) starring at each other longingly for weeks, they are both shirtless and covered in sweat, and had their naked chests pressed up together just moments ago; neither of them are thinking very rationally.)

And Buck (flirty Buck who made picking woman up into an art-form) walks/stalks over to Tommy, leaving enough room for Tommy to back away if he wants to.

“Maybe you should do something about that?” Buck suggests, and very deliberately stares down at Tommy’s lips.

Tommy knows they should have a more thorough discussion about where both of them stand, but he’s only one man.

Tommy closes the gap between them, places two fingers underneath Buck’s chin, and slowly leans in to finally kiss Buck.

The kiss lasts no more than a moment, not nearly long enough for either of their tastes, but Tommy needs to be sure that Evan’s sure.

“So?” he asks simply, fingers still under Evan’s chin.

“Yeah, definitely not straight.” And Evan leans in to kiss Tommy again. Tommy does not mind at all.

(They then spend the rest of their Muay Thai lesson making out.)

[justaz]

merlin told arthur his favorite color was the color of the sky during sunset when it shifted into a deep violet. arthur gets a tunic made in that exact shade. its the best thing merlin owns. arthur was hoping that would mean he’d wear it almost everyday but merlin almost never wears it. the only time he does wear it is when royals come to visit (which isn’t all that often). arthur “subtly” asks about it and merlin is like “it’s the best thing i own. i’m not gonna dirty it mucking out the stables or serving rowdy knights wine while they splatter food on it” and arthur is like “why not wear it when nobles come to visit? look at least a little presentable for them” (cough nice save). merlin doesn’t see the point in it bc nobles don’t care about him at best, view him as less than human at worst.

arthur really just wants to see his boyfriend servant in the tunic he had made for him (bonus points for sending a message that merlin is his. not that merlin seems to notice. man is too much of an idiot). merlin wants to preserve his favorite tunic and gift from his boyfriend king.

[greenglowinspooks]

(DCxDP) The obligations of a rogue versus those of a parent (Pt. 3)

—

Tw: Vivisection mention, torture mention (GiW agent receiving), me not actually knowing how telegram works

Will be crossposted to AO3 eventually.

(Pt. 1 here) (Pt. 2 here) - (Pt. 4 here)

(Masterlist/subscription post)

—

It’s an average, ordinary afternoon in Gotham, and Jason is in hell.

Specifically, Jason is in hell because he’s been researching the GiW for the last week or so, ever since a cryptic message from Scarecrow of all people.

He still hasn’t gotten anything substantial out of it that Scarecrow hadn’t already provided. Most location data had been previously scrubbed from the database, weaponry details were apparently all stored physically, and the experiment logs seemed to be only accessible from within one of the bases, whose locations Jason did not have.

Apparently Babs and Tim were having similar issues with gathering information. He had sent a copy of the files over to them in a moment of weakness, but they were having the exact same results as him.

To make things worse, the GiW was more active than they had been previously, combing through Crime Alley and the rest of Gotham tirelessly. At least they weren’t harassing him anymore, he thought, but now he had even less of a clue what they wanted.

And to top it all off, the Joker had escaped Arkham a few days prior to Jason receiving Scarecrow’s note, and he still hadn’t done anything. That could only mean that he was planning something big, which meant more grief for Jason, because the clown was obsessed with him.

So yes, Jason wasn’t having the best week.

He got up from his computer, stretched, and walked over to the window.

The sky was Gotham’s usual grey, clouded with a toxic miasma made up of traditional pollutants and the aftermath of gas attacks both, which could generously be called ‘smog.’

The streets seemed busier than usual, or maybe that was just because Jason was having a hard time keeping his eyes focused.

With blurry vision and a dull ache in the back of his head, Jason paced through his apartment, going through everything he knew.

The GiW, or Ghost Investigation Ward, were part of a secret government project having to do with ‘ecto-entities,’ which were mostly made up of ghosts.

The GiW was able to kidnap and steal away anyone who was ‘ecto-contaminated’ to be dissected, and it was completely legal.

According to the non-censored patrol reports he was given, Jason himself was considered ecto-contaminated. So were Bruce, Damian, Steph, and Cass.

There were also several rogues that were in the same boat, but their names had been redacted, presumably by Scarecrow. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but he guessed it was either for leverage or privacy. Knowing Crane, it could be both.

Anything useful about the GiW seemed to be stored physically within their compounds, or on an operating system that couldn’t be accessed outside of certain areas.

Anything useful about ghosts was conveniently removed by Scarecrow.

And, lastly, he knew from capture logs that they had numerous captive ghosts which were definitely being experimented on. One of these ghosts was named Daniel, last name redacted, and had been turned over by his parents in return for allowing them to run their own experiments on the boy.

From what he could tell, it had been around fifty two days since he had been turned in.

Fifty two days of experimentation and dissection.

Jason had to find him.

But first, he had to find the locations of the GiW bases, and plan his entrance carefully. He couldn’t let them get away because of a simple mistake.

The only location data he had been able to find was on a picture of the boy, Daniel, a picture of a vigilante in a red suit, and a quick note left about Daniel which hadn’t been transferred into the main database.

The note was…

Jason had been around crime for a very, very long time. He understood it intimately, in a way most people would never hope to achieve.

He understood hatred, too.

And yet, the words in that note were almost incomprehensible to him.

They were mockery of a child in pain. A child that was not seen as human. A child that was seen as a threat, a monster.

The man had detailed the security surrounding the child being cut back. Apparently, the kid had some sort of sonic scream. They were removing the muzzle that inhibited it because he had screamed himself hoarse, and he couldn’t make a sound anymore.

He also mentioned that the kid was cut open at least once a day, sometimes multiple times. He was opened up, played with, and sewn back shut.

The man joked that they should just put a zipper on him, so they wouldn’t keep wasting their stitches.

Jason really, really wanted to kill that guy.

The metadata on the note traced back to a newly-bought building in Gotham’s financial district, while the photos both came from Amity Park, Illinois.

Amity Park, Illinois did not exist in any official capacity.

Tim, who had taken the Batplane to check the precise location listed in the metadata, had reported that there was a town there after all, and it was on complete media lockdown from the rest of the world. He hadn’t even been able to use Bat, Justice League, or Young Justice channels to message anyone outside of the city until he left.

Jason had checked the building in the financial district firsthand, and found that the man who had submitted the note had done so while resting on a patrol of the city. He seemed to go there often to avoid his superiors, and Jason found it easy enough to get the drop on him the third time around.

His advanced interrogation techniques hadn’t been enough to get the man to name any locations. Worse, the man definitely recognized Red Hood, and would definitely tell the rest of the GiW about what had happened as soon as he left.

So, Jason did something about that. He couldn’t kill him, unfortunately, so he did the next best thing.

The GiW sent him to a public hospital within a few hours of finding him with shattered hand bones, broken arms, and a throat with near-permanent damage. The man wouldn’t be able to speak for a month at least.

He might never write again.

Jason, having read the note over and over until the words stained the backs of his eyes, thought it was the least he deserved.

Jason sighed, stopping his pacing. He wasn’t getting anywhere with this. If anything, working himself up was only going to lower the chances of him magically coming to a realization about where the kid was or what in the hell was going on.

He walked into the kitchen, popped some leftovers into the microwave, and started them up.

Once they were done, he brought them out to his desk, intending to eat as he continued to work on the GiW case.

When he saw his screen, he froze.

Telegram had been opened to a new chat with someone he had never messaged before.

TooFine: who are you?

TooFine: why are you looking into the giw?

The messages were a couple of minutes old, probably sent while Jason was spiraling pacing. He just stared at the screen, dumbstruck.

Shakily, he responded.

RedDead: How the hell did you get my contact info

Whoever was on the other side of the screen paused for a second. Jason considered sending a quick text to Babs to tell her what was going on, but he decided that he could handle this by himself.

TooFine: got it from the backdoor I put into the giw system.

RedDead: Shit

TooFine: ok your turn

TooFine: why r u looking into the giw? seriously man

RedDead: I don’t have a single reason to tell you. Give me one and I might answer your questions

TooFine paused again. Clearly they both had issues trusting someone over the internet, and rightfully so. What they had both admitted to doing was incredibly illegal, and if someone turned them in, they would be in deep shit.

TooFine: ive been trying to take down the giw since it was created. I can help u if ur honest with me

RedDead: Oh yeah, because no one has ever lied to another person on the internet before

RedDead: But fine

RedDead: I’m looking into them because they’ve been shadowing me for over a month at this point, among other reasons

TooFine: other reasons?

Jason sighed. He shouldn’t have added that. He knew that the other guy would ask, but he said something anyways.

RedDead: They’ve got a kid. I don’t like it when people hurt kids

TooFine: Danny? he’s alive?

RedDead: From what I can tell

So he knew the kid. Or, at least, he was pretending to. It would make sense for him to be cagey about his intentions, and for him to be desperate enough to reach out.

TooFine: oh my god

TooFine: do you know what city? fuck

TooFine: fuck fuck fuck

TooFine: I need to find him man please

RedDead: He’s somewhere in Gotham

RedDead: I’ve been trying to find him for a week now but no dice. They keep everything important on separate servers

TooFine: listen man you’re a good hacker but you’re not as good as me. you need my help if we’re gonna find Danny

RedDead: Okay, what are you trying to get me to agree to?

TooFine: i’m coming to gotham and we’re going to meet up

RedDead: Hell no

RedDead: Stranger danger

TooFine: if I tell u who I am will you say yes

RedDead: ?? How am I supposed to verify if you’re telling the truth

TooFine then sent him what seemed to be a selfie. Jason’s jaw dropped at the kid’s sheer audacity.

RedDead: There’s something seriously wrong with you

TooFine: my name is Tucker Foley. i live in amity park. i’m in 10th grade

RedDead: ???????? WHAT THE HELL

TooFine: i can send u my address too

RedDead: PLEASE DON’T??

RedDead: WHAT’S YOUR FUCKING DAMAGE? DON’T DOXX YOURSELF TO ME

RedDead: WHAT IF I WANTED TO KILL YOU OR SOMETHING? WHAT IF I WAS A FED

TooFine: i have to take that chance.

TooFine: Danny is my best friend. they’ve had him for over a month and no one’s doing anything to help. mr. Lancer was the only one who cared and he gave up after they blackmailed him

TooFine: they’ve had him for OVER A MONTH. I THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD.

TooFine: Sam and Jazz and I are coming to gotham and we’re going to find him no matter what it takes

TooFine: you have to help us

Jason considered, for a second, the choices he’d made in his life that had led up to this moment. He also considered, if he was in this kid’s position at his age, if he would be doing the same.

He decided to throw the kid a bone.

RedDead: [4735.jpg]

TooFine: HUH

RedDead: I’m guessing you know me

TooFine: RED HOOD??????

RedDead: No I’m just a very dedicated LARPer

TooFine: am i gonna die for Danny right now

RedDead: If I were literally anyone else, probably

RedDead: But no, you’re not. I’m gonna help you find your friend

TooFine: your username is red dead and you’re. yeah ok

RedDead: Oh come on, it’s funny

TooFine: Danny would love you

RedDead: So Danny clearly has great taste in jokes

TooFine: nope. literally loves puns and wordplay

RedDead: Nevermind

They both paused for a second. Then, Jason had a thought.

RedDead: Wait you’re in the 10th grade and you’re hacking into government databases?

TooFine: please don’t tell my parents.

RedDead: And how are you supposed to explain a sudden vacation to Gotham to your parents?

TooFine: wait so you’ll help me?

RedDead: I really hate to say it but I’m not the best at hacking, and my usual help is busy trying to track down the Joker. So, yep, we’re teaming up

TooFine: LET’S GOOOOOO

RedDead: God. I’m asking a 16 year old to help me take down a government agency and save another 16 year old

RedDead: I feel like the bat

TooFine: oh my god this is awesome. Danny is gonna flip when the actual real-life Red Hood comes to save him.

RedDead: I already regret this

TooFine: too late.

TooFine: btw do u have any place for 2 teenagers and 1 adult teenager to stay in gotham? preferably without dying but yknow.

Jason groaned. He was really, really gonna regret this, and he knew it.

Still, the alternative was some overeager kid dragging two other idiots to Gotham to find their friend and getting themselves killed. At least this way he’d have help, and damn good help at that.

He really was turning into the Bat, wasn’t he?

—

[nebuladreamz]

A little different than last year's, but here we are again. To say that this past year hasn't been absolutely wild would be a lie, cause HOLY SHIT MAN

This year's birthday is. A little different for me, but you already have the silly comic to show that so I won't make like a broken record oops

But, despite the changes and hills that life's decided I should climb or throw at, it hasn't changed the fact that I'm so genuinely fucking thankful to the people that I've known since joining this fandom. I'm not even kidding when I say that being here has actually changed my life for the better. I know I said something similar last year, but this time, hoo boy it sure turned up the AMP and test how far I could go.

So, to everyone, both new and old; thank you for being here :D

@garbagechocolate @darkxsoulzyx @smoljeanius @bunmuffin @skizabaa

@tuzesdays @sleepykas @fernzwing @kandidandi @starsketchez

@just-a-drawing-bean @notdysfunk @ilsole @amberluvsbugs @cloudyvoid

@nomsthecat @alfinefalf @nosleepygay @theblog-with-thestuff

@cacaocheri

(Edit: ty kibbits for informing me of the. Fuck ass tagging system)

AND TAGGING OTHERS BECAUSE. POINTS. BONKS WITH HEAD. GETTING TO EITHER INTERACT OR TALK OR WHATEVER IS ALWAYS A DELIGHT

@ohno-the-sun @kibbits @ink-yy @saltyfryz @kaprisvn

@hierba-picante @sunny-sophies-garden @cookiiemancer @sneeblbop @justaduckarts

@pepethehumanz @crystalmagpie447 @woolysstuff @mocha-illustrates @duhsty1

@sanchensky @pillowspace @victarin @witherfide

[I DEFINITELY GOT SONAS WRONG AND THESE AREN'T ALL THE SILLY PEOPLE I KNOW BUT IM SITTING HERE AT 2:30 IN THE MORNING JUST KNOW YOU'RE THERE IN SPIRIT HANDING YOU ALL POPTARTS WAUGH]

[leesolbeesol]

LIGHTWEIGHT

univeristy!au taesan x fem!reader (ft. the rest of bonedo!)

SUMMARY: Meeting Taesan at a basement party doesn't go as planned, what happens when you can't get rid of him? Do you even want to?

GENRE: fluff, slightly suggestive in one chapter, university!au (mentions of fraternities, classes, lectures, dorms, etc.) WARNINGS: Taesan gets punched, he doesn't deserve it but everything is okay | swearing | mentions of moaning but it doesn't get too crazy, reader makes fun of Taesan for it | fem!reader | heavy mentions of alcohol in the first chapter | EXCESSIVE flirting | ends with a confession!! NOTES: I have never been to a frat party. I have never participated in Greek life. I do not drink for personal reasons. I have never dated Han Dongmin (unfortunately). In other words, this is likely very unrealistic because my information comes from speculation, reddit threads, and other fanfics on tumblr dot com. This was so fun to write WC: 16.2k, divided into 6 "chapters" of varying length

RIDE OR DIE

You shift on your twin bed and feel the crinkly sheets shifting under your weight. You glance at the egg-shaped off-white clock on your wobbly, school-provided desk. The clock hits noon, your roommate will be home any minute and you’re hoping to power through the end of this report before then. Since you chose her as your roommate freshman year (because of maybe five instagram messages), Jen’s been your best friend, your literal ride or die, but she’s not the best body-doubling partner for cranking out assignments. When she’s with someone, she needs to provide commentary on whatever's going on, which is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a curse when it comes to being someone’s study partner.

The wooden door opens in an instant, and Jen’s frame appears in the doorway, flanked by about three bags. “Oh, dear roommate!” She greets you in song. She lets the bags fall from her arms with a thunk on the floor, and a couple papers scatter on the floor out of one of many of her partially-zipped backpacks. She marches towards you, waving her phone in your face.  “Look at this! One of our sisters invited us to a party Sigma Chi’s is throwing this evening!” She says excitedly before steadying her gaze on you. You back up as a carefully manicured finger stretches out towards your face. “We need to go.” She always refers to her sorority sisters as your (plural) sisters, which you think is sweet. It’s her way of including you. You figure that, at some point, she decided ‘my sisters this, my sisters that’ got a little bit exclusionary.

“No.” You answer her and turn back to your computer, entering the link for a hopefully-penultimate citation. This is the one thing you’re maybe not so “ride-or-die” about with Jen. You like parties, sure, but you aren't going to give up a good night’s sleep (without midterms, and all) so easily.

“What do you mean? It’s going to be so much fun!” She whines. “We just finished our midterms, we need to celebrate! What could you be even working on anyway?”

“There’s a presentation after midterms for some fucking reason, I don’t know. Plus, it's a totally bad idea to bring me. Nothing good happens at frat parties.” You tell her, pointedly. You do this dance with her semi-frequently: she invites you, you say no, she asks why, you say why, she asks again, you (sometimes) give in. You’ve got this waltz down to a science.

“Can you finish it later? Come on, please? You skipped out on the last three.” She looks at you with pleading eyes, ignoring your advice. You wonder if this was how she got everyone to do her bidding; pouting at them with her big brown eyes. You eye her suspiciously. It was true: you had denied her invitation to the last three events and probably the last three hosted by Sigma… what was it? Sigma Key? Whatever. You don’t particularly like most frat boys. In your experience, they tend to be on the annoying side… the very annoying side. The avoid-at-all-costs side.

You look at her as a smile grows on your face, “Will you do my laundry for a week when we get back from break?” At this point, you were considering going anyway, but you were going to try and milk it.

“And I’ll take out the trash.” She smiles back. Now… maybe hanging out in a dingy basement flanked by drunk college kids doesn’t sound that bad, right?

“Promise?”

She raises her hand as if to be sworn in to lawyerhood—or whatever they call it. “I, your loving, adoring roommate, solemnly swear to do your laundry and take out the trash for two weeks when we get back from break.” You suppress a laugh.

“What time is the party?” Satisfied, you surrender, albeit happily. She does manual labor for a couple weeks and you only have to go with her for a couple hours? Sounds like a dream.

“11pm.”

BUDDING ALCOHOLIC

The faint taste of tequila on your lips is your only reminder of your promise not to get the fuck out of dodge. If you hadn’t pregamed this party, you would have been regretting coming right about now, even if it means two weeks worth of chores being eliminated from your future. The music is noise-complaint worthy and not that good, even as far as frat music tends to go. Your best guess for timing is that it’s about midnight, and a couple of your peers are already drunk by the looks of it, making out by the window and stumbling on the grass out front. It already smells like vomit as you walk through the front door. To be fair, you’ve never been to a frat house in the daytime, so maybe the smell of vomit is just a permanent feature.

“You’re the best! Thanks for coming!” She swings an arm around you, at least a little tipsy. You shift in your Jen-approved outfit: a (very) tight black tank top, light-wash jeans, and a pair of Jen-borrowed, frat-designated, almost-destroyed sneakers. You’ve gathered from your brief excursions into the world of Greek life that this is the frat uniform.

“Hey, Jen-fer!” A guy, clearly a brother, comes up to the two of you with a cheeky smile on his face. It seems like every time someone greets Jen, she has a new nickname. Or maybe he’s just drunk and slurring his words. The guy looks like “people call me Chad but you can call me tonight” personified in his khaki shorts and impressively only slightly wrinkled t-shirt, sporting your school’s mascot with ‘VARSITY BASEBALL’ across it in loud, chunky lettering. “Who’s this?” He inquires as a girl swings her arm around his neck. The smile never leaves his face as he leans down to peck her. You watch as the girl and Jen have some sort of telepathic conversation by exchanging big smiles and little waves — she’s a sister, maybe? You really only know the girls that Jen’s closest to: Madelin (spelled like mandolin), Avery (who you thought was a boy for a couple months because you only know one other Avery, a boy), Elliann (whose name you remember how to spell only because you wrote Ellyanne once and you got a talking-to), and Gene (whose contact you have saved as the jeans emoji).

“Ugh, Jay! She’s my roommate, I told you about her.” You smile weakly as she points her attention towards you, “this is Jay. You remember Jay, right? From Econ?”

“Yeah… from Econ.” You mumble something unconvincing because you very much do not remember Jay from Econ. There are about a million Jay’s at this school. There’s Jason’s and James’s and Jongseong’s and Joshua’s and Julian’s who all go by Jay. Hell, there’s even a Jachariah (pronounced exactly like Zachariah but substitute the Z) who goes by Jay in your English Comp class. You think it would make sense to go by Jack (Like Zack) because there are less Jack’s, somehow, but whatever. When you return from zoning out, Jen starts talking at you. Some people are touchy drunks, some people are sad drunks, but Jen is a very, very talkative drunk. To be honest, she’s a talkative sober too.

She asks you to choose between the two drinks in her outstretched hands, naming both, though you can’t identify the taste or ingredients either, even with the name provided. Both looked like water.

Fuck it, what’s the difference? “Um, that one.” You say, pointing to the red cup in her right hand.

“Great! Are you okay on your own? I’m going to talk to Ellen!” She smiles big. Who’s Ellen? You have no idea. “Oh, hey! Meet my friend —hic! This is Tay!” She waves to someone behind you, and beckons them over with a finger. Great, now you have a Tae to keep track of.  Her goodbye is sonorous, “Bye bye!” 

“Bye, Jen-fer.” You tease her with the drawling nickname, but she doesn’t seem to notice as she waltzes off. You break into a slow smile as you see her leave. If you could remember what feeling sober is like, you would know by the drowsiness alone you’re a little more than tipsy. If Jen is a talkative drunk, you’re a sleepy drunk. You take a big swig of the red cup and it burns as it goes down, making you cough instinctively to get rid of the sensation. After taking a moment to compose, you shotgun the whole cup. Aside from the burning, you’re left with the distinctive aftertaste of artificial sweeteners sticking to your throat. 

You back up a little, and bump right into a wall. You curse, thinking you probably looked stupid doing that… that is, before you nearly jump out of your skin when the wall puts a hand on your shoulder. Sufficiently scared, you jump right back to where you started like a tennis ball. 

In your inebriation, you're pretty sure it might be the worst mistake of your life to look at the wall when you land eyes on the definitely-not-plaster you bumped into. 

You realize that she was saying Tae, not Tay. Tae, though you know him as Taesan, is the name of a—kinda emo—guy in your World Literature class who you decided was cute one time when zoning out in a lecture and have been a little shy around ever since. Why is he here? A frat does not seem like his scene. Your drunk self agrees with your sober self on the former issue, however. He is cute—really cute. His hair is straight and black and his bangs fall just above his eyebrows. You were definitely catastrophizing, because bumping into Taesan is maybe the best thing you could have hoped for at this Greek-whatever party.

“Oh… it’s Taesan!” It doesn’t even cross your mind to suppress the giant grin that spreads across your face as you say his name as you sway. “Can I call you that instead of Tae? Too many ay’s around, I think.” You mumble, feeling as cloudy as ever.

He shrugs, “Sure, I mean, I call you by your full name, usually.” 

Mostly ignoring him, you continue, focusing on the way the edges of his lips curl like he’s suppressing a smile. Squinting at him, you monologue. “You’re cute. But you’re bad at…” You squint harder, circling your finger in front of his face as if to cast a spell. He looks a little confused with his straight eyebrows raised, but he doesn’t look scared—yet. If you were in your right mind, you would have been amazed and totally terrified that you hadn’t scared him off with the wiggly finger. Maybe the slipped compliment at the beginning helped build some rapport? “You’re bad at… analysis.” You decide on pinpointing a weakness of his. Now, his analysis is actually pretty good. Sure, he's not going to win any awards with it, but who is in an undergraduate World Literature class taught by a less-than-enthusiastic professor nearing retirement? The alcoholic fog is just a little much, anyway. Maybe you’re more of a lightweight than you care to admit. 

“I think my analysis is pretty good, actually.” He frowns, but doesn’t seem offended in the slightest. He’s always quiet in lecture, you’re surprised he hasn’t made a quick excuse to get away yet.

You part your lips as you squint harder and point up at his face again, grasping for words that don’t come all that easy to you. “You… should kiss me.” As the words fall out of your mouth, he seems to look around a little bit in surprise. To your luck, he still doesn’t run screaming.

It’s his turn to point a finger at himself and his cool, bad-boy act slips, “kiss—kiss me?” He stutters, going wide-eyed and glancing around like this is a big reality TV-style prank and there are cameramen waiting in the shadows of this sticky, stinky basement, itching to catch him off guard. Perhaps you’re subconsciously practicing rejection therapy. 

“Yeah… you should analyze kissing me.” You attempt a smile as you try to keep your eyes open. The music is pounding in your ears as you stare into the gap between him and the wall to his left.

Still dumbfounded, he tries to find words, now staring at you staring off into space, “well, uh… you… that would be cool, but… I don’t… I don’t think you actually want to kiss me. You smell like tequila.” The alcohol is definitely taking its toll on you, evidenced by the way you lean forward and slump onto the boy in front of you, closing your eyes. His words don’t even go in one ear and out the other, they go over your head entirely. You could feel his body heat even through his thick navy tee. You hear his heartbeat and—you’re no medical student—it’s loud. With your eyes closed, you hear the DJ switch the song to something with less bass and you feel a warm hand come to your shoulder blade, patting it awkwardly. You hear an attempt at words coming from his vocal chords, but you hear nothing identifiable as human language. Just a few um’s and maybe an uh.

“Hey, Tae!” You hear Jen approach behind you, calling out to the boy who you’ve designated as your new mattress. You open your eyes for a second, and you’re kindly greeted with a view of his chest. Slowly analyzing your field of vision (which includes a fuzzy wall and his shirt), you blink once, twice, and then, the third time you close them, they stay closed. As fast as that, you’re gone: disappeared, asleep.

Before you can open your eyes again, you’re assaulted by a pounding headache. You haven’t felt a headache like this since the first time you got drunk with Jen. You’d assumed you’d learned your lesson. This time, it’s not a good thing that you exceeded your own expectations.

You open your eyes and see a rather unwelcome sight of Jen who has her hands on your shoulders, shaking you. It’s certainly not helping your headache. As you come to consciousness, you become aware of the damp, suffocating sweat that clings to your body and the aching that you feel in each and every of your muscles and joints. You can’t even lift a finger.

“Hey. Wake up! Don’t worry, you’re not dying. It’s just a hangover.” She consoles you, but she doesn’t stop pushing you, however. “You drank way too much.” She laughs, drawing out her words and turning her head to the side as her hair falls in front of her face.

You muster your words, “what?” Your voice is grainy and low. You feel like pure, unadulterated hell. The pounding in your head doesn’t stop, it just migrates from one side to the other. Back to left to front to right and back again like a cue ball bouncing around the table.

“You… are… hung… over.” She says like she's trying to teach a baby to say mama. You groan and roll over, freeing yourself from her manicured hands and burying your head in your sheets. As you roll over, you feel the familiar and deeply uncomfortable scratch of the seam of your jeans. You were still wearing the clothes you wore to the party, hooray! “And,” she continues, “you’re going to tell me why Han Taesan is at our door.” Her voice sounds half like she’s scolding you and half like she’s waiting for you to spill. Processing this information, you scrunch your eyes and groan again.

“He’s not.” You deny with a murmur despite the knocking that you hear on the door. The person at the door, reportedly Taesan, knocks one, two, three times.

“He is. He wants to know how you are… tell me what happened between you two!” She urges.

“You’re lying. He is not at the door.” Maybe if you say it enough he’ll go away. Manifesting, you know? You want to know nothing about why he’s here. The party last night was a blur. You remember drinking, seeing a couple familiar faces, bumping into Taesan and then it’s dark and you wake up in your bed with Jen shaking you.

“He is.” She says solemnly. She cocks her head and continues in a more sympathetic tone, “do you want me to tell him to go away?” She asks.

“Yes.” Regardless of whether you want to see him, specifically, you don’t want to see anyone at all. You’re still in your clothes from last night, your whole body hurts, you feel like total crap, and you doubt you showered last night. You do not want to see Han Taesan, and that’s final.

“Yes, ma’am.” She says and jumps off the tall bed. Through half-lidded eyes, you see her crack the door and exchange words with the visitor. You confirm it’s Taesan when his stupid face appears in the crack. Almost involuntarily you close your eyes. As the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind. Even with a foggy mind and a throbbing headache, you know nothing good can come out of talking to him, or even seeing him, when you’re so wildly hungover. You feel like a ghost haunting your body. You hear the door shut, and you open your eyes to see Jen shimmying over to you with her eyebrows raised and a disbelieving smile across her face. You close your eyes again, you do not want to see or hear what she has to offer unless it’s an ibuprofen.

“I can’t believe he came to check up on you! Isn’t that sweet? I have no idea what was happening with you two before I got there, but he was so cute about you. He looked so nervous! It’s not like him at all.” You can practically hear her dancing around in excitement. “Your love life never goes anywhere, this is so exciting!” You grumble in protest at her jab at you. She’s been begging to let her set you up with someone, but the only people she knows are frat bros and sorority girls, neither of which are your type, usually. Is Taesan part of a frat? Doesn’t seem like him.

“Jen… advil… please.” You reach out for her with a weak hand.

“You’re not dying.” She assures you, but dutifully returns to your bedside with two little red pills, a bottle of water, and a bag of goldfish. This is how Jen is, you’ve learned; poking fun at you while still looking out for you. “Come on, take them.” She says, holding out the pills. “You’re lucky it’s a Saturday. For a hangover, you need water, food, and sleep.” She recites. Maybe hangover care is a required class for members of the sorority known for the most functions.

“Thanks…” You mutter, bringing a weak hand to your still pounding forehead. “What happened?” You ask. It might help to know what you’re up against in terms of embarrassment.

“Before I got there? No idea. After I got there? Well, you were passed out,” she laughs, “I had no idea you could fall asleep that fast. He looked crazy confused, having you slung over him and all, you know? Anyway, he was dry sober, he just got there. I had the car, obviously, and so he offered to give you a ride back to the dorm in my car. Now, I went with you, of course. For one, I’m always going to come with you when you’re asleep and being taken care of by some man. Two, there’s no way I’m letting any man drive my car without serious supervision.” Now, this elicits a stifled laugh from you, after which you immediately wince in pain. Laughing isn’t good medicine for hangovers, apparently. “Anyway, he picked you up bridal-style, it was really cute, and brought you to our car, and then drove both of us home. I put you to bed, and he left after.” She states, "I wiped your drool, don’t worry.” She nudges you with an elbow.

“Ugh, Jen. Don’t joke with me right now.”

“No, seriously, you did drool. It’s one of, like, five reasons I’m never going to put you in a room with alcohol ever again.”

“I told you it was a bad idea to bring me.” You lament. You don’t like the idea of drooling in the vicinity of Taesan. And he carried you to the car? Seriously, not a high point for your ego. It’s not even about your germinal maybe-crush on him. “Give me some goldfish.”

“You always say that it’s a bad idea, but okay.” She hands you a handful and you shove it into your mouth. It doesn’t mix well with the morning-breath taste and somehow lingering tinge of alcohol. Your head is pounding and if the headache doesn’t kill you, the embarrassment might.

THE ILLUSION

Dr. Woo claps his hands together as the final undergrad enters the lecture hall. The long tables that act as desks proceed away from the central board in stairs. 

“Yeah. Big project coming up, right?” He says with a hint of fake enthusiasm. “It’s going to be a group project, if two people count as a group. Hooray.” A resounding groan emanates from the student body. Dr. Woo is visually unphased by this. “Despite the fact that choice is an illusion, you can pick your own partners. This is college. I don’t care.” He waves a hand dismissing any rebuttal, not that any was coming. Regardless of any other feelings about Dr. Woo, everyone knows he’s a great (read: easy) grader. “Anyway, go crazy. You all know the topic.”

Your heart drops as the room immediately erupts in chattering. Your circle was small at best, and you knew no one in World Lit except for… oh no. You feel a tap on your shoulder. Almost in slow motion, you turn around and see Taesan’s damned handsome face.

“Hey,” he says, very, very casually, “do you want to be my partner?” Oh, what the fuck.

“Um…” You furrow your eyebrows. It’s not that you don’t want to be partners with him, really. It’s just that you don’t want to recoil in embarrassment every time you work on a project worth 20% of your grade. 

He cocks his head to the side, “so?” You’re pretty sure his face could bring world peace. Have him try to convince a warlord to stop fighting by flashing a smile and they’d be a pacifist in under ten minutes.

You sigh, “yeah. Sure.” You try to smile, it doesn’t work that well. Fuck it, what’s the worst that could happen? Do it for the plot, right? Choosing to partner with him is definitely for the plot. You’re not entirely convinced that he’s pure in his intentions to partner with you; maybe this is part of a bigger frat boy scheme.

“My analysis is actually good, I swear.” He says as he pulls back the chair next to you to sit down. Is that a reference? To what? You are thoroughly confused, clearly remembering very little of that fateful night. He tucks his hands behind his head and leans back.

“What?” You laugh a little, if only out of awkwardness. 

He presses his lips together and they contort as if a laugh is threatening him. “Nevermind. It’s nothing, really.” He is utterly unconvincing when he lies. Maybe he couldn’t convince the warlord.

“Taesan, what?” Your arms cross as you lean back in your chair. Around you, there’s a buzz of new partnerships and dates being set to meet. You two, however, are alone in your own world. In your periphery, Dr. Woo is staring you down. You’re pretty sure he can sense when work isn’t getting done. You can’t tell if he’s just a salty old man or a teenager with a gossip itch trapped in an old professor’s body.

Taesan notices, “Dr. Woo is creeping me out. I’ll tell you in the hall.” He picks up one of your pens and hands it to you in a non subtle suggestion for you to pack up. 

You sling your backpack over one shoulder (despite how you’re told it’s bad for your back) and lead Taesan out of the lecture hall.

“So, are you partners with me just to make fun of me?” You probe him as he catches up to you. “I’m taking you to my dorm, by the way. We can get started on the project.” There’s a silent addition of ‘even if you’re being an asshole, I chose to be stuck with you for some reason’ when you give him a purposeful glance. Maybe Dr. Woo is right. Maybe choice is an illusion. He looks completely lost.

“No, no. It’s not like that, really. I didn't mean to make you feel bad, I just thought it was funny.” He turns around and shakes his head to punctuate his point. 

“Is it better if I don’t know what happened at the party?” One eyebrow raises and you stare him down with some weird level of confidence. Maybe knowing that he’s seen you drooling, drunk, and looking crazy makes you feel like you don’t have much else to lose.

“No, nothing bad happened. You were just drunk. It happens to the best of us.” He shrugs as you enter onto the green.

“Don’t drag this out, let me bite the bullet if I want to.”

He laughs a little, “alright. In summary, you backed into me, told me I was cute, told me my analysis sucks,” so that’s what that was about, “and told me I should kiss you and I told you that you were too drunk,” oh, what the fuck, “and then you fell asleep on me and Jennifer came over. I carried you to the car and drove both you and her home because she had a couple drinks and I had none. I checked up on you because I knew you were going to have one hell of a hangover.” Great, you’re stuck with this fucker you borderline harassed while blackout drunk.

“You were right. It was one hell of a hangover.” You grumble, looking at the floor to avoid any eye contact with him.

“Don’t be embarrassed. You’re not the first person to tell me I’m cute when they’re drunk.” He teases and you roll your eyes. In your heart, though, this is deeply, deeply embarrassing. The thought of what happened stings like a blade in your heart and in your mind. It’s not as bad as the hangover, but it’s pretty damn bad.

“Yeah, right. I was drunk, okay?” Your words are biting. “Why are you partners with me, then? I wasn’t that great the one time you met me.” Maybe you don’t want to know the answer, but the words are already out of your mouth. You scuff your heels as you walk, still avoiding contact with the one and only Han Taesan.

“You’re cute and you’re smart.” He shrugs and you break your rule of avoiding his eyes because now you’re staring at him in disbelief. “Plus, you’re great at keeping me humble.” He meets your eyes now and you’re immediately regretting thinking anything about the previous compliment meant anything at all.

“If you keep being a jerk, I’m going to keep you humble as hell.” You grumble.

“Sorry,” he frowns mildly, “the first part holds more weight.” And now, you’ve flipped. It does mean something… maybe. You face forward again to hide a smile that he totally catches anyways. You’ve made great time alongside Taesan, you’re almost to your dorm.

“Thanks?”

“My pleasure.” He postures. “Why were you there in the first place? No offense, but you don’t strike me as an alcoholic. An alcoholic can handle being drunk better than that.” It’s sort of a compliment, you guess.

“None taken, I don’t believe that being an alcoholic is in the cards for me.” You snort. “Jen dragged me there. I told her it was a bad idea, but she convinced me to go anyway by bribing me with doing my least favorite chores for a week or two.” You explain, crossing your arms and he laughs. “No offense, you don’t seem like you’re part of the frat nor do you seem like an alcoholic. So, what were you doing there?” You redirect. It’s true: he doesn’t seem like a brother nor a drinker.

“I lost a bet. Riwoo bet me that I couldn’t fit fifteen grapes in my mouth and I wanted to prove him wrong because, well, he’s Riwoo, but I lost the bet.” A laugh bubbles up from your chest imagining the situation. Not only did he try, but he tried and failed. “My punishment was either to go to a frat or to do mine and six of my roommates’ laundry for a semester. I picked the frat, obviously. I’ve lived with those guys for long enough to know that all of them stink like hell.” He adds, grimacing. “Plus, ‘doing laundry’ meant changing the sheets and picking up laundry, too.” He looks at you, pointedly.

“You’re lying, no way.” You laugh, partly with him and partly at him.

“You clearly haven’t met my roommates, this way?” His finger points to the building that you’re rooming in with Jen. You pray she’s not there or you’re going to be met with a litany of highly invasive questions.

You nod at his direction, “yeah, there are like seven thousand people here and I can recognize about thirty faces max. That’s like nothing-percent.”

“Good for me, then. I don’t think I’d be the first person you’d be calling cute if they were there with me.” The tone of his voice is light, but in his eyes you see that he fears it’s the truth. Huh, Taesan is just like the rest of us, who’da thunk?

“Where did your cool guy act go?” You tease, leading him up the stairs to your dorm, distinguished by the handmade felt pennants, spelling your’s and Jen’s names. “Drunk me wasn’t lying when she said you were cute, seriously.” You assure him. “Now, I just have to learn if your analysis is as bad as she said it was.” You push open the door with your back, mostly so you don’t have to face him after calling him cute to his face. Last week, you would have run away on the spot; Taesan has you acting like a bad ATM—all out of order.

ENTOURAGE

You hated to admit it, his analysis was great. By spending hours writing and rewriting scripts to memorize for your oral presentation, you watched Taesan connect dots you didn't even know were there and recall obscure details from lectures that happened to be integral to the coherence of your project. You can practically see the cogs turn in his head, the way he bites the inside of his lip when he’s really focused, the way his face lights up when he gets an idea, the way he slides his thin wire glasses up his straight nose with a knuckle when they slip down because he furrowed his eyebrows too much.

This is how you find yourself at four on a Wednesday afternoon, weeks after your first incidental meeting with him: admiring his work on your dorm floor.

“Damn, Taesan.” You still kept to calling him his full name instead of Tae, you felt like it meant something. “This is amazing, I would have never thought to connect those passages, we read that first book ages ago!” You shook your head, his analysis was that good. Maybe not award-winning, but definitely worth an A, even in your harshest grader’s class. He smirks as he laughs a little, taking off his glasses and stretching his hands up, grasping at nothing while trying to stretch his back. You two had been sitting for hours on the hard floor of your dorm room; you told him to sit on your chair, but he refused, demanding he sit next to you so that he can ‘see what you’re writing’ better.

“You brought up At the Bottom of the River in the first place.” He deflects your praise. You’ll gladly take the compliment even if you had no part in his discovery. As you shrug his deflection off, you feel his arm come down around your shoulder and you jump a little, not expecting the touch. Of course, his hand feels nice where it rests, but you’re still not quite used to the way Taesan evidently shows affection. The first time he pulled the classic ‘I’m-just-stretching-actually-I’m-putting-my-arm-around-you’ move, you didn’t expect it in the slightest. You had finished a part you were putting off and he moved to stretch, suddenly putting his arm around you and shaking you while cheering you on about your victory. The laugh you let out when that happened was something entirely unprecedented for you, you laughed until your stomach hurt and your eyes watered, and you couldn’t even pinpoint why.

“Yeah, sure.” You look at him, exaggerating your skepticism with your one raised eyebrow, his arm still around you.

“When’s Jen getting back? Do we have time to mess around or should I go before she starts pestering you?” He asks, half-joking as he tilts his head towards yours. Jen had taken a liking to him, if not too much of a liking to him… for you. Whenever you and Taesan were together and Jen spotted you, she made the least subtle comments possible telling you to get together, wiggling her eyebrows and full of exaggerated winks. It wasn’t surprising in the slightest. Hey, look at the position you two are in right now: foreheads so close they’re almost touching, alone in your dorm, with his arm wrapped around your shoulder. Still, you’ve gathered that’s just kind of how Taesan is with his friends. From what you’ve heard, he’s like that with everyone. It’s not unique to you.

“She said she’d be back at five, so…” you check the egg clock, “like, thirty minutes?” 

“Nice.” He purses his lips. “Are you nervous for the presentation? It’s tomorrow, you know?” Taesan has his sensitive moments, for sure. He sounds—he is—genuinely concerned about how you’re feeling about it, you can hear it in his voice. He’s not great at hiding things like that. Even when he’s making fun of you, it’s never malicious.

“I’m fine. I’m nervous, but it is a big presentation, after all. It’s nothing I can’t handle.” You tell him, flexing an arm to prove your point, though the action is inhibited by his arm still around you.

“Never doubted you for a second, Miss Independent. You can still be nervous though, it’s okay to be nervous.” 

“Are you nervous? You sound like you’re projecting.”

He exhales, “yeah, I’m nervous as hell.” He laughs a little after the admission, but it’s not a humorous one.

“Hey, text me if you get nervous before, right? Doesn’t help to keep it to yourself. And, no offense, but I think I’ll be better at commiserating with you than your roommates, however lovely they are.” 

He exhales. “Yeah, thanks.” He’s being surprisingly soft, and you can’t help but seize the opportunity to connect a little with the sensitive side of Taesan instead of the cool, nonchalant Taesan. From what you’ve gathered, his Nirvana-decorated headphones, monochrome black clothes, and his sullen resting face makes him less approachable to your peers.

“You’ll be fine. As you said to me when we were partnered, you’re cute and you’re smart. You’ve got it.” You tell him, leaning your head onto his shoulder. You wonder if he can feel your heart beating out of your chest. Can you feel someone’s heartbeat through their shoulder? Probably not, but the human body is full of surprises. One surprise is how hard you can see his pulse through his carotid artery, pulsing in his neck. Good God, this boy is going to get high blood pressure if his heart is always going a million miles an hour. “Tell me about writing music. I’m tired.” You tell him, closing your eyes. 

You’re brought back to what you were told about the first time you met him. This time, however, you falling asleep on him isn’t so much of a surprise. Your knowledge of composition contrasts Taesan’s, you know little more than the basics. Asking him to talk about it is an easy route to a one-sided conversation where you get to listen to him talk, which is always a good time. He gets so animated, it’s hilarious and adorable.

“Your wish is my command.” He laughs, and you feel the vibration against your head and he starts on a critically tangential spiel. 

Before you can get too comfortable leaning on Taesan listening to him talk about rhyme schemes, the door swings open. Jen walks in after opening the door with her signature slam. Why you haven’t gotten any complaints yet, you have no idea.

“Oh… my God.” You can practically hear her freeze in the doorway. Out of sight, out of mind, so you keep your eyes closed.

“Jen, no one’s dying.” You assure her, suddenly deeply uncomfortable, shifting on the floor.

“You’re right, no one’s dying. My heart is so happy, look at you!” She almost giggles.

“Is this a good time for me to go?” Taesan starts to ask the pivotal question that’s going to determine exactly how embarrassed you are going to be this afternoon.

“Yes—” “No—” You and Jen say in unison. You open your eyes just to glare at her, seeing her standing over you.

“No… I’m going to get to know my best friend’s… group project partner.” She winks very not-subtly at you. Taesan looks at you just as you look at him, and he shrugs. 

“The more the merrier, right?” He asks. The rhetorical question becomes immediately very literal as Jen continues.

“Oooh… I like the way he thinks, girl.” She says, pointing to you. “Taesan, invite your roommates over, too. We can have a party!” She’s almost clapping with how excited she is, rolling back on her heels.

Taesan lights up, “oh hell yeah! I’ll see who’s available.” Oh, Taesan. Always the extrovert.

You groan, but it’s futile to try and stop the scheming. How did this get so bad so fast? “No drinking.” You instruct them.

“Half of them can’t even drink legally yet, plus, do you seriously think I’m going to drink the night before our presentation? No way.” He assures you, and you groan again in hesitant acceptance.

“I’m never letting you drink again. Don’t worry about that.” She promises you quietly before switching back to hyped-up Jen mode. “Oh, this is so exciting! When can they get here?” She’s sitting cross-legged in front of you two now, rifling through contacts on her phone in its sparkly case.

“Well,” Taesan pauses, “If they’d answer my texts—” ding! Almost like he scripted it, he gets a notification. “And there we go. Turns out they’re just hanging out at our place, all of them are free. Do you want them here now?”

“Hell yeah, I do! We should watch a movie… what movie should we watch? Don’t tell me they like horror…” She pushes her eyebrows together in what sounds half like a threat and half like a plea.

“Yeah, not that I know of.”

“We should watch 10 Things I Hate About You.” You suggest.

And that’s how you got to be sitting in a circle on your room’s floor with Taesan, Jen, and every single one of Taesan’s five roommates. You’d only briefly met a couple of them in passing before. Right now, you’re even managing to not cut each others’ throats out while playing UNO! What an achievement!

“And the color is… wait for it!” Taesan’s roommate with the light brown, almost orange hair and rounder, blueish-green black glasses says, leaning around to intimidate the others with a giant smile on his face. Everyone erupts in laughter at him. You remember that this is Riwoo, the one who dared Taesan to stuff 15 grapes in his mouth in the first place. “Blue!” He announces.

Your last card was red. Damn it.

Jaehyun immediately slumps over, Sungho frowns, Leehan stares at the card deck and Woonhak stares, terrified, at Jen when she jumps up, screaming “Uno!” as she slams her blue five on the pile. Shouts resound from the boys around you. Taesan is laughing. 

As the room erupts around you, Taesan nudges you with his shoulder, showing you his card. His last color was red, too. “We’re both winners in my heart.” He tells you with a wink. What a sap. You push his face away with a hand, stifling a laugh as you feel a heat come to your cheeks. Your light push makes him dip away from you like the inflatable tube men outside gas stations.

“You’re so corny.” You tell him as you take in the scene unfolding around you. Inviting Taesan’s friends over was a great idea. Jen is yelling at Jaehyun, Jaehyun looks terrified. Woonhak and Sungho are yelling at Riwoo, Riwoo is laughing at them. Leehan is laughing at Riwoo laughing at Woonhak and Sungho.

Taesan catches you smiling at the camaraderie, “if people yelling at each other was all it took to make you smile, I’d have invited them over way earlier.”

“Taesan,” you laugh, “I don’t like schadenfreude. It’s nice to see Jen let loose sometimes. I don’t think she gets to argue with anyone very often.”

“If she wants anyone to argue with, I’m available.” He spreads his arms to punctuate his point. At this, you laugh even harder. As you look around again, you see everyone laughing and collapsing on the floor, except for Jen, who’s pretending to fume and sulk on her bed. You know her well enough to catch the smile that pulls at her lips.

“It’s like watching kids at the park.” You motion towards Taesan’s friends, who’ve clearly become very comfortable around you and Jen.

“This weird authenticity is kind of their whole M.O.” He smiles, very clearly adoring their antics. “Imagine having to do their laundry though. I’m glad I chose to go to the party instead.” He pretends to shiver which draws out a laugh from you.

“Yeah, if you had chosen to do their laundry you also wouldn’t have been able to see me drool on you when you carried me to the car.” You snort. You’ve made peace with your drunken night. After all, you’ve already lost your dignity and he’s still hanging around.

“It was so cute though!” He contests and you roll your eyes at him. You have sworn up and down that he doesn’t like you like… that. Even if he did like you, you’re pretty sure no one likes anyone else enough that their drool is cute. Therefore, Jen’s points are null. Simple as that.

“I’m just soooo adorable,” you roll your eyes, “you don’t have to rub it in, dude.” you smile incredulously at him, throwing one of your legs over the other, just short of taking out Riwoo’s leg.

“I’m not joking!” His tone is defensive in ultimate Taesan fashion.

“Yeah, sure.” You tell him as Jen reaches out to you and pulls you to your feet, leaving Taesan alone on the floor.

Jen whispers to you, “so, when’s the wedding?” You roll your eyes.

“Shut up, you always do this.” You groan. “Do you get some sadistic joy from seeing me uncomfortable?” You cross your arms, almost elbowing Woonhak. This room is not big enough for eight people to fit in comfortably.

“Can I be the maid of honor?” She ignores your complaints and you let out an exaggerated groan in response.

“Don’t make me regret not making him go home.”

“Fine, fine.” She looks to be backing down. That is until she smirks, meeting your eyes again. “I’m not the only one who sees something!” She says cheerily before bouncing off as far as one can, which is about a foot. She looks back at you and winks before (lightly) punching Woonhak in the back to get his attention. She’s immediately drawn into some debate of some sort or another. Earlier, Leehan had assigned you both fish and Jen had been assigned a ‘Cherry Barb’ and she immediately took issue with the name for some reason or other. It was very cathartic for Taesan to watch someone contest Leehan’s fish opinions. He was totally dumbstruck; it was hilarious. Then, of course, you got an informational speech from Leehan which quelled Jens’ argument. Now, she’s a Cherry Barb.

Maybe this is how it should be, friends arguing with friends and laughing about it after, cramped in a too small room. When you meet Taesan’s eyes, you see the sparkle in them tell you he thinks so too. Maybe your friends will become the opposite of children of divorce, gaining family instead of it being separated. Is that just children of marriage? Ugh, Jen’s infected you.

“So, when’s the wedding?” Taesan wiggles his eyebrows, clearly having heard the conversation. You roll your eyes.

BREAKING CODE

Jen is passed out on her bed on the opposite side of the room. The egg clock greets you with the time in blaring white: 11:32 pm. Head in your hands, you groan. No amount of free-on-youtube reality TV was going to calm your nerves. None of your favorite episodes are helping, even the one you have open on your computer. 

After the boys had left, you guaranteed yourself that everything would be fine. Your presentation would go great, no questions asked. Now, sitting in your room practically alone, you feel way less optimistic. 

Thoughts of Taesan cross your mind and you furrow your eyebrows, trying to shoo them. You wonder if he’s awake right now, if he’s anxious like you. You try to calm yourself by thinking that it could be worse, the presentation could be 30% of your grade. Unsurprisingly, that doesn’t help. Your phone, thrown aside earlier and laying on the bed, is practically inviting you to make a bad decision with its open, empty screen.

You stare out the window, contemplating whether or not to take the risk and text him. Your window opens up to a view of the door to enter your dorm building, and you can see the freshly fallen snow settling around it. The snow covers the creaky benches and even the overhang above the door. It’s while you're doing this contemplating that, to your fortune or maybe misfortune, the risk decides to take you with a ding from your phone.

On your home screen, you see a contact pop up and you freeze. You read the name again, it still says MOUNTAIN. Taesan put that as his contact name.

You look again, you weren’t hallucinating. It’s Taesan texting you. Is he nervous? Did he seriously take you up on your offer? You were simultaneously hoping that he would text you while hoping that he would never, ever even think to.

You steel yourself and open your phone, that’s when you get your answer.

[MOUNTAIN]: are you up [MOUNTAIN]: i’m nervous are you

You did tell him to text you if he was nervous. That offer, however, happened when you were feeling a little bolder. You are not feeling especially bold right now.

[you]: i might be [MOUNTAIN]: meet me lets go to the convenience store [MOUNTAIN]: chills me out before midterms usually and this is like the same thing

You didn’t need to even try to make a bad decision, the bad decision came to you, enticing you with the lure of a convenience store and a chance to escape your stuffy dorm.

Resting your phone on your chest, staring at the ceiling like a corpse with the way your hands are positioned, you weigh your options. Mentally, you make a list.

PROs:

You see Taesan

You get a snack probably

CONs:

You see Taesan

It’s been established that crazy shit goes down when you see Taesan past like nine pm—it’s like your friendship is a vampire but night-intolerant instead of day-intolerant

The last time you made a for the plot decision it didn’t turn out that bad. Yeah, partnering with Taesan could have sucked, but it didn’t. Going to the party was a kind of yolo-esque decision, too, and that was kind of a blessing in disguise. You rationalize your preference for meeting him with the fact that you know him better now. He’s not a rando and, as far as you know, he’s not evil.

You only live once, right?

You pick your phone back up and text him before you can rethink it.

[you]: meet where? [MOUNTAIN]: outside your dorm building in 10

You squint at the screen. His place is like a twenty minute walk away and you’re pretty sure he doesn’t have a car, that would be weird for him. You can’t pinpoint why, but you don’t like the idea of him owning a car, despite the fact that he’s driven Jen’s with you in it. Ugh.

[you]: okay

You are totally chill about this.

Looking over at Jen in her bed, you decide you don’t want to be interrogated about this decision yet. She will not let you hear the end of it, and that’s not going to calm your nerves. It’s kind of against customary law safety recommendations to not tell your roommate where you’re going at night, but you decide that’s not applicable here.

Taking your computer off your lap and swinging your feet over the side of your bed as quietly as possible, you assess the situation. The nice thing about totally embarrassing yourself the first time you met him is that you now don’t particularly care about how you look. You’re wearing Jen’s mother’s giant Hartford Whalers hockey team brand shirt and some irritatingly red plaid pajama pants that totally crash with the cool blues and greens of your shirt.

Tiptoeing to the square, wooden-framed mirror hung in the entrance you check how your hair looks. You pull on your oversized puffer jacket as quietly as possible from the command hook-provided coat hanger adorning off the back of the exit door. The zipper is cold in your hands as you check to make sure Jen is oblivious to your impending excursion. She is still fast asleep, evident from the way her chest slowly rises and falls and the faint snores that you hear from her. 

The door handle is freezing to the touch. You expected as much from a dorm building with as little central heating as it tends to cater, but it’s still unpleasant. The door opens with a loud creak. You stand assured that no one has successfully snuck out of any single one of these dorms because the floorboards creak and the doors practically announce over the loudspeaker when anyone opens them.

Thankfully, Jen is none the wiser as you glance back at her, she’s in the same sleeping position you last saw her in: lying on her stomach with one leg thrown up closer to her chest and an arm flung over her head. It’s completely bizarre and totally adorable of her.

You make your way through the straightforward yet somehow labyrinthine halls of your dorm building. As you approach the glass entryway, you see Taesan illuminated by the orange streetlight, leaning against the red brick of the adjacent building standing on a recently-hardened layer of snowfall. He’s layered an unzipped black puffer jacket, similar to yours, over a gray hoodie and accessorised with a hat that makes his head look round like an egg. He’s rubbing his gloved hands together to keep them warm. He sees you before you even open the door, and his face lights up when he does.

After suppressing a smile, you scold him, “I can’t believe you called me to meet you at this hour!” 

“You told me I could!” He defends. You notice how you can see his breath against the cold air. It’s colder than you thought, you push your bare hands further into your pockets.

“How did you even get here so fast? Do you secretly live in the next building, or something? Are you my tropey boy next door?” You nudge him, wiggling your eyebrows as if this was some plot straight out of a fanfiction.

“Yeah, right.”

“Come on, you’re not secretly pining for me?” You tease him, sinking deeper into the collar of your coat on account of the biting wind that hits you once you leave the sanctuary of the protected building and, though you’re not willing to admit it to yourself, because the boy next to you makes your cheeks hot.

“Yeah, I’m secretly hanging off of your every word, just waiting for the moment I can confess my undying love for you.” He rolls his eyes. Noticing your hands shoved in your pockets, he changes the subject, “are you cold? I brought some extra gloves, do you want them?” His words are surprisingly considerate considering the incessant teasing you subject him to daily.

“Yeah.” You laugh, freezing as he takes the knit black gloves out of his pocket. Taking them from him and putting them on, you adjust them carefully. They’re far too big for you, but it’s the thought that counts, right? The “thought that counts” is definitely keeping your hands warmer. As you examine your new apparel with a smile, you feel a pressure over your head. Somehow, you hadn’t noticed him taking his hat off and now he is pushing it onto your head. You jump back, “hey! You could have lice!” Your smile disappears in favor of a pout. The hat does feel nice on your ears though.

Taesan bursts out laughing, “I do not have lice, I promise.” Still laughing, he elaborates, “plus, you’re cold. Your ears were so cold they were getting red.” You glare at him as he only laughs harder. Instinctively, you throw up your hands to cover your ears

“Point me to the convenience store or I’m going back inside whether you’re nervous or not.” You grumble.

“Okay, Miss Grump. Just follow me.” He says with a stupidly charming smile and grabs your wrist before picking up the pace. To him, picking up the pace means speed-walking, but for you, it means jogging.

“Ack!” You jump at the sudden movement, “Taesan! You can’t do that!” You try to free your wrist and, when you succeed, you cross your arms, standing solid in place as he turns around.

“If you don’t come with me, I’ll yell that you think Heath Ledger is super sexy during the presentation!” He yells, running backwards. Your jaw drops open. You want to trust Taesan enough to think he wouldn’t do that, but you also know Taesan well enough that he totally would do that. It was a bad idea to watch 10 Things I Hate About You with him, Jen, and his roommates after the Uno game. You do not need your personal preferences aired out to an auditorium of your peers and Dr. Woo. Plus, the only thing you like about Heath Ledger is that he essentially serenaded Kat Stratford!

Damn it. Stuck between would and would not, you narrow your eyes and start sprinting after him before he can turn a corner.

“You’re so on, Mr. Mountain!” He turns to look behind him, seeing you gaining fast on him as you run as fast as your legs will take you towards him. It’s his turn to be surprised, and he speeds up. After all, he wasn’t going that fast in the first place. As you close the gap between the two of you, you can hear his infectious laughter that makes you press down a swelling in your chest. You do not like Taesan, you assure yourself. It’s all in good fun. It’s only good fun. Focusing on the challenge ahead, you see Taesan just ahead of you, about to turn down a sidewalk.

He’s right behind a snowbank. If you’re the sun and the snowbank is the earth, he’s the moon in a solar eclipse.

It’s impulsive, your next action, truly. Presented with the right circumstances, however, you like to take your chances. With a shout that’s more primeval than you intended it to be, you grab onto his puffer jacket and tackle him onto the earth that is the snowbank.

It’s almost like slow-motion when you, with an evil smile, keep your eyes focused on Taesan as you see the world around you slowly become more horizontal as you fall, yourself falling on his back as he falls flat on his chest.

When his front compresses the snow enough to stop his descent towards the obscured grass, you hear him let out a moan. A moment of silence passes as both of you process what just happened. You’re propped up on your hands (gloved, thanks to Taesan) and he’s lying on his back, hands thrown above him because of his attempt at stabilization during the fall. His lips are slightly parted in shock, and his eyes are wide open, staring at you. He looks like he’s seen a ghost. He totally moaned when he fell. At least you can play teasing offense on him instead of having to defend why you tackled this man that is in no way, shape, or form your boyfriend. To be fair, men whimpering is hot. It’s just that you didn’t expect the man whimpering to be Taesan. It doesn’t really fit with his image.

You hold yourself up with one hand, clutching your stomach as you double over in laughter. “Oh my gosh, this is hilarious! I’m going to tell Riwoo that you moan when you get pushed around by women. He’ll never let you hear the end of it!” Taesan looks completely scandalized. His mouth is open and he looks totally terrified, you almost feel bad for him. 

Almost.

He covers his eyes with his gloves, “don’t you dare say anything.” Tears form in your eyes as you attempt to suppress a laugh to try and spare any more of his dignity. That doesn’t extend to teasing, though. It’s simply too good of an opportunity to pass up.

“What if, during the presentation, I yell out that you moan when someone pins you down?” You theorize him, sitting down on the dry ground next to him, throwing your legs over his stomach.

Still holding his hands over his eyes, he mutters a defensive response, “it’s not like that!” Flat on his back, he looks, somehow, handsome with snow visible in and contrasting against his darker hair, and his gloves covering his reddening face in embarrassment. If you’re lucky, maybe this is how he felt watching you fall onto him when you were drunk the first time you met. It’s more adoration than disgust.

“Aw, there’s no shame in it.” You coax. He is completely and totally embarrassed, you can tell by the way his ears are bright, cherry red.

“Don’t tell anyone, okay? What do you want?” He whines, refusing to look at you even when you try to pry his hands away from his face.

“Whatever we do and wherever we go together, it’s on you. Monetarily, I mean.” You push a finger into his chest as he finally frees his eyes from his own grip, daring to look at you face on.

“You serious?” He groans, he’s still red but looks to be over the initial shock. Either from the biting wind swirling around you or because of your teasing, his cheeks are coated in a dusting of red.

“Yeah, unless you want everyone to know about your sexual preferences.” Releasing him from your pushed finger, you cross your arms and shrug innocently.

“This is blackmail. This is extortion!” He complains, covering his eyes again.

“So… yes or no?” You grab his wrists and rip them from his face, revealing his angsty stare.

“...Yes, I’ll pay. Will you let it go now?” His words are harsher and he’s sulking, glaring at you. Maybe you pushed it too far.

“Hey, I meant it when I said it’s nothing to be ashamed about.” You let go of his wrists, opting to rub his shoulder instead, in an attempt to reassure him. “Listen, I lost my dignity by falling on you and drooling when we met, and you lost your dignity just now. Let’s just say we’re even.” You smile optimistically, hoping it will psych him into believing you because what you say is the truth, even if it’s a touchy subject, apparently.

Once he’s reminded of your not-so-cute meet-cute, he seems to relax a little. “You did drool like crazy. Do I really have to pay?” He’s smiling now, thank God. He rests his hands on his chest, looking way more comfortable.

“Yup. You do.” You laugh, it’s a softer laugh than your earlier fit, though. “Convenience store?” You prompt him, offering a hand to have him get up. As your hand interlocks with his, a smile tugs at the sides of your lips and you still can’t tell if the heat in your face is from the wind chill or Taesan. “And, take your hat back, idiot. Your ears are red.” The hat traps all the heat radiating from your flushed face and it makes you almost feel sweaty.

He laughs a little before speaking, “thanks for the hat. My ears are just so cold.” He jokes. “The store is just this way.” He points to the right he was going to take when you knocked him down. He was leading you the right way, at least. “Never try to blackmail me again, I swear.” He threatens, pouting, and then shoves you, however lightly. He doesn't look very scary.

��Yeah, yeah. We’ll see.” You retort. He glares at you, keeping eye contact as you walk closer to the glowing, welcoming arms of the convenience store in the form of its bright lights, illuminating the street from the inside, casting an eerie glow onto the otherwise dark and snow-ridden street. In response to his look, you childishly blow a strawberry at him. This hasn’t been either of your finest hours. Your antics draw out a smile from him, at least. Practically skipping along, you try to change the subject to something less personal, maybe. “What did you expect when you called me out here? You said you were nervous, after all.”

“Yeah, I did say that. I got the pre-presentation nerves, you know? ‘Thought we could talk about it.” He rubs his neck. This is definitely a less personal topic, but that’s not to say it’s impersonal.

“So, talk.” You command, avoiding eye contact mostly so you don’t laugh, replaying him falling over.

“What is there to say? I had some nerves.” He laughs, opening the silvery door to the convenience store, stepping aside to let you through.

“What a gentleman,” you muse, “how’d you learn that? Rom-coms?”

“I’m allowed to be nice, too, you know. You watch more romantic comedies than me.” He rolls his eyes.

“I do it ironically.” You drawl. “I was nervous too, to be honest,” you were not going to tell him that you were watching rom-coms trying to relax, that would be a little too much ammo for him, “Jen was fast asleep and I was just kind of… lying there.” You pick up a miscellaneous chip bag, lazily inspecting it.

“Oh, I totally get it. The only other person awake was Leehan, and he was going to trap me in fish conversation if I even so much as approached him.” You snort at this. Even from your brief interactions with Leehan this afternoon, his passion is palpable. You can just see it in his face that he’s a little bit of an uber-nerd about those particular animals. Nerd is being used affectionately, of course. His interest is admirable. “Do you want those chips?” He asks, pointing to the bag in your hand.

“Not really, I like those other ones better.” You shrug, pointing to the alternative, an equally fluorescent bag of slightly better-tasting chips. “We can tame the worries together,” you smile at him, reaching behind you to grab your preferred flavor, “the question is how.”

“Going to the convenience store is a pretty good start.” He pushes his bottom lip into the top one. As you watch this action, he suppresses a smile, suddenly. “I have an idea.” Of course he does. He says this with a growing smile on his face as he locks eyes with you. “We should have a snowball fight.” Your own smile grows as he waits for your response.

“We should.” You nod. This time, you have an idea, a bad one. “Only if you moan again.” You charge him with the scandalous comment, and he looks affronted again, and immediately reaches out a free hand to shove you.

“Don’t say that so loud!” He hissed, looking around the almost empty store to see if anyone heard him. “That stays between you and me.” You roll your eyes but you can’t hide your amusement.

“Yeah, okay.” You walk off towards the cashier across the store to buy your snacks, sticking out your tongue at him. On the way, you inspect and in turn pick up a chocolate bar and a mediocre-looking apple to buy with your chips; it’s all about balance.

Taesan comes up behind you as you place your haul on the mini conveyor belt and gives a small bow to the cashier. He sets down two bags of chips and an enoki mushroom snack that has Japanese writing on it, for which you give him a disgusted look. Perusing his other selections, you smile when you see the second chip bag, for which you change your disgusted look for one of gratitude.

“Aw, did you get those for me?” You ask, pointing to the less perfect, but still pretty good flavor.

“No, I got them for… um…” He pauses, seemingly unable to think of someone else he would get them for. It’s kind of cute, if not a little embarrassing. “I got them for you. I can be kind, remember?” Sassy man apocalypse.

“Duly noted.” You purse your lips. You look at him expectantly, going from him to his card on the back of his phone, again.

“What?” He asks, innocently. Sungho wasn’t joking when he said that he looks like a cat. As he realizes you’re deadass, he narrows his eyes and turns to you, “are you serious about the whole paying thing?” He cocks his head.

“I was pretty clear. That is, unless you—” You’re cut off by Taesan clamping a hand over your mouth, for which he gets a repulsed and highly suspicious glare from the middle-aged cashier, he meets this with another bow, unclasping your face from his grip. When you’re let go, you raise your eyebrows at him as if to say ‘really?’ His hand smells like lavender soap, it’s kind of pleasant, actually. From the state of his and his roommates’ everything-but-sleeping room, you wouldn’t have guessed they were in possession of floral hand soap. When you’re done thinking about how he smells, you’re feeling a little embarrassed and also physically being led out of the store, hopefully after Taesan paid.

“Was that really necessary?” You ask, hands free because Taesan’s holding the store-provided bag that houses all of your treats.

“I don’t need anyone hearing about… that. Especially a middle-aged anyone.” He clarifies and fair enough. You take the opportunity, however, to scoop up a clump of snow (distinctly not yellow, you checked) and pitch it at him. Still carefully holding your bag, he looks at you with a sense of betrayal. “Oh, I’m going to get you.” He threatens before hurling a snowball that splashes against your only water-resistant coat.

Snowball after snowball is thrown, before your brief yet intense brawl is cut short by ice cold rain slicing through the air around you. Without Taesan’s hat, the sleet pummels your head and it hurts. Your puffer has no hood. Before you can let out an ‘ow,’ even, you find your oasis above you, a puffer. Taesan’s puffer. He managed to, in the short time it started sleeting and you noticed it, drop all of his stockpiled snowballs, pick up the convenience store’s bag, take off his puffer jacket, and cover your head with it, protecting you from the harsh, half-frozen rain. When you look at his face to your right, he looks totally angelic. The streetlight behind him makes him look like he has a halo from the light filtering through the edges of his hair. He’s smiling, despite all the teasing and irritation you put him through in the short time you’ve been out of your dorm.

“Yikes, that came fast.” He comments, looking around and noticing how the sleet pelts down around the two of you. “I’ll take you home, I think it’s our cue to wrap this up.” He suggests. His sweetness contrasts against the wistful feeling that unexpectedly forms when he mentions parting. Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation or maybe it’s the chill getting to you, but you feel like you’re on cloud nine, it’s the most you’ve laughed since Jen told you the crazy goings-on between her highschool ex-girlfriend and one of her friends. Apparently, her ex-girlfriend is absolutely smitten for her friend and said friend completely ignores her at every turn. You laughed until your cheeks hurt that day. Your cheeks don’t hurt from laughing, necessarily, but it’s the same sort of freeing feeling. You don’t know what to make of that, but you’re damn sure you like the way he’s smiling at you.

“Whatever you say. Thanks for the roof.” You beamed, pointing up at the make-shift shelter he’s made for you.

“My pleasure, Miss Grump.” He says this with a posh accent that makes you laugh. You have no idea since when he’s started calling you Miss Grump, but there are worse names, probably.

“Don’t make me kick you.” You threaten, trying (and failing) to suppress the grin that tugs at your lips.

“Sorry, Madame Grump.” He corrects, still holding the cover over your head.

 “I’m not even being grumpy.” You warn him, not even trying to hide the smile that spreads across your face. “Come on, get moving.” You cue him to start the walk back to your dorm.

“Your wish is my command, Miss—” 

“Don’t you dare.” You threaten and bump your shoulder into his. The walk back to your dorm is short, it took you far longer to get to the convenience store because of… well… tangential events. Checking your phone, you finally learn the time. It’s fucking two in the morning. Great! You’ll get essentially no sleep, but that’s nothing a little caffeine can’t fix.

“I dare more than you think I do.” He purses his lips.

“Okay, I dare you to admit you moaned when you fell.” You challenge him with a smirk.

He groans, “I pick truth.”

“This isn’t truth or dare, you don’t get to pick. Plus, truth would be ‘did you moan when you fell.’” You can see your dorm from where you stand in front of the red brick building, it’s still brightly lit. Hopefully that means that Jen is still asleep and hasn’t woken up to turn the overhead off.

“You can’t subpoena me so I’m not playing this game.” He shrugs, stopping underneath the overhang above the glass door that marks the entrance to your building and the separation from Taesan. As he steps aside, taking his puffer with him and putting it back on, you’re suddenly and unfortunately aware of his body heat now that it’s gone.

“I’m less nervous.” He says with a smile that seems almost confidential, like a secret only you know. He’s undeniably easy on the eyes with his stupid hat and soaked gloves and hoodie. 

“Me too.” The words come out of your mouth softly. Somehow, they’re vulnerable words to say. “Goodnight, Taesan.” After your parting words, neither of you make a move to leave. His full name feels more meaningful than his nickname, somehow. You stand there, lit up by the LEDs of the hallways, staring at each other, and you’re not entirely sure why. The tension might be thick, it might not be, you can’t tell by the way you’re focused on his face. Well, it’s not exactly his face. It’s the way his hair frames his face, yes, and the way that his eyes scrunch when he smiles, even slightly, it’s also the way his egg hat looks and the way his hoodie is so damp because he was trying to keep you warm and dry. 

Then it’s all over. When the tension breaks, it’s not like it’s cut through. It’s more like it dissipates. It dissipates thanks to the man who barrels down the street adjacent to your bubble, blasting a Spanish ballad and singing his heart out. Soy capitán, soy capitán, soy capitán! blasts through the complex. You break eye contact with Taesan just to laugh at the oddity passing you. You watch him coast down the street on his green bike, singing, without a helmet, hands-free. Your mother would not approve. Taesan’s not laughing, but he’s beaming and staring at you as you crouch down because of your laughter. You try and convince yourself it’s not even that funny, but something about the era of the night just makes you heave with how hard you’re laughing.

“I mean,” recovering, you let out a sigh, finally releasing a breath that you don’t remember holding, “it is a college campus.”

“You can say that again.” His hands are on his hips, and he’s managed to pry his eyes away from you. The sleet’s stopped somewhat, but the ground is still icy from the snow and sleet and rain that have frozen and refrozen over the past few days. The same wistful silence settles between you two after the interruption.

“Maybe it’s a sign.” You laugh in disbelief. Now you’re sure you’ve laughed more than when Jen told you about her friend’s drama. Way more.

“A sign for what?” He questions, jocose and almost suspicious of your deduction.

“A sign you’ve violated like a million rules of common decency!” Another voice, one other than the singing man’s melody and Taesan’s and your chatter, is heard echoing throughout. “Han Taesan, I’m going to beat your ass!” The voice threatens angrily. At first, you don’t know where it’s coming from. At second, you don’t want to believe where it’s coming from. You slowly look up to your open dorm window and see Jen’s disheveled figure poking out with the single most serious scowl you’ve ever seen her wear. The only time that gets close to this nouveau expression is the time she decked a guy for… being a total freak for one of her friends, let’s say. Your body is confused on whether to panic, run, or just freeze. Waiting to act is still an action, and it’s the prognosis your body suggests. You freeze, looking from Taesan to the window, where Jen is notably absent.

You look at Taesan. 

You look at the window. 

You look at Taesan. 

You look at the hallway.

Taesan looks terrified, you look utterly and visibly confused, and for Jen… well, it looks like there's smoke coming out of her ears as she storms down the hallway towards the doors that open to reveal your two-person symposium. Jen slams open the door and, if it wasn’t specifically made not to slam, the impact of the slam would have reverberated until even Dr. Woo heard it across the campus in his (probably sound-proofed) office where he probably still is because, you know, he’s Dr. Woo.

“You motherfucker, what did you do to get her to go out without telling me! What are you hiding? Are you a criminal? Are you a smoker? Oh no, you’re just a piece of shit trying to get in her pants!” Jen steps in front of you, blocking everything but Taesan’s head from your view. From what you can see, Taesan hasn’t been sucker punched yet. His eyes are wide and he’s holding his hands up like he’s waiting for her to swing, and maybe he is. You know he doesn’t know her well enough to know that she wants to beat the shit out of him, but she did say explicitly that she was going to beat the shit out of him so he had some reason to suspect that that’s what was incoming.

���W-what? I don’t— I didn’t do any of that stuff!” He’s shaking his hands wildly and Jen still looks like she’s about to swing by the way she’s pushing a finger into his chest. Still too shocked to do, well, anything except watch.

You see her rear up in a way that’s all too familiar to you, and when you remember you can move, “Jen, wait! It’s–” As soon as the words leave your mouth, you see her closed fist collide with his cheekbone and the impact make him reel back, clutching the affected area with a mittened hand. He almost knocks his head into the pole supporting the overhang, and you can see he’s visibly out of it. Is this a good time to mention that Jen is freakishly good at karate? What Jen is, however, not amazing at is analyzing the situation. As she battles with the follow-through of the swing, she loses her footing on the icy ground, falling flat on her ass. Now, both parties accompanying you are on the icy ground and you’re the only one still standing.

You act in a delay. “Jen! He didn’t do anything, I swear!” You reach for her shoulders that are no longer there, trying to stop an action that’s already happened. You watch as Taesan crumples further into a fetal position and you stand there in shock.

“See!” She spits, snapping her head back to look up at you. “He’s not even trying to help me up!” Her eyebrows are furrowed and angry.

“Jen,” you almost can’t help but laugh, “you decked him, he doesn’t even know what planet he’s on.” You look from your best friend to your… Taesan, and wonder how you attend to both of their bullshit situations at once. “Okay, first of all, Jen, please don’t punch his ass again—”

“Yeah, I’ll punch him in the gut.” She snarls, cutting you off.

“No! There will be no punching.” You declare, trying to sound confident but you’re so bewildered it comes out more as a question. You turn your attention to Taesan, whose nose is bleeding ever so slightly. He’s holding his hat-clad head in his hands and is grimacing in pain. You mirror him, a grimace appearing on your own face as you look upon his pitiful condition. This is going to be so fun to explain. “I came out here because I told him he could call me if he was nervous for the presentation tomorrow and I’d talk to him about it and so we went to the convenience store and… I’m fine! He’s not just trying to get in my pants, he would’ve done that already if he wanted to.” You ramble, using logic that probably wouldn’t withstand in court but works well enough when you talk a million miles an hour to a less than law-savvy subject, that subject being Jen. The subject, Jen, looks scandalized by this information.

“Where did my innocent baby go?” She pouts, getting up to put her arms around you. “Where did my sweet, lightweight, baby with no love life go? She’s sneaking out to see boys?” 

“Jen, I’m a grown woman.” You tell her, incredibly blasé and stiff as she embraces you in a hug. From over her shoulder, you catch Taesan’s eye. When your eyes meet, he laughs and then winces. It probably wasn’t a good idea to welcome an uncontrollable movement when you have some sort of abrasion on your cheek and blood coming out of your nose. Jen pulls back to look at you and shakes her head, you can almost hear her saying they grow up so fast. Maybe this is the same kind of telepathy that goes down between her and her sisters. Maybe you get it. Jen, coming back to earth from her sappy, self-appointed caretaker meltdown, narrows her eyes and looks from you to Taesan, and then from you to Taesan, again.

She opens her mouth and lets out a puff of air as if to start speaking, but she only does so a few seconds later. “So… there was no reason for me to deck him?” She asks, raising an eyebrow in genuine confusion. You nod, solemnly. Her jaw drops and her eyebrows push together. She puts her tongue in her cheek, mind reeling. This is when she realizes she gave this poor man a bloody nose and probably a black eye for no damn reason. Suddenly, she fixes her gaze on you, “you’re the one I should be chewing out! Do you know how many staples of girl code you’ve violated?! You could have died!” She exclaims, clearly ready to give you a talking-to, way worse than when you spelled ‘Elliann’ as ‘Ellyanne.’ She’s like OSHA but for general female wellbeing.

You reach out to grab her hands that are moving dramatically to illustrate her point, “okay, you can chew me out after Taesan isn’t bleeding out.” She seems to relax like a combative patient injected with midazolam.

“I’m not bleeding out.” He huffs, but is still holding his nose bridge, so he’s still bleeding, at least, and that’s not exactly ideal. 

“You look like shit, though.” You tell him

“Thanks,” he groans, “can I get some tylenol, or something?” Yeah, he totally looks like a hurt puppy. It’s kind of cute, you guess.

“Yeah, we’ll get you patched up.” You assure him, breaking away from Jen to attend to Taesan.

“No ‘we.’ Only you. Don’t let her punch me again.” 

“We’re over the combat phase, it’s fine. Get up, do your legs still work?” You try to say your biting words as comfortingly as possible. It’s past two in the morning, you’re too over-tired to try to pick your words so they’ll feel better for the receiver. What’ll make Taesan feel better, physically, at least, is tylenol and making sure his nose isn’t broken.

“My legs don’t, my ass hurts like hell.” Jen complains, but helps in picking Taesan up anyway.

“It’s very hard to break a tailbone, a nose, on the other hand…” You raise your eyebrows but say no more. Taesan gets up just fine, but still clutches his nose. “Campus clinic’s probably closed, we have a first-aid kit, though.”

Jen issues a half-hearted-sounding yet fully meant apology in the form of a mutter of “sorry for punching you, man.” 

“You’re cool, man. Cool that you were looking out for her.” He gives her a small thumbs up. It’s a weird moment of friendship between these two. For having met barely a week ago and having spent five hours together tops, these two have a more tumultuous relationship than most twin siblings at the age of nine, which is saying something considering most have chased each other with a knife by the age of five and a half. Jen has gone from asking to be the maid of honor to decking the presumed groom and now having a hopefully more stable relationship with said groom. So much plot it’s not even ‘for the plot’ anymore, you’re just riding the wave of unexpected inciting events.

“The more the merrier.” You mutter as you sling Taesan’s arm over your shoulder. Why he abets this when the damage is to his face, who knows. The more the merrier indeed in your cramped dorm, trying to ignore how the cold compress on his bruise keeps melting even though it’s so cold and the fact that you have an injured and sleep-deprived boy on your hands.

GOT GOOD

You bite the inside of your cheek, not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to express your dismay. You kind of bombed your presentation. 

Scrap that, you really bombed your presentation. 

As you step out of the lecture hall following the sea of your peers, you step aside to press your back into a free wall. It’s one of the moments where you need to just detach. Crossing your arms for stability, you melt into the wall. The overhead light that you can see even through your closed eyelids is obscured every so often by a moving body. This drowsiness is familiar.

Amid the frequent passings of students, the light is masked for longer than would be caused by someone in passing. You know who it is.

“Hey, it wasn’t that bad.” You open your eyes to a squint and see Taesan leaning against the wall next to you. Despite how you try to ignore it, you’re immediately drawn to the squashed berry purple color that blossoms on the inflamed skin under his left eye, giving way to a lighter almost green tint near his nose. Jen got him good. Your blinks are slow, the scant hours of sleep are getting to you. You slept through your alarm, foreboding you from even getting coffee before the presentation. Despite his injury, he’s smiling.

“I lost where I was like every other sentence.” You attempt to mirror his smile, but it doesn’t really work, leaving you with a smile that reaches your eyes but not your lips, somehow.

“It’s Dr. Woo, you’ll be fine. He doesn’t care nearly as much as you do. We got all of our information out. It doesn’t matter how graceful it was.” He lays out his reasons and you cock your head, weighing the possibility that he’s right.

“Are you like a vampire, or something? You don’t need sleep?”

“I’m used to it.” He shrugs. Maybe living with five as many people as you do makes you sleep way less; especially since it seems like Taesan is their chaperone despite the fact that Sungho and Riwoo are older than him, you’ve learned.

“You shouldn’t be. Sleep is good.” You close your eyes again, and a silence settles over you. You’ve created your own little bubble in the hallway, and it might not even include Taesan. Right now, it’s just you and your desperate need for rest. You are not the kind of person to pull an all-nighter.

“I told you you were going to crash.” He reminds you and you hum in response. “Look,” he gets your attention by putting a hand on your shoulder, “the boys are out, come back to my place and you can take a nap. I know that your room still smells like disinfectant.” A smile creeps across your face at this. It’s true: your room smells like the pungent iodine that you used to clean the minor abrasions on his cheekbone. You still have no idea why Jen has that much power in her.

“Lead the way.” 

“It’s way closer to this building than it is to your building, it’s barely any walk at all.” He assures you. Regardless, you have to speed walk to keep up with the pace.

“Do you have hot chocolate, or anything?” At your drawled request, he tsks. Pressing his lips together, you take that as a no.

“I’ll see what I can do. Woonhak owes me like nine favors.” He laughs a little at this, and you smile too. Unremarkably, it hasn’t become spring overnight, and so the wind is still nipping at your face. You were wise enough to wear your Taesan-provided gloves, though. Looking at Taesan’s face and the way the wind makes his face a little pink, you’re pretty sure you could find the whole color palette on his face. Except blue, maybe. You’ve got the other colors covered. Red for his cheeks, orange, yellow, green, and purple for his bruise. Huh, that bruise contributes a lot. “It’s just this way.” He says, guiding you with a pointed hand towards a complex highly similar to your own. Same red brick buildings and same overhang. The difference is that, you know from picking your roommate, this building is the apartment sector. Frankly, it’s incredible that Taesan and his roommates are all friends. You know other people who got apartments, or even quads, who aren’t so happy.

As you step into the entrance way, you feel the warm air hit your face. This building is much warmer than yours, maybe that’s a good thing. Walking up the stairs, Taesan is steady behind you. You wonder if he’s thinking about catching you like he had to the time you were drunk off your ass.

As soon as you enter the apartment dorm, your focus tunnel visions on the soft couch in the middle of the room. It looks like heaven as you step towards it. You were unfairly ripped from the comfort of your bed for that fuckass presentation and now you can return to your natural state, sleeping. You thank whatever power is out there because this is so incredibly opportune.

As soon as you shed your backpack and winter coat and collapse on the couch, you’re out like a light. No words from Taesan can wake you now, even if it is him professing his undying love for you. No, it’s up to your internal clock to make you up, lest you sleep forever.

Your internal clock does wake you up. You’re groggy, but it’s still light out, so you couldn’t have slept for so long. As you assess your situation, you notice two differences.

First, you’re warm.

A navy blue throw blanket has been carefully draped over you, and you’re pretty sure you didn’t do that yourself. You bite the inside of your cheek—happily, this time. It’s proof he does care, and maybe you’re letting the gesture get to your head. You do… not like Han Taesan, right?

Second, you’re alone in Taesan’s living room.

There are no signs of life, not from his roommates nor from the mountain himself. That’s more puzzling. You would have assumed he would have stayed for one reason or another, maybe he went out to get hot chocolate? He told you that he would have Woonhak do it.

Looking around the room, you take in the sights. There’s a modest TV with various video game consoles, there is a section of the room clearly designated for guitars, and it’s remarkably clean. Not too bad for five early 20-somethings and one 18 year old. It’s kind of impressive, actually. There isn’t any leftover food out and even the dishes in the sink have been rinsed, if not thoroughly washed. You pat down the area around you in search of your phone, mainly to check the time, but also to figure out where the hell Taesan went. Something about his absence hurts your heart in an uncomfortable way. You would have liked to see him when you woke up. Still… you do not like Han Taesan… do you? No, no. You don’t like him, that’s silly. He’s just your partner for a group project.

As you locate your phone, you hear the door open behind you and you swing your head around to see Taesan standing in the doorway with a hand behind his back and a bag in the hand that’s visible to you. Another bag, nice.

“Good morning.” He smiles at your state. The way he looks at you suggests your hair is out of order. You fail obviously as you try to subtly sort it out.

“I had a great nap. You have a good napping couch.” You bring a hand up to rub your right eye even though your mom says it causes astigmatism. It would suck to have contacts in right about now.

“Well,” he says, setting down the bag on the counter, “I have your hot chocolate.” You’re pretty sure your face lights up at this, it’s the perfect thing for this kind of dingy day. “And,” he continues, “I got it from a café near here; store-bought isn’t as good.” He takes a cardboard carrier out of the bag and presents his finds to you, two lidded cups.

“You sure know the way to my heart.” You mean that on a deeper level that you hope he doesn’t catch. “What’s behind your back?” You ask, pointing to the obvious hand still tucked behind him. 

He looks sheepish and brings the hand to his front, “I got these for you.” His cool act is far gone, he seems almost timid. In his left hand he grasps a bouquet of an assortment of colorful flowers. There are assorted yellows, blues, pinks, purples, and reds. It’s like a sunset wrapped in brown paper and tied in a pretty twine bow.

“Taesan!” You exclaim excitedly, jumping up from the couch to go collect your gift. “Why?” You poke. He’s quiet for a second, the question seems to echo throughout the room. A chorus of ‘why.’ You meet his eyes for just a second, but the shared glance makes your heart beat faster. He seems to bite his tongue, there’s a shining reflection of the kitchen light in his dark brown eyes. You don’t see them crinkle up, indicative of a straight face.

He swallows like his throat is thick, “I got them for you because I like you… I like you romantically.”

You’re not sure if your heart swells or drops.

From this one statement, you learn two things. You learn that Han Taesan likes you, and you learn that you like Han Taesan. You really like Han Taesan. You like the way he’s cold but kind and the way his bangs fall and his endless care for his roommates and his hardworking nature. 

You like Han Taesan.

You take the bouquet in your hands, analyzing the flowers. You notice they’re mostly tulips, but flanked by carnations, baby’s breath, and bluebells. A smile grows on your face as you look back up at him. He looks absolutely terrified. It’s not worth it to tease him here. He’s vulnerable, you should be too.

You begin to open your mouth, but before you can, he continues in an attempt at defense, “listen to me, please. I thought you were cute and smart even before the party and all of those incidents, but now that I know you I can’t not tell you. You’re witty and stubborn and playful and it’s so easy to talk to you. You were cute when you were drooling, I didn’t know that was possible. You make fun of me but I like it because you’re so kind. I… I like you.” He confesses, he’s talking fast and you think your heart might burst with excitement. Excitement isn’t the right word—euphoria? Joy? Happiness? Exhilaration? No word is quite right for how you feel about Taesan. “The tulips symbolize love.” He says under his breath and the flowers take on a whole new meaning. You feel like a tulip. Tulips symbolize love.

The smile that bursts across your face makes his eyebrows release all their tension immediately, “Taesan, I like you too. I really like you,” you tell him, “tulips symbolize love.” You look down at the bouquet and see the array of tulips that smile back at you.

“Can I kiss you? I’m not drunk, I swear.” He promises. The allusion to your first meeting makes you laugh. You met with an ask for a kiss, and now he confesses with an ask for a kiss.

“Yes.” You whisper, and he throws his arms around you, pressing his forehead to yours. You sway like that for a moment, you feel the cold of his jacket against your arms and the pressure of his hand on the small of your back. You look at him and in his eyes you see him. No walls, just you two. Just you and Taesan.

You wrap your arms around his neck, one hand still holding the bouquet and pull his lips to yours. Warmth blossoms in your chest—his kiss is soft and tender and he tastes like mint. Mint might be your new favorite flavor. His lips fit perfectly with yours. You feel the soft press of his fingers into your back, pulling you closer to him. Your lips part slightly and you’re out of breath before he even starts to pull away. His kiss is just like him, just when you think you know him all, he shows you a new surprise, something new. After stalling for just a second, he pulls you back to him and deepens the kiss. You could kiss this minty boy forever.

When he pulls away, he rests his forehead against yours again, fluttering his eyes open and shut.

“I wrote a song about this. A serenade.” He says breathlessly.

Even in the dead of winter, you think your heart melts all over again.

NOTES: Shoutout Hartford Whalers even tho they sports disbanded! SINGING MAN CAMEO! The singing man is a genuine character in my life. Living in the city center of a major city means I get LOTS of people doing weird shit like the emoji guy (who wears outfits only with bright fucking emojis, my friends have seen him too, he’s wacky), the tree guy (a man who always walks around with a fallen branch on his head, no idea why), and the supercar medical worker (woman in scrubs who drives down the streets with a loud ass car that looks like one of those fuckass shoes with big holes in them you know what im talking about the kidney shoes). I take a pic and keep them in a folder on my phone called “recurring characters.” I have never seen the singing man. He walks past my house every weekday at 11pm and I like to have my windows open and he sings loud Spanish ballads. I love him. Singing man my beloved. Sorry this is a slowburn, it was forced out of me i fear. is this a slowburn? methinks so.

[deadsetobsessions]

Once more the hallucinations hit, and once more I am here writing it out.

My brain is fucking terrifying and I want out, so bad. This came to me in the form of a nightmare.

Also, please don’t take the timeline into consideration, because I have no idea what’s going on. Again, nightmares and dreams tend to not have the best coherency when it comes to plot and timelines. The reincarnation doesn’t have a name, I was too busy feeling terrified. Shit in parentheses was how I experienced the nightmare. Everything else is just me adding sprinkle sprinkle.

——

Ra’s al Ghul.

Talia al Ghul.

Two names that she had been aware of, in the peripherals of her hyper fixation. Two characters meant to enhance the story of the Dark Knight. Side characters, on a good day. Perhaps, a main antagonist on a better day.

On a bad day?

Main characters. Real, living people. Real, living, breathing assassins.

Unfortunately, they’re her new family. One she remembered coming into, bathed in a pool of blood and screams.

She was not a baby.

She is now, a baby. The first of Talia al Ghul’s children. The eldest, once Damian al Ghul was born.

Swaddled in emerald green and gold silks, she was presented to a man with silver streaked hair and a receding hairline. He too, was robed in green and golds.

“A daughter, Talia?” He rumbled, the smooth Arabic flowing out of his mouth failing to hide the acrid disappointment. The child, past the haze of confusion of suddenly being deported from her own adult body into one of a helpless child, felt a stirring of irritation. It’s good she learned the language, because now she knew exactly how Ra’s felt about her. The child grumbled a displeased sound. Not that she would have ignored the fact that her grandfather was Ra’s al Ghul. (He smelled like moth eaten fabric and blood- but I think that was because my cat accidentally scratched me.)

“My apologies, father.”

“Do not tell the young detective of this. Had it been a son, perhaps things would have been different. No, a daughter would only hinder him.”

Talia bowed, hands tightening on her daughter. “May I raise her, father?”

“A resource is still a resource. Go ahead, Talia.”

“Yes, father.” Talia took the dismissal and bowed before leaving.

On her way back to the room with the reincarnation’s crib, Talia al Ghul stroked her daughter’s head.

“I wish you were born a boy, my daughter. I am sorry my beloved will never know of you.”

The reincarnation looked at her new mother. She’s young, the woman-child realized. A teenager.

“You’ll have to be useful, my daughter. Your grandfather is not so kind as to keep the useless. I… do not wish for your death,” her mother muttered.

Great. She got new life and it’s already in danger.

——

She learned to swing a knife. Swords. She learned and devoured the teachings. She learned to be useful.

But then they asked her to take the life of a man who did her no wrong.

Her baby blues clashed with her grandfather’s Lazarus green.

She was still young. A child.

“No.”

“No?”

“He did no wrong.”

“He failed, granddaughter.” Ra’s smiled down at her, patronizing. Cruel. “Perhaps you possess your father’s heart, and you are foolishly sentimental, as women and children tend to be. But in the end, you are an al Ghul and you will obey. Plunge in your blade and I will reward you.”

The reincarnation looked at the man kneeling in front of her, resignation and a hint of pity in what little she could see of his face.

She’s already died before. What did she have to be afraid of?

“No.”

They tried to beat the weakness out of her. It didn’t work.

——

The reincarnation stared at the mirror, left alone in an opulent cage of gold and emeralds and precious stones that meant little to her now.

Her hands traced her back, small fingers finding purchase in soft skin. Her mouth opened fruitlessly, noise refusing to escape. She still felt the burning magic, the brand her own blood had carved into her skin and soul because she refused to kill. The chains her grandfather had shackled around her with magic and cruel amusement.

She had killed him, in the end. Obey, or be punished. Her body had moved without her permission, the reincarnation a prisoner in a body that refused to do as she commanded. The knife swung, a life taken, her hands dipped in red.

She learned a valuable lesson that day.

There were things worse than death.

“This is an order, granddaughter.”

The Magic had flared a searing heat at her neck, forcing her to kneel on broken legs. Ra’s loomed above, authority in his voice. She was bound to obey, regardless.

“You will never speak another word of affection, you will never speak another word to anyone unless I allow it. Perhaps this will teach you of your folly, and your place in this world.”

The loss of her freedom and the fear that came with it was a bitter and devastating lesson.

——

Ra’s al Ghul was so much worse than what little she knew of him.

She was right to be afraid for herself.

Her mother had worried, when she’d withdrawn and refused to speak to her. Even if she could, the reincarnation would not have wanted to. The reincarnation had felt furious, back then, when she thought of Talia. Her mother who refused to protect her. Her mother, who claimed she loved her but refused to see the chains Ra’s wrapped around her neck. She who plied the reincarnation with a supportive hand but forced her into the fighting pits.

But, as the reincarnation stumbled out on bruised and used legs from Ra’s al Ghul’s meeting chambers where he had allowed his business partners to partake in her, she realized that Ra’s was a monster in a human’s body and her mother was a victim of his making.

The lesson Ra’s taught her that day was that if she was not useful, if she did not kill, he would take what was left of her and make use of her.

Hate flared in her heart, and the beginning of Ra’s downfall began the day he let her go from the chambers alive. Injured, but alive. Injured and violated, but alive and furious.

——

She carved her hate and rage and helplessness and fear in the bodies of the people he bid her to kill. Her silenced screams were expressed in the way she splattered blood, the way she covered herself in it. A killing machine first, a stress reliever second, and a child… wasn’t on the list of things she was allowed to be.

His enemies were felled, one after another. He gave her his approval, something she detested.

But still, she continued, bodies racking upwards, tens turning to hundreds, hundreds edging into thousands.

The red in her ledger became ichor and guilt. Her language became violence and obedience.

“You have become a sharp tool, granddaughter.”

She was a genius, after all. And now, she could not disobey. A blade that Ra’s believed will never point towards him. She kneeled. She obeyed.

“Thank you, grandfather.” Her words were only allowed to come out- without searing, terrible pain- when she was thanking him. She tried not to do it as often as he wanted. He thought he broke her when he read the obedience she carved into her body language.

But she never bowed. Never. Not to him. Never.

——

“My weapon could learn much from your granddaughter,” David Cain sat across from Ra’s, wine in their stupid goblets. How she detested the green and blacks he’s seen fit to dress her with. She’s dressed provocatively, not of her own choice. She doesn’t have much of those- doesn’t have much in ways of choices- these days.

She was twelve, and Ra’s al Ghul deserved to die.

“Her combat is a higher form of what my daughter has achieved. How did you do it?”

When Ra’s began to reply, she slipped away.

She found the girl. She found… the cage- the black box- the child was placed in. The child flinched from her when she opened the metal box, fear only easing as the reincarnation kept her body language neutral and kind. (It was pitch black, and about the size of like, a closet. No light. Only from whatever door the box had.) (Cass’ hands hurt from banging on the walls to be let out)

David Cain’s daughter, her mind whispered, the memories of another life once more making itself known.

“Cassandra.” She whispered, regretting it immediately when pain wracked her body. She fell to her knees as the punishment for disobeying an order slammed into her.

The girl looked at her in concern, but did not move closer. The reincarnation stared at this girl and saw a reflection of herself.

David Cain would be here for a month. She will free Cassandra in those days.

——

The weapon stared at the girl in front of her, kneeling in pain.

She did not understand.

-

The girl came back. Water. Food. Kind.

The weapon felt warm. The girl was quiet. No sounds. Good. The weapon knew the girl understood. The weapon thinks that the girl is a weapon too.

-

The girl comes back, again. This time, she makes a sound. It hurt her, but she did it again. The weapon understands when the girl points at herself and repeats the sound. The sound means the girl. The girl expects something from the weapon.

The weapon makes the sound, flinching to see if the owner will come to punish it. The girl purposefully sits, relaxed but vigilant… and protective. Of the weapon?

The weapon relaxed. It repeated the sound, pointing at the girl.

The girl smiles, in pain. But approval. The weapon feels- the weapon is warm, like under the blanket. Approval.

The girl teaches her to make sounds but the weapon communicates without it. It does not like the sounds, does not need them, but the girl seems to think it’s important.

The weapon likes the girl, so the weapon learns. They still understand through no sounds, through reading each other.

-

The girl comes back, silently. Secretly. The weapon does not notify the owner. The weapon feels- does not want to.

The girl- the girl with the sound- she says a different sound. Her body tells the weapon that it’s important, this sound.

And when the girl points at herself and says her own sound, then points at the weapon and says that new sound again, the weapon begins to understand.

The girl had given the weapon her own sound.

“Cass—n- ra.”

“Cass,” the girl said, and Cassandra understood.

“Cass.” Cassandra pointed to herself.

-

The owner wanted- wanted Cassandra to end a life. Cassandra watched the owner kill and gesture to the dead thing.

Cassandra did not want to.

When Cassandra is placed back into the pitch black box, she waited for the girl.

The girl came.

“Don’t want.” Cassandra clung to her, reading the welcome and the sadness in the girl’s body. Cassandra tucked her face into the girl’s shoulder. She is cold. The girl is warm.

The girl hugged her back. The girl understood. Sadness hardened into lines of determination. Cassandra felt… light. Felt hope.

-

Cassandra slipped away from the place, water in her pack for the dessert and money to run from the country. The girl stayed behind, seeing her off. The girl tells her to never come back.

Cassandra did not want to leave the girl behind, but the girl could not go.

“Be free, Cass.” The girl had whispered through the pain. “For the both of us.”

——

Her grandfather knew. He allowed David Cain to break her, not kill because she was of use to him still, as a lesson. She found that she hated his lessons. But, she hated his attention more.

And still, she could not regret. How could she, when Cass trusted her with what fragile hope she had?

So, she lets him beat her, and provokes him with smirks and fearless eyes because the longer he’s focused on her, the more time Cass has to run.

Then, he gets too angry, and insults Ra’s, whose eyes grew cold. Her grandfather gestured and while she usually hated the command that followed that gesture, she could not feel that hatred now.

She got back up, legs broken and arms twisted once more, and attacked David Cain.

Ra’s would not follow Cass. Not when she was not his business to deal with, and not when David Carin’s fury amused him so.

David Cain would not follow Cass. Not while she still drew breath. The reincarnation stood, and threw herself at one of the best assassins of the century.

She tore his throat out with nothing but her teeth. She felt, for once, not like a monster. Not even when Ra’s nodded in approval and ordered for David Cain’s broken body to be cleaned up.

——

She’s been granted a mission in New Jersey, once her months of discipline- of torture- ended. She does not get ordered to find Cassandra. She’s fourteen now, and as silent as ever. Her mother had adjusted to her silence by then- long ago, actually, taking it as a quirk her daughter had developed. She hadn’t been a terribly vocal child, after all. Talia praised her for being useful even as a woman- the self degradation something the reincarnation had no doubt Ra’s had insidiously trained into Talia- and for being loyal to Ra’s.

Sometimes, she hates Talia for being- for-

Never mind. She couldn’t afford to hate anyone else.

She killed her targets early, determination and wistfulness urging her movements into sharp . Then, she made her way to Gotham and slipped into the city of darkness- where her father was.

She watched as he hid in the shadows almost as easily as she did. She watched as he flew and glided with the younger Robin. (He was younger than her by a year. She checked.) He was free. They were free.

She wished…

As she turned away, she saw a child tumbling from the edge of a roof. It was an instinct she’d thought Ra’s had managed to bury after the months he’d spent making sure she killed only children.

She hated him.

She caught him, swooping in and tucking him against her side as she plucked him from the air and plopped him back onto the crumbling roof of Gotham’s slums.

“Oh, thank you! So much- are you a vigilante?” The boy asked, looking at her masked face. It’s a good thing she wasn’t exactly dressed like a regular League operative.

She shook her head. Her eyes fell onto his camera, faint memories rising once more. She had an inkling-

“I’m- uh- Tim!” The boy introduced himself nervously, edging away from her silence. “Thank you for saving me…?”

She nodded. She pointed to the camera, tilting her head.

“Oh- you… want to see it?” He clutched his camera closer. Oh, he did have some sense of self preservation. She wondered why a seven year old was allowed to roam these streets… but she did worse at seven.

She held her hand up and back up. The boy hesitated, and then showed her the camera. “Uh- I took pictures of Robin and Batman!”

They sat on that roof for hours, and she let Tim Drake tell her stories about her father and his son. Ward. Son.

She could tell that Tim didn’t have anyone to listen to him.

She didn’t have long until she had to go back or risk severe punishment, but… she could make time for Tim, to listen to him.

She wondered if Cass managed to escape completely. She wondered if her sister all but in name and blood learned how to smile.

——

Tim had never had a friend before!

She listened to him! And gave him hugs the one time he was brave enough to ask! And she seemed to like Batman and Robin as much as he did! No one who didn’t like them would listen to his endless rambling otherwise, right? (Tim was super skinny, like ribs poking out skinny. He looked like a sickly Victorian child and he was kind of cold)

“And then, Robin went like this,” he pantomimed the awesome punch Dick Grayson did on a Joker goon. “And the guys got knocked out just like that!”

His new friend nodded, looking interested.

“Sorry, am I talking too much?” Tim asked anxiously. He didn’t want to make his friend hate him!

She shook her head, and gestured for him to continue.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded.

His new friend was so cool! She even taught him how to throw a punch and to fight!

——

When she had to leave, she prepared Tim for it.

“Do you have to go?”

She nodded and placed a hand on his head, ruffling his hair. Her other hand held a duffle bag with an assortment of weapons she carefully kept from him. (One of the blades still had guts on it, which, ew.)

“Try not to fall off anymore roofs, little photographer.” She said, smiling at his shocked look before leaping away.

“Wait, you can talk?!” He shouted at her back. She smiled a little wider.

——

“A son, this time.” Ra’s al Ghul’s voice echoed in his disgustingly flashy throne room. It rings of approval.

The reincarnation stood behind her mother, eyes cast downwards.

“Well done, Talia. I finally have a worthy heir.”

Damian al Ghul cooed.

The reincarnation was scared. But… she could not allow her younger brother to be trapped like she was. She’s fifteen now, a decade of slavery having worn her down and nearly broken her. But with her brother… no, she could not allow it.

She met her mother’s eyes and knew then that they agreed. Protect Damian, at all costs.

She ignored the sting of envy. So what her mother could not find it in herself to protect her daughter? So long as she protected Damian, it didn’t matter.

Maybe she didn’t matter. Maybe she wasn’t worth anything. Maybe- maybe- maybe.

She also ignored the seed of disgust she had for mother’s actions in conceiving Damian. She couldn’t do anything about it. Talia was also a victim.

A louder voice in her asked if she could really excuse that, when Talia had a choice and she chose to hurt and violate Bruce Wayne like that. She wondered if she could truly ever forgive Talia. She wondered if Bruce Wayne got therapy.

——

She stared at the tome in front of her, eyes blank. (Actually, she had no eyes. Like? Empty sockets, but then later she had eyes???)

The brand- the shackles- the chains could only be broken if Ra’s died. She wasn’t opposed to that. But if he died, so did she. She couldn’t even kill herself to get out, because the chains would be there even if she died. If she was revived- a high chance, thanks to the fucking pits- then the chains would still be there.

Perhaps… she could use the pits?

Her mind turned and turned.

——

“This is your ukht.” Her mother pointed at her. Damian stared up at her, and she melted. Her brother was too damn cute.

“Ukhti?”

She nodded as her mother smiled in joy. “Yes, habibi.”

She was better at hiding the pain, now. She was better at enduring it, too, that fucking burning feeling. She spoke more, but only to Damian.

It would not do for her brother to grow up not knowing how to receive verbal expressions of affection. Not like she did, in this life.

Still, it hurt to speak. But then, she had an idea, based on Cassandra.

She could not speak, but speaking wasn’t the only way of communication. She’ll teach Damian sign language- standard, as commanded- but also her own version. Yes, she could do it. It wouldn’t be hard.

She was a genius, after all, and creating languages wasn’t as hard as people seem to think.

——

Damian copied her, small fingers patting his hand four times.

She did it back to him. “I love you.” She tells him, with sounds and with motions.

He does it back, excitedly, because he had a secret with ukhti!

——

Sometimes, she dared not to touch Damian. She wants to ruffle his hair and give him hugs but the ichor on her hands reminds her to not get to greedy. She did not deserve it.

Not when her hands were stained with the lives of so many people.

——

Another mission.

She was twenty now, and not much closer to escaping her bonds. Though, once she hit her majority, Ra’s lost interest in her in that way. A blessing, even if she had to seduce his “business partners” into giving him better deals more often now.

She stops by Bludhaven. The Robin she watched so many years ago- six, by her count- had grown new wings and moved. She wanted to see if he could fly still.

He could. He flew as free- no, freer than his days as Robin.

She dipped away to complete her mission (nuclear weapon trading, really?) and swings back to see a spider trying to break the former Robin’s wings.

“No.” Nightwing whispered, staring upwards at the cloudy sky blankly. “Please, stop.”

She didn’t need to hear any more. She saw red, and dove feet first straight onto the spider’s head, knocking her out.

She picked up a near-catatonic Nightwing, and helped him to his apartment. She left Tarantula in the rain and felt zero guilt about it.

He changed mechanically, some kind of instinct keeping him from removing his domino, but it was a bit pointless considering she escorted him to his personal apartment.

She watched as Nightwing slipped into an exhausted sleep before leaving. She had a spider to squish, and traces to hide.

——

Dick wakes up, drained and exhausted. He… someone saved him.

He sees a scrawled note, handwriting impeccable enough to be a font, written with his pen. He picked it up from his table, and his eyes tiredly read the message.

“Don’t worry about Tarantula. Or your identity.”- A friend.

He remembered- the mask- the mask of the stranger that saved him vividly. He’d remember. And he’d thank them if they ever came back.

——

She was in charge of training assassins, these days. A year and a half later after Bludhaven, she was back in Nanda Parbat, and she’s devoured every magical tome she could get her hands on. They all say the same things.

Her assassins were trained well, and Ra’s praises her with more responsibilities as he followed the pit in his obsessions. Her mother began to splinter the group, not knowing that as Ra’s began his descent into madness, people looked towards her instead of Talia for leadership. They did not know that her unwavering presence by Ra’s side wasn’t voluntary but it is their true that she became his right hand out of pure skill. And flawless obedience, of course.

Then, someone new joins.

Someone with pit rage and empty eyes that goes rigid when she approaches.

Then again, most of the operatives freeze up when she walks towards them.

Her memories roar. A child.

He bowed, and her eyes followed the streak of white hair at the forefront of his skull.

She gestured at him to follow, and ignored the pitiful eyes the rest of the assassins gave to the kid- they act like her training was hard when she went easy on them (it was)- and led the kid towards the training rooms.

She knew who he was, even if her grandfather and mother didn’t think she knew.

Her… Bruce Wayne would probably appreciate his son being returned relatively sane.

But first, she had to beat the Pit out of him. Then, she could assign body guarding duties to him, in an attempt to protect him.

——

“Grandfather, I will take Damian’s punishment.”

“A whipping girl, granddaughter?” But he nodded anyways. He made Damian watch.

She kneeled and allowed the punishment. She couldn’t always protect him from Ra’s, but this she could do anytime. It’s not like she was unfamiliar with the torture. (The whip had barbs. Rusty. And they sprinkled salt.)

——

“I liked poetry….” Jason Todd tells her after a training session. “I think.”

“Sure. I’ll call you Grave, then.” Pain. But she was used to it.

He tilted his head, eyes going blank once more. She sighed. There went his memories again. (His eyes were blank and glazed. Like looking at someone you love and knowing they’re looking through you.)

——

“I would not trust her,” she says to the air, next to a Red Hood emerging from Talia al Ghul’s chambers. She could see it, the beginnings of Gotham’s new crime lord. But still, “Talia al Ghul is known for her lies.”

She pushed away from the wall. It was up to Grave if he listened. It was out of her hands now.

——

She’s twenty-five, and she’s helping Damian pack for his first meeting with Bruce Wayne.

“You must not tell him about me.” Because he’d come rushing here, and she had worked too hard to save Damian for her fool of a father to come and ruin all of that effort.

“I promise.” Her little brother said solemnly. Ukhti said it out loud, which meant it was important and she expected him to keep that promise.

The only other time he’d heard her speak was to tell him she loved him.

The reincarnation smiled and told him through their special sign language, to treat the current Robin with respect and to try his best to get the current Robin to pass down his title.

‘Robin is earned. They have different rules, over there. Try your best to learn those rules.’

Her brother was sheltered. She loved him, but he was spoilt and sheltered. Of course she was worried. Talia barely mothered him.

“I know. You do not have to remind me so often, ukhti.”

She smiled, and patted his head.

“Be safe,” she whispered. “I will miss you.”

Damian darted in for a hug. “Of course. Goodbye, sister. See you soon.”

She hoped not. It was hard enough to convince Ra’s that Damian would learn more under Bruce Wayne.

(She was locked in a small closet- like Cass- for about a week, because she brought up the idea first.)

——

She found it.

The answer to pit rage laid in an old, all but crumbling tome from Atlantis- answers “from a ghost.”

——

Bruce Wayne died. Months after Damian came to live with him. That- irritating- she sighed and worked with her mother to turn Ra’s al Ghul’s attention away from Gotham, lest he called Damian back in Bruce Wayne’s absence.

The little photographer caught grandfather’s attention. She stood vigil as he played chess with Ra’s. His interest in Damian wavered. Anticipation blurred in her veins.

She saved his friends. Her assassins. She let them go, telling them to wait for the little photographer’s plan. (Y’all miss girl had fucking bloody handprints on her pants like someone tried to grab it.)

The first few people who had an inking she might not be loyal to Ra’s… and it was them.

When her other assassins attacked Red Robin, she cut them down before they could touch him, helping him with a furious League of Spiders or whatever operative. She hated spiders.

“What…?”

“You’re a lot of trouble, little photographer.” She sighed. His jaw dropped.

“It’s you!”

“Go,” she cut him off. “Blow this place up. I left a surprise for you outside.”

——

“Owens?! Z?!” Tim trembled, exhaustion and shock and wonder hitting him at once.

“Heya, boss!” Z chirped. Owens helped Tim up while Z helped Tam. Pry walked around them, looking out for further threats. “The nightmare trainer let us go. She knew you, I think.”

Tim smiles, all shark teeth and zero hero. (In the background, the song zero to hero from Hercules 2, played in reverse.) “Tell me more.”

——

Damian grunted, bracing himself for the magical creature’s attack.

“Robin!” His father barked out, panicked. Damian hoped he’d survive-

Shhhlk!

He looked up and there stood his ukht. She bounded forwards, using the odd fauna of the magical plane to bolster her movements as she sliced the creatures apart with her swords, magic humming brightly as she cut through them… and the magicians attacking them.

“What- what are you doing here?” He asked. She greeted him, three fingers curled over her shoulder.

‘My question is,’ she signed. ‘Why were you here without a magical weapon.’

Damian sighed as father stepped in between them.

“Who are you.”

“Batman. Cease your excessive worry. I trust her with my life,” Damian snapped. He stepped around a shocked Batman, looked him in the eyes, and unsheathed his katana. He handed it over to his ukht, who took it with amusement.

‘See?’ His eyes seemed to say. Father tensed when his sister unsheathed her own blade and handed it to him.

‘Are you here for a specific reason?’ His sister signed to him.

“Uh, you gonna introduce us, little man?”

Damian sent the Flash a derisive look and ignored him.

“We’re looking for a magician. He set a squadron of demons loose into D.C. last night. He has a tower.” Damian added.

“Robin,” Father growled. “Who is this.” Damian shot him a look and turned back to his sister.

The reincarnation tilted her head. ‘Tower… it’ll have to be that way.’

“Could you take us there?” Damian asked. Truthfully, he could find the way himself. But he wanted more time around his ukht. She nodded and Damian straightened.

“I feel like we should be concerned that Robin’s friend just murdered a bunch of people.”

His sister glanced back and ignored them.

“Silence, incompetents. Speak another word against her, and Batman’s no killing rule will be applied creatively.” He hissed. (The fucking surroundings hissed with him y’all what the fuck)

He turned when his sister ruffled his hair (Superman muttered a super shocked “what the fuck.”) and Damian allowed it. He had missed his sister.

——

[sunfortune]

hiiii i recently watched kanthony (the so called bridgerton show or whatever) and was wondering if u have any fic recs... 👉👈🤭

okay i litchrally have never compiled a list bc i have read too many to keep them organized. but ill do it. Finally. for YOU.

first. my fav period setting fics <33:

tete a tete by caciopepebowl (14k~) this is REQUIRED reading to ME. its a quick read that explores kate and anthonys roles in their family. with an emphasis on KATE specifically bc of the additional hurdles of being a woman with limited funds. and anthony losing his mind on her behalf while shes breaking his heart by being like "the way i was treated was normal?? you dont know anything" and hes like "what? kate you deserved everything. you deserve ALL the love in the world!!" and shes all ">:( well if i do. you do too." . and hes like "oh. well...no. you see.. bc i suck" and shes like -_-. its really sweeeeeet and lovely <3) and really finally gave me the exploring of kates family issues that THE SHOW DID NOT!!!

the longest betrothal by caciopepebowl. (90k~) my FAVVVVV regency setting fic. its sooo good. its basically a continuation that fills in the gap AFTER they get engaged but BEFORE theyre married. and them trying SO hard to be normal about how in love they are lol. SO funny and sweet. and with IMMACULATE characterization

in vino veritas by wagamiller. (~10k) a one shot about kate going to a ladies society event and coming home drunk to anthony and him being soooo smitten with her. sauuuur cute. ive read this like 4 times <3 its soooo good

for reasons wretched and divine by penny_loaf. (~18k. locked fic. need an account.) basically kate and anthony get stuck in a time loop on that first day edwina is receiving suiters. they both think theyre alone in the loop and its depressing until they realize the other is stuck with them too. they try to break the loop and fail repeatedly. after a while they just give up and start fucking bc theres no consequences so who cares LOL. surprisingly tender and sweet

the harsh light of day by burnerraccount. (~22k. locked) explicit one shot. kate has the idea that they should fuck before they get married so theres less pressure on the wedding night. she decides all this without mentioning it to anthony (LOL). so she shows up at his house the night before their wedding. and his footman is like "theres a woman outside to see you" and he in all his goofy almost-married bliss is like "i dont want to see Any woman but my gorgeous, beautiful, amazing WIFE" and his footman is like "well. you see.. it is your wife. uh fiance" and anthonys like "[voice crack] huh ?". very FUNNY

green in its many hues by burnerraccount. kate and anthony decide they are going to be chaste and proper leading up to their wedding. they suck at it SO bad lol

next. modern AUS my best friends <33:

la semi dolce vita by caciopepebowl (~170k) my FAVVVV modern au of ALL time. kate is a private chef. anthonys family hires her when they go on vacation. hes being so normal about it. i promise. this is one of the best characterizations of kate AND anthony in a modern setting. with an extra emphasis on focusing on kate issues. and not JUST anthonys. which is what makes the dynamic sooo good. 10/10. hot. and i love LOVE <3

close encounters of the acutest kind by caciopepebowl (WIP ~74k. only incomplete fic ill put on this list i PROMMY. bc its by the prev author. and i Looove their writing and its sooo good so far <3) kate and anthony meet for the first time the DAY her dad died which is also the SAME DAY hyacinth is born. theyre both having a panic attack and end up running into the same empty hospital room to have it. are then intrinsically linked forever. as one is. run into each other multiple times over the years. with different feelings each time. and they are so normal (lying) <3. i love them

chosen & cherished by trash4ficsaboutlurv. (~42k) this is so underrated. kate runs a charity organization. anthony is CEO of whatever the fuck. she goes to his company when theyre holding some audition for what charity theyre going to invest in and kate is the last speaker and when its finally her turn he barely even pays attention. and shes exhausted and overworked and just oveeeer it All. so she ends the meeting and tells him to go fuck himself. LOL. genuinely really good. and hot <3

sidelines by ramarro. (~60k) this was THE quintessential kanthony modern AU in 2022. kates an artist who sees a picture of anthony on tinder and thinks he looks obnoxious (lol) but screenshots the photo so she can use his arms/hands for sketching practice. and then she see him and his grown ass on a date with her BABY sister. and shes like well i was right about him. and lets him know to his face how she feels (LOL). its wild. it slays. read it. theres an explicit follow up to it which also slays

three cities and we never lived here by ramarro. (~25k, ~40k) very different modern au where kate and anthony meet on vacation and are very casual with them both not looking for anything (genuinely for once lol) and then seeing each other multiple times over 2-3 years in different cities and still keeping it casual. but slowly slowly slowlyyyy it doesnt feel as casual as it used to. theres 2 fics in this. the first is kates pov. the second is anthony. both very good.

just go with it by suitsusboth. (~18k) kate when booking a flight sees the potential titles like ms, mrs, dr, and "viscountess" listed as a legit option and has a laugh like whos picking this goofy shit and accidentally clicks it. and then on her flight gets upgraded to first class next to anthony bc they assumed she was his wife. and he tries to be mad about it. but well. hes stupid for her in every universe so lol. funny and sweet

the air i breathe and the bane of my existance by the_loosest_moose. (image fic) these are textfics told through instagram, twitter, article and text message screenshots. with some regular text. would just check them out to gauge how you feel about the storytelling method. very fun reads once you get the hang of it

heirlooms by waterlilyrose. (~12k) modern au where kate gets anthonys ring stuck on her finger for days and has to wait to get it off. he is of course very normal about it

a devils love by irony_rocks. (~57k) this may not be for everyone but kanthony season came out around the same time as The Batman (2022) and as someone who was crazy insane about both. this was the MOMENT for me in spring 2022. its a crime mafia type au where kates character is inspired by selina kyle and the pebble lounge she worked at in the batman movie. and well. if youre about that specific combo check it out. its not a batman au

break point (series) by penny_loaf. (multiple. ~25k) this a tennis au which you wouldnt think would be that deep but it is and its sooooo good. it really delves into the pressure of the world its set in on top of the issues kate and anthony ALREADY have. and as an ANGST and crazy, complicated characters STAN...very GORGEOUS to ME <3 and hot

take me home by kendal_lynne. (~12k) romcom type explicit one shot where kate makes the mistake of telling anthony her ex couldnt make her come. and hes all like i can do it volunteer as tribute PLEASE PKLEASE PLEASE PICK ME CHOOSE ME PLWASEE etc

we never made a sound by writergirl8. (~4k) spy au that was soooooo good and sexy. i wish it was longer

with elaichi by serendipityinwords (~6k) the two biggest bitches at a dinner party find out they're soulmates. LOL. hilarious dialogue

theres probably more i loved that im not remembering rn and maybe ill update this but for now have fun! yippee <3

[tossawary]

I don't have a solid plot attached to this idea, I don't currently really have the desire to drop everything to go write "The Hobbit" fanfiction, but for a while I've had the idea of *gestures vaguely" some post-canon story (probably some form of fix-it) taking place before, during, and after a grand dwarven opera performance in Erebor.

Because I am absolutely certain that the Lonely Mountain had an absolutely stunningly beautiful Royal Opera House (and plenty of other, less grand performance halls) that, at the city's height, was putting at least one show every single day. Orchestral symphonies, operas and operettas, dramatic plays, dance performances... you name it, they had it and more. The various cultures of Middle Earth evidently ADORE music, dwarves absolutely included. The Company all bring instruments to Bag End to play and sing themselves off before their quest!

Also, beyond the music side of things, with how dwarves are named as master crafters? Smiths and toymakers and magicians? No way that they did not have some of the most gorgeous costumes, sets, and effects on the planet. Dwarves would go WILD with their articulated stage puppets, I know it.

One of my biggest issues with the film trilogy is that it failed to deeply explore the Company as people who had lost their home, beauty and culture included. Smaug not only killed countless people, entire families, and leave many of the survivors poor and desperate, the dragon went on to hoard their heirlooms and life's work and leave these priceless gold treasures UNUSED. It is an additional heartbreak to imagine Smaug tearing through Erebor neighborhood by neighborhood, house by house, so that he could tear out every gemstone in, say, mosaic made by someone's grandmother that sat above the breakfast table every morning. To think that Smaug in the aftermath tore magical lanterns off the walls, the sort that might have been decorated with animals or flowers, to make some daycare walkway just a little more cheery for the children, and in his greed left a dead city in the dark.

The live-action movies put both Smaug and the Balrog in these... absolutely enormous chambers that serve somewhat unclear purposes. The king's treasure vault and a former marketplace, I think? (Moria has been raised by goblins, I can forgive the emptiness.) It's a quick visual depiction of Thror's uncontrollable gold lust to give him a Scrooge McDuck room, sure, instead of anything with an actual organizational system (normally, I assume dwarves are big on sorting their vaults if they have one). Super big columns and hallways and staircases do somewhat effectively communicate the "lost glory" of Moria (I am very fond of these movies!!!), even if I also think it's not as interesting as it could have been. And the other obvious purpose of big, open warehouse-like spaces is 1) it's easier to animate the big creatures moving around in them generally and 2) it allows the films to show off the full-bodied visual spectacle of their big creatures.

But I think it would have also kicked ass to put Smaug in Erebor's former Royal Opera House or something, some enormous theatre decorated across generations. That could be big! The ART (statues, fountains, banners, windows, general architecture) that you could put on the exterior, which has had its face ripped open for the dragon to get inside? The ART that you could put INSIDE (mosaics, murals, and more) as Bilbo sneaks inside? Ohhh, you could include so many potential lore references with thematic relevance!

Also, Bilbo could get jump-scared by old articulated stage puppets or something. IT'S THE DRAGON-! Oh, no, it's some old opera prop. (Yes, we're talking more about an actual adaptation of "The Hobbit" rather than fanfiction concepts now.)

Sure, there's raw material treasure and coins hoarded here in this place, but there would also be musical instruments and toys and household tools and cookware and fancy dishes, wedding jewelry and anniversary gifts and family shrines and festival costumes, fountain statues and street lamps and mailboxes and business signs, and other evidence that people really LIVED here. These are all ordinary objects that Bilbo recognizes from the Shire.

We could tie these objects directly back to objects we saw featured in Bilbo's home early in this adaptation, which he was trying to "protect" from the dwarves during their "That's what Bilbo Baggins hates" song. There are half-burned portraits of people's late parents here too. Did he think that there weren't any dwarves who made doilies or handkerchiefs embroidered with flowers? Of course they made things like that too.

It's perfectly symbolic to, say, place Smaug's bed in an area like the king's throne room. The dragon is now the King Under The Mountain. But I think it would be deliciously haunting to have the throne room of Erebor be empty, the throne half-broken, the silver stripped from the walls and moved elsewhere, because Smaug doesn't care about Thror's old audience chamber. What's a dwarf king to a dragon? He burns the same as all the others. The dragon has instead made his bed in a beautiful public place of art and culture that was for the people, by the people, surrounded by the lovingly crafted belongings of the ordinary people he killed. Gold is gold to a dragon whether it's in a coin or a candlestick.

I think if you really want to sell one of the key messages of "The Hobbit", which in my opinion is: "If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." then you ought to throw yourself behind EREBOR being a place where food and cheer and song had value, not just the Shire. Thorin isn't lost at the end because he's a dwarf and dwarves don't value such things, but because he as a specific person who makes the mistake of weighing pride and gold over people, and he comes to regret that on his deathbed.

So, back to the fanfiction idea, I think that Erebor had music again in it as soon as dwarves started living in it again. It will take decades and decades before the Royal Opera House is half as splendid as it was before, and there is a performance there with beautiful costumes and puppets and sets comparable to those that came before, some traditional historical show that is part of specific seasonal holiday for dwarves. But that very first winter, when the future still looked grim, I think the dwarves cleared out a small stage and cast the roles of this traditional musical retelling of their history among them, based on who knew the parts best, because they aren't just miners and smiths and soldiers, and there was music again in Erebor that winter despite all the damage that the dragon did.

[hedwig221b]

Got tagged by wonderful people @patolemus, @demonicfaerie and @teencopandthesourwolf to share a wip, so here is a piece of my sterek twilight au (I'm going insane)

Stiles opened the door and was about to step out, when Derek called him.

“Stiles?”

He turned his head back, only to realize that Derek was very very close.

Stiles’ breath caught, his heart frozen in the sugar coating of trembling anticipation.

The sharp point of Derek’s nose touched his cheek, lighter than the wind. He inhaled deeply, taking the greedy lungfuls of Stiles’ scent into his body. Stiles fought the shiver at the thought of it seeping into Derek’s lungs, traveling with his blood, making Derek think of him, staying with him even when they were apart. It was a feral thought, new but so strong and lustful that it made his head spin from how pleasant it was.

Derek’s eyes fluttered open. His pupils were huge, with the thinnest thread of red wrapped gently around them.

“Sleep well.” His voice was a murmuring thunder.

Stiles swallowed against a dry throat, nodded, and got out of the car.

He walked in a daze to his house, his heart left in that damn Camaro. He stuttered through a weak explanation about his bruise to his Dad (he had to tell Lydia and Allison that he defended them from bad guys just so they knew), and stumbled upstairs.

The room was dark as he walked in. The soft light of the full moon lit the square on the carpet just below the window.

Stiles took a couple of minutes to glance over his makeshift board. With his lips set and his heart thundering in his ears, he tore it all away, leaving scraps of tape stuck to the wall. He then took a fresh sheet of paper, glued it to the wall, and wrote one word in bold black letters.

Werewolf

Stiles stared at it. The word glared back at him, standing out harshly against the white.

He capped the marker, tossed it onto the table, and took off his clothes. Thoughts swarmed his head the entire time, all at once, different and scary. The life and the death, the moon and the ocean, the secrets and their reveal. The thread of red wrapped lovingly around the black depths.

Derek.

Stiles thought about him the most. Something told him that it wouldn't be the last time, far from it. He thought about Derek's softness and his open desire to kill. Stiles’ hands remembered the heat of his hands. His neck longed to feel the coating warmth of Derek’s breath. His lips burned from the kiss that never happened.

Everything was so fucking complicated.

Except one thing.

It was the only clear thought in his head. The one that made his stomach clench from fear, his heart stutter from hope, and his lips stretch in a smile.

He was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with Derek.

[divider link]

[shanastoryteller]

it would make dean fucking furious, but i actually love the idea that jack sometimes calls sam "sammy" and that sam lets him. he's the only one besides dean that doesn't get "it's sam"

jack is always watching dean, and while part of that is search for dean's approval, the rest is because it teaches him how to interpret and be loved by sam

he calls him sammy when he's scared, or worried, or even relieved (seeing sam after lucifer brought him back would definitely elicit a sammy)

dean says it and it's sammy (protected)

jack says it and it's sammy (protector)

i also think he's seen dean and sam hug each other, sees how sam scrunches himself up so dean can still get his arms over his shoulders and folds beneath his brother. and when sam hugs jack, he hugs him sort of like dean hugs him, like how jack thinks dean used to hug sam twenty years ago

being enveloped, sam hunching over to keep him tucked into him, and for a moment jack feels like nothing can get to him

(sam used to feel this way too)

[hauntingofhouses]

We all already know Mizu and Akemi are narrative foils. But you know what? Lemme just say it, here's what I think:

Taigen and Mikio are foils.

Not necessarily to each other as individuals in the way that Mizu and Akemi juxtapose each other, but mostly in the contrast between their relationships with Mizu.

I've covered specific parallels between Taigen and Mikio in other posts I wrote; but as the number of parallels I'm noticing between them keeps piling up, I'm compelled to just compile them all in one post. So! This is, thus, the post in question.

First of all, let's look at their similarities.

1. Their status in society is the same. They are both samurai who lost their honour and have dreams of reclaiming it.

2. They are also both diligent as they strive to achieve this goal, they both care deeply about their work, but here as they begin to contrast, as the work in question and way they go about their goals is different:

For Mikio, his work is in taming and rearing horses; in order to prove himself, he must tame Kai—a willful and strong horse—and present it to his lord. For Taigen, his work is in sword fighting and martial arts; in order to prove himself, he must kill Mizu—a willful and strong swordsman—and present her dead body to his lord.

In the parallel above, not only are Taigen and Mikio contrasting each other, but Mizu and Kai are placed in comparison as well. And of course, Kai is Mizu's horse, and represents her. Which is why, when later, Mikio sells Kai off, it represents the way he is tossing Mizu (and their relationship) aside.

From there, the rest of the details of their character begin to contrast and juxtapose each other more clearly. So let's look at those differences, shall we?

Their backstory:

Mikio was a great samurai who was banished. A somebody to a nobody. Taigen was a fisherman’s son who rose to the top. A nobody to a somebody.

2. The first time we meet them on-screen:

Mikio is an adult. An older man. Mizu's superior in age. He is Mizu's to-be husband. A love interest. Taigen is a child. A young boy. Mizu's peer in age. He is Mizu's bully. An antagonist.

3. Their maturity and growth:

Mikio is mature, but stuck in his ways. Taigen is immature, but capable of changing and learning.

4. Their overall attitude:

Mikio is generally relaxed, easy-going and unfussy. Taigen is uptight, irritable and severe.

5. How they talk to and conduct themselves around Mizu:

Mikio is aloof, soft-spoken, and serious. Taigen is obnoxious, brash, and sarcastic. Mikio is quiet, speaking only when spoken to, even when Mizu turns to smile at him and shows openness to be near him. Taigen is loud, talking while others are silent, even when Mizu turns from him and shows no interest in conversing with him.

Mikio doesn't show much of who he is to Mizu throughout their marriage, despite their growing affection. Taigen openly shares his traumas and life story to Mizu during their brief alliance, despite their mutual antagonism.

6. Their external vs internal selves:

Mikio is calm, gentle, and considerate on the outside. Taigen is hot-headed, rude, and selfish on the outside. Mikio is cowardly and deceitful on the inside. Taigen is brave and loyal to a fault on the inside. Mikio tells Mizu that he wants to know and see all of her. But he scorns and betrays her, the woman he loves. Taigen tells Mizu that he wants to duel and kill him. But he endures torture to not betray him, the man he hates.

9. Their hair, a symbol of their honour:

Mikio's topknot is untied by Mizu during their spar. This humiliation occurs in private, the two of them alone in a rural location where no one can see them. Taigen's topknot is cut off by Mizu during their duel. This humiliation occurs in public, the two of them being watched by many others in the Shindo Dojo.

10. Their power dynamic with Mizu:

Mikio believes he is Mizu's mentor. He teaches her to throw knives, how to ride and care for horses, and about the tactical benefits of using a naginata. Taigen believes he is Mizu's equal. He views Mizu as a samurai like himself who received all the same teachings he did, and who possesses the same values.

11. Their perceptions of Mizu:

Mikio sees Mizu's feminine side first. He sees her as sweet and gentle, but also clumsy and incompetent. Taigen sees Mizu's masculine side first. He sees her as terrifying and deadly, but also strong and skilled.

12. The way they approach sparring with Mizu:

Mikio only spars with Mizu once. As the fight progresses and she is beating him, he tries to put a stop to it. When she teases/provokes him, he starts taking the fight personally and seriously, finding no enjoyment in it. Taigen spars and brawls with Mizu all the time. No matter how many times Mizu beats him, he doesn't back down. When Mizu challenges him with a chopstick, he is eager to compete with her and gladly rises up to the challenge.

Mikio and Mizu's one and only spar is a friendly match; Mizu is smiling and having fun while he grows increasingly frustrated. Taigen and Mizu's last-seen spar is a playful wrestling match; both him and Mizu are having fun and laughing.

Mikio cannot deal with Mizu being better than him, so he scorns her and walks off, avoiding her thereafter. When Taigen cannot deal with Mizu being better than him, he follows her to observe her moves and continues training in hopes to eventually beat her. After being bested by Mizu once, Mikio leaves her and sells the horse he'd previously gifted to her. After many times losing to Mizu and fighting alongside her, Taigen commends her and admits she is better than him.

13. When Mizu pins them down in a friendly spar:

Mikio sees Mizu's whole face objectively. Taigen stares at Mizu's mouth and eyes.

Mikio gets angry when she kisses him, throwing her off of him and snapping at her, calling her a monster. Taigen gets aroused, apologising, so she pulls herself off of him.

14. Mizu's blue meteorite sword is a reflection of her soul. She believes most are undeserving to face it, let alone hold it. And on that note:

Mikio is the first person (chronologically) that Mizu fights against using her sword. Taigen is the first person (we see on-screen) that Mizu fights against with her sword. Mikio is the first person (chronologically) to ever hold her sword, as she passes it to him, letting him wield it. Taigen is the first person (we see on-screen) to ever hold her sword, as she passes out, and he picks it up and carries it for her.

15. Then, last but not least, in Fowler's fortress, when she is drugged and in pain, she hears Ringo's voice in the dungeon. She then follows it to an open cell:

Mizu first sees Mikio as a hallucination, the sight of him haunting her and causing her to lose her grip on reality. Her eyes glow a surreal blue to represent this. Her Mama appears then and says Mizu's name accusingly.

Mizu then sees Taigen, but he is real, the sight of him a relief and grounding her back to reality. Her eyes return to their normal blue colour to represent this. Taigen looks at Mizu weakly and says her name softly.

Then, later, when facing Fowler, her revenge awaiting her, she instead chooses to follow her conscience (represented by Ringo's voice in her mind), putting aside her vengeance for a time, in order to save Taigen.

So that's basically all the ones I've noticed so far, but even then, I feel there's already so much that forms a contrast between these two.

What makes it especially incredible about these juxtapositions is that Mikio was Mizu's husband, the man she had fallen in love with, the one person she had ever been intimate with, the man who made her begin to accept herself, to put down her desire for vengeance and instead live a life of peace and happiness.

So for Taigen to have so many parallels with him... Do you see what I'm saying here!

Not to mention that Mizu clearly already has some burgeoning attraction to him, as indicated by how she thinks of him when asked about her desires. And Taigen clearly has shown interest as well (see: him getting a boner after their spar, him holding her hand and telling her, "We're not done yet.").

And on the topic of speculating future possibilities of this relationship, this post by @stromblessed has pointed out yet another parallel between Taigen and Mikio:

Mizu promises Taigen to meet him for their duel in autumn. Mizu fell in love with Mikio and duelled him during autumn.

With all that said, I do believe Mizu and Taigen's relationship is definitely hurtling towards something. But whether they will actually end up together in a sustainable relationship and have a happily ever after? Well, that is a whole other story; we'll just have to wait and see.