#love it when people draw them as lil creatures flopped over each other

[bamsara]

I present, narilamb but smol. Hopefully you can feel better :D - Lari

THEM!!! THEM!! I love them with every fiber of my being and then some im AAAAAA

[gwoongi]

𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵 | teacher!hoseok

𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘫𝘦𝘤𝘵 jung hoseok / reader teacher + expecting parents au! genre: fluff fluff fluff (and a lil baby bit of smut) + bullet fic version :) words: 26k (so maybe read this on a laptop but if you insist on a phone then don’t say i didn’t warn you!!!!)

warnings: graphic language, smidge of nsfw content, student/teacher relationship, jung hoseok being the best boyf and parent ever :(

a/n: y/n is legal !!! hoseok is the typical cliche young teacher !!! i love this story a lot (i plan to write it in full soon!!! just whenever i have time teeheehee) ((also im really sorry the balloons look demonic idk what happened and honestly. too lazy to edit it)) (((this fic is a MONSTER!!! i’m sorry in advance!!!)))

disclaimer: as per freaking usual, keep reading does not work on mobile. i am so sorry because this is SO LONG and big but its ok :( because it’s dad hoseok :( 

(gif is not mine!)

happy new year (as a starting note!) i was gone for a long, long time on this blog and did actually consider getting rid of it entirely, however, i’m back to share things that i love and hopefully, you can all enjoy the things i create also. i don’t usually write like this, but i saw a variety of writers adopt a “bullet-list-style” of writing, which i found to be quite efficient. i am the world’s slowest writer and so writing like this actually helps me publish a lot of my ideas without feeling the pressure of writing out like 300k word fics that honestly get ignored. regardless, here’s my first post (technically) of the new year. (this idea has been in my drafts since the “cosykims” days, and og followers will recognise the title.)

now i don’t care what you say, every single school, college or university has that one teacher who is just way too young to actually be a teacher

you briefly remember high-school, with your physics teacher who was just way too young- like borderline could be a student themselves, and yet here they were with their rainbow stationery set teaching you the speed that light travels

and it’s universally known that some people are like child geniuses and end up graduating university aged three or something really bizarre and crazy

(obvs sarcasm)

so, for the love of god...why was there no young hot professor for you to spy on during your lectures

you’re currently a second year uni student, studying visual arts

which, by the way, is awesome

you started off initially very interested in just drawing, but taking modules in sculpting was something you actually found yourself loving and, not to brag, but you’re also pretty good at photography

like as a kid you could probably be found eating crayons and snorting felt fumes like you were an art junkie

kids in your classes were asking for leapfrogs or action figures for christmas but here you were asking for a £300 pencil colouring set along with a “by numbers” colouring book

picasso is shaking rn

like...funny how leonardo da vinci hasn’t released any new artwork since you were born….hm inch resting

“y/n. you, me, some other people, smirnoff and dr pepper, house party, saturday night, is it a yes, or is it a yes?”

jeongguk has been your best friend since your first semester at university; he also took visual arts and does extremely well in all areas, particularly photography and cinema/media study. ever since you partnered together after both being the first ones to turn up to the first class, you’ve been stuck together like glue, even going as far as to rent out a flat together for your second year (along with three other people, just to make the rent easier)

“uh, actually, no, i can’t, as tempting as that whole ordeal sounds.”

“but then when am i gonna see you?”

“i literally see you every day, we LIVE TOGETHER..”

“it’s not the same thing!!”

every saturday for you is the “flat 18 party night” which literally translates to the day that your entire flat go out to any party they can get invited to and just get smashed

it started off as a you and jeongguk thing but then when you moved into flat 18 at the start of your second year, it became a you, jeongguk, haseul, jimin and seunghee thing, and by extension, a year 2 uni student party since the rest of your flatmates found the need to invite all their other friends

basically it was the only day of the week where you were really granted a day off

and jeongguk really fucking loved party night saturdays

“well, what’s the reason then?”- the two of you are currently on your way to your last class of the day; it’s a sort of orientation day for upcoming students who can’t attend the open days next weekend, and so your visual arts professor (who happens to be an actual BEAST) ended up cancelling afternoon classes to help another professor sort out the gym

“family wedding sort of thing,” you explain as you walk. “if i could get out of it, trust me, i wouldn’t. i don’t know if my kidneys can handle another night of drinking. i hadn’t recovered from saturday until wednesday!”

“i’m pretty sure it’s your liver that gets affected by alcohol, but go off i guess...”

“ANYWAYS so yeah i’m sort of maybe like head bridesmaid and i have to be there so….yeah….can't make it :(”

jeongguk then discovers that the wedding is for one of your cousins that you were always really close to, and so even when he’s still really bummed out about you not being there for the “big shindig” he lets it go

especially because he of all people knows that you’ve never been particularly close with all of your family members and it’s only very recently that you got back in touch with them all (just after your first year of uni, to be precise) and he knows how much it means to you

haseul is one of the only other person in your flat who is an “art” major

she actually studies theatre and performing arts but she likes to still be in on the art grind with you and guk

(fun fact: the trio of you called yourselves “art attack” as a funny joke and all have printed art attack door signs in the flat)

haseul always always always tries to wait for both of you after classes because the performance hall and practise rooms are like RIGHT THERE and she’s sort of a little creature of habit and after waiting once or twice it just became a natural thing

today though she’s not waiting because apparently seunghee is doing a biology project and needed help moving it and setting it all up in the labs and haseul was free and so offered her services

usually if you’re free, anyone of you will wait for each other after classes

haseul usually waits for you and guk and then sometimes you guk and haseul go to get seunghee and jimin, especially on thursdays and fridays since they are sort of the weekday party dates

“are we going to see the project after class?”

you glanced up from your canvas stained with reds and blues towards jeongguk who actually hasn’t even looked up from his own drawing, still painting the still life ugly ass vase in the middle of the room

class is actually really quiet today, which makes sense because it’s a friday and there’s always, you know for a fact, a student union get together on thursday evenings and half the uni abuse it and get hammered

and so uni is literally DEAD the next morning

“um yes of course I really wanna see her volcano in action okay i helped make that.”

“technically we all helped make it...”

“well nobody ASKED YOU FOR YOUR OPINION.”

eventually your class ends early because it’s literally just you guk and some other kid who doesn’t talk to anybody and so you and guk decide to head over to the biology labs in the science department

judging by the time, their class should actually be over but knowing seunghee and her stubbornness, her volcano is most definitely still there shooting little rocks onto the floor

rightly predicted because seunghee stands really proud next to her dodgy looking volcano that everyone in flat 18 helped make while off their rockers 

and haseul is awkwardly sitting on a stool to the other side, admittedly on her phone playing zepeto or whatever

“tell me it isn’t the best volcano you’ve ever seen!”

“seunghee, baby, it’s so cute, i LOVE the way it’s literally falling apart!!” jeongguk and seunghee have a super loving friendship, sometimes you sit back and think they’d be the cutest couple on planet earth and then you realise that its GUK and HEE and you wanna erase that thought from your head

guk takes a really quick pic on his phone so he can show jimin, who would definitely complain otherwise because “i literally painted the whole thing brown i think that deserves recognition!”

“please tell me it got a passing grade” 

you sort of need seunghee’s volcanic mess to have passed because you did not have to hear her talk about how excited she was to present her volcano that actually burned things if you put it close enough for six days straight, just for it to flop and get nothing

“i personally loved the reinvented cliche of the volcano model, so i actually gave it higher than passing.”

you turn almost embarrassingly quickly

because

well

you know that voice

everybody with brain cells knows that voice

cause like

professor jung is literally THE biology professor

like he’s the king of biology

you have to admit to yourself that you were secretly so happy when guk made friends with seunghee through jimin (a physics major) because you knew through the grapevine that seunghee was a student in professor jung’s class and everybody and anybody knows that professor jung is the Daddy of biology

like he’s so gorgeous and inventive and creative and passionate and sometimes you just sit there and think “why the fuck didn't i take biology??”

and then you remember that the only thing that helped you get through high school biology was the fact that seo youngho (god bless his soul) sat next to you and gave you all his answers on internal exams

he’s also one of THOSE professors

like he’s one of the cliche fanfiction Young Genius professors

granted he’s still a solid four years older but still, it’s in the legal age frame and he’s still remarkably young to be a uni professor and that’s what you tell yourself when you feel guilty about thirsting over him and the way he looks so damn sexy in that white lab coat and black turtleneck

ANYWAY

when you see him you kind of flush and look away

it’s not obvious that you like him tbh, because you’ve by now mastered to keep it under control unless around flat 18 and incredibly dangerously drunk

that of course doesn’t stop guk from smirking next to you and giving you little nudges which is, quite frankly, annoying as FUCK

tbh flat 18 know you thirst over professor jung and so they waste no time trying to bring it up deliberately, but you’re not obvious at showing you like him in front of him

cause he’s popular and definitely has a group of girls in seunghee’s class who like him a lot and giggle obnoxiously like its high school

you’re not THAT desperate

“oh, good, because i didn’t want it to be a waste of my time.”

he raises a brow

“...becAUse i had to listen to seunghee talk about how good her project was all week. HERS, that she worked on totally alone. like i didnt even know she was doing a project- wow, seunghee, did you make this volcano? wow hahah look at that guys!”

not that professor jung even cares that she got help

seunghee is the only student who respects his crazy biology analogies and jokes so she’s naturally one of his faves

“yeah, and, prof jung didn’t give us homework so im completely free for tomorrow’s big shindig.” seunghee says, still smiling really proudly

“first of all why is everybody saying shindig, second of all i cant go to that so im sorry please don’t post it on snapchat because it will hurt my feelings that you’re having fun without me” and everyones like :) and then like :O :(

bear in mind professor jung is literally still here, he’s just by his desk tidying up only half listening because kids are wild these days and he doesn’t remember having half as much fun when he was in university

“um. WHAT why???? you know saturdays are our days like those are the days we actually get to see you because you’re always in your room sleeping or working”

“that’s not true at all, that’s very inaccurate...”

“you literally watched all 7 seasons of game of thrones in less than three days two weeks ago and i dont think i saw you once during that time”

valid point

“im at a wedding :( and i cant miss it :( even for dr pepper and vodka :( im sorry :(”

at that point professor jung scares you all back into reality. “oh wow that’s so weird because i’m at a wedding too this weekend, actually. wouldn’t that be so weird if we were at the same wedding?”

please be at the same wedding as me “omg imagine that ahhaahha”

but then you realise that’s just not realistic

and even if it was realistic for professor jung hoseok to attend your cousin’s wedding then nothing would happen because weddings are big and busy and you like barely know professor jung beyond making small-talk with him when you’re waiting for seunghee to hurry up and pack away all three of her pencil cases after classes

you actually forgot how stressful weddings are

the last wedding you went to was your aunt’s wedding when you were like five and you were a little flower girl who ruined all the wedding photos by covering her ears and scrunching up her face because the church bells were really fucking loud

which as a kid you thought was perfectly valid, but now that you’re twenty turning twenty one you realise how annoying it must be to have a mongrel child pulling ugly faces at the front of your precious wedding photos

“remind me to never ever get married”

your mom kinda just looks at you and frowns

“i remember when i got married i had my maid of honour and bridesmaids do everything for me so i was actually really relaxed. maybe when you get wifed up you’ll be the same”

wise words from mrs l/n that you’ll probably forget within the next five minutes!

even though it’s so infuriating sorting out the brides big ass dress and making sure that the designated flower girl (who btw is not as good as you were aged 5 dressed in pink and wearing barbie trainers) doesn’t spill all the goddamn petals onto the floor before the aisle, you find that the ceremony is actually really kinda beautiful and touching and yES, maybe the vows made you tear up a little bit

and you bARELY remember the greeting ceremony afterwards which is basically another way of saying “wait for us to get back while we sign these papers” which is also another way of saying It’s time for all the guests to awkwardly wait around and not do anything

you literally haven’t met a single person from the groom’s side of the family and you’re not really interested in doing so until the after party

like most after parties this one is pushed up in a hired out room near the venue and it’s dark and slightly sweaty and hey, at least the food is nice and OMG they have baby sausage rolls

after obviously talking to your family for a little bit, you occupy your time by the snacks and the bar just kind of moving between the two

yknow just minding your own business

“woah, they have tiny sausage rolls, too?”

oh god

you instantly turn around like its deja vu or something

there is no way that professor jung is standing right there at your COUSINS wedding like its no big deal

“...prof JUNG?? omg what are you doing here??”

“i jinxed it! the groom is actually one of my family friends. yeah, he’s been like best friends with my sister since they were in school and so we were close growing up.”

it’s sort of a relief, somewhere deep down inside, knowing that professor jung isn’t like indirectly related to you through marriage

“and, please, y/n, we’re not at school!! please call me hoseok!”

you’re like tearing up inside,,,,on a first name basis with the hot biology professor.,,,,,.....,,, it’s a miracle

also

how does he know who you are

“i didn’t know you knew my name,” you sort of blurt it out as you think it and he starts laughing really cutely and takes like three sausage rolls off the plate on the table

“well, you’re seunghee’s friend! and uh, the bride literally said your name in the speech at dinner.”

“oh. okay well cool haha yeah. wow. this is so weird.”

you actually thought prior to this moment that talking to professor jung- HOSEOK- even when you’re with seunghee in the labs would be really awkward????

because you’re no biologist and the only thing you remember about biology was a video that scarred you for life about a whale's stomach exploding everywhere like the t-rex out of land of the lost

and plus because he’s cute and smart and also a teacher which was. pretty much a big deal...like a big big deal

“okay, but you’re also legally old enough to do it..it’s not like you’re fifteen and he’s thirty,” said the sadistic voice in your head. you liked to ignore that voice a lot

but contrary to popular belief hoseok is actually really really easy to talk to

it’s almost like he’s been your friend for like your entire life and it’s only a little bit weird for you to be laughing your ass off with your friends biology professor at your cousins wedding but hey anything can happen and at least you’re having fun !!!!

naturally…...fun can go…….well…….too far……….sometimes

it’s like quarter to midnight and the party is still going strong and your cousin is like really going for it on the dance floor with your mom and a few of your other family members and oh wow look at this at some point you’ve ended up smushed against hoseok’s side with another glass of smirnoff and dr pepper in honour of flat 18 having fun without you rn

and he doesn’t seem to mind about the way you lean up with your whole cleavage against his chest to talk to him bc its loud as fuck and he can’t hear you from up here

and haha. wow look!

at some point during this fine hour mr jung hoseok has slung an arm around your waist and has his nose in your hair with his lips by your ear because its LoUd As FuCk iN hErE and you won’t be able to hear him

“i said do you want to step outside? its really hot in here” he asks and you have to physically stop yourself from snogging his face off because there’s no way he’s actually looking that good rn

you probably look awful and flustered and sweaty

“oh yes sure yeah ok yeah lets go we can go out to the patio or something”

and of COURSE your poor mother has no idea that the man around your waist is a professor at ur university so she sees you...actually with somebody and smiles really wide and turns away

at this point she’s just shocked that you’re with somebody because lately you’ve only been with flat 18 or nobody at all

you discover very quickly actually that hoseok is stroking his hand up and down the side of your body which okay, alexa, this is epic

“it’s nice and cool out here i thought i was gonna roast to death inside of there.”

hoseok, again with his cute laughter that has apparently become throaty and deep and you almost have to double check it’s still him because it majorly caught you off guard

“right? too many people, it always makes me feel really hot and claustrophobic.”

you hummed. “yeah, and it’s so sweaty and sticky like [cousins name] really couldn’t have opened up a few windows huh.”

he nods and watches you as you just keep talking and talking and talking

“and, let me tell you, this dress is so uncomfortable”

he looks you over. “you look gorgeous. the dress- i mean, the dress looks gorgeous”

“yeah it’s just a shame it’s so itchy and tight”

“mm? wanna go and change?”

“honestly i kind of just want to get out of it.”

you sort of share a look for a solid three seconds

and there’s like a really brief moment where you regret saying it

maybe he hadn’t meant anything by stroking your body and staring at you with a darkened look and holding you tightly when one of your FAMILY MEMBERS said hi to you and smiled and brushing his lips by your ear like maybe all of that was platonic? maybe he remembered you’re a student (although not hIS student) but still!!!!

you’re 0.5 seconds away from blurting out an almost sober apology when he mutters a, “fuck it,” under his breath that you barely even register and then he’s holding your face with his hands and bringing you in for a fat smooch

at first you’re just really surprised because even though you wanted this to happen you weren’t necessarily expecting it to happen

hoseok pulls away sort of dejected because “why aren’t you kissing me back :(” and thats all it takes because you’re pulling him in for round 2 of smooching and it’s almost like you’re not in the courtyard by the patio directly near the windows of the party and it’s not as if people can see you smooching professor jung haha no way! That would be insane!

“i” kiss “really” kiss “shouldn’t” kiss “be” kiss “doing” kiss “this” and he pulls away and then kisses you really really deeply “but” kiss “itsokjustpleasedonttellanybody”

for a moment you both like ruin the mood by assuring each other you won’t say anything and most people at that point would have been like, alright let’s call it a night haha this was fun and awkward

but :( he’s already hard and ur already really in the mood to bone the Daddy of biology so it would be a waste if you didn’t just….continue

hoseok very quickly discovers the perks of being head bridesmaid because your suite is gorgeous and big

“wtf i’m sharing a room with my uncle this really isn’t fair!”

“the many pros of being related to the bride! look i even have a mini fridge and it’s got loads of strawberry milk in because like its my favourite and they really treated me here and-”

not that he doesn’t want to hear you talk because he’d love to but omg he’s hard as heck and would rather get down to it instead of talking about the excessive amount of strawberry milk in ur fucking mini fridge the size of his BED

surprisingly even though you’ve wanted to at least hold professor jung- HoSeOk-’s hand for like an entire year, you haven’t put THAT much thought into having sex with him

well

actually like finger fucking does not count

nor does him between your legs

no they do not count to you in your mind especially when he quite literally helps you out of your dress and strips you to just your underwear

which, BTW, thank FUCK you brought your sexy stuff just in-case the groom had any really hot friends

thankfully he had jung hoseok

y/n: 1 life: 0

rewind like 0.3 seconds

so. hoseok apparently knows this venue like the back of his hand because he manages to direct you to your wing within like three minutes which is pretty impressive considering it took you thirty to find it this morning

regardless he’s really gentle considering he wants nothing more than to plow you into a nearby hard surface and like you know when someone ghosts their fingers over your skin and it tickles but it’s a nice tickle and your whole body shudders

yeah

well

professor jung does that a lot

he takes a liking to sitting on the end of the bed, between the two posts, while you’re firmly seated on his laps with your legs on either side of him, which is the long way of writing You Are Straddling Seunghee’s Biology Professor

“you’re so pretty” his voice is sort of muffled by your hair and skin and you can barely even focus on his voice because there’s so many things happening rn it’s hard to process it all

do you focus on his voice? his one hand on your back? his other hand literally on your arse? his crotch against yours? the little guttural groan he does between kisses?

it all just feels surreal and amazing and oh WOW jung hoseok has a hand between ur legs

he loops his fingers around your underwear and moans (shudders? you can’t tell but whatever he just did like you need him to do it again cause WEEEWWWW) and like lets them go suddenly

and we’re back to before; hoseok moves to dip underneath your jaw and helps you out of your tight and uncomfortable but expensi-

“did. di-did you just . rip my dress?”

“....i swear i didn’t do it on purpose.”

“omg this dress was on loan oh my GOD”

“im SORRY the zip got stuck and so i tugged i didn’t know the whole dress was gonna rip in half this material must be cheap, honey you got SCAMMED”

you realise that you’re not actually going to be the one to pay for it since the bride said she’d cover the prices of dresses and you instantly sort of relax (although, sorry to your cousin that she’s gonna have to pay extra now lol)

“okay it’s fine just” and he clings to you really tightly and affectionately with his chin rested just above your boobs which is honestly cute and actually really weirdly hot “ᵖˡᵉᵃˢᵉ ᵈᵒⁿᵗ ʳᶦᵖ ᵐʸ ᵘⁿᵈᵉʳʷᵉᵃʳ”

he has the nerve to giggle to himself “heeheehee okay baby i will be extra careful”

~~~

basically you make a mental note to tell guk and guk only that you rode professor jung to the stars and back

boi DEFINITELY put biology skills to use like this man must have aced human anatomy and sex ed because mans knows all the parts to look after and touch and kiss and it’s like he digitally downloaded every sex move possible because…..no way in hell u just snagged the best sexual partner in town

“mm fuck i wish i was a biology major” it just sort of comes out, bearing in mind you are like half sober

hoseok kind of laughs from his position and moves his hands to your thighs, “yeah?”

“yes i’m so jealous seunghee gets to see you all the time and i only get to see you when i pick her up”

“you can come and see me whenever, baby”

scoff “i’m an art student wouldn’t it be weird to turn up at a biology lab to see you?”

“i have an office yknow and it’s only open to super important people and i can make you one of them”

you realise shortly after like your second orgasm that hoseok is really good at making mediocre things sound really sexy

at long last you actually look down at him and just grin really widely and at first he’s like “yeah? you like that?” and then you start giggling really weirdly

“best.” down. up. “wedding.” down. up. “ever.”

you consider the possibility that last night was a big fat wet dream for at least four seconds until you open your eyes, see the window, roll over, and see professor motherfucking jung in bed next to you

he hasn’t opened his eyes yet and you think he’s asleep so you roll back over to grab your phone conveniently placed on the bedside table

as it turns out, mr jeon jeongguk has not listened to you and posted every nanosecond of the party last night, as well as leaving you several text messages, as he would, as your bff

from guk: are u having fun? i hope ur having fun. if not, then have fun

from guk: i guess ur dead lmao

from guk: sikegjsfkasljf i madmeout with both seujgehe and jikmin

from guk: ignore the above message

from guk: also good morning did you have fun did u get LAID was it a girl or a guy i need all the juicy details

you have to conceal a groan because you don’t want to wake up hoseok

you haven’t thought of something to say yet because worst case scenario, he could wake up and be like “wtf i slept with YOU??????” and that would not be chill for a sunday morning

to guk: im devastated bc of ur snapchat story that’s real snake behaviour

from guk: omg grow up

from guk: and answer my question horre

to guk: i will talk to you later because i am not talking to u about it over the phone bc knowing you and your monster thumbs and chaotic energy, you’ll screenshot and tell everyone in the flat and im not ready for them to know yet

there’s a few moments of silence

from guk: oh fuck tell me ur not pregnant im not ready to be an aunt or uncle yet (x)

you’re about to reply when

oh

wait

did you use a condom last night

you’ve been off the pill for a couple months because even though not getting periods or pregnant was pretty cool, your skin really suffered and oh hey look at that you’ve put on like 4 pounds overnight

and you can’t really remember if hoseok wore a condom or not

did he?

he must have

like he’s a biology teacher

surely

yeah

to guk: wtf no

to guk: and how would i even know that it hasnt even been 24 hours yet this isnt breaking dawn im not gonna show after like 12 minutes

from guk: you never know

“all i can hear is your nails tapping the screen and it’s literally amongst one of the most annoying sounds to wake up to”

oof

you drop your phone flat on your face

hoseok sort of both reaches to see if you’re okay whilst also laughing

“i’m sorry i didn’t know they were that loud”

he smiles and strokes the side of your face “mm it’s okay. woke up next to a pretty girl so it’s not so bad”

and it’s official he owns your heart

neither of you actually really address the fact that your whole...THING is really taboo until he’s like fishing around for his left sock and you’re moping over your ripped dress

“so like does this mean i can’t come to pick up seunghee anymore because it’ll be weird?”

he pauses. “why would it be weird?”

“idk cause like. idk. you’re a teacher?”

“really? fuck, i had no idea!!!”

“i’m being serious. i don’t wanna be the reason you LOSE your job!! and i’m so bad at keeping secrets what if i tell someone worse what if i tell my MOM”

he’s moved towards you as you were talking and he’s looking at you really closely with a really pretty look in his eyes

“y/n, i’m a teacher and i’m a professional. i can contain my...whatever, emotions, while i’m at work. and yes, please, come by and get seunghee because she’s one of my favourites and i don’t think i’ll see you often because you’re in visual arts and im always in my lab but my office! yes i have an office that you can always stop by when you’re bored and if i’m free i will happily see you :( it’s unfortunate that you happen to be a student but technically….like you’re old enough and it’s not that weird?”

pause

“okay it’s a little weird but if you want it can be just one night. we can ignore it happened.”

you really don’t want to ignore it

like you really don’t want to at all

hoseok easily was the best sex you’ve ever had and ugh he’s so nice and pretty and warm and caring and smart and yeah he made a joke about cells during sex but it was perfectly timed and funny and ugh he’s the perfect guy

but he’s also a professor at your university and above all else, you really don’t want him to lose his job that he worked his ass of for just because you couldn’t control yourself

so you sort of suck in a frown very poorly and you both agree to kind of...let it be pushed under the rug

it was a one time….two-time thing

because he definitely fucked you into the mattress one last time before you walked out the door and acted like teacher and student again

“you look...disgusting, give me all the gossip!”

you’ve barely been in flat 18 for five seconds and jeongguk is already at the door with a glass of water and a bag of what you can only pray is cookies

(nice attempt: it’s actually tiny meringues which is good enough)

as usual jeongguk cradles a hangover right into monday morning and thankfully for you, haseul and himself, arts lectures and classes don’t usually start until the afternoon on mondays

even though haseul is 77% sure she wont turn up because she’s way too comfy in her pjs on the couch in the living room

and honestly the pressure of telling jeongguk about what the hell happened on saturday night is intense because….haseul is there too now

which isn’t ideal to be very very honest

and haseul is literally your Girlfriend like she would be there to wipe your arse if you asked her nicely

but she can also be a little bit judgy and you’re feeling particularly sensitive today

but you also can’t not tell her because she’s one of your best friends and you’re probably definitely going to tell hee and jimin when they’re back so. might as well do it fast

you trust flat 18 with your entire heart and you know they’d never tell anybody

((this is not foreshadowing they are little angels))

“holy fuck you’re literally covered in hickeys, this story is gonna be so good, let me get a cup of tea before you start holy shit-” and so haseul makes three cups of tea and sits back down like ten minutes later

“okay im ready literally LAY it on me im ready”

deep breath

sip of tea

setting the cup down

“so i went to my cousins party. pretty normal right, not expecting much to go down at all like it’s a family wedding and there’s kids around”

“yeah, right, okay, AND”

“and so i’m minding my own business by the snack table and then somebody comes up to me and YOU’LL NEVER EVER GUESS WHO IT WAS”

they both sit there like “how am i supposed to know?”

deep breath

“i turn around and it’s only PROFESSOR JUNG”

pause

“wait wtf why was he at your cousins wedding?” haseul is so lost

“HE did say he was going to a wedding last week,” jeongguk adds. “that’s so weird omg he literally called it wow haha he’s so cool”

“right right, but like how is that the tea,” haseul frowns. “that’s like...cold stale tea. i wanted scorching hot tea. there’s GOT to be more to it”

you sit there awkwardly and wait for them to figure it out because haseul is looking at you really intently trying to figure it out

jeongguk is looking back and forth between you and haseul

he knows she’ll figure it out before him because out of the three of you, haseul has the brain cells

haseul literally just stares at your face until she kinda looks down at your neck

and remembers the hickies

and then looks back up at your face

and then back down

and them back up

...

“oh my fucking god you DIDN’T”

“wait what what what WHAT HAPPENED”

“oh my fuckING GOD. OMG. OH MY GOD??????/ NO, NO.”

jeongguk is like O_O “what omg tell me”

you’re holding your face in your hands rn

haseul is up off her seat and pointing a finger at you with her mouth so wide

she looks kinda like the pikachu meme

0o0

“Y/N SLEPT WITH PROFESSOR JUNG”

jeongguk laughs

“....wait WHAT THE FUCK”

chaos ensues

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU SLEPT WITH PROFESSOR JUNG I LITERALLY CAN’T BREATHE”

“i didn’t say that!”

“what, so you DIDN’T sleep with professor jung?”

“...okay so maybe i did but you can’t tell ANYONE PLEASE”

jeongguk is literally laughing his ass off rn

because he’s your best friend and honestly that’s what best friends would do in this situation

haseul on the other hand is the responsible friend who’s thinking of the bigger picture

“holy shit, okay. um. wtf he could get sacked for this!”

“we talked it out and we promised to not tell anyone, and it’s not like we’re gonna hook up again so it’s fine!!!! which is why you both cant say anything PLS”

haseul moves to sit by you really comfortingly, “omg baby no i would never!!! it’s not my secret to tell and YES, i’m very surprised right now and i don’t really know what to do because what SHOULD i do??? this has never happened to me before omg this is insane. this is fuckING INSANE”

you end up having to explain the entire night in detail (missing a few details because let’s be real, you were hammered and dick drunk)

jeongguk has calmed down and now realises that this is sort of serious

mostly he’s just finding it funny that you actually ended up hooking up with professor jung, because you and him used to joke around about it all the time

even though he was initially quite childish about it, jeongguk knows that it’s serious and something that is clearly bothering you so he knows when to pack it in and be the supportive friend

because gukkie is a good friend and oh no we’re dropping all the uwus everywhere

“was it good?”

yes, haseul it was good

“was it SAFE?”

you’re about to answer jeongguk and then you pause

“....i don’t know”

and haseul’s off again

“holy mother of hell what do you MEAN you don’t know???”

“i can’t remember!!”

“and you didn’t ask the morning after???”

“im sorry he was too busy rearranging my GUTS it must have,,,crossed my mind”

now haseul has another thing to worry about on top of midterms

to flat 18: IAHUIIGJKSFDLIHGDJKSF Y/N SLEPT WITH PROFESSOR JUNG

from y/n: JEONGGUK WHAT THE FUCK

from y/n: WHY WOULD YOU TELL THEM OVER TEXT I WANTED TO TELL THEM IN PERSON

from guk: IM SORRY I THOGGHT WE WERE TELIJG THEM

from y/n: jesus christ

from jimin: um

from jimin: WHAT

from jimin: PLEATHE tell me its hot biology professor jung and not ugly middle aged literature professor jung because else my reaction is gonna be vERY different

from y/n: wtf why would i want to sleep with literature jung he’s like 50 and married

from guk: wait omg what if hot prof jung is married….did you ask

from y/n: let me move my bang and read that again,,,,

from jimin: i literally cant breathe MY LUNGSSSSS

from jimin: WHAT KINDA FANFICTION IS THIS RN how and when and why did u sleep with him i have SO MANY QUESTIONS i should be studying for my physics midterm rn but whatyueijgn this is too good

from y/n: this is why i wanted to tell u in person

from seunghee: WHATHGRJENS SJF WHAT THE FUCK

from seunghee: I JUST FUCKING SCREAMED IN MY BIOLOGY LECTURE AND HAD TO LEAVE

from seunghee: TELL ME UR JOKING RN

from y/n: :D heehee. um. haha. well haha. uh

from seunghee: I CANT LOOK AT PROF JUNG THE SAME WAY ANYMORE

from seunghee: omg….u had his PEEPEE inside of u….holy shit i need to sit down rn

from haseul: mood

from guk: she did THAT :’)

from seunghee: i mean…..when we joked around and said you should hop on professor jung’s dick i didnt think you’d DO IT FOR REAL

from y/n: it was the dr pepper u guys…..he made me do it

from seunghee: oh god professor jung came out to see if i was okay and i screamed i cant look at him i cant

from seunghee: omg he was in ur GUTS i cant im dropping biology

you dont immediately see professor jung

in fact you try and avoid him because even though you both agreed to not hook up again you’re afraid that the demon inside you will try and jump him and knowing you, a professor will probably end up catching you

and you like uni you dont wanna leave

and you like hoseok you don’t want him to leave and lose his job

flat 18 have calmed down from the initial shock and humour of the situation

i mean they’re all still in disbelief that it happened

and jeongguk and jimin make jokes about it sometimes

but it’s calmed down

it’s actually like a full week before you see him

because all of flat 18 for some reason offered to help on the open day for uni, party night saturday had to be cancelled >:(

seunghee shudders at the thought of being one of the only biology volunteers and having to pretend like she doesn’t know that her professor was balls deep inside her best friend last weekend

jimin and seunghee are together in the science department and haseul is happy performing for families checking out the performance department

jeongguk was asked to help promote the art department

and you were forced into giving campus tours :(

which sucks

because you have to try and pump out your best energy for the day

due to the amount of students doing tours on the same day, you’re only really expected to give one tour before going to your selected department

and you wouldn’t actually mind giving tours if it didn’t mean that you had to go everywhere on campus and by everywhere you mean having to go to the science department and inevitably seeing the brief love of your life

“..and right here is the art department! as an art student i sure have a lot to say about it- everyone is super duper nice and all-well, MOST of the professors are really helpful and critical and i’ve really improved drawing since i’ve been here. we do a lot of still life in this room but next door is the main drawing room and just off campus, we have the drawing labs!!! and oh, downstairs is the photography department; we have a red room and three studios and next door is the cinema”

“do you get to watch films?”

“technically no but when nobody is looking we do watch a film heeheehee i mean. what? no we would never break the rules..,,.”

you give jeongguk a cheeky bum shake before you leave and he laughs

yes an old man sees and scowls but it’s ok

“so yea like i said, the staff are friendly and mostly helpful. i mean, there are obviously some professors who aren’t amazing but hey we have a higher rating than other unis in this area so haha”

“mostly helpful?” a mom says. “can you elaborate on that?”

“not really, karen.”

after hurling your group around everywhere, you FINALLY make it to the science department

which you came to last because you were not prepared to see You Know Who

anyway

you step inside and start listing off things in the department

like Oh yes jackie look that’s called a bunsen burner

Oh michael sweetie don’t touch the gas taps we don’t wanna die now do we?

“our uni has some of the best science professors,” you explain. “they’re incredible and so dedicated to their profession and it’s really a great environment- two of my flatmates study science and they love their classes and lectures. professor min teaches physics and my friend jimin says he teaches it like no other- he’s amazing!”

“and what about professor jung?”

what

“ᵉˣᶜᵘˢᵉ ᵐᵉ?”

“what do you think of professor jung, hm?” WHY IS THE HM SOUNDING A LITTLE CONFRONTATIONAL

you stare at this mom like OoO because this is weird there’s no way she kNOWS how does this mom know omg did you say something dumb how does she--

“i heard he wrote books and went on tv! he also attended conferences at oxford uni,” the mom says, almost annoyed and your heart goes WOOOOOSH out your body. “my son wants to study biology and so we’re excited to see and hear about professor jung.”

“oH yes RIGHT well he’s...well he’s great.”

“can you elaborate-”

“no susan i can’t. let’s just go and meet him, yeah?”

inside the science rooms open for showing, you’re oddly relieved to see another tour group just finishing up meaning that half of the professors are preoccupied already

that includes hoseok in his cute ass lab coat talking to a group of students and parents

suddenly that female student is standing very close to him and you have to look away before you get annoyed for literally no reason

y/n: 1 life: 1

seunghee is actually free talking to jimin and professor min (jimins weirdly hot professor) sees you standing awkwardly in the doorway and he comes to the rescue with a small smile and nods his head at you

wow jimin never told you how pretty he was

scary as fuck

but pretty

“hi! welcome to the science department…”

you kind of step to the side because science is not your subject this is not your element and you dont wanna mess up

while seunghee is so happy showing off her booth and YES the volcano made an appearance, jimin is content with not doing his job and coming to stand with you

“is it just me or is prof jung looking delicious today?” jimin sort of nudges you in the side and you have to give him a sickeningly sweet smile that translates to You’re Getting Your Ass BEAT Later

“...and we do all sorts of projects to help us constantly develop our skills!!! and it’s actually a really good way at making friends and bonds-” a few parents laugh “-and actually, two of my flatmates are here over there--”

oh great eyes are on you and jimin :)

jimin smiles like :) hell yes :) thats me :)

and you’re flushing as fuck because 1) you don’t really do well with being the center of attention like having to speak and tour people around campus is BAD ENOUGh and 2) hoseok has just been made aware of your presence

you’re trying not to look at him like :) i’m not here :)

“-they helped me make this volcano!!!! and it’s so cute!!! look- it shoots rocks- oh, careful sweetie- look!!! it’s so cool y/n helped me a lot and i got a good grade and we do loads of this sort of stuff, haha, prof jung really works us to the bone but makes it super fun at the same time!!!”

braving a chance to look at him you clam up noticing that he’s already looking at you

he does that THING where he smiles and his eyes look really soft and warm and he ducks his head to look at the other parents and stuff

jimin contains a snort and seunghee is like o_o because she had to witness that LOOK as if she wasn’t trying hard enough to forget about what happened

professor min looks between you and hoseok like “-_-” and you wanna DIE

ALRIGHT MICHAEL PUT ON THE GAS TAPS BACK ON LET’S FUCKING DIE TONIGHT

hoseok manages to talk to you before you leave though which is smooth and you can feel your heart in your vagina literally pulsing as he approaches you and jimin

“having fun?”

you smile like :) how is giving tours :) fun :)

“i guess so!!”

“hey thats good!” he replies enthusiastically. “looks like people like the volcano you helped make.”

“....i didn’t make that. seunghee lied i did not help her on her graded project We did not help I don’t know why she would say that”

and he kind of laughs and forgets where he is and his hand touches your back

jimin chokes

you sort of look at him like OoO BRO

he pulls away so FAST like you’re on fire or something

“it’s okay. it’s a pretty volcano.” clears throat. “a-anyways. have a nice day guys.”

he looks like he wants to say something more but cant really afford to, so he sulks away and talks to more parents

“omg….he just had sex with you again” jimin said quietly. “omg. that was wild”

“he literally touched me what are you TALKING ABOUT”

“can’t believe you just did that….right in front of me….”

“literally SHUT UP RIGHT NOW OMG”

again you don’t see prof jung often

you see him a couple of times when you wait for seunghee

its been a hot minute, like a few weeks

he doesn’t speak much but when he does it’s like “oh hi y/n! waiting for seunghee?” or “you can come in for a bit while seunghee packs up” or “plans for the weekend?”

once you dumbly said “i miss you” before you left and both prof jung and seunghee are like “oh hoe you didnt”

“huh?” he asks.

“I said i’ll see you,” you say. “like...i don’t know. see you soon? i guess”

he knows what you really said

he raises his brow’s and laughs and’s like, “me too, y/n. i’ll see you both soon. enjoy your weekend!”

“you’re literally so dumb,” seunghee says whilst walking back to the dorm, “like really so fucking dumb. i MISS YOU??? REALLY? THAT’S ALL YOU SAID??? I’M LIVING OFF CRUMBS HERE”

“wtf do you MEAN???”

“yknow he always asks me, “how are your friends? y/n, the others?” like why would he ask about you...unless he missed you too….and wanted to see you…..omg you’re both really so dumb”

you think about that for a while

back at flat 18, everybody is out of classes for the weekend; jimin is finishing up an essay so he won’t have to do it last minute monday morning, haseul is watching vines on her phone and guk is currently eating the peaches that you were craving and wanted to eat so bought and stored away for later

later as in now

he offers you one but afterwards you feel like…?? weirdly nauseous

“do you need some water?” guk is on alert rn “i swear i didn’t poison you or anything!!!!!”

“i...literally didn’t even think you had but now that you’ve brought it up…”

like this sickness is so sudden you just wanna throw up all your internal organs

“you should go to bed,” haseul says and she’s like rushing to you to push you towards your room. “i will get a hot water bottle ready and blankets and oh- actually no, you can’t risk eating in-case it makes you feel worse. at least try and eat like these bland ass biscuits seunghee brought because then you’ll throw up something instead of nothing. are you okay, did i ask if you were okay? are you?”

the best thing about flat 18 is that they’re like a little tight family and if one of you is sick, they become worried parents and it’s so cute

anyway so you stay in bed for the rest of the day

and most of saturday morning

flat 18 are debating whether or not to really go out on saturday but you groggily tell them to just go and have fun and you’ll stay at home :( crying :( watching peaky blinders on netflix :(

haseul and seunghee decide to stay in with you for a girls night while jeongguk and jimin head to their friend taehyung’s dorm

at some point during a very intense sex scene between tommy shelby and some random woman you don’t care about currently, you feel a very intense wave of sickness

OFF TO THE BATHROOM YOU GO!!

as you’re throwing up you’re thinking over every possible reason for being sick

food poisoning?

flu?

and then you pause mid heave

could…..could you be pregnant?

omg no

wait omg yes you totally could be

you panic so much that you throw up again

seunghee and haseul are right outside the door asking if you need anything and haseul comes in to hold your hair and seunghee is rubbing your thigh like “honey please what do you need?”

sheepishly you look at her and squeak out, “i don’t think im sick.”

seunghee’s like “well obviously you are you’re throwing up like crazy right now, oh, yeah, okay baby yeah let it out let it all out” 

makes mental note to buy air-freshener

after throwing up you just hAVE to ask

“hee...i need you to go out and get me something”

“sure honey, anything. what do you need?”

“......i need you to get me a pregnancy test.”

haseul and seunghee share a look

“are you serious?” seunghee’s voice is really gentle and quiet

“yes i need to be sure,” your voice is croaky and you keep crying in between each word and seunghee just squeezes your thigh assuringly and nods

“y-yeah, of course, wow, oh my god, okay. i’ll go and get one- no, wait, haseul should i get three? is three the safe number?”

“yeah. three is safe. like, you do an experiment three times to get a fair result and the test could read wrong”

“please stop talking about science im actually really scared right now”

seunghee is already half out the flat with her keys when she says, “do you want me to call guk and jimin?”

and you debate it but knowing guk he’d have a meltdown and tell taehyung what’s going on and it’s supposed to be a private sort of thing

and what gives you might not Actually be pregnant

“have you missed your period?” haseul asks

“yeah but i thought” sniff “it was just late :( my periods are always irregular but if i did the math” hiccup “right then it should have come four days ago :(”

seunghee comes back with three pregnancy tests

(“the cashier said, ‘oh, good luck dear! you look like you’ll be a wonderful mother!’ like HONEY IM NOT LOOKING FOR KIDS I’M TOO YOUNG” “s-seunghee-eeEEEeee im also too young what am i gonna doOOooOoooo i cant do this”)

they both promise to be in there with you while you find out because you’re literally sobbing and shaking and lets be real, they’ve showered with you like ten times and they’ve seen all your bits and pieces and it’s just pee! everybody pees

you’re sitting down in a ball shape by the bathtub like TERRIFIED of looking at the little stick

“is it...professor jung’s?” seunghee asks quietly

“he’s the only person i’ve slept with in like three years, i’m positive it’s his,” you reply. “if im even pregnant, that is…”

haseul rubs your arm lovingly. “want to take a look? should be done by now.”

it takes you a few minutes and then eventually you nod

well

here goes nothing!!!!!

you peer over at the stick and like

your heart drops

maybe you wanna throw up again

all three sticks say: PREGNANT: 5 WEEKS

“what’s it say?” haseul asks gently and you set down one of the tests and look back at seunghee and haseul with an unreadable expression

“congrats. you’re gonna be an auntie.”

haseul is the first to crack

it felt weird to have friends excited?? about your second year of uni pregnancy? unplanned accidental pregnancy with a bIOLOGY PROFESSOR AT UR UNI????

but haseul brings you in for a hug with an excited laugh and seunghee braves taking a stick in her hand and looks at it for herself

yep, you’re having a baby all right!!!

everything is fine until you realise the big problem

how the hell are you going to tell hoseok you’re carrying his baby

does he want kids? probs not! and you never asked if he was married?? WHAT IF HE ALREADY HAS KIDS? WHAT IF HE HAS A WHOLE FAMILY??????

then you start crying

“omg, y/n, please don’t cry, it’s okay, we’re going to figure something out!”

“you don’t necessarily have to keep it if you dont want to,” haseul points out, even though you know she’s already planning dates to look after baby y/n when it’s been pushed out into the world

“h-how am i gonna tell h-hoseok that im having his baby….and i dont wanna get r-rid of it i dont wanna hurt this baby i love this baby i only just f-found out about it but i want this baby i wanna look after this baby this is my BABY?? im having a baby holy fuck you guys! im gonna be a mom this is so scary what the fuck am i gonna do????”

seunghee makes a call to jeongguk and jimin asking them to come back with ice-cream because they have things to talk about

jeongguk is worried like “oh god did i leave my underwear on the couch again? i said i was sorry and i thought id moved them this time”

and seunghee says, “um...no but now im going to double check the couch...dont forget the ice-cream BYEEEE”

needless to say that they’ve very VERY surprised to come home and discover that they’re gonna be uncles

and that the baby belongs to the Daddy of Biology

“i………..what did i miss while i was gone wtf you’re PREGNANT?”

“omg i’m gonna be an uncle??????? really?????? reAlly!!!”

of course the big issue right now is telling hoseok about it

like what are you supposed to do? go up to him and be like Hey hot stuff you’re gonna be a dad!! Happy Monday!!

“if he doesn’t want to help look after it, i would be happy being the adoptive dad of your baby,” jimin offers, staring at your stomach for the fifth straight hour. “because i love you and i also like babies.”

“aw, min, i love you too, but if hoseok doesn’t want to be the dad to this baby, i was already planning to ask guk because GOD KNOWS you would be the worst at looking after kids- dont look at me like that, i know you i CAN SEE THE TYPE OF PERSON YOU ARE!”

you decide to skip classes on monday and only head out when you need to

and by “need to” i mean you decided that today would be the day you told hoseok

you had the whole of sunday to think over it and seunghee helped you devise a plan

hoseok has office hours from around 3pm to 9pm on mondays and her class finishes at 2:45pm, and apparently people use his monday office hours on the evening so “you should probably come then, and you and him can talk in his office where it’s more private!”

and thank god seunghee has the brain cells in this friendship because you were about to announce it in the open and you doubt that mr min would be thrilled to hear his colleague knocked up a visual arts second year student

it’s 2:30pm and you leave the flat to make it to campus for around 2:37pm

it doesn’t take long at all to walk across campus to the science department and so you’re a little bit early to seunghee’s class because they’re still clearing up by the time you get there

the science department has chosen to smell like a hospital even more today and you shudder, already mulling over the idea that you could be going to a hospital soon to get baby scans and then eventually labour and holy fucking SHIT you’re gonna have to push this thing out of your vagi-

the class leaves at 2:45 on the dot (because hoseok likes to let his kids out early because he’s a cool teacher and apparently nothing like the grouchy art teachers in your department) and actually, today seunghee hasn’t turned up to class so you’re sort of waiting for nobody rn

just >:) as >:) planned

when everybody else has gone you head inside really quietly

hoseok hears you anyway and looks over really quickly and smiles so wide like :D

“y/n! how are you!”

“haha yeah im just great professor like really Uh yeah doing great”

“seunghee’s actually not here today. i thought you guys lived together, didn’t you know that?”

and you’re like like “uh yeah i knew. i’m, well, i’m actually not here for her. i’m here for you.”

hoseok is vERY VERY CONFUSED

“is everything ok?”

you smile at him as a way of reassuring him

on the inside you’re like oh hoseok sweetie you have no idea what’s coming

“yeah. i asked seunghee what time your office hours were and she said from around 3 to 9? and obviously, its like five to three and so i am early but. look i just- i really need to speak with you.”

he stands up quickly. “is something wrong?”

“i’m not sure yet,” you reply honestly. “shall we. um. can we go to your office?”

he blinks. “oh! yeah, sure, let me get- my coat and yeah let’s go. i’ll lead the way.”

along the way you just so happen to bump into professor min and he smiles at hoseok and then at you and he’s like “oh? miss l/n, what are you doing here? i didn’t know you took science?” (he only knows who you are because of the open day)

“Oh, no i don’t. um. well,” you pause. cause what are you supposed to say???? “i’m just getting some work for seunghee. she’s...sick and bedridden, so, here i am!”

professor min is just like “huh. okay well have fun i’m going to take a nap in my office :D” and leaves

hoseok’s office is surprisingly clean and cute and there’s flowers everywhere and a cute little yellow rug and you stop to just take in how this room is hoseok in Room Form

like a room has never looked so much like a person it’s him as a room and you love it

“i didn’t really clean up because i didn’t expect anybody- especially you- to be coming. uh, here, let me just close the door. want to sit?”

you take up the offer and sit on the couch opposite his desk and he sits on the desk looking at you really worriedly. “is...everything okay?”

he wants to ask if somebody found out, but at the same time, he really doesn’t want to make you think that he was like repulsed by having sex with you because it was The best sex of his life and he’s not afraid to admit that

“yes. i just” sigh. might as well get on with it. “how long has it been since the wedding?”

hoseok pauses. thinks. “well...i mean, like, probably six weeks? yeah, six weeks. why?”

“okay, and usually, what does it mean when a woman misses her period?”

“wha- well, sometimes it could be an irregular cycle. but it’s usually because they’re conceiving...”

hoseok really doesn’t wanna overthink but...like….he’s overthinking rn

“and how long does it take for them to start showing?”

“well someone can know that they’re pregnant as early as four weeks, usually. although 50% of women say they show at five, and 70% said they show symptoms at six weeks-”

there’s a beat of silence

you worriedly look at hoseok and he’s just. quiet

you can see the clogs moving in his head and his eyes are flitting up from your stomach to your face repeatedly and wow he’s gone a bit pale?

“i...what?”

“i’m...i’m pregnant.”

“i…” he starts to speak but literally stops and he’s just really quiet

you can feel your eyes filling up because oh god he doesn’t want the baby you’ve ruined his LIFE

but really he’s just thinking really hard rn

like

omg

a beautiful girl he likes is carrying HIS BABY

A BABY HE HELPED MAKE

and then he’s like but shes a student at my uni is this weird? its weird its wrong but i love babies and ‘im gonna be a dad????? and she’s really pretty????? and i like her?????? and that’s my kid??????????

you’re seriously about to cry and be like its ok if you don’t want it i can look after it alone and my flat are okay with it i just would want some help like maybe a little bit just for the first few months when he moves from the desk towards you and drops to his knees between your legs

“is- is it mine?”

“what- of course it’s yours!”

“i’m sorry! i didn’t want to assume!!!”

“i wouldnt be here if it wasn’t yours!”

he huffs out a laugh and then just starts smiling so wide

“omg are you actually pregnant? really?”

and then you start laughing like “YES omg why would i lie here’s a test for proof i was crying a lot over the weekend.”

now that he has concrete evidence hoseok is getting a bit excited about this

above all circumstances he is gonna be a dad and wow he’s always wanted a family!!

you’re so relieved that he’s happy :)

but then he has to think realistically about this: you’re still a student, probably barely twenty one, and he’s a professor and things will be extremely complicated

he debates whether or not to tell professor min

because yoongi has been his friend forever and he actually helped him get the job at this uni and he probably wouldn’t judge him for it because he had seemed excited when hoseok told him about the wedding night (obviously spared of the details that the best Pussy of his life was miss y/n l/n)

“do...do you want to keep it?”

you look at him like OnO “yes :( is that okay”

“YES omg it’s okay!!! that’s our BABY!!!”

ok he’s so excited

“this is so weird and i never ever thought this would happen but!!!!!! i’m gonna be a dad???”

“yes!!!”

then

“wait fuck are you married or anything?” you have to ask it’s been bugging you all weekend. “because i’m happy with raising a baby with you but i don’t think i can handle telling ur wife or whatever that we had sex at a wedding.”

he finds this really funny

“no, i’m not married. i was drunk at the wedding but not drunk enough to cheat on someone :( i would never do that :(”

well. 

THAT COVERS IT THEN

now he has to make plans to like. get to know you because there’s no way in hell his baby is gonna grow up with complicated parents like he wants his kid to have the best life ever :(

hoseok now also has to come to terms with the fact that seunghee knows he had sex with her best friend and is having a baby with her and now he’s horrified

“you did wHAT”

hoseok decided against his better judgement to tell yoongi about what’s going on

since you told your entire flat about it he figured it was only fair that he could also tell somebody he trusted

he has a couple of friends outside the department who he really trusts, like namjoon and seokjin, two married professors who teach literature and creative writing, and sociology, respectively, who will eventually find out, whenever he’s figured out what he’s going to do

considering everything, yoongi isn’t that put off by the fact that he knocked up a student

i mean, yes he’s shocked that it was you of all students ever and then he pieces together you going into his office and the way he had literally described you as “artistic and fascinating” and fucking hell he should have realised sooner

“i...kind of got her pregnant. which- before you yell at me, isn’t the end of the world because we’re both willing to give it 110%!”

“yeah i dont give a fuck about that- i’m still on about the fact that you came back here after that wedding and told me all the raunchy details about you and y/n and i called it hOT and now i find out its a student i KNOW?????? oh my god i need to lie down again.”

(he takes it well, and congratulates him)

meanwhile you’re already making plans to tell your family about it but you want to do it after the first scan

seunghee has done so much research on pregnancy that she was worried the school would catch on by reading the wifi bill and seeing that all she ever googles is “how big is a baby at six weeks?” or “when should i go for a baby scan?”

she seems to think that twelve to fourteen weeks is a good time to get the baby scan and that you’ll probably start showing by then which is the PERF time to tell everybody about it

at the moment you’re not too worried about telling your family

your mom is pretty understanding and your dad has been out of the picture for a while now, and you’re the baby sibling so at least she still has an older daughter to brag about

because from now on it’s gonna be “yeah this is my eldest she’s a LAWYER and this is my youngest haha she fucked her biology professor”

not that she’d use those words

you’re actually more afraid of what people at uni are gonna think when you start showing because you’re not really up for missing out a whole 9 months just to be a year behind your friends

and morning sickness was so awful this morning that you just couldn’t be bothered to go in for class today

thankfully it was just a free sort of day where kids either did the art marathon or worked for their midterms so you could sort of afford to miss a day

guk went to class for an hour before coming back to the flat and haseul didn’t have classes that day so once again, art attack squad just had a nice day at home

haseul is most concerned about the baby and the baby’s health and so went through a crazy moment of trying to eliminate foods that are bad for you during pregnancy

“where’s all my chocolate gone?” “well i moved it so that you can limit yourself on what you eat! chocolate isn’t great for your skin and you should probably start eating healthy if you want the little honey to be nice and healthy when they arrive!”

haseul has money on it being a little girl

guk and seunghee want it to be a boy and jimin is the type of person to have no opinion until the baby is born and then proceeds to say, “see! i told you it would be a boy/girl!”

since you last saw hoseok, he hasn’t really decided what he’d like them to come out as yet; yoongi wants it to be a girl, though

seunghee actually went to class and ended up waiting behind afterwards to give him all the updates

“is she doing okay?” “yES she’s amazing and the baby is doing so well too!!! i mean it’s only been about seven weeks and so y/n is like barely showing, but he’s about the size of a blueberry! isn’t that cute?”

then she pauses and is like, “wait...we live off campus so like. do you want to maybe come round? and see her? i think she’d appreciate seeing you.”

“ᶜᵃⁿ ᶦ?” hoseok is really excited because yeah he does like you and he’d see you whenever he could but 1) he didn’t know how to contact you and 2) where do you even live because if its on campus he definitely can’t pop round and be like “wassup where’s my baby mama”

anyway he comes round with her and you’re very unprepared to see hoseok and seunghee step through the front door

jeongguk is like midway through kissing your tummy over and over and haseul is on amazon looking at baby clothes because she “has to be ready for any opportunity”

of course anything can happen and she’s praying that nothing bad happens because she just found the cutest bear onesie ever and OOPS its in her cart

“it’s,” gesturing to guk and his lips on your stomach, eyes wide, “not what it looks like!”

but hoseok just laughs and puts down his bag and is like, “hehe i know. how are you!”

guk clears out to another part of the couch and decides that he has to, before he dies, see a y/n and hoseok interaction and he can hardly contain his excitement when hoseok sits down next to you and looks at you with a fond ass expression

“good! i had a little bit of morning sickness, but i’m okay. how are you?”

and hoseok’s like well i’m not currently carrying a baby im fine of course i’m fine i want to know about you

because it came to his attention when he was with yoongi earlier that he really doesn’t know anything about you PERIODT

and he wants to know everything and anything

at that point guk takes his leave and he, haseul and seunghee go to the kitchen to give you and hoseok some of your own private space

“i cant believe professor jung is in my living room right now...”

“I WALKED ACROSS CAMPUS WITH HIM GUK I WAS FREAKING OUT THE ENTIRE TIME!!!”

meanwhile you and hoseok are taking the moment to get to know each other

because in about 9 months time or whatever you’re gonna be parents

so you gotta know everything

hoseok learns a lot of things about you: your love for chocolate, that strawberry milk is your favourite flavour, your favourite colours are natural colours like white and beige and browns, your favourite movie or your favourite song…….

and you learn quite a few things about him in return: growing up he always loved science, he wanted to go into dance during high school but it clashed with science club so he gave it up, his favourite flavour milk is banana and his favourite colour is yellow…...

“mm i knew the yellow already :)”

“oh yeah?” hoseok has an arm around your shoulders, one hand stroking the side of your face and the other brushing against your stomach. “how?”

“the rug in your office. and the fact you like banana milk,” you laugh.

“what? the banana milk has nothing to do with it.”

“it does, don’t lie.”

“okay, but it’s not the main reason!!!”

once again it begins to feel like you’ve known hoseok for years and wow it’s so easy to talk to him and he’s so gentle and nice You’re ready to donate your whole heart to him on the spot

“so i was thinking actually,” you propose suddenly, and at this point the gang have come out of the kitchen and are gathered in the living room (jeongguk said that he’s technically in-laws with hoseok now and so there’s no point avoiding it) “that we should go out together this weekend.”

hoseok grins: “are you asking me out on a date right now?”

“yes,” you nod with a firm look. “yes, i am. i am taking authoritative because you’re slow and i want to go on a date with you. i wanna get to know you and work on this.”

hoseok agrees and presses a warm kiss to your temple. “mm, okay then, honey. it’s a date.”

(jimin gets home late and kicks off his shoes by the door. “GUYS!!! YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHO LOOKED MIGHTY FINE THIS MORNING!! If you guessed Professor Min, then you were RIGHT!! At this rate, Y/N won’t be the only person knocked up by a science professor cause I’m telling you, I’m ready for Professor Min to tell me the exact speed of light whilst balls deep in my a- OH. Uh. Hi, Professor Jung. Nice day?”)

((nobody knows how to move on from that.))

it’s been exactly 9 weeks since your little honey has been conceived :D

hoseok comes to visit more frequently and he now has your number and emergency contact details so whenever he can, he’s asking how you and the baby are and stuff

he texts asking about your day a lot

mostly about the baby though

from hoseok: what are naming it ^_^

to hoseok: hmm i believe we haven’t gone over the names yet :)

from hoseok: i meant like a nickname!!

from hoseok: yoongi has been calling them “squid” because when we became friends we bonded over someone calling a sperm cell a squid cell and i guess it kind of stuck

to hoseok: omg i dont wanna call them squid then :-(

from hoseok: hmm how about simply ‘baby’?

but i want u to call me baby…

from hoseok: but i wanna call YOU baby and it might get confusing...little one? little guy?

to hoseok: haseul thinks its a girl teeheehee

from hoseok: so i’ve been told

from hoseok: okay, how about honey? i know i call you honey sometimes but honey can be exclusively our baby name

to hoseok: hmm

to hoseok: honey is cute :3

from hoseok: haha okay baby, honey it is then!

you’re waiting until week 14 for an ultrasound

seunghee did more research and said 14 is a lucky number and so it just seemed right

and also most women go around 14 weeks and later because by then the gender will be revealed and that’s exciting!!

THANKFULLY you weren’t planning to visit family for christmas because they’re abroad visiting family and so at least you can surprise them when they’re back with a baby scan and hoseok :D

“did you also know that the baby is now the size of a cherry?” guk said suddenly one evening, as he lay next to you in his bed, by the way, WHY you were in his bed when he woke up he has no idea. “that’s so cute. little cherry all snug in there, huh.”

you find that jeongguk is now...abnormally nice

like you loved that you and jeongguk could be brutal to each other and still be fine in the next three minutes

but ever since you found out you were pregnant, he’s been toning it down a lot

truthfully he doesn’t want to overdo it and add any stress on you during the pregnancy, and he just wants to be supportive and be ‘the best uncle in the business’, to which jimin competes

haseul and seunghee are the ideal best friends in this situation: haseul is so ready to be an aunt it’s crazy and she already has an amazon cart full of cute things and seunghee already claimed dibs on helping you and hoseok set up a nursery for the baby

it’s still being decided but there’s a big chance you and hoseok will move in together to raise baby honey together

the house you were eyeing is relatively close to campus and to flat 18, which they’re planning to rent out for the next two years of uni after this one

so it’s close to honey’s aunts and uncles and also close for hoseok to get to work and for you to get to classes

jimin is the friend who still doesn’t really know what to do in this situation

he replaced jeongguk as the annoying younger brother type, even though he’s a few months older than both you and jeongguk, he’s such a brat lmao

10 weeks

“i’m convinced that my boobs have got bigger- haven’t they gotten bigger?”

so it is one of those days where hoseok is free to come and visit you at the Holy flat 18

it’s become his second home because he comes by so often

seunghee isn’t so weirded out by her professor being basically one of her friends, and in-fact she tries to abuse this by trying to get him to give her “in-law special treatment”

(“i gave you special treatment on your ugly volcano!” “OI the mother of your child helped make that volcano!!!”)

he really doesn’t give any bias tho he basically passes everybody

“i mean,” hoseok begins, and you move between his legs for him to get a good angle. considering you two haven’t been ‘together’ long, you’re incredibly comfortable around him. “yeah, actually. wow, they have!”

“rIGHT? none of my bras fit me anymore. oh god, i’m gonna have to start buying granny bras- do you think they’ll get that big?”

“it’s possible. all women increase in size during pregnancy. actually, some can lose weight instead of putting it on.”

“not me.”

“no, but you look healthy and gorgeous and i like it.”

you giggle- the same giggle he remembers you doing on the Big Night- and shuffle into some bigger trousers that you and haseul went to buy a few days ago

clothes just aren’t fitting anymore and so while you’re upgrading to trendy maternity-style clothes haseul and seunghee are super excited to go to town with outfits they can make from your wardrobe

“well, good! because you’re stuck with me for the next….like, nine months.”

“technically, it’s seven months now.”

you glare

“but i’m gonna still be here after those seven months!!!”

“good!!! you better be,” you shuffle over to sit next to him with your legs around him- one behind and one over his lap and he smiles down at you, “because i’m growing fond of you.”

“well that’s convenient, because i’m rather fond of you, too.”

outside the door, jimin starts laughing “wtf it’s 2018 who says fond anymore?”

12 weeks :)

this morning you realise

wow

i’m actually pregnant pregnant

you’re starting to show now and honestly...looking at it, you realise how creepy baby bumps are

“oh my GOD, seunghee come look at it now it’s gotten really big!”

it’s not even that big

but it’s bigger

seunghee is so excited about this fact

the flat have been taking pictures of the bump every week and printing it so they can keep a timeline for when honey is born

jeongguk and seunghee are still dead set on honey being a little baby boy but haseul is trying to convince them otherwise

“we’re calling her honey for now, right? so, what i have planned, is, we buy her a bee onesie. representing both bees AND the bee movie. worlds best dressed baby.”

you started to develop a fear of going to class because you’re unsure on how people will take the news that you’re pregnant

you’re not that much of a popular person but everybody in the class knows you well enough to know that you’re not the type to sleep around

so it would be a valid shock to hear that you’re pregnant

but you have to go because you can’t afford to miss anymore classes

and you also have to….break the news to your professors because at some point you’re going to have to have a lot of time off to pop out a human being

“he’s the size of a plum by now, isn’t he?”

jeongguk is particularly excited about honey this morning and he has literally not shut up about them since you got into class

“yes, THEY are about the size of a plum- did seunghee tell you that?”

“omg no im a good best friend and i did all my research!! it’s so cute that they compare honey to fruits online- next week he’s gonna be as big as a lemon!”

class is….just your luck, pretty busy today

most students are in the drawing rooms and a few are drawing a still life model

jeongguk gets right to work finishing his final project while you head to the office to speak to your professor, who is really lazy and sits in his office all day and doesn’t even supervise

professor choi, the lovely lady who ends up running all classes, is the dearest angel and you’re ready to chat to her next

professor bowen, your grouchy art professor, is literally so :| when you break the news

like he could not give two shits

he puts down his coffee and is like “oh. well, i couldn’t tell. congratulations, talk to the dean about your maternity dates. and shut the damn door behind you.”

like

damn sir okay

professor choi <3 is so <3 excited <3

she immediately goes to touch your stomach and then quickly stops herself like “oops, silly me! i remember when i had my first child i was so picky with who could touch my belly!! heeheehee how many weeks are you darling!!”

she’s already getting so excited and inviting herself to the birth

like please professor choi

we love you but please don’t turn up for the birth

PLEATHE

she keeps making invitations to bring the baby to classes when they’re born because “obviously im amazing with babies and ooh i just can’t wait to see them! jeongguk- don’t tell me you stepped up and did this all by yourself?”

jeongguk nearly throws up

“EWWWWWWW wtf i mean y/n babe i love you but EWWHJFHJKS why would i want to be with y/n she’s like my annoying sister! no the daddy is ho-”

and you’re like BITCH STOP!!!

“....honestly the best man on planet earth? you definitely don’t know him at all.”

14 weeks :)

“okay, miss l/n. it’s going to feel a little bit cold, but we’re going to put some ultrasound gel on your stomach now, is that okay?”

it’s the day of the ultrasound!!!

for you and hoseok this is the Big moment next to birth because it’s almost like final confirmation that there’s a baby in there

at this point you’re starting to show a lot

it’s big enough for you and flat 18 to know there’s a difference

but tbh if people didn’t know you they might just think you’ve got a few pounds on you and nobody cares at all at uni like literally nobody gives a fuck about what anybody else looks like

hoseok got permission of the dean to get the day off (he told them that his girlfriend was going for an ultrasound and so he just had to be there, and the dean, not knowing any better, was all smiles and said, “of course, professor jung! congratulations! i didn’t know you were expecting, or even dating!”)

because the best thing about being jung hoseok is the fact that he’s well known and it gets him out of trouble sometimes

thankfully the dean is old and dumb and didn’t clock on to the fact that you paid her a visit like a few weeks prior asking about maternity dates :)

PHEW!!!

jung hoseok’s job: saved

hoseok is holding your hand reassuringly and is sitting to your left, the other hand on your ankle and his leg is going cRAZY it’s just bobbing like heck next to the bed

a part of him is still really sort of insecure because even though the sonographer and nurse present don’t know that hoseok is a professor at your uni, he still feels really weird knowing who he is and how you could do better and could be doing better and more if it weren’t for stupid him not putting on a condom

he is so excited to have this baby but he thinks about that a lot, about how he’s basically ruined your life by putting a baby inside of you

you look incredibly excited though, lying on the bed with your eyes really wide and expectant because omg this is your baby!!!!

now that you’re here there’s some finality

ever since you found out you were pregnant there had been so many doubts but now that you’re here, with hoseok, about to see honey for the first time…

alexa play Despacito cause this is epic

“okay. let’s see what your baby is getting up to in there!”

this sonographer is really enthusiastic apparently

“alrighty. so, as you can see...oh! always a good sign- we have a confirmed heartbeat. usually that puts parents at ease, knowing their baby is all okay and healthy in there!”

and then she starts listing off various body parts but in all honesty you cant see a thing

hoseok is very interested in the screen and his smile gets wider at every body part she lists off

you really should be invested in the baby inside of you but when he smiles like that :( you just wanna grab him and kiss him really deeply

“everything seems to be perfectly fine with your baby, miss l/n. a very beautiful baby. they’re about the size of a peach right now, isn’t that just incredible?”

hoseok’s grinning like it’s his default facial expression

he squeezes your hand really tight and kisses it three times

“that’s our baby,” you say, still in motherly awe. “they’re real! we did THAT!”

“yeah, we did,” he replies, lips still pressed against your skin. “i’m proud of you.”

“i haven’t done anything yet!”

but really you have

to him you’re one of the bravest people he’s ever met in his entire life and he knows it must be so so hard for you to accept the fact that you’re having a baby aged 20 during uni

not that it’s uncommon but it’s just….not particularly ideal? at this moment in time?

“im so happy right now.”

“me too, baby.” you squeeze his hands, “me too!!!! our baby!!!! honey is the size of a peach already!!!”

he starts laughing

hoseok is just so overwhelmed with emotions he genuinely feels like he might cry rn

“i’m so happy it’s with you,” he says honestly and like the nurse is like :’) and you’re like :’o “it could have been anyone at any point in my life, but i’m so glad it’s with you.”

you look at him in awe

because that’s the most romantic thing anybody has ever said to you

like

ever

you tug him gently by the hand and he brings himself forward and

SMOOCH

you believe this is the first kiss he has given you since the “big shindig” (for some reason, flat 18 are obsessed with calling everything a shindig and so it just sort of stuck)

so it’s a big deal

and it’s also at the place where your pregnancy was confirmed

it’s perfect

the nurse is like AWWWWWWWWW

the sonographer is just like “anyways ! do you want to know the gender !!!”

you and hoseok have talked about maybe finding out sooner

it would put flat 18 at rest knowing if honey is a girl or a boy

but deep down it’s like...if honey is a boy or a girl for definite you don’t want the nickname honey to go away when you start referring to it as a name you both like...and plus like isnt it way too early

hoseok is happy with whatever choice you want because he likes the element of surprise

you two decided a couple of days ago that it could be super cute to have a reveal party

jimin was particularly excited about that idea (“I’M GONNA MAKE THE CUPCAKES”)

“um actually, can you like put it in an envelope!! we want to have a reveal party so it’s gonna be a surprise for now!”

the nurse and stuff are like “omg yes of course!!” and so it’s sealed away in a little envelope

“i can’t believe we’re actually like...almost parents,” hoseok says on the way back to the car.

“i know. it’s so weird. i can’t believe WE’RE having a kid together.”

hoseok helps strap you in because he’s one of THOSE expecting fathers who like as soon as he knows it’s happening he’s cautious about EVERYTHING

literally everything

falling out of bed when he’s staying over? not allowed, he’s making pillow barriers

tripping over rugs? the rug is being rolled up and put away

hotel? trivago

“it’s actually super funny to me because like i always fantasised about boning the Daddy of biology and look at where we are right now!!”

he starts the car- “the ‘daddy of biology’? what??”

and you’re like, “oh yeah oops haha basically i had a fat old crush on you and we all started calling you that.”

“i’m...honoured? well i knew you had a crush on me already, heehee”

as he pulls out of the hospital he glances over and grins to himself. “if it makes you feel better, i remember telling yoongi about the cute friend of seunghee who comes to my class every other day. yoongi made fun of me for weeks afterwards, and now look at us!!”

(yes it boosts your ego a little bit)

when christmas comes around hoseok makes an ultimate surprise

you end up showing off the baby scan like it’s a broken wrist in primary school because everybody wants to see the little honey

jeongguk is CONVINCED he can see a penis and so he’s like 98% sure it’s a baby boy

haseul tells him several times that it’s literally honey’s foot but he’s having none of it

you call your mom and tell her that you’re coming to see her in early january

(specifically january 4th)

she’s weirdly suspicious about it but nonetheless excited

hoseok has made plans for you to meet his family just afterwards so you’re going to be showing off the scan quite frequently

flat 18 don’t like doing gifts at christmas but jimin always bakes goodies for the flat

this year you’re particularly upset because you have yet to taste jimin’s christmas cookies and you already took your recommended amount of sugar by the time his cookies are done

“one cookie won’t hurt honey,” seunghee says

“i’m not taking aNY risks with it!!!”

hoseok makes a stop by the flat after you’ve had your first christmas dinner as a flat <3 aw

he shocks everybody when he walks in because he’s gone the extra mile and got gifts for everybody in the flat

“it’s just a way of me saying thanks for looking after my babies,” he says as he hands out the gifts

you can literally feel jeongguk’s smirk

and of course !!! he got you like three gifts because you’re secretly like the love of his life

even though it’s really not a secret but still

he mostly gets you the typical christmas things like things he knows you wanted (like that sailor moon designer ring that you don’t need really but omg its gorgeous and you want matching)

the last gift is really small and you’re like :O because the small gifts are usually the super thoughtful ones

it’s keys….

you’re almost like “HUH”

then it clicks

“oh...my...GOD?????”

hoseok bought the place you and him went to check out a few weeks back (the one just a few minutes away from the flat and campus)

AND IT DOESN’T END THERE

he’s all giggly and happy when you start BLUBBERING about how you own a house and now you can get a nursery and omg no more listening to jimin and jeongguk screaming over super smash ultimate in the living room

“because i think it’s time we live together, as a family, you know?” he says, holding you in his arms and kissing your face really sweetly. “it’ll be so good, living with my girlfriend and soon enough, my baby.”

“g-girlfriend?”

“well, yeah baby, of course. wanna be my girlfriend? please?”

you cry even more

“wtf yes of course i do :(”

(flat 18 are extremely territorial and are only settled and content with you leaving when hoseok takes them to the house and they’re like :D okay we’re coming over every weekend)

((haseul cries when she sees the room that’s gonna be the nursery))

15 weeks ^_^

“what if your mom beats my ass?”

today is january 4th which means it is the day that hoseok is going to meet your family

and also the day they are going to indirectly meet the little honey :’)

honey is now the size of a navel orange according to the website that everyone in flat 18 has pinned on their laptop chrome browser

which is really cute

jimin is the flat 18 member who likes to call honey everything but honey and recently started nicknaming them after the fruits on the website

so he’s like, “good morning little satsuma!” or “hello navel orange, how are you?” when he sees you around the flat

you’re probably going to be officially moved out by next week which is really exciting teeheehee

“she won’t….probably. my mom is really nice! she’ll like you!”

“will she still like me when she finds out i teach biology to seunghee?”

“yes probably, i don’t think she really knows what that means.”

“what, biology?”

“no, i don’t think she’ll realise that you’re a professor at my- you know what, never mind that. did you lock the car?”

since christmas and becoming hoseok’s official girly, you two have just been closer than ever

hoseok is still really cautious about the baby stuff because this is obviously his first baby ever

he’s that person who thinks having sex will like kill the baby

of course, he did try it once

just to say he’d had sex with a pregnant lady

“that’s one for the bois.”

“what bois, you don’t have any friends, baby.”

“NOT true i have like 3 friends!!”

when hoseok timidly knocks on your mom’s front door he’s so so nervous when a big buff man opens the door instead

inside he’s like wtf i thought y/n’s dad was like GONE

but then you’re like “oh hi daren! yeah, this is my boyfriend, hoseok, hoseok this is my mom’s boyfriend!”

you didn’t tell hoseok just because you got pleasure seeing him look so terrified at the thought of telling ur Dad that he knocked you up

thankfully you’re not close enough to daren for him to have any protective feelings for you

not like a close dad would anyway

when he meets your mom it’s literally like meeting an older You

like

your mom is so nice :(

she greets hoseok really really excitedly and is all for embarrassing you within 5 minutes of you coming home

“did you know that it’s been exactly four years and five months since y/n came home with a BOY? she never comes home with anybody!!! i thought she was joining a nunnery!!!”

like omg…..so funny…...really, like, joke of the year

your sister is also here and she’s looking at hoseok like -_o because…. “i’ve seen you somewhere…”

now you’re shaking

omg does she KNOW

“i mean, he was at [cousin’s name]’s wedding hahahha...that’s probably how u know him….small world.”

“ew what do you MEAN he was there- he’s not family is he?”

o.o

“wtf no he’s a friend of [groom’s name] wtf Why would i be dating him if he was family What is wrong with you?”

you guys have a nice little snack and tea together and hoseok starts to feel really comfortable

but then Mrs y/n puts down her tea and sits back in her chair, slapping her thighs: “alright then. so what’s this big surprise you have for us?”

oh

oh yeah he forgot about the fact that you’re having his kid and you’re about to drop the news

suddenly he wants to throw up the brownies he just ate

and your sisters blue shirt looks like a perfect place to throw up <3

“well, it’s kind of been a surprise to us all, actually,” you begin, and you take hoseok’s hands in your own and your sister narrows in on it and she knows like right away

she thought she saw the bump but didn’t want to mention it because You’re the sensitive sister and if it was just weight gain she didn’t wanna handle you crying everywhere

but now she knows and she sits back in her seat and starts to smile

she wants to say something but hoseok looks at her like owo please don’t say anything sis

(she doesn’t)

“but, me and hoseok are in a very...close relationship-”

“oh god you got married didn’t you.”

“um, no, but, i’m sure that’s in the future, right? y-yeah? right, yeah, um…”

“it’s not something we’re discussing right now,” hoseok blurts out. “but, i mean, i want to? soon? like later?”

your mom is literally there like “well what is it????”

“.....i’m pregnant.”

“...oh.”

...

...

“REALLY???????”

your mom is shook to the core

she really doesn’t believe you until you whip out the baby scan

and she starts sobbing

like full on sobbing like she’s just been punched in the face by bowser

daren is all smiles and is like “wow congrats!”

your sister hugs both you and hoseok and says to hoseok in his ear “can you please sign my copy of “ouch mitosis” because it’s my favourite book and i totally knew you were famous the moment you walked in” and pulls away and is like “im so excited to be an aunt!!! what’s the gender!!! when are they due!!! what are you gonna call them!!!!”

needless to say your sister leaves with a signed copy of hoseok’s big money book

and your mom is now 100% hooked on the baby being called honey

week 17 :-)

you and hoseok are now homeowners officially !!!!!

flat 18 have come down to visit as a sort of moving in house-warming party and hoseok invited his “three friends” (by friends he means work colleagues lmao)

jimin is still weirded out by the fact that professor jung heard him talking about his fantasy of having professor min inside his GUTS and so tries to avoid hoseok and yoongi when they are together

hoseok also cannot forget hearing that :-( his ears :-( are tainted :-(

it’s your first real time meeting hoseok’s friends

like you’ve never really met namjoon or seokjin but you know of them

because everybody knows about the married Gays of your uni like it made the news and everybody was invited to their after party last year

(yes you went but only like for fifteen minutes because you remembered that you had an art history essay due the next morning that hadn’t been done)

for the sake of you and honey, seunghee tries not to be weirded out by the fact that so many members of staff are at your house and wtf hi professor min WHY are you here again

“can i touch?” seokjin asks really suddenly after hoseok is showing yoongi and namjoon the room that will be the nursery

currently it’s empty with like one box and that one box is full of clothes haseul ordered on impulse

“um. yes!!”

“are you sure? i know some moms get really protective over who touches and i don’t wanna overstep-”

“put ur freakishly big hand on my belly right now!”

he does and he gets really excited touching because he’s never actually touched a baby belly before

namjoon is most excited about the nursery and he’s listing off things hoseok could get

like “OOOO you could totally get one of those really big stuffed bears if you’re going for neutral tones- wait, that’s such a good idea? i’ll order one.”

and hoseok’s like mm okay sweetie sure whatever spend your money on me it’s okay

yoongi is really just. in awe of the baby scan

like it’s not even his baby and he’s tearing up like wtf that’s his niece or nephew that’s his mf baby!!!!!! that’s gonna be the person he spends all his cash on!!!!! he’s so excited to be broke and baby whipped!!!

“and so what, you’re like seventeen weeks?”

“yep! i’m almost four months uwu!!! honey is as big as a pomegranate, how cute!! time flies when you’re having fun huh!”

seokjin pauses and asks the big question like “but like what are you going to do about maternity? are they letting you have days off school? because i can totally send one of my sociology kids to take notes in your lectures because i have authority apparently and you’re like. family? i could do that.”

and you’re like “omg pls no that kid needs their own education!!!” and you tell him that your professors and the dean let you have time off near the due date (which should probably be around june!! a summer babie)

“but it sucks because i wanted to have a gender reveal party and invite some people from uni but then they’re gonna find out that hoseok is the dad and he could like lose his job :(”

and then seokjin is like: “wait but you study art and not biology?”

… “what do you mean?”

“well, policy says that you can’t have a relationship between a teacher and their student. but if you’re in completely different departments….and he doesn’t teach you, therefore can’t have bias over your grades or anything like that…..then really you’re allowed to be with him.”

..

what

wHY DIDN’T YOU KNOW THIS????

“since when is that a thing????”

“since like. the day our uni was founded?????”

ob viously when hoseok finds out he’s like O____O “how did you know that omg??”

and seokjin is so done he’s just sitting there with his face looking like this -__-

“it’s literally in the Faculty Handbook that you’re supposed to read before you join the uni as a teacher…”

and hoseok scoffs and grins sheepishly, “yeah well yoongi got me the job so i didn’t read any of that.”

(from across the room jimin groans)

((“so i guess this means i can’t seduce yoongi at a family wedding huh.”))

week 20 :’)

you have somehow adopted the name of “campus milf”

which jimin doesn’t think is that bad of a nickname

“it could be worse, y/n. let that sink in.” and he’s right it really could be worse

nobody actually really cares that you’re pregnant like really they could care less

some students say weird things but it doesn’t really bother you bc like lmao? who even are you Jongin Get out of here!

people aren’t 100% familiar with hoseok being the father but it goes without saying that it will be around campus in less than 15 hours because majority of the art department were present for the gender reveal and oh look

jeongguk invited taehyung and taehyung invited his friends and now there’s a whole bunch of jocks at the gender reveal party?????

the party is obviously at your house

YOUR HOUSE!!!! YES MF THATS URS!!!!

you invited your close family and flat 18 of course and jeongguk invited taehyung who invited his girlfriend binnie and his roomie jackson and jackson, being part of the football team, invited some of the jocks

you would have cared if the jocks hadn’t brought gifts but half of them turned up with a gift or food and so you’re like “okay well come on in boys i’m y/n hi we’ve literally never ever met”

it looks really funny seeing jocks in their fucking JERSEYS (like they couldn’t have changed for this one occasion) standing around your backyard with glasses of wine

oK maybe jeongguk has a vodka and dr pepper but that’s because he did blow up all the balloons from his lungs alone and he deserved a reward

hoseok invited his family too and his friends and that’s about it

your art professor is also here too and she is technically half of the art department (or half of those you care about because weird quiet kid Jisung didn’t wanna show up which is honestly really rude and suddenly you’re not friends anymore)

even though this party technically reveals the gender, you both asked for “gender neutral” clothes and by gender neutral you meant any colour besides the stereotypical blue and pink

because what if honey really likes the colour green? what then

you and hoseok let jimin be in charge of the reveal party and he’s done a pretty good job

for some reason he’s wearing his hoodie up and you’re like “literally what the fuck it’s sunny today?”

and he’s all surrender hands: “that’s exactly why. i don’t...like the sun.”

“what do you mEAN??????? you love the sun don’t lie??!!”

a couple of weeks ago you and hoseok made another visit to the hospital to see if the gender was 100% accurate

the process was weirdly fast and the sonographer was like “lol yeah it’s right” and then dipped

so when you have jimin the envelope he has peeped and done the thing

“haha lol i knew it.”

“no you didn’t??????”

but he did a really lovely job; there’s a cluster of balloons and cakes decorated with the Blue and Pink and there’s like a cute game on like guess the gender or something you don’t really care much about

hoseok’s family really want it to be a boy <3

mrs y/n wants it to be a girl and so does your sister <3

you don’t really care just as long as the baby is okay and healthy <3

when it’s time to reveal the gender jimin has decided that a fantastic way to do that is by giving you and hoseok like one of those party poppers that when it pops it bleeds like coloured confetti and stuff

you actually really like the idea because it’s not as awkward as a cake where you cut and it’s awkwardly long and the reaction feels kind of forced (you youtubed reveal parties)

so this one is really like a quick reaction so hopefully it will feel a lot more genuine!

“are you ready, baby?”

hoseok has one arm wrapped firmly around your waist and oh LAWD

he’s doing the smile

you know the smile

you nod and grin at him like “yep! let’s see who honey really is!!!”

so everybody is ready

so excited

jeongguk is filming like he can feel it in his bones rn that this babie is gonna be a boy

like it’s gonna be his son...half son….almost son….technically his non biological son

everybody does a countdown

“three!”

hoseok smiles super excitedly

“two!”

he kisses your lips super fast and laughs quietly

he’s so excited

“one!”

POP

wait what

you can feel your stomach CHURNING when the party popper releases literally nothing but black and white confetti

what just happened?

what does black and white mean?

you’re looking desperately between hoseok and the popper and then back to jimin who’s faking a :O by the patio doors

jeongguk is like “aw fuck should i restart?”

“omg is it a dud? what happened is this a busted popper please say it is omg is there something wrong with honey? is honey okay? oh my god is honey dead? oh my god why would we party pop that?????”

hoseok’s like “omg calm down it’s just a dud omg it’s okay”

you’re literally like about to cry

then jimin steps forward

“guys!”

and everybody looks

“yall gonna stress me the fuck out”

and in a viral video like fashion

he yanks down his hoodie and

oh wow

his head is a giant mop of blue

blue

BLUE MEANS BOY

ITS A BOY

everybody starts screaming and clapping and jeongguk is laughing his ASS off like this shit about to be the blurriest gender reveal video ever

“omg a boy!!! a boy!!! y/n we’re having a son!!! omg y/n our baby!!! our little honey!!!”

hoseok is over the freaking moon

like he has not been this excited since the first baby scan

you actually start crying now

“i’m not CRYING it’s just the pregnancy…. ok fuck OFF IM CRYING IM SO HAPPY!!! i’m having a son!!!!”

time for haseul to be both happy and sad at the same time

seunghee and jeongguk are like sucking eachothers titties right now like they are so hyped

“TOLD YOU !!!! I KNEW IT!!!!!”

hoseok brings you in for the biggest and longest kiss Ever

like you haven’t had many long kisses with hoseok because it’s been trying to build up a relationship time for the past three months of your life

but this kiss is so loving you almost faint

he brings you in so gently and holds your head in his hands

one thumb rubs across your cheekbone and wow. this kiss...is so good like are those stars???

“i love you.”

alexa...ALEXA PLAY DESPACITO RIGHT NOW

“i love You more,” you whisper against his lips and he makes this really cute noise at the back of his throat (kinda like one of those whines you do where it’s like too good to be true) and he kisses you again

jeongguk zooms in

“look at this….ugh, no respect for any single people here.”

(for a brief moment jimin’s bleached blue scalp goes unnoticed until yoongi compliments him on it)

((he disappears for like fifteen minutes in the toilet and yoongi doesn’t wanna know what he was doing))

22 weeks!!!!

hoseok really probably shouldn’t find you sexy right now

you keep going on and on and on about how un-sexy you are with swollen ankles and stuff

in his opinion you’re looking really good considering and he won’t say it but the weight gain looks good on you and it gives you a nice natural #dewy look that he really loves

he remembers how cautious he was about having sex with you at like. what? 10 weeks

character development time

he’s very aware of the research and the facts and so when you shuffle over to him and huff and act all extra EXTRA touchy he’s just knows

“omg are you horny AGAIN”

“im SORRY IT JUST HAPPENS”

and he doesn’t really care that you’re big and pregnant and yeah actually your ankles are kinda swollen but it’s fine

hoseok discovers that he actually really likes pregnancy sex

pregnancy sex always scared him bc omg what if my dick touches my KID that would be all levels of weird

but he is like a biology professor and knows that’s not realistic (he thinks)

and like he was aware that at some point during pregnancy, your body is gonna be producing a lot more fluid

but my GOD

he nearly bust a nut after 3 seconds because he just slid right in

unlike the big shindig 22 weeks ago, hoseok is so so SO careful during pregnancy sex

like he’s extra loving and strokes your hair and kisses your face and arms and stomach

he loves kissing ur tummy :(

esp after sex because he’s like “im sorry honey :( i know you must be traumatised in there.”

but in the moment he really does take advantage of the fact that your hormones are going crazy and it’s not gonna last forever

you’re a talker in bed and he knows that

you’re very vocal about how things feel and some of the things you say really get to his ego like his head is so big rn

“oh...OH, omg, yep, you found it, oh fuck- yes! hoseok, yes, right there-”

and you sound so fucking hot but he can’t be rough bc like Honey is gonna be SCARRED FOR LIFE

your thing is saying i love you during sex

like a lot

hoseok finds it so endearing that you talk and whine with like every thrust and then spill out a thousand “i love you’s” in under thirty seconds as you cum <3 because <3 that’s his girl <3 that’s the love of his life <3 and she loves him back <3 heeheehee

his heart swells with pride

((hoseok also gets extremely turned on that one time you call him daddy during sex and he HAS to find out how to get rid of that kink before honey gets here))

23 weeks :P

as promised, you invite seunghee to help you and hoseok paint the nursery

jimin came too but he literally did nothing

all he did was sit on the floor looking at baby furniture like

jimin sweetie these walls aren’t gonna paint themselves

you have decided on a cream and beige coloured nursery

because it’s unisex and also makes the room feel really bright and clean and nice for when honey arrives

hoseok loves yellow and since the nursery is primarily your favourite colours, a lot of smaller accessories are yellow around the room

seunghee had so much fun looking for ~yellow~ items because “monkeys totally match the theme and omg this mobile is monkeys and bananas its already on its way i’ve just ordered it.”

the nursery takes roughly around a week to get done completely

alongside your studies, some other art students who are now very aware of the baby and the bump helped paint some of the furniture while you were catching up on some work

example a: you accidentally ordered a dark brown chester drawers and when it arrived you cried for like 45 minutes

jeongguk asked some kids from class to come by your house after class and help paint it so you didn’t feel so stressed and so you could actually finish your art assignments in prep for exams

hoseok and jeongguk helped put up the crib because “this is not a one man job, y/n, this...this is a test of skill.”

yoongi comes around often to look at the nursery and he’s the person who won’t buy anything until the baby is out and in the world

namjoon definitely does buy the huge stuffed bear for the corner of the room and often you catch seunghee asleep against it because she comes by the nursery so often to help you and hoseok make it perfect

because hoseok has a full time job that really requires all of his time and sometimes he can’t be working on the nursery and marking essays at the same time :(

“hee, can you pass me the blankets from that box over there?” you point to a collection of boxes by the wardrobe and seunghee nods, practically running over

you’re both working on the nursery (it’s friday afternoon and classes are over, but unfortunately hoseok had to finish a meeting and he’s currently in his office ((at home)) finishing these essays for the weekend)

yoongi called and said he’d be round later because he wants to check in on honey (and you of course) and he’s also coming for dinner because it’s normal to invite jimin’s physics professor around

it’s totally fine

at this point you sort of forget that he’s a professor

yoongi has become like a permanent figure in your life since hoseok and you moved in

like flat 18, he’s literally always over

seunghee fishes out like three blankets because lord knows you have about three hundred thanks to haseul and namjoon and their impulsive buying

the nursery is basically finished at this point

all you’re doing is adding blankets and a few cute little pillows to the crib and then

hey pasta

it’s done :)

“y/n, i really can’t wait for honey to be here.”

you turn slightly and see seunghee running her hands over the chester drawers, looking at the cute little decorations and pictures on the wall and the monkey mobile and, her favourite part, the little bee wall stickers that hoseok found and thought were cute (“we call him honey, it seems fitting!”)

“me too,” you reply super honestly, setting down the blanket. “if you had told me at the start of september that i’d be here right now, in a house i own, pregnant with jung hoseok’s baby...i would have seriously laughed in your face.”

“i’m just...so happy that everything is working out for you!”

it’s time for seunghee to get especially sappy

“and i know that having a baby at twenty can be really hard and it hasn’t been easy for you- but i’m 100% here for you whenever you need me and i’m so so so so happy that jimin introduced us as friends because i love having you in my life….even though you slept with my biology professor….it’s okay….i love you so much….you’re like my sister and i’m so excited for honey have i said that i’m excited yet? cause i am!!!”

you blame pregnancy hormones because you start sobbing when seunghee blurts out all these lovely things

like how she’s grateful to be helping you in the nursery and how she thinks you and hoseok are such a good match and how she misses having you around the flat <3

“seunghee…” you bring her in for such a tight cuddle

seunghee is definitely that friend who even though she’s older she feels like the little baby sister that you want to protect from all harm on earth

even though she’s the oldest out of the flat 18 gang, you all look to her as like a baby sibling

(minus jeongguk that ONE TIME he made out with her….yes you remember the text message)

so you’re just hugging her in the middle of the nursery

hoseok is just about finished with essays and he refrains from like screaming out of joy

he loves being a professor but fucking hell

some of the GARBAGE his students write because they know he’s the cool professor who takes it easy on his kids

so he’s already packing everything away when he pauses

...is that...SQUEALING??

what’s happening??????

he assumes the worst and ZOOMS out of the office towards the nursery where you and seunghee are

safe to say that he’s so thankful nothing bad is happening

you’re holding your stomach with the widest eyes and smile and seunghee is like SQUEALING LIKE A DAMN PIGLET

“is everything okay???? what happened???? is honey okay?????? are you okay?????”

he blinks so confused when you wave your hands at him and beckon him closer

“HE KICKED HE’S KICKING QUICK QUICK HOBI QUICK--”

HE CROSSES THE ROOM SO FAST

seunghee is like crying to the side of the room and hoseok has both hands on your stomach

honey stopped kicking when hoseok put his hands on there

and he was like :( oh

“maybe he went to sleep?” seunghee doesn’t want hoseok to feel bad about it

you put your hands over his and then stroke your tummy

“it’s okay, honey, it’s just daddy! say hi to daddy?”

hoseok’s like seconds away from crying

like omg R His Eyes Filling Up

but then

honey starts kicking again

VERY ENTHUSIASTICALLY

and hoseok goes from :’( to :’D in like 2 seconds

“oh my god he knows it’s me!!! hi honey!!!! hi!!!”

he drops to his knees so that he can be level with the stomach and around about where honey is kicking

“hi honey! it’s your daddy,” he puts on this really cute cooing voice Like the typical baby talk voice

seunghee is texting the flat like HONEY KICKED ME

“he knows your voice,” you say with a little laugh, one hand on your tummy and the other threading through hoseok’s hair

“this is amazing,” he mutters, and then kisses your tummy and smiles, “did you feel that, honey? can you hear me?”

KICK KCIK CKICKCKCKCIC

“omg yes i think he can hear you holy SHIT-”

“don’t swear in front of honey!!!”

“he HURTS!”

everybody forgot that jimin was still here because he was napping in the living room and so he comes in really late and is like “OMG HONEY IS KICKING? WHY DIDN’T ANYBODY TELL ME??”

honey seems to be familiar with a lot of voices

he obviously really likes mommy’s voice and when she talks to him he likes to kick every once in a while

honey really loves daddy’s voice because when hoseok does his daily chit-chat honey goes crazy

honey also knows jeongguk’s voice really well

jimin is afraid to go near honey because he kicked him when he went to kiss your tummy

he also kicked haseul but she was like “OOOH HE HEARD ME!!!!” and doesn’t let it bother her because!!! she felt the kick!!!! that’s her nephew!!!!

26 weeks (yawn)

it’s starting to hit

the Pregnancy Pains

up until now you’ve been pretty blessed and actually it’s been a nice pleasant journey

but good grief it’s 4:56am and everything hurts

you physically cannot stay in bed any longer

for a moment you actually get really panicked because oh GOD labour is gonna be so much worse than this

like this is nothing

girl you have no idea what’s coming

hoseok has learned to become a light sleeper

you have a really weird sleeping schedule during pregnancy and sometimes he’d wake up at 6am to go to work and you’re already up doing stuff and he gets home at like 6pm sometimes and you’re flat out, then waking up at 3am to continue the day because you were in agony

so when you wake up at (nearly) 5am on a SATURDAY he’s like already up

his body clock is so weird now thanks to you and your weird sleeping habits

“hurts?” hoseok asks rubbing your back as you’re slumped over the side of the bed. he barely catches a nod and kisses your temple and hugs you, “i read on that baby website that baths can help ease the pain sometimes. should i run one?”

you nearly CRY

“yes yes Yes please omg :(”

so that’s how he got to where he is right now

sitting on the bathroom floor running a bath

he’s so careful to get the temperature right and he spends a good three minutes deciding which lush bath bomb is going to be used

(he settles on “honey bee” which was actually a gift he got you on valentines day but you never got around to using) ((he was skeptical because of the colours but baby is called honey so he thought it would be cute)) (((you loved it)))

you hobble into the bathroom and he’s just about finishing it up, running his fingers in the water to make sure it’s not toooOOO hot

you love watching the colours fizz in the bath and so naturally you have to be there to see it happen

seeing all the yellows was pretty exciting and hoseok’s just like :D watching you get happy by the colours

hoseok helps you get undressed as you just talk on and on and on

honestly

how do you have so much energy at like 5am in the morning…

he can’t help but notice how much you are GLOWING

like he hasn’t really seen many pregnant women

if any at all besides you

but you really look so pretty and natural and just wow he’s full of love

as you sit down in the bath, you grip onto his hand as he moves to get more comfortable and you’re like “do you wanna get in with me!!!”

“baby, i don’t think i’m gonna fit.”

“you will i promise, get in here!”

he’s skeptical

“yea...i don’t think im gonna fit, love.”

oh he does

he fits

if he fits he sits and he FITS

he really underestimated how wide this bath was and he sits with his back near the taps and you’re facing him

you have enough room to put your legs on either side of him and you’re like sitting between his legs and in all honesty the tummy is the only thing between you and him and his dick

but like you’ve seen it before you don’t care

and he certainly doesn’t care about seeing any bits of you bc your his bABY thats his GIRL

“this smells amazing.”

“yeah, smells like-”

“honey!”

with hoseok being like. a full time professor and with you trying to make it to classes in between awful pregnancy pains, it’s hard to find time to spend with you because he’s really busy

sometimes you do actually go to class and end up like falling asleep on the desk and professor choi is like torn between letting you stay there or sending jeongguk to get you and take you home

“thank you for this, hoseok.”

:D “hey, hey, hey...anytime you need anything, i will do it, okay?”

“i know babe and you’ve been so so so so helpful these past few months and i know it must have been hard and a big adjustment but im just so glad you’re here and that we’re raising a family together like this means so much to me that you’re here with me and i just love you a LOT okay like a lot-”

“y/n l/n!” hoseok playfully cuts you off and holds your face in his hands (his signature pussy-throbbing move)

his hands are wet and now so is your face but you really don’t care

“you are,” he continues, “the love of my life. i couldn’t let you do this alone. meeting you, being with you- starting a family with you has been one of the best experiences of my whole life. and i wouldn’t change that for anything!!! i love you so much, and i love you even when you’re cranky, and i love you when you ask for really disgusting things to eat, and i love you when you sing to honey in the mornings. i’m just...so in love with you and honey, i can’t even put it into words!!!”

and he starts speaking so damn fast

like you BARELY catch it

“and you’re thebest thing that has ever happened to me and introducing you to my family was the proudest moment of my life and we’re gonna be the best parents ever and god i love you more than anything i would Die for you.”

…

i…

damn…

“...i think writing a best selling book is probably more worthy of pride than boring old me.”

“books are like a ten man job thing. you and me and honey are a two person job thing and i’m so proud of us, so proud of you :(”

he draws you in with a really soft kiss and its so. soft. and nice.

yep his dick is right up against honey right now

honey, sweetie, im so sorry oh god close your eyes baby close ur eyes

…

“we should get out soon bc this water is looking really ugly.”

“yeah i agree let’s get out”

30 weeks :3

<Y/N has created a new chat!>

from haseul: eye

from y/n: baby shower. 2 weeks time. my house. bring gifts or food

from y/n: preferably mustard sandwiches or sardines :)

from guk: thats fucking NASTY nobody bring that

from hoseok: last week she wanted meatballs and milk………….

from guk: do pregnant women deserve rights? be honest

from y/n: well looks like guk is no longer invited :)

from guk: NO PLS

from seunghee: YEAH BOIIIIII I HAVE SO MANY GIFTS

from yoongi: why did y/n just privately message me asking for blended sardines Hell nah pregnant women dont deserve rights

from y/n: WHY ARE YOU SO MEAN RN :(

from hoseok: so! bring cakes !!!!!!

from namjoon: i have the best gift ever Not To Brag

from jimin: hi professor min how do you like the weather today

<y/n has removed jimin from the chat>

from y/n: can you let taehyung know the date? i dont have his number but he gave really warm hugs when i last saw him and i want another one

from y/n: tell him to bring his girlfriend too she looks like she’ll bring me a good gift

from hoseok: omg im dating a gold digger….

32 weeks !!!!!!!

“baby showers are technically just a way for the mom to get gifts. this is technically baby exploitation-”

“oh my god jeongguk if you don’t shut up im gonna shove this stick of celery up ur ass”

not that you’re ready to admit it to anybody

but yeah you organised a baby shower just to get gifts

it’s really only small

in comparison to your gender reveal party which was quite large

and even though a lot of expecting moms like having “women only” baby showers

you realise that you really want hoseok to be there

he’s been as important in the process as you have and you wouldn’t want him to feel left out

so this baby shower is open to everybody

again it’s only small: attendees are hoseok, yoongi, namjoon, seokjin, flat 18, hoseok’s mom and sister, your sister and mom, taehyung and his gf and professor choi because she was so excited

that seems quite large but in comparison to the gender reveal party this is really quite small and humble

“i can’t believe it’s almost been 8 months already,” haseul says, already starting on the cupcakes

jimin has started baking things more frequently to keep himself busy during exam season

“mhm!!! not long now!!!”

thankfully hoseok’s mom and sister get on really well together with your family and professor choi is like boring yoongi to death talking about something art related

namjoon and seokjin are taking a look at the finished nursery because hoseok’s really proud of how it turned out

it’s time to open gifts uwu!!!

most of the gifts are for honey

thankfully everybody stuck to the cream theme and there’s a lot of cute cream things for honey to wear and use when he’s born

seunghee keeps buying monkey related things for honey meanwhile haseul is hung up on bees

namjoon buys a lot of bear things

you just hope that honey doesn’t grow up as a furry

jimin and jeongguk are the friends who buy those cringey weirdly inappropriate baby shirts that have quotes like, “daddy’s fastest swimmer!” or like onesies that say “my favourite food is titty!”

you sit there like what the FUCK is this

and jeongguk is like “it’s a shirt !!! honey will look so cute in it!!”

“hONEY IS NOT WEARING A SHIRT THAT SAYS THAT WHAT KIND OF MOM DO YOU THINK I AM??”

yoongi is weirdly fashionable with his baby clothes

like he has a thing for those teddy coats and he bought like eight in different colours

“honey might like red, you don’t know yet.”

namjoon and seokjin together :( give the cutest gift :(

“oK so most professors end up writing books and stuff-” side eye at hoseok - “and so i just thought that, well, honey is gonna wanna grow up reading and stuff so i made this book!!! well, we made this book. everyone helped somehow and jeongguk drew the pictures and it’s just a little something for honey to grow up with reading”

you wanna cry

hoseok wants to cry

haseul cries

it’s not even for her but she cries

“its JUST REALLY THOUGHTFUL OKAY?”

you think it ends there with everybody giving gifts

but oh no

no

hoseok has a gift??????????????

“this gift is for mommy” he says with a bright smile and out the corner of your eye yoongi is squirming with a smirk

...what does he know that you don’t….

your sister is also smiling……

where’s ashton kutcher…….

you unwrap this little box and open it and

wow

OOOOOOOOOF

you’re so still staring at this really gorgeously simple ring that you don’t even notice hoseok getting down on one knee

HASEUL IS REALLY CRYING RN

“with honey close on the way, i figured i ought to ask before things get crazy.”

omg you brave looking at him and hes got that look again

THE FOND LOOK

AND YOUR EYES START FILLING UP

“y/n l/n i love you and i wanna spend the rest of my life with you :’) will you marry me?”

there is not a dry eye amongst flat 18 right now

haseul actually has to go outside because omg she’s so happy for you

seunghee teared up a little bit and jimin cried but then started laughing

jeongguk is being so dramatic about it

he’s crying as if his pet dog just died

“i...cant believe….my girl is all grown up….i cant...breathe rn omg…..can someone get me a drink?”

35 weeks :o

finals are here

but since jeongguk and haseul are art (sort of) majors their finals were earlier than other subjects

and so you decide to brave life and visit flat 18 :’)

you see a bunch of people on the way there because apparently a lot of people live off campus and walk at the same time as you

like why is everybody here rn

at this point you get a few more stares because

omg is that y/n l/n she’s HUGE!!!!!

you’re genuinely past caring at this point

you’re huge and your pregnant and you’re confident

jeongguk and haseul are the only ones at flat 18 when you arrive

it feels weird being back but it’s nice because flat 18 was once your home

your room hasn’t really changed much and you discover that . sometimes taehyung stops round and crashes in YOUR ROOM???

and if it’s not taehyung then it can be any one of their friends they invite around

which you’re only slightly hurt about

“jesus CHRIST you’re massive!!!”

“thanks jeongguk that makes me feel soOoooO good about myself <3”

“NO, fuck,” and he pauses because there’s a No Swearing Policy around honey since it’s not apparent that since he can hear everything he can probably hear jeongguk swearing too. “i just meant that! wow honey got really big :D not long now!! five more weeks until due date!!!”

haseul plops down on the other side of you

“i can’t wait until he’s here,” she says. “little honey is already the size of a pineapple- which is really crazy to think about!!”

it’s nice to spend some time with your friends after like weeks of being with hoseok

and don’t get me wrong you LOVE hoseok with like every single cell inside your body

but it’s nice to have some You time

and You time has always involved flat 18 like they’re drugs and you’re the addict you genuinely can’t be away from them because it starts to hit you hard :-(

haseul is like halfway through telling you something when you Feel it

and it feels Disgusting

you freeze and look down at your stomach

and you watch as honey makes a grand appearance

honey sort of “rolls over” and for a moment everyone is like >:O as honey’s whole body is visible moving across your stomach and it’s literally like there’s an ALIEN inside of you

“OMG OMGOGG that was so beautiful!!! honey, do it again for me, we have to film this for your dada!!” haseul runs to get her phone

meanwhile guk is looking at your stomach like “WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT”

“i dont know but it felt weird”

“IT LOOKED LIKE YOUR STOMACH WAS GONNA EXPLODE”

you bet that honey is like giggling inside

honey: 1 jeongguk: 0

39 weeks…

at 39 weeks, with the due date so close by, you start to feel like something is really wrong

you did some research and while contractions were normal, this pain doesn’t really feel like contractions?

“baby please talk to me, i need to know what hurts so i can call the hospital and let them know.”

hoseok has never ever had to take a call in lecture before but this time he had to

he is so frantic that he set the lecture to a task and really quietly answered the phone at the front of the class

nobody is stupid and they’re all aware that hoseok and yourself are having a baby and so they really don’t mind that their lecture is being paused by you crying on the phone

“i-i-i don’t know...my body hurts and i can feel h-honey moving but he feels stuck or something...hoseok s-something is wrong i think i need to go to the hospital right now”

hoseok goes into full blown panicked dad mode

seunghee is sitting at the front of the lecture like, “hose-i mean, professor jung, do you need me to go and get another professor?”

he doesn’t reply, obviously distressed, and so she ends up waking up yoongi from a nap saying that she thinks maybe you’re going into early labour???

yoongi lets the head of the department know that hoseok has go to like right now and he enters the lecture hall like, “hoseok you need to go and see if she’s okay, don’t worry, i’ll try and go through the rest of the slides, just go, everything is fine”

and so hoseok BOLTS out of the lecture hall

forgets to set homework

and runs across campus to the car-park whilst still on the phone

(yoongi lets the class go because he really doesn’t know SHIT about Behaviour and Physiology of Organisms)

when hoseok and yourself end up at the hospital you realise that it’s not labour like seunghee thinks but things are equally as worrying

honey is currently in the breech position

“most babies are supposed to have moved at around 36-37 weeks, so it is alarming that your baby is still in breech, miss l/n,” the nurse is particularly sympathetic as she lets you and hoseok know

you’re totally lost but hoseok is holding your hand so tight and is so so worried

it’s not really the end of the world that honey is feet first but it’s problematic and means that labour is gonna be a bit more difficult

“well what does this mean? is he okay?”

“your baby is fine, it’s his position that is concerning. it will be more difficult to birth the baby because of his position in the womb- what is more concerning is that we were aware of this at your last scan. last time we saw you, miss l/n, your baby was in the footling breech position. of course, it was possible that he might shift during the time away, but he is now in the flexed breech.”

“w-well….what does that mean? is he gonna be okay?”

“when you are in labour, we will have two options; we can either go through with a vaginal breech birth, or a caesarean birth, depending on how willing he is to come out.”

when hoseok squeezes your hand you just. cry a little bit

“i dont wanna hurt him omg i dont want to have a c section either wtf i thought i’d just have to push him out oh no”

hoseok is feeling awful :( because what is he supposed to do :(

“so what should we do?” he asks really timidly

the nurse frowns and cleans up her things, “i would only suggest going home and staying at home until due date. it really is not recommended that we induce labour naturally but you need to be very careful. your son is not willing to turn on his own or with our help, so we will see what the situation is like during your very early stages of labour and we can discuss what method we go through with. are we leaning more towards a vaginal birth, miss l/n?”

you’re all snotty and sniffly but you nod. “please :( i really don’t wanna be cut open i saw what bella had to go through and im not doing that”

hoseok scoffs “twilight is not a reliable pregnancy source, baby.”

“i do believe that bella had no real pregnancy equipment and that her vampire husband had to cut the baby out of her without any sort of painkillers. in a worse case scenario, you do have to go through with a caesarean birth, you will be safe and we will do our best to relieve the pain for you.”

well that’s reassuring

when you two get home after a long day of panicking you’re incredibly alarmed to find that flat 18, hoseok’s close friends and your sister are all at your house like ??????? what are YOU DOING HERE

it’s like the spiderman meme

“what am i doing here??? i LIVE HERE??? what are YOU DOING HERE????”

“seunghee and yoongi said you were in labour???”

“well im not!!??? why would you think i was in labour?”

seunghee gets really defensive “UM hoseok was like on the verge of a mental breakdown at the front of the classroom and so it made sense that you were in labour?? im sorry???? at least we’re all here???”

you end up having to explain to a whole bunch of people that you’re NOT about to birth a pumpkin sized baby yet

but it’s really hard telling them that honey is like the wrong way :(

surprisingly it’s jimin and the married kims who are most worried about it

jimin just thinks that this means honey is like in real bad danger and he’s like omg :( my son from another mum :( wtf is honey okay?

and the married kims are never going to go through birth like this and so they do feel really alarmed

after hoseok reassures them that everything is (hopefully) okay everyone is sitting there like

:) ok what now

“....shall we order chinese food?” guk suggests

and so you all end up piled in the living room in weird positions watching hell’s kitchen whilst eating chinese food because :) might as well :)

40 WEEKS

your due date is like 4 days away

and you’ve been lying awake with really bad contractions for like 2 hours

but you’re so indignant like you refuse to believe you could be going into labour

hoseok is awake too and omg he’s doing his best

like he just doesn’t know how to help besides hugging you

and he does hug you like so closely and his hands running up and down your side and he’s like humming in your ear to try and take your mind off it

“i feel like im gonna fucking SHIT myself wtf”

he cant help but laugh sometimes, “wanna try for the toilet, baby?”

and you’re like “yeah im not really in the mood for like POOPINg in our bed is that okay?”

he’s already up and getting ready to help you walk across the room

lately you’ve been really wobbly whilst walking and in a lot of pain so he does whatever he can to help

he’s at the bottom of the bed and you’ve just stood up

….

huh

“i think i just peed myself?”

“what? why?”

“i didnt mean to!!!”

and you glance down

and wow thats a lot of pee

…

OH

“OH MY FUCKING GOD MY WATER JUST BROKE”

and oh my god hoseok has NEVER MOVED SO FAST IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE

he rushes to get all his things and honestly your stuff has been in the living room for the past week just in case

all you need now is to spend at least fifteen minutes trying to decide which book to take because obviously you’re gonna have loooaaaads of time to read

“Y/N YOU DONT NEED THE BOOK COME ON HONEY IS COMING WE HAVE TO GOOOOO”

what makes hoseok more panicked is the fact that yOU’re panicked

“omg y/n please calm down i’m driving as fast as i can please please please omg”

“I CANT WHY IS HE COMING NOW HE’S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE YET”

hoseok crosses like 2 red lights and he’s freaking out double

“I JUST BROKE THE LAW”

“OKAY AND IM HAVING A FUCKING BABY SO KEEP DRIVING MISTER!!!”

you’re an angry birther

as he drives you decide to call jeongguk through the car because #technology

he answers like immediately

“hi babe whats up”

“JEONGGUK IM HAVING A BABY RIGHT NOW PLEASE COME TO THE HOSPITAL”

“what wha-WHAT OH MY FUCKING GOD HE’S COMING??”

“YES PLEASE TELL EVERYBODY- oh fuck hobi it hurtSSSS i wanna go home im not pushing him out yet-”

in the background guk has dropped his phone and is literally screaming around the house

in the back you can hear all of the flat screaming together because HONEY IS COMING

nobody is calm

when yoongi finds out he literally does not know what to do

when you hang up mid sentence he sits staring at the wall like “....omg”

quite literally everybody is a little stressed out when you’re at the hospital

your room is really nice and you’re like “oh wow hoseok you really spoiled me here, too bad i can’t enjoy it because im pushing out a WATERMELON”

obviously because honey is bum first instead of head first things are a little complicated

you’re actually really far in labour already like your mom said it took her like 5 hours to have your sister but turns out it’s been like 32 minutes exactly since your waters broke at home and the nurses seem to think you’re ready now

“NOW??? AS IN RIGHT NOW!!!”

“yep!! let’s bring your son into the world!!”

you discover by simply listening to the nurses that you’re going to be attempting an assisted breech vaginal birth and immediately you get panicked and flustered

you promised haseul and seunghee that they could be there during the birth :(

you had offered it to guk at first but he was like “i am nOT ready to see your vagina i’m sorry” and jimin said he wasn’t sure if he was up for seeing you in a lot of pain during the birth

and yoongi didn’t really want to be there for it because he’s a bit like both guk and jimin

hoseok didn’t mind at all that seunghee and haseul were asked to be there

in fact he was really encouraging of that fact

because both of them were there since the start

like

they watched u pee on those pregnancy tests

so you’re getting really anxious because what if honey comes before they’re here

“miss l/n i need you to breathe for me- please control your breathing! are miss l/n’s scheduled guests here?”

“...they’re in the lobby right now. they’re on their way, miss l/n. keep doing those breathing exercises- yes, there we go!”

hoseok is being nothing but supportive

he’s wiping down your head and holding your hand so tight

“you’re doing amazing, baby, you’re so so brave, i love you”

FINALLY haseul and seunghee bust through the doors

guk, jimin and yoongi are currently like milling around somewhere and your parents and hoseok’s parents have been told the news by guk and yoongi

you’re really fucking scared to have this baby

you did the stupid thing of googling what happens during a breech birth and it made you have a full blown panic attack after reading that honey could die during delivery

now that everything is ready for birth you’re really so scared that honey might not make it

before the midwives prop up your legs on the stirrups you take a good amount of gas an air

an epidural was suggested but hoseok knows that it’s not going to make that much of a difference for honey

and you just want to get him out of you quite honestly Nobody has time for an epidural like just get him out

hoseok feels AWFUL when you’re literally screaming in agony over honey

seunghee and haseul are being so encouraging but all hoseok can do is like stare with tears in his eyes because oh no WHAT HAS HE DONE

the midwives encourage you also with a hands off approach until honey’s bum and bottom half is out

their so vocal and warm like “you’re doing amazing, y/n, just keep pushing!! i can see his feet!!!”

and so you just go for it

you’re mentally praying you don’t like pass out from pushing too hard or worse, shit all over the bed because apparently THAT’S A THING

you’re too busy crying to notice that the midwives look really shocked when honey’s bottom half is out

hoseok gets curious and decides to make sure honey is okay

and he looks and is like “oh WHAT THE FUCK?”

only he doesn’t actually say that

actually he doesn’t say anything

“keep pushing, y/n, h-he’s almost out.”

why are they so hesitant

oh god it hurts so bad

you want to die

you don’t want to have a baby anymore

and then finally

RELEASE

you feel like you can’t breathe but oh my god

the sound of honey SCREAMING is like music to your ears because

HE’S OKAY

but why is everyone acting so WEIRD

you peer up over your legs and take a glance at honey like squirming in the midwives hands

and

oh

Oh WHAT THE FU-

“oh my god his penis fell off!!!!!!!”

honey is a GIRL???????????

HOW DID THIS EVEN HAPPEN???????

you don’t really care that it’s not a boy but like. YOU THOUGHT SHE WAS A BOY

regardless the midwives do their thing and hoseok is back next to you like :O

“you did so well i’m so proud of you i love you so much- you did it! you did it you’re okay honey is okay!”

“honey is a GIRL?”

haseul is torn between being sad and happy because she wanted it to be a girl she kNEW FROM THE START THAT HONEY WAS DESTINED TO BE A GIRL

it turns out that the sonographer was never 100% on it being a boy and all this time the “penis” was probably just a toe or something or a glitch

because honey is definitely a little girl

a precious beautiful little baby girl

hoseok’s baby girl

he totally cries

no

he WEEPS

there are no dry eyes in the birthing room rn

honey is so gorgeous

she definitely has hoseok’s features like she has his eyes and his nose and his ears :(

the midwives let mommy hold honey for a little while

“skin to skin is very important!!! she’s not a little boy like expected, but she’s a perfectly healthy baby!”

if she wasn’t covered in disgusting gloop you would have kissed her all over

but as a mother that instinct is there

you kiss her forehead and her hands and you’re looking up at hoseok like what the fuck we mADE THIS PRECIOUS LITTLE HUMAN

hoseok is crying as if he just had to endure twenty five minutes of agony and had his vagina ripped open

he’s just so happy right now

thats his kid

HIS

THATS HIS BABY GIRL

HIS TWO BABY GIRLS!!!!!

his emotions have been a big fat rollercoaster like it went from panic when your water broke to major panic when seunghee and haseul hadn’t arrived and then horror when you were like screaming in agony and then shock when he thought that honey’s penis has fallen off during BIRTH because NOBODY EXPECTED HONEY TO PULL THE BIGGEST PLOT TWIST OF THE YEAR

now he’s like over the moon he’s so so so so happy

the nurses help get the placenta out but honestly you’re just numbed like you barely register it shooting out

“okay daddy, wanna cut the cord?”

he’s like “no i really dont it looks like a big weird worm”

he still does it anyway

it’s a weirdly fulfilling experience

when it’s time to clean up little honey, you finally break the news to everyone outside

they’re in a mild state of utter confusion

guk is like “well what happened? did it like. grow inside? where did it go?”

and jimin’s like “oh. so it was just a toe or something”

guk is really a little bit disappointed because he wanted a boy so badly but !!! a baby girl !!! a niece!!!!!

(he figures honey will like dinosaurs and naruto all the same as what boy honey would have)

hoseok has made the bed his bed also

he’s snuggled next to you and you have honey on your chest and she’s sleeping so soundly :’)

“have you guys picked a name?”

guk is halfway through eating the fruit salad that haseul made before leaving to get here on time (“you were late because you were making A FRUIT BOWL?” “IM SORRY I WAS HALFWAY THROUGH MAKING IT AND I COULDN’T JUST LEAVE IT”)

you and hoseok hadn’t thought much about it to be honest

although you had talked about it a few weeks earlier

(“i like the name jiyun for a boy” hoseok had said one evening. the two of you had decided that honey should have a korean name like their daddy and you were a-okay with it!! for the sake of your family you were willing to give him or her an english name that you were still undecided on.

you tested out the name. “jiyun. jung jiyun. omg it sounds really cute! what does it mean!!”

“hmm it can mean many things usually, but its usually meaning happiness and posterity, soft sleekness.”

“oh, so it’s one of THOSE names where it has like three meanings.”

“yeah :D”

you laugh. “okay, and how about a girl?”

“how come I’M the one making the decisions???”

“i’m saying yes or no, i’m helping!!”

hoseok huffs and hugs you closer. “uhh, okay. well. me and yoongi had talked about this, and he agreed that yeojin is a cute name. jung yeojin. it means beautiful and precious.”

you...fall in love with that name

“ngl i kinda want honey to be a girl now.”

“omg just for the NAME??? thats cheap”)

you nod at guk sleepily

the room is actually sort of filled with people

because hoseok wrote a book and was on tv he’s Hashtag special

flat 18 are in the room rn because yoongi had to run to pick up namjoon and seokjin and your parents are still like. not ready or here

hoseok’s family couldn’t be here because they were vacationing in europe and their flight got cancelled

“jung yeojin!”

everyone is really satisfied with that name

“are you giving her an english name, too?” seunghee asks, sitting next to the bed with her finger tucked in yeojin’s grasp

you have this twinkle in your eye as you smile down at yeojin and then up at hoseok

“i think the name honey has quite a ring to it, don’t you think?”

hoseok can’t smile any wider holy fuck

“mhm. i couldn’t agree more.”

(seokjin and namjoon arrive later than expected, but seokjin cries as if he was there for the entire thing.)

this. took. so . long. to. upload. but. i . love /. it

+ for visuals and more info please visit here!!

[pen-whipped]

∞ Wold in an Inch ∞

                    ~for Carlton & Erica~ 

∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫

∞ Prologue ∞

Never give ‘em the last inch was scratched on the wall of the jail cell next to several pairs of initials with hearts drawn around them. A 12’ X 10’ holding tank decorated with similar slogans and signatures where people seem to have thought about only two things while they were here: holding on to one final piece of anything to control and … Love. The walls, ceiling, and floor were coated with thick grey paint where the scriptures were etched; and a metallic bench, toilet, and sink matched all the blandness. Here I realized that one of the greatest motivators of the world is Love. I thought of The Trojan War. Boudicca’s Rebellion against Rome for her daughters. Rama and Sita. Fairytales and over-stretched history, of course. I also thought about ... Nationalism—the disgusting love of country. Racism—the even more disgusting love at the expense of its hatred for others. Capitalism—the love of material goods beyond need and necessity, at the expense of others. Religion—the love for some version of god or gods and the ideals and values that uphold that version. Movements and Rebellions in the name of Love. And so of course I thought about Ernesto “Che” Guevara and how when asked by a reporter, “What inspires a revolutionist,” he responded after a pause and a grin. “Amor” (Love), he said.

I realized then that the other motivator of the world is this power structure that harnesses the actions of those motivated by Love or some extension of Love such as jealousy, desire, passion, rage. Of the two locals I was locked up with, in this small shithole Texas bo-dunk town, one hospitalized a man who slept with his wife and the other had a physical fight with his own wife. A third man loved a woman so much that he joined the carnival she was part of so as to not ever be without her, and thereby revoked his probation. And me … I was headed to a wedding from Colorado to Austin, TX, where my best friend had claimed the love of his life.

∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫

∞ Rite of Passage ∞

You forget these people exist. Even having been raised around them, with them, and by them, you just forget. I was born and raised in Texas, in their jungle like Tarzan with gorillas. And that’s actually the perfect analogy because right when the state trooper says to me, “With a Black in the White House, Queers havin’ a Christian’s marriage, and dope bein’ legalized all over God’s good country, you just cain’t be too careful these days,” what comes to mind is the evolution chart where a drawing of a man standing upright is preceded by different hunchbacked ape-like creatures. Here, barely across the border into the Texas panhandle, knuckles still drag on the ground. You spend over a decade in the land where people walk upright and you forget the knuckle draggers exist.

Karl Marx tells us that killers first make an enemy of their victims before killing them. This is how the crime is justifiable. Such sociopaths have the same characteristics of a nation that makes an enemy of another nation before destroying it. America and its fictitious WMD ploy that led to the Hussein regime’s demise. A nation ran by a Texan. “Now that’s when the country had its head on straight,” he says peeking through his rearview mirror at me behind the glass that separates the front seat from the back.

Red neck adages—they’re like poetry without everything poetic.

“A good Christian was pullin’ the reigns then,” he continues.

I wonder why they speak in parables—southern draw riddles filled with similes and metaphors. His “Christians,” sound more like “Chrust-yens.” I get it. The same way Jesus’ parables made all the rest of the world understandable for the knuckle draggers in his time, so do the redneck adages for our time. And they loves them some Jesus too. He’s everywhere.

I could take his last adage a million different directions other than the one these handcuffs connected to the yellow rope ran through them and around my waist and back up through my thighs insists that I do. He’s fucking hogtied me. I look at the cuffs and yellow rope and think how man is the cruelest of all animals, for a dog would only bite another dog, but we … we shackle and belittle, demoralize and strip identities, rape and enslave, indebt and un-educate one another to the point that we ourselves forget that others are living, breathing human-fucking-beings. But, even with this in mind, I say with a hint of delight, “And we was all better off when it was,” leaning forward to the hole in the glass divider, referring to when a good Southern Chrust-yen led the nation. Never mind that it was war, poverty, and a greater divide between the classes that he led us to.

To reverse Marx’s notion of the killer, if the victim can make the killer identify him or her as one of the killer’s own, or at the very least as a human being, then the victimization is more likely to cease or at minimum the inflictions lose harshness.

There’s a Bible in the front seat, and I’ve heard numerous Chrust-yen references and seen two crucifixes since I was pulled over: one around the narcotics officer’s neck and one dangling from this trooper’s mirror. So I continue, “Yes, sir. My uncle’s lil’ chapel in Amarillo donated all they could to support both Bushes, Junior and his daddy.” (There’s no chapel. No donations. The point is that I too am a Christian, and even greater so, I too am a Texan—though I was born in Texas, I am neither a Christian nor a Texan; he, however, should believe that I am both).

His eye brows perk up. He glances twice in the mirror before saying, “You from Texas?”

“Yes, sir. Born ‘n raised,” I pronounce with a draw that would win me an Academy nomination. “Up north they still make fun’a my accent.” He tells me he didn’t even notice the accent till now. “I hide it so much, ya know. So’s to not get made fun of up ‘er in Colorado.” … and so the game goes until I’m a human being, and then eventually I’m one of his own and he’s telling me about his family, his farm, his career, and finally I get him to admit why he stopped me. This is only an inch, but it’s something.

I’d like to thank The Academy, first; then my rhetoric teacher; followed by my redneck uncles for the southern draw and simplified grammar.

He’d been claiming I was driving over the speed limit, even though that’s anything but true. Since I don’t have a driver’s license, I kept to the limits the entire drive and planned on it all the way to my destination. Never once drove 5mph more than the limit. And so each time I’d asked how much over the limit he clocked me at, he’d just say not to worry since he’s droppin’ that charge.

“Reason I’m takin’ you in is cuz drivin’ without a DL is breakin’ the law here in Texas.”

But the reason he pulled me over … the reason two K9 Units parked on both sides of my rental car only minutes after I was pulled over … the reason the narcotics officers gave me the 3rd degree interrogation about drug trafficking … is, as he says from under his ten gallon hat, Colorado just passed a law legalizing marijuana, and well, “With a Black in the White House, Queers havin’ a Christian’s marriage … dope legalized in God’s country … you just can’t be too careful these days.”

“Now listen,” he goes on to say, “I realize I’m ‘bout as tight as bark on a tree when it comes to the law. Some may’a just gave ya a ticket and sent ya on yer way, but I believe it’s just as likely fer you to sneak back ‘cross the state line and never return to pay for yer crime. You’d just be whistlin’ Dixie up ‘er like you’d never did nothin’ wrong down here. This a’way,” he says, “You have to wait and see the judge in the mornin’. Pay yer dues and what not.”

I’m shackled like a killer who’d forgot to make an enemy of his victim first. Hogtied like a baby pig that’d escaped the pen. A one-time freed slave who’d left the North and returned South only to be caught without his emancipation papers. I’m thinking in redneck adages. I was driving without a fucking driver’s license for crying out loud!

More laws lead to more crimes lead to more criminals lead to more jobs to catch, house, and process the criminals, which lead to more revenue leading ultimately to more money circulating within the system. Criminals are filters for the process in this way, lab rats exploited for the greater good, space monkeys for the ruling knuckle draggers. Karl Marx claims that in capitalistic societies, the people are concerned more about money and commodities than they are other human beings.

Dogs, on the other hand, well … they just bite one another.

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∞ Crossing the Threshold ∞

It’s hard to believe Nietzsche’s claim that we should celebrate the rebel for reminding us of our enslavement to the system when I’m told to strip all my clothes off and lift my dick and nuts up to show that nothing’s stashed away in some secret compartment.

The first steps to make a slave of an individual are to separate them from their own kind and then strip them of their identity. Separate the rebel from his support group and give him the title criminal, thereby giving a less lustrous title and making the act of any rebellion lose any glory to others contemplating similar actions.

Ranchers hang dead wolves on fence posts for similar reasons. Other wolves are deterred from entering land when they see the carcass of what was one of their own that dared to “trespass.”

Romans left messiahs hanging on crosses to discourage other messianic aspirations.

A simple change in titles shows the power of words.

They take my cell phone and my wallet with all its contents including cash and ID card. No contact. No identity. They take my clothes, which could in many ways show identity. And as I hold my dick and nuts in my hand and he gazes long and hard at my taint, I think, I just didn’t have my mother fucking driver’s license, though I dare not utter a word.

To fight monsters is to become one, Nietzsche says.

I’m handed a green jump suit and a pair of flip-flops, and with that, a new identity. I am no longer the rebel who dared to drive to his best friend’s wedding without a driver’s license; I am now a criminal in the Republic of Texas. I’m a fucking dead wolf on a fence post. Jesus hanging next to others who did not abide by the law.

I am one step closer to the beast’s belly as they seat me next the woman who’s only job is to tag the slaves and send them to their quarters.

“98% of Colah’rahdins that we pull over have marijuana on ‘em. That’s statistically,” she says popping her gum and not taking her eyes off the computer screen for one moment.

I’m not human to her. I’m a product with a barcode that she runs across the scanner. I’m an enemy, soon to be a victim. A rebel turned criminal. I am not one of her kind.

“They come in here cryin’, talkin’ ‘bout how it’s legal up in Colah' rahda. Well it ain’t down here. Those types is ‘bout as welcome as a skunk at a lawn party.”

She’s as poetic as the trooper. Stoic.Short, round, and full of attitude. Dedicated to a system that is more unjust to those who are of no concern to it than it is unjust to those who are offensive to it. Another Nietzsche claim.

As a new challenge arises within me, I notice something in myself that I begin to notice in all human nature. I want to break this preset image she has prescribed me with, partially as a challenge of wits, but also because I want to get as much as I can from her, however little it may be. Even if … it’s just an inch. With the trooper gone and the officer who checked my taint nowhere to be found, this lady has current reign over me like a slave master.

I start the game with the presupposed idea she has of me. I can’t speak in a dialect that makes me sound ignorant and fitting to the image she has of all who come through here; and I can’t speak from the education level I have that is far above her own. I have to speak plainly. To her. Not above, nor below. All we have in common at this point is our current relationship. And that’s enough to work with.

The strategy behind me telling her, “I bet you see the worst of the worst,” is to separate myself from those who are in fact the worst of the worst. And she responds to this.

“You have no idea.”

Now, to connect more with her, I say, “Well, my cousin’s a prison guard at the federal penitentiary in Colorado; and he tells me that every four years a prison guard works, what it does psychologically to him or her is equal to what one year does to a prisoner. You’re still behind bars and surrounded by criminals in here. Man, I feel for ya’.” Now, I’ve further separated myself from the criminals she’s used to and have shown that I am more on her side of the law, even if just through a relative. I’ve also dabbled in some sort of empathy of her situation, shown understanding as to why she wears that frown and never looks a processee in the eyes.

“This job has made me never trust men again; I’ll tell ya’ that much,” she says. “Don’t get me wrong,” and for the first time she turns her head and looks me in the eyes, “I ain’t no fuckin’ carpet muncher though.”

I’m in. Ten minutes later and she’s laughing with me and barely asking the questions the computer screen tells her to: do I have this ailment or that ailment, am I suicidal or have I ever been suicidal, am I addicted to drugs or have I ever been…and so on.

“Listen,” I say during one of the most intense moments of laughter shared between us, “Can I ask a favor of you?”

Her posture shoots straight up and her frown returns. She doesn’t look me in the eyes anymore and she certainly does not laugh. She says, “I don’t know ‘bout that.”

“Calm down,” I tell her with a smile, “All I want to know is if you can prolong this processing. I ain’t gonna lie, an extra moment spent out here laughing with you is greater than any moment spent in the holding tank.”

An extra moment is an inch.

I see her body ease from its defenses. “You mean you ain’t ready to paint your butt white and go runnin’ with the antelope just yet, huh?” And she smiles.

“No, ma’am, I ain’t.”

All I’d done with the trooper was try to get anything I could from him, even if it was just the admission to why he pulled me over. With her I want as much time out of the holding tank as possible, or at the very least, same as with him, I want her to see me as a human being.

I think about life outside of here, how all we do in life is try to get a little more than we have from those who are in control of us or in control of the things we want. A nickel raise from our boss. A better position in the workforce. A higher grade from a teacher. Equity on homes. More square footage in our lofts. Return on investments. Sex from a lover. Devotion from a lover. Love, period. All we want is to get a little more of the control that controls us. And then Nietzsche comes to mind:

This world is a will to power, he says, and nothing besides.

A new rebel comes in and this lady has me stand in a corner while she processes him. She does this twice more before I realize she’s stalling for me. Rather than process me and have them wait their turns, she goes through them first; thus allowing my processing to be prolonged. I am now a human being.

After the third rebel passes through and into his new criminal identity, she finishes my questions, finger prints, and mug shots; and then says, “That was the best I can do. It’s time.”

I thank her. Tell her it’s more than enough.

“Now, walk down that hall to the laundry room," she motions the direction with her hand, "And then we’ll get ya’ in that tank”

She follows me. Doors buzz open as we arrive at them. In the laundry room she tells me to grab a mat, a sheet, and a blanket, all of which are stacked neatly on different shelves next to industrial size washers and dryers. “If you want two blankets, I can do that for you too; but you’re gonna have to deal with the others bein’ jealous.”

“Gladly,” I say.

“Then unroll ‘em and roll ‘em back up together so it looks like a mistake was made.”

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∞Belly of the Beast∞

“It’s gonna be about 12 hours before the judge is in,” she says as the door shuts behind me. The three rebels from earlier are sprawled out on the floor. Same jump suit as me. Same blankets. Same matts. Same flip-flops next to the matts. We are one and the same.

The messiah on his cross did not stand out from the murderer or the thief on theirs.

One lifts his head up and slides his pallet over to make room for me. “Don’t shit unless you absolutely have to,” he says looking at the silver toilet fully exposed in the corner. As he rolls over and back to sleep, he continues, “Even dogs don’t shit where they lay.” The others never move. I make my bed, careful not to reveal that I have two blankets.

I lie in utter silence.

I think first about Martin Luther King, JR and his Letter from Birmingham Jail, where he too was arrested for being, as his jailers claimed, an unwelcomed outsider in their state. Though I dare not think my circumstances are remotely comparable to his and his time in the Alabama jail, I am reminded of him saying in his letter, Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

And though I was not racially profiled, I was indeed profiled. With a Black in the White House, Queers getting married, and dope legalized all over, a change is slowly coming—a change that threatens the way of life where these types of comments are made. To a far smaller degree, my green and white Colorado license plates are Martin’s black skin. And, with everything stripped from me, I lie here experiencing what Martin called, nobodyness.

This cold, horizontal floor is the belly in the beast of order. All laws, all virtues, all values—all of which are based on perspective, are the means to make order from the seemingly chaotic. And this is the bottom of that order. The exploited who arrive here, or any floor like this one anywhere, are merely, as Nietzsche claims of all exploitations, consequences of the will to power, which is after all the will to life.

I’ve become the consequence of a way of life fighting to sustain itself. I represent the other life that strives to grow, spread, seize, and become predominant - not from any morality or immorality but because it is living and because life simply is… again and again I claim with Nietzsche and experience it now more than ever … a will to power.

I'm sorry that I can't praise the police department. It is true that they have been disciplined in their public handlings, but for what purpose? To preserve an evil system. I try to make it clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or even more, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. So said Martin Luther King JR in that letter he wrote from jail.

I imagine the letter I’ll write, and think that it has to be dedicated to my best friend and his new bride. Like the little drummer kid in the manger banging bongos next to bay Jesus’ crib, this letter is all I have to give. And in it I’ll mention how I thought mostly of Marx, Nietzsche, King JR, Lacan, and Campbell. It will only be a matter of time, I think, and I’ll be out of here and writing my own Letter from a Texas Jail.

That very matter of time stretches beyond all previously known flexibilities for time. No prior concept of it exists in here. I clear my thoughts of King JR when one of my fellow mates awakens and asks a passing guard for Tylenol. And when the guard returns with a bottle of pills and a sign-off sheet, he asks the guard what the time is. I’d been to Birmingham and visited the King in his cell after I watched him protest with non-violent means he’d learned from Gandhi, saw him arrested by bigots with faces as stoic and prescribed with presupposed ideals of particular people as that of the lady who’d processed each of us in this cell, I sat next to King JR while each pen stroke gave birth to one of the most widely anthologized letters of our time, and when the guard looks at his watch and says, “a quarter to midnight,” I am in utter disbelief.

You can fit days inside the minutes of a jail cell, so I learn. Centuries in its hours.

The other two wake and ask for Tylenol too, admitting quietly amongst ourselves that they don’t need it. “You might as well take what you can get around here,” one says. And it’s at this moment that we all introduce ourselves for the first time and then tell our tales of capture. After this the conversation goes directly to, and never leaves the topic of, pussy. The variations of pussy from looks to feel, from hair lengths to shaved, from menstruating bloody to (what each of them agrees is the best of all pussies:) pregnant pussy. “I wouldn’t know, honestly, never have had that kind,” I say.

But what I really want to say is …

I want to tell the guy who beat his wife’s lover to a pulp about how Jacques Lacan took one of Sigmund Freud’s studies a layer deeper than Freud himself did. Freud demonstrates that at times children will not want to play with a toy, nor will they care at all about a particular toy, until another child wants to play with it. Lacan studied infant twins who could neither speak nor barely move more than their arms and heads, but would easily and obviously be overcome with a fit of jealous rage when the other sibling would suckle from the mother’s breast. I imagine this guy probably not wanting much to do with his wife until someone else did. He threw a fit like an infinite. Something intrinsic in us seems to want to control everything, even if it is only the desire of the other. A child would rather destroy a toy it cared nothing about than to see another child enjoy that very same toy. It’s about control, holding on to every inch within reach.

I want to ask the other cell mate why he beat his wife. He never tells why they fought, but I'm certain it can be connected to Freud’s idea of the Ego being projected from within us and into our outwardly real world surroundings, creating all things we fear and hate, as well as all things we desire and love. This means all things externally felt and imagined are more than directly related to our inner selves; they are, more particularly, our inner selves externalized. Buddhists have a similar belief that all enemies are only such because we have made them so. No one is our enemy whom we have not made be; and furthermore who our enemy is says more about us than them. These ideas combined mean that all things are manifestations of the Ego. We set all challenges and obstacles in our own way. And so I wonder about this other cell mate of mine; what could he have projected from within himself onto the woman that birthed his children; what fear or hatred brewed inside himself so much that he beat the shit out of her as if she was the embodiment of that abstraction from within himself. I wonder…

I want to discuss the carnival love. This guy loved a woman and didn’t want to be without her, but he’s been cycled and recycled in the system since he was a teenager, and so he had to rebel against an order to be with her. He committed a crime as a child and has been paying for it since through a series of revocations and so on. He’s one of the oldest in our cell but he has a childlike quality to him, an innocence that none of us possess, as if this system has kept him in the state he was in when he committed his crime. I think about Nietzsche saying that at one time in history, people who wronged others in their social group were punished with a severity that equaled the crime; and after that punishment, not only did they not repeat the offenses, but they also were considered to have paid their debt for the offense. Nietzsche claimed in the late 19th century (and I would claim is even more the case in our 21st century) that nowadays people pay for a crime for the remainder of their lives, whether it be through the inability to acquire decent work based on criminal records or it be the continuous revocation of the same crime committed decades prior. The overall goal for the endless un-reconciliation is one similar to medical industries not wanting to find a cure for ailments. People dependent upon and stuck within the system become filters for the process of monetary circulation and are best kept as such, as lab rats for the greater good, as space monkeys for the knuckle dragggers.

I’m thinking these things, though I dare not utter a word of them. Instead, I join in with the dogs and bark about the variations of bitches and pussies as I know them. I would separate myself from the pack if I were to provide my insight to anything other.

It’s here I realize we’re all in this cell due to some relation to love, even if by some extension of it: jealousy, passion, and so forth. I represent the beginning stages: a wedding. The carny represents the next: giving up the self for love and fulfilling the desire of the other. The guy who beat his wife is some stage nearer the end, either right before or directly after she cheats on him. And thus the final stage, the guy beats the wife’s new lover to a pulp. And the cycle is complete in a way that makes an enemy of Love and thereby justifies the system that controls it.

I wonder if it all is really, rather than being about love … is all this … is life and the control of it all really about … I mean … could it be that as the dogs in this kennel discuss nothing more than … could all of life, directly or indirectly, really be about pussy? This is, of course, from a man’s perspective; we could say “cock” for a woman’s, or perhaps some ambiguous sexual connotation to encompass both genders (Freud and Lacan would say both genders are phallic, for even the lack of something is the representation of that something that is missing). 

I wonder ... Is love really our own childlike want to control a vagina like a toy? Do we ever leave the Oedipus and Electra Complex stages, where the moment a child first recognizes their own sexual identity, the very next step is to focus libidinal energy on the parent of the opposite sex? Then, all extensions and versions of jealousy and rage focus on the parent of the same sex. Is the guy who hospitalized his wife’s lover not the unrepressed Oedipus Complex, since his desire to possess and control the sexuality opposite his own and destroy the one that is the same as his and therefore the rival to him actually plays out, as if it escaped its subconscious repression? And he, like most of us, dared not think about sharing that vagina, as if it were his little toy that he could not stand the thought of someone else getting pleasure from. He demonstrates how we will throw tantrums that destroy others if they play with or attempt to play with things we claim as our own. We are nothing more than infant twins, each on opposite tits, sucking away and making an enemy of our own brother for indulging as we do. We will beat him to a pulp. Hospitalize or imprison him. Make a repeat offender of him to trap him within the system that supports this behavior because this justifies its existence. Even if it is all over a toy we care nothing about.

The law shapes man into its image, Lacan says, exploiting the poetic function of language to give man’s desires symbolic mediation.

I often think that we are no different from salmon, spending our whole lives trying to get back to the place we came from. We swim up streams of vaginas every chance we get until we die, and sometimes we die by them or because of them. Salmon spawning in the one place it was spawned from. I say vagina, or I say pussy, but really I understand that this is connected to reproduction. This is connected to survival of the species. We humans are a living, breathing organism that strives to grow, spread, seize, and dominate every inch of our immediate surroundings (for us as individuals) until this inch grows into all space (for us as whole organized units).

Everything we do is connected to the womb—that which we crawl out of like Jesus rolling the stone back for resurrection. To die and be born again in the same place, we have to protect the womb. We have to keep it sacred and cleanly, preserve its virgin-like and godly qualities. We have to claim it as our friend, our soul mate, our companion, our wife, the mother of our children. In other words, we build walls of illusion around it like fences around territory. And then we hang dead carcasses on posts to deter other dogs. We have to claim the womb by some way that designates us as the sole owner; meaning, we control it and only we can touch it; only we can play with it; no one else can stick their cocks in it but us; and no one but us gets pleasure from the one we claim as our own. Otherwise … we will destroy it—a Pagan temple where queues of beasts await in provocation. The goddess becomes a fallen statue in her own bed of ash, dripping, oozing, disease infested, and speaking the language of heathens from some dead religion. Decrepit and useless. There will be no rebirth otherwise.

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∞Road to Trial∞

Just before the twelfth hour in the tank, when conversation was dead and sleep was impossible, I lie awake reading all the markings on the walls and floor. Hieroglyphics of the slaves. None betraying the pattern of either keeping control of something or always loving someone. I wonder by what means were they able to leave these marks, but then I see the broken pieces of concrete rock lying loosely about the floor. As an unfamiliar feeling sets in, something beyond boredom and close to devastation, I understand how scratching philosophy into the layers of paint would help ease this approaching panic. A small purpose would be given in this way, a tiny goal, something that lets us and others know we were here, alive, and real; and something that (once again) becomes our own.

I grab a rock and underneath the slogan Never give ‘em the last inch, I start my own contribution, slowly inscribing: and take

The guy who beat his wife, he jumps up as if he’d woke from a nightmare. Sweating and breathing hysterically. He pushes a button on the wall and a woman’s voice comes through a small speaker demanding to know what his emergency is. He can’t speak. He’s hyperventilating. Me being close to panic already, I feel his instability spreading to me. Like some air born pathogen. And from the looks on the faces of the others as they begin to watch, it’s spreading to them as well.

A loud buzzer. The door opens. A guard takes him out of the cell and as he does he says, “Holy shit, this tank’s stuffy’er ‘na horses face eatin’ corncobs.”

The window is completely fogged over, as if we’ve been recycling each other’s breaths for centuries now. The guard stands next to the open door allowing new and cold air to come in. I sit upright, lay a blanket across my lap, wrap another around my shoulders, close my eyes, breath deeply and slowly, and attempt the first meditation of my life. I don’t know what meditating actually is or even what it consists of, nor do I know how to actually do it. But I attempt it anyway, attempting it as I’ve heard of it being done. I eventually calm myself through the process and end up in some place other than where I am.

I journey through Joseph Campbell’s theory of monomyth. Thinking back to Colorado when I, the hero, was called to action as Campbell says is the first step of all heroes ranging from Greek and Roman mythological heroes to Buddha and Jesus. I see the mountains—snowcapped and towering in their implications of a land where it’s okay for Blacks, Queers, and drug users to be human beings. According to Campbell’s theory, after the hero begins his journey, he will first cross a threshold where some foreign creature will take him further into the land of the unknown, or as Campbell says, the entrance to the zone of magnified power … where darkness and danger reside … a passage beyond the veil of the known into the unknown. The threshold guardian takes the hero closer to if not directly into The Belly of the Whale, according to Campbell. Jonah comes to mind, of course. But also, Dionysus and Hestia. Jason and Medea. Odysseus and the Odyssey. Jesus and the Romans. Me and the knuckle draggers. The hero enters the belly of the whale where the metamorphosis begins. Once inside he may be said to have died, only to return to the World Womb anew.

“Where’d you get two blankets from?” the guard asks me, and my eyes snap open and I’m brought back into my cell. I shrug my shoulders, act clueless, and say they were wrapped this way. “Supposed to only have one,” he says and turns around. And with that our cell mate returns, pale but calmed. He apologizes and goes right to his mat and blanket. Everyone rolls their backs to one another; and still seated upright, I close my eyes to the heavy noise of the door shutting.

Campbell says the hero, upon exiting the whale’s belly, is no longer who or what he was when he entered it, and he is then ready for a series of trials and tests from some awaiting female character—either a goddess or a temptress of some sorts—who has the ability to lead the hero astray or to encourage him to continue his journey. After her, the hero meets a male father figure for atonement consisting in the abandonment of the self-generated double monster—the superego and repressed Id. This requires an abandonment of the attachment to ego itself … and one must have faith that the father is merciful. This center of belief will be transferred outside of the self.

After a few moments of being lost in the silence, I wake. I grab my piece of the floor, the small chiseled concrete rock, and I continue my contribution to the slogan. As quiet as I can, next to my two words—and take, I press the rock into the paint and drag it into figures forming the words: back every inch from ‘em you can.

With a small purpose, there is no panic. Time is irrelevant. I take careful pride in my lettering and refurbishing the part of the slogan not created by me. I add a comma after the other rebel’s part of the slogan and a period after my own, uniting them as one and the same and ending them together as such. I brush the remnants clear and blow heavily across the phrase that now reads:

Never give ‘em the last inch, and take back every inch from ‘em you can.

I read it and wonder if others will understand it, or if it will be hidden by all the other slogans like the messiah surrounded by murders and thieves. I wonder if others will add to it. I think in years it will turn into a poem—stanzas by those of us who know what it means to own nothing except that final fucking inch. In decades it will become a new decree … maybe. But really I know it will be lost and forgotten once it’s covered with a new shade of grey paint as thick and dense as the power structure that willed it to be. Winds turn sands and hide footprints this same way.

Centuries pass and then the door buzzes and the guard says, “Westerholt. The judge will see you now.”

I throw one blanket to the carny and one to the guy that beat his wife’s lover. The guy who beat his wife, he says to me, “Hey man. Larry’s the impound guy; I know him. He ain’t gonna give you your car without a license. He’s gonna bleed you for every cent he can.”

“Thanks for the heads-up,” I say. And the door shuts behind me.

A new lady sits where the first did, but they are one and the same, like Romans to a messiah.  She hands me my clothes and directs me toward the same room where I showed my dick to the officer earlier. It’s almost 10am. Within ten minutes I dress, and then I’m given my wallet and cell phone back. And with that, my own identity.

“Directly across the street's the courthouse.  Judge’s chambers is down the hall, last door on the left. She’s waitin' for ya’.”

When all the barriers and ogres have been overcome … the triumphant hero meets the Queen Goddess of the World. This is the crisis at the nadir, the zenith, or at the uttermost edge of the earth, in the tabernacle of the temple …  The meeting with the goddess is the final test of the talent of the hero to win the advantage of her charity …  And if she shuns him, the scales fall from her eyes; if she does not, her desire helps him find peace. So says Joseph in his Hero of a Thousand Faces.

Outside the sun is warm and bright and opposite everything from where I just came. I breathe and taste the air like a newborn resurrected from the womb. Squinting and yawning and stretching. Each vehicle that passes is a truck of some kind: dualies, F150s, and old farm pickup trucks. The buildings are from some other era, pre 20th century. No stop lights in either direction for as far I can see. It’s like a dream. I’m lost on some time travel expedition. If a horse and buggy came down the street and stopped to watch two gun slingers pace and draw on one another, I would not be surprised in the least.

Down the hall of the courthouse and in the last door on the left, I wait to see the judge in an office with Jesus décor all over. Crosses hang on the walls. Bibles on the shelves. Magnets on the filing cabinets: several with proverbs and one with a picture of Jesus holding a lamb. A picture on the wall shows a man and a woman holding hands and walking on the beach toward a sunset that colors the entire scene shades of orange. At the bottom of the poster it reads, Our love is designed by Jesus. And though it’s a silhouette of a male and a female figure holding hands, it’s obvious they are a white couple. A white, heterosexual, non-drug using couple, designed by Jesus himself. I am in God’s country, at least this version of god; and I am about to have one his own protégés pass the same judgment on to me as they would have he himself pass it. Since he hates Blacks, Queers, and junkies I think it fortunate, at the very least, that I am white, heterosexual, only on the proper occasion do I use drugs, and it helps that I really am originally from this god fearing jungle.

She yells from the courtroom next door that she’s ready for me and the secretary gives me a nod. “She’ll see you now,” she says as if I was too stupid or not worthy of hearing the judge’s yelling myself.

The courtroom is empty of people but filled with antique wooden chairs with red velvet cushions aligned in scattered rows. Her desk is at the front of the room. This is not the typical courtroom you see on TV depicting the 21st century. This looks like an elementary school from a time when plainsong and national athems filled the rooms. It’s still haunted by such chimes. 

An old white lady with short and tightly curled grey hair peers over the rims of glasses at me as I approach. I ask her very politely if I may take a seat at one of the two chairs across from her desk. The game has already begun; I know the one inch I want from her. I no longer use the dialect I did in the tank where pussy was the topic. I now speak with a language even elevated above that I did with the lady who gave me my slave tags. I follow our introductions with lots of yes ma’ams and no ma’ams. And when she gets a pencil out to start figuring the total fines, I quickly mention that I am an English instructor at the university back home and so math certainly isn’t my strong point. Simultaneously I have informed her of a respectable career as well as humility exposed through a personal weakness. We laugh a bit at my expense: the joy of all I’ve been through and the circumstances that caused them. I admit fault repeatedly, bring up the importance of the wedding, and I most certainly mention being originally from Texas myself. And not two seconds after she tells me the total for my fines, I ask for my inch.

“Your Honor,” I say, “I wonder if you might consider giving me anything for the time I served in your jail. I spent nearly 13 hours in the tank and just wondered if you can give me anything for that. However little it may be. I would be more than grateful.”

“Well, we don’t give anything for time less than 24 hours served,” she says. And just as I nod in understanding and tuck my chin to my chest, she says, “Usually… that is,” and she smiles. “How ‘bout this?” She scribbles through the original total she’d written down, which was just over 400 dollars, and she draws a new figure that is just under 300 dollars.

It’s not much, but it’s something.

I shake her hand and thank her. And I notice, Joseph Cambpbell was right, scales do not fall from her eyes.

∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫

∞Atonement∞

One step closer to getting out of God’s country, I call Larry’s Tow. After I tell him who I am and ask for directions to his impound lot, he says, “Hell, boy, I’m out-n-about. Only two clicks from ya’ now. I’ll pick ya’ up.”

The final step for Campbell’s hero is confrontation with a male figure who holds the key to either life or death. In my case, the final figure holds the keys to my rental car. And I’ve already been warned by my cellmate that once this Larry guy discovers I have no driver’s license, he’ll care more about money than he does about me as a human. He will see me as some sort of cash cow ready for the prostate milkin’, or something like that; I’m sure. But, as Campbell claims, the hero must have faith that this male figure is merciful. Paralleled with Freud’s claim of the Ego’s projections becoming manifestations, the hero must transfer his inner mercy outward and onto this male figure who then reflects it back as an act. In other words, I have from the time Larry picks me up on the corner near the courthouse until wherever his impound lot is to pull out all the same inch winning tricks I have so far.

As I stand on the corner in the centermost part of this Wild West remake, an oversized truck with a diesel engine’s purr pulls up next to me and the door swings open. “Hop own in,” says the old man. In a Western flick, his name would be Stretch. His boots rest at the bottom of his long thin legs that are wrapped tightly with denim. His belt buckle protects his entire midsection like a shield. Button collar shirt with stripes and his lip’s fat and full of chew. “Colla’rahda, huh? Bet it smells like pig’s shit and cow guts to ya’ll when ya’ll come down here to the panhandle.” And he’s right. The stench is everywhere. Breezes are unwelcome; all they do is spread the horror. “Ta’ us, down ‘ere, That’s the smella’ money, son.”

I don’t hold back. I fire at him with a southern draw, because I know my time is limited. I have to become one of his own and he’s already attempting to separate me from being such.

“Born an’ raised in the panhandle, sir. I know the smell quite well.” With that, I talk about Amarillo being my hometown and I thank him repeatedly for picking me up. Then I continue on with all the same previous strategies as those I used to get every single inch I could from everyone who had some control over my life within this last 20 hour period:

Get those in control to identify with you. Match your language and intellectual level with that of their own; you cannot have those in control thinking you are smarter than they are and you cannot give those in control any reason to believe that you are dumber than they are (one insults their intelligence; the other confirms their stereotype). However, you must behave in a way that lets them know you are aware that they are in control; this will keep them from feeling as if they need to remind you who is in control. This is indeed the classical dialectic of Master and Slave. The slave must know and accept his position, so that he can maneuver through all the barriers that create this position before he can free himself from those very barriers. In other words, a slave must know he is a slave and all the ways in which he is a slave before he can free himself from slavery.

The recipe for making a slave:

• Remove one individual from his or her own people: family, friends, and any other social group.

• Further separate the individual from all people who speak the same language as him or her.

• Just prior to basting, brush away any previously known identities (this includes everything from the individual’s name to associations they identify themselves with).

• Add new identity in 2 parts: Part One. Give the individual a new title, not a name in the sense of a Proper Noun (this should be something derogatory, something that lets the individual know every time he is summonsed by this title that he/she is at a lower status than his master and/or all those who refer to him by this title). Part Two. The slave should no longer be considered an individual. Their new identity should have him/her assigned to all groups similar in stature as their new position, thereby also losing any individualism. Nigger, Queer, Dope-user, White-Trash, Criminal — these are good examples for both Parts One and Two.

• Prior to adding the slave to one holding tank with no windows to the outside, an act of humiliation should precede (public nudity often works well). The walls of the tank should be painted a dull color so the slave gets no stimulation at all. The tank should also be no more than 12’X10’ in diameter. If a tank of this sort is unavailable, a cage or a shack directly behind the master’s mansion should suffice, so long as the cage or shack is in similar condition as all other animals’ cages on the same property.

• Beat, whip, or whisk the slave at your leisure and to a pulp that is to your liking.

• Serve to a God fearing Christian; and Enjoy!

And since this is the process to make a slave, the recipe need only be reversed for the slave seeking freedom:

• Do not Enjoy! Get/be/remain angry (History shows that angry people are those who shift the course of mankind)

• Do not serve the Christian god. His book and ideals promote slavery (amongst other things like homophobia, patriarchy, servitude to a master [even when not a slave as the current topic], narcissism, and murder of those that are different in any way).

• Consider all beatings, whippings, and whiskings as Nietzsche claims of all things that do not destroy us. Even if they truly do not make us stronger, believe it is so while it’s happening so that you may get through the process and eventually overcome it.

• Remove yourself from the confinements of the master’s tanks, cages, shacks, and even the shadows of his mansion. Position yourself in a way that makes it impossible to be caged (i.e. do not drive without a driver’s license).

• Get your identity back, and associate yourself with those you identify most with, and those whom encourage your self-expression.

• Master the use of language (knowing when and how to use its variations among whom)

The whole reality and its effects lies in the gift of speech, Jacques Lacan says, for it is through this gift that all reality has come to man and through its ongoing action that he sustains reality.

Never has this quote rang truer than here in this desolate Texas dirt-hole town, where language creates both a law and a belief system that imprisons someone for something so minor in its true essence because of how it is greater in its implications. That is to suggest: the act of driving without a driver’s license is not the same threat as the driver and what he represents when coming from a place where value systems are different. But language is the bridge of the dialectical process; and though language enforces, language is used to challenge the enforcer's words. Those who use language like whips and chains to control others as they will themselves into positions of power through it should not be surprised when someone uses language and lashes back in a way that calculates repositioning that same power, even if it is only by an inch in favor of the one lashing back through tongue and pen.

At the impound lot, Larry and I are like old buddies talking about high school football in Texas being better than college football in other states, and Texas women have asses like no other women on the planet (I don’t give a fuck about football. Give me Nietzsche, Freud, Lacan, and King any day. Talk about Campbell and his “follow your bliss” philosophy. Rhetoric and its power to seduce and manipulate. And I damn sure don’t care about Texas ass no more than I do pregnant pussy. But Larry doesn’t need to know any of this). I never lose faith in his mercy; and I’m projecting my inner belief outward and on to him. Tough I dare not do it without the assistance of words, for I believe in the power of language irrevocably.

In this tractor garage just on the outskirts of this shithole Texas town, the lot is filled with locus shelled cars and tow trucks and trailers. And in here, Larry sits at a desk and adds up my cost. Just as he tells me the total, another 300 and something dollars, he orders some other gentleman who's legs dangled out from underneath a truck to go fetch the red hatchback. Instead, just as I hand Larry my debit card, his partner (or employee or whatever he is) rolls out from under the truck and walks right up to us and says, “He ain’t got no DL, Larry. Trooper Walkins told me last night about ‘im not havin’ it. We cain’t let ‘im outta here in that car.”  His greasy cap and brown coveralls become the focus of my hatred.

I turn directly to Larry and ignore ol’ Skeeter, or whatever the fuck his name is, and say, “Larry, I just wanna get home. I’m 50 miles from the Texas border and all I want is to get back to Colorado. I ain’t got no one who can even come get me.”

Larry puts his face in his hands just as ol’ Skeeter, or whatever the fuck his punk ass name is, says, “Cain’t do it. Larry, you ain’t even considerin’ doin’ this; are ya’?”

Skeeter is about to get a drop kick to the fuckin’ throat and a karatee chop to the bridge of his nose right when Larry says, “I don’t know why, but I am considerin’ it. 31 years in this business, and I never have allowed it once." He pauses. Shakes his head. Looks up at me and says, "Why this time, I do not know.”

I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell everyone why … because while I was here in God’s country … I fought, through the use of language—the only tool I’d been afforded and the only tool they did not strip me of—for every last mother fuckin’ inch that was rightfully mine to begin with anyway.

∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫∫

∞Epilogue∞

The drive home was done at neither one mile over nor one mile under the speed limit. Until I crossed the state line into New Mexico, I felt like a slave on the underground railway. My palms were sweaty; I had cottonmouth; and I kept looking in the rearview mirror for police or troopers. All I wanted was to be back in the north. The moment I was in New Mexico, everything felt differently; and as I approached Colorado, the mountain range in the distance made me feel at ease. I felt proud to call Colorado "home."  I imagined the mountains representing this strange place where black people are accepted, gay people are allowed to love one another, recreational drug use is permitted. I imagined just over the approaching mountain range, Colorado as this land like OZ where witches and flying monkeys all walk upright and don't drag their knuckles on the ground, unicorns and fairies prance and frolic beneath rainbows, more gods than the Hebrew wolf hanging from a cross are celebrated, music plays in streets of gold, dogs chase only their own tails, and police and state troopers spend their time focusing on real crimes.

I missed my best friend’s wedding. The only request he made to his bride to be in regards to the wedding, he said that she could have everything she wanted for the wedding, the only thing he had to have … was me there. It’s been nine days since Carlton and Erica’s wedding and I have not stopped typing this essay since I got home. Every spare moment I found has been spent in front of my laptop laying down this story. I believe dogmatically that language creates and sustains our reality, controls us and gives us the ability to control. And so this story about language, told by way of language itself, is my attempt to capture a moment in time, to control the narrative before it slips away. This is my gift to Carlton and Erica. But more so, it is my apology to them both. Two of the most powerful words in the world, said in any language at any time, are I’m sorry. And though it will never make up for the ceremony I missed, I have just said how sorry I am in just over 9.6 thousand words.

Carlton and Erica, I’m sorry. 

I’m so sorry that I missed the ceremony of your union.

I love you both dearly—forever and always…

One Love.

~Harley