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sassooda · 3 years ago

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Worlds Away JJK AU / Chapter 41- Night and Day 🔞

w/c - 6,670

Nanami has remained by Shoko’s side the entire time while she rests. She’s been completely healed but Choso’s abilities did not compensate for how exhausted she was after being forced to work around the clock. He stretches in the chair, eventually leaning his head back while he rests his eyes. He hears some stirring but figures she’s still restless in her sleep, being surprised when she says, “Kento, you know it would be more comfortable if you laid down too.”. He opens his eyes and sits up, not understanding exactly what she meant.

Shoko scoots over in the bed and pats the spot next to her, “It would be more comfortable for me as well…”, she admits. He doesn’t respond immediately which makes her feel nervous, wondering if that was a weird thing to say, albeit not entirely caring. Her eyes light up and she giggles as he stands with a stern face to walk to the open side of his bed. Right before he sits down she stops him and says, “At least lose the jacket, you’ll be over heating in no time!”, and tries to hide her excitement as he smirks and slowly removes it. Once he sets it down in the chair where he once sat, he lifts the covers and awkwardly crawls in next to her. She sees how stiff he is and huffs, “For God’s sake!”, and wraps her arms around his chest and lays on him before he could get away, “I won’t bite!”.

Nanami couldn’t help but burst out laughing to her last words as Shoko joins. “I certainly wouldn’t expect you to do that…”, and continues to enjoy the much-needed silliness as he feels the weight of her resting into him. They lie there for a few minutes quietly. Nanami is still upset with himself that he didn’t realize her situation sooner and regretfully speaks, “Ieiri, I had a bad feeling for a while but I brushed it off, I’m sorry for leaving you with them for so long…”, he cautiously brings his left arm across his chest, searching for her hand so he can gently hold it.

Shoko is blushing instantly, having expecting Nanami to be a little more difficult. She gives him more of her hand as she sighs, “Kento…you came for me though and that’s what matters. You really saved me back there.”. She hears him take a deep breath and wishes he didn’t carry the guilt for this situation. After a moment she lifts her head up to face his, studying his features as they’re quite softer than she imagined they’d be. “You are too handsome to be upset, I won’t have it!”, she speaks confidently as she runs her right hand from his chest to his face, “I’m fine now…actually, I’m better than fine!”, she winks to him as she keeps him in her hold.

“I must admit that I’m quite alright myself.”, he’s trying to remain collected but is absolutely loving being this close to her. “Do you feel rested now?”, he questions her as he absentmindedly rubs his chin into her palm, catching himself after the fact. She smiles up to him and while keeping eye contact, allowing him to watch her face morph into a way he’s not use to seeing. After sitting herself up more, she brings her face to Nanami’s and whispers inches away from his lips, “I have plenty of energy now…”. She ends her taunt with a gentle kiss but Nanami needed more. As she’s breaking away after her playful display, he grabs the back of her head to pull up towards him. When they’re mouths meet again, he feels the rush of desire course through him as he has had his eye on her for some time now.

Shoko feels his intensity as their tongues meet, causing a genuine whimper to escape. Without even thinking, she climbs up and straddles him expecting him to possibly stop her but the alluring expression he wears tells her that he wasn’t going to. “Oh…Kento…”, She dips back down and tugs at his tie while his hands find her thighs. When she feels him lift his hips into her, she pants to feeling him underneath. He begins to kiss into her neck, slowly traveling up until he meets her lobe and nips it passionately while whispering into her ear, “I’ve wanted this for so long Ieiri…”, and she melts to the way his strong hands feel traveling her body. As he starts caressing her back, she leans up and pulls her white shirt off over-head and tosses it, exposing her nude-colored bra.

Nanami can’t help but bite his lip with smile as his eyes feast on her breasts. If the ball were in his court, he’d probably wait a little longer to do this as he wants to treat her right but as she calls to him through her body language, he understands that saying no would go against these same beliefs. He sends his tongue to trace her bra on the left breast, planting sweet kisses in its wake. After feeling her nails against his scalp, he lifts his right hand to pull the cup of her bra down, latching his mouth down on her bare breast. She throws her head back and moans, causing his blood to rush to his groin but he instead takes his time, flinging the bud of her nipple with the tip of his tongue while looking up to her. She quietly cries out his name in mixture of whispers and he switches to her right breast, loving the way her skin tastes.

She always wondered what kind of lover Nanami would be but as she’s experiencing his aggression for the first time, she understands that he’s right up her alley. As he exudes his dominance in the submissive way of pleasing her, she decides that he far too dressed for this occasion. While he continues to tease her breasts, she fumbles with his tie again being relieved when he starts undoing it himself. “Let me see what you’ve been hiding from me all these years…”, she pants into a giggle. Her eyes follow the movements of his hands as if she were in a trance, only changing her view to glance up to him while he removes his shirt. Her brow furrows automatically when she witnesses his stripping away the blue button up, revealing his fit upper body. She grazes her nails down abdomen and becomes further excited when he groans.

Seeing how much she wants him as well has lit a new fire in his blood. He leans into her breasts again and kisses both but wraps his arms around her to flip them over. She yelps pleasantly to the sudden change in position as he hovers over and smirks to her shimmying her shorts off eagerly. He’s sure that was his cue to remove his pants but decides he still would rather take his time. He kicks off his shoes with his toes and proceeds to send his right hand between her legs while their tongues meet. He can’t help but sigh when he feels how wet she is, knowing that its all for him. She whines under her breath as he teases the dampened area of cloth, threatening to rub her through them but purposefully lacking the pressure to do so. The expression she forms nearly steals his breath as he’s never seen her look anywhere near how she does right now, so needy. He uses his fingertips to hooks her panties aside and kisses her as he slides two in while she moans into his mouth. He’s becoming unbearably hard at this point but he also loves the way she reacts to his touch. ‘Why the fuck did I wait so long?’, he berates himself as he angles his wrist and begins to feel her from the inside.

As they breath heavily into each other Shoko is pondering on why this took so long to be. “We…we should’ve been doing this a long time ago…”, she whimpers out. She can’t help but feel he agrees as he shoves his fingers into her fully, causing her to arch her back to how good even that felt. “Kento…”, she whines, desperately wanting to feel him entirely. He looks up to her with seductive brown eyes, and says, “Just let me treat you…”, and shifts his body down lower. He wraps his arms around her thighs, “This will only take a few.”, and proceeds to smile while inching closer. She feels his breath lingering over her folds and curls her toes as he truly is teasing the hell out of her but she’s also loving every second of it. Hearing him hum so close to her bareness has her losing her mind as she has thought of this so many times, discovering he’s far better than she could ever have imagined, “…And he’s barely touched me.”. Her mind goes blank as she feels his tongue flicking across her clitoris. She gasps loudly to how he seemed to know exactly what he was doing, finding herself comparing his abilities to toys that were designed for this sensation. Clutching the sheets, she tries to not smash him between her legs while they seem to instinctively close to the sudden but sublime feeling. She can hear his breathing quickening but is unable to focus on it when she feels his fingers diving into her again, causing the most audible noise now to be the gushing. She moans out his name, feeling like she’s about to explode as heat coils through her body. When she looks down at him, she can see his complete dedication and with the thought that this wonderful man is likely hers now, she relaxes into the bed, no longer fighting against the orgasm that he’s pulling from her. Her cries were louder than she would have liked but there was literally no getting around it. Never has she had an experience as good as this.

Nanami sits himself up to unbutton his pants while watching Ieiri lay there limply with twitching legs. “You really are gorgeous, I hope you know that…”, he tells her genuinely. He laughs when she hastily urges, “Get those pants off and get over here!”, abiding her words. He felt a little nervous as he was removing his briefs because of her curious staring, wondering how awful it would be if she found herself disappointed. “Just take them off Kento!”, she teases as she slides off her soaked underwear. When he pushes down the waist band his hardened member stands ready, her lack of approval or otherwise making him feel self-conscious. Finally with wide eyes she whispers, “Please go slow at first…”, and he understands that she’s not upset at all. He leans back down, her arms wrapping around him as he lines himself up to enter her. Feeling her heat on his tip has him fearing his heart is going to burst right out of his chest. He mentions, “Tell me to stop if it hurts, ok?”, he moans as he perceives the mixture of uncertainty and lust written across her face. She says ok and pulls him down against her while she widens her legs. With upmost care, he slowly pushes himself through her folds, moaning loudly to how tight she is around him. It feels really good, too good. It’s been a long time since he’s felt a woman this way and feels like he’s stumbled upon a brunette goddess as she takes him in, one inch at a time. After a few minutes of her adjusting to him, he begins to start a rhythm, although he’s still being gentle with her.

“Oh m…Kento!”, she feels herself stretching and in the most carnal of ways, enjoys it thoroughly. His girth sinks down into her, leaving her completely undone as she finally has the man she’s always wanted. He’s still going slow and she appreciates it but as she has conformed to him by this time, so she whimpers to him salaciously, “I’m fine now, do as you please...”, and gasps as he instantly increases the force of his thrusts. She can feel her breasts jiggling as he slides in and out of her but his right hand is soon grabbing the left one and she watches him tease the nipple between his fingers with a most satisfying look established across his face. He whispers, “I’ve loved you forever Ieiri…”, and while attempting to respond she’s left breathless as he hastily but still carefully starts hammering into her.

He almost can’t believe he said that but at the same time, there’s no holding back anymore. He would rather deal with rejection than have her wondering how much she means to him, leaving him without regret as he runs his right hand down to her waist. He’s barely hanging on but he’s not ready to give up yet, hoping he can bring her to another orgasm, secretly dying to feel her unravel around him. He thinks to slow down but she’s clearly wanting him to keep his pace so he warns her, “I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to keep this up...”, and feels astonished when she takes his face into her hands to bring him down for a kiss. She retorts, “I’ve already got mine,” and winks back at him, “You do what you need to do. It’s not like this is going to be the only time…”. These words send him into a heated frenzy, understanding that she’s as into him as he is into her. “Fuuuck…”, he groans out as he uses his remaining energy to pump himself through her. When she moans his name again, that was it. He releases himself into her while deep moans erupt from his lips, filling the room simultaneously. He finds himself panting heavily as he leans over her with both of his arms for support, not having exited her yet.

“I should’ve known better. You always have to watch out for the quiet ones…”, Shoko giggles underneath while running her hand through his now messy blonde hair. His eyes are so kind as they gaze upon her, even while he’s backing out of her, watching their creation. As he leans back on his between her bent legs she admires his complete sculpted beauty and lifts her right leg to his shoulder. “Come here you…”, she bends that leg, forcing him forward again overtop of her. She can’t get enough of him. Suddenly she hears, “HOLY SHIT! You’ve got a Toji dick!?”.

Satoru warped into the room not expecting to have found them like this but is amused by it. “I swear I wasn’t trying to creep! I just didn’t think you two would be in the middle of this!”. He laughs as he averts his eyes from Shoko, “Why ask me to come by if you two were going to fuck?”.

“Shut up Satoru. I can’t fucking believe you right now.”, Nanami hisses as he finishes covering Shoko. While mean mugging the silver shaman, he walks to his clothes to dress himself, picking up her shirt and shorts during the process. “Can you give us a damn second?!”, he hollers to Gojo but becomes further annoyed when he simply turns around. “You are far too comfortable with the strangest things Satoru…”, Nanami voices his discontent at Shoko not having privacy to dress.

“Now he has all of his clothes back on, I’m kind of pissed too!”, Shoko chimes in trying to lighten the mood. She watches Nanami blush and chuckles to how he has seemingly slipped right back into his proper ways. “Like night and day…”, she says to herself quietly while watching the handsome blonde.

“I’m glad you two are finally having fun, seriously.”, Gojo looks over to Nanami, “But you’re fucking hung, you need to be careful with my friend!”. He loves how agitated Nanami gets when he crosses his boundaries so he couldn’t help himself. He hears him say, “You shouldn’t even know that, why would you look?”, but Satoru laughs and says, “There was no NOT seeing that bad boy”, and has to dodge one of Nanami’s shoes. After settling, Gojo becomes serious. “Shoko, what did they do to you?”.

Shoko postures herself upright, feeling better after having her clothes back on, “The Titers were providing me with materials to create that blood substitute.”. When Satoru seems to be willing to listen to more she continues, “I wasn’t about to make it happen under their thumb but I was using this opportunity to further my hypothesis on how it could be done.”. She smiles, “I figured it out. I know how to do make it where no matter what, Toji and Elska can feed.”. Shoko is especially excited about this because she knows how much they’ve both suffered in the past by controlling their urges when starved. Something else pops into her mind now, “What I don’t understand is why they wanted me to make so many. I stalled on their end so they likely think I was unsuccessful but had I let them know, they wanted me to make thousands.”.

Satoru snaps his head back, “thousands?”, and he thinks to himself why they would want so many. “…What are they planning?”, he asks to them both rhetorically, knowing they wouldn’t probably have that answer. He looks to Nanami, “It would be best if you stayed with her until this is all over…I don’t want them having another opportunity to kidnap her again.”. He now looks to Shoko, “I knew you were tied up into this somehow, I just wish I’d realized how serious it was. Are you ok?”, He reaches out to hold her hand and she smiles while accepting it, “I’m fine Satoru…”, she looks over to Nanami, “Better than ever actually.”. Gojo cackles to this and squeezes her hand before standing. “We’ll talk more once you’re up and back to normal, until then though…”, his eyes meet Kento’s, “I would like to see this gunslinger girl and find out who the fuck she thinks she is.”.

The room stills completely as Choso’s presence can be felt exerting insane force. “What is that technique?”, he wonders with a rapidly beating heart as he is not familiar with whatever Choso is doing. Gojo stops mid movement until he feels the gravity technique being activated as well. “FUCK, HE’S HERE!” Satoru stands to teleport back to the room, “STAY WITH SHOKO.”, he yells before disappearing.

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“Do you believe me now?”, Baidal questions Sain respectfully as he wants to secure the hunter’s allegiance. He watches the grey eyed Titer nod with regret and knows that after hearing the report of how the plan went down that Sain must still be suffering. They stand alone in a room near Suguru’s, knowing that would be the last place to likely find Genghis after the two had a raging disagreement upon returning.

Sain recalls Lydia’s death and wishes he would’ve caught on sooner to save her. “I didn’t do a damn thing…”, he looks to his feet for a moment, remembering how bone chilling Elska’s retaliation was. Sain was certainly suspicious of Genghis ever since he returned after being gone for so many years and wanted to remain near him for Lydia’s sake as well as the Titer community. “She will kill all of us for what we’ve done…”, Sain now looks back to Baidal, “If we mean to make amends, we should return Fushiguro…immediately.”. He comprehends that there’s no negotiating if he remains with them.

Baidal is afraid to approach Suguru as he knows there’s bad blood between them due to their mentors. “If I bring this to him, he’ll likely undermine my intentions and see it as some sort of ploy.”. He sighs greatly, “I just want what’s best for the clan and for Master Suguru…”. Baidal was the first to truly understand how dangerous Master Genghis is thanks to Kokoro.

“I will approach him on this regard.”, Sain shows a slight smile to the younger Titer, “I believe that he was just as appalled by that situation as the rest. Even she spoke to him about it.” Sain has no idea what to make of Elska quite yet. “I cannot say if she would be friend or remain foe but I think it’s worth a shot.” He clears his throat as he prepares his next words, “She will likely attack me if I appear before her since I took Fushiguro but you…”, Sain lifts his chin as he feels certain that the young Titer’s good nature is always easy to sense, “I don’t think they’ll harm you, you’ve a kind presence.” He chuckles as Baidal’s eyes widen with doubt and continues, “Trust me, we want her on our side. Just be yourself and use diplomacy, you’ll be fine.”.

“I…will do my best.”. Baidal is unnerved about having to go into enemy territory but he knows Sain is right. They both have roles to fill and if they can succeed, he feels they’ll be able to keep from a major war between clans. “I have to do my best.”. He raises his gaze to smile at Sain but feels a strong fist connect to the side of his mouth and falls backwards. “Wha…Why?!”, he holds his face as he worriedly looks up to Sain, fearing he’s made a grave mistake.

Sain felt Genghis’s presence nearing and in order to keep his cover, assaulted Baidal. He squints his eyes before darting them to the entrance and saying, “Then make yourself useful and DO IT!”. When the door opens showing Genghis holding ice, he remains in his aggressive stance until Baidal has successfully scurried away, nearly barreling through the clan’s current head. ‘That was too close…’, he tells himself while waiting to see what Genghis wants with him.

“Sain, I just don’t know how to get it through to Suguru!”, Genghis places the ice pack to his face. “I can’t believe he would strike me! Crush me even!”. He pouts to the reminder that Getou isn’t quite on his leash like he’d thought. He watches Sain shrug and wonders if Suguru is simply not ready for what needs to be done.

Upon returning to the Titer compound with Toji, opinions were split as to if that was a successful mission or not.

“WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THAT?”, Suguru hollers while retracting his arm, swinging a solid fist into Genghis’s face. “She specifically said not to target them moments before you took him! She’ll think I do not care of her warning!”, Getou in his rage is all but boxing his mentor, using his being for target practice as he swings and connects again. He hears Genghis trying to speak but doesn’t want to hear his excuses even as he asks more questions, “And ZENIN?! You knew Lydia would attack!?”. With Genghis now falling to the ground as he refrains from fighting back, Getou stands over him and seethes, “You made me kill kids! FUCKING CHILDREN!”, Suguru now activates his gravity technique and holds it over Genghis, “They were crushed for your atrocious plan, its only right you should experience this!”.

Sain sets Toji’s large, limp body down onto a couch and watches with anxiety as he fears he’s next. ‘I agree with you Master Suguru…’, but he can only think it in this moment as he’s still uncertain where Suguru falls in all of this, although him attacking Genghis is a good sign. As Genghis struggles beneath the dense air compressing him, a smile creeps across Sain’s face as he pretends this was punishment for Lydia.

“Su…guru…DON’T DO THIS!”, Genghis coughs as he hardens and contracts his muscles the best he can to protect his bones, “It was for YOU!”, but this response only awarded him increased pressure. He begins to frantically wonder when he began to misread his pupil’s perspective and tries to think of a quick antidote for the situation. “Please…Little…one…STOP THIS!”, he begs Suguru as he can feel the soreness in his body intensifying along with the soft floor beneath him giving.

Getou releases his technique but takes his hands to his face, “I just don’t understand why…”, he drags his fingertips down to his chin and scoffs, “She isn’t going to appreciate ANY of this I can assure you…”, Suguru’s face twitches as he rubs the spot where her fangs once sank into. “…How could you put me in this situation after feeling her presence?”. He looks over to Toji as the apprehension builds within, knowing that Toji was powerful as a human and wonders what his full capabilities are as he is now. “She is too strong for us to control and he may be too on top of that!”, Getou turns to look down at his mentor who is regaining his pride that was flattened with him, “What the fuck were you thinking?”. He finally wants an answer.

Genghis stifles to a stand with anger in his eyes, “We needed to lure her with something since we couldn’t take her…”, they both look at Toji now, “…and we need to seal his wings immediately as well as his abilities. I’m sorry that it went so poorly but I promise you I’m wanting what’s in your best interest!”. Getou scoffs for a reply which makes Genghis feel small and irritated. “You are not willing to make these decisions so someone has to!”. He looks to Sain, “Bring Fushiguro with us, we need to restrain him before he wakes…”, and says nothing more to Suguru as they leave.

After reviewing these memories Genghis sighs as he shifts the placement of the icepack, “Suguru is terrifyingly strong but he lacks resolve. That makes him weak.”. Genghis blames Kokoro for leading his pupil down such an unorganized path in the years he was absent. Sain says nothing in response as usual but it agitates Genghis this time, so he continues, “Elska is magnificent but she would eat him alive at this point. I have to bring her to our side or we’ll never reach our full potential”.

Sain finds this statement off-putting. He wouldn’t have thought much of it prior to their attack but after seeing how Genghis interacts with Elska, he’s concerned. ‘What exactly does he mean?’, he wonders as he retains his quiet ways until he remembers to report, “We’ve lost contact with Sachiko, I believe they have her or worse since they retrieved their genius healer…”. He watches Genghis fold over in pure frustration but feels warmed by this additional failure. ‘You’re not as intelligent as you think you are.’, Sain holds in his satisfaction and enjoys Genghis’s misery in silence while pretending to be supportive.

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Suguru sits in the darkness of his room while he continues to stew. Their hideous attack was enacted nearly a full day ago but his rage still runs wild and has yet to quell. He thinks back to Elska’s words, “You would be suitable if you had your own thoughts.”, and he feels invaded by how she addressed his deepest insecurities so easily. He finds himself feeling insulted by her demeanor but fails to form anger as he now thinks about her bite. He vividly relives those few moments where she broke him down into nothingness, stealing his sanity and awareness for herself as he felt the undeniable pleasure of her touch. “She was always important…”, he wonders where things would be had he only realized this sooner. ‘I’m such a fucking child…’, he thinks to himself as he knows his own ignorance has lead him down the violent path of where they stand today. The mention of child within his mind ensnares his heart, knowing children perished during their attack, directly from his own. “Why would he fucking orchestrate that?”, His presence increases while thinking of his sadistic mentor, not being sure how to move forward. ‘Can I trust him?’, the question seems pointless as he fears he knows better than that. The look on Elska’s face when she first saw him forces his eyes to narrow in sadness, “She thinks the absolute worst of me…”, and this hurts him knowing his feelings towards her have changed dramatically.

He gets up from his chair and walks over to the far wooden nightstand to grab the bowl of water, sighing to the emptiness that echoes the room. Sitting on the floor in a meditative fashion, he closes his eyes and initiates the seeing technique. When he opens them, he perceives her sleeping next to Naoya but she’s naked, he can tell even with the sheets covering them. Getou frowns to this, knowing that Naoya is not only with her currently but is also likely to be even stronger than before now. A surge of irritation consumes him while wondering if Genghis knew that would happen all along, “And if he did, why did he allow it?”. While watching her lay motionlessly, he feels overwhelmed by the urge to physically be there. He bites his lip while questioning if he’s gone insane but decides, ‘I’m doing it.’. He wipes away the scene before him and closes his eyes feeling nervous. After repressing his presence, he takes a deep breath and using his clan’s traveling abilities, opens them to see her only a few feet away.

Forgetting to breathe now, he slowly walks over to her after checking the surroundings to make sure they were alone aside from Naoya. He can’t help but think that if he really meant to, he could take her away with him right now, ‘She’s so vulnerable…’, he speaks internally while reaching his arm out, gently grazing it up her arm, “…and so soft.”. He’d forgotten about the smoothness of her skin and how it always stood out to him the few times he was able to touch her before. He kneels down hesitantly while eyeing Naoya to make sure he wasn’t going to wake, “Elska, I swear I didn’t mean for things to happen that way…”, his face forms a frown while pondering on what it was the compelled him to come. “I wish to do things differently now…”, he ducks his neck down closer to her and bows in shame. He smells the slight scent that lingers along her body and huffs it up quietly, ‘The aroma of beauty.’. It’s enough to stir him up but not so much enough to make him act, feeling he doesn’t deserve to enjoy her right now anyways. He whispers to her sleeping form, “I do have my own thoughts and I’m inclined to involve you within them…what have you done to me?”, he smirks as he truly wishes she was awake to hear his confessions and imagines how surprised she would be. ‘If she listened instead of killing me anyways.’.

He sits himself on the floor with his back against the nightstand, her on his right. Bending his knees and bringing them to chest he sighs, “I really thought I controlled everything. I was raised to believe that was my right, my duty…”, he can see down into the sheets a bit from this angle so with blushing cheeks he looks away while pulling the sheet up further over her, surprising himself by the act. “…things are never as they seem though I suppose.”, he chuckles as he’s still beside himself with how much he just wanted to talk to her. While adjusting his robes he scoffs, “The color of piss. Great almighty piss-colored Titers…”, but ends up laughing wholeheartedly as he found his own words funny. “You’re able to decipher people through their blood, aren’t you? There’s no other explanation.”. He leans his head over towards her arm, wishing he understood everything better being uncomfortable still with how much his thoughts on her are changing. “A part of me does want you now…as a companion. I think you would’ve killed me the other day if you didn’t feel the same to a degree…although I can’t imagine why.”. She moves her arm towards him and gently clings the front of his robes as her hand hangs off of the bed. He wants to appreciate that but he’s afraid of her waking so he stands after carefully placing her hand back against the mattress. While looking down to her, he feels the most innocent desire to place his lips upon her so he leans down one more time to connect them to her cheek. He whispers before his farewell, “I want to try this again when you’re conscious…please, give me a chance to explain.”. The door shuts loudly which causes Getou to jump in his skin. Upon bringing his eyes to the cause, his heart sinks at the person and presence before him.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”, Choso can’t believe his eyes as Suguru cascades over Elska. He darts his gaze down to her and Naoya while the black energy swirls from his tattoo, down his arm. “GET AWAY FROM THEM NOW!”, he hurls an attack towards Suguru but makes it lower in intensity as he doesn’t want to harm Elska and Naoya in the process.

Suguru jumps and dodges the energy but with wide eyes finds his own heart aching by how much hatred he can sense from the being. “I didn’t do anything to them!”, he hollers while being in disbelief, “I just needed to see her!”. His own words shock him as they leave his mouth but he stands by them as he continues to evade the energy. He lands confidently, wondering if this is the chance he was hoping for with Choso all along. He decides to share, “Choso, they want you dead but I do not!”, but finds himself having to dodge another attack.

“Dead huh? Like MY BROTHERS?!”, Choso’s energy surges completely out of control as he throws his attacks in a way that forces Getou to move further from the sleeping pair. Choso finds himself at a momentary loss when he reads the heartache on Suguru’s face and hears him yell, “I LOVED KECHI AND ESO!”, but refuses to be swayed by his words. “Love doesn’t kill Getou!”, he snarls as he prepares a technique that he has yet to reveal. “You’ve done horrible things to Elska too! You are not permitted to be near her EVER!”, he draws a rectangle into the air to activate his shadow realm door, hoping to trap Getou in it but soon finds himself under the weight of gravity.

“Choso please, I do no want to fight y-…”, Getou’s cut off mid speech as Gojo teleported behind him to put him in a sleeper hold. As he tries to pry the silver shaman’s grip apart, he hears him ask, “So you thought you could come steal my love again, did you?”, and becomes confused when Satoru laughs deeply. “NO, I need you to understand that I’m not here to fight!”, but his words are wasted as Gojo enables his red technique to obliterate him. “Let’s see if you survive this…”, he chuckles with darkened eyes.

“GOJO DON’T!”, Choso hurriedly runs over to Satoru before he could decimate Suguru. “If that technique is sent back to you, you’ll die!”, but becomes concerned when Gojo fails to stop. Choso is forced to help Getou break free of his grasp and wishes he knew enough in that moment to end things once and for all. He understands that he’s going to have to do something out of the ordinary to stop this before its too late.

Satoru sends an attack towards Choso but its not strong enough to hurt him, he’s just trying to buy time to get to Suguru, “LET ME DO THIS CHOSO!”, he growls as he trains his eyes back to the Titer in front of him. He wonders why Getou isn’t really fighting back but also doesn’t care. Warping back behind him again he grabs ahold of Suguru once more while angrily questioning, “Where the fuck is Toji and what are you doing to him?”, he squeezes his grip as he thinks of Elska, “We want him BACK!”, and send strong fists into Getou’s side, not stopping until he’s sure he’s broken some bones. “STOP FUCKING WITH US!”, Satoru exercises all of the bass in voice as he once again gathers his red technique.

Suguru struggles to explain, “We shouldn’t…have…taken him, that wasn’t…the plan!”, but feels like he’s losing his patience as Gojo vices him harder. While watching the red attack gather near his face, he thinks that its best for him to leave while he still can. Getting apprehended by them would be the worse possible scenario and although Getou feels reformed in many ways, he simply can’t betray the trust of his clan. As he was about to make a break for it, he hears Choso sternly yell, “SLEEP!”, and feels disoriented by the fact that Gojo collapses behind him. Suguru quickly turns around in amazement while curiously eyeing the being.

“I didn’t do this for you, I did it for Gojo…”, Choso narrows his eyes and hoists up Gojo sleeping body to drag it to the couch. He feels the tall shaman’s weight lessen as Suguru uses his gravity to float him the rest of the way. He’s bewildered by Getou completely and wonders what kind of elaborate trap he’s enacting this time. ‘Why is he so different? It’s like night and day…’.

Getou reluctantly handles Satoru’s body with care, knowing full well that he still harbors hatred for the silver cunt. “I’m not doing this for him, I did it for you…”. He can see how distressed Choso is over his new interactive demeanor but doesn’t have the heart to say much more on the subject. “How is she?” is all he asks.

“You need to leave. I still can’t believe you’re even here. Where is Toji?!”, Choso narrows his eyes in distrust as he still can’t understand what would be going through Getou’s head. ‘Why is he pretending to be decent?’, he asks himself while contemplating if killing him now would be a good call or not. He watches Getou outstretch his arm towards him with a tiny amount of green energy resting in the palm of his hand.

“This will help you find him through your shadow realm…”, Getou has come to terms with the fact that he’s in the position where he will have to give something for nothing. “This is my energy in its purest form…you should be able to track him easily. Getou turns to walk away but steals one more glimpse of the sleeping Elska, “Please…tell her I am sorry…”, and then disappears.

Choso runs over to Elska and Naoya to check over their bodies. He nearly shrieks when he pulls down the covers from Elska, discovering that she is completely nude. ‘You’re just making sure!’, he coaches himself as he uneasily scans over her skin to check for any marks. He sees some light bruises but gathers they were forming before Suguru’s arrival and shoots angry eyes over to the unconscious Satoru. “Naoya is not going to be happy about that…”, he says to himself while catching his breath. Sitting down on the edge of the bed facing away from Elska and Naoya, Choso finds himself tearing up with frustration as he doesn’t know why he let Suguru go. “He’s a MONSTER!”, he shouts to himself, hitting his thighs with his fists as he hunches over while his black wavy hair curtains his face. He absorbs the energy given to him, half thinking it would be poisoned or something but finds that he’s able to instantly locate Toji using his observer technique. “Wow…”, Choso is baffled, “…he really gave me the means to locate him…”. He stands when he feels Megumi and Itadori approaching and isn’t sure how he’s going to explain what just happened.

Next Chapter (42) >>

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tagging : @angelofthorr

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cheri-translates · 5 years ago

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[CN] Victor’s Sleepless Night Date

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a date which has not been released in English servers! 🍒

Dedicated to @pixiestick0924, who sent me my very first message on Tumblr filled with wholesome sweetness 🌹

Kiss Dates Collection: Gavin // Kiro // Lucien

The date begins with MC receiving an invitation card from Loveland TV to participate in an award ceremony at the end of the month

The card notifies her that she has won the “Best Influence Award” due to the many highly rated programs she has produced

She’s allowed to invite one person to the ceremony, so she immediately thinks of Victor

Just then, she receives a message from him, which reads: “What time are you coming down?”

MC: …it’s already 6.30pm?!

Stuffing the invitation card into my bag, I rush downstairs. Victor is standing at the bottom of the steps, his arms crossed over his chest as he watches me run over.

MC: Something special happened today. I was so excited talking to everyone that I didn’t notice the time.

Victor: What were you all talking about?

MC: The previous program. I didn’t think it would receive such good ratings. It makes me feel like all the late nights and overtime were worth it.

I share the news with Victor happily. He seems to smile a little, and takes my hand as we walk along the path lit up by streetlamps.

Victor: Looks like high ratings have become your cardiotonic.

MC: Of course. However, there’s an even bigger piece of news!

Victor: What is it?

I carefully take out the invitation card and wave it in front of him with satisfaction-

MC: This!

Hiding the fact that she’s an award winner, MC explains that she can invite one person to the ceremony.

MC: Dear CEO of LFG, Mr Victor. I cordially invite you to attend the award ceremony as my male partner. I wonder what CEO Victor’s response would be…?

Victor: …that’s all?

MC: Yeah! You wouldn’t reject, right…?

Victor gives me a meaningful glance, then retracts it.

Victor: What do you think? I’ll pick you up then.

The day of the award ceremony arrives. After putting on her makeup and outfit, she carefully puts on a pair of earrings.

The brilliant blue earrings give off a crystal-like light in the palm of my hand.

She meets Victor downstairs and they travel to the venue by car.

I turn my head and see Victor sweeping a glance towards me.

Victor: Looks like the past few hours weren’t a waste.

MC: …can’t you just give me a direct compliment? Also, don’t you have anything else to say?

I deliberately lift up the hair by my ear, revealing the earring. Victor’s eyes trail to my ear lobe, and a smile surfaces within them.

Victor: Not bad.

MC: I think these earrings look nice too.

Victor: I meant that my taste is not bad.

MC: …!

Victor laughs lightly, then leans against the car seat.

Upon reaching the venue, they head to their designated resting area.

?: Nice to meet you, CEO Victor.

Right after we go through the doors, an elegant lady walks towards us. She looks to be around forty years of age, and wears an amiable smile on her face.

Victor: Good evening, Chairman Li.

Victor tilts his jaw slightly, greeting her. From the way he addresses her, I react immediately – this is Chairman Li of the Film and Television Association!

I hurriedly straighten my posture and give her a slight bow.

MC: Nice to meet you, Chairman Li. I am MC, the…

Chairman Li: The producer of “Miracle Finder”.

Hearing Chairman Li smoothly stating my identity, my eyes widen in surprise. She smiles at me.

It’s rare to have such an opportunity to meet, so I speak.

MC: It’s still early… if it’s all right with you, could we sit and talk?

I look at Chairman Li with anticipation. Sensing my concealed anxiousness, Victor arches an eyebrow. He doesn’t say anything, and just looks at Chairman Li.

She nods.

Chairman Li: Of course.

Noticing that MC was surprised that Chairman Li could recognise her, the latter explains that she used to watch Miracle Finder as a student

She comments that the programs produced by MC are excellent

Chairman Li: You must have experienced several setbacks along this journey, right?

MC: Setbacks and difficulties are inevitable… However, meeting these thorns along the way seems to make the resulting flowers even more beautiful.

Chairman Li: Having such a mentality enables me to rest assured. Please continue working hard.

Looking at Chairman Li’s tender smile, a warmth bubbles in my heart. I nod solemnly.

Victor: She has improved quite a lot…

Victor, who has been standing silently at the side all this while, suddenly speaks. I look towards him in disbelief.

Victor: But there is still a lot of room to grow.

At an angle where Chairman Li can’t see it, I blink forcefully at Victor to signal my protest.

Looking at Victor, Chairman Li laughs lightly.

Chairman Li: Come to think of it, I was even worried CEO Victor wouldn’t accept the invitation to attend the award ceremony. I’m grateful that you could make it today.

Victor: You flatter me. It’s an honour for me as well.

Hearing their conversation, I get a shock -

Victor had already received an invitation?

Perhaps the shock on my face was apparent, as Chairman Li pauses for a moment, as if realising something.

She looks at Victor and I subtly, then reveals an intrigued expression.

Chairman Li: I might have accidentally said the wrong thing.

Victor remains as calm as ever, resting his arms on the arm rests as he leans into the chair.

Meanwhile, my heart starts beating rapidly as I think about how I had deliberately left out the news that I am an awardee.

While Chairman Li answers a phone call, MC leans towards Victor.

MC: When did you receive the invitation? Why didn’t you tell me…

Victor tosses me a glance and responds plainly.

Victor: That isn’t important. What’s important is that I accepted your invitation.

MC: Then…

I originally wanted to ask if he knew who the awardees are. However, as I’m afraid to blow my cover, I stop the words from coming out.

Chairman Li excuses herself to return to her resting room. MC offers to walk her there, and requests for Chairman Li to keep the fact that she is an awardee a secret

All of a sudden, two boys accidentally crash into MC and her skirt rips. Turns out those brats are Chairman Li’s children

Chairman Li offers MC a spare dress

It is a blue spaghetti strap dress, with ribbons strung from the shoulder areas. The blue skirt is reminiscent of clear, brilliant ocean waves.

MC finds the dress beautiful, but notices that it reveals her bare back.

MC: …isn’t this a little too sexy?

While Chairman Li tidies the folds around my waist, she laughs.

Chairman Li: It’s very suitable for tonight’s event. Moreover… don’t you want to give CEO Victor this unexpected surprise?

After saying goodbye to Chairman Li, I walk towards the resting room where Victor is.

Hearing the sound of the door being pushed open, Victor immediately turns around. In the process of putting on his suit, he halts his movements the moment he sees me.

Victor: Why did you… change your clothes?

I bunch up my skirt, walking towards him while explaining the incident that happened just now.

Victor: I see. It’s a good thing she could resolve the issue.

MC: Yeah, it’s fortunate that she prepared this spare dress.

Victor has a tender look in his eyes, possibly due to the lighting in the room. He lifts his hand, preparing to put on his suit jacket.

Without realising it, I have already reached out for his suit jacket to assist him.

As I turn to the side, Victor has a clear view of my back… I lift my head and meet his eyes, which are as dark as ink.

The light in front of the mirror is a dim yellow, descending into the turbulence within his eyes. They reflect the depth and heat in his gaze.

Noticing the way he is staring at me, I suddenly feel the temperature of the surroundings rise. My palms break out in sweat.

MC: W-what is it… do you find me exceptionally pretty today?

He retracts his gaze, and laughs lightly.

Victor: I discovered that someone has become even more thick-skinned.

In response to his words, I tug at his suit jacket to show my soundless protest.

Victor’s eyebrow twitches slightly.

Victor: Are you helping me put my clothes on, or taking them off?

Hearing this, my face involuntarily turns red. Unwilling to back down, I retort.

MC: It depends on whether you want to take them off or put them on.

I thought Victor would say that I’m being childish, but he pauses for a moment and his lips hook up into a smile.

Victor: ...dummy.

Feeling the heat on my face, I turn my head to the side and happen to see the flower display. Only then do I discover that the fresh flowers are actually blue roses. The flowers silently release an aromatic fragrance. I lean closer to take a whiff. Victor also leans over, pulling at his cuffs.

MC: Victor, do you know what blue roses represent in flower language?

Victor: What is it?

MC: In the language of flowers, blue roses represent “miracles and things that are impossible.” I once read a poem that said, “Plant some blue roses in the courtyard. Plant countless of them. Miracles will definitely come.”

I turn my head towards Victor. Dressed exceptionally formally, he stands behind the blue roses, his eyebrows arching gently.

Victor: What are you hinting at?

Looking back at the mirror, I’m standing next to Victor, whose suit jacket has been tidied.

MC: Apart from the blue roses, I also have the blessings of this blue skirt and blue earrings… maybe there will really be an unexpected occurrence.

Using his palm, Victor holds onto the hand that I’ve hooked onto his arm. His lips curl into a nice-looking smile.

Victor: Not a bad insight. However, you can keep those “maybes”. Let’s go, it’s about time.

At the venue, MC sees a lot of distinguished figures, including a renowned producer. Victor encourages her to talk to him.

Victor: I need to settle some things. You can go over to talk to him. I’ll look for you later.

MC has a pleasant talk with the man.

Eventually, the host takes the stage, but Victor has not returned.

MC: Where has he gone to? If he doesn’t come back soon, he’d miss my award...

Host: The next award is the “Best Influence Award”!

The host has already begun introducing the guest who would be giving out the award. At the same time, my heart feels anxious and downcast.

With the thought that I wouldn’t be able to share my joy with Victor immediately, my anticipation dulls. Just as I try to pull myself together-

An incredibly familiar profile appears from behind the stage. His footsteps are steady, and his face is illuminated by the lights.

MC: How could this be…

My heart is throbbing in my chest. Before I have time to think, Victor is already standing in front of the microphone.

His eyes sweep across the room, and his gaze ultimately rests on me.

Victor: I’m honoured to be the guest presenter for this event. In this day and age, producers and people in the media are indispensable. They open the door for the audience – a door that reveals a wider world. The “Best Influence Award” bears testament to the certainty of the contributions by producers. This certainty is not just from the Film and Television Association, but also from the audience who have walked through this door.

On stage, Victor gives his speech without any hesitance. His deep voice and the words that he says are like the keys of a piano, ringing in my heart.

Victor: The recipient of this award…

The dazzling spotlight illuminates Victor as he stands at the center of the stage. As he pauses, I feel all the blood in my body flooding to my head.

He unfolds the card, looks at it calmly, and continues.

Victor: I have watched quite a number of programs she produced. Through her programs, I see a producer who is steadfast in her responsibilities, searches for the truth, and her tenderness towards the audience. Undeniably, her first few programs had a few flaws. However, she has grown from being naïve to becoming a benchmark. I’m thinking that she must have put in a lot of effort.

Saying this, Victor pauses for a moment. His eyes cut through the crowd and land directly on me.

Victor: MC, congratulations on your award.

When these words leave Victor’s lips, my heart is filled with both surprise and a certain stillness.

I do my best to calm my thunderous heart rate. I bunch up my skirt, straighten up, and walk towards the stage.

At the side of the stage steps, Victor smiles as he offers me his hand. With his grip, we walk towards the center of the stage.

I solemnly receive the trophy from Victor’s hands, and an indescribable emotion pours out from my heart. Clearing my throat, I lean closer to the microphone.

MC: I am incredibly grateful to the Film and Television Association for giving me this award, and also for everyone’s certainty towards me and Miracle Finder.

Different from the tens of rehearsals I did at home, the stage lights and the eyes of the audience are all on me.

MC: To be honest, this trophy is quite heavy… but it shall be the motivation for me to carry on moving forward. Even though producing this program is not an easy feat, we will never give up as long as we have one audience member who likes and looks forward to it.

I cast a quick glance at Victor, who is standing beside me, and purse my lips.

MC: Also, I’m very grateful for the guest presenter’s certainty… it’s very important to me. In sum, all of us in Miracle Finder will continue working hard!

After giving my thank-you speech, I happily raise the trophy towards the audience.

Victor smiles faintly, joining me as we face the applause of the audience.

At this moment, a sudden surge arises in my chest. I can’t help but turn towards him.

He happens to turn his head towards me at the same time. The smile in his eyes is even more striking than the spotlight.

After the award ceremony, I stare at Victor as he walks out from a corner.

MC: “The respected guest presenter Mr Victor”… does this mean you already knew that I won the award right from the start?

Victor’s eyes trail from me to the trophy resting at the side. His eyes hide a mildly teasing look.

MC: I wanted to give you a big surprise, but it turned out the other way round… why didn’t I hear anything about you being the guest presenter?

Victor: It just shows how poorly informed you are. LFG has always been an investor of Loveland TV, and is also the sponsor of today’s event.

MC: …work can really be confidential.

Faced with my “accusation”, Victor lifts an eyebrow.

Victor: Seems like you haven’t finished complaining in your heart earlier.

MC: …how did you know?

Victor: The thoughts of a dummy are not difficult to guess.

While he speaks, his eyebrows smoothen out. The gaze that rests on me contains an obvious warmth.

My ear suddenly feels hot, and I mutter softly.

MC: I’m not a dummy… have you seen a dummy win an award?

People spot MC and start showering her with congratulations. After a while:

MC: Huff… it feels like my smile is stuck in place, and my feet are starting to hurt from standing.

Victor is beside me, a hand in his pocket. Hearing what I said, he looks at my high heels, then places a hand on my shoulder.

Victor: Since you’re tired, don’t force yourself. There’s an open space outside. Want to take a breather?

MC: Eh?

I follow Victor, leaving the venue through the backdoor and walking to the open space he mentioned.

I am met with a quiet courtyard bathed in moonlight. The fountain in the center reflects the moon and its silver light.

Sitting next to the Roman column surrounded by roses, I take a few breaths of fresh air.

MC: This place is really pretty! As the guest presenter, is it really okay for you to be accompanying me outside? Do you still have any other tasks after this?

Victor: I do.

Before despondence can arise in my heart from his straightforward response, Victor continues.

Victor: Have you forgotten that I was invited to be someone’s male partner?

While speaking, he sits next to me, traces of amusement in his eyes.

I turn my head to give him a grin. The small earrings sway along with my movement, and the gemstones seem to glow. Sensing that Victor’s eyes are on this brilliant blue light, I suddenly speak up.

MC: Actually, I am a little selfish.

Victor: What?

He looks slightly confused, not understanding the meaning behind my words.

In the courtyard, the moon reveals itself from behind the clouds. I look into his deep and tender eyes, and say a little shamefully.

MC: I had a selfish reason for wearing these earrings today. You gave them to me, so I hoped they would bring me good luck, and also…

I pause, lowering my eyes.

MC: It would be as though you were on the stage with me as well. I didn’t think that…

Recalling the moment I saw Victor appearing on stage, I can almost feel my earlier frenzied heart rate.

Victor: I see. It suits your style. Always putting in effort in the strangest of places.

Victor lets out a small laugh. Even though it’s very soft, it plucks at my heart clearly.

MC: Come to think of it… I really like how we are tonight.

For such a long time, I’ve been continually working hard and never letting any opportunities slip me by. Apart from the passion I have for the program and being a producer, it’s also because…

I wanted to stand on a stage that he had walked on, and stand at the same place he stood.

Despite my obscure words, Victor seems to have understood.

The night lights descend into his deep eyes, refracting colours. He turns to the side slightly, and takes my hand into his.

Victor: You’ve actually set a reasonable goal. Moreover, you’ve already reached it.

The night breeze tousles his originally tidy fringe, and sticks against his forehead softly.

The Victor in front of me no longer looks as cold and strict as before. He even exudes warmth. Faced with such a Victor, I can’t help but feel like joking.

MC: Actually, I was going to give this trophy to you as a surprise gift! Since you deliberately hid your identity as the guest presenter from me, I’ve decided to take back my gift.

Seeing my sly and satisfied smile, Victor also lets out a light laugh.

Victor: Your ability to find excuses is unparalleled. Who was the one who first hid the fact that she won the award?

MC: Um, this… well, if I win a global award next time, I’ll think about it!

Victor: I’ll wait and see then. I hope I wouldn’t have to wait too long.

MC: Don’t underestimate me!

Just when I think he would continue joking around, Victor suddenly tightens his grip on my hand, and closes the distance between us.

Faint music drifts from the venue – melodious and gentle. However, my entire focus is on Victor.

Victor: Since you have prepared a present, I should give you a return gift.

MC: R-return gift? There’s no need…

As his face draws closer, my voice involuntarily carries a tremor. This situation, and this familiar conversation…

In just a moment, he cups my neck, his other hand shifting to my waist.

MC: Mm-!

My bare back, which was slightly cool, is suddenly covered by a searing palm. My body trembles.

The music from the venue continues to chant. The shadows cast by the moon above us dance amid the haze. The neon lights in the distance seem to be painted in a romantic colour.

Even so, the only thing I can see are Victor’s deep eyes.

He leans closer, rubbing the tip of his nose with mine. Then, his warm thin lips trail slowly from my forehead downwards…

Victor’s breath encases my entire body. He plants scalding kisses on every inch of my skin, making me tremble as I hold onto his cuff.

MC: V-Vic-

He swallows the remaining syllable before I can finish.

This time, his soft lips seize mine, prying my teeth apart and diving right in.

He takes my breath away. In the midst of our breathing, what surrounds the tip of my nose is the unique taste belonging only to him…

After a long while, Victor finally ends his deep and searing kiss.

I clutch onto his arm, my chest heaving as I struggle to catch my breath.

His lips once again brush my nose and cheek gently, like a dragonfly flitting across the surface of water. He looks into my eyes.

I see myself in his pupils, red-faced and misty-eyed.

Our close proximity and breathing causes every single one of his words to drift into my ears with clarity.

Victor: The future you foresee, as you said it yourself, has both flowers and thorns. Are you ready for it?

I nod subconsciously.

Victor: Me too. No matter how far you go in the future, I am prepared… to never let you go for eternity.

The fragrance of the fresh flowers permeates the air, accompanied by faint music. It makes me wish that I could etch this moment for my keeping.

My arm presses against his familiar warmth. I lean my head on his shoulder, feeling exceptionally at peace.

I will continue working hard and running forward, and he will always be by my side – becoming the deepest source of strength in my heart.

#mlqc #mlqc cn #mlqc spoilers #mlqc victor #I laughed then cried then broke out in s w e a t

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tritoincol · 4 years ago

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Okay random facts about things

Why does a heart look like ❤️ and not 🫀

Hearts and love has been associated with each other for quiet some time. The Greek poet Sappho once wrote "Love shook my heart, Like the wind on the mountain Troubling the oak-trees." That was around the 7th century BC. And also, she lived in Lesbos.

This coin was found in the Roman city of Cyrene (somewhere in modern day Libya). It has been dated to somewhere between 510-490 BC.

It is considered as the first appearance of the heart shape. But it's doesn't represent the heart. It represents the leaves of the silphium plant (which is now extinct) which was an important component of trade for ancient Libyans. So important that it appeared on coins.

Ancient Romans believed that there exists a vein that connected your ring finger all the way to your heart. Of course, that doesn't exist but it left its mark on modern culture with wedding rings being worn on the ring finger to denote commitment.

The first appearance of the heart shape representing the human heart appeared in 1344 in a manuscript called The Romance of Alexander by Lambert le Tor.

It depicts a woman holding a familiar two lobed shape she just received from the man in front. After this point, the use of the heart shape exploded all across Europe, especially France. But why? Why such an awkward shape unlike the realistic uh, three pipes on a rubber ball? Turns out, the Catholic Church was responsible. Again.

The Catholic Church made autopsies illegal, leading to a really big misunderstanding of human anatomy. Considering how the heart was such an important object, something that represented love, hate, pain and happiness, it was necessary to represent it in art work. So artists just eyeballed it, used a symbol which simply caught on.

It wasn't until the late 15th century that Da Vinci did autopsies (illegally of course) and made detailed drawings of the heart.

But of course, it was too late to change. And the actual thing was way harder to draw. No one likes the truth.

But still, the use of a two lobe with a point shape in old French paintings was not enough to solidify the idea of ❤️=love in modern culture. Yes, the symbol was used in Valentine's Day cards in Britain and other regions of Europe. But a major change in the history of ❤️ happened in 1977.

The city of New York was in crisis. Crime rates were high, trash piled up on streets and it was near bankruptcy. So a graphic designer called Milton Glaser was hired to make a graphic that can is increase tourism. He made this.

The symbol became iconic, cliche and a meme. But what it also did was make ❤️ associated with love and also make it a verb. It was used to embrace not just romantic love but also to represent civic feelings. Last time I checked, New York isn't "almost bankrupt" anymore. Guess it worked.

Then emojis came along and the first batch of heart shaped emojis had 5 heart based emojis.

That led to a whole variety of uses and even using the shape to represent lives in video games. Today there are around 30 different heart shaped emojis. The shape is now used to represent all kinds of feelings like fondness, affection, infatuation, attachment, endearment, romance, desire etc.

The symbol had come a long way and will probably go a long way more. Whether you're here to witness it or not, that's none of my concern.

Thanks for reading I guess?

#heart #love #history #art #fact

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bubmyg · 5 years ago

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lost - knj

pairing: namjoon x reader

genre/warnings: travel!au, roommate!au, bookstore owner!namjoon, strangers to lovers, ft platonic reader x taehyung, fluff, lots of angst regarding uncertain futures, namjoon has a cat named marie

word count: 16,451

summary: taehyung’s warning was simple: stop and you’ll never want to start again or the one where you’re left alone in a loft apartment above a bookstore owned by a man with the sweetest dimples you’ve ever seen.

a/n: my first fic in three months omg...i hope u enjoy it as much as i did writing it :-(

Tiny succulent leaves spiraled outward from a central lobe rooted somewhere in the limited space provided by it’s miniature clay home. The pot rattled with the dips of open road, contained mostly to the corner of the dash and the dusty van window yet a victim of the unforgiving lack of traction still attached to the tires that had carried you for miles up until this point.

One thousand, two hundred and thirty-one miles. And counting.

You tucked your knee into your chest, lounging so the seatbelt started to cut into your neck as your head lulled to the side, eyeing Taehyung’s profile.

“You’ve kept that one alive,” You commented absently.

A noise of surprise broke the hard line of Taehyung’s clenched jaw. He glanced at you, genuine innocence shining through his confusion. It mirrored in his blunt, “Huh?”

You nodded toward the bouncing plant, “If you think about it, killing aloe vera would be kind of ironic…”

“Oh,” Taehyung wrinkled his nose, adjusting his wrist where it laid languidly on the top of the steering wheel, “I think succulents are more my speed. Or at least, the speed of traveling. My daisies didn’t appreciate the darkness of the bedroom. The sunflowers protested the living room on day one.”

“At least if a succulent spills it doesn’t immediately shrivel up and disintegrate…”

By bedroom, Taehyung meant the front section of the shades of beige van he’d acquired in high school, the area with a barely functional bed nailed to the floor of the “trunk”, with windows covered by tattered pieces of flannel you’d hand sewn to resemble curtains. By living room, he meant the back half, where a tiny, rainbow rug sat in the center of splintered wood and a few fold out lawn chairs, matching flannel curtains from the bedroom drawn open to allow sunlight to push through the thin layer of grime gathered in each corner of the windows.

His daisies had spilled fresh potting soil into your clean pillow case, one you’d shaken free of debris by holding it out the open window of the van while Taehyung shrieked with laughter. His sunflowers wouldn’t even balance on the tiny lip between the window and the inside, ceramic pot tumbling through Taehyung’s clumsy fingers and shattering onto the rug. A glittering piece of the white pot still sat lodged between a space in the wooden floorboards.

You grunted in acknowledgement, unfurling your legs to heave yourself forward, snatching the tiny plant from its place on the dash. You turned it gently in your palm, “This would have been nice to have a few weeks ago.”

The tiny seaside town you’d rumbled into by accident of the lack of fuel in the van’s tank lead to three nights of camping in crab infested sands, gorgeous sunset photographs you’d clipped to the twine string zigzagging through the living room, and a horrible ripple of blisters sun stained into Taehyung’s shoulder blades.

He gestured to the scarf you’d prematurely yanked from your luggage shoved into a compartment on the bottom of the vehicle, knee directing the steering wheel as he balled the fleece and tossed it at you. “Good thing it’s almost winter. Put my aloe down.”

You unfolded the pleats of the scarf once you settled the pot back against the windshield, curling it around your arms to settle back into the seat. Your eyes drifted to the scenery beyond the plant, coming first in the fashion of a neon highway sign advertising the next town. You glanced at the tiny red tick on the fuel tank meter.

“Are we stopping tonight?”

Taehyung’s gaze met the places yours rested on. He sighed, palm pressing into the steering wheel first until his fingers gradually curled around the leather. “At least to get gas and dinner, yes. Look and see if there’s any hotels around, please? And then maybe how far we are from our next stop? I don’t want to hang around too long and miss the harvest festival…”

The tiny tag clipped on the digital map of your phone showed a tiny motel with a singular Yelp review from someone named Min Yoongi within walking distance of the gas station Taehyung had turned into. Your legs crossed where you sat on the edge of the blow up mattress in the bedroom, eyes squinted as you twirled around the general vicinity of the tiny town with the tip of your index finger.

“Status update, copilot,” The van rocked as Taehyung took a running jump into the open back, momentum causing him to crouch in the center of the living room. Your mouth parted to respond in time with a tinkling crash to your left.

“There’s a motel across the street,” You uttered in an unimpressed monotone, locating the source of the crash as three similar aloe plants to the one on the dash tumbling off your tiny bookshelf to the rug below. Three sad aloe plants a mess between the sprinkle of potting soil in between grains of rainbow.

A sheepish look crossed the geometric edges of Taehyung’s smile. “I’ll clean it up,” His cupped palm swept over some of the more elevated piles of soil as if to prove his point, “Will you go see if they have anything available?”

“Got it, boss,” You stood, crouched still due to the proximity of the top of the van to your head, and began to edge your way outside.

Your hesitation came near the very bookshelf, the sign of the crime, sole of your shoe squashing into the center of the limited pile Taehyung had created by scraping his hands across the rippled weaving of the rug. You stayed crouched at the waist, fingers thumbing through the titles, titles a cumulative collection from your own personal belongings and the various shops you’d stowed away in the growing months of your journey. Their dusted and rough covers slowly transitioned into the item you were looking for, a slick yellow folder bursting at the pockets with the mixture of paper clipped, stapled, typed, and handwritten papers curled within. You squeezed it’s outer edge, thumb feeling into the tiny rip that was begging to form on the spine of the folder.

“I can’t clean if you don’t move,” Taehyung’s hand wrapped around your ankle, startling you to do a hop step into reality.

The imprint of the ripped folded scratched at the crease in your thumb where you rubbed your palms together, quick strides weaving you down a deserted sidewalk to cross a deserted street where a three story, house shaped structure sat. Your palm flexed into the ends of your scarf still dangling from around your neck, tucking it tighter to you to avoid the stream of words that began to ink across the forefront of your subconscious from the simple touch to the folder.

The interior of a structure whose exterior gave off the impression of outdated was instead rather modern, like stepping out of a deserted movie from the eighties to step into a fifties diner in the twenty-first century. Sleek tile in patterned squares wrapped around a black, raising desk, one that had a tiny stack of business cards and a credit card reader clipped to either side. A man was hunched over a laptop placed on what appeared to be a second level to the desk, it’s lid plastered in various hand drawn stickers peaking over the countertop as fingers continued to audibly hack away at a keyboard.

His black curls bounced when the screen door clattering shut behind you, wide eyes either perpetually surprised or simply shocked at the presence of a person in the otherwise desolate area. You assumed it was a little bit of both once his shoulders relaxed into the black polo hugging his toned upper body but the circular innocence to his eyes remained.

“Hi!” He chirped as you squinted at the gold plated name tag strapped on one side of his shirt. Jeongguk. “...how can I help you?”

“Do you have any rooms available?”

The surprise traveled into the rise of Jeongguk’s eyebrows into his shaggy fringe. It was short lived this time, though, movements instead turning frantic as he lifted the sticker covered laptop to the top layer of the desk, resuming his furious hacking with his tongue poked between his cheeks so that a dimple appeared to the side of his lips.

“I do,” He said after a moment, glancing up at you as his fingers continued to work, “Plenty, actually. Just trying to, uhm…”

“There!” Jeongguk cheered finally, voice an octave louder than before and there was a twinkle in his crinkling eyes as he directed his full attention to you, “How many nights and how many beds?”

“One and two,” You rested your forearm to the counter, thumbing one of the business cards out of its plastic tray. A fond smile curled onto your lips when you noticed the tiny logo was the same doodled design gracing a sticker pasted to the center of his laptop lid. GCF Motel and Design. “Please…”

“Of course, absolutely. Coming right up…” His index finger tapped hard at the touch pad a few times before a different color illuminated the stars in his eyes. He blinked, nodding once to himself before he cupped the credit card reader and dragged it toward you. “It’ll just be fifty for the night. Card reader is here—it works, I promise—or I can take cash. And make change for you, if...you know.”

“I have a card,” You said gently, plucking the plastic from the tiny holder stuck to your phone case. The chip reader clicked to life after a few passing seconds of your card sitting idle in the slot, taking longer in its processing that left you in a silence with the bouncing man across from you.

“Have you been busy lately? There’s that harvest festival a few miles from here this weekend, so I wasn’t sure…”

“No. No, uhm,” Jeongguk glanced at you under the shadow of his bangs, “You’re actually my first guest in two weeks.”

“Oh.” Two tiny electronic beeps signaled you to take your card but you were still delayed in doing so. You smiled warmly at the man across from you instead, “Well, then I’m happy we stopped here.”

“We means you’d like two room keys, right?” The tiniest of red dusted the apples of his cheeks, gaze cutting away to the level of the desk you couldn’t see.

“Please. Tae should be here any minute—”

The screen door clattered harshly when your tall best friend tripped through the threshold, loud in his, “I got the living room clean!” while Jeongguk’s perplexity amplified ten fold.

“Uhm, here’s your room keys. It’s on the third floor. Stairs and elevator are behind the desk,” Jeongguk passed over two green cards, holding them separately to each of you. You accepted yours with a gentle smile, Taehyung with a sleepier confusion that almost mirrored Jeongguk’s. His movements grew jerky again as he rustled behind the counter, presenting two sheets of paper in your direction now. “...and here’s a sheet of stickers. They’re mine. I hand draw them and sell them...I have my own website, it’s listed on the logo sticker in the center.”

You fondly assessed the page as you drew it closer to your nose, eyeing the etched star shape and the shaded in hues of a tiger flower. “Thank you, Jeongguk,” You said gently, holding the stickers to your chest.

“Of course!” He chirped while Taehyung continued to squint between the room key and the sticker page. “I hope you enjoy your stay...don’t hesitate to come find me if you need anything. My room is the only one on this floor if I’m not here at the desk.”

You were gentle in turning the door knob to a close while Taehyung flopped dramatically onto the nearest bed corner, still clutching his sticker sheet that he stretched above his face.

“Motto out the window tonight?”

Taehyung hummed, twisting the sheet to the right and then to the left, “For one night only—” He blinked to the side of the paper at you, “—did you look at these?

The motto hadn’t applied for three nights of your travels, the sleepy town with the sticker making motel owner included, the motto Taehyung’s sentiment that if your head ever touched a real pillow again, you’d want to cease your travels. A just keep going, arbitrary reason for continuing to blow through your college savings to travel the country. The first night had been in a storm when it was simply too dangerous to board up in the back of the van. The second night had been after Taehyung had contracted a cold from sneaking into a resort pool in a downtown tourist center. The third seemed to have no other motive than genuine exhaustion. You blamed the third potted plant spill of the month.

Mention of the motto made your mind drift to your travels as a general cloud of thought, one that generally evaporated into the back of your conscious so that you were able to focus on the paper map Taehyung had shoved into your grip from the last rest stop or the delayed play by play instructions on your phone due to the limited signal or simply forgotten due to your laughter at whatever ridiculous song Taehyung had decided to blast over your carefully wired auxiliary cord.

Just like you ignored your dwindling funds in the debit card you’d just mindlessly shoved into the barely functioning card reader, ones that funded the purpose of the sparkly eyed boy perched on a plastic stool in the lobby. Your purpose remained nothing but the ghost feeling of the rip in your yellow folder still digging into the crease of your thumb.

“You should order some from him. It’d make his week,” You said gently.

Taehyung laughed, “I don’t think he delivers to a traveling address, kid.”

You tried to manage the panic in your voice.

“Tae.”

He didn’t answer, just a grunt from outside the van where he was currently pumping air into the front driver’s side tire. Panic could only manage itself for that one call. You tried again, louder and with a slap of your hand against the nearest open door.

“Taehyung.”

The van rocked again and he answered verbally this time, agitated. A peek of one half of his face became visible, “What?”

“Where’s my folder?”

Taehyung blanched, full features coming into view, “What?”

Your hand did a dramatic sweep across the bookcase, collecting your tattered copy of Pride and Prejudice in your wake to let it drop unceremoniously to the floor. “Where is my folder?” Another book, a title you didn’t recognize but a cover you connected with the flea market Taehyung had insisted on visiting near the beach, dropped to the floor from your grip. “It’s not in its spot any longer.”

“I had to take everything off the shelf to get all the soil up,” One foot made it inside the van as your stack of discarded books continued to grow. “I swear I put it right back but it may have fallen—”

“Fallen out? Of the van?” Two more books plopping audibly to the pile. You thought about Jeongguk and his stickers and what would happen if someone threw out all his sketches. His sense of purpose suddenly gone due to someone’s recklessness.

“—behind something,” Taehyung finished, nudging you aside to retch the shelf away from where it was bolted to the wall. It only came a fraction of the way, barely enough for Taehyung to lodge his fingertips down it and effectively rule out any possibility of your folder being there. Instead, every book still clinging to the shelf flopped sadly to the floor.

The miles you’d traveled up until that point seemed to rush by in your peripheral, every open stretch of rolling road, the glittering nightscape of lively cities, the blackness of the sea current swallowing up ruts in the shore, the decades old gas stations that drained your cash from your wallets into the tank to the freshly renovated rest stops that had patterns pressed into the concrete intentionally and not just because a local raccoon decided to test his luck with some half dry concrete. It propelled you back into the moment, thousands of miles ago, where you’d stood in the same spot in Taehyung’s parents driveway with a cardboard box at your feet filled with things still labeled from when you’d moved out of your college apartment.

“Why did you keep this?” Taehyung had teased with a wrinkled nose, handing over your tattered textbook from your world literature class freshman year, the second volume in a group of three you’d paid a month's rent for. Highlighter bled into the outer edge, marking the thin off white pages appeared a mirage of rainbow that contrasted a shade more neon than the rug you’d stretched out below your feet.

“I paid for it,” You defended, settling the paper back between one side of the shelf and a heavy, dolphin shaped paperweight that you’d stuck felt on the bottom of to keep in place on the road. “Besides, it has full, translated classics in here.”

Taehyung pretended to understand the fascination of literature that came with your education with a raise of one eyebrow and a single, gentle nod that shifted his gaze back to the remaining contents in the box. He ruffled for a second before retrieving one of the items draped on the bottom.

“Okay—” He stretched your manuscript folder up in two hands so as to not let the contents on the inside spill out the sides. “—explain why you keep this.”

You snatched it from him, holding the yellow protectively to your chest. It looked a bit comical, the whole situation, you hovering over the disorganized stack of papers that you’d written off, figuratively, of course, chin resting on top of the folder as you stared hard at the worn spine of the text book you’d just placed to the shelf.

“If anything…” You moved slowly with the folder in hand, stretching it toward the felt dolphin and textbook. One hand clutched it while the other brushed aside things to make room for it, tight palm effectively dragging the weeping edges of the folder apart so a tiny rip formed in the yellow near the top of the makeshift spine. Gradual movements turned frantic as you shoved it onto the shelf, pushing the dolphin to hold it in place as your thumb remained on the newfound rip.

“...I paid a lot of money for the printer and pen ink it took to write all of that. It’s like keeping a twenty dollar bar of gold that can never be converted into usable currency.”

The dolphin was the only thing remaining on the shelf, staring at you while you stared at Taehyung, blank, not moving. Somewhere, up on the dash, the unharmed succulent rattled with the gust of wind that curled against the outside of the van.

“We’ll find it, it couldn’t have gone too far. There isn’t much space to search anyway—”

“Why did you touch it in the first place?” Your sharp cut in didn’t register in your mind as unreasonable, not at first. Instead, your mind drifted to all the times in which he’d be apprehensive of your unwillingness to throw away the folder, to, as he put it, simply transfer all the handwritten files into digital versions to zip away with the ones that were already locked in a cloud somewhere, all the times you’d caught him staring, perplexed as you pulled out the folder and flipped it open to make sure none of the pages had shifted order. “You know how much it means to me.”

“This would be different if I was intentionally trying to sabotage something of yours. I moved it to clean. It has to be somewhere in this general vicinity,” Taehyung held his hands palm up to you. Penance. Until he ruined it with a sighed, “Besides...don’t you think it’s time we throw it out anyway. I don’t think a constant reminder of rejection is—”

“Go on with your trip,” You said suddenly.

He paled in front of you, knuckles and all where they grew tighter on the edge of the unhinged bookcase. “Our trip…” He corrected, drawing out the silence at the end as punctuation.

“Your trip,” You shoved yourself off the floor, stepping past him to hurdle to the cracked concrete outside. “Help me get my luggage.”

Taehyung spluttered, lips foaming like a puffer fish out of water, eyes narrowing like you’d just grown a third hand from the tip of your nose. “Dove, we’ll find your folder. We can keep it up front so it never gets lost again. I wasn’t trying to insult your situation, I just care about you and—”

“Tae,” You said his name gently, the calmest you’d managed to spit it out in the entire ordeal, calm like the ghost of a smile that dimpled into your cheeks, “It’s not about the folder.”

“Go on. Go to the harvest festival. Hit the next few cities. I’ll be fine here.”

His eyes bulged now, “You expect me to leave you here? There’s nothing here and I’m no stranger to how our funds have been dwindling.”

“There’s a motel. And a cafe somewhere according to the map. I’ll find a job. Maybe I can rake someone’s leaves when the seasons start to change,” You smiled, “I’ll figure something out.”

“And when I come back? Will you want to go with me?” A bit more forceful, Taehyung set his eyebrows and added, “I will be coming back for you.”

You shrugged, opting for simple, “I don’t know.”

The tension sagged from Taehyung’s person, all the confusion and frustration and bubbling anger, returning him to the default of your best friend complete with a tiny half smile. A loaded inquiry in the way he tilted his cheek into his curled fist.

“Why, dove?”

“The motto,” You stretched out a hand toward him, “I quite liked the bed in the motel.”

“...so I think I’m going to stay around a little longer,” You finished your, shortened albeit, story to the pouty lipped cafe worker, offering a tentative smile.

The man who’d introduced himself as Yoongi and the owner of the tiny building, removed a hand from where it had been perched on his hip, gently plucking the wad of bills you offered to him. The register opened with what would have been a small puff of dust if the space around it weren’t so meticulously clean, the sleek black counter top and the checkered floor free of any imperfections. Yoongi had swept away the little particles of gravel you’d tracked in after he’d handed over your carefully crafted club sandwich.

“So, are you planning on staying at Jeongguk’s place?”

You blinked, a useless piece of collected information about the town in your short twenty-four hours there slipping out. “Are you the Min Yoongi who left a review on his motel?”

A charming smile crossed over the man’s gums, shoulders bouncing silently as he began to pool your change in his cupped palm for you. You took his nonverbal answer, leaning closer on your elbows, “Is Min Holly some of your relation? They left a review, too…”

Yoongi’s nose wrinkled when he laughed a second time, plopping your change down in a small tin next to the register when you motioned him to keep it. “...something like that.”

“It’s a fine place to stay, by the way. Just a dumb joke we have going,” He fished behind the counter for a rag, rubbing it over the places in the counter that had been touched. Dark eyes assessed you playfully from under white fringe, “There’s a review hidden in ours that says we make grilled cheese sandwiches without cheese.”

“Are you...in need of any help making those bread sandwiches?” You panicked when one of his eyebrows disappeared into bangs and a snort racked his shoulders, “Sorry, that was really forward. I just...my travel funds have been running low regardless of me stopping here. I really need a way to make money during my stay.”

“I don’t think Seokjin would appreciate having to split his already limited tips,” Yoongi continued to wipe at the counter, shuffling down the row of bar stools you sat at and back up.

“...you said you have a background with literature, right?” You nodded. “You could check with Namjoon and see if he has any odd jobs for you. He owns the bookstore on the next block over…”

“If anything, he could have you paint the outside,” He meticulously began to fold the rag, shaking his head, “The place looks like it just time traveled from the eighteenth century.”

Yoongi wasn’t wrong. All the buildings in the town seemed to be situated in a similar fashion, curled into strips of three or four businesses about three or four blocks long yet, it appeared that the majority of the buildings were abandoned or at the very least, not functioning businesses any longer. You pinpointed the specific building you were in search of on instinct that the one centered in the middle of a strip of buildings that appeared completely out of place had to be the one Yoongi teased about the exterior. Chipped cream and dark brown lined the paneled walls and thick frames around doors and windows, two stories of windows coated in a visible layer of dust and webs on the corners. As you strolled closer, you could make out the beige pink hue of plastic letters pasted onto the inside of the left display window, Monie’s, with a looping cursive font displaying a phone number and a website. Propped up in the thin stream of dust and crumpled window stickers was a sign, black coated in specks of brown with neon orange advertising help wanted.

You wrapped your fingers around the door, pulling it open to step inside.

The first thing you registered was the temperature difference, winter chill just starting to nip into the air outside but the bookstore was coated in something that somehow bordered the favorable side of cozy and unbearable. Minimal lighting added to that ambiance, bulbs caged in thick metal where they were screwed in planned intervals above the bookshelves. Plants littered the empty spaces in between already crowded furniture, bonsai trees to be exact, curling in their awkward shapes out of hand painted pots. Any decorations that maybe could have been placed on walls occupied by floating bookshelves instead littered the displays in each of the front windows, a massive plastic snowman, fake holiday grass plopped on top of fake winter snow, a myriad of specialty figurines ranging in sizes and shapes and colors all centered around a wooden table that appeared as though it had been made directly from a fresh stump. Perhaps, judging by everything else, it had.

The books were another thing, appearing more like library shelves than those you would see in chain bookstores or in the aisles at various department stores. Titles varied in size, in their positions in how they laid against each other. In fact, there seemed to be no reason to the way they were organized, obscure children’s books tucked in between used biographies of a fourteenth century royal and three new copies of the first book in the latest dystopian young adult series.

You turned down the last aisle, one that seemed to harbor anything from an entire encyclopedia set to preschool board books, to find a steep staircase at the end of the shelf. The dark wood matched that of the outside of the building, leading upward into a shadow until you could no longer see where it went. Careful footsteps carried you across creaking wood covered in various colors of woven rugs, testing a hand onto the rail of the staircase. One foot on the first stair and it creaked worse that the floor, the second a wail just as bad.

Nothing, however, could have prepared you for the tiger striped cat that bounded down the stairs past you.

You yelped, clinging to the staircase as your knees gave out in your brief moment of panic and had you sinking to a crouch. A deep swallow into you cradling the posts between the stair railing and you managed to get your heart rate to calm by pressing the blunt end of your palm against your chest.

A voice acted like the pull start of a generic lawn mower, kicking the roar of blood in your ears back to life.

“Where are you going?”

It was spoken kindly, a genuine inquiry in which the tone matched the man who stood within the row of books. Namjoon, your conscious presumed. He was tall, a long navy coat fluttering against his khaki jogger covered ankles. A deep maroon t-shirt showed off the glitter of a pendant necklace dangling between the defined planes of his chest where the terror of a cat was now cradled. Thick rimmed glasses rested on the very tip of his nose, deep set brown eyes magnifying when he nudged the frames up with the tips of his index and middle fingers. A gentle smile indented permanently into his mouth, showing off dimples that became deeper set the more his laughter grew at your prolonged silence.

“Oh, sorry I...I was just—”

“Unfortunately, my business is not enough to harbor a second floor,” His nose wrinkled with his smile as he dropped his gaze enough to place the cat onto the floor before effectively shoving bracelet covered wrists into his pockets, “Can I help you with something else?”

“I’m looking for a job,” You blurted, still standing firmly on the second stair while the cat, calmer this time, scurried past you once more. It creaked again with the two movements, the cat and the nervous shift of yours, and you allowed yourself to wince this time.

The man tilted his head, dark brown locks sticking behind the glass and frames. “And why would you come here in search of that?”

“Yoongi sent me,” You blinked, “Uh, Min Yoongi. The guy that owns that cafe up the street? I’m going to be staying in town for a little while and I’m in need of something...I have a literature background, if that makes my case any more compelling. At the very least I could reorganize your shelves or something—”

“My shelves stay as they are,” He cut in absently, waving a hand. Go on.

“—besides,” Your finger pointed dumbly toward the window display behind him, “You have a help wanted sign in your window.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the trajectory of your finger, shaking his head, “No...I don’t think I do.”

You clambered off the staircase, pointed in brushing past the tall man to stalk determinedly for the opposite window display. The sign stuck to the window in some sort of build of debris that you didn’t particularly care to question but instead made it hard for you to pull up when you were straddling a tiny train set and a mountain of fake snow in an attempt not to harm any of his decorations. It came in a cloud of dust, coating your fingers and glittering in the baths of afternoon sun that cut through the window.

You found that he’d trailed after you, close enough that when you stumbled out of your awkward stretch position you could press the sign just spaces from his chest.

“See.”

He took it from you, that trace of a smile still prominent as he squinted at the object in his grasp. His sleeve curled over his fingers, gradual in clearing away the grime build up over the printed words.

“Oh,” He simply, “I suppose I do.”

More than the confined heat of the sun through the windows warmed your body from his gentle carmel stare, something that curled your toes into your shoes as your hand had the opposite reaction in jutting out towards him. Quietly, you offered your name.

“Namjoon,” He settled his free hand in yours, giving it a firm shake without pulling away. Instead he tilted his head, “What’s your story?”

You tilted your head in the opposite direction, “Is this my interview?”

His smile grew warmer when his teeth appeared under his lips, “And if it is?”

“I’ve been traveling with my best friend for the past few months. We started after our university graduation and didn’t look back,” A halfhearted laugh followed the slip of your hand out of his, “Truthfully—” kind of, “—I was starting to run out of money. Your town seemed to be about my speed,” You set your shoulders, “...so I told Taehyung to leave me here. Now I’m in your store asking for a job.”

“Where are you staying?”

“The motel, Jeongguk’s right?” You brushed your foot into the floor, “He told me I didn’t have to pay for anything until I left, or at least built up enough to afford his rates, but—”

“That won’t do,” Namjoon dismissed. Curtly, he turned, stalking off between the shelves with the sign tucked to his chest.

You were sure you looked like a personified exclamation mark wrapped around a question mark but you allowed yourself to stumble after him anyway, trailing him between the awkward route of shelves you’d yet to explore in your short venture through the store. Finally, you arrived at a small desk, one with a clear glass top with flyers and charts and business cards lodged underneath it. A register, the most modern item of the entire store, took up most of the desk space, placed directly next to an illuminated desktop computer that displayed a background of a light blue koala character etched out in a vaguely familiar art style. You noticed the cat from earlier had wandered back into view, now perched on a red leather stool that was placed behind the counter and let out a particularly discontented mrow! when Namjoon shooed it aside to take a seat.

Ring clad fingers began to clack away at an outdated keyboard for the modern monitor, features scrunched at the center. Namjoon’s glasses slipped down the length of his nose, this time purposely, as he leaned closer to the screen, mouth parted as eyes darted over the contents. His entire expression shifted when he leaned away, soft smile returning as he gestured for you to join him on the opposite side of the counter.

“Have you ever worked with any type of cataloging software?”

You blinked at the foreign objects on the screen, a whirlwind of passwords and edit options, and ISBN numbers that you didn’t understand other than how to finesse the cheapest textbooks when you were still in university. His whirlwind explanation that hadn’t allowed you any time to answer the initial question ended with a single syllable laugh.

“I’ll help you,” Namjoon promised, spinning on the stool to face you. His gangly legs crossed, elbow meeting the thickest part of his thigh as he cheek settled into his palm. “And dusting? How are you with a rag?”

A smile broke out of your tense uncertainty, “That I can definitely do.”

He hummed, drumming his fingers against his cheek, “I think I can find plenty for you to help me with here, if you’d like. I can’t promise much pay.”

“But no staying with Guk. You can stay here as part of your payment.”

You subconsciously glanced outward around the store, to the crowded shelving and potted plants and lopsided books, as if maybe a bed would manifest somewhere that you hadn’t seen it before. To that, Namjoon laughed, louder and so that his face scrunched up around his eyes.

“I live in the apartment above the store. That’s where the staircase leads. I have an extra bedroom…”

“But that’s only if you’d like,” He rushed suddenly, voice growing an octave as his hands flailed, “I know we just met so if you’re not comfortable living with me, you can absolutely continue to stay at the motel. I just thought it might be easier on you financially and travel wise if you were already here, you know. The bedrooms are on opposite ends of the apartment. There’s two bathrooms, too—”

“Thank you, Namjoon,” You placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, waiting until he relaxed under your touch, “That sounds like a wonderful idea. I accept your offer, if you don’t mind having me, of course.”

He started to shake his head only to be interrupted by a strangled meow from below your feet. You watched as the cat curled in between your legs, butting into your shin while an audible purr rumbled into its next meow.

“You’ll have to bargain with her for use of the bedroom, actually. It’s unofficially hers at the moment,” The tiny cat continued to nuzzle into your jeans, tail curling happily each time she threw her body weight into you, “It seems like you’ve passed the Marie test.”

You crouched, allowing her to inspect the curl of your fingers before she happily began to settle her chin into the crevices of your palm, rubbing back and forth until you began to flex your fingers in her fur.

“Miss Marie, can we be roommates for a little while?”

She mewled in response, bypassing your hand to jump into the open space on your thighs. You adjusted her in your arms instead, stretching back to a standing position to smile at Namjoon.

“First task complete.”

Namjoon cocked an eyebrow, “Which was…?”

“Befriend the cat that ratted me out,” You grinned, bouncing her a bit in your arms, “What’s next, boss?”

“Why don’t you two start by cleaning out those window displays while I go to retrieve your things from Jeongguk,” He slipped his glasses off between the pinch of his fingers, allowing them to twirl back and forth for a moment, “Who knows what other hidden treasures are in there.”

You found your things stacked in a neat pyramid on a bed. Your bed. You clutched the ‘treasures’ you’d uncovered in the window displays a bit tighter to your chest.

It was a modest room, full size mattress squeezed into a vast majority of the room, leaving just enough room for a dresser and closet doors that folded open to one side. Your things looked massive in the center of the bed, particularly with how they’d been stacked in awkward, Jenga like angles. You frowned until you found a slip of paper dangling off the very top piece of your luggage. You cradled Namjoon’s things, a curly haired teddy bear and a miniature pair of leather shoes, into one arm to pluck the note.

It was another sheet of stickers, different from the first, with a handwritten note in swirling purple marker scrawled to the blank side.

Come back and visit me! Or maybe I’ll come into the store more now...Here’s some of my newest designs as thanks :)

“Jeongguk insisted I bring you those.” You crinkled the edge of the paper in hand, startled by the soft voice. It was Namjoon, now without his long coat, arms folded across his chest where he leaned against the doorframe. He nodded toward the other contents in your grasp, “What are those?”

“Oh!” You passed aside the paper to grip the bear and shoes in separate hands, stretching the items toward him. “Just some things I found hidden in the displays…”

He pushed himself up off the door, pulling the bear into his grasp first. Long fingers tucked into the wirey fur of the toy, scratching gently as a fond smile slowly worked upwards into his cheeks. Crinkles formed underneath his eyes as he pressed the bear underneath his arm, cradling the two tiny shoes next, raising them up above eye level for inspection.

“You’re right, I forgot about these,” Namjoon passed the shoes into one palm, closing his fingers to hold them at the center of his chest. “Thank you for doing that, by the way. It looks wonderful.”

You returned his grateful smile, unsure of how to accept a thanks for a task assigned to you as an employee. It was the first time since the morning that you’d allowed yourself to think of the yellow folder, one that symbolized the exact opposite of the gracious, polite expressions Namjoon had yet to fail to provide.

It’d been less than twelve hours, but you had no reason to assume he would offer anything otherwise. A less than conventional situation with a less than conventional job offer with a less than conventional boss with less than conventional job benefits.

His mouth fished once, twice, gawking at the shoes in his hand before his gaze settled back on you. Lips pressed together, head tilting.

“...would you like some tea?”

The disarray, library aura the maze of shelves in the store provided came as a result of the equally disorienting ordering process from Namjoon, so you learned. He avoided section titles, author groupings, or series shelving. Instead, there was some mental list of steps all based around bogus marketing techniques that accounted for the haphazard strew of books to the point where you weren’t quite sure he had meaning to it anymore and was simply doing it to stay to some imaginary regiment he’d convinced himself of.

Best selling young adult dystopian novels were on the far shelf, the one closest to the desk, and hidden behind the busy leaves of a bonsai in the back left corner. There were three copies of the first and second books but only two of the third book. Children’s books were placed backwards on the shelves, spines facing inwards, the shapes giving them away. Biographies were always placed on the third shelf from the bottom, eye level.

No romance made the cut to “easy on the eye” locations.

“I’d be replacing them every day,” Namjoon explained as he gave you the third tour of the store with a third set of instructions for shelving. You weren’t sure how to politely tell him that he wasn’t in the position to assume he had that much patronage daily.

In the end, he’d left you isolated to cataloging month old shipments, boxes piled high with novels at the top of outdated best seller lists scattered in between obscure titles of obscure genres with obscure authors that you often found yourself squinting at in wonder with their unfinished tab open on the blinking monitor in front of you. Cataloging meant updating the system first so that when your second customer of the eight hour day came in, you could properly run their crossword puzzle booklet or copy of the town newspaper through the bar code scanner without having to employ the help of the tiny red calculator hidden within the contents of the desk.

Eventually, you convinced Namjoon to let you update the website too, starting with the boxes you still had left to do and moving onto those things already existing on the shelves when a customer appeared for something new on the shelf simply because they had seen it online. Namjoon had eyed the customer like they were leaving with a third arm rather than a newly acquired how-to manual on toothpick crafts and promptly requested you do whatever that was.

Your reorganization of the window displays had done a number in themselves, cleaning away the cobwebs to make the neatly arranged scenery, now free of any cheap decorative foliage or precipitation, visible from the sidewalk. Three different individuals had appeared with comments about such, one in question of if the newly cleaned window decals had always been there, one asking if that was the current working phone number, and the third asking if the store was under new management due to the “new changes”.

Aside from updating the website and reorganizing his conglomeration of acquired decorations, you couldn’t get Namjoon to budge on anything else.

Especially not ordering some more romance novels. The best sellers in your short time as an employee. The genre tab you were constantly updating on the website.

You tried to mention it casually over a cup of tea one evening, your feet propped up on a wooden coffee table similar to the one you’d placed fresh flowers on in the shop.

“Okay, former literature student,” Namjoon swung his feet off where they had been resting across from yours. The patchwork red recliner he sat in creaked as he leaned forward, white mug cupped in two hands with the rim resting on his smiling bottom lip, “...and I can’t believe I didn’t ask you this already. What are some of your favorite authors? Go.”

You hesitated. Of all the classics, the literature tailored for a specific class genre, the novels you’d exhausted class discussion after thesis on, you’d still honestly answer that easy to read, cliche romance were your favorite, especially when written by a select few authors you’d claimed to some sort of unspoken circle you trusted.

There were things to learn in even the cheesiest of cliches, in generally the most ideal situations that were few and far between the reality you’d seen, love could and would prevail. Love was the start, the middle, and the end to the spines of worn romance novels, ones often criticized for having the same plot hidden under ten different covers plastered in warm pastels and photographs of flowers draping over bicycles and down the sides of beach side houses.

But just because it’s ideal and not realistic doesn’t mean it shouldn’t exist in what you strive for. At least, that’s what you stood by, particularly when your pencil or your fingers moved to creatively express that very mantra in the plot of your own romance story lines. They were romance at the surface, or at least hidden underneath the flaps of your tattered and lost yellow folder.

The tear itched at the bend of your thumb and you rubbed it as you squinted at Namjoon, pretending to be in thought. “That’s a hard question.”

“Is it?”

He’d garnered enough information about you in the last weeks to understand you were well versed, at least enough to recognize, to understand, and to adapt. Lying could work but would be virtually useless in the face of your almost stranger roommate. The laymen’s, internet speak resting in the deepest recess of your conscious cooed to you quietly.

It’s not that deep just tell him you enjoy the occasional Nicholas Sparks novel.

Instead, the cursed part of your conscious blurted, “Have you ever read Twilight?”

Namjoon didn’t laugh at you but with you. “I have, actually…” His lips puckered to take in enough tea to coat is tongue, another gentle laugh shaking his shoulders, “Is this your way of saying Stephanie Meyers is your favorite author?”

“No! No, I mean...not necessarily,” You shrugged, “I enjoy the occasional cliche. Even in the easiest cliches there can be a lesson to be learned. Just with some padding. Like bumpers on a bowling lane, you know. You still make it to the pins just with some extra help.”

“Right,” He lounged again, taking the natural rock of the recliner with him before releasing his foot so it swayed his relaxed stature, “That makes sense.”

“The artistic value isn’t lost simply because it’s popular or it’s based on something popular, you know,” You glanced behind his head, to one of the various artwork pieces he had nailed throughout the apartment. This one was a canvas coated in navy birds, ones that grew sloppier in shape the smaller they grew towards one corner. “It wouldn’t be popular otherwise…”

“I don’t disagree,” Namjoon narrowed his eyes but they crinkled on the edges, “I also wouldn’t fire you if you told me the Twilight franchise was the peak of literary and cinematic history. I just would...respectfully disagree.”

“Would you fire me if I told you I write romance?”

“Is it about vampires that sparkle?”

“No.”

“Then no,” He grinned this time, “If you can’t answer your favorite author question then who inspires you when you write? Most art is modeled after that of which we’ve already consumed so I can’t imagine you’re any different.”

No thought of the yellow folder burned through the itch on your thumb as you rattled off your extensive list of ever evolving authors, ones you adored in middle school then reread in college to find new light (or some glaring darkness you missed in the naivety of your uneducated youth. See: the glitz and glamour of The Great Gatsby) within, those young adult novels of dystopian future in which you’d always wanted to teach your own university course on all the way down to the grossest cliches that had you and Namjoon wrinkling your noses.

“They’re still wonderful,” You bargained, “In every sense of the word. Wonderfully awesome, wonderfully terrible. Refreshing to read, refreshing to pick out eyebrow raising and quite frankly glaring issues that high school teachers choose not to point out in their lessons.”

“Have you ever thought about ordering more for the store?”

“There are plenty of popular titles in the store,” Namjoon resisted immediately. His mug of tea was empty now, nothing to divert his attention from staring directly at you. For a moment, you feared you’d imposed on something like when you’d offered to reorganize the shelves.

Gently, you tried to express your point and correct him, “Yes, but not that’s currently popular in the last five years, or even the last decade. It would be a good selling point, at least to garner a bit more profit—”

“No.” He wasn’t harsh. Just firm. “I’m content with our current inventory.”

“However, if you would like for me to order you something to read, I would be happy to do so. You know where the catalogs are.”

That’s not the point. You sighed in the defeat of your changed window displays and online catalog update.

“That’s okay, Namjoon. Thank you anyway, though.”

“So, what do you think?”

There were two expectant pair of eyes blinking at you, one the curator of the dish placed just beneath your nose, the other wholly hoping for your features to be unable to hide the disgust of whatever cheese, tomato, and bread contraption currently resting on the part of your bottom lip, ready for a taste.

“I haven’t even taken a bite yet, Jin,” You laughed, testing the warmth of the sub bread against. You turned the sandwich in one hand, wincing when some of the cheese spilled out and singed at the skin of your palm. “It’s hot.”

“It’s delicious,” He argued, dragging the bar stool closer to you.

“It’s already on the menu,” Yoongi mumbled.

“It’s not,” Seokjin slapped his palm on the counter, ears growing red as he fumed at his boss, “This stromboli has nacho cheese instead of mozzarella. Instantly better.”

“If it’s good, you can make it for everyone who orders it,” You eyed Yoongi as you gave it another temperature test and he smiled shyly, “The nacho cheese gets too hot...I don’t want to have to handle it.”

Tentatively, you jutted your teeth out to take a nibble off the corner of the steaming sandwich, managing to acquire a mouthful of bread, pepperoni, and of course, the seeping nacho cheese. Yoongi was right, it was scalding, but it burnt your taste buds enough to mask any horrid taste that may exist and you managed to swallow it down with a minimal wince.

“Amazing right?”

“They can’t even speak—”

“They can’t speak because it’s so amazing,” Seokjin nudged your side while you tried to digest the burning coals currently sliding down your throat, “Right?”

“It’s not too bad,” You croaked finally, making prolonged eye contact with a viscarly annoyed Yoongi as you dragged your ice water closer and downed two, three, five gulps. “Would probably be better if it weren’t the temperature of the sun.”

“That’s not a yes—”

“Maybe, but it’s also not a no,” Seokjin happily clapped in the seat next to you, making a full rotation on the bar stool in victory before he swiped the plate from under your nose and went to take a bite for himself.

His high pitched screams muffled by the way too large bite of yeast and runny cheesy came in time with the ding of the cafe door that had Yoongi straightening and you snorting.

Namjoon ignored the way Seokjin’s palm began to rapidly slap against the counter top as he waddled directly for you, a large cardboard box cradled to his chest as he happily chirped your name in time with the slap of his sandals against the tile. He deposited the box to the empty bar stool on your opposite side, only then allowing his gaze to deviate to a violently coughing Seokjin.

“Is he okay?” He asked simply, that same comforting calmness etched deep in his tone.

“Loaded question,” Yoongi grumbled.

“He’ll be fine,” You dismissed, waving your hand over your shoulder. Seokjin coughed in outrage. You placed both hands on either side of the taped lid, tilting your head, “What do you have here?—” After a second, you perked up, “—Is it this week's shipment?”

Namjoon’s hands covered yours, soft with the vanilla pine lotion you knew he kept on the bottom shelf behind the counter in the store. Gentle thumbs nudged your appendages aside, instead tucking his nail underneath the tape and flicking across it.

“You reviewed my final order list, right?”

You nodded, “Yeah, you were going to order some extra crossword books and replace those couple copies of encyclopedia that Marie...had an accident on…”

“Right, but—” He balled the tape when it reached the far end of the box, still holding your eye contact as he began to fold open the flaps on the box, “—I added a few more things before I sent it in.”

“Oh yeah?” You couldn’t help but grin too, “And what did you order?”

“Well, first of all…” Namjoon shuffled around, trying his best to shield the contents inside from you until he retrieved what he was looking for. An exclamation point coated his features when his fingers wrapped around the desired book, drawing it out with a giddy grin.

“Is that Gatsby?” You gaped, reaching for the paperback book in his hand. You took in the horribly refurbished cover, sighing blissfully as you looked at Namjoon. At the same time, you each breathed, “Hate Gatsby.”

“I bought ten copies I think,” Namjoon took it back from you, flicking it back into the box like a frisbee, “If anything, we can put them to Marie’s litter box. Lead her there.”

“I like this already. Show me more.”

“The next one I bought for you, if you want it,” He shuffled a bit longer this time, eyebrows meeting his hairline when he finally latched onto the item yet seemed to struggle a bit more with lifting this one. The veins in his arms strained, bottom lip tucking under his teeth as he threw his shoulder into it, letting the heavy hardback hit the top of the counter with an audible thud that silenced Seokjin’s moaning behind you.

“Twilight?” You laughed, stroking your fingers over the raised text, “I can’t believe you brought yourself to write this on an order.”

“I can’t believe I did either,” Namjoon beamed, glowing in the rays of your praise, “I thought you’d like it and I wasn’t sure if you had a copy of it so…”

“My copy is in the van,” You flattened your palm to ignore the itch on the bend of your thumb, forcing the rush of emotion down past the sudden lodge in your throat, “This is a nicer copy than mine, anyway.”

“Isn’t that the book about vampires?” Yoongi deadpanned. You slid it toward him, letting him turn the heavy text over to read the soft pink cursive that curled a summary across the back cover. He eyed Namjoon, “You...ordered this?”

“I got a few copies for the shop too,” He ignored Yoongi, addressing you as he instead shoved a stapled packet of paper toward you, bits of other paper and an envelope fluttering to the top of the box in the process. “And I...consulted some of the newer best seller lists and ordered the things that sounded interesting from those. I’ll let you shelve them, if you want.”

“You haven’t read this, have you Joon?” Yoongi continued to gape at the cover, flipping it back over to stare open mouthed at the table of contents.

“I could help you next order too,” You flipped through the list, running your index finger over the highlighted titles, “...if you like.”

“Uhh…” You heard an excessive amount of extra fluttering, peering over the top of the packet in your hand to see him ruffling at the papers and envelopes that had slipped out of his grasp when he passed you the list. You watched as he pried open the singular envelope with crooked index finger on the flap, wincing as he did so. “Yeah...yeah maybe.”

“What?” You asked gently, trying to laugh, “Is that the bill for all this fresh content?”

“Yeah—” Yoongi had stopped where he’d been rubbing at bits of nacho cheese Seokjin had spilled over the counter, watching Namjoon carefully. A smile met his lips, one that never even touched the crinkle around his eyes or the sparkling softness in his irises, “—something like that.”

“Can I tell you something?”

You paused where you’d been mid chopping vegetables, a task you’d handed off to Namjoon only for him to show sizable difficulty with. You tasked him with dishes instead, handing off each new soiled piece for him to dunk in the basin piled high in bubbles. He hesitated with his wrists hidden underneath the suddy mess, fingers holding onto the wire edges of one of the charred racks from within the oven.

After a second, you started again, allowing the slice of metal through the onion slices under your moist fingers to fill the cramped kitchen once more. “Of course,” You glanced at him once you’d finished the row you were on, absently sweeping the pieces back and forth across the cutting board underneath a cupped palm, “What’s up?”

“I’m not very good at ordering books for the store,” He held up a palm when you tried to suppress your reaction, “I know you know this, but I’m just...acknowledging that it’s always been like this. I don’t like to think of myself as pretentious, but I suppose my ordering and stocking habits are a bit on that side.”

“In the beginning, I had a reason for it, or at least, what I convinced myself was a viable reason. I’d purchased the shop after living in the apartment above a quickly failing bakery for far too long. I wanted it to be something that thrived in this secluded little town.”

“Like a bookstore,” You nodded without any sort of teasing or malice. You were a book person, after all. You craved the homey feel of a locally owned bookstore in any crevice of the Earth, probably contributing to some twisted fate in the universe to how you ended up in one particular place in one particular line of employment after being lost on the road for so long.

“Right, but not just any bookstore. I wanted to give the place something unique,” White bubbles gathered and slipped down the length of his knuckles when Namjoon drew his hands out of the water, letting them grip on either side of the sink as he leaned into it, “A scavenger hunt of sorts sounds appealing, right? Once you find the book in the store, there’s some sort of satisfaction to it. Especially if you don’t really know what you’re looking for and you end up stumbling upon an extensive history of stuffed animal fur.”

You wrinkled your nose, “We have that?”

“Somewhere,” Namjoon nodded gravely, cracking a smile at your indignation, “I would have no idea where it is.”

“And to an extent, that business plan works. Keep just enough popular titles to appease to the general public. Keep more obscurity to draw the crowd craving originality. Garner revenue from individuals on any spectrum of literature pretentiousness,” He shrugged, letting his shoulders roll up to his ears as his chin dropped, “It worked for maybe five months. Then the newness wore off.”

“I’ve never really been able to recover even with our normal patronage. Now that there’s appeal for business in neighboring towns, all of us have started to suffer. People would rather stay in a Hilton next to a Panera and shop at the three story Barnes and Noble than tour our locally owned amenities that provide damn near the same thing.”

“Jeongguk and Yoongi have been able to adapt, though,” Namjoon’s shoulders relaxed again, letting his hands dip down into the water to grab at the wire rack. He passed the rough edge of the sponge over the edges now exposed out of the water, soft enough that the fibers barely pulled any of the grime from the utensil. “I can’t seem to find my way out of a rut.”

“Have you tried?”

Namjoon laughed, “I ordered Twilight, didn’t I?”

“But did you order New Moon too? Or the other two books in the series? What about the DVD adaptations?” You started to dice the onion now, speaking to the tiny pieces you nudged aside with the tip of the knife, “Did you put them in alphabetical order? Or did you at least consider creating a young adult section? Or a vampire romance section? I can offer more recommendations—”

“I can’t afford to pay the bills,” Namjoon said gently. “Not...not anymore. Way before I hired you, even.”

You grew silent, letting yourself sink into the lip of the counter top.

“I had to start using my monthly order funds to pay rent on the store. And my personal rent. And the light bill. And…” He sighed, dunking the wire rack a few times in silence to rinse it of the bubbles.

“That’s what those envelopes were today. Notice of eviction.”

Your mouth fished, pursing at the seam of your lips and puffing your cheeks out as you pondered the terrifying thought. Never mind that this was your temporary home and temporary place of employment but this was Namjoon’s livelihood, his greatest accomplishment, his love.

Behind convoluted marketing strategies and a quietly picky selection in what he read in his personal time, there was a man who absolutely adored the power of literature in its simplest form, tangible, physical books. You’d witnessed the way his eyes lit up when the tiny bell at the front of the store tinkled with the arrival of someone new, his long legs and eager persistence quick to beat you out from behind the counter to assist the customer, whether that be to point out a general area as to where something may be located, to recommend something of his own, or to simply offer a casual conversation over a cup of coffee he offered in a floral paper cup from the tiny room underneath the staircase.

“So, what do we do?”

He was puzzled only for a moment, the furrow in his eyebrow traveling upward with the smile that appeared as he dragged his hands out of the water. Massive palms dabbed to his thighs as he backed away from you, bumping into the edge of the counter on his way but he found his target, the massive stack of sliced open mail. Some ruffling with semi damp hands that splattered visible water droplets over the counter later, his pinched fingers appeared triumphant holding a mint colored envelope with a red printed logo stamped on the return address corner.

“There’s uhm…” Namjoon’s fingers pried inside, drawing a folded piece of paper out. Through the back, you could see the same red logo, bold and in the center of the page this time. “One of the companies I order from sent this not too long ago. I don’t know if it’s a sign but it kind of seemed like a sign.”

You abandoned your chopping to accept the paper, now doused in vague water spots, from his grasp. He voiced the contents your squinted eyes began to scan.

“Basically, if we can get sales above a certain threshold by the end of the month, I can apply for a grant worth—” He was in front of you now, reaching his index finger over to hover above a bolded monetary amount, “—that. That would give enough time for you to help me implement some of your ideas…”

“And if none of it works,” Namjoon shrugged, folding the paper back into it’s neat little pamphlet, letting it dangle to his side, “then I guess this wasn’t really meant to be.”

A small part of you envied him in that moment. Perhaps there was more than what presented itself outwardly, but Namjoon was frustratingly calm about simply giving up something he worked so hard to achieve simply because of a couple of setbacks. The yellow folder that triggered you to step off the trunk of Taehyung’s rickety travel van certainly could not relate.

Instead, you blurted, “You want my help?”

His normal composure fractured a bit, longer pauses, hums even, stationed between stumbled words, “If you’d like to, yes, I’d love to have your help. Outside perspective is the only way I’m going to change my ways. I don’t think I could do it, not productively, by myself.”

“And of course, if you’re still around by then,” Cautious brown irises met your own, swimming in something unreadable, a guard almost, “I know you’ve said you aren’t sure when Taehyung will be back. If he does come back—”

“He’ll be back,” The skin behind your neck grew hot with how quickly you assured that, a statement mostly spoken to sate the tiny nagging part of yourself that was left lost with your entire situation as a whole. Namjoon blinked, unwavering, chin twitching just enough to nod.

“But I’d be happy to help for as long as I’m here,” You allowed yourself to smile even if the line wobbled a bit. You resumed your chopping in silence, only long enough to finish off the vegetable underneath your palm before you were sweeping your work space clean, dusting your fingers off in the process.

“Where should be start, boss?”

You were tasked with reorganization while Namjoon took to his computer, conjuring up flyers dedicated to those few events you’d agreed upon after exhausting a list of potential, quick ways to garner attention and profit. Aside from making the store more navigable for the average person (as well as setting aside some funds specifically to order the missing books in series), bringing people into the store seemed like an obvious answer to gaining short (or long) term interest in the store.

An easy way to bring people into the store was to host events.

Armed with three massive stacks of flyers in the basket on the front of Namjoon’s spare bike, you took off on an advertising run. You stopped at Yoongi’s, watching Namjoon wallpaper flyers to the glass windows outside the cafe while Yoongi looked disgruntled between the spaces in the fluttering paper yet made no attempt to remove any of them and quietly took a stack you handed him to hand out to customers as they came in. Jeongguk barely let you get the question out of your mouth, appearing with a sheet of thick, round, metallic stickers of his own design that he used to plaster the various event flyers over the front of his desk and a promise to photocopy the flyers and post them to every gaming community he knew online.

The first event advertised was in connection with the local elementary school, parents pouring through the doors one Wednesday after school while their beaming teacher brought up the rear. You settled them in with fresh baked cookies and hot chocolate while Marie made her rounds, resisting gooey chocolate off of chubby fingers and happily deciding upon a small girl in the corner who was completely enamored with a dinosaur themed pop up book she’d discovered with Namjoon’s help.

You’d watched quietly where he knelt next to her on the shorter shelves, one’s you’d specially arranged for the event and as a way to pinpoint the location of the children's books previously scattered aimlessly about. He’d murmured gently too her, offering books on the shelves she couldn’t quite reach until she made grabby hands at a slightly disgruntled stegosaurus when Namjoon had flipped open the first thick page.

Hoseok, their teacher, drew you out of your fond trance. His arms were filled with educational books, ones a level between the ages he taught and that of high school, glossy pages filled with just enough text and just enough pictures to appeal to all ages. Wavy red hair parted down the middle, fluttering against shining apple cheeks as he beamed giddily at you, rainbow cartoon smiley faces in a repeated pattern on his shirt almost blinding you all the same.

“I did some shopping while you two watched over them,” Hoseok admitted bashfully, a slight pink tinting his ears as he glanced at the book on top of his stack, a midnight blue cover with an abundance of jungle animals spilling across the surface. “I hope they weren’t too bad.”

“Not at all,” You softened, pulling your gaze away from Namjoon when the little girl proudly parked herself in his lap and began to chatter absently about the next dinosaur that popped into view, a triceratops by first glance. “I could give you a discount since they’re for the school?”

“Oh no, I couldn’t—” Hoseok’s eyes widened, tossing his fringe as an absent habit, “—I’d like to support anyway. I feel as if I don’t do that enough lately.”

“It would be no problem.”

He brushed past you to place his towering stack on top of the counter, already digging deep in the pocket of his bright purple jeans. A wad of cash was pushed across to you before you could even begin to swipe barcodes through the system.

“Consider it a donation.”

The dinosaur popup book sold during the event along with a dozen other children’s books that Namjoon assured you were relics, books he’d forgotten were on the shelves at all let alone ones that would sell instantly upon being relocated to an easy to find vicinity (whether that be grouped or closer to the ground where two foot tall humans could scan at eye level).

Other things started to leave too, filling the space in between scheduled events. You saw a fair amount of hand sized romance novels leave the door, ones you plopped randomly onto a singular turnstyle you assembled from multiples hunks of plastic in a dusty cardboard box in the room underneath the staircase, flowery covers with fraying spines shoved into purses and jacket pockets. Magazines started to go, new and old issues alike after you ordered them in stacks on Namjoon’s wooden table as it sat in the front window display. Series started to go as a whole, limited in quantity but at least as a whole rather than in the first and third book with the second book to be ordered from an online delivery or serviced from a nearby chain.

You sold out of crossword puzzle books when the second event came, murder mysteries and a fair few of the popular horror authors leaving the store too when the local florist used the space to teach a beginner’s bouqet workshop. The blonde headed man, Park Jimin in all his charming giggles and devastating smile, brought in his self written gardening manual, giving Namjoon a sizable check to be able to sell them while he did his workshop.

You had every reason to believe it wasn’t the atmosphere of the bookshop that had elderly women kissing red lipstick stains into his blushing cheeks and selling out his small stack of green pamphlets but Namjoon wasn’t one to turn away the check.

“What do you know about daisies?”

Jimin’s expression immediately grew amused, glancing at you from under shaggy fringe as he hunched to untie the cat covered apron pressed to his stature. He freed the knot at his spine, straightening once more as he shrugged it over his head and began to meticulously fold it.

“A lot,” His eyebrow cocked, letting the apron fall to his now empty table, “What are you wanting to know?”

“Let’s say you were trying to grow a plant in a moving van—” You crossed your arms, “—could you do it?”

His nose wrinkled at the bridge, “With a lot of finesse, probably. But if we’re talking about a plant that’s good with traveling...succulents might be a good bet.”

The dip between your thumb and palm itched and you rubbed it at your hip, smiling, “That’s what I figured.”

Locations around the store were progressively growing blurrier each time you glanced up from the harsh lighting off the computer monitor in the shop. There was a soft glow from the moon where it reflected on the floor panels at the front of the room but it didn’t quite reach through the rows of thick shelves (you’d rearranged books, not furniture. Namjoon wouldn’t budget on layout) but otherwise, you worked in the dark, fingers working on muscle memory around the keyboard as you continued to plug in information to the online application.

The events worked, giving the store a two month boost in sales that granted you, at the very least, a chance to save the store. It was just that, a boost, nothing that could sustain long term even with newfound organization and aggressive attempts at community engagement. Even with all that, you lacked the funds to properly distribute across all things that needed tending to, particularly the ordering that would require you to keep up with the amount of product that went out the door after the first event.

It was a curve, one with a sharper downfall than the first.

Creaking on the staircase alerted you to Namjoon’s presence, phone flashlight outlined Marie where she sat cradled in the curve of his elbow. He placed her on the floor when he reached the bottom, allowing him to properly balance the basket curled on his opposite forearm.

“...alright?” He murmured. The wicker container was slid to the counter top next to you as he slid onto the free stool.

You hummed, flicking your index finger up and down the scroll to send the typed text whirring by. “Just about done,” You placed your chin on your shoulder, gaze cutting away from his gentle smile to nod at the basket, “What do you have there?”

“Oh!” Namjoon thumbed at the lid, digging inside to present you with two plastic wrapped sandwiches. He placed those aside, returning with a metal thermos next, followed by two paper plates and forks you recognized from the utensil drawer in the apartment. “I packed us a little paperwork picnic.”

You dragged one of the sandwiches closer, careful in picking apart the wrap to discover sliced tomato, floppy lettuce, and careful strips of bacon stuck between two fresh buns. Lemonade was dunked into two plastic cups by the careful hands of Namjoon, his smile growing when you shot him an inquisitive glance.

“I said packed for a reason,” He teased, nudging you when you pinched at one of the ranch drenched piece of greenery, “Jin insisted I take them when I was picking up lunch earlier.”

“Was the picnic part your idea?” You accepted a glass from him, drawing it to your bottom lip without taking a sip.

His gaze remained unwavering as his hand dipped back inside the basket, tripping it across the glass counter top a bit but managing to retrieve the checkered strip of fabric at the bottom of the basket in the end. It fluttered from its folded position when he lifted it higher, showing that it wasn’t a full checkered blanket but instead a strip of fabric, sheared at the edges and appearing to be a leftover from something sewn. It was just big enough for each of your glasses to sit with a comfortable distance from each other, something Namjoon completely by gently drawing your cup out of your grasp and settling it next to his.

“Maybe,” He watched as you continued to squint at the end of the sandwich, “...that means the food is safe to eat. Promise.”

You let yourself take a sizable bite, chewing thoughtfully through the crunchy bacon. You swallowed, serious into the next nibble you tested, “You have more trust in Seokjin than I do.”

It was quiet as the two of you began to dig into your meals, the first of any sizable food you’d had the entire day as a result of being cooped up in a mountain of tax papers, profit spreadsheets, generic online bell curve generators, and the daunting application that hung on the thread of an accidental click to send its incompleteness spiraling into the cloud of uncertainty for the store.

Your typing resumed in silence too, scrolling rather as you simply scanned over the answers you’d provided for the longer answers, open ended questions reminiscent of essay portions of school applications. The words by themselves registered but the combination of such into sentences didn’t comprehend in your mind, subconscious elsewhere as the pixels flashed through your blurred peripheral by means of your own flicking fingertip.

“So what’s your story?”

The screen stalled at your command, shoulders sagging. Softly, you wiggled the mouse to click out of the screen at hand, bringing up the smiling koala cartoon whose name you’d learned was Koya. “Is this another interview?”

Namjoon’s fingers warmed your wrist, pulling your hand toward him until your stool spun on its own accord. He continued to hold onto your wrist, thumb traveling upward to brush across your knuckles.

“No,” His voice grew warm, quiet for the ambiance created in the quaint shop near the midnight hour, “I only know a fraction of your story, the rising action, maybe? I’m not too sure. I don’t have enough information to even begin to plug it into the imaginary literary equation.”

“You graduated with a literature degree and you have questionable yet defendable taste in books read in your free time,” Namjoon squeezed your skin, “What else am I missing?”

“I write sometimes,” The words came so quick that your conscious had to pause to gather your next thought, trailing your gaze over Namjoon’s head. You squinted, blurring the darkness of the children’s shelves a bit more as you corrected, “I’m a writer.”

“I had a book deal right out of graduation, something I’d worked ages on. Revised three different times to appease to different agents, none of which ended up signing me. Self publishing was an option I just saw the other side. Heard too many pitches that made me a bit too hopeful.”

“And then finally I found someone who wanted to take me on. Who assured me that I could make big waves within their agency. Said they’d never quite seen anything like my writing style, something that didn’t quite fit in my declared genres,” You laughed bitterly, letting your hand drop from Namjoon’s to rub across your lap, “Said they’d never quite heard anyone as headstrong about my particular beliefs either. Said it was a good thing, made me memorable.”

“I got all the way to their corporate office in the city to sign off on the rights. I even went to the effort to type up my notes and my drafts and whatever else I could find—” You offered a smile, “—I prefer handwriting—” sighing, you spread your fingers apart, pressing at the bend in your thumb, “—Had it all stapled and put together in a nice folder.”

“Then they told me they couldn’t sign me. I don’t remember the exact reason. I think I stopped listening to them after my potential agent was called out of the room for a phone meeting with another prospective client.”

A shaky inhale kept the mist of tears that involuntarily gathered in your waterline at bay, gaze darting to your wringing fingers, “Have you ever played that jelly bean game? The one where half the blue ones taste like raspberry and the other taste like disinfectant wipes or something? It kind of felt like that. Going in expecting one thing and leaving with the exact opposite.”

“I didn’t know I could feel that lost,” You admitted out loud, further elaborating, “I had no plan other than that. It seemed like all my other friends were graduating with a perfect bridge into their new lives,” You let yourself smile, “...even Taehyung. He was always planning on traveling after graduation.”

“He never really understood what I was going through. I didn’t expect him to. Like I said, he had his own plans, one that hadn’t included me until a week or two before they were to begin. I don’t blame him for not understanding how to handle me. And in a way...I feel guilty for placing that kind of responsibility on him. He didn’t need to feel obligated to care for me but he did and he always had and for that I’m sorry.”

“I guess I thought doing something impulsive would give me a purpose again. At the very least, maybe it’d renew my purpose. Maybe I’d want to start a whole new book. Maybe I’d want to try self publishing if I forgot about the horrors I endured through the other process,” A tear appeared now, slipping down the bridge of your nose as your lips wrinkled into a shriveled petal and you shook your head, letting your palms lift and fall back into your lap with an audible slap, “Nothing.”

You startled when something scuffed on the floor, gaze focusing on what you could see in front of you once more. Namjoon had shuffled closer, bringing his stool with him until his knees bumped into yours, close enough for the warmth of his palm to cup your cheek this time soft in using the curve of his thumb to collect the stream of tears as they began to fall more freely.

“Can I tell you something?” You murmured, waiting until his silent gaze met yours.

“This gave me a purpose again. You gave me a purpose,” You grinned, some of the excess tears spreading over your tongue, “At first it was just wanting to figure out why this strange man with a cat wanted to arrange his bookstore like that.”

“Old dog new tricks,” Namjoon insisted, voice gentle for the first time since his initial question.

You let both your hands cup his wrist, holding his hand against your face, “You reminded me of my initial purpose. What I grew so far from...that there’s so much warmth in literature and books and the written word.”

“There’s always worth in spreading that type of love to the community,” Your lips curled in the edge, not quite reaching your teeth, “It’d be a shame if you didn’t get to continue to do so.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” The intimacy expanded outward, encasing your statures in a safety bubble when his forehead touched yours, holding you there by means of his hand on your cheek and your fingers around his forearm. He waited until he no longer felt new splashes of tears underneath his diligent thumb before he spoke again.

“Have you ever thought about trying again?”

Namjoon was so close, the warmth bleeding off his dark irises giving your uncertain heart a squeeze. It didn’t cut into your confusion, “Try what?”

“To get another book deal,” He straightened just enough to pick at your opposite cheek with his free hand, placing stray hairs aside in a meticulously soft way, “Just how far have I inspired you, honey?”

You swatted at him, squawking until he held up a hand in surrender.

“I haven’t, not with...that book anyway. Truthfully, I trashed everything but my handwritten notes that day. I think I even impulsively deleted the files or if they’re still out there I wouldn’t know where to find them.”

“I suppose my next question as to if I can read anything by you is moot now.”

“I’m sure there’s some embarrassing poems out there on my undergraduate literary magazine website…”

Namjoon cocked an eyebrow, “That’s a scavenger hunt I’m willing to have.”

“And it’s one I’m willing to help you with—” You giggled, managing to catch his hands when they went to do grabby hands around your body at the computer mouse, “—after we submit this paperwork.”

“Ah, right,” Warm hands landed on your hips, spinning you to face the monitor while a heavy chin settled on your shoulder, “The whole save my passion thing. I suppose the poems can wait.”

You wrote a poem in undergraduate about a divorce as told by the family cat, the detached perspective of an animal who has no conscious understanding of anything in the human world, yet is still watching his life crash before his eyes. He’s not getting food as often. Everyone is always yelling. Suddenly, dad isn’t there anymore. His tiny human, the child of the family, comes and goes in a confusing schedule. But he still has to be a cat.

The script on that section of the university page barely functioned any longer, drawing your poem into mismatched fonts with spacing that surely wasn’t what you’d originally intended. The flit of your gaze over the up and down scroll of the page fit the same detached sense that the cat in the story had.

Life still went on around you as the crippling rejection email for the store grant hovered in the next tab over from your poem. Namjoon’s absent restocking of the shelves at the front of the store proved that.

You clicked out of your poem, letting the etched red logo at the top of the email cover your vision once more as you sighed. A bitter tap of your index finger later and the image was hidden, just leaving the wall of text that was just several different ways to say you didn’t receive the grant. You’d opened all their resource links, those hovering in the next browser over while Koya watched on behind them.

None of those would work, either. You didn’t buy from their partner supplier. Your store square footage wasn’t enough. You didn’t specialize in one specific genre. You didn’t offer library-like services alongside the business aspect.

One tab had the generic question plugged into a search engine, easy ways to make money. You felt like you were applying for school again, scrounging for scholarship opportunities on survey websites that did nothing but implore armies of viruses into your hard drive. Some of those resources still sat in unorganized folders in your email, ones you mindlessly scrolled past with your cheek scrunched into your curled fist, fingernails pressing crescents into your palm the harder you squeezed.

University emails changed from graduation subject lines to assignment subject lines to personal sprinkled within, exchanges with members of group projects or monthly subscriber updates from clubs you participated in.

Junk emails continued to pour in on the daily even if your email was virtually untouched since you’d sat out on the road which meant the folder continued to dump an unprecedented amount of data into your deleted file never to be cleaned out where you used to diligently empty it. You did that with a clear conscience, a small victory in your hazy consciousness as your finger misjudged and you found your drafts opening.

There was a singular email, the body text left blank and the subject line half typed. Manuscript...A tiny paper clip indicated that something was attached.

For a second, you feared you’d overloaded Namjoon’s system with the file size until the PDF materialized across the screen, blank at first until the last of the near eighty pages downloaded and you found yourself face to face with the typed contents of your lost yellow folder.

Your laughter drew Namjoon from his task, his silhouette shadowing over what was already dark in the store, another late night venture between the two of you when the news of rejection had the both of you searching for something to do that wasn’t nothing. He was smiling at first until he caught a sheen on your cheeks, laughter slowly materializing into sobs before he could properly reach you.

He uttered your name, hip catching on the edge of the counter as he lunged for you yet reeled back at the glaring title on the screen. The initial hug his instinct wished to provide stalled, hands instead landing on your shoulders as he squeezed.

“What’s this?”

“I think this thing is haunting me,” You groaned miserably, “Either that or your computer itself is haunted.”

Namjoon kept a firm grip on you as he shook the mouse, minimizing the tab and all the others until Koya’s smiling face spread across the screen. Gentle pressure turned you, hands leaving to spread palm up, fingers wiggling.

Softly, Namjoon encouraged, “Let’s go to bed.”

Marie’s meow managed to piece some of the scrambled pieces together once your slow advancements at the lead of Namjoon’s hand paused, leaving you to realize this isn’t your room.

“This is your room,” You audibly expressed, flinching away from one of the two foot tall character’s he had curled in the doorway.

He let go of your hand to allow you to make your decision, assuring that his searching gaze ducked to find your own. “Is that okay?”

Your whimper welcomed the stretch of one of his hoodies across your torso, snug to the fresh coffee ground and fresh rain scent that clung to his duvet as long fingers tucked it around your body. He settled in next to you, just close enough to stroke at your cheek with his thumb and the flat of his mouth.

“Hey Namjoon?”

He shifted closer, curled knees encasing yours as his fingertips began to stroke down the back of your head. “Yeah, love?”

“Do you want to try again?” You regarded him with just your eyes, mouth and nose hidden underneath the hem of his sheets. “To keep the store?”

His lips lingered on your forehead this time, cradling the back of your head until the shaking of your shoulders subsided. The tip of his nose pulled back to brush where yours would be underneath the blanket, nodding so the skin brushed accidentally a second time.

“What else is there to do?”

You found a warm bagel and a handwritten note on a napkin in place of Namjoon’s stature when you woke. Raw eyes found it difficult to decipher the shapes he’d quickly scrawled with a blunt tipped marker but somehow you made out store. You abandoned the plated bagel and headed for the staircase.

“If that’s not Marie I don’t want you down here,” A laughing voice ordered your descend when you’d barely made it to the fourth stair.

“Why?”

“Did you not read my note?”

“It said that you were working in the store.”

“And that you’re not allowed down here yet.”

You continued your descent a few slow stairs at a time, “I won’t look.”

Namjoon snorted, an image you saw when you already broke your promise to find him seated at the counter completely swamped in crafting materials. Strips of construction paper, jagged cardboard, stacks of printer paper still half hanging out of their packages.

“What are you doing? DIY decorations?”

He looked up where he was furiously spinning a shard of pipe cleaner, “I thought you said you wouldn’t look.”

“Oops,” You shrugged, bare feet chilled all the way up your legs to where your sleep shorts began as you shuffled toward him, squinting at the mass chaos he’d created. Your gaze trailed upward from the browns and purples and metal utensils, starting to offer a generic question once more until you found your manuscript still open on the computer monitor. “What are you…Namjoon what are you doing?”

He grunted into the last spin of his fingers, securing the last, electric blue pipe cleaner in the poorly jabed hole through the top of the object he held in whitening knuckles. An audible breath slipped through his lips, hanging ajar for a second before his lips drew upward into a smile.

“I, uhm,” Namjoon thrust the object toward you, “I made you something.”

It appeared to be made of three separate pieces of cardboard, a front and back cover with a sizable strip bent to accommodate either, acting as a mock spine. Purple construction paper was glued over the brown substance, dobs of glue staining some of the edges but flat otherwise. A trio of electric blue pipe cleaners sat in neatly spaced, tightly spun balls on the far left side, binding the ball of pages instead that had already begun to bend at the cardboard covers. The same messy handwriting that covered the napkin now forgotten in Namjoon’s bed graced the front, the title of the novel larger than your name. The back held similar penmanship, the synopsis you’d provided to various companies scrawled just above a tiny, attempted portrait of you.

“I know you said you got rid of the other one but if you ever wanted to try again, you know, to get it published—” Namjoon smiled, tucking his arms between his legs shyly as he leaned toward you, “—now you have a potential mock up to show them, too.”

You kissed him with your palm pressed into the pair of scissors he’d dropped when he heard you descend down the stairs, body leaned awkwardly over the counter until he stood to intercept you. His palm held onto the side of your neck while you clutched the book to your chest, breathing into the open seam of his lips.

“Thank you so much.”

“I’d make you ten more copies if you wanted me to.”

Your laughter stopped just a hair short of kissing him again when there was a knocking at the front door, gentle at first and then frantic when you jumped away from Namjoon. Through the spaces in the shelves, you could see Jeongguk, his over exaggerated waving growing smaller as you and Namjoon approached.

“Was I…” Jeongguk’s gaze flashed to Namjoon’s flushed cheeks when you pulled the door open, “Was I interrupting something?”

Namjoon did an astounding job of holding in his irritation, “What do you need, Guk?”

“Oh!” He perked up again, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet. A sheet of paper was thrust against your chest, “Special delivery. You need to look at it now.”

“What—”

“No time to explain,” Jeongguk shot you a thumbs up, taking backward steps that had him stumbling over pieces of gravel on the sidewalk as he went to dash in the opposite direction of the hotel, “See you later!”

Namjoon went for the sheet of stickers while you came to inspect the tiny piece of notebook paper balanced on top of it.

“Are those tiny aloe plants?” He continued to awe, pointing at the characters on the sheet.

Hey dove, good news! I found your folder. If you want it uhm...look up. I guess.

Taehyung stood across the street, hair entirely longer than how’d you’d left him, adorned in a matching baggy grey sweatsuit with your yellow folder clutched against his chest.

He braced for the impact of your arms throwing themselves around his neck yet still managed to stumble back two or three paces in a fit of laughter as you clung to him. “Hey there,” He greeted, nose in your hair as he managed to properly weave his arms around your waist and squeeze. “How’ve you been?”

The initial joy seized in your heart as you pulled away to look at him, softening, “I’m not going to go back with you.”

Taehyung’s grin grew wider, all geometric edges and bouncing fringe as he nodded. A gentle understanding, leaning in closer to murmur, “I didn’t think you would, kid, not from the second you stepped out of the van—” After a second, he said a bit louder, “—and besides. That’s not what I asked you.”

You hummed thoughtfully, glancing over your shoulder to where Namjoon continued to regard the interaction fondly. You smiled, turning back to Taehyung.

“Have you had breakfast yet?”

He shook his head, gentle in sliding his hands down your arms before taking your hands, shaking them gently between your bodies, “I’m not going to stay much longer,” One hand left you to take the folder he’d shoved underneath his arm, “Just wanted to bring you this.”

You took it gently, rubbing thoughtfully at the old rip in the spine. A few more had joined it from whatever turmoil it had endured in the last months. “Where did you find it?”

“I’d put it underneath your seat when I cleaned. To keep it safe,” Taehyung’s smile was regretful and amused all the same, “Forgot I put it there…”

“Are your succulents okay?”

“Mhm…” His hand cupped yours where you held the folder, “You still haven’t answered me. Are you okay?”

Another involuntary glance behind you to Namjoon who offered you a thumbs up this time. “Yeah,” You nodded, “Yeah. Yeah, Taehyung, I’m great.”

Taehyung’s smile was equally as fond, nodding once to your rapid ones, “I’m glad…” He trailed off, patting the folder in your grasp, “Well I, uhm, just came to return that to you so—”

“Can you keep it?”

“What?”

“Can you keep it safe for me?” You pressed the folder back against his chest, “I don’t think I need it anymore.”

“Yeah, yeah I can…” Taehyung gradually pulled it closer until it was hugged against his chest, taking a step backward, “Yeah. I’ll keep it safe.” He made prolonged eye contact with you, smiling, “I’ll see you?”

“Of course,” You touched his chest, “And hey, Tae?”

“Hmm?”

You patted him and then your folder.

“Don’t get lost out there.”

#bts reactions #bts scenarios #bts imagines #bts x reader #namjoon imagines #bts fluff #namjoon fluff #namjoon x reader #fic: lost

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magalidragon · 4 years ago

Note

Angst #7 and whatever verse you want 😇

I can’t do angst today! Not on my birthday!! So I switched it and made it a funny. Here’s #7-- “Do you even love me?” set in the summer lovin’ universe-- the infamous gala!

Tonight was the night, many women would be nervous, some perhaps trying not to be, at the idea of meeting their boyfriend's families. Especially a boyfriend who also was the father of your baby. A surprise baby. A baby you didn't even know you wanted until the stick turned pink and you were breaking the news to the guy you really didn't think you'd ever see again, until shock, he just randomly appeared back in your life as randomly as he'd entered it. Dany was excited though. Deviously so. She exited the limo easily, maneuvering her six-months pregnant belly with relative ease, her red gown floating around her legs, before it tightened up at her bump and clung to the rest of her like a second skin. She was a walking flame; the only one wearing red amongst a sea of boring black, gray, and navy. "You Northerners need to find a color wheel," she commented, walking by yet another woman in black heavy fur-like clothing. She wrinkled her nose. "Looks like you wear rugs as fashion." "We are a boring folk, I do agree." They walked up the stairs of the keep; the gala was being held in White Habror, at the Manderly estate, and she was not impressed. "You also need another interior designer," she scowled. Jon sighed. "Yes, it's quite hideous. Ah look, Starks." He wrinkled his nose, distasteful at the sight of his family standing in such a way that everyone had to go up and bow and owe them fealty. Metaphorically speaking, she thought, although-- Gods! He must have seen her expression. "Yes, people do occasionally kneel to them." "I hope you know I will do no such thing."

"Would never have expected you to my love" He let go of her arm and reached to wrap it possessively around her upper body, his thumb brushing the side of her breast. Her skin tingled, a purr emitting involuntarily. They were getting stares. Maybe it was the red dress. Or her silver hair. Or her pregnancy. Or maybe it was because Jon was now pressing little kisses underneath her ear. Since it looked like these women also asked their husband's permission to speak, she suspected many northerners were not comfortable with public displays of affection. So she turned and grabbed his chin, planting a hard kiss to his mouth. He growled appreciatively. She beamed, purple eyes sparkling. "Introduce me to your family Jon. I am eager to meet them as your girlfriend." He lowered his lips to hers, brushing lightly. "Of course, love." They were quite a pair, she imagined. Jon was a curious entity to the Northern peerage, he informed her, and as such at this gala, he would likely get quite a few stares. She was fine with that; so long as they didn't stare too long or try to take him away from her. Jon Snow belonged to her and he knew it. She placed a hand to the sid eof her bump, feeling the baby kicking. The little girl-- she knew the gender, Jon didn't-- was quite active. "They're staring," she purred. Yes, all eyes on them. Jon, resplendent in his black suit and silk shirt, his dark curls gleaming, and his careless attitude dripping off him, while she was his opposite. Where he was dark, she was light. Gleaming silver hair, fiery dress, and her six-inch platforms, shimmery red. The gorgeous ruby earrings Jon gifted her winnked at her ears. He said many fancied them; they belonged to his mother and had been quite the showpiece of her jewelsry collection, which occasionally he put on display in the museum for special events. It was her belly that drew the most attention, she suspected, although who knew with these racist xenophobes. He glanced towards the Starks. In the forefront, holding court, were two redheaded women, who would have been pretty if it were not for the pinched sour expressions in their faces, their hair pulled too severely from their angular faces, and the sharp almost armor-like dresses they were. His smile curled into a smirk. "Mmm, my cousin Sansa and my aunt Catelyn." He paused. The smirk faded and he glanced down at her, face puckering in a frown. "Are you sure you want to do this? We can turn around and go home. Order in. Watch a movie." Her mouth fell, she gaped at him, mock hurt filling her words. "Jon, do you even still love me?" "I love you more than anything in this entire world." "Then you should know better than to try to take away this fun from me." He grinned. "Well alright then. Let's go meet my family." He patted her belly, leaning down to it. Cameras falshed; no doubt hteir prsence had been officially noticed by the press pool. "And you too my little dragonwolf." They sauntered in, people gaping at them, and Dany winked and waved at a few she noticed from Dracarys Group's work. She already knew Robb and Arya, who were stifling laughs over by the bar, joined with a man she knew was Theon Greyjoy, an heir to a shipping conglomrate out of the Iron Islands. Robb lifted his ale mug up, silently saluting them, perhaps even wishing good will. He thought they might need it, adorable, she thought, winking in their direction.

As they approached, she could see the pinched expressions tighten, the narrowing blue eyes on both women’s faces. “Here we go,” Jon said under his breath. He reached them, his uncle standing with his back to them, speaking with a massive man wearing a kilt and sporran, she recognized to be Wyman Manderly their host for the evening. He kept his arm around her hip, maying his fingers grazing a little farther south. “Aunt Catelyn,” he said, his voice cool. “Sansa, you both look lovely this evening.”

<i>Like a couple of gargoyles</i>. Dany smiled politely, grateful her makeup that evening was applied with a far lighter hand, her purple eyes standing out, her silver braids intricate and a dragon clip attached to them. She reached a finger to gently fondle one of Lady Lyanna’s earrings, drawing their attention to them. It worked; Sansa’s mouth dropped, before she een said a word to Jon. “Sansa,” she greeted, offering her hand, to be polite, while also showing off the ring she wore that matched the one Rhaegar and Viserys famously wore; one of three their mother got them before her death, when lined up they formed the famous three-headed Targaryen dragon sigil. It was their version of a crown; everyone knew what it was. “Wonderful to finally meet you in person, you’re as lovely as your brother said, just the North.” She blinked, peering at Jon, who was looking at her curiously.

“Oh well,” Sansa said, ruffling her feathers slightly. Quite literally, she had black feathers on the shoulders of her dress. She smirked, an ugly look on someone who was really very pretty. “That’s nice of him.”

Dany glanced at her red nails, before she set them on her belly, drawing their attention back to it. “I do find the North quite harsh though. Cold and severe you know. Then again, I’m a Targaryen.” She grinned. “Daenerys Targaryen, if you didn’t remember. It’s been awhile, we don’t usually do business with the Starks. My brother finds the North to be a bit too narrowminded for our more…” She licked her lips, brows lifting. “Liberal and open policies. More welcoming, I think.”

She could feel the heat starting to emanate from Jon. Not out of anger, but passion. He was <i>loving</i> it, she could tell. He smiled, gray eyes twinkling. “Daenerys is here as my date this evening.”

Catelyn cleared her throat loudly. “Well, it is…” She choked on the word. “Nice to meet you too Daenerys.”

“Nice of your husband to allow you to come as a date with someone else. Ididn’t know you married, but Targaryens do marry multiple people, right?” Sansa shot at her.

Dany grinned; here it was. “No I’m afraid we don’t actually, but we do all have criss-crossing family trees do we not? Starks are no exception. Actually…”

“Actually,” Jon interrupted, his hand going to her belly. She dropped hers over it, grinning at him. He turned, love shining out of his eyes, his face soft and gentle. His voice dropped, husky. “Dany and I are together; we’re having a baby.”

The sound Catelyn made was so loud and foul, it forced Ned Stark to turn around to look at them, concerned. He smiled; a rather handsome man, he always had a tired and put-upon look at him. Through problems of his own making, Jon always told her, and never actual ones. “Jon! You decided to come!” He turned to her, polite. “And you brought a…” his voice trailed, gray eyes dropping to her belly and Jo’ns hand there. His face went stony. Cool. “Jon?”

Jon tugged her against his chest. “Dany and I are having a baby. We met in the Summer Isles.” He dropped a kiss to her lips, a squeak coming from Sansa. “We’re going to get a drink, find Robb and Arya.” He laughed softly. “And maybe think of baby names. Something Valyrian, right Dany?” He pushed by, ignoring Ned’s protests that they needed to speak. “Later Uncle, you’re being rude to Dany. She needs to get off her feet.”

There was nothing wrong with her feet, she just struggled to walk because she was trying not to laugh so hard; or pee, but that was because the baby was on her bladder. She waited until they were out of earshot before bursting into giggles, spinning to wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him full on the mouth. “Oh you do love me! You love me so much! Their faces!”

Jon squeezed her to him, murmuring against her lips. “They’re foul. Their policies are archaic. I told you I don’t get along with them for a reason.” He reached to touch the earrings dangling from her lobes. “And Sansa always fancied these.”

She giggled again, knowing they were getting looks. “Come on Jon Snow. You owe me a drink for this.”

“And then we can go home?” he asked hopefully.

“And then we can go anywhere.”

#jonerys #jonerys drabble #writer prompts #reply #aenarsnow #the infamous gala event lol

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unholyplumpprincess · 4 years ago

Text

The Lovers Card

Finally, after so long, this commission is complete! This commission is for @shoccydoccy featuring their oc Mitch and the Doctor. Husband versions of Bonnie and Clyde. I had a great time writing out their dynamic!!!

(Older content)

Reblogs > Likes !!!Minors and ageless blogs dni or you will be blocked!!!

Fandom: Dead by daylight

Relationship: The Doctor/OC (Mitch)

Warnings: NSFT/R18+, canon typical violence and mentions of blood, the Doctor’s shockies being used in non painful ways, horror husbands???, roleplay of chase, face fucking, possessive behavior

Words: 5.3k

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The Entity’s realm was not for lovers.

Positive emotions here were built upon hope and a dream, a dream that would be crushed under the spider-like limbs with a haunting, twelve people sounding laugh. The Entity did not allow its play things any positivity lest it wished to destroy it. At least, that’s what most survivors would tell you. The ones who had hoped that even in a realm such as this, that their obsessive killers would no longer be a threat over their head.

For Mitch, he had listened to those survivors tell their stories at the campfire when he had entered. They all sounded frightened, stressed, tired. Being one of the former lead doctors at a psychiatric institution, he made quick assumptions of their relations with each one.

~Rest under the cut~

Laurie swore no relation to the monster who had chased her since she was merely a girl. Yet, there was something hesitant in the way she spoke, a wobble to her lips as if somewhere in the back of her mind she KNEW who this man was that followed her. Mitch assumed that he must have been family, or a family friend, but perhaps one she was not close with nor knew. Yet, the blood still ran deep. He quickly could guess PTSD, anxiety disorder, and clinical depression. Yet, how curious was her loud, fighting spirit? Her need to survive and see him destroyed outweighing her need to lie belly up and die.

Quentin looked stressed at even any word beginning with the letter F. As if you would say a certain word or a name, and a boogeyman would come jumping out. He confided that he didn’t sleep, wringing his hands and eyes looking everywhere but Mitch as he talked about the dream killer. As if in a realm such as this, that was something funny to believe in. A child’s story.

Mitch had hummed to show he was listening as he idly wrote in his journal. PTSD, high case of paranoia, insomniac, and clinical depression. Yet, what kept him going when it looked like he just wanted to drop and let himself get the end of a sharp weapon to his throat?

For Mitch, he too had his own obsession. But, unlike in the way these two seemed to be. They were stressed to even think of the ones who obsessed over them, and yet, Mitch could only obsess over this...’Doctor’ they kept discussing. A killer in these very realms said to be one of the most ruthless.

Feng had come to this realm, born in electricity and the high levels of static echoing throughout white walls and a haunting laugh. She tells Mitch this with a shrug, as if running her own killer had been a piece of cake. However, something catches Mitch off guard. Something that shouldn’t have been something too big a deal- but it’s the way she described her surroundings.

White walls. A hospital with an eerie feeling. Different levels now overgrown with plant life and the ceilings busted open. Flickering lights. A big open room with various televisions. The gates being huge and eerie and with two ways out. A library on one side, an office on the other with old books and a record player-

It’s all too perfect. So, Mitch had nonchalantly asked if she’d caught a plaque with a name on it. Something to tell what the hospital was possibly called?

When the words: ‘Lery’s memorial’ pass her lips, Mitch lets the first positive emotion flood his body. Of feelings that would disgust the Entity.

Of hope.

Of nostalgia.

Of...love.

Mitch had yet to come into any contact with both that place as well as the killer known among the survivors as ‘The Doctor’. Everything had been far too perfect thus far; Everything fell into place just right. And if...and if it was Herman? Where had he gone? Who had taken him? Was it the same being that had come to Mitch in his dreams and scooped him away into the deadly fog?

They both were not even the slightest innocents. In life, Mitch had matched wits, banter, and intellect with the doctor, which caused Herman to gain interest in the younger.

Herman Carter was a man who had a fascination with both science and psychiatrics- mostly dealing with the n eurological system and the questions such as: Why do we all think? Why is the brain so active in certain lobes? He was known among colleagues to be cold and clinical, or almost mad in a way. He was very persuasive and was known as the smartest man in the room, but didn’t have a lot of friends.

Mitch had come to the institute as a new and upcoming doctor. Unlike Herman who had all his life been fascinated by the brain, with all the neuroscience that came with it, as well as knowing all his life that he would succeed. Mitch had led a different life. Struggling to get into college due to the costs and taking back alley jobs.

Herman had intimidated Mitch at first. He couldn’t lie about that. He stood just as tall as he did, rich dark brown skin, signs of aging on his face but with grace. His voice was smooth and deep, always sounding refined and clinical when he spoke. His smile was one that stretched all the way to his deep black eyes, framed with crow’s feet that hinted that he grinned and laughed quite often.

His stature and physique were intimidating, imposing, yet as time went on Mitch learned that he kind of...liked that. Besides, he wasn’t bad once you got to know him- a little off the hinges, sure, but nothing that was too much for Mitch. In fact, you could say they were a perfect match.

Mitch, in turn, must have looked like a plain Jane up next to him. At least in Mitch’s eyes.

Similar in height with black curls coming down to his shoulder always pulled up and out of the way in a ponytail and standing out against his peachy skin tone. His own voice was thickened with a Russian accent, his own verbal ticks leading to him tumbling over a few English words.

Large lensed glasses cover his hazel eyes, his lashes thick and eye shape kind and softly shaped. His usual outfit even stood out in comparison to Herman’s nice suits. Mitch normally wore something akin to a collared mustard yellow shirt with a little brown tie. An earth toned sweater vest thrown over and some nice dress slacks and shoes with his doctor’s coat. Something he currently wore in the trials as well.

The hospital they had worked had been no place for romance. Neither had Herman been looking for anything of the sort. And yet, something blossomed between the two.

Mitch was a rather forward person once Herman got to know him. Once was a man who spoke in small talk and niceties, now became more assertive in his wants. To the point on one long night, he’d taken a drink from his cup of coffee, leaning on the counter and told Herman truthfully that he wanted to see him outside the clinic one of these times. Herman had been a bit taken back, he’d admit, normally people beat around the bush or thought him as rather ‘off the rails’.

But all he could see from Mitch was honesty past his thick lashes as he took another drink of his coffee with a soft hum in his throat as he waited for the reply from Herman. Seeming unaffected if he would accept or deny him. And well, Herman could admit, both his intellect and appearance were very attractive. Not to mention his confidence in challenging someone such as himself.

In the end, Herman had accepted. No guilt in his body, as if somehow, he knew that in the future that if Mitch caught onto the more...elaborate experiments he was conducting. That well...

Well...Mitch wouldn’t be too innocent himself in that event. Always such an eager dog to follow.

By the time Herman is taken into custody and offered a job under the name AWAKENING, he knows no one better than he’d want at his side for the job than his former partner and his now current husband. Convincing the higher ups isn’t a problem, not when he’s their best interrogator on the scene. And being able to watch Mitch methodically take people apart on the job? Now that was just a bonus. A delicious, delicious bonus.

Mitch had found himself following deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole. Anywhere Herman went, he followed. If Herman said they were going underground to an institute called ‘ Lery’s Memorial’ for more experimentation to be conducted, that’s where he followed. If Herman said that Mitch was to help him figure out the fundamentals of electroshock therapy on an exposed brain to figure out mind control methods? Then, well. Mitch followed.

Yet, even in the darkest of moments, they could find a home in the other. Another worldly couple of Bonnie and Clyde. At their jobs, they were the best of the worst. And at home, Herman would hold Mitch in his arms as they swayed in the kitchen and murmured sweet nothings to one another. Forehead to forehead, fingers laced, an everyday looking couple. Gold ring bands to match and all.

No. The Entity’s realm? It was truly not made for lovers. It tried its hardest to keep the positive out. Even if that said couple was a quietly infamous couple.

And yet, this begged the question. What if a survivor, was just as willing and able to give the pain as a killer was?

What if Mitch’s theories were right and his beloved was seen as more of a nightmare than himself? If this is where Herman had disappeared to so long ago?

Time would only tell.

Mitch learns the realms rather quickly. Taking to sketching them in his notebook in his book with the killer that was found there. He finds repetitions of these killers exist in different realms, so it didn’t seem that they would stay in their own designated ‘area’, but merely whatever the Entity picked.

In the same way, the survivors are picked seemingly at random. Though, Mitch finds that if it is someone such as the Shape, that Laurie will always be involved. Similarly, if it is the Nightmare, Quentin will be involved. It...

It almost makes him give up his theory. Figuring it was perhaps just his hope keeping that feeling alive. Wouldn’t it have made sense for the Entity to pair them up? Wouldn’t it be something to agonize over? Wasn’t that a goal of the Entity’s, to cause as much pain as possible?

It’s something he mulls over while he plays with his wedding band one day, looking at the glittering gold with a soft sigh passing his lips. Of longing or frustration, not even he’s entirely sure.

As far as he knew in the mortal realm, Herman had been taken from the institute by police where they discovered Mr. Stamper. Where his head was cracked open and electrodes and prods were inserted into a still, very much working brain. His research papers had been left, but he’d been...just gone.

And then, just like this, Mitch was here. With a realm matching the description to a T. A realm he’d yet to be in, and a killer he’d yet to see.

But then. One day. It happens.

When Mitch awakens, he finds himself no longer in the warmed bed in the cabin of their camp. He finds himself blinking himself awake to the entrance of a building with two wide , swung open doors. Overgrowth enters the building with tufts of grass, leading into blindingly white walls, white floors, hospital beds, flickering televisions hung on the walls...

‘Lery’s memorial’ reads the plaque outside said doors. Mitch finds that small bit of hope flickering into his system at the sight. Of course, he had learned from the other survivors, that these realms were also based on areas they’d had immense trauma in. Such as Laurie with her old neighborhood, or Quentin with the preschool grounds. So maybe...maybe this is just where the Entity took his own memories and made them into something painful to look at.

Grounding himself, Mitch finds himself going around familiar corridors and finding the place to be near exactly as remembered. Just vacated of patients, experiments, and of course it being now run down. But he tries to ignore the nostalgia as he finds a generator and begins getting to work on it with a few small tugs of the wires.

It’s when the sound of a fellow survivor getting shocked with a haunting, chilling yet familiar laugh does Mitch shoot up. Forgetting his position at the generator as it cracks with its own shock from being suddenly jolted. It would alert his position. And maybe that’s what he wants.

The familiar sound of thrumming in his ears and the feeling of his hair standing on end makes Mitch move around the corner to GREET the killer, near frantic with the need to know. It was all on a hunch, a theory. But if he was right, if he could see Herman again, if he would even recognize his own husband after so long locked up here to play a game by a creature yet unseen-

He near bumps right into the killer. Standing just about as tall as Mitch does. His unblinking gaze and a grin stretched across his face being of a familiar retainer to keep a patient’s facial parts open for no natural reflexes to get in the way. He recognizes it instantly; It had been one of Herman’s favorites to keep his patients from becoming too rowdy.

This killer’s skin is paler than the rich, dark tone he’d been familiar with. Now almost ashy and dead. Electricity shoots up bare arms, the doctor’s coat’s arms ripped off- or singed off from the very electricity running through his veins. Blood splatters his coat, dried over his cheeks, eyes wide open and seemingly full of electricity themselves in how they glow. Mitch’s eyes fall to his left hand, almost frantic with the need to know.

A gold band rests on the killer’s left ring finger and he feels his heart pick up in speed, but not from fear.

His heart does something odd, lurching in his chest as his fingers shake. The Doctor seems at a pause too, fingers clutched tight around the electric spear in his hand. He cocks his head to look at Mitch better, eyes flickering over his frame looking like mini fireflies with how bright they are, and even with the headgear Mitch can see his eyebrows try to furrow.

“Herman-” Mitch breathes out, outstretching a hand and reaching for his face. Immediately his wrist is snatched by the Doctor’s free hand, but not hard enough to hurt, just stopping him from touching. The electricity doesn’t even hurt, feeling like a pleasant tingle as static clings to his skin.

The hand snatched is taken closer to the Doctor’s face for closer inspection. Hypnotically bright eyes land on the gold band and Mitch watches as his head cocks, glancing back to Mitch’s face, then back to the band.

A small shock is sent through Mitch’s frame and a gasp is sent through him as he watches his vision turn almost blindingly blue briefly. Almost...almost hallucinations swarming his visions of memories. Of arms wrapped around him from behind in the lounge room, of Herman slicing up vegetables in the kitchen, mundane tasks all leading to the last one of Herman. Black and orange fog surrounding him in a room with a severed head.

When Mitch blinks, he’s face to face with the Doctor who has now bowed his head and let his wrist go, near nose to nose with Mitch who finally lets one side of his lips curl up in a lopsided smile. “Herman.” He murmurs again, surer of himself as his hands come up to cup Herman’s cheeks. Feeling the heat of electricity radiating off his body, the dried blood under his fingertips, and how dry his skin was.

A man of few words, Mitch doesn’t feel the need to ask if this is where Herman had gone, if this is where he’d been taken, he doesn’t feel the need to cry either. It was as if he knew one day they’d be together again. Even if Herman was wielding a scary looking weapon and was clearly no longer human.

“My dear,” Echoes into Mitch’s mind suddenly like a click, a voice he’s familiar with, cooing the pet name so fondly as a hand comes to rest on Mitch’s waist. “You’ve still insisted on wearing the sweater vest?”

It’s such a playful thing to say that it makes Mitch choke out a laugh, affectionately nudging his forehead on Herman’s chin in a gentle bonk. “And you tear off arms of lab coat like animal?” His reply is thick with his accent, his voice hoarse from lack of use since he’d come to this realm. The response he gets in turn from Herman is that haunting laugh, shrill and high like multiple voices.

Herman tries to grab at his waist again to toy with the vest, but Mitch takes a step back, out of arms reach and watches as Herman watches him hungrily. A familiar and old look that meant he knew what Mitch was up to.

Mitch, in life, had been a huge tease. Liking to rile Herman up, tease him until Herman would shove him up against a wall and snarl about having his way with him. Similarly, Mitch could be very forward, insisting on taking what he wanted. With much consent on both ends, of course.

But a little roleplay after so much time apart certainly wouldn’t hurt anyone.

“You want off?” Mitch hums, letting a grin blossom onto his face as playfulness sparkles in his eyes. “Take.”

Herman’s eyes spark to life at that, the laugh that seemed to echo through both mind and reality itself leaving him as he takes his rod and smacks it twice against the palm of his other hand.

“As you wish, little thing.”

The chase begins after Mitch darts around the corner and begins running in a seemingly aimless direction. He’s run killers before, sure, but those were guesses of where to go. In a place he was familiar, with his husband of all people on his tail, it felt like there was no escape. He can feel the heat creeping on his back each time, can hear the laughter that follows it. When a shock is surged through him, he doesn’t scream like the others might, instead he only stutters his steps to gasp as red hot pleasure shoots up his body.

Well, that was an accidental side effect. Or perhaps an ability? He was unsure of what his ‘abilities’ were when he arrived, the other survivors said they found out in due time.

What a treat to conflict with the person of his affections.

Mitch finds himself running towards the other end of the institute, dodging around any running generators he hears despite knowing that the others will merely think he’s going to get caught. He taunts and teases the entire time, curling around walls and darting back around Herman just to hear him growl in frustration and chase him again.

By the time Mitch turns another corner, he finds himself in an office. The window is busted out, tinted glass on the ground. The desk has papers strewn all across it, filing cabinets left open and a chair spun out of the way. A couch with a fake plant rests in one corner, worn down from use and made of leather.

Nostalgia hits him quicker than he can think to turn around because it was a dead end. And it seems he’s been caught.

A hand grabs his wrist, curling fingers into the bone there and slamming Mitch back against the wall. A strong body fits against his own like a missing puzzle piece, knocking his glasses askew as a gasp escapes his lips. A powerful thigh nudges his legs apart, forced between them as well as his caught wrist thrust above his head and effectively pinning him.

“You have always liked riling me up.” The voice echoes through his head tauntingly, the grind of a thigh between Mitch’s legs making his breath hitch and eyes flutter. “Do you wish to do this while my goal is to ensure you do not leave?”

Quite the point, Mitch thinks to himself, but he knew Herman would never hold that rod against him until he had his fill. A little blood never hurt anyone, and Mitch doesn’t mind the idea of failing his own little survival mission if it meant his husband would not get punished.

Perhaps Mitch was a glutton for punishment as is. But if it was a punishment his husband could give him? Oh, he’d like nothing more.

So, he hums his approval with a little nod of his head, a smile crossing his face before fading to parted lips and a gasp when the thigh grinds up once again. Rocking him and making his own hips squirm. His free hand comes up to make a half assed push against Herman just to rile him up further, succeeding when he drops his weapon to snatch Mitch’s other wrist and slamming him against the wall.

Mitch’s lashes flutter, eyes falling to Herman’s mouth that’s split into a grin from the headgear. The need to kiss him is strong, the need to completely overtake his mouth and remember his taste- strong of coffee- lingering on the tip of his tongue. He has a feeling the headgear is screwed into place, so he offers a soft whine and a murmur of, “I wish I could kiss you.”

It’s the softest thing he’d say or do tonight. Herman matching with a soft, gentle press of their foreheads together. Something that perhaps would ruin the mood for any other couple who hadn’t had similar scenarios like this play out. It’s soft affection, probably the gentlest Herman has had in so long.

The thought makes Mitch’s heart constrict. Surely Herman was in his sadistic element, that much he could understand. But where was his pause? His reprieve?

Mitch’s breath fans across his face and at first, they just soak in the company together. Gentle, quiet, a pause in the storm they would soon create.

But the click of a generator starting makes both of them revive.

Mitch is first to move, pulling his head back and reeling it forward to knock Herman back in a short distanced headbutt. It only serves to make the Doctor grunt, leaning back and tightening his grip as he comes right back forward to get into Mitch’s personal space. Mitch’s victorious grin is soon wiped from his face as he’s thrown to the floor. Forced to his knees with a hand sliding into his hair and threatening with gentle static that he’d get his brain fried if he put up a fight.

Not that he would, of course. They both know that. Because if anyone were looking, you couldn’t see. But Mitch sees the way Herman tilts his head, a quiet question that Mitch nods to. Yes, he wanted this, yes, he liked it.

Mitch grins once more as he’s on his knees, scooting closer and nosing at the bulge below Herman’s belt buckle. The hand in his long hair, fisting his ponytail presses him forward so he can rub his cheek shamelessly against the tent with a longing sigh.

“Sorry,” Mitch murmurs adoringly, reaching up to help undo the Herman’s belt with practiced ease. Sliding his fingers down to his button and fly, undoing it with a bit of clumsiness with the shakiness of his hands. He bites his lip to stop a grin from happening when Herman grunts in confusion. “For escaping you.”

It’s a taunt. The way he says it as he flutters his lashes up at Herman to hint that he could have totally evaded him and won this round. He lets a grin creep onto his face as he hooks his underwear and pants down to mid-thigh, seeing how Herman is already half hard.

He always had such a pretty cock. Seven, verging on eight inches with a curved lean upwards. The head is bulbous, foreskin covering the sensitive lower glans and making the head shiny and flushed dark pink from arousal. In life he would have been shaved, and it seems it stayed the same in the realm as well with the smooth flesh revealed.

“I have almost had enough of your petulant teasing. Are you going to show you are sorry?” Herman’s voice rings in his head pleasantly, a low growl with his voice deepened in arousal. Fingers twist in Mitch’s ponytail, thrusting him forward until his mouth brushes against Herman’s cock.

Immediately to work, he presses hot kisses on the underside. Letting his tongue loll out to lick a warm, flat stripe from the underside to the head where he presses sloppy kisses. He moans when he licks up the precum, making sure Herman’s watching as he peers up at him from on his knees as he takes his cock into his mouth. At first, he just suckles on the head, letting the familiar weight settle and hearing pleased grunts above him and soft growls. It almost sounds like an animal.

It’s when Herman has had enough does Mitch start to scramble at his thighs. His ponytail is held taut as Herman fucks his mouth, making good usage of Mitch’s throat as he controls his gag reflex. His lashes flutter, eyes welling up with tears as his fingers clasp onto Herman’s pants at his thighs, eyes near rolling back into his skull as his throat is fucked.

Each lengthened thrust, where Herman holds himself just a bit longer, makes him whimper. Feeling himself strain in his own pants as filthy words bleed into his head. “Look at you, little one. Keep up your practice? ” “Good boy, you look at home down there.” “I can see how much you like it.”

At the last one, Herman adjusts to press the sole of his dress shoe on the front of Mitch’s pants just to hear him sob out through his nose and jerk his hips into his touch. So sensitive.

Finally, Herman pulls from his throat, yanking Mitch’s head back and letting him pant for air. He looks so pretty with his throat exposed, lips flushed and parted, lips shiny from saliva and some drool spilling down his chin. A filthy mess. A mess that Herman can’t help but grab the chin of, pressing his thumb to his lips just to watch Mitch greedily suckle at his thumbpad.

“Insatiable as always, my love.”

Another generator goes off and Herman is guiding Mitch to stand. Mitch tugs at Herman to come closer, bringing them to his desk so Mitch can lie on his stomach on top and let Herman tug at his pants. Lubricant possibly was something they would have needed in the institute for either any gear or keeping an area slick for suction cups, a bottle of which is found in Herman’s coat.

Prep is easy enough with how needy Mitch is. His cock is pressed to the desk flat, kind of hanging between his legs and twitching helplessly against the wood as Herman’s fingers work him open. The entire time Mitch squirms and sighs, his cock jerking and spilling some precum in a heavy, sticky drop that leaves a brief string leading from his cock to the floor that snaps under gravity.

By the time Mitch is stretched enough, and even then maybe not even enough, just when he starts to get antsy. Herman slicks himself up and pushes inside with a grunt from his chest, Mitch matching with a low moan into his arms that he has crossed under his head. A swear in his native tongue croons out when Herman’s hips are flush with his ass, another sigh leaving him when Herman’s grabbing his ass firmly and spreading him apart just to see where they’re connected.

Herman is quick to start a decent pace, making Mitch make soft sounds, digging his nails into the desk as soft sighs leave him. A hand slides up his waist to press to the curve of it, as if caressing him. And it would be sweet, but it’s not what he wants.

“You can do better than that, yes?” Mitch taunts, rolling his hips into the next thrust and hiding a grin in his arm when he hears a growl. A smack to his ass draws a soft moan from him, but he hides it with a laugh. “C’mon, be good boy, harder.”

The ‘good boy’ makes Herman huff behind him, this little embarrassed sound Mitch was so in tune with. Herman sure knew how to talk pretty and gave off an aura of dominance, but they both knew who led the relationship.

Immediately Herman obeys, picking up pace, fucking him harder as electricity curls up Mitch’s body where Herman’s hands touch. Mitch whines in return, his hips pressing back eagerly, practically humping the edge of the desk for some sort of stimulation to his neglected cock.

Each slam into his ass makes Mitch’s soft taunting turn into moans. Another generator clicks on and Herman gets practically frantic to fuck into him. Animalistic with his grunts and growls, occasionally laughter seeming to escape him as if he can’t help it. When Mitch opens his mouth to coo at him, he yelps when his ponytail is caught again.

Herman yanks him to stand practically upright. Forcing Mitch’s back to his chest as he fucks into him. Herman’s hand leaves his hair to wrap loosely around his neck, static threatening his fingertips as his other hand shoves down to jerk Mitch off. In Mitch’s head is an echo of things, all seeming to intertwine with each other like too many voices trying to talk to him at once. Conflicting possessive with praise.

“You’re mine.” “I adore you.” “You’re mine to ruin, little thing.” “I’ve missed you.” “You’re going to cum on my cock like the pathetic thing you are.” “Let me see you lose it, my dear.”

The stimulation and echoes are too much. Mitch feels the final push he needs and he’s cumming with a cry, one of his hands grabbing Herman’s wrist that rests near his throat. His other hand coming back to grip Herman’s hip and forcing him to stay close as Herman cums inside of him with a snarl. Cumming with Herman’s hand jerking off the base of Mitch’s shaft, Mitch’s dick jerks almost freely, cumming onto the desk, partially onto his own shirt and the papers left askew on the floor.

Mitch pants heavily against Herman’s body, feeling the strain on his neck relaxing and the almost violent whispering shushing in his mind.

There’s a careful sort of way Herman pulls out. But then something is being shoved into Mitch again and at first he whines in a muffled protest before relaxing when coos in his mind tell him to.

A plug is pressed into him to keep the cum inside. Herman helps him with his pants, patting his ass fondly as if mocking him in turn before another click of a generator happens. The gong of the bell alerting that gates could be opened perks Mitch’s ears, but not as much as the laughter behind him and the creeping feeling of electricity .

“Run, little rabbit. Before I decide to see what your insides look like.”

No, the Entity’s realm was not made for lovers.

But, perhaps maybe lovers with a twisted sense of humor.

#The Doctor #The doctor x oc #Mitch (Oc)#dead by daylight #dbd #dick by daylight #lemon #nsft #commissions #princess writing #Herman Carter

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eerythingisshaka · 5 years ago

Text

Always

[Yahya Abdul-Mateen II & Reader]

Word Count: 3k

A/N: I was reminded of a music video that captivated me when I was younger. This dude named Paolo Nutini made a song called Candy and the video followed a wedding from party to the couples night. So I got inspired to do this fluffy angsty thing.

“And welcome to the floor, Mr. and Mrs. Abdul-Mateen!!”

Your loved ones explode in cheers and applause as you and Yahya enter hand in hand into the hall. Spotlights find you both, making you shield your eyes but your giddiness could not be quelled by anything at that moment. You feel Yahya’s hand squeeze yours tighter, and you see him smiling wide down at you.

The crowd is still raucous but all other sounds mute as you see his lips move to say, “You ready, baby?”

Your cheeks ache with happiness as he takes you by your waist and lands a smooch on you that nearly knocks you off your feet. He even had the nerve to get sloppy with tongue which you knew was all for show because sloppy is not a part of his vocabulary.

“Alright bride and groom, come over to the table of honor so we can get toasts started!” Your cousin you hired as emcee instructs over the intercom to break up the PDA.

Yahya pulls away, wiping his mouth and faking embarrassment as he leads you by the hand to your throne at the head of the main table.

Seeing the smiling faces of your whole family fills your heart as you take your seats. Feeling your eyes well up, you pull the folded napkin off your plate to carefully blot the tears away.

Yahya lays an arm across your shoulders whispering in your ear, “You alright?”

You nod wordlessly, patting his leg for confirmation.

“Aww, aren’t they the cutest couple everyone! We haven’t even gotten to the speeches yet and you’re bawling. Girl don’t mess up my beat on you!” Your cousin had also helped with your makeup last minute when the artist arrived an hour and 17 minutes late (you kept count).

You wave your napkin at her to continue as Yahya popped the champagne bottle chilled in front of you, causing yet another whoop from your families. Yahya fist pumps as he pours it expertly into yours and his glasses. Your cousin continues the evening with a musical selection and eventually toasts.

Both sides of your families seemed to have their fair share of comedians.

“It’s about time someone made an honest man out of him! And the fact he doesn’t mind that you’re cuter than him, sends me!” his sister guffaws with the crowd at this crack.

Yahya just shrugs, holding you close next to him.

“It’s true!” You say under your breath.

“You may be cuter, but I still beat you in fashion, hands down,” he retorts.

You sit up and point to yourself. “My titties are SITTING. This hair? LAID. My dress? EXPENSIVE and DESIGNER.”

Yahya rolls his eyes. “See what you did? Talk. While my fit speaks for itself.”

You pick up your champagne glass and level it right under his nose. “Negro, I have half a mind to toss this drink in your face.”

Yahya grabs his glass, wrapping his arm through yours to take a drink while tipping the bottom of yours toward your mouth.

“And that concludes our toasts! To the happy couple!”

You peer at him as he winks at you, taking a slow sip. Eventually you both take a bow and are ushered over to take pictures in the garden area as the DJ spins and the buffet is opened.

The mid afternoon sun was gorgeous against the lush greenery of the environment.

“You still want to take pictures with me? Since I can’t dress worth a damn,” you say in a pitiful tone.

Yahya waves at the photographer. “What’re you talking about?”

You kiss your teeth. “How quickly you forget. Can’t wait to celebrate our anniversary with that memory of yours.”

The photographer greets you both. “Congrats guys. You both look splendid and beautiful and so in love, I could just add you to my Netflix list.”

“Thank you. Where do you want us?” Yahya asks.

The photographer points toward an archway that looks like heaven’s light is misting through it. As you both walk hand in hand up to it, you put on the funk extra hard.

“Now don’t forget to smile real big for me guys. Really revel in the love!”

Yahya and you both smile for some traditional shots, your impatience ticking up with each click of the shutter. The photographer directs you to look at each other and Yahya wraps his arms around your waist as you wrap your around his neck.

“Perfect guys, even got the ring glowing,” the photographer says.

Yahya looks at you with mischievous eyes and an expression like he is holding back a laugh.

You roll your eyes. “Nothing’s funny.”

“You are.”

“It’s not supposed to be. How you gonna tell me I’m ugly on the biggest day of my life?”

“Did I ever say you ugly? In fact I remember confirming that you are cute.”

“And then swiftly saying I dress badly. What bride wants to hear that?”

His fingers run up and down your spine as he sways from side to side, leading you into his rhythm.

“You know what? I gotta say it cuz it’s only right. I am sorry.” Yahya says genuinely.

You sigh deeply. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry I called you cute…”

“YAHYA!” You yelp, pulling his ear and making him wince.

“Aww, that’s cute guys. Playful, I like it!” The photographer naively encourages you.

“Ow ow! Ok ok, listen, stop!” Yahya begs until you let go of his lobe. Yahya massages his abused ear and continues.

“I mean I shouldn’t say you’re cute because you’re not. You are...so fine.”

“Oh...shut up.” You say in annoyance.

Yahya holds you closer, gaze lingering on your face. “You are the sexiest woman I have ever laid eyes on.”

“Whatever,” you say in a less aggressive tone.

“And although I would compliment a woman’s mind before their body, yours keeps me distracted from being able to form cohesive thought, and I do apologize for my ways.”

You naturally rub the back of his head, growing softer in his arms. “...Don’t apologize for that.”

Yahya shakes his head, moaning an old spiritual groan. “Noooo ma’am, I must. I am a gentleman at most times, but you bring out a side I can’t shake that is otherwise. And I only say what I said about your clothes because you look best with them off of you.”

You snicker and push away as Yahya laughs out loud at your shyness.

“Come on back here. You done started something, if you’re not in front of me, our photographer is gonna capture a big moment we can’t show our family in the album.”

You feel exactly what he means, holding his face in your hands as you shake your head. “You dirty bastard.”

“That’s your fault, don’t blame me!”

You pull him in for a kiss, becoming intoxicated with his spirit. The things that annoy you can be the same things that pull you out of a funk and you love that about him. His smile, his humor, his sex appeal without even trying and it was all for you until death do you part.

“Gorgeous! Incredible! Steamy!” The photographer cheers, snapping you out of the intimate trance you were under, but Yahya could barely stop himself.

“Save it for later baby,” you tell him in a husky tone, biting your lip over your over naughtiness.

You wipe your lipstick off his lips as he says, “I love you, sweetheart. Always.”

“I love you. Always,” you parrot back.

By the time you both are back in the hall, the part is jumping as your family and friends had their fill of food and drink, stepping to the choreography of the Wobble. The DJ cut the song prematurely to announce the cutting of the cake as Yahya grabbed the knife to cut a sliver and guide it to your mouth. You took a humble bite as the crowd applauds while you cut him a piece. Yahya’s smile lights up as you hold out his piece before shoving it into his lips and nose. The attendees gasp and laugh as the photographer captures the moment of cake being smashed on Yahya’s perfect grin. He is stunned but recovers gracefully, licking some cake off his lips. You clap for him, reaching for a napkin to help clean him but suddenly your body is pulled into his as he plants a kiss on you, making sure to transfer some cake onto you, generating even more laughter from your guests.

You couldn’t help but laugh into him as he dramatically moves his face around yours, bumping your nose with his and parting to see his masterpiece. You both laugh out loud, until finally cleaning your fun away and making it to the dance floor for your first dance.

You can’t keep your eyes off of each other as your song As by Stevie Wonder came on over the speakers. The floating nature of the opening verse makes you feel even more like you’re in a dream. Yahya can’t keep his mouth still, singing along with the lyrics and holding you closer than his own skin. When the chorus picks up, Yahya leads your two step, spinning you around to show you off, hands reaching a little lower than you would usually want in front of family but you didn’t care at all. You made sure to get your solo dance in front of him, shaking your titties and throwing ass on your husband without shame.

Eventually your families joined the dance floor, surrounding you both with congratulations. As the night wore on, it was time to head off for the evening. You both were sent off with well wishes as the DJ continues to spin. Your ride waited outside as you waved and ran to the backseat to be driven to your hotel.

The quiet of the car was odd coming straight out of the party. Your ears rang a little bit and you finally felt the effects of walking around in heels for hours, kicking them off.

Yahya looks over at your feet, pulling your leg up on his lap to rub your feet. “You tired?”

You lean back taking a deep breath. “A little. You?”

Yahya shrugs. “I could stay up a little longer.” He smirks at you in a sneaky way that tells you everything you need to know.

You chuckle, patting his arm. “I know baby, we will. Ooh, just keep rubbing like that.”

“That feels good?” Yahya asks, get right at the soft pad under your toes.

“Ohhh, yes!” You moan, sinking into your seat with pleasure.

“Excuse me! Sex in the cab is prohibited. Please refrain. And congratulations,” the driver says.

You and Yahya share a glance before chuckling at the driver’s mistake. “We got you sir, don’t worry about it. Just can’t keep my hands off my wife.” Yahya responds, taking your other foot onto his lap.

Arriving at the room of your hotel was an obstacle course. The dress and veil is a dead giveaway for strangers to take the time to yell congrats at you both. A wave of relief wash over you as Yahya begins to insert the key and opens the door for you. You start to walk in but he blocks you.

“What? I have to pee, come on,” you hop on your bare feet, whining.

Yahya tosses your shoes inside before looking at you like a disappointed parent.

“You just wanna ruin tradition, huh? As a man I have to carry my lady over the threshold.”

“This isn’t our house or something! It’s just the hotel, carry me later. I have to go, please!”

“Aight, come on.” Yahya bends to scoop you up making you yelp in surprise.

“Dammit, you’re gonna make me pee more!” You squeeze your legs tight and his head tighter as he walks you in.

“I love my baby, pee and all!” he sets you down but you practically jump out of his arms to the bathroom. Hiking up your dress, you plant down and release gratefully. A box sits on the counter across from you with a ribbon on it that intrigues you. Finishing, you get up to open the top to see a frisky negligee and thong set.

You shake your head, picking up the barely there clothing and smiling to yourself over what Yahya must’ve looked like having this picked out ahead of time. Feeling for the zipper on your dress, you get ready to change.

“Baby! The alcohol is getting cold, hurry up! HA!” Yahya laughs in glee, twisting the corkscrew in to work it open. With a pop, he got the glasses filled with some wine.

You open the bathroom door and see him shirtless, pouring the drinks. The room is dead quiet except for the glug of the liquid and you get caught up in his physique. It’s not the first time, but you feel renewed any time you see him from behind. The sculpt of each isolated muscle that embedded his back down to the dips above the waist of his pants barely hanging onto his hips. Although the glasses weigh practically nothing, his arms flexed as if he was keeping the world rotating on its axis.

When he turns to see you, his body tenses, mouth half hanging open. He stumbles to set down the wine as his eyes refuse to leave your direction. You feel so many hormones rushing through your body, it's hard to concentrate on what’s to happen next. It feels like pins are dancing across your skin as excitement works its effects on you, a primal need for him to touch you whilst keeping your distance.

“You look…” Yahya’s voice trails off.

“I can dress now, huh? But you picked it out, so points to you,” you say cooly as you walk over to the waiting glass of wine, bringing it up to your lips as you watch him watch you.

“It’s the best of both worlds: that color on you is spectacular but leaves nothing to the imagination.” Yahya paws at the lace that cups your breast, not quite touching you. You feel your body pull toward him under his light touch, wanting more but you refuse yourself. Looking over at the bed you see the rose petals scattered across the duvet.

“Aww, you decorated?” You walk over to pick up a petal, feeling it’s softness under your fingertips. His hands snake across your stomach, pulling you backwards a bit so that you feel his desire.

Your breath hitches in your throat, resting your hands over his while your hips back into him.

“That’s not the only thing I want on this bed.” Yahya growls into your ear, palming your breast roughly as you feel your body bend over for him.

You’re breathing hard as your body pulsates under his touch, naturally seeking the release he so wants to provide.

“Wait, move a second.” You override your senses to push away from under him, crawling across the bed to sit on the other end. The curtains on the windows still show the city lights in the distance for you to stare into.

“Something wrong?” He asks.

You feel yourself cooling as you get your thoughts together. “The city is gorgeous, ain’t it...Yahya?”

“Yeah it’s nice but what’s on your mind?” Yahya asks, crawling over the bed behind you.

You shrug. “It’s just crazy after all this planning, it’s done. This is it: married life.” You look over your shoulder at him and smirk.

“Well this isn’t all of it yet,” he says, kissing your shoulder, up to your neck. You hold his head, leaning into his lips as his hands reach your waist to pull you back onto the bed.

He pulls your negligee over your head as you lay back, enjoying his mouth grazing every inch of skin, feeling the pull of your underwear as he works his lips down your belly.

“You love me?” You ask breathlessly as your legs lift for him to finish undressing you completely. He looks over your fully exposed form with hunger, running his hands over your thighs.

“I love you, more than you know.”

You reach for the button of pants, helping him take off the unnecessary clothes. As he crawls up to meet between you, you feel your body tense up again.

“I got you.” Yahya says softly, kissing your breasts again.

You claw the width of his back as you feel him tease against you. Your legs wrap around him.

“God, I love you so much, baby.” You moan under him, bringing his face to yours, taking him into you for the first time as man and wife.

“You still taste sweet,” you observe from the remnants of cake he ate earlier.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have reminded me about that. I’m gonna get you back for real now.”

You gleefully accept your fate as Yahya pushes your body's pleasure to its edge. You become one in a new way that shakes you up as he washes away every doubt and worry with each stroke. You tasted his ecstasy on your tongue and you welcomed it warmly. You both had never said I love you so much in one night as you had then, taking in each other's devotion completely, climaxing quicker than you ever had. If this was married life, you could get used to it.

The next morning, the sun bathes you both in a soft glow, waking you. You see the half drank wine on the table across from you and the discarded clothing littering the floor. Yahya’s arms pins you to the bed as you feel the urge to pee. Grabbing his wrist, you hear him groan.

“Don’t you dare leave me in this bed alone.” Yahya says sleepily, pulling you in tighter.

You look back at him amused. “But I have to pee.”

“Again? Damn. I’m starting to think you're just trying to run away from me.”

You turn over to look at him, eyes closed with a dramatic frown. You smack his face playfully.

“Hey. Runaway bride is before the vows. It’s too late for me to do that now.”

He peeks one eye open at you. “You damn right. You my woman now, hitched! Got it?”

“And you my man, you hear me Yahya Abdul-Mateen II?” You say, getting up to scurry to the toilet.

“That’s right Mrs. Abdul-Mateen! Madly in love! Head over heels...like how I had your heels over your head last night...”

Masterlist

#yahya abdul matten fic #shakafic

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chiseler · 5 years ago

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3000 Beatniks Riot

Half a century before Occupy Wall Street, young protesters occupied Greenwich Village's Washington Square Park. Like OWS, they ended up clashing with the police. Unlike OWS so far, their protest produced a small but practical and lasting change.

In the spring of 1961, the Washington Square Association, a community group of homeowners around the square, appealed to New York City's Department of Parks and Recreation to do something about the hundreds of "roving troubadours and their followers" playing music around the square's turned-off fountain on Sunday afternoons. They were mostly college kids, playing guitars and banjos and singing folk songs. The practice had started in the post-war years, when Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger planted the seeds of the folk musical revival in the Village. By 1961 it had grown enough that both the police and the neighbors found the "troubadours" and the tourists they attracted a nuisance. In his posthumously-published memoir, Dave Van Ronk recalls that there were various cliques in the park: a Zionist group singing and dancing "Hava Nagila," Stalinists, bluegrass fans, folk traditionalists. Black journalist John A. Williams reported that the locals' complaints were not really musical but social: "In the ensuing meetings with city officials, it became apparent that what was opposed was not so much folk singing as the increasing presence of mixed couples in the area, mostly Negro men and white women." In the late 1950s the parks commission began issuing permits to limit the number of musicians, allowing them to "sing and play from two until five as long as they had no drums," Van Ronk writes. This "kept out the bongo players. The Village had bongo players up the wazoo... and we hated them. So that was some consolation." He doesn't mention that those bongo-players were very often black. This racial aspect had an old historical precedent in Greenwich Village. In 1819, white residents of the area complained "of being much annoyed by certain persons of color practising as Musician with Drums and other instruments through the Village."

In 1961 the parks commissioner responded to the complaints by refusing to issue any permits at all. Izzy Young of the Folklore Center and others organized a peaceful protest demonstration. On Sunday, April 9, 1961, a few hundred young people gathered, attracting a few hundred more spectators. Among the latter was eighteen-year-old Dan Drasin, a mild-mannered kid who liked to hang out in the park. He brought one of the big, boxy film cameras of the era and documented the afternoon in a short black-and-white film, Sunday. The film shows clean-cut college and high school kids, many of the girls in Jackie O hairdos and heels, many of the boys looking like the young Allen Ginsbergs with serious, sensitive, owlish faces behind heavy black-framed glasses. They carry hand-written placards and cardboard guitars and argue with the dozens of beefy, florid-faced cops who've shown up. Izzy Young, also bespectacled and in jacket and tie, lectures the cops about the constitutional right to make music as the kids sit in a circle in the dry fountain and sing "This Land Is Your Land" and "The Star-Spangled Banner." As protests go it all looks low-key and polite. Then paddy wagons arrive and the cops haul off one nebbishy young man cradling an autoharp, pushing him into a prowl car. According to Drasin, most of the singers and musicians had left the park, leaving the few hundred spectators loitering around the fountain, when the cops' tempers finally boiled over. They wade into the crowd, shoving boys and girls to the ground, mauling them, dragging a handful into the paddy wagons. Reportedly they knocked some heads with their clubs, although it's not shown in the film. The whole event, Drasin says, lasted maybe two hours.

The next day, the New York Daily Mirror, the conservative Hearst tabloid, ran a giant war-is-over front page headline, "3000 BEATNIKS RIOT IN VILLAGE." Other local papers followed suit. That week's Voice scoffed at the Mirror's "hysterical" coverage, wondering if there were three thousand beatniks in the entire country that Sunday, let alone in Washington Square Park. By May, the outrage caused by the cops' overreaction forced the city to back down and issue permits, a practice that continues to this day.

Among the protesters hauled off that day was the Village character H. L. "Doc" Humes, identified in the Mirror as a "scofflaw" and the "mob leader." Humes was a gregarious polymath, a novelist and raconteur, co-founder of The Paris Review, designer of cheap housing made from old newspapers, director of a lost film updating the Don Quixote story as Don Peyote, LSD pioneer with Timothy Leary, later helper to Norman Mailer when he ran for mayor in 1969, later still a paranoid drug casualty who believed UFOs, CIA and the Pope in Rome were out to get him. He would not have been a stranger to the cops in the park that day. Just a few months earlier, he'd had a very public spat with Police Commissioner Stephen Kennedy.

It started in October 1960, when cops shut down a performance by Lord Buckley at the Jazz Gallery in the East Village. Lord Buckley was a stately man with sleek gray hair and a pointy Daliesque mustache, who often performed in a tux and orated in a plummy, faux-British voice, seeming every bit the vaudeville and burlesque master of ceremonies he once was. But what came out of his mouth was pure hepcat jive he'd learned from the jazz musicians and pot-smokers with whom he'd associated since the 1930s. In the 1950s he started to recast biblical stories, historical texts like the Gettysburg Address, and Shakespeare in White Negro proto-rap: "Hipsters, flipsters and finger-poppin' daddies, knock me your lobes. I came here to lay Caesar out, not to hip you to him." It sounds like novelty schtick today, but in Eisenhower's America there was something inherently subversive about a man who looked like the maitre d' at a fancy restaurant jiving like a viper. "His Royal Hipness" had a lot of fans and friends downtown, where he performed and hung out whenever he was in New York.

The cops halted Buckley's gig because of a problem with his cabaret card. Since 1941, anyone who worked in a New York City nightclub, from performers to the hat check girl and the busboys, had to get fingerprinted and carry a picture ID card. If you had any police record, you couldn't have a card, which meant you couldn't work. It was intended to weed the Mob out of the nightclub business, but it could be disastrous for performers. Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker all had their cards yanked for drug violations; Lenny Bruce lost his because of an obscenity conviction; exotic dancer Sally Rand, refused a card in 1947 because the cops thought her fan dance too risqué, took the NYPD to court over it and won. Buckley lost his because he'd failed to report a pot bust that went back to the 1940s. Without the card, he couldn't perform in New York City, including a scheduled appearance on his old friend Ed Sullivan's tv show (they'd toured together with the USO during the war).

Despondent, Buckley called his pal Humes. Humes talked his Paris Review friend George Plimpton into letting Buckley give a little performance at a party in his Upper East Side apartment, with the idea that Plimpton's influential crowd might help him get Buckley's card reinstated. With Village jazzman David Amram at the piano, Buckley went into his schtick. The response was cool. Plimpton's literary swells had come to sip cocktails and talk about themselves, not listen to Village-y jazzbo jive. Buckley the old vaudevillian worked hard to win them over, pulling out bit after bit, overstaying his unwelcome. As the crowd grew increasingly bored and angry, Norman Mailer started heckling. Amram remembers that Buckley finally gave up, then "came over to the piano and whispered in my ear, 'Let's split and get out of here, man.'"

It turned out to be Lord Buckley's farewell performance. He died of a stroke shortly afterwards, at the age of fifty-four. Art D'Lugoff offered the use of the Village Gate for a memorial service, at which Ornette Coleman and Dizzy Gillespie played for a large crowd of Buckley's friends and admirers. He was laid to out at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on the Upper East Side, New York's funeral home to the stars. (Rudolph Valentino, John Lennon, Jackie Onassis, Nikola Tesla, James Cagney, Igor Stravinsky, Norman Mailer, Heath Ledger, Judy Garland and Candy Darling were all laid out there.)

Humes, Mailer, Amram and others then started a public campaign to end the cabaret card system. Humes charged that police harassment had killed Buckley, and claimed that if Buckley had only slipped the right cop a hundred bucks the whole thing would have been settled under the table. That enraged Commissioner Kennedy, who retaliated by tossing Humes in jail for unpaid parking tickets and ordering up the biggest crackdown on cabarets and nightclubs in years, sending cops to more than 1200 venues looking for non-card-carrying workers. But this protest worked as well. Kennedy was sacked for his overreaction, and though it took another seven years, the cabaret card system was eventually abolished.

by John Strausbaugh

#John Strausbaugh #Beatnicks #The Chiseler

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jlalafics · 6 years ago

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Part Three of “Rent Control”

So there I was, hellbent on just having three parts...and now there’s a fourth coming.

In the meantime, enjoy this next part of the story.

If you haven’t read the other parts, follow the links below:

Part One

Part Two

Summary: Katniss Everdeen has found the perfect home in San Francisco—great neighborhood, an easy commute and, best of all, it’s rent controlled. There’s only one problem; the landlord will only rent to a married couple.

Enter Peeta Mellark.

_____

Rent Control

Part Three

One month later…

“Hey there, Mrs. Mellark!”

Katniss grinned at the dark-skinned man at the front counter. “Hey, Thresh! Is Peeta ready?”

“He’s just in the back finishing up with the inventory,” he informed her. “Feel free to go in and check on him—make sure he hasn’t drowned in coffee beans.”

She nodded, waving before rushing into the back room, her thoughts on everything that had happened since that first kiss. It had been an interesting month for them. They had decided to give ‘dating’ a try—and by dating she meant fantastic make-out sessions and mind-blowing sex.

If Katniss had known how great sex could be in her pretend marital bed, she may have considered marriage much sooner.

Part of her knew that it wasn’t all about the sex, there was also the ‘after’ of it all. The kisses against her sweaty temple, the feeling of his strong arms encircling her waist so she could play the small spoon. When Katniss was in her husband’s arms, she felt safe…and loved.

Ahh…love. That was a much more complicated subject between them.

“Peeta?” she called out as she opened the door to the breakroom. “You ready?”

Silence.

Katniss walked further down toward the open doorway of the stockroom, finding it empty.

“Where the hell is he?”

There was suddenly a set of arms rounding her waist and rough lips against her ear.

“Tell me—” Katniss groaned as teeth nipped gently on her lobe. “Does the smell of coffee do anything for you?”

She chuckled quietly, her hand reaching back to run her fingers through his pomade-maneuvered locks.

“I do adore a blond roast,” Katniss said as her hair was moved aside, and soft kisses were stamped on her neck. “Or a Sumatra…”

“Hey!” She turned as an indignant Peeta pulled away. “That’s Starbucks!” He put his hand to his forehead dramatically. “How could you?”

Laughing, Katniss wrapped her arms around his neck, her lips in a mock pout. “I’m sorry.”

Peeta grinned, his blue eyes shining at her. “At least you love a blond roast.” He planted a full kiss on her lips. “Hello, wife.”

“Hello, husband,” she greeted back. “Are you ready?”

“Peeta!” Thresh suddenly called out. “I’m heading out, locking the door behind me!”

“Got it!” Peeta called out. “See you tomorrow!”

Peeta turned back to her. “Just going to save my inventory numbers, then we can go.” Katniss nodded in agreement. “But, first…would you be interested in learning about our variety of roasts?”

She raised a brow. “What?”

He placed his hands on her shoulders, leading her towards the stock room.

Peeta’s mouth went behind her ear—her weak spot!—as he pressed himself against her backside.

Suddenly, she had a deep need to learn about coffee.

++++++

“You dirty, little sex monkey!”

“Mommy?”

Annie turned to Jack, playing on the rug adjacent to them.

“Sorry, honey…just excited about Aunt Katniss’ story!” After a wide-eyed Jack went back to playing with his blocks, Annie turned back to her friend. “I always wanted to try doing it at work.”

“You own a restaurant, so I’m sure it’s possible,” Katniss responded. “On the other hand, it sounds totally unsanitary.”

Annie and Jack had wandered up into the apartment when Finnick had cajoled Peeta into a game of one-on-one at a nearby park. It was the great part about living in the building; everyone had an open-door policy and it wasn’t unusual for the Odairs—or anyone else, for that matter—to just pop in. Katniss was more than happy to welcome the very pregnant mother and son into their much-more-decorated apartment.

More photos lined the mantle, including one from their welcome party featuring everyone in the building, gifted to them by Effie. The couch, previously owned by the Odairs, was charcoal grey and so plush that Katniss often found herself sinking into the cushions for a nap after a long day at the boutique. Peeta often found her passed out on it when he got home and would have to carry her into their bedroom.

Not like he minded.

Their cream and grey rug matched it perfectly and it had been cushy enough for them to lounge on when they had no furniture. Now Jack sat on it, looking up at Katniss adorably with his sea-green eyes.

“Yeah, but it’s the thrill of being caught.” Annie sighed; her eyes closed. “Oh, to be young and in love…”

Katniss laughed. “Annie! You’re the same age as me!”

“I know, but it’s hard to have alone time when you have a toddler starfishing in your bed,” her friend responded.

“Starfishing?”

Annie threw her arms and legs out. “See? Like a starfish. Finnick would have to maneuver over Jack to even hold my hand!”

“Poor, horny Annie.” Katniss patted her arm. “If you ever need us to babysit Jack, we would be happy to. Especially before the twins get here.”

Annie blinked back tears. “I would love that…I really am terribly horny.”

The two women burst into laughter.

“So, this is where the hot girls are!”

They looked to the doorway where Finnick and Peeta stood, matching grins on their faces.

“Daddy!” Jack ran to his father and Finnick easily scooped him up. “Horny.”

Peeta turned to the women on the couch.

“What exactly were you talking about?”

++++++

“So, why primroses?” Beetee asked as he knelt in front of the patch of soil. “I think they’re going to look great in the spring.”

Katniss settled next to him, handing him a spade so he could continue tending to the garden.

“Primrose is my sister’s name,” she explained. “And, besides Peeta—she is the person that I’m closest to.”

“That’s lovely.” Beetee sat back and gave her a gentle smile. “They are a perfect addition to our garden.”

Effie had informed her and Peeta that each new tenant contributed to the garden by picking out a plant or flower to be added, courtesy of Beetee. The tradition started when she and Haymitch first bought the building. They planted a lemon tree that stood in the back corner of the yard and it was used regularly by tenants as well as neighbors.

“How’s it going?” They turned to find Peeta walking over. Holding a hand out to Katniss, he helped her up before pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “The primroses look beautiful; your sister will be flattered that she’s an addition to the garden.”

“I’m going to send her a picture later,” Katniss informed him. A sweet breeze swept through the yard and she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. “It’s the perfect weather today.”

“I agree,” Beetee said. “As an old girlfriend of mine said, this is date night weather.”

Peeta chuckled. “Seems like she was majorly hinting.”

Beetee shook his head. “Maybe that’s why we never passed the six-month mark. I was a bit dense in the romance department.” He grinned as he stood up. “What was your first date night like?”

“Uh…” Katniss suddenly felt jumbled, her brain going through many scenarios but not quite landing on the right one. “So…I can’t remember.” She turned to Peeta. “Sorry, babe.”

“Yeah, well, it isn’t your fault,” he told her easily before looking to Beetee. “We never had a real official date. It was more like coffee hangouts and movie nights.”

“Well, get on that boy!” Beetee pronounced.

Peeta turned to her. “How would you like to go on a date?” His cheeks were tinged pink with embarrassment. “One without coffee or Netflix.”

Katniss found herself beaming at him. “I’d love to.”

++++++

“I like that dress,” Peeta said from across the dinner table.

Katniss looked down at the flowy rust-orange dress before meeting his eyes once more.

“I borrowed it from Effie…actually I think she gave it to me. She said I had the hips for it—whatever that means.”

“I bet you it was better than the little talk that Haymitch gave me about not getting fresh with a lady,” he told her.

She leaned forward, making sure that he could see the bit of cleavage from the V-neck opening of the dress.

“But what if the lady wants to get fresh with you?”

“You’re going to get me in trouble,” Peeta replied as he reached for his very full glass of wine.

“I know, but I haven’t steered you wrong so far,” she told him. Her eyes looked around the cozy restaurant, furnished with wood tables and vintage chairs. “Annie did a great job with this place. It could use a greenery wall in the back to give more of that homey feel that it already has.”

“You’re definitely a Design Major.” Peeta gazed at her, his eyes lit with warmth. “Why did you decide on Johanna’s instead of going for a design firm? Not like it’s not great place or anything...”

Katniss shrugged. “I didn’t want to work under anyone. I always wanted to design on my own.” She met his eyes. “At least with Johanna, she gives me some sort of creative outlet. She’s less of a boss and more like a friend who happens to pay me.”

“You have free rein on the apartment, you know.” He reached over and took her hand. “Maybe when I finally get Mellark Bakery over to the west coast, you can design the layout for the space—if you’re not too in-demand by then.”

Katniss squeezed his hand in response. “I will always make time for you…for us.”

Peeta leaned down to press a kiss to her knuckles. “I hope that’s for a long time.”

She really…really hoped so, too.

“Katniss?”

Looking up, Katniss almost fell off her chair. “Gale?”

Her high school boyfriend stared at her nervously, his grey eyes fleeting between her and Peeta.

“I’m here with some work colleagues,” he informed her before nodding at the bar where a group of similarly suited men stood, along with a pretty blonde in a black dress who seemed to be staring her down. “Just a little catch-up with the firm.”

“Our neighbor is the executive chef and owner,” Peeta suddenly piped in.

Katniss gave his hand an assuring squeeze before looking to Gale. “This is Peeta Mellark—my husband.”

Gale looked taken aback but gathered himself quickly. “Gale Hawthorne—a friend of Katniss’.”

He held out his hand for Peeta to shake.

Peeta took his hand, shaking it, his own stare firm.

“Oh, come now—you’re a little more than that. Katniss and I don’t keep secrets from each other.”

“Yeah, I followed him here.” Her eyes went to Peeta, her lips rising in a smile. “But if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met you.”

“Then, I guess I owe Gale,” he replied, his own gaze on her. Peeta looked up at the man. “Thank you for bringing her to me.”

“No problem…I guess,” Gale said tightly. “Listen, I have to get going, but it was great seeing you again—and it was great meeting you, Peeta.”

“Of course,” they chorused together.

Katniss met Gale’s eyes. Once upon a time, she couldn’t look at him without swooning and after they broke up, she couldn’t think about him without her chest squeezing in pain.

Now, as she looked at him, she felt nothing.

“Goodbye, Gale.”

Giving her a tight smile, he stumbled off to rejoin his group.

Peeta looked. “You okay?”

Katniss nodded, cupping his cheek before leaning across the table to place a gentle kiss on his lips. Her heart leapt hearing his content sigh against her mouth.

They pulled apart, their eyes never straying from one another.

“I’ve never been better,” she told him as they stood to leave.

Together, they walked hand in hand out of the restaurant.

They didn’t even notice Gale frantically texting on his phone.

++++++

“Do you think you got enough flour?” Katniss teased as they walked into their apartment building. “I mean, I can understand one bag, but four…you are insane.”

“You have to understand that these are not just any old flours,” Peeta said, his arm reaching around her waist to pull her close. “One is regular white flour, one is coconut, one is almond, and the other whole wheat. They may seem the same, but they have different effects. Plus, they are all local. Imagine if I opened Mellark Bakery, I would need a place to buy flour and why not local?”

“Farmers’ Markets have never been this interesting.” Katniss reached into her bag as they reached their floor. “I have to drop off some stuff to Annie and Beetee. Come with me?”

“Of course.” Together, they walked up the flight of stairs and into the open door of the Odairs’ apartment. “Hello?”

On the weekends, everyone usually left their door open for visits from one another. It had been an interesting first weekend for them when Effie came knocking and they had to scramble to make themselves presentable.

“We’re in here!” Finnick’s voice came from the back of the apartment. “Bedroom!”

“You better not be naked!” Katniss responded as they carefully walked down the hallway to the room. “I brought the honey that Annie wanted.”

“Please don’t tell us that you’re doing something that you’ll need the honey for!” Peeta said as he closed his eyes.

Katniss peeked into the room, letting out a sigh. “Open your eyes, Peeta.”

Annie, Finnick, and Jack were all on the bed, their friend’s belly exposed.

“Hey Mellarks,” Finnick greeted with a jaunty smile. “We were just listening to the babies.”

It was then that they noticed the pair of earbuds resting on Annie’s stomach along with a small box.

“It’s to catch the fetal heartbeat,” Annie explained as she scooted up. She turned the box over to show them a small probe as she placed an earbud in one of her ears. “All I do is move it…here.” Annie handed Katniss the other earbud. “Listen.”

Carefully, Katniss sat on the edge of the bed next to Annie and took the earbud, placing it in her ear.

“Hear that?” Annie said to her. “That galloping is the heartbeat of one of the twins.”

Katniss felt her heart pound when the sound of galloping hit her ears. “I hear it!” Her mouth rose into a grin. “That’s amazing!”

Her eyes met Peeta’s, warmth in his own. For a moment, Katniss wondered how he might be like as a father. Probably great—better than she would be as a mother, anyway.

She turned back to Annie, who beamed at her. “I know that look.” Her friend nodded at her husband in the doorway. “It’s that look guys get when they’re trying to figure out how to plant their seed in you.”

“That’s…descriptive,” Katniss replied. “But, it’s still so early for that.”

“Are you sure?” Annie questioned, peering at her curiously. “We’re the same age and I had Jack about three years ago...but it might be different for you two.”

Looking back at Peeta, Katniss felt her heart sink at the thought that maybe later he might be having children with someone else.

“Yeah, maybe,” she managed to muster.

++++++

“Gorgeous artichokes,” Beetee said as he peeked into the bag that Peeta handed him. “Thanks for bringing these over.” He placed them on his kitchen island. “An old friend of mine is coming down from Portland and I’m cooking her dinner tonight.”

“Friend, huh?” Katniss chuckled seeing the man go scarlet.

“I’ve known Wiress since forever,” he told them plainly.

“But sometimes it can become more,” Peeta said. “Katniss and I were friends for a good few months then, all of a sudden, it was like I couldn’t live without her.”

She whipped around. “Really?”

Peeta went to her, lifting her chin. “I mean, who could live without these smoky eyes?” His hand went to her cheek. “Or these freckles?” Leaning down, he traced her lips with his thumb. “Or this bow on her lip?”

“Very descriptive,” Beetee told them with a small smile. “I will keep that in mind.” There was a beep and the man reached into his pocket to pull out his phone. “Effie is calling you down.”

“We have to get these into our place and then we’ll head over,” Peeta said. “I’ll bring up a loaf for tonight’s special dinner. It will go great with that raspberry spread that we got you.”

“Thanks.” The man waved them off. “Now, go—you’ve made me nervous!”

They laughed as they walked down the flight of stairs to their floor.

“I wonder what Effie wants,” Peeta said as they took their last step down.

“Probably just wondering what our plans are for tonight,” Katniss said.

He put an arm around her. “I was hoping for a quiet night of me and you—and The Great British Bake Off.”

Katniss quickly pressed a kiss to his lips as they stepped into their apartment.

“As long as you cook then I’m game for anything.”

“Katniss Everdeen—how could you!”

She turned to find her mother standing in front of them, the framed photo of their ‘wedding’ in her hands.

++++++

“Mom?”

Katniss was definitely the spitting image of the woman standing in front of them.

Except this woman looked pissed.

“Katniss!” A young blonde suddenly appeared and hugged his wife. Peeta recognized Prim immediately, despite the fact that she wasn’t wearing pigtails like her photo on their mantle. When Prim pulled away, her blue eyes were panicked, and the girl got closer to Katniss. “I was texting you…”

“My phone service sucks,” Katniss said, quietly bewildered. “It’s hard to get a signal when you’re on the train.”

Prim looked between them. “Why did you never mention…” She looked to Peeta. “…him?”

Katniss turned to him. “We are so fucked.”

The sound of laughter echoed in the hall and they all turned to find Effie and Haymitch, accompanied by a dark-haired man. They were all holding glasses of what was looked like Haymitch’s favorite rum.

“Katniss, your father is such a charmer,” Effie said as they entered the apartment. The woman went to her, eyebrows furrowed. “You look grey.”

“Stephen.” They all looked to Katniss’ mother, still gripping the wedding photo. “Look.”

Katniss let out a pained moan and Peeta pulled her close to keep her from keeling over.

Her father took the photo, staring at it for a moment before giving it back to his wife.

Silently, he walked over to them and Peeta braced himself. Katniss’ father was a burly man and he had that look about him—like he could hurl his daughter’s fake husband down the building’s stairs.

“Congratulations, baby,” he said softly before holding his hand out to Peeta. “Stephen Everdeen—your father-in-law.”

Carefully, Peeta shook his father-in-law’s hand—just in case it was a trick and he was actually going to break his wrist.

Katniss lifted her head from his shoulder to look at her dad. “You’re not mad?”

“When Hazelle called and told us that Gale insisted that we come to San Francisco, I thought the worst!” he informed her.

“This isn’t the worst-case scenario?” his wife suddenly burst out.

“Katniss, Peeta—you hid this from your parents?” Effie scolded. “For a year?”

“You’ve been married for a year?” Katniss’ mother screeched.

“Robin, you made it seem like something terrible happened—like she had married Gale!” Her dad said. He looked to where Katniss and Peeta clung to one another. “This I can deal with. I mean, he looks completely harmless.”

Peeta wasn’t sure if he felt insulted or flattered. Behind him, Haymitch guffawed at the man’s words.

“I didn’t realize that you hated my best friend’s son that much.” Katniss’ mother had crossed her arms, scowling at her husband.

“Honey, that is not what I meant.” Stephen went to his wife. “You know that he was a tool who dropped our daughter like a hot potato as soon as he discovered the joy of college girls. Is that what you wanted for our girl?”

“No,” Katniss’ mother said petulantly. “But, married for a year?” She looked to Katniss, her eyes watering. “Why not tell us?”

“We’re sorry,” Katniss said quietly. “We planned to, but then it just got too hard.”

“And, before we knew it, it was a year,” Peeta finished for them. “My parents don’t know either, if that helps.”

“It doesn’t,” Prim told him bluntly. “I’m Prim, by the way…your sister-in-law.”

There was a sharp whistle and they all turned to see Haymitch at the doorway.

“Now that we are all caught up, might I suggest that we get some rest and then meet up for dinner in the backyard,” their landlord said. “Mr. and Mrs. Everdeen will stay in our guest room. Prim can stay on Katniss and Peeta’s couch, if that’s okay with her.”

“I’m cool with that,” Prim said, eyeing the couple.

“Robin, would you like a drink?” Effie asked, approaching Katniss’ still shell-shocked mother.

The woman nodded and, with a wink from their landlord, Robin was whisked off to the Abernathy apartment.

Immediately after the apartment door across shut, Prim turned on them.

“Now, what’s really going on?”

++++++

“Oh shit.”

Peeta set down the plate of buns and homemade jam before joining Katniss and Prim on their couch.

“Yeah, I know,” Katniss agreed as she took Peeta’s hand. It had taken an hour to explain the whole complicated tale that they had woven to Prim—enough time for Peeta to start therapeutically baking. “But, we’re happy.”

He kissed the side of her head. “We are.”

“But, you’re lying,” Prim replied as she took a bun and tore it open. “Everyone thinks you’re married!” She looked to Peeta as she took the butter knife on the plate and smeared jam all over the bun. “Your parents don’t even know. How long do you think you can keep this up?”

“We had agreed on a year,” Katniss told her sister. “But, you’re right, we should tell everyone.”

Prim took a bite of the bun and her eyes went wide. “Oh damn! This is delicious!” She looked to Peeta and grinned through her chews. “Now I can understand why my sister pretend-married you. She can’t cook anything.”

“Hey!” Katniss looked to her sister incredulously. “That’s not fair. His family has a bakery!”

“I’m not with Katniss because of any of that,” Peeta told her sister. “I care for her. I want to be with her—for as long as she wants…”

Katniss felt her eyes burn at his words. “You do?”

Peeta pressed his forehead to hers, his blue eyes glowing. “I do.”

“You two are just the cutest fakest couple ever,” Prim concluded as she polished off the last of the buns. “Are there any more?”

++++++

It was during dinner that the other shoe was dropped.

“I’ve decided that you’re going to have a proper wedding,” Katniss’ mother pronounced.

Everyone had gathered except for Beetee who was having his dinner with Wiress. Their neighbor had introduced her on everyone, a blush on his cheeks that matched the shy woman’s scarlet complexion.

The Odairs had joined them and, at Katniss’ insistence, Johanna. She could always count on Johanna to keep things civil—or be a distraction.

Katniss looked over to where her mother sat next to Effie, who apparently, she had become quite buddy-buddy with. “What?”

“Since you decided to leave us out of your official wedding, I think it’s only right that we have another ceremony with both our families,” her mother informed her.

“I think that’s a wonderful idea!” Effie agreed, her eyes bright. “However, that does take a lot of time—planning a wedding.”

“I used to be an event planner when the girls were still little,” Robin explained. “So, it’s a no-brainer for me. Getting it done in two weeks might be a little difficult, but we can’t take any more time away since Stephen has so many patients that need him at the clinic.”

“Two weeks?” The comment came from Peeta, who had suddenly gone pale. Underneath the table, the grip on Katniss’ hand had suddenly tightened. “And, I haven’t told my parents—”

“No need,” Katniss’ mother replied. “I have already called them and introduced myself. They should be arriving in a day or two.”

“How did you even get their contact information, mom?” Prim asked, next to Johanna.

Haymitch cleared his throat. “I might’ve had Beetee get their contact information.” He avoided Katniss’ glare. “Also, Google.”

“I have a great idea,” Effie said. “We can do the ceremony here in the garden, along with the reception. There’s more than enough room…and I know someone who can design a lovely arch for the ceremony to take place under.”

“I can do the catering,” Annie added from her seat. “I know a few bakeries willing to make a wedding cake for me, too.”

“I’ll take care of the music,” Finnick said, rubbing his wife’s back. “Beetee can help with connecting a sound system.”

Robin nodded in approval until she reached Johanna. “And, what will you contribute?”

For the first time since Katniss had met Johanna, she could tell that her friend was flustered.

“Um…I guess bridesmaid dresses and such?”

“What about a wedding gown?” her mother probed.

Johanna squirmed. “I don’t think I have anything like that—"

“Wait! Katniss can use mine!” Effie called out excitedly. “It was awhile ago, but I think the silhouette is still in fashion.” She smiled warmly at Katniss. “It would be an honor if you would.”

Katniss could see the tears in Effie’s eyes—how could she refuse?

She turned to Peeta who looked like he was about to faceplant into his plate any moment now, before turning to her landlord.

“I would love that.”

++++++

“I’m exhausted.” Katniss flopped on the bed, closing her eyes as Peeta joined her wearily. “You okay?”

“Other than the fact that both of our families have swarmed into our lives like locusts?” He chuckled quietly. “I guess I’m okay.” She opened her own eyes to find him gazing at her. “Come here. I need to hold you.”

She shifted to lay her head on his chest, her arm splaying across his stomach. “I’m sorry that this is such a mess.”

“When do we tell them?” he asked her.

“When your parents arrive.” she suggested.

Peeta turned his head towards her. “Katniss, I’m not ready to give you up.”

She looked up at him, her hand reaching for his cheek. “Neither am I…does it have to end badly though?”

“Effie and Haymitch…everyone else…they’re going to hate us,” Peeta replied. “I don’t want them to.”

“I know.” Katniss swallowed the lump in her throat. “They’re like…”

“Family,” he finished for her. “And, Katniss, you know…” Peeta stopped to sit them both up, his expression serious before meeting her stare. “You know that I lo—”

“KATNISS! PEETA! Open up!”

They shot out of bed, pulling open their door and heading down the hallway to the frantic knocking coming from their front door.

Prim sat up sleepily from the couch. “W-What’s going on?”

Opening the door, they found Finnick with Jack in his arms and a panting Annie, holding a bag.

“It’s time,” he told them before handing Jack to Peeta. Thankfully, the little boy was fast asleep. “We’ll call you guys as soon as we can.”

“Of course,” Peeta agreed, patting Jack’s back.

“Do you have everything?” Katniss asked. “Or, do you need us to call anyone?”

“No…” Annie breathed out. “We have no other family…just you guys…”

Katniss felt something tighten in her chest at her friend’s words.

“Of course.” She gave Annie and Finnick a hug. “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of Jack.”

“Good luck,” Peeta added.

Closing the door, they looked at one another then at Prim, who was already falling back asleep, before their eyes went to Jack.

“I guess we have another addition to our bed,” Katniss whispered.

Peeta shifted the toddler in his arms. “Guess so.”

Prim snorted, somewhere between dreams and sleep.

“Perfect birth control for those imaginary children that you’re trying to prevent!”

Katniss chuckled, ignoring her sister’s words. “Let’s get him to the room.”

It was later that night as she watched Jack and Peeta sleep that she realized just how much Prim’s remark had affected her.

Katniss did want children. Deep inside—in that small vulnerable space that she kept hidden away—is where she admitted that she maybe wanted them with Peeta.

++++++

Within the next few days, there were several new additions to the building.

Sarah and Rose Odair arrived in the wee hours of the morning. While born early, both were perfectly healthy, and sporting their father’s fiery locks. Annie and the girls were released after a day or two and everyone, especially Effie, were excited for their arrival.

Peeta, along with Stephen and Haymitch, helped build the nursery since the parents didn’t have the chance. It was then that Peeta got to know his faux father-in-law. He was an oncologist at a prominent hospital and clinic where his hours were long, but the job was fulfilling.

“What do you want to do career-wise?” Stephen asked as they sat in the half-done nursery, which was also Jack’s room—whenever he decided to sleep in it.

“My parents own a bakery in Washington D.C. It’s called Mellark Bakery, of course,” Peeta started. “And, I wanted to expand it to the West Coast. I majored in Business and created a pretty solid plan…but they still need convincing.”

Stephen chuckled as he finished bolting one side of the crib that the twins would be sharing.

“I’ve been there,” the man told him. “My parents were unsure of my plans to go to medical school. I was a bit of rebel—caused all kinds of trouble in high school—and so they also needed convincing. Hand me that flathead?”

Peeta handed him the necessary screwdriver. “And, how did you convince them?”

“I didn’t. Robin did,” Stephen said. “She has a lot of conviction—like Katniss.” He went back to tightening the bolt. “Maybe you might want to have Katniss convince your parents.”

Peeta shook his head. “I wouldn’t want her to do that. I mean, I’m glad she supports me, but I need them to have faith in me—if this business plan is going to work.”

Stephen stopped, placing the screwdriver down, before turning to him.

“That’s how I know you’ll be good for my girl. You want her to walk beside you, not behind or in front. You’re equals. I love my wife, but she had a lot of work when she took me on!” The man laughed. “And if Katniss had been with Gale, she would be his little wife, playing hostess and such. I never wanted that for her.”

“If anyone really knows Katniss, they would know that she was never meant to be on the sidelines.”

The man grinned at him, patted his shoulder, before they both fell back into working on the crib.

++++++

The Mellarks showed up the day after the twins came home. They arrived in a black Sedan, smartly dressed, and obviously curious about Peeta’s life in San Francisco.

Peeta’s father Christopher was tall and sandy-haired—it was obvious where Peeta had inherited his kind, blue eyes and bright smile from. Katniss almost swooned; she would never admit it to anyone though, thinking that Peeta would be the mirror image of his father when he was older.

Peeta’s mother Daphne was petite and slender with ice-blue eyes and a sharp face. However, when she saw Peeta, her mouth broke into a wide smile, bringing warmth to her expression.

“Darling!” She kissed her son on the cheek, pressing a bright-red lip imprint on him. “You look wonderful!”

Peeta raised his brows in confusion. “I do?”

“Happier,” his mother said before looking to Katniss. “This must be Katniss.” Daphne reached out her hand for Katniss to take. “I’m Daphne Mellark—your mother-in-law.”

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Mrs. Mellark,” Katniss said congenially.

“Please, call me Daphne…or Mom!” The woman told her.

“Daphne! Is that you?” Katniss’ mom was suddenly embracing the woman excitedly; the two were practically bouncing. “You’re just in time! Effie and I were just working on Katniss’ dress!”

“I can’t wait to see it!” Daphne exclaimed.

The two rushed off, hand in hand and skipping away.

“That was…weird,” Peeta said.

“Like watching two cheerleaders pumping themselves up for a competition,” Katniss added with an amused smile.

“Your mother is just excited to have some female company,” Peeta’s father informed the two. He hugged Peeta before extending a hand to Katniss. “Christopher—your father-in-law.”

Katniss shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, sir…and can I just say—wow.”

The man laughed before pressing a kiss to her cheek. “I think you’re going to be a great addition to the family.”

“Where are Bran and Alex?” Peeta asked.

“They were heading up when Prim and Johanna accosted them in the backyard. Couldn’t resist that Mellark charm,” his father replied with a grin. “I’m going to head to Effie and Haymitch’s. Your father and Haymitch promised me a great whiskey tasting while your mothers take over your wedding.”

“Oh good,” Katniss said weakly.

Peeta put an arm around her. “Let’s go see my brothers.”

They all separated in the hallway and together, Katniss and Peeta made their way downstairs.

“I have to warn you,” Peeta started. “My brothers can be…boisterous.”

“That’s fine,” she replied as they walked into the backyard door. “I just saw our moms bouncing like two sorority sisters on spring break.”

Peeta laughed, kissing her affectionately on the cheek.

“PEETA!”

Katniss yelped, seeing the two figures rush towards them. She hurried away, joining Prim and Johanna, both staring shamelessly at the three blonds.

“Bran! Alex! Quit it!” Peeta yelled.

“Oh no, little brother!” one of them responded.

“It’s time for the Mellark roundup—and you get to be in the middle!” the other added.

Katniss along with Prim and Johanna watched as the brothers jumped, Peeta helplessly in the middle, and began to shout:

“Mellark! Mellark! Mellark!”

“It’s like an all blond rugby match,” Katniss said in amazement.

“Or a really hot Swiss porn,” Johanna added.

“Can you see them in lederhosen?” Prim asked.

Simultaneously, they all tilted their heads trying to imagine the Mellark brothers in the get-up, suspenders and all.

They weren’t disappointed.

When the brothers separated, Peeta embraced them both before leading them to Katniss.

He reached for her hand, giving her a happy smile. “Bran, Alex—this is my Katniss.”

A rush of warmth engulfed her—she was his Katniss.

The taller blond in a business suit and leather loafers approached her. “Bran Mellark, the oldest…and the best.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Congratulations. I can tell that Peeta has himself a great girl.”

Alex bounced over to her. His hair was much lighter, and his blues were more like Daphne’s. However, the roundness of them were Peeta and Christopher’s.

“Sis…” He lifted her off the ground. “I can’t believe that Peeta snagged you. You know I’m still available.” Alex winked flirtatiously.

“I much prefer this particular Mellark,” Katniss said, her hand going to Peeta’s shoulder.

“Well, now that you’re part of the family…” Alex looked to Bran and nodded.

“You have to be part of the Mellark round-up,” Bran finished.

Katniss shook her head. “I’m good.”

However, they were already sandwiching her and Peeta between them.

“This is like a fantasy and a nightmare all at the same time,” she told Peeta.

Peeta grimaced. “This is my nightmare.”

There was nothing she could do about it now because they were already jumping.

Prim rushed over, tripping over her feet. “Let me join in! I’m your sister, too!”

“Wait!” Johanna was never one to be left out. “Me, too!”

Katniss met Peeta’s eyes as both her sister and friend joined in on the chanting, their arms wrapped around their very own Mellark brother:

“Mellark! Mellark! Mellark!”

Katniss smiled wryly.

“Now this is my nightmare.”

++++++

“Good evening, everyone.” Katniss’ father stood at the head of the table. “If we haven’t been properly introduced, I am Katniss’ father, Stephen. My wife along with Peeta’s parents, Christopher and Daphne, want to thank you for welcoming our families into your homes.” He looked out at the table of people, assembled outside in the backyard of the apartment. “We also want to thank Effie and Haymitch, who have welcomed our children, Katniss and Peeta, to become part of their makeshift family.”

Effie beamed and Haymitch put an arm affectionately around his wife’s shoulders.

“I know that it might seem fast to be having this wedding in a mere few days,” Stephen continued. “But, I guess that’s just the way things have fallen into place. From what we’ve been told, that’s how the first wedding happened.” He eyed Katniss and Peeta affectionately. “I am not too surprised, however. I know my girl, Katniss, and she has always instinctively known what was right.”

Immediately, Katniss’ chest began pounding. There was a slow balloon of air filling her chest and she swallowed it down, giving everyone a tight smile.

“Katniss was named after her grandmother, a woman of great conviction and bravery. A woman who was never afraid to tell the truth—even if it hurt…”

The balloon was getting bigger and Katniss gulped trying to catch her breath.

“…and when I first looked at my baby girl, I knew that she would be just like my mother—”

She couldn’t breathe!

Abruptly, Katniss gasped and pushed up from table. “E-Excuse me!”

“Sis, are you okay?” Prim asked from across the table.

She nodded, though her head was spinning. “I-I-I’ll be right back!”

Turning, Katniss rushed out of the yard and sprinted into the building. Gripping the stair railing, she pulled herself up towards her floor and practically flung herself into her apartment.

With a slam of the door, she felt the tears escape.

She was a fraud.

“Katniss?”

Peeta was closing the door behind him and she reached for him.

Immediately, he wrapped his arms around her, his hand going through her hair. “What’s going on?”

“All of them there…acting like a family…and us lying to them…” Katniss swiped her hand across her hands. “They’re all going to be heartbroken when they find out.”

Peeta nodded in understanding.

“Then…we don’t tell them.”

Katniss started at his words. “What?”

“We do the ceremony,” Peeta said. “And like we agreed, we move in one year…or just break up.” He looked torn. “It’s what we agreed on.”

“Well, that was before—”

Before she had fallen in love with him.

The realization hit hard.

And, she couldn’t breathe again.

End of Part Three

Yeah, I’m a liar. There’s going to be a part four. It was getting crazy long.

However, I’m sure the next part will be much shorter.

Thanks for reading y’all!

Until the end, JLaLa

#Rent Control #Everlark #Everlark Fanfiction #fakemarriage!au

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