#me not liking him is probably intentional on the writers part

[ranger-danger]

:) my wild card son. Imagine out tricking the god of trickery. Having one of the strongest pieces on the chess board be a wild card is beautiful. It’s like giving someone a bomb that randomly changes the intervals of time it goes off at.

[qiu-yan]

in MDZS the novel, the innkeeper in Yunping mentions that people are too scared to go petition Yunmeng Jiang for help because someone once walked in on Sect Leader Jiang whipping a guy in the main hall, supposedly because the guy was a demonic cultivator.

[cryptvokeeper]

In my time honored tradition of “I like rise Leo but in a slightly to the left way of the general fanon interpretation” I propose: yes, Leo was being a bad leader and not communicating with his team during the movie because he didn’t want the responsibility of being leader HOWEVER he was not purposely self-sabotaging in an effort to get Raph to take leadership back. Instead, he was going solo and not working with anyone in order to avoid leadership altogether and not make calls and decisions that could potentially fail.

[cvnntagious]

˗ˏˋ pornstar!chris films with someone new ‧₊˚

꒰part two ✩꒱ (coming soon)

creeping into chris' condo as quiet as possible with a wrapped gift in hand, a large smile took up most of your face at the thought of him opening it. though, the more you explored the area, the more discouraged you got before eventually giving up with a loud sigh at the realization that he wasn't home. but then, where was he? he always told you when he was going to be out, but today? he didn't even so much as leave you a text.

if not for chris updating you on his whereabouts becoming routine, you truthfully would've thought nothing of his sudden absence, but with a confused look on your face, you found yourself setting his christmas present on the coffee table in front of you to plop down onto his couch. you slipped your phone out of your back pocket, instantly typing away at it.

it was simple and straight to the point, leaving no room for confusion; you'd never been the type to beat around the bush. you weren't upset, really—more like confused, is all. and you waited. sitting idly on his couch as you waited for that little 'delivered' alert to turn into 'read'.

it didn't.

not for a while, at least. you ended up leaving his house only about half an hour after you sent the message, seeing no reason in just sitting there overthinking it. but you still did. going on about your day, trying to distract yourself from that nagging voice in the back of your brain that whispered 'where's chris at? what's he doing?' and 'you're not special. he got bored of you, silly,' at any moment you weren't occupying your mind with something else.

you knew you were probably overreacting; being dramatic in a way chris wouldn't like if he could hear your thoughts. i mean, it's not even like you'd be that upset if he had gotten tired of you. he was only some good dick and a person to keep you company... every single day for the past month. shit, you needed to know. picking up your phone in a swift motion as you now sat on your own couch, having tried to watch a show as means to keep your mind off chris, you checked your notifications in hopes that you'd missed his text.

but something new caught your eye.

a notification from chris' twitter, far different than anything you'd imagined throughout the day. of course you clicked it, a small breath of relief coming from you as you'd immediately told yourself he must've been busy with his executives. oh, he was busy alright.

your eyebrows raised at the sight before you: a short clip of chris plowing into some blonde with big tits, her moaning and whining in such a forced way. he was grabbing and squeezing at them. i mean, shit, he wasn’t even a boobs guy. it was so unlike him, completely disregarding his original intent for his content—keep it authentic. the caption only contained the hub link, telling his fans to watch the full video there.

dread sounds about right. a look of dread spread across your face, as if you'd just witnessed your worst fear. except it wasn't your worst fear. at least you didn't think it was, until now.

without thinking, you found yourself in chris' messages again, seeing the 'delivered' alert still there like a taunt. it was a slap in the face, really. not even the fact that he'd went and filmed with someone else, but the way he'd so clearly purposely failed to give you any type of warning.

once you'd sent the message, seeing the little text below your blue message change to 'read' instantly, it all suddenly felt pointless — all the worrying throughout the day, the dread you felt when you watched the short clip chris posted, the hurt when you saw he ignored your message, and now, even the message you literally just sent to him.

w/c : 645

a/n : i'm gonna try to bust these out the best i can, but y'all might have to bare w me cs i'm proly the worlds slowest writer... this may overlap with the au calendar as well, so to be clear, this isn't my priority. if i have to postpone parts of this to keep up with the prompts, i will. that being said, hope you guys enjoy my first multi-part tumblr fic <3.

-love, your grandma cvnty ☆!

[indecisivemuch]

Flatline

Pairing: Luke Castellan x Reader

Summary: A certain hospital equipment exposed Luke's feelings for you (funny, fluff, friends to lovers, banter dynamic, minor injuries, happy ending).

Note: I’m sorry if this is not as good as my other works, writers block + being sick has been killing me.

Word count: 2.7k

It was somewhat strange at first to see Luke in normal clothing rather than that bright orange camp shirt that you’ve grown so familiar with. But after spending four days outside of camp and on a quest together, you’ve actually somewhat grown fond of the sight. You could still vividly remember the moment he picked you as his quest companion without an ounce of hesitation. It wasn’t surprising, considering you two have always made a good team, a likely result of training with each other for three years straight. Nevertheless, it warmed your heart that you were his first pick. 

“Are you okay?” You asked inspecting Luke's wound as he sat against a tree and sighed in relief when you realized the cut was not too deep. 

Just a couple of minutes back, you two were walking through the forest and on your way to the nearest bus stop that could take you back to camp. However, the universe must have thought the long journey was not enough of suffering because somehow, you two came across a chimera that managed to claw your arm and Luke in the abdomen. 

“It’s not too bad. I think we can still make it to the last bus if we just quickly wrap your wounds up,” you noted. 

Meanwhile, all Luke could do was watch you. He knew he should be listening, but how could he when you were so attentive to him at that moment? He hungrily took in the way you were taking care of him in such a worried manner as if you were his personal guardian angel. Part of him wanted to soothe your worries, but he selfishly wanted to enjoy it this time because it was for him. 

“Hey, did you hear what I said?” you asked when you didn’t hear a reply. You turned towards Luke, but was quickly caught off guard. 

There was something sincere and sweet about the way he was staring at you. However, somewhere along three years of knowing him, you have concluded that Luke Castellan must have made it one of his life missions to annoy you because he has never passed up on any opportunities for flirty antics just to see you grow flustered. Hence, you ignored how he was gazing at you, though you scowled at yourself internally upon feeling your cheeks warm up. 

“Stop looking at me like that,” you forced out. 

“Like what?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” Luke almost chuckled at how you started blushing from just the way he was watching you. Oh, if only you knew. Luke loved getting your attention on him. He would snatch up any chance just to have your eyes on him or to have you care for him. The boy loved just seeing you blush over his little teasings. It was also fascinating to him how you never realized the true intentions behind his actions. Luke knew that half the camp probably knew that he was absolutely dotted on you from the way he was acting like a five-year-old boy chasing after his crush. Though, you always deemed his words and gestures as playful and jokes rather than genuine.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he replied. However, the cheeky grin on his face told you otherwise, and you hit his arm in retaliation. “Ouch, is that the way to treat an injured person?” Luke joked.

“You’re barely injured. The wound is not even that deep.” 

“Well…surely, if it’s not that bad, you can just kiss it better, right?” Your cheeks tinted a more evident shade of pink at his words, and you let out a deep sigh before giving Luke a playful glare. He only smirked at this, and Gods, you found that annoying yet endearing at the same time. Meanwhile, the boy was proudly relishing the idea that he was the cause of the blush that was adorning your cheeks.

“Okay, I say, let’s find somewhere safer, and then I’ll disinfect and wrap your wound up, yeah?” You suggested, purposefully deciding to ignore Luke’s previous words.

“Yes, ma’am.” Luke breathed out. 

However, before you could help Luke up and relocate, two hikers spotted the both of you. It was a middle-aged married couple, and you slightly cursed under your breath. As you predicted, they started panicking at the sight of Luke’s bleeding wound and asked if you both needed help.

“Oh no, we’re fine,” you tried saying, though you could see the husband already calling 911. “Seriously, we have this handled,” you tried to reassure them, reaching out to the husband so he’d put the phone down, but the wife touched one of your shoulders.

“How did this happen?” the over-caring strangers asked.

“It was…a bear,” you settled on saying, grimacing when you realized you were less convincing than you wanted. You hoped the woman would not ask for further elaborations because that would require the impromptu level you were not ready to play at.

“The ambulance should be here soon,” the husband informed while keeping 911 on the line, and you abruptly turned to him. Now, your mind started panicking. You two were meant to keep a low profile.

“What? No, he’s really fine. It’s just a minor injury. Look! He’s practically like he always is. Right, Luke?” You turned back to Luke, hoping he’d attest to your words against these strangers. However, you were caught off-guard by the sight of him with his eyes closed instead. “Luke?” you called again, this time louder. Yet, you were met with the same response - utter silence.

Then came the sound of sirens, and the next thing you knew, you were sitting on a chair next to a hospital bed where Luke was lying still. You’ve been sitting there for two hours, calmly waiting for the boy to wake up after recovering from the initial panic over the thought of something seriously wrong with him. The only noise in the room was from the ticking clock on the opposite wall to you, as well as the occasional sound of magazine pages being turned.

“Y-Y/N…?” The quiet sound of Luke calling out your name pulled you out of your thoughts, and you looked up from the magazine in your hand. “Where are we?”

“The hospital,” you answered promptly. You watched as the Hermes cabin counselor looked down at the item in your hand, then back up at your face again. 

“Well, you seem awfully calm. Not even worried at all about me?” You almost chuckled at his words, slightly in disbelief that even after getting knocked out, Luke somehow still had the energy to joke.

“Nah, the doctor told me you were going to be fine. Apparently, it was the mild concussion from knocking your head against the tree that made you pass out. Said you’d be up in like three hours or so.” Luke nodded as he remembered the chimera shoving him, causing him to bash his head against a tree. The boy sat up on the hospital bed, and you helped him by adjusting his pillow so he could lean against it.

“So you would have cared otherwise?” He gave you a teasing grin. Things like that had you thinking sometimes if he was just being playfully flirty or if he meant more. Luke does not seem to do this with anybody else at camp. But once again, you ruled out the theory of him having feelings for you in that way. 

“Only because I would not have anybody else to harass if you die,” You poured Luke a glass of water and handed it to him. He only smiled at your witty reply and took a sip of water. However, you took the opportunity to be honest, just so he’d at least know that you do care about him, despite the sarcastic remarks before.

“On a serious note, though… I’m glad you’re okay, Luke,” you sent Luke a sweet smile. Though there it was again — that look. However, for some reason, he didn’t whip up a clever, flirty line to joke around, which made you wonder what was on his mind.

Meanwhile, Luke felt as if his lungs had lost half its capacity. Gods, under the moonlight, you looked ethereal. It made him wonder for a second whether he was in a coma because you felt too good to exist in this ever-so-cruel world. Don’t even get him started on the way you were smiling at him, so sweet like caramel that his eyes were tracing to forever remember. He internally sighed, wondering how many more signs must he give out before you would get that he was genuinely interested in you.

You misinterpreted Luke’s look as one of vulnerability. Your brain theorized that maybe he was shaken from the chimera attack, so you slowly but surely grabbed his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. However, you didn’t notice the slight hitch in Luke’s breath as soon as you did this. His eyes almost fluttered shut at how nice it was to have your hand around his. If he could hold your hand every day, he absolutely would. You started rubbing your thumb on his knuckles as well. Oh, to be somebody you found worth worrying about and caring for. Luke thought maybe he did win the lottery after all. He could feel his heart wanting to crack his ribcage open to jump out of—

Unexpectedly, you heard a sudden continuous beeping from one of the equipment nearby and looked at it. Luke followed your gaze, and his face immediately started flushing over the drastic change in the heart monitor’s graphic representation of his heartbeat. The beeping still continued when you looked back at him with evident concern on your face.

“Woah, are you alright?” Luke tried muttering an affirmative answer but froze when you leaned closer and lightly graced his forehead with your hand. The boy gulped while you were cluelessly trying to see if he was coming down with a fever or not — which you assumed he was due to the way his face seemed to have warmed up. However, you were greeted with a normal body temperature and the sound of the heart monitor beeping even faster.

Suddenly, everything clicked. You cast your gaze on Luke again, tilting your head in amusement.

“Am I making you flustered?” Luke’s cheeks flared even more at your words. The Hermes cabin counselor looked away from you, taking his hand out of yours now as he attempted to slow down his heartbeat. However, you immediately took hold of his face and moved it back towards you. A mischievous grin grew on your face as you took in Luke’s blushing. How could you pass up the opportunity to finally torment him and get him flustered, especially when he has been doing the same thing to you for the past years?

Luke watched as you had him wrapped around your fingers both figuratively and literally, smirking as if you knew you had entire control over him. But he knew you only knew the surface level of it because even he doesn’t know the extent to which he would go for you. The only thing he knew was that he was in deep, deep trouble. He knew whatever part of him that was logical would perish as soon as you let him be yours. Yet he did not seem to mind discarding all his senses and submitting to whatever these feelings were.

“Careful there, Castellan, keep looking at me like that, and I might just have to believe you’re secretly obsessed with me.” You were only joking, but the way his eyes fluttered when you said that made you gulp. 

“And what if I tell you I am?” At his words and the sound of his heartbeat speeding up on the heart monitor, you froze. 

It was as if all the clues had come crashing down at once. It finally sunk in for you that perhaps you were wrong this whole time for thinking Luke was not into you. Because now, this hospital room had somehow become a crime scene filled with evidence of his feelings for you - the way he was intensely looking at you with dilated pupils, the uncontrollable speed of his heartbeat that you could feel where your fingers lay near his neck and pulse point, his shallow and nervous breathing, the beeping sound from the heart monitor that would make others think it has gone haywire, and most of all, the earnest and resigned look on his face as if he had already embraced the fact that his feelings for you would not change whether or not they would be reciprocated.

Your hand left his face to brush his dark curls. Your eyes cast down at his lips quickly before looking back up. You noticed the yearning in his eyes and how he copied your actions. 

“...Can I?” Luke uttered breathlessly as if all the air in his lungs had been replaced with pure, relentless wanting. Even as a victim of heavy longing and subjected to desire, Luke still awaited the green light. His eyebrows slightly scrunched as if silently asking for permission, and you knew exactly what he wanted when he glanced down at your lips again. 

One tiny nod from you, and he pulled you in. His hands delicately held the sides of your face as your lips clashed. Almost instantly, Luke felt as if he might flatline soon from the way your kiss was seemingly sending him into a cardiac arrest. He practically melted as you giggled into the kiss when the heart monitor started beeping even more frequently, indicating Luke’s increasingly erratic heartbeat. Something about this moment felt so urgent yet endearing like a long-awaited wish come true.  

Slowly but surely, he wrapped his hands around your waist and pulled you up onto his hospital bed effortlessly, as if desperately needing you to just be closer to him. You both somewhat laughed at this before you wrapped both arms around his shoulders without breaking the kiss. 

One of your hands started playing with his hair. You were not sure why but you pulled it and almost instantly, Luke had to break away from the kiss as a raspy groan escaped his lips. Your other hand on the side of his face and neck could feel the way it echoed as a hum in his throat, and you gulped at your effect on him.

Luke licked his lips as he stared at you again. He came to the conclusion that after that kiss, you were wrong that he was obsessed with you. Instead, he was everything above that - devoted, fervently fixated, infatuated, an addict who shamelessly wanted and needed you. Gods, maybe he was a madman when it came to you.

Your eyes flickered to the clock nearby and noticed it was 4:41am, realizing there was just enough time for the two of you to leave the hospital and catch the next bus back to camp. That prompted you to whisper, “I think we should leave now. If we do, we’ll be on time for the next bus.” Luke groaned at your words while you hopped off the hospital bed and grabbed your jacket. The boy unhooked himself from the heart monitor, though his eyes lingered on it for a bit while a smile grew on his face. 

“Why the rush?” He asked, grabbing his own jacket before opening the door for you.

“Cause as lovely as that was, I don’t want to make out again in a hospital,” Luke froze before grinning at your words.

“Oh, does that mean it might happen again? Us making out?” He asked, watching as a cheeky smile grew on your face despite you opting to just shrug at his question. You fanned your hand out before him, smiling even more when he put his hand in yours. 

With that, you led him out of the hospital hand in hand while he grinned like a fool behind you.

Honestly, Luke would blindly go anywhere you lead him.

-------------------------

masterlist

join my Luke Castellan taglist

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[asahicore]

kiwi and layla - sjy

pairing. jake x fem!reader synopsis. in which you mistake jake’s backpack for your own, making you each go home with the other’s bag. both of you are too curious for your own good, so you quickly find out that you excel in the subject the other is failing - a mutual tutoring agreement ensues, and it turns into much more than what you had expected. genre. high school au, f2l, lots of fluff and some angst too, f2l, shy reader x outgoing jake warnings. food & swearing, mention of parent death and divorce, kms jokes, jake being stupid but also really cute (lmk if i've missed any!) word count. 26.3k a/n. this is part of the unexpected collab !!! go check out the other fics and caelin thank u for hosting <333 hope u guys like this one, it took me a while but i had so so much fun writing it !!! i love my jakey in here he's a little bit confused but he's got the spirit. @zreamy thanks for being the world's awesomest beta reader and a decent friend ig... 2 baddies wouldnt be the same without you... lifeguard wet body sunghoon coming soon guys dont miss it! as always pls remember how important reblogs and feedback is for us writers!!! it's what keeps us going <3 enjoy!!

listen to the playlist!

This was not your backpack. 

In your defense, it looked so similar to yours - scratch that, it was the exact same as yours - that you couldn’t possibly have been able to tell the difference between the two bags until you’d opened one of them. Just a basic black Eastpak that probably a hundred other kids in your school owned with nothing to tell them apart, because you hadn’t had the mind to add a little something to it and make it recognizable. You hadn’t really needed to - your backpack was always on your back, next to your seat or in your locker. There was no way you might lose it or mistake it with another.

Until today, obviously. Instead of having a chill last class before spring break like every other teacher, your psycho math teacher Mr Choi had decided to give you a major test on this otherwise beautiful Friday afternoon. While other students watched a movie or played Kahoot, you were stuck in a cold classroom with algebra questions in front of you. Mr Choi had argued that this would be better than having a test after the holidays and ruining your time off with studying, but a test was a test, and math was math, so you hated the idea anyway. 

To eliminate all cheating possibilities, Mr Choi made his students only take a pencil and eraser with them, leave their bag at the back of the classroom and put their phone in a box he kept on his desk. Plus, with his hawk eyes watching intently, there was no way to sneak answers on a small sheet of paper or even on your palm. 

When the test was over, your brain was so fried and you were so eager to get the hell out of there that you didn’t even notice the two identical black backpacks next to each other, you just grabbed the first one you saw, not even questioning that it might not be yours.

And indeed, yours it was not. From your snooping around, you quickly found out it belonged to one Jake Sim. 

You knew Jake. Although you’d been attending the same school for the past three years, you could probably count the number of times you’d talked on one hand - but you knew him. Or at least, you knew of him. You knew that he was good at STEM subjects and that he was on the soccer team; you knew he was a really sweet guy and was easy to talk to, even for someone shy like you. 

Most importantly, you knew he was friends with Park Sunghoon. This was important because you had liked Park Sunghoon since the moment you’d laid eyes on him - or rather, your whole friend group had. It might’ve sounded extremely odd to others, but you and your friends had a few random people at school you liked to keep tabs on or create backstories for, and Sunghoon, because of his dashing looks that had struck all four of you in your first week of freshman year, was one of your victims. Well, you liked to think of them as characters on a TV show rather than victims, but to each his own. Your other characters included that popular sophomore who already considered herself a celebrity because of her ten thousand followers on TikTok anyway, the French and Spanish teachers you were sure had a thing going on, and that one guy in Yena’s biology class that only showed up every two weeks but always looked stoned (hat guy, Chaewon liked to call him, even you’d never once seen him with a hat on). It was all harmless, really - none of you ever actually went up and talked to them, just discussed them among yourselves.

Perhaps Sunghoon was different, because each of you had had a class with him at some point, so you’d all had at least shared a word with him. You probably hadn’t talked to him more times than you’d talked to Jake, so the information you knew about him was pretty surface-level - he was an ice skater, but everyone knew that, and he was shy like you, which was immediately noticeable. He also had one of the most handsome faces you’d ever seen. But again, everyone who saw him knew that.

You, Yena and Chaewon had debated whether one of you should just go ahead and make a move (Hyewon didn’t participate because she already had a boyfriend, but she was all for approaching the boy). You guessed you could describe what you felt towards Sunghoon as a sort of crush, even if it was one you shared with your friends - you found him cute, and you got nervous when he was around. But you were more the watch-from-afar-and-pine type, so you were satisfied with liking him from a distance. You didn’t think you actually had the guts to strike a conversation with him - that was more Chaewon’s thing.

However, this didn’t mean you weren’t curious about the contents of his best friend’s backpack. Your being shy didn’t mean you weren’t interested in other people’s lives - if anything, you were quite nosy. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but you were just a regular teenage girl, so this was fine, right? After just a few minutes of snooping, you found out Jake Sim wasn’t hiding any big state secrets in his Eastpak, anyway. Just some textbooks, notebooks, and a lot of single sheets of paper. It was pretty messy in there. 

Your idea of him being good at STEM subjects was correct - he kept all of his graded tests in the sleeve pocket of his math notebook, and there was not a single one that had received a note under 95. He even seemed to be doing some extracurricular exercises - there were formulae that were completely unfamiliar to you and that you were sure you hadn’t done in class. You found it slightly insane, but that might have just been because you despised math and wouldn’t understand why someone would want to do more of it than was required of them. 

His English homework was another story. His essays had more red from the teacher’s pen than his own black ink, and from the grades on his reading comprehension tests, you highly doubted he’d actually read any of the assigned books. You weren’t in the same English class but apparently had the same teacher, Ms Park, so you were studying the same thing. You couldn’t help but cringe as you read his answers on a Pride and Prejudice reading test - he seemingly kept mixing the sisters up, assigning actions and character traits to Lydia that clearly belonged to Jane. At least he somewhat got Darcy right, writing that “he’s probably not as bad as he looks,” with no further explanation. 

As you aimlessly flipped through his English notebook, curious about the way he took his notes - or if he even took any - you noticed some scribbles in the margins. Looking closer, some of them were in his handwriting while others were in an unfamiliar one. It looked like some sort of conversation, so you assumed the other writing belonged to his deskmate. You also did this with your friends in classes where the teacher was very strict about no chatting in class.

dude coach said if I fail any of my classes I would be out of the team, you read Jake’s handwriting.

Wait seriously????

yeah and I suck at english so Im scared it might actually happen

You just need to study more bro

bro I DO but this shit is hard

Then find someone to help you

neither of you guys is that good in that subject either tho

Ok ouch but also just find someone else then

bro who

IDK man 

Y/N maybe ? she’s good at English and she’s nice so she might say yes 

there you go about y/n again dude MAYBE you ask HER to teach you some sonnets

Shut up you’re the one who needs help dumbass

whatever isn’t it weird just asking her randomly though like i dont want her to feel like she has to say yes

Lol if she sees your grades she might do it out of pity

fuck u man

You were surprised to see your own name written there - it felt weird knowing that Jake and his friend were talking about you, for some reason. And what if that friend was Sunghoon? You had a hard time believing he not only knew you existed, but thought of you as good at English and nice. You liked to think both of these things were true. 

He was also spot-on about saying you would agree to helping out Jake in those subjects, but what he got wrong was thinking you’d do it out of pity. Clearly, you and Jake were in very similar positions. You didn’t have any sort of club you’d be kicked out of if you failed a class, but it sure as hell wouldn’t look good on your college applications, so you needed to get your math grades up. 

Jake and you both desperately needed something the other person could help with, so you had a feeling he wouldn’t turn down the offer that was brewing in your head.

—

This was not Jake’s backpack.

He noticed it right away - it was much heavier than his own and the straps were tighter around his shoulders than they should be. He looked inside for some clues about who it might belong to, and luckily, the first thing he found was a journal that had Y/N’S DIARY written on the cover page in big, pink letters. 

Unluckily, however, he’d also noticed that you had practically sprinted out of the classroom as soon as the bell rang, and indeed, you were already far gone when he tried looking for you around school. He had to get to soccer practice anyway, so he put the issue to the side for the time being.

When he got home, he had to shower then have dinner, so it wasn’t until 8 p.m. that he remembered he had your backpack. He had meant to text you straightaway about it, and he knew it was wrong to look into someone’s belongings, but he couldn’t help himself, especially when his best friend Sunghoon had liked you for ages. Maybe this was an opportunity to find out more about you.

Your mind-blowing grades in English don’t come as much of a surprise to him, and after reading through your most recent essay, he thought you definitely deserved them. Your essay was on a Shakespeare play he had never heard of - you apparently also had Ms Park for English, and he didn’t know she was doing Shakespeare in class, so he wondered for a second if you were actually crazy enough to read another book and study it. As if 300 pages of Jane Austen weren’t enough as it was. 

What shocked him were your math grades. It was like looking into a fucked-up mirror: while you excelled at English, you sucked at math; while he excelled at math, he sucked at English. You were just as close to failing your math class as he was at failing English.

Now that he thought about it, maybe Sunghoon’s idea hadn’t been so dumb - you could help him out, and he had an actual argument as to why you should, rather than just using pity on you.

As he put your stuff back in your bag, he was reminded of something - your diary. For some reason, the pretty floral pattern on the cover made him feel even worse for opening the journal in the first place, but he did it anyway. Either you’d only just picked up the habit of writing in a diary or you had finished your previous one recently, but this one seemed pretty new, as only about ten pages had been filled with your neat handwriting. Judging from the dates at the top of almost every page, you wrote in there everyday, and Jake only felt even worse that you hadn’t been able to write in it that day.

Still, he flicked to the first page and started reading. And he read and read, unable to take his eyes away from your diary. He thought he wouldn’t have cared much and a page would have satisfied his curiosity, but the way you wrote about the people around you and about yourself fascinated him. Basic high school things like friend drama and annoying teachers actually became interesting through your words. You didn’t use particularly complicated sentences or unheard-of words, on the contrary, you used simple language, and that spoke a lot more to Jake than any of the classics he’d attempted to read for class. 

And then, he saw an all too familiar name in an entry dated from just a few days ago. 

I sat next to Sunghoon today. It was during physics and both of our desk partners were absent, so Mrs Kim made me change seats. She always does this, and I used to wonder whether she hated to see an empty seat or to see a student sitting on their own, but whatever the reason, today, I was just happy about it. This isn’t our first time sitting next to each other in class, but I was still nervous, since I wasn’t expecting it. I hope he couldn’t feel the awkwardness practically oozing off of me or the way I very obviously struggled with the exercises (obviously, anything to do with math is not my forte). We shared my textbook because he’d forgotten his, and he showed me his notes when he saw I couldn’t keep up with Mrs Kim as she told us what to write down. We only exchanged a few words but I was satisfied when class was over. It’s odd, because you’d think someone would want to talk to the person they like and get to know them more, but I don’t feel that with Sunghoon. Maybe it’s because we’re both so introverted, and he seems to have just as hard a time as I do starting conversations, so I’ve sort of accepted our silent fate. I’m fine just continuing to steal glances at him from across the cafeteria. 

After that, there were a few more pages of writing up until yesterday's entry, but it was the only mention of Sunghoon. Jake had apparently been wrong to think that a girl’s diary would be full of rantings about her crush and things along the lines of “omg, he looked at me today”. 

But you had very clearly referred to Sunghoon as the person you liked, and Jake wasn’t going to let that go so easily. This was precious information that he held in his hands now, so he had to figure out how to deal with it properly for your sake as well as his friend’s.

Turns out there was more he could help you with than just algebra.

—

Seeing Jake Sim in a setting other than school was slightly odd, if you were being completely honest. 

You had just been about to text him about the backpack mix-up when you’d received a message from the man himself, asking if you could meet up the next day to exchange them. In response, you’d asked where you should meet, thinking he’d offer either his house or yours, or some halfway point between them, but he surprised you by proposing some café in the center of town. They have good hot chocolate there, he’d said, and that had been enough to convince you. 

And also I have something I want to talk to you about. 

Your stomach had turned at this message - what on Earth could Jake Sim need to discuss with you had been your first thought, and then you realized you also had plans you wanted to share with him. So his idea of going to a café was actually good for you, too.

You’d only been waiting for about five minutes when he appeared at the café, red and panting from seemingly sprinting to his destination. 

“Y/N, I’m sooo sorry,” he immediately said when he saw you waiting. “I was planning to be early, but when I got on the bus I realized I literally forgot your bag, so I had to go back but the next bus wasn’t for another twenty minutes so I just ran the whole way here, and now I’m all sweaty, and I’m late, and I’m really sorry.”

He’d rushed through his sentence and was breathing heavily as he looked at you expectantly, waiting for your answer. He seemed so genuinely sorry for such a small thing that after your surprise faded, you started laughing. It was his turn to be surprised, and he immediately stopped talking at the sound of your soft giggles.

“It’s okay, Jake. I haven’t even been waiting five minutes,” you explained, smiling. “Let’s just go in, yeah?”

Jake’s heart did something weird just then, and the feeling was so unfamiliar and confusing that he decided to promptly ignore it. As if in a daze, he stood still for a couple of seconds until the sound of a bell ringing, the one the café had on its doors to signify the entrance or exit of a customer, snapped him out of it. He followed you into the shop, let you order and pay for you both (“I’m the one who took the wrong bag, it’s the least I can do,” you’d said) and sat across from you at a booth in the back.

You gave each other your respective bags back, then started chatting as you sipped on your hot chocolates (Jake had been right - they really were delicious). He was surprisingly easy to talk to, and whether he sensed you were a reserved person or was just naturally talkative, you liked that he both managed to do most of the talking and ask you loads of questions at once. Usually, you wouldn’t have really cared to listen to someone go on and on about their passion for soccer and the recent game that their team had won, but for some reason, you were hooked on Jake’s every word. The way his eyes widened in excitement as he recounted the winning goal he scored, the way the volume of his voice decreased as he filled you in on the team gossip even though no one was listening to your conversation, the way his grin turned into a proud smirk as he mentioned his coach congratulating him - every single one of his actions had you mesmerized. You’d never seen anyone so expressive in their speech, never seen anyone punctuate every sentence with a movement or a facial expression. It was just fun, listening to him.

Even when he didn’t talk, he stayed expressive. He asked you whether you did anything outside of school, and he listened intently as you told him about the theater group you’re in, humming and nodding and laughing at all the right moments. Usually, you wouldn’t have talked about it for more than thirty seconds, afraid to bore others with unnecessary details, but Jake’s reactions and the questions he asked made you actually feel listened to and like what you were talking about was interesting. So you grew more confident and told him what you loved about acting and about theater, about your own gossip (the arrogant actress who got the lead role and thought she was better than everyone else, that one guy who was clearly flirting with three girls at the same time), and you almost couldn’t believe Jake seemed so entertained by your stories. 

“So, you said your group focused on more classic plays, right? Does that mean you’re good at English Lit?”

With his spoon, Jake scooped some whipped cream into his mouth, hoping he was appearing as nonchalant as he was trying to be. He had to make you think he’d deduced that just now and not because he had been snooping through your backpack just the night prior. 

You, however, could not have cared less how he’d figured it out - you were just grateful he had segued into this topic of school and grades, because you’d been wanting to bring it up yourself but had no idea how.

“Um, yeah, actually, it’s my best subject. Math, on the other hand…”

You chuckled as his eyes widened and he leaned in across the table, pointing his spoon at you as he spoke. “See, that’s interesting, because math is my best subject, but I suck at English Lit.”

“Oh, really?” you asked, trying to sound genuinely surprised even though this piece of information was not at all new to you.

“Yeah,” he said, looking back down at his almost-finished drink with a small smile on his face.

“You know-”

“You know-”

You and Jake had spoken at the same time, and your eyes locked for a second before you started laughing. You gestured at him to go on first.

“I actually need pretty urgent help in English. Coach said he’ll put us out of the team if we fail even just one of our courses, and I’m very close to failing that class.” He took a moment to let out a sigh. “So, if you want, we could help each other out. Me with math, and you with English.” 

His eyebrows were slightly furrowed and he bit his lip as he looked at you expectantly. You thought he looked far too nervous for such a simple request, expression more like a boy who’d just asked his crush to the prom rather than offering mutual help you both desperately needed. You couldn’t help the smile that grew on your lips - you had never known Jake Sim to be so… cute. But he was waiting for an answer, so you pushed the thought out of your head.

“That’s a great idea, actually,” you replied, as if you hadn’t had the exact same idea. You were just relieved you hadn’t even had to bring it up yourself. “I also really can’t afford to fail math. It would look terrible on college applications.”

Jake let out a long, loud exhale. “God, yeah, college, I hadn’t even thought of that. Even more motivation to get better grades now,” he said with a chuckle.

You chuckled along, then cleared your throat and sat up straighter. You watched with amusement as Jake mirrored your actions and even the fake serious frown in your brows. You presented your hand for him to shake, which he did without hesitation.

“So it’s a deal then. We’ll tutor each other until we’ve gotten our grades up.”

“Deal,” he replied. As you both withdrew your hands, he dropped his serious facade and burst into giggles, a sound you hadn’t expected from the boy but somehow fit him well. You watched his face closely for a second, noticing the curl of his lips and the crinkle at the corner of his eyes, before breaking into laughter yourself.

You stayed in the café for another half hour, going over details of where and when you’d meet, of what exactly you needed help with (“Everything,” you’d said, to which Jake had replied “Same”), and just talked some more.

“I’m taking the 53 that way,” Jake said when you exited the café, pointing towards the bus stop.

“Oh, so am I!” you exclaimed.

“Seriously?! What’s your stop?”

And that’s how you and Jake figured out you only lived two bus stops away from each other. 

“That’s so cool! It’ll make it easy to meet up then,” he said, and you hummed in agreement. After a pause, he added: “But if we live so close to each other, how come we didn’t go to the same schools earlier? Aren’t you usually supposed to go to the one in your district?”

“I used to live in another part of town,” you explained. “Then my parents divorced when I was in middle school, and I stayed with my dad because he lived closer to the school I was at, but I moved to my mom’s place for high school.”

“‘Cause she lives closer?”

“Yeah, basically.” There was more to it, but you didn’t think Jake would be particularly interested in your parental issues - although you surprised yourself for even considering telling him. If Jake sensed that you weren’t saying everything, he didn’t push, just swiftly changed the topic as you waited for the bus to come.

When you got home some time later, the first thing you did was open your diary and start writing. It had felt wrong not to write in it even just for a day, so it was a relief to feel the pages between your fingers and the familiar scent of the paper and your perfumed pen. You wrote without thinking too much, simply letting all of your musings out into your diary and freely brushing the tip of your pen across the pages. 

You didn’t ever reread your entries right after writing them, but if you had that day, you might have noticed all you could write about was the boy you’d drank a hot chocolate with.

—

Spring break week passed by far too quickly, and it was on the first Monday back at school that you and Jake met again. He had soccer practice on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, while you had theater rehearsals on Thursdays and Saturdays, so you’d agreed to meet up every Monday and Wednesday after school. Since his mother worked as the school nurse, she drove him to and from school everyday - so on Monday, you met Jake in front of the nurse’s station, waiting for his mom to wrap things up before she drove you both to their home.

You had been surprised to learn that the kind nurse that never asked too many questions and always let students take a nap if they didn’t feel well was Jake’s mom, but upon reflection, it made sense. Once you knew, it was almost obvious that she had raised him - they shared the same friendliness, the same comforting smile and the same ability to make conversation. The whole ride home, she asked you about yourself and thanked you for agreeing to tutor “our little Jakey,” because “God knows he needs the help.” 

You couldn’t help but laugh when a blush crept on Jake’s face and he looked out the passenger seat window with an embarrassed frown, muttering something like “Thanks a lot, Mom.”

She noticed his reaction and laughed along with you. “I’m just saying, Jakey-poo. It’s good to know to ask for help when you need it,” she cooed, reaching a hand out to ruffle his hair. This only made Jake groan loudly and hide his face in his hands. You didn’t know Jake very well, but this flustered, red-faced side of him was definitely one you liked seeing.

The first thing that greeted you when you reached Jake’s house was a happy welcome home bark.

“You have a dog?!” you exclaimed, unable to reel your excitement in.

“Yeah! This is Layla,” Jake said, giving energetic rubs to the Border Collie that made her whole body shake side-to-side but that she seemed to thoroughly enjoy. 

“Hi, Layla,” you cooed, crouching down to her level to let her sniff you. She decided you were a person worthy of petting her. “She’s so cute!”

“I think she likes you,” Jake said, a grin on his face, as he watched Layla presenting her belly to you and asking for scratches there. “Do you have a dog?”

“We have a Corgi at home. And a cat, too.”

“That must be fun,” Jake chuckled. “Do they get along?”

“Depends. They have a bit of a love-hate relationship.” You looked up at Jake, and it was uncharacteristically quiet as you locked eyes for a couple of seconds. You both looked away at the same time, surprised by the sudden eye contact.

You gave Layla one last rub and lifted yourself up. “Um, should we get started?” 

Jake paused for a second as if he’d forgotten what you were here for in the first place, then started nodding his head quickly. “Right, yeah. Let’s go to my room. Downstairs is just one big room and my mom will probably watch TV or make dinner or something, so it might be distracting…” he explained, lightly scratching the back of his neck. It seemed like he was embarrassed to be bringing you to his room, which you couldn’t help but find endearing.

“Okay, sounds good,” you said with a smile, hoping it’ll reassure him.

You followed him up to his room, ignoring his complaints as you lingered on the framed photos on the wall next to the stairs and giggled at his baby pictures. 

“Do not look at those,” he said with a warning tone that didn’t scare you in the slightest. When you didn’t listen, he grabbed your hand that had been pointing at a photo of baby Jake in the bathtub and forced you to keep walking.

“Why?” you asked, a slight whine to your voice.

“‘Cause it’s embarrassing! I was an ugly baby.”

“What?! You were so cute!”

“Whatever. I’d rather study English than talk about this, and that’s saying something.”

When you looked at Jake, you were surprised to find that he actually seemed upset about this. You weren’t sure what was so wrong with looking at his baby pictures, but the last thing you wanted to do was make him mad, so you stayed quiet and continued your way to his room. Once there, although you were infinitely curious about all the posters, pictures, figurines, trophies, and other small tokens of Jake’s life, you didn’t ask him about any of them, just sat next to him at his desk and opened The Picture of Dorian Grey, the book you had both been studying in Ms Park’s class.

You’d agreed on spending forty-five minutes on English, have a small break, then spend forty-five minutes on Math. It wasn’t a lot, but you both had other homework and things outside of school you needed to do, so you’d decided to start out that way and see if it worked out.

You were glad to see how seriously Jake was taking this - he listened intently to what you said and asked questions when he didn’t understand something. You quickly figured out that what he didn’t like about English Literature was that the answers weren’t as straightforward or as logical as they were in math, and even worse, that multiple answers were possible depending on the reader’s interpretation. 

“It just all feels like a guessing game,” he said, resting the side of his head on one of his palms. “How am I supposed to know what this dude meant? And if it can be analyzed in different ways, how can Ms Park tell me the way I understand it is wrong?”

“It’s all about the way you justify it,” you explained. “You can’t just say whatever. Ms Park will look out for how you use the text to support your answers.” You then went on to pick out a specific part of the book, asking Jake to analyze Dorian’s mindset in that scene. 

“He sounds like he’s going insane,” Jake said flatly when he was done reading, getting a chuckle out of you.

“Exactly. How do you know that?”

“I don’t know, just the words he uses,” Jake replies, shrugging.

“Okay, underline those words,” you instructed gently. Jake sighed, but he complied.

“There.” 

“Good. What can you say about those words?” When Jake just looked at you like a lost puppy, you reformulated your question. “What do they have in common? What type of words are they? Are they common nouns, verbs…”

Jake looked back at the words he’d underlined on the page. “They’re… adjectives?” he said, tone unsure.

“Exactly!”

Jake paused. “So?”

“So now you can say that the author uses many adjectives to convey the gradual loss of sanity of the main character.”

“Oh.”

When you looked at Jake, he wore an expression like the words on the page were finally starting to make sense to him. “That’s the content. You can also look at the structure. See how many punctuation marks there are? Commas, semi-colons, question marks… It’s like he keeps cutting himself off. His thoughts are all over the place.”

Jake nodded slowly. “So, I just need to look out for things like that?”

“Basically, yeah. And the more you practice, the more these things will stand out to you. It actually becomes somewhat repetitive sometimes.”

Jake let out a shaky breath. “That’s actually relieving to hear,” he said with a chuckle.

Thirty minutes passed by like this as you showed Jake ways to make sense of a literary text. When the timer rang, he leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms out wide with a sigh. He put his hands behind his head and let it hang back, and the way your stomach flipped at the sight of his exposed neck and Adam’s apple made you look away immediately. You could barely meet his eyes as he turned his head to look at you, still in that same position, and, with a smirk, asked if you were ready for some snacks. 

You gulped, trying to look as normal as possible. “Uh, yeah, sure!”

Downstairs, Jake presented you with all sorts of snacks - there were so many, you felt like you were in a convenience store. This was worlds away from your ingredient-only household. You opted for some biscuits and a banana while Jake made himself a bowl of cereal. A very distracting ten-minute long argument then ensued about the order of milk and cereal - horrifyingly, Jake poured his milk before his cereal. You thought it was a myth that some people actually did it that way, but Jake very proudly defended his choice. 

“I bet you eat pizza with pineapple on it, too,” you said half-jokingly, only for your joke to punch you right back in the face.

“Duh,” Jake answered.

You could only shake your head in defeat. “Let’s just get back to studying before I murder you.”

“Damn, Y/N,” Jake said, laughing. “That’s harsh.”

“And you’re a freak,” you retorted, a grin blooming on your lips.

“You know, you remind me of my friend Jay,” Jake mused as you walked back up the stairs. “He has so many of these small battles that he just won’t let go of. He got super worked up over an argument about mint chocolate chip ice cream once.”

“Let me guess, you like that ice cream?”

Jake shrugged. “It’s not my favorite, but I’ll have it once in a while.”

“God, Sim, you just get worse and worse.”

You sat back down at his desk and started eating. “I bet you think I’m weird for liking math too, right?”

“That’s the worst offense of them all.” 

Jake’s sudden quietness caught you off guard. When you turned your head to look at him, he was already gazing at you with a smile and a sort of thoughtful glint to his eyes, resting his chin on his palm. It sounded like he was thinking out loud when he spoke next. “Guess we’re perfect opposites of each other. Like two peas in a pod!”

The realization of what he’d said dawned upon him as soon as the words left his mouth. He slowly lifted his head as his eyes widened. “I don’t mean- just, you know, since you’re good at English and I’m good at math, and- you know… I didn’t mean it in a weird way, or anything…”

His eyes kept glancing back and forth between you and his bowl of cereal, as if he was scared of looking directly at you but wanted to check your reaction. 

As a smile grew on your face, you kept your eyes trained on your biscuits so he wouldn’t see your flustered expression. But when you looked at him again, he held your gaze, mouth slightly agape. You didn’t have it in you that he had gotten the idiom completely wrong. “I know, don’t worry.” You chuckled. “We are opposites of each other. You just better be as good at teaching math as I am at teaching English,” you teased.

You watched as a smirk tugged one corner of Jake’s lips up and he raised an eyebrow. “Who said you were good at teaching English?”

You gasped. “You said you understood better now!”

Jake’s smile softened as he giggled. “I’m just teasing. You are a good teacher.”

You sat up straighter at the compliment, a proud smile on your face. “Your turn, Mr Sim. I’m all ears.”

“Right,” he said, mirroring your posture. “Shall we start by going over Mr Choi’s test from last week?” 

Your smile dropped instantly at this. Reluctantly, you fished your graded paper out of your bag. You already knew Mr Choi was a psychopath, but you still didn’t understand where he found the will to grade thirty papers over the weekend. You avoided Jake’s gaze as you handed him your test with a big, red, circled D- at the top.

You cringed as Jake sighed. “At least it’s not an F, right?” he said in what you could tell was an attempt at reassurance but somehow only made you feel worse. He looked over your answers quickly, trying to find what in particular you struggled with. “All right. Let’s start from the beginning, yeah?”

For the next forty-five minutes, Jake went over each test question with you, breaking them down and explaining how to solve them in a way you understood. The words he used were so much clearer than the half-assed explanations you were used to from Mr Choi, and for once, math actually made some sort of sense. Your brain still felt broken after almost an hour of numbers and greek letters, but at least, you felt smarter rather than dumber at the end of it. You had never been more grateful for the sound of a phone alarm than the one signaling tutoring was over. 

“That wasn’t half-bad, right?” Jake asked with a wide grin.

You felt so tired, you could probably pass out right then and there, but Jake looked so proud of himself after you had been able to complete an exercise correctly on your own that you didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. “Right,” you replied, mirroring his grin. “You’re an okay teacher, I guess.”

He jokingly glared and tutted at you, but you both laughed right after. “I need to walk Layla, so I can walk you home, if you want?” he offered as you started packing your things. His words had an uncertain tone to them, as if he wasn’t sure you’d still want to spend time with him after this - but it only took you a second of thinking to realize you’d rather continue hanging out with him than going home on your own.

“Sure! I need to walk Kiwi too, actually.”

“Your dog’s name is Kiwi?!”

“Yes,” you said, chuckling at his fascinated tone.

“That’s an adorable name.”

“Thanks, I chose it.”

“Oh, then I take it back. Worst name I’ve ever heard for a dog.”

“Hey!” you exclaimed, lightly hitting him on the head with your math notebook, making him raise a hand in self-defense as he laughed.

“Sorry, sorry. Does your cat also have a fruit name?” 

A pause. “Mango,” you mumbled, and he immediately burst into laughter again. You side-eyed him as you zipped up your bag.

“Wow, you have amazing taste in pet names, Y/N.”

“Shut up,” you said, laughing along. Then you realized something, and you suddenly stopped laughing, looking up at Jake with wide eyes that made him slightly start to panic. “Oh my God, Jake, are our dogs going to meet?”

“Our dogs are going to meet,” he echoed in a sort of fascinated whisper. You both understood the other - dogs becoming friends was the cutest thing ever.

“Let’s go,” you whispered back excitedly.

When you reached the living room downstairs, you bid Mrs Sim goodbye, then went to the entrance to put your shoes back on. “You two sure get along well,” you heard her say to her son with a suggestive tone. Even though she had dropped the volume of her voice, the door was wide open and there were only a few meters between you, so you’d heard her loud and clear. 

“Geez, Mom,” Jake groaned, seemingly irked by his mom’s insinuation.

“It’s just you’ve never brought a girl home, Jakey-”

“Okay, we’re leaving now! Layla, come!”

You hadn’t even realized how wide you were grinning until Jake saw you tying your shoelaces and grumbled “What are you smiling so hard for.”

“Nothing,” you giggled, and your smile grew as you watched a grin break through his pretend-upset expression.

You sighed contentedly as you stepped outside, letting the crisp early April air hit your face. You tightened your scarf around your neck and buried your hands in your pocket and you and Jake started walking side by side, Layla happily leading the way. The streets were fairly quiet at this time of day, save for the yells of children still playing in their backyards before dinner and a few cars of people coming home late from work.

Only the first five seconds of the walk were silent, until you couldn’t contain yourself anymore. “So, never brought a girl home, huh?” you asked with a teasing smirk.

Jake let out an offended scoff and looked up to the sky as if God could help him out of this one. Sadly, He didn’t, so Jake had to find an answer himself. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

“Why not?”

Pouting, Jake spared you a sideway glance. “Because you’re a girl,” he replied, voice lowered to a mumble.

You chuckled at this. “Very astute observation, Jake.”

“No, I- Ugh,” he groaned before laughing along with you. “I don’t need a girl to know how bad I am with- well, with girls.”

“I can help with that,” you said before you really thought about it. “I mean, I’m not a love expert by any means, but I can maybe give, I don’t know, pointers or something if there’s someone you like-”

“There’s no one I like,” Jake quickly cut in. “Um, not right now, at least.”

“O-okay,” you replied, nodding. “That’s fine.” 

“What about you? Do you like anyone?”

As Jake asked the question, he realized he already knew the answer - you liked Sunghoon. How could he forget?! Half of his plan had been to make you get closer to his friend, but he hadn’t even started thinking about that yet. In his defense, he’d come up with that plan three days ago.

Your answer surprised him. “Um, no, me neither. Not right now, at least,” you said, repeating his words with a smile on your face. You locked eyes for a second before looking away at the same time, chuckling.

“Right,” he said. He knew what he had read in your diary, so maybe you were just too shy to admit you had a crush on his friend of all people.

An unexpected awkwardness settled between the two of you, and you more than anything wanted it to go away. Even though it’d only been a few days since you and Jake had started getting to know each other, you already felt comfortable enough to be yourself around him, and it usually took you weeks before reaching that level with anyone. This hadn’t happened since you met Yena and Hyewon at the beginning of high school - they had been friends since middle school, and so had you and Chaewon, and when the four of you met, you had instant chemistry. But maybe it was slightly too early to start talking about crushes with Jake.

For once, you were the one to break the silence - you asked him whether he knew what he wanted to do after school. Basic question, but you were genuinely curious. 

Looking a little bashful, he confessed his dream had always been to be a math teacher and soccer coach at a middle or high school. You told him he already had the talent for it, and when he blushed at your words, you made sure to tease him for it.  

“I’m not sure yet,” you said when he returned the question. “I know I wanna go to college and continue doing English Lit and theater there, but that’s about it.”

“That’s already good enough,” Jake said with a smile. “Still got time to figure out what comes after, right?”

You naturally mirrored his smile - there was something contagious about Jake’s puppyish grin that made it hard not to smile yourself. “Right.”

The three of you reached your house quickly after that. Your mom still hadn’t come home from work, so Kiwi was even more excited than usual for your arrival home. You and Jake watched fondly as your dogs sniffed each other for a few seconds before starting to run around together. The fact that they got along made you really happy, perhaps unreasonably so, and you started bouncing up and down on the balls of your feet as you watched them play. “Our dogs are friends!” you exclaimed excitedly. 

When you turned to look at Jake, he wasn’t watching the dogs like you had been - he was gazing straight at you, eyes soft with something that made your heart skip a beat. You couldn’t look away, and it was only after a few seconds that he seemed to snap out of the sort of daze he was in. He cleared his throat and you finally tore your eyes away from him.

“Let me just- Kiwi! I need to put his leash around him,” you said, speaking quickly to dissipate the weird atmosphere as best as you could. You led Jake down the path you usually took with Kiwi that led to a park in your neighborhood, and you were relieved when normal conversation started again.

Jake insisted on walking you back to your house even though he had left his earlier. He made a whole show of not going until you’d walked inside and closed the door, so you’d rushed to your window to shout his name and wave goodbye at him, which made him laugh.

You turned back to Kiwi when Jake and Layla had turned a corner and you couldn’t watch them anymore. “Are you happy you made a new friend, Kiwi?”

The Corgi barked happily at you in response - probably more at hearing his name than because he understood your question, but still, you liked to think you could communicate with your dog on such a level. You chuckled and took him in your arms. “Me too.”

—

Apparently, you couldn’t even wave to someone in the hallway without being interrogated about it anymore.

“Y/N, did you just say hi to Jake Sim?” Chaewon asked like you’d just insulted her whole family.

It was 10 a.m. on a simple Tuesday morning, the day after Jake and you had studied together for the first time, and you’d just walked past the boy - so of course, you said hi to him. Maybe, your heart started beating slightly faster when you’d noticed him approaching. Maybe, it was nice to be on the receiving end of his friendly grin.

“Yes?” you replied, sentence coming out more like a question.

“Since when do you say hi to Jake Sim?!” 

“Since today, I guess.”

“But why?!” She’d raised her voice so much, you’d gotten strange looks from other students in the hallway. 

“I told you!”

She shook her head slowly at you as if to say, No you didn’t!

You rolled your eyes and sighed. Chaewon and her early onset short-term memory loss. “The backpack thing? And agreeing to tutoring each other? I wrote to the group chat about this!”

“Oh, that! Of course I remember that,” she said, even though you knew she had forgotten about it and remembered it just now. “So, has that started already?”

You reached the classroom for your next class and sat down in your usual seats next to each other, waiting for the teacher to arrive. Busy hallways like these were the perfect place for gossip, because they were loud and nobody paid attention to others’ conversations. “Yeah, yesterday afternoon.”

Chaewon gasped. “And you didn’t tell us?!”

“Will you quiet down? I was going to see and tell you guys today anyway.”

“Okay, so, tell me about it.”

“But-”

“Tell. Me.”

You wouldn’t see Yena and Hyewon until lunch in two hours, and you knew Chaewon didn’t have the patience to wait until then. So you sighed again and obliged, telling her about your afternoon with Jake in every detail you could remember, because she would ask about insignificant things anyway. 

To your surprise, the first thing she said when you were done talking was this: “Y/N, do you like Jake?”

Your mouth opened slightly in shock at the question, but before you could even retort, you started giggling. “No, I don’t,” you said in a way that sounded like you very much did.

“Oh my God! You so do!” Chaewon said, giggling along with you. “You whore, you’ve only talked to him, like, twice,” she joked.

You gasped fake-dramatically and slapped her arm. “Oh please, look at Hyewon and Jaemin, they started dating after a week of talking.”

“Yes, and they’ve been going one year strong, so clearly, you need to ask Jake out and get this over with. You’ll get a boyfriend and a math tutor all-in-one, it’s a perfect deal!”

“Don’t get too carried away, okay? Jake and I are friends. Like you said, we barely know each other right now.”

You meant this - sure, you had had a really good time with Jake both times you saw him, and you were looking forward to your next tutoring session, but you chalked it up to the excitement of making a new friend. Plus, barely last week you felt some sort of way towards his best friend - wouldn’t it be weird to practically transfer your feelings from Sunghoon to Jake?

“Whatever. Yena and Hyewon are gonna freak when I tell them,” Chaewon said excitedly.

You shook your head at your friend but couldn’t keep down the amused grin on your face. “You guys are insane.”

“Oh please, like you’re not the president of our Park Sunghoon fanclub. I can’t believe you’re leaving us for his best friend!”

“Hey, if anything, less competition for you, right?”

Chaewon opened her mouth to say something, but the teacher arrived, starting the lesson before having even put her bag down - Mrs Lee always arrived late but never wasted a second of class when she was in the room. Your friend resorted to sticking her tongue out at you instead, and you chuckled at her childishness as you opened your History notebook. 

—

Jake was a complete, total, utter idiot. His plan had consisted of two things only, and he’d somehow managed to forget one of them, even after talking about it with you, albeit vaguely. It had taken him two weeks and one Park Sunghoon to even remember it.

Between Jake’s soccer practice, Sunghoon’s ice skating practice and Jay’s being away at boarding school, the three friends only had one night every week on which they were all free - Friday night. So, every Friday, they planned some sort of hang out at one of their houses and gamed or watched movies all night.

Kinda like date night, but for bros.

This was one of those bro nights; namely, the one in the second week of you and Jake tutoring each other. The boys had decided to go to the burger joint they like that night and were in the middle of a french fry fight when Sunghoon mentioned your and Jake’s new friendship.

“So, Jake… what’s up with you and Y/N?”

Jake halted in his motions, redirecting to his mouth the fry he was about to throw at Jay. “Nothing’s up with me and Y/N. What makes you say that?”

“Just, you know, you seem like you’ve become actual friends. Talking in the hallways and walking your dogs together and whatnot.”

“Y/N as in Y/N? Sunghoon’s Y/N?” Jay said, halfway through a bite of his cheeseburger.

“She’s not my Y/N-”

“Yes, Y/N as in Y/N, you idiot,” Jake cut in. “And like you said, we’re friends.”

“Is she the girl you posted some BeReals with?” Jay asked, and Jake nodded. “She’s pretty! No wonder Sunghoon likes her so much.”

Sunghoon sighed as he let his head hang low. “God forbid I find a girl cute, because I’ll mention it once, two years ago and you guys make me out to be in love with her.”

“Sunghoon, you act like girls don’t exist, so of course when you not only mention a girl, but describe her as cute, that means you’re in love with her!”

“But I’m not! We were literally having a whole conversation about girls, I happened to see Y/N and her friends from far away, I said she was cute, and now you guys won’t let me live it down. Jay, you weren’t even there!”

“Yeah, but the way Jake told me about the whole thing, it really sounded like you liked her.”

“Why would you trust Jake to relay something like this correctly?!”

Jay paused and tilted his head. “You have a point there.”

“Hey!”

“So you don’t, like… like her, or something?” Sunghoon asked, looking at his friend as he sipped on his Pepsi.

This made Jake stop. Did he like you? Wasn’t the fact that he was considering it sign enough? Surely, if there was nothing there, he would have answered no right away.

But there was no use thinking about it. You liked Sunghoon. And as much as he liked to deny it, Jake knew Sunghoon liked you, too. After two years, there was finally an opportunity for the two of you to get closer - Jake wasn’t about to get in the middle of that. If anything, he should help his friends out. Then, when you and Sunghoon eventually got married, Jake would have the honor of saying it was all thanks to him in his best man’s speech. 

“No, I don’t. Don’t worry, Hoon, I’m not gonna steal your girl away from you.”

“Again, she’s not my girl-”

“Whatever you say. I’ll introduce you guys.”

Even if Sunghoon didn’t think he liked you yet, Jake knew it was just a matter of time - his friend just needed to spend a few hours with you to realize he did. You were pretty, smart, funny, nice, had the sweetest laugh he’d ever heard, got along with dogs, and even though you sometimes had weird opinions, it was always fun, talking to you. It was easy and comfortable. Anyone with taste would fall for you.

Anyone, except for Jake, of course.

—

For the past three weeks, you and Jake had gotten along perfectly, but today, on this bright Tuesday afternoon, you really wanted to strangle him. 

When he’d invited you to come and watch him at soccer practice, you’d been surprised, but happy - usually, you invited people to watch an actual game, not just practice. But you were just glad for the opportunity to spend more time with him. 

Without realizing it, you were giddy with excitement the whole day, counting down the minutes until classes were over and Jake’s practice started. Jake had told you to just head to the bleachers while the players got ready in the locker room, but when you reached said bleachers, someone was already sitting there, looking at something on their phone. You recognized him immediately as Sunghoon. He didn’t notice you right away, so you had time to wipe the surprise off of your face - you hadn’t thought anyone came to watch practice, but Sunghoon was probably here for Jake, just like you. 

“Hey,” you said quietly as you sat down next to him. Even though you were technically still on school property, this was the first time you saw Sunghoon outside of somewhere like a classroom, a hallway or the cafeteria. You weren’t as nervous as you thought you’d be, seeing him unexpectedly like this. 

You chuckled when Sunghoon started at your sudden arrival. “Oh, hey, Y/N,” he said, chuckling too, albeit somewhat awkwardly. “Sorry, didn’t hear you coming.”

“It’s fine,” you said with a smile as you sat down next to him on the bleachers. You didn’t know what sort of distance was appropriate between you two, if you should sit close or far, but you stopped yourself before you could overthink something as trivial as that. Neither of you said anything for a few seconds and you wished practice had started before you got here, so that you’d have something to look at other than an empty field.

You broke the silence before it became too uncomfortable. “So, do you come watch Jake often?”

You’d been fiddling with your hands as you spoke, only turning your head to look at Sunghoon as you awaited his answer. Your eyes didn’t even meet for a fraction of a second before he whipped his head to look at the field, as if unable to look at you and talk at the same time. At least he had a nice side profile for you to look at.

“Um, just on Tuesdays. I have ice skating practice after this, so I come here first, then he comes with me to the rink,” he replied. He glanced at you, lips pressed into a thin line that somewhat resembled a smile and that pushed dimples into his cheeks. You simply hummed in response. 

“What about you, how come you’re here?”

“Jake asked me,” you replied. Sunghoon let out a long “oh” as he nodded, turning his head back towards the field again. You didn’t think you’d ever had such a slow conversation. It was like you and Sunghoon both repeated your words ten times over in your heads before saying them out loud.

“Are you coming to my practice, too?” he asked after another pause.

The question took you aback slightly as you hadn’t even considered it, but it could be fun, seeing Sunghoon practice ice skating. It’d also be fun to hang out with Jake. “If it’s fine with you, then yeah, why not,” you replied, smiling at Sunghoon. He glanced at you again before looking away with a smile, an actual one this time that showed his teeth and made his eyes crinkle.

“Yeah, sure. People usually only come to actual shows, so I like it when someone’s there to watch practice.” Before you could find something to say, the players arrived jogging onto the field, immediately starting their warm-up laps. Some were serious about it and stayed focused as they ran, while others goofed around, running backwards and slapping other players on their butts before sprinting away. Jake, of course, was part of the latter group.

Now that something was actually happening on the field, you and Sunghoon had an excuse not to make conversation anymore. You tried to ignore it, but it was so awkward you wanted to die. You realized now why you were so attracted to people like Jake and Chaewon - without even being aware of it, they brought you out of your shell and made you feel at ease. You wished you could do that on your own, but you were always too scared, so you needed that person who was confident enough showing themselves to you first to make you feel comfortable doing the same. You and Sunghoon, unfortunately, were too similar in that sense to do that for each other. So you just sat there in silence, observing Jake and waving back at him when he caught your gazes.

The ninety minutes of practice didn’t go by in total silence - you asked Sunghoon about some soccer rules you didn’t get, and he shared some anecdotes from his and Jake’s earlier teenage years, including a very entertaining story about a tantrum 9-year-old Jake had thrown when he hadn’t agreed with the red card the referee had given him. You weren’t sure how the topic came up, but at some point, you even shared pictures of your pets. Sunghoon had one of those small crusty white dogs, but you kept your laughter in and cooed over how cute she was. 

But still, most of the time, you were watching Jake. You had never been interested in soccer or any sort of sport that involved balls until now. Somehow, he managed to make flushed cheeks, a heaving chest and hairline beaded with sweat look glorious. In total honesty, you were paying more attention to the player himself than to the sport, to the point that you barely noticed when he scored a goal during their practice match. It was only when Jake started cheering and high-fiving his teammates that you realized what had happened, and you gave him two thumbs up and a wide grin when he looked your and Sunghoon’s way, proudly shouting “Did you see that?!”

The realization hit you like a ton of bricks right there and then. The way your heart swelled as you watched his excited, puppyish grin take over his features was undeniable - you liked Jake. You like liked him. Your gaze continued to follow him as he finished his celebratory lap. If you could’ve seen yourself right then, you’d probably have been embarrassed by your awestruck expression and slightly agape mouth, but you couldn’t help yourself.

Much to your dismay, you realized that Chaewon had seen right through you. You hadn’t wanted to read too much into your feelings, but they had become too obvious to ignore. You hadn’t experienced them yourself since middle school (Choi Soobin had really been a heartbreaker back then), but you’d heard about the telltale signs of a crush too many times not to know about them. It was now clear that the way you felt about Jake and the way you had felt about Sunghoon were worlds apart. Feeling nervous around him and your heart skipping a beat when you made eye contact; wanting to see him smile; laughing at all his jokes, even the bad ones; missing him even though it’d been seconds since you said goodbye, and counting down the days until you saw him again. And, yes, looking at his pictures on social media over and over again. You did all those things, so you knew there was no point in lying to yourself anymore - you liked Jake Sim. 

It didn’t help that he was always kind to you, never making you feel stupid for not understanding something in your tutoring sessions and being patient enough to explain the same thing over and over again. He always paid attention to small things, which never failed to make your heart race, like asking after your aging cat’s condition after you’d told him he had a health check-up over the weekend or stocking up on your favorite snack the week after you’d told him about it. He’d also immediately picked up on your habit of teasing the people you felt comfortable with and you loved how he returned it tenfold. It was as much fun debating with him over nothing and making him shut up with your senseless arguments as it was being rendered speechless when he came up with the perfect retort. 

And of course, there was no denying that Jake was ridiculously attractive. There were times you got so caught up in the way his lips moved as he spoke or the way his fingers looked as he pointed at numbers on the page that your mind completely blanked out and you stopped listening to his words for a few seconds. You didn’t know what to make of his small chuckle and smirk when he noticed your gaze fixated on him, but you knew it wasn’t good for your heart. And let’s not even get started on the fact that sitting so close to him meant you could smell the lingering scent of his cologne every single time.

Even now, with flushed cheeks and hair slicked back with sweat, you want to run onto the field and give him a big smooch on his cheek, telling him you were proud of him for scoring that goal.

But even though you were getting closer and he had offered for you to come watch his practice, you squashed down as best as you could any hope that he might feel the same way about you. Even if he insisted he was bad with girls, Jake was popular at school, and you were sure there were many other girls who had a crush on him - so why would he like you of all people?

Sunghoon’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts. “Every time he scores, he acts like it’s the first time he’s ever done it,” he said, chuckling and shaking his head at his friend’s over-dramatic antics. The coach was trying to get Jake to calm down so that the game could resume.

“He’s so cute,” you said, voice quiet, before you could stop yourself. But as soon as the words were out, you realized what you’d done, and your eyes doubled in size as you turned to look at Sunghoon. He had whipped his head to look at you, too, and his eyes were just as big as yours. Then, he burst into laughter, and you hoped the Earth would suddenly open beneath your feet and swallow you whole. 

When his surprise had subsided, Sunghoon turned to you again, an incredulous but amused glint in his eyes. “Did you just call Jake cute?”

You crossed your arms over your chest, slightly frowning as you avoided Sunghoon’s gaze. “I just meant, you know, it’s cute how excited he got. I didn’t say he was cute,” you mumbled, knowing you were doing a poor job of defending yourself.

“That’s exactly what you said, though. You said, and I quote, He’s so cute.” You glared at Sunghoon. Who knew he would only become talkative once it came to teasing you about Jake? 

His expression softened slightly when he realized you might actually be upset about this, and he turned his attention back towards the field, smile growing when he found his friend. “Don’t worry, I won’t say anything.”

“There’s nothing to be said anyway.”

“Oh? So you don’t mind if I tell Jake that you have the biggest, fattest crush on- hmph!”

You’d cut Sunghoon off by pressing your palm to his mouth, mustering the most menacing look you could to scare him off. “I do not,” you said firmly as you moved your hand away from him.

“Sure, you don’t,” he replied, chuckling. Clearly, your most menacing look wasn’t so menacing.

“I get why Jake’s so annoying now, it’s because he’s friends with you.”

Sunghoon raised an amused eyebrow at this. “He might be annoying, but he’s also cute, right?”

“Shut up!” you shrieked immediately, but you couldn’t stop the grin forcing its way onto your lips.

“Just saying,” Sunghoon said, and you laughed together. Maybe you should’ve been more worried about Jake’s literal best friend finding out you had a crush on him, but you somehow trusted Sunghoon not to blabber about it. Whether because he was nice or because he wanted to watch you struggle with your feelings, you weren’t sure, but at least you felt your secret was safe with him.

You looked back at the field, and just as your eyes found Jake, you saw him turn his head away. Had you seen him just seconds prior, you might have noticed the crease in his eyebrows as he watched you and Sunghoon laugh together. Sunghoon isn’t that funny, he thought, what could you be laughing so hard about?

He didn’t understand the sudden weight in his heart at the sight of you and his friend getting along so well. This was his whole plan after all - force some proximity between you and Sunghoon so that you could talk and hopefully make your feelings clear to each other after some time. Clearly, it was working. So why was it bothering him so much? 

He had to turn his attention back to the game, so he could only ruminate over it for five seconds, but for the remaining thirty minutes, he could barely focus on anything. Whenever he glanced back at you and Sunghoon, you were both looking at him and not talking to each other, and that somehow bothered him even more. 

He used his time in the lockers to get out of the weird mood he was in - whatever was going on between you and Sunghoon, he didn’t want to ruin it by being grumpy. So when he came back out and found the two of you waiting for him at the bus stop, he put on his best smile. 

Having you around made his usual Tuesday afternoon with Sunghoon more fun - after years of friendship, Sunghoon ignored most of his jokes and could tune the sound of his voice out, but you still laughed at everything he said, and his heart swelled with pride every time he made you laugh.

It was only a ten-minute bus ride from the school to the ice rink so you still had twenty minutes to spare before Sunghoon’s lesson started. As always after soccer practice, Jake was famished, so you stopped by a convenience store and got more snacks than you really needed.

You sat next to Sunghoon and across from Jake at a picnic table in front of the ice rink, watching the boy in front of you with fascination as he gorged himself on banana milk and chocolate snacks.

“God, how long has it been since you last ate?” you asked with genuine concern in your voice. Sunghoon followed your gaze towards Jake, only then noticing his friend’s feral behavior as if this was a normal occurrence for them.

“Like three hours,” Jake answered. “I’m starving. So hungry I could eat Sunghoon.”

When he looked up, you were both peering at him with furrowed eyebrows and bewildered expressions on your faces. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Do you mean that Sunghoon is a horse?” you asked.

Jake mirrored your confused expressions. “What? No, why would I say that?”

“The saying goes, so hungry I could eat a horse, dumbass,” Sunghoon chimed in.

“Why would I eat a horse?” Jake replied, shaking his head and chuckling at you and Sunghoon like you were the ones who had gotten a basic idiom wrong.

“Why would you eat me?” Sunghoon bit back, sounding almost offended.

“It’s just a saying, dude.”

Half-an-hour and two whole packets of biscuits later, you and Jake sat side-by-side on the benches, watching Sunghoon as he did his warm-ups on the ice. This was your first time seeing a professional ice skater and you were transfixed, to say the least. He was just skating across the rink and rolling his arms and neck to get the muscles moving, but it all seemed so effortless and elegant that you couldn’t help but watch with your mouth slightly open, eyes eager to keep up with Sunghoon’s figure.

You were so mesmerized that you had no idea Jake was practically burning holes into the side of your face. Eyes narrowed and nose scrunched in disgust, he couldn’t believe you were enjoying the show in front of you that much. “He’s not even doing anything special right now, you know,” he said, but it only made him realize that when Sunghoon did start doing cool stuff, you’d like it even more.

Your head barely budged in Jake’s direction as you answered him, and your eyes certainly didn’t leave Sunghoon. “Really? It already looks so cool, though.” Jake scoffed, but that still didn’t get your attention, which made him scoff again. He crossed his arms over his chest and frowned like a child whose parent wasn’t paying attention to their drawing. 

“Cooler than me?”

Finally, you look at me, Jake thought, and his frown immediately dissipated into a grin when your eyes met. But judging by the teasing way your lips curled up, he already knew he wasn’t going to like your answer.

“Cooler than you,” you replied before turning your attention back to the rink.

Jake leans back with a pout, opting to glare at his friend instead of you. He tried to put himself in your shoes and figure out what it was about Sunghoon you liked so much that Jake didn’t also have. Devastatingly good looks? Check. Charming smile? Check. Cute dog? Check - Jake more so than Sunghoon. Brains? Okay, both of them lacked this. Good personality? Check - however, you needed months before Sunghoon revealed himself to you, whereas Jake was outgoing and was comfortable even with people he’d just met. 

So why was the bearer of your affection Sunghoon and not Jake?

And why did Jake even care that you liked his friend over him in the first place?

It wasn’t like Jake liked you - he couldn’t like a girl that his best friend liked - so why did this at all matter to him? If anything, the fact that you liked Sunghoon back should’ve been something to rejoice over. It had been, up until now, and Jake couldn’t figure out why. He couldn’t figure out this weird sensation that had plagued him in the soccer field and followed him to the ice rink as he watched you watch Sunghoon with amazement.

Jake was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t even notice when you detached your eyes from Sunghoon, who was talking to his coach, and tilted your head at him. “Jake?” 

The boy only let out a low hum, still too upset to look at you.

An amused grin made your lips quirk up. “Are you pouting because I said Sunghoon was cooler than you?”

Jake scoffed, turning his head away from you. “No.”

A pause. “So you don’t mind if I go on and on about how elegant and beautiful ice skating is, while running after a ball and kicking it is the basis of the stupidest sport in the world?”

Jake glared at you, but it only made you smile more. “It’s not stupid.”

Despite himself, his pretend angry facade broke apart at the sound of your airy giggles. Jake didn’t think his ears had ever been graced with such a pretty sound before - he slapped himself mentally as soon as that thought crossed his mind. 

His heart did jumps and spins more impressive than Sunghoon’s when you reached a hand out to ruffle his hair, shaking your head at his behavior. For once, he was glad that you turned back to Sunghoon so that you wouldn’t see the bright blush spreading all over his face.

For the next hour, Jake put his weird feelings to the side and watched his friend practice his routine for his upcoming competition. Even he had to admit that Sunghoon looked pretty cool doing what he loved.

You told him you found it all the more impressive because you’d never skated before, so it looked unachievable to you, and an idea immediately formed in Jake’s mind. As soon as Sunghoon’s practice was over, he rushed over to his friend and asked if the two of you could join him on the ice. Sunghoon turned to his coach, who simply shrugged.

“I trust you to look after them,” she said. “Just make sure to be out when the hockey team gets here.”

Before you knew it, Jake was helping you tie up your ice skates (the sight of which made you faint-hearted) and both boys helped you onto the ice rink, each holding onto one of your hands as you tried not to freak out at the feeling of your knees being so wobbly. Sunghoon demonstrated how to move around the ice, and soon enough, you’d gotten the hang of it - but you still made sure to keep Jake at an arm’s length so you could grab onto him every time you lost your balance. Jake stayed by your side, smiling fondly at how excited you looked and cheering you on every time you took a step of your own. Sunghoon, on the other hand, seemed to find it funny to watch from afar and point and laugh every time you stumbled.

After some time, Sunghoon announced he was feeling hungry and decided to go eat some snacks, leaving you and Jake alone in the rink. The wink Sunghoon threw your way when Jake wasn’t looking let you know what his true intentions were, and you couldn’t believe Jake’s best friend had just become your wingman.

“Feeling ready to skate around the rink?” Jake asked. His boyish grin was contagious, and you found yourself matching it even though you were still nervous about moving around too much.

“If you help me,” you answered tentatively, looking at him worriedly as you held out your hand for him to take. The softness of his gaze as he smiled down at you made you want to melt into a puddle on the floor.

“Of course,” he said, taking your hand in his warm one. Your fingers intertwined as if out of second nature and you thought you finally understood why people said their hands were meant to hold someone else’s.

Being friends with an ice skater for such a long time meant Jake had acquired some skill, too, which is why he could so easily show you how to turn or pick up speed. Whenever you lost your balance, he was always quick enough to make sure you didn’t actually fall, picking you up before your backside could touch the ice. He found your frightened expression every time you thought you would fall absolutely adorable, but your pout and slight frown whenever he teased you were somehow even cuter.

He only let go of your hand after some ten minutes (neither of you had even begun to question Sunghoon’s whereabouts by then) when he came to stand in front of you, a serious expression on his face.

“I think you’re ready, Y/N,” he declared solemnly.

“Ready for…?” you asked, scared of whatever he had in mind.

He leaned in slightly and the sudden proximity took you aback, but he didn’t seem to realize. A mischievous smirk broke through his handsome features. “A race,” he whispered, then skated to one edge of the rink and motioned for you to follow him. Reluctantly, you did.

“First to the other edge has to…” he thought for a second, gazing at the ceiling. You wanted to be mad at him for proposing a race when you’d literally just learned how to skate, but how could you when he looked so cute and giddy, searching for the loser’s penalty? “Buy the other ice cream!”

Your eyes were probably the image of tenderness as you looked at him. “Deal,” you said, wanting to sound as playful as him but voice coming out soft. Since when had you fallen so hard for him?

You held each other’s gazes for a couple more seconds before both turning in front of you, getting ready for your race. Jake counted down from three, and your skating wasn’t so bad at first - until you got too cocky for your own good, trying to go at a pace you clearly couldn’t handle. Before you knew it, your knees betrayed you and you found yourself tripping over, your butt making a loud thump sound as it came into contact with the ice.

On your way down, you’d shrieked Jake’s name, and he was at your side in the blink of an eye, holding your shoulder and looking at you worriedly. The pain was immediate, and for a few seconds, you couldn’t answer him and reassure him that you were fine.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have asked to race, God Y/N I’m so stupid I’m so sorry are you okay I didn’t want you to get hurt-”

“Jake,” you squeaked.

“Yeah?”

“I’m okay, calm down,” you said when the pain subsided, managing a smile. “I’ll just have a sore butt tomorrow.” He chuckled at the word ‘butt,’ but you didn’t have it in you to roll his eyes at his childishness.

“Are you sure you’re okay? There’s an infirmary here-”

“I’m sure, Jakey-poo,” you teased, making him lose the concerned expression as he bore an unimpressed one instead.

“I guess you are fine if you can think to call me that. Come on, up!” he said as he stood up, reaching his hands out for you to take. Just as he helped you up, Sunghoon came sprinting and stood at the entrance to the rink.

“Is everything okay? I heard a yell,” he said, slightly out-of-breath with half a biscuit in his mouth. Guess he really was eating this whole time.

You and Jake laughed and shook your head at him, and you reassured him that everything was fine. 

“Good, ‘cause the hockey team’s here and we have to go anyway.”

There was a bus that took Sunghoon directly from the ice rink to his house, but you and Jake had to go back to the school to catch the one you usually took, which meant you had a forty-minute journey in front of you. And yet, Jake’s company made those forty minutes feel like five, and you found yourself disappointed when the bus neared your stop.

“If you want, we can still go walk Kiwi and Layla,” he offered shyly a few minutes before your stop, as if he’d read your mind. 

“I’d love to.” You watched as his small smile bloomed into a wider one.

“I’m glad,” he chuckled, relieved. “I was scared you’d be tired of me after spending the whole afternoon together,” he admitted, looking down at his lap with a bashful expression on his face. It wasn’t often that Jake looked timid like this, but whenever he did, your heart tripled in size.

“I don’t think I could get tired of you.” You were too shy to look him in the eye while you said this, but in your peripheral, you saw his grin get impossibly wider and his eyebrows raise. He bumped your shoulder with his, making the both of you burst into giggles.

You were still smiling long after you’d come home from your walk.

—

Unfortunately for Jake, forcing you and Sunghoon to sit together for ninety minutes hadn’t resulted in the two of you confessing your undying love for the other and getting together - clearly, his plan hadn’t worked very well. But Jake, instead of coming up with another strategy, decided he should just basically do the same thing again and hope it went better this time. 

Bro night had been a tradition for the past three years that the boys only very rarely broke, in cases of illness, filial obligations or important competitions the following day. This wasn’t any one of those cases, but Jake decided bro night must be slightly sacrificed that night - for your and Sunghoon’s sake. Years down the line, he knew you’d thank him.

This was why he tricked you into thinking you had been invited to bro night (you’d heard a lot about it and considered it an honor to be included) when really, he made Jay promise not to show at the cinema so that you and Sunghoon could be alone. The two of them would make up an excuse about not being able to make it on time and show up later at the diner (“If you want to set them up, shouldn’t we also leave them alone after the movie?” Jay had asked Jake over the phone, and Jake had been unable to explain why he didn’t want you to spend the whole night alone with Sunghoon).

“They ditched us,” Sunghoon had said in lieu of a greeting when you found him at the entrance of the cinema. He turned his phone screen towards you, showing you their group chat - Jay had had some sort of meeting at his school that had run late and Jake had to go to the vet suddenly because Layla kept making weird noises.

“Oh no, I hope she’ll be okay,” you said, voice laced with genuine worry.

Sunghoon just sighed. “I’m sure she will.” He knew what his friends were up to - it almost never happened that one of them was unable to make it to bro night, so two at once? They were clearly lying. He would make sure to tell Jake how worried sick you were about his dog’s fake illness later on just so his friend would feel extra guilty.

You had been looking forward to hanging out with Jake and his friends all day, so you were disappointed to know he wouldn’t make it until later. It wasn’t much comfort that the movie they had picked, some recent Marvel release, was one you were not at all interested in, and you couldn’t even obsess over Jake’s presence next to you instead of the movie because he wasn’t there. You’d have to sit with awkward, quiet Sunghoon for God knows how long - at least the cinema wasn’t much of a talking place. 

You declined his kind offer of sharing a big popcorn tub - you didn’t want to risk a cliché reaching-for-popcorn-at-the-same-time moment with Sunghoon, although you’d daydreamed and giggled about it happening with Jake earlier that day. Instead, you sipped grumpily on your Cherry Coke, watching the trailers for upcoming movies and discussing them with Sunghoon. (“I’m so excited for the Barbie movie,” he’d surprised you by saying. Maybe he wasn’t so bad.)

As the lights dimmed, announcing the imminent start of the movie, Sunghoon whispered something that completely changed your mind about Marvel. “It’s so stupid that Jake isn’t here, seriously. He’s been going on and on about going to see this movie since the trailer came out.” Suddenly, you’d never felt the need to pay attention to something more than this. 

Well, in your humble opinion, the film wasn’t anything to write home about. It was a lot of loud action scenes with some funny one-liners that, okay, you chuckled at. And the actors were hot. You could sort of see why Jake would enjoy Marvel movies, although you yourself liked films with more social commentary, such as Mean Girls or Bee Movie. You’d need to make Jake watch Twilight one of these days - you were sure he’d like the soundtrack, if nothing else.

At least, you and Sunghoon have something to talk about during your short walk to the diner. As you enter the restaurant, a familiar voice calling out your name catches you off-guard.

“Chaewon? I thought you didn’t work on Friday nights!” you exclaimed, letting your friend bring you into a hug. You gave her a once-over - she always looked so pretty in her work uniform, white t-shirt dress draping her body perfectly, apron cinching at her waist, and short pigtails under her 50’s style diner hat. If the blush spreading on Sunghoon’s cheeks at her sudden appearance was anything to go by, his thoughts might not have been too far from yours.

She pouted, taking your hands in hers and swaying them between the two of you. “I usually don’t, but Yunjin asked me to trade shifts and she always says yes when I ask her, so I felt bad saying no.” You nodded and she turned to Sunghoon.

“Hi, Sunghoon!”

“H-hi, Chaewon.”

“Where’s Jay and Jake?” she asked, looking behind the two of you. You’d told the group chat about your evening plans and a lot of freaking out had taken place. 

“Should be here any minute,” you sighed, and when she looked at you questioningly, you told her you’d explain later.

She sat you at a four-person booth by the window and brought you drinks (“On the house,” she’d said with a wink, but you weren’t sure this had been allowed by any of her superiors) for you to sip on while you waited for the others. Every time she was free, she came over to your table and gossiped about the customers. You did not miss the way Sunghoon’s face lit up whenever she approached you.

Jake and Jay see you before you see them. Jay, the only one with a driver’s license out of the three, had picked Jake up, and he was parking his car when Jake gasped loudly, making Jay jump. “I’m trying to park, man, can you be calm?”

“What’s she doing here?” Jake exclaimed, completely ignoring his friend.

Jay followed Jake’s gaze, but he wasn’t sure what his friend was going on about. All he saw was you, whom he recognized from pictures only, Sunghoon, and a waitress that seemed overly-friendly. “Who?” he asked.

“Chaewon,” Jake hissed, like her name was a curse. “She’s ruining our plan!”

Jay sighed. “First of all, this is your plan. Second of all, it was ruined from the beginning. And by that, I mean that your plan sucks, Jake.”

Jake clicked his teeth. “Whatever. Let’s just go,” he said, getting out of the car and heading straight for you. He made sure to give Chaewon a pointed look as he sat next to you in the booth, but she just seemed happy that more people had arrived. 

You bumped your knee into his to get his attention. “Hi,” you said with a smile.

He looked at you dumbly for a few seconds before Jay cleared his throat awkwardly. “Hi. This is Jay,” he said, tilting his head towards the boy but not taking his eyes off of you. You and Jay exchanged hey’s before Chaewon took your order, quickly giving it to the kitchen and scanning the room to make sure every table had what they needed, then headed back to your table. 

“Is Layla okay?” you asked Jake, worry making your brows furrow.

“Huh?” The sudden mention of his dog took him aback. Why wouldn’t she be okay?

“Layla?” you repeated, tilting your head. “Is she okay? You said you had to go to the vet.”

His eyes widened as he remembered his lie from earlier, and he started nodding frantically. “Oh yeah, yeah, she’s fine, we panicked over nothing,” he said with a nervous giggle. Jake was the worst liar Jay and Sunghoon had ever seen, but you were none the wiser.

“What about you, Jay? How was your school thing?” Sunghoon asked, turning to his friend with a glare and making him choke on his Coke.

“Oh, that was fine too, I guess,” Jay mumbled.

As expected, Jake and Chaewon were experts at leading the conversation, and Jay himself was pretty talkative. They all bounced off of each other naturally, and even Sunghoon knew how to throw in witty remarks now and there. You also participated, but you were more than happy just listening to them and laughing along. You tried not to think too much about how your knee would bump into Jake’s once in a while, or how he seemed to look at you every time he made a joke.

At some point, Chaewon had rushed over to your table, looking right at you with wide eyes and beaming. “Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God, Y/N, hat guy is here!” 

You instantly mirrored her expression. “Where where where?” you asked, lifting your body up to scan around the restaurant.

“Over there in the corner, but be discreet!”

You were not at all discreet as your eyes found said hat guy, noting with satisfaction that he was characteristically hatless, and you burst into laughter. “I can’t believe he’s here!”

“Right? Probably has the munchies or something,” Chaewon said, laughing along.

You only noticed then the perplexed looks all three boys were sending your way. “Who the heck is hat guy?” Jake asked, which only made you and Chaewon laugh harder.

“You wouldn’t get it,” she replied airily, waving Jake off as she made her way to a customer who had called for her. 

The boys turned to you and you shrunk in your seat at their attention. “Just a guy the girls and I find funny,” you explained, shrugging and glancing quickly at Sunghoon. If only he knew about all the times you and the girls had gossiped about him, even though he’d done nothing of importance.

When her shift was over, the first thing Chaewon did was take off her apron, then dragged you to the bathroom, where she drilled you for details about your cinema “date” with Sunghoon. 

“It was not a date, it just ended up being the two of us because the others couldn’t make it,” you insisted, but she wasn’t having it. “There’s nothing to say anyway. We got there, talked a bit, watched the movie, walked here, and that’s it.”

Chaewon sighed, shaking her head as she reapplied her lip gloss. A small smile made its way onto your lips. “I think he’s into someone else anyway.” 

You noticed how her hand faltered for a split second. “Oh yeah? Who?” she asked, trying to appear nonchalant, but you knew your friend too well. 

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” 

Unbeknownst to either of you, the discussion between the boys back at the table was not too different from yours.

“Bro, I’m literally going to kill you,” Sunghoon whisper-yelled even though you were way out of earshot already. “Do you know how awkward that was?”

“Just so you know, I had nothing to do with this,” Jay said. “I told him that putting two socially constipated idiots like you wouldn’t end well, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Y/N’s not an idiot!” Jake immediately reacted.

“And I am?!” Sunghoon retorted.

Jay just rolled his eyes.

“You are, because this is the second time you’re alone together with the girl you like and you can barely make conversation with her.”

“For the last time, I don’t like her, I just called her cute once in freshman year-”

“Same thing!”

“Jake, I don’t know how many times I can tell you the same thing before you get it. I’ve been around Y/N enough to know I don’t like her like that, okay? We’ve had two classes where we sat together for a whole semester, and we’ve worked with other people in group projects. Not to mention, you’ve made me sit through one of your practices with her. She’s nice. She sends me the homework when I miss class. She even laughs at my jokes sometimes. And her dog is super cute. I’m sure we’d be better friends if we both didn’t have crippling shyness, but I don’t like her like that. I just don’t.”

“But how?!”

“What do you mean how? This sorta thing doesn’t have any sort of reasonable answer, you just do or you don’t. I don’t. Clearly, you do.”

Jake heard the last part of Sunghoon’s words, and promptly decided to ignore them. He had to understand this first - he’d figure out his feelings later. “This whole time, I thought you were just downplaying your feelings, ‘cause you’re an awkward asshole who doesn’t do emotions,” he said, eyes tightly shut and holding his head, the confusion making his brain hurt.

“Okay, ouch. But no, I wasn’t. I really don’t know what got into your head.”

“I know what got into his head,” Jay said. Both of his friends looked at him questioningly, so he went on. “When Sunghoon mentioned Y/N, you probably thought she was super cute too, Jake. But because of bro code and whatnot, you didn’t wanna show any interest. And then as you saw her around more, you probably liked her more, but you thought Sunghoon liked her, so you sort of gave him your crush on her instead of dealing with it. You lived vicariously through him, basically. Except you’re an idiot because he doesn’t even like her like that, so you could’ve shot your shot a long time ago already. I don’t know why you didn’t just listen to him, to be honest,” Jay finished, shrugging.

“You also thought he liked her!” Jake retorted.

“That’s besides the point. The point is that you’re stupid.”

“But- but, what about all those times you talked about her? I didn’t make those up!” 

Sunghoon rolled his eyes. “The most I ever said about her was something like, Y/N and I both forgot our textbook today, or Y/N brought cookies for the class because it’s her birthday. You were always the one to notice her everywhere and go, There’s your crush, or something.”

Jake sighed, defeated. He could admit Sunghoon was right about something, and he was wrong - but he hated that Jay was also right. Had he really managed to bury his feelings for you all these years just for what he thought was Sunghoon’s sake? Sure, he was a loyal friend, but that felt a little much.

“Whatever,” he mumbled, recoiling from his friends’ expectant gazes and taking a sad bite of his cheeseburger. “It’s not like she likes me back, or anything.” 

He watched in confusion as Sunghoon let out a loud groan, screwing his eyes shut and taking his head in his hands as if it hurt. “This is so frustrating, I’m going to kill myself.”

Jake turned to Jay for some sort of explanation to their friend’s sudden suicidal thoughts, but Jay just looked back at Jake with disgust. “When did you become so dumb? I swear you didn’t use to be like this,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment.

Jake’s eyes flickered between his two friends in utter dismay. “What?”

“Jake,” Jay started. “Do you really, honestly, genuinely think Y/N doesn’t like you?”

The boy leaned back in his seat with a pout. “Yeah,” he mumbled.

Sunghoon’s head whipped up at this. Jake gulped at the intense glare his friend fixed him with - he’d never looked so angry with him, and it made Jake wonder what on Earth he could have said or done that made Sunghoon so upset. “Why?” he asked simply, but the frustration was evident in his voice.

Your diary popped up in Jake’s head. What he had read was clear. Of course, the entry dated from over a month ago now, but why would your feelings have changed since then? Jake sighs deeply, getting ready to reveal to his friends what he’d seen, but then he sees you and Chaewon emerging from the bathroom. “They’re coming back,” he mumbled.

It was Sunghoon and Jay’s turn to sigh. “Just pay attention to her, Jake, okay?” Jay instructed, giving his friend an intent look.

“I already do,” Jake replied, frowning.

“No, really pay attention to her. Then use your pea-sized brain for once in your life, and maybe you’ll realize something.”

A strongly-worded reply was on the tip of Jake’s tongue, but all thoughts of violence and murdering his friend were replaced by images of rainbows and pretty flowers when you smiled at him. He felt like the biggest of idiots for liking you so much and only realizing it now.

“Hi,” he said dumbly as you found your seat next to him again, then stole a french fry from you even though he had many left himself. When you gasped at his audacity, he just giggled.

“Hey!” you exclaimed in protest before stealing a fry back. 

If you hadn’t been so caught up in your little world, you’d have noticed the knowing look your three friends exchanged and their simultaneous eye roll. 

—

The following Monday, you decided to have your tutoring session at your house instead of Jake’s. His mom was away at a convention for the week, so you’d have to take the bus anyway - since your house was two stops earlier, you offered to switch it up for once. Jake had never actually been inside your house and was curious to see what it was like, so he eagerly agreed. 

Kiwi was happy to see him and followed the two of you around the house as you gave Jake a quick tour before going up to your room. When you reached the top landing, you realized that Kiwi was still at the bottom of the stairs and was looking up at you expectantly. “Is she not allowed upstairs?” Jake asked.

“Usually not, but I let her come up when my mom’s not here. Come on Kiwi! It’s okay!”

Kiwi didn’t need to be told twice - she trudged her little body up the stairs, and you couldn’t help but giggle at her adorableness. “She’s so cute,” you cooed, looking at your dog with a huge smile on your face.

“She really is,” Jake agreed, but when you turned your head to face him, he wasn’t looking at Kiwi - he was looking straight at you, a softness in his eyes that made your stomach turn. He snapped out of it when he noticed your round, surprised eyes, and cleared his throat. “So, where’s your room?” he asked, looking around the hallway and avoiding your gaze.

“Over there,” you replied, fighting the smile that tried to make its way to your lips as you headed towards your room, Jake and Kiwi following right behind. 

You told Jake to wait for a second as you went to get a second chair. When you came back, he was standing in front of your shelves, upper body slightly bent forwards to observe all the decorations and framed pictures closer. You placed the chair next to your desk then joined him, answering all the questions he had about the items on your shelves. Who’s this? When was this? Where did you get this? In his defense, you really did have a lot of things - you were trying to get rid of your hoarding habits, but you got attached to every small thing that held some sort of significance. You went to sit at the edge of your bed and just watched him, his eyes glinting with curiosity.

It reminded you of the first time you’d been to his house, how upset he’d seemed when you talked about his baby pictures and how you hadn’t wanted to risk looking at all the stuff in his room. You were also curious about things like that, and you wondered once again what had bothered him so much. The question was burning your tongue - although you were nervous to ask it, not wanting to upset Jake once more, you now knew him well enough to know he wasn’t the type to stay mad for long. 

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Jake replied, fingers toying with your favorite Littlest Pet Shop figurine you had kept from when you were eight.

“Why didn’t you want me to look at your baby photos that one time?”

Jake paused at your words. He stood up straight and set the figurine back on the shelf. He glanced at you before walking over to your bed and taking a seat next to you, leaning back on his palms while you rested your hands underneath your thighs. 

“You probably noticed I don’t mention my dad, right? Or the fact that he’s never home?” 

You nodded in response. You had noticed it, but you’d never brought the topic up in case it might be sensitive. Jake sighed. “He passed away when I was six.”

You turned your head towards him. To your surprise, his face remained expressionless - you couldn’t detect any sort of sadness or anger in his features, as if he was just reciting a fact. His uncharacteristic numbness upset you even more than any tears could have. 

He met your gaze and gave you a small smile. “I was so young that I only have very vague memories of him, like playing soccer together in the backyard or a trip to the beach with my parents and my brother. I only remember his face and his voice from the photos and videos my mom has shown me.” He sighed again, shifting forwards and resting his hands in his lap, fiddling with his fingers. “So when I see these pictures, they sort of just remind me of what I’ve lost? I really don’t like lingering on them. I sort of just ignore them every time I walk up or down the stairs.”

“I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have mentioned them if I’d known-”

Jake is quick to shake his head. “No, no, don’t be sorry. You couldn’t have guessed.” You want to comfort Jake in some way, thank him for telling you something so personal, but you’re not sure what words to use - so, instead, you take one of his hands in yours and bring it to your lap, then cover it with your other one. Your eyes meet for a second - he looks slightly taken aback at first, but then, his eyes drift down to your joined hands, and a small blush spreads on his cheeks.

“I’m- I’m okay, really. Like I said, it happened so long ago that I’m used to not having a dad now. It almost feels like it’s always been that way, which makes it even weirder to think it wasn’t. It’s just… It feels weird to miss someone I barely remember so much, you know?”

You nodded and let out a low hum. “I do know.” Jake tilted his head at you, silently asking you to go on. “It’s different, but I get that feeling of missing something you barely remember. I have these blurry memories of my parents being happy together and the three of us being a happy family, and then all of a sudden it’s hearing arguments from my room and my dad moving out, and they’re asking me, Do you wanna live with mom or dad?”

You watched as Jake moved his hand slightly, intertwining your fingers together and squeezing your hand. “I was older than you were when they divorced, so I guess I have more memories to hold onto, but they hurt more than anything.” You let out a deep sigh. “My dad cheated, so it’s not like I wished my mom had stayed with him, but I was too young to understand what was happening. I just wanted my parents together again.” 

When you lifted your head to look at him, he met your gaze, and his eyes were so soft yet so intense, like he was seeing right into you. Then he chuckled. “Do you ever get jealous of other people’s parents?” he asks, a shy smile playing on his lips.

“All the time,” you admitted with a chuckle, relieved to find out you weren’t the only one. “Yena has been blessed with these like, practically perfect parents that are still in love after twenty years, never argue and have a healthy relationship with all of their kids. I’m so in awe every time I see them.”

“Sunghoon’s parents are like that. I feel terrible, but every time they come to cheer him on at his competitions, I just get so jealous, wishing I also had three people coming to see my games and not just two. And I always feel so silly for feeling that way.”

“You’re not silly for that, Jake,” you said, and the honesty in your voice seemed to take him aback slightly. A grin spread on your lips. “You may be silly for other things, but not for that,” you teased, making him chuckle. “I can be your third person, if you want,” you said softly, lightly bumping your shoulder against his.

His eyes seemed to light up at your words, and your smile couldn’t help but get wider at his reaction - that was, until he raised an eyebrow, almost defiantly. “Yeah? I thought you found soccer boring,” he said with a playful smirk.

“It’s not boring if you’re the one playing,” you replied. A small noise of surprise escaped his throat before he could help it, not expecting you to be so forward, and you both burst into giggles. 

He cleared his throat when you both calmed down and stood up straighter, trying to put on a cool front. “Of course it isn’t.” He turned his head to look out the window, and the sight of the sunlight perfectly hitting his features and turning his dark brown eyes a hazel color almost took your breath away. “It’s really nice out,” he suddenly said. He turned back to you, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “How about we ditch the tutoring for today and go out?”

His eyes drifted down to your lips, watching as a smile tugged at the corners of your own. “I’m in.”

That was how you found yourselves sitting at a bench in the park close to your house, eating ice cream and watching Kiwi and Layla play together. You tried each other’s ice cream, and you regretted your choice of simple vanilla and strawberry as soon as Jake’s mango ice cream touched your tongue. Your eyes widened at the amazing taste - it felt like you had bit into an actual mango. 

“Good, right?” Jake asked, chuckling at your reaction.

“What the heck, yours is so much better than mine,” you mumbled, pouting at the ice cream in your cup like it had personally hurt you.

Jake thought for a second, looking back and forth between your upset expression and his own cup. “Wanna switch?”

Your heart was screaming yes, but your brain was screaming no. You tried your best to appear genuine when you smiled at him. “No, don’t worry about it. I still like mine.” You looked at him as you scooped another spoonful into your mouth as if to prove to him you were happy with your choice, even going so far as to hum in delight.

Jake just chuckled and shook his head at you, taking your cup and giving you his anyway. You were about to protest until he started eating your ice cream, imitating your previous hum. You quietly accepted the exchange, smiling as you tasted the mango ice cream again and trying to ignore the fact that Jake hadn’t switched the spoons with the cups, so you were using his and he was using yours. 

As you ate in silence, occasionally chuckling at your dogs’ antics, Jake stole some glances at you. He wasn’t sure why you looked so much prettier today than all the times he’d seen you before. Or maybe you were just as pretty as you’d always been, and he was just finally letting himself admit it. 

He may have had many friends, but there weren’t many people Jake was truly himself around. He always felt the need to be this friendly, outgoing guy that made it seem like everything was going well in his life, but with you, he felt like it was okay to stop pretending. He felt like it was okay to ask for help, like it was okay to reveal the darker parts of his life.

Now that Jay and Sunghoon had practically forced him to see the truth, Jake didn’t know what to do about his feelings for you. He finally understood why he always looked forward to your tutoring sessions, why he was so excited whenever he walked past you in the hallways, and why he was so bothered about you and Sunghoon getting along.

Sunghoon. Because even if Jake now knew that he liked you, he also knew that you liked someone else. And what was the point of letting himself fall for you even more when there was no happy ending in sight for him? He’d only get hurt in the end.

Just as the thought hit him, you turned to look at him and meet his gaze, a soft smile on your lips. Every time you smiled at him like that, Jake felt like he was watching a movie. Everything happened in slow-motion, with flowers falling around you and violins playing in the background. Jake almost felt sick, knowing he was only the second lead in your romance movie. He was the stupid werewolf and Sunghoon was the vampire that glistened in the sun and got the girl. (You had convinced him to watch Twilight, saying it was a mandatory watch to understand who you were as a person. Of course, Jake had streamed it that same night. The soundtrack was surprisingly good.)

Your voice snapped him out of his downward-spiraling thoughts. “You know, I almost got scared that Sunghoon would appear out of thin air and start hanging out with us.”

Jake tried not to sneer at the mention of his best-friend-turned-number-one-nemesis. “Why? Wouldn’t you like that?” he mumbled, clearly doing a poor job of seeming unaffected.

You frowned, then lowered your head, focusing your gaze on your almost-finished ice cream. “No, I’d rather if it was just the two of us.” Jake’s eyes widened, unsure if he’d heard that correctly or not. But before he could say anything in response, you spoke again. “It’s just, he was there when I came to watch your practice and when I thought we were all going to see a movie together, it was just him and me. You would’ve liked that movie, by the way,” you said, looking up at Jake with a smile.

Jake’s heart swelled. He wasn’t sure what what you were saying all meant, but unconsciously, his lips mirrored yours and he smiled back at you. Until he remembered you didn’t like him, and his smile fell immediately. Obviously, you had no idea what he was thinking, so his sudden stony expression sent alarms ringing through your head.

“It’s not that I don’t like him, or anything,” you said, panicked, and Jake had to keep himself from scoffing, “it’s just that- you know. It’s nice to hang out with you outside of tutoring sessions,” you finished, mumbling. 

Jake had no idea what you were saying, so he stayed quiet, watching as Kiwi and Layla ran around in circles. You liked Sunghoon, so why would you rather hang out with Jake and not him? You weren’t making any sense. 

You, on the other hand, were not liking Jake’s uncharacteristic silence. In hopes of getting his attention, you crossed one leg over the other, shifting on the bench to face him. “Plus, don’t you think he and Chaewon really hit it off the other night? I think that was the most I’ve ever heard him talk,” you said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. To your dismay, it didn’t work. You didn’t know whether he was sulking or genuinely upset - all you knew was you desperately wanted to see a smile on his pretty face again.

“Jakey?” you called out, and your voice sounded so small it hurt his heart. He hummed in response, only glancing at you for a fraction of a second. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” he replied, scooping the last of the ice cream in his mouth. As he tasted the strawberry and vanilla flavors, he couldn’t believe he had given his precious mango ice cream up all for a girl who didn’t even like him back. What a fool.

“I don’t know, you’re all- weird, all of a sudden, for lack of a better word.” You searched for some sort of an answer in his eyes, but he supplied you with none. 

Jake sighed deeply. He could feel the ugly mix of emotions in his belly turning into anger - anger at what exactly, he wasn’t sure, but he didn’t want to lay it on you. “It’s just the heat, it’s making me tired,” he said. Sure, it was warm for a May afternoon, but it wasn’t that hot. But you didn’t want to push it.

“Should we go home?“ you offered, and the worry in your voice made him feel even worse. He just couldn’t understand why you were being so nice to him. He knew you probably just thought you were looking after a friend, but he'd rather you not care about his well-being and leave him be. He didn’t need one more reason to like you - he already had plenty of those. 

He nodded, mustering as convincing a smile as he could. “Sure.” 

The walk home was much quieter than usual. You could feel that Jake was keeping something to himself, and it was killing you; but whatever it was, you wanted him to tell you when he felt ready and not feel forced to. Your hand was aching, desperate to reach out and grab his as you had done before, but you were afraid that would only push him away even further. So you stayed silent most of the time, only commenting on the things around you or speaking a thought out loud when you thought it might make Jake smile. Every time his lips curled up, even ever so slightly, your heart swelled with relief.

Unbeknownst to you, Jake was making up his mind. He knew he needed time away from you to gather his feelings before he could see you as a friend again. 

When you reached your house, Jake waited outside with the dogs as you grabbed his bag he’d left upstairs. You hugged goodbye as always, but this one was different - it lasted a few seconds longer than usual, and you could swear Jake held you tighter than he normally would. It felt like he was saying goodbye for more than just a couple days.

You didn’t understand why it made your heart ache so much.

—

The next day, when you walked past Jake and Sunghoon in the hallway, Jake barely glanced at you and only tilted his head in your general direction instead of his usual wide grin and wave. You were so shocked by his sudden snubbing that you halted in your steps right away, looking behind you at his retreating figure. You locked eyes with Sunghoon, who seemed just as confused as you felt. He shrugged at you before returning to his friend and nudging his arm.

On Wednesday morning, you got a text from Jake that he couldn’t make it to your tutoring session that afternoon because of an extra soccer practice to prepare for their game that weekend, something he had never mentioned before.

Thursday and Friday weren’t very different, and your heart became heavier with every time you walked past each other and he acted like you weren’t even there. You desperately wanted to know what you’d done wrong, why he’d started to reply in one-word sentences instead of his usual voice messages and tons of emojis, but no matter how much you cogitated, you couldn’t figure it out. Even when you asked him how his game had gone, a dry Good stared back at you from your phone screen.

That Saturday, your girlfriends came over. Yena had brought beads and strings to make accessories out of, and the mere sight of them had brought fond memories back to all four of you - during your first sleepover in freshman year, this was the exact activity that had kept you occupied for hours. 

You got started on them immediately, each finding a comfortable spot in your room as soft music played in the background. You lay on your bed while Chaewon and Yena took over the floor and Hyewon sat at your desk.

“I’m gonna make one of those phone accessories,” Yena said excitedly, reaching for the biggest, most colorful beads.

“I’m gonna make couple bracelets for Jaemin and I,” Hyewon said somewhat shyly but beaming. Yena and Chaewon groaned at her words, but they gave you an idea.

“You guys are vomit-inducing,” Yena replied, and if you didn’t know your friend any better, just going off the tone of her voice, you’d have thought she was being serious. Hyewon just rolled her eyes, used to this daily slander she received simply for being in a relationship.

“I’ll make something for my little sister,” Chaewon butted in, and you and Yena simultaneously ‘aww’ed. 

“So it’s aww when Chaewon does it for her sister, and it’s vomit-inducing when I do it for my boyfriend?” Hyewon exclaimed, appalled.

“Little sisters are cute. Boyfriends are gross,” Yena replied matter-of-factly, making you giggle.

“Whatever. You guys are just jealous that you’re dying alone and I’m not. What are you making, Y/N?” she asked before Yena could retort again. The two exchanged a glare as you thought over your answer.

“I’m not saying,” you replied with a giggle. 

“She’s making one for Jake, that evil wench,” Chaewon immediately said, making your eyes widen. Yena gasped dramatically while Hyewon smiled at you.

“How did you know?” you asked Chaewon.

“Just your face. You’re so obvious,” she snickered. 

“You’re a traitor, Y/N!” Yena exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at you, and you hid your face in your hands, muttering an apology. “Wasting time and energy on a boy.”

“Don’t listen to her, Y/N. Whatever it is you make, he’ll be super happy you thought of him. Then he’ll finally ask you out and you’ll live happily ever after, just like me and Jaemin,” Hyewon said with a serene smile on her face. Chaewon and Yena exchanged a look, then faked a gagging sound. “So bitter,” Hyewon muttered, shaking her head at your friends.

“I’m not sure about that,” you sighed. “I just want to be friends again. He’s been ignoring me all week.”

All three snapped their heads up at you. “He’s been ignoring you?” Yena echoed, and you meekly nodded. “Give me his phone number. No, give me his address. I’m going there right now,” she said, already sitting up.

“Gosh, Yena, it’s fine,” you said, gesturing at her to sit back down, laughing at your friend’s seriousness. “I’ll see him on Monday anyway, I can just see how he behaves then.”

Yena didn’t look convinced, but she yielded anyway. “If he hurts you, I swear I’ll give him a stern talking to. And a broken nose.” You laughed as you thanked your friend. 

Hyewon asked for more details about this Jake situation, so you filled your friends in about his mysterious behavior that week. Chaewon had been the only one to see it firsthand, when you’d walked to a class together and Jake had walked past you without saying anything. You told them about his sparse answers to your texts, his lack of response to the TikToks you sent him. He wasn’t even reacting to your BeReals anymore. It was just such a complete switch-up in attitude that you had no idea what to make of it. They tried to come up with reasons for it, but it really didn’t make much sense. It just felt like he suddenly decided to hate you - or maybe you had been interpreting everything wrong, and the two of you had never been friends in the first place. 

“This is so confusing,” Chaewon suddenly said, seeming lost in thought. “I thought for sure that he liked you.”

“Liked… me?” you echoed.

“Yeah. Just the way he was when we were at the diner. He kept looking at you and was always smiling and blushing whenever you talked to him. Also the way Jay and Sunghoon were behaving. Boys are so obvious when their friend likes someone, it’s like they’re trying to fumble it for him. And I mean, anyone with functioning eyes can see that you like him too, so I don’t know why he’s doing this all of a sudden.”

Yena sighed. “Boys are stupid.”

“That, they are,” you agreed, sighing as well and returning your attention to your craft. Maybe a simple gift like this wouldn’t fix what was going on between you and Jake, but you had to at least try. You couldn’t let go of your friendship so easily.

Even though it seemed as though he could.

Nothing changed the next week. On Monday, you woke up to a text that pulled your heart down into your stomach.

jakey-poo i think we should stop tutoring each other for now

For an hour as you ate breakfast and got ready for school, you ruminated over your answer, only to ask him a simple why? in the end.

jakey-poo i’m to busy w soccer practice and other stuff we can start again when exams are near

you oh okay

You felt pathetic, but you had no idea what to say. You couldn’t force him into this, and you definitely couldn’t show up at his house and demand a better explanation. If you were Yena or Chaewon, maybe you could - but you weren’t. You couldn’t even bring yourself to ask him if the two of you could still hang out outside of that, so scared you were for his inevitable rejection.

During the week, you tried to find a time when you could give him your small handmade gift, but Jake wasn’t even looking you in the eyes anymore. The only time you made eye contact with him over those five days was on Wednesday at lunch - as you walked into the cafeteria, you scanned the whole room, unconsciously searching for him. When you did, he was already looking at you - he was close enough for you to see the slight frown in his eyebrows, the lack of the usual glint in his eyes. But as soon as he’d seen you’d found him, he turned away. You only looked away when Chaewon called out your name.

In the few classes you had together, he always slipped away before you could get to him. Him walking past you like he couldn’t even see you broke your heart a little bit more every time, and by Friday, you had completely given up. Your friendship with Jake was over, and you had no idea why, no idea who or what to blame.

Monday and Wednesday afternoons felt empty now that you had gotten used to spending them with him, and you couldn’t even walk Kiwi without missing him. He seemed to miss Jake and Layla too - he’d sometimes tilt his head at you as if asking where your new friends were, and when you got to the park, he’d gloomily stick to you instead of running around like he usually would, especially when Layla was there.

The worst part was at night, when your thoughts kept you up. You’d reread your and Jake’s text conversations, wondering what went so wrong so quickly, warm tears spilling from your eyes out of sadness and tiredness. On those nights, you’d sneak Kiwi up to your room and let him cuddle up to you in your bed. You’d comfort each other that way.

You had no idea that a couple kilometers away, Jake lay in bed sleepless as well, Layla at the edge of his bed and whining in her sleep. You had no idea that missing you had carved a deep hole in his chest.

—

Enough was enough.

It had been days since Layla had last seen Kiwi, and to a young pup like her, that felt like eternity. Lately, Jake hadn’t seemed happy to go on walks with her like he used to, and he barely had any energy to play with her. She also hadn’t seen you in days, and she wondered if that had anything to do with Jake’s recent despondency. 

But thankfully, Layla was a smart girl, so she knew exactly what to do to fix this dire situation. On Friday, she waited for Jake to come back from soccer practice and take her on a walk. As soon as they reached the sidewalk outside of their house, she pulled on her leash in the opposite direction of their usual route. Jake tried pulling her the other way, but she wouldn’t budge.

“We’re going that way, Layla,” Jake said, amused by his dog’s sudden stubbornness. Layla barked back. “Come on!” 

She was really not moving. “We never go that way,” Jake said, sighing. “That way’s the-”

That’s when he realized. Layla wanted to go to the park you went to with Kiwi. “But what if we ran into them?” Jake asked. 

Layla barked again. She wanted to say, That’s exactly why I want to go there, but of course Jake didn’t understand. He sighed again and obliged, letting Layla lead the way. She had a good feeling that she’d finally see her friends again today. 

Jake’s heart started beating faster with every step he took, knowing that you might be out right now, too. When he’d seen you at school, you’d seemed as sad as he was, and he felt terrible for perhaps being the reason behind it - but he didn’t know what else to do. He could either spare your feelings or his. If this was hurting you, he knew you’d move on quickly enough anyway - and when he came to terms with being just friends with you, he’d come back, and everything would be perfect like it used to be. Foolproof plan.

If there was one thing Jake had learned from the tutoring sessions with you, it was that the weather always reflected the protagonist’s inner thoughts. If they were upset, it would be gray and rainy - if they were happy, it would be warm and sunny. Jake glared at the sun, just another reminder that he wasn’t the main character in this story. If he was, it would be thundering and lightning would be striking.

As if his life was a joke, two minutes after Jake and Layla had walked into the park, he saw you. At least you were facing the other direction, so you couldn’t see him, and he could redirect his route to avoid you. But he let himself indulge in the moment for a few seconds. You had laid out a picnic blanket for you and Kiwi and rested on your stomach with your elbows propping you up, reading a book. Kiwi slept peacefully next to you - this dog was the furthest thing from a guard dog Jake had ever seen. You kicked your feet up in the air, flip flops discarded to the side of the blanket. Jake was happy to see you like this, enjoying the warmth of this sunny May afternoon. 

He was about to walk away, but a sudden movement caught his eye. Two school kids started running to you, and before you could even register their presence, one of them snatched your flip flops and they both sprinted away, shrieking with laughter like two little devils. Where the hell were their parents?!

Without thinking, Jake started running after them, and so did Kiwi and Layla. 

“Hey! Come back here!” Jake yelled, hoping in vain that these kids would listen to someone older than them. Kiwi did his best, but his tiny legs didn’t allow for such a chase - Layla, barking loudly at the thieves, was the first to reach them, and she managed to scare them so much, they tripped over their feet. But unlike them, she was well-behaved, so she sat once her job was done and waited for Jake to arrive. 

“What are you two doing? You can’t just steal other people’s things!” he admonished, holding onto his knees as he tried to catch his breath.

Both kids were already teary-eyed. “We just wanted to play a prank, we’re sorry!” one of them quickly said, voice shaky.

“It’s not to me you should apologize, but to her,” Jake said, turning around to point in your direction. That’s when he noticed you sitting on your knees, hands covering your face as your shoulders trembled. “You made her cry!” Jake exclaimed, tone much angrier than seconds prior. “Let’s go,” he said, grabbing the kids by their shoulders and forcing them to keep up with his quick steps.

You didn’t notice their presence in front of you until Jake prompted them. At the sound of the all too familiar voice, you whipped your head up. Jake swore he heard his heart breaking when he saw your red eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. You barely heard the kids’ apology, so amazed you were at suddenly seeing Jake.

“We’re sorry for stealing your flip-flops and making you cry,” the first one said.

“Sorry,” repeated the other one, handing you your shoes.

“Oh, right. Thanks, just don’t do it again,” you replied, sniffing as you took back your shoes.

“We won’t!” they replied in unison before running away once more.

Jake stood there awkwardly for a few seconds, unsure what to say. He watched you stare at your flip flops like you’d never seen them before in your life. “You’re not going to thank me for catching those delinquents?” he asked after a small while, chuckling slightly.

This made you look up at him. He gulped as your eyes met. Then, you burst into sobs again, and Jake started panicking. He crouched down to your level, first holding you by the shoulders then forcing your head out of your hands so he could wipe away your tears with the pads of his thumbs.

“No no no, why are you crying, Y/N?” he asked softly, pulling you into a hug.

You continued crying into his shoulder, ignoring Kiwi and Layla’s confused stares. “You- you- I haven’t seen you in ages!” you exclaimed.

Jake sighed. He didn’t understand why you were crying like this for him, all he knew was that he’d never felt so awful. “I’m sorry, Y/N,” he whispered into your hair, pulling your shaking body closer to him. “I’m sorry.”

You leaned back to glare at Jake, your bottom lip jutting out in discontent. “Do you even know how much I missed you?”

Jake held your head in his hands like it was the most precious thing in the world. Mouth agape in surprise, he looked at you with sad eyes. “You… you did?”

Your eyebrows creased. “Of course I did!” Another sob rippled through your body, and Jake took you back in his arms, wrapping them around your shoulders and resting his cheek against your hair. 

“I missed you too.”

“Then why did you do this?” you asked, voice breaking.

“Because I didn’t want to get hurt,” Jake whispered back. “But I didn’t think I’d hurt you. I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

You leaned back again, but this time, you looked confused rather than angry. His eyes were soft as they scanned your face and as he brushed strands of your hair back behind your ears. “Why would you get hurt?” you asked again, bringing your voice to the same volume as his.

Jake sighed and squeezed his eyes shut for a second, as if in pain, before opening them again and boring them into yours. “I like you so, so much Y/N. So much so that I don’t know what to do with myself. But I know that you don’t feel the same way, and I was scared that by staying by your side, I’d just fall in love with you even more and get hurt in the end. So I pushed you away because I didn’t know what else to do, but I’m so sorry I- You’re crying again?”

Your fists grabbed at the front of Jake’s t-shirt as sobs raked through your body once more. It was official - Jake was the stupidest person you’d ever met. And you were in love with him.

“Why are you crying?”

“Because I like you too, you idiot!” you yelled back. Your tears were probably staining his t-shirt, but you couldn’t care less. He liked you. Jake liked you.

You were too busy crying to see Jake’s eyes slowly widening in disbelief. “You what?!”

Gently, Jake pushed your shoulders back so he could look at you. Even with puffy eyes and a runny nose, you were the prettiest girl he’d ever seen. Pretty like an angel that had graced the Earth with her presence. “You what?” he repeated, just to hear you say it again.

“I like you, Jake. I’m so in love with you it's actually pathetic,” you said with a chuckle, looking down out of shyness. But when you looked back up, Jake’s eyes were going back and forth between yours, the expression on his face like he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard but desperately hoped it was true.

As you locked eyes, both of your faces lit up with grins. You burst into laughter together, finding each other’s hands and intertwining your fingers together. Then Jake brought you back into his arms, holding tightly, as if he was scared you might disappear any second. Kiwi and Layla had long walked away to give the two of you some needed privacy.

In each other’s arms, you rocked side to side gently and laughed for no reason other than the incredible fact your feelings were reciprocated. “You stink, you know,” you suddenly said in-between giggles. “You sweat while you ran after those kids.”

“I sweat? You mean I swote, right?” Jake asked a pause.

You leaned back to look at Jake. “Swote?” you echoed, and he nodded. Your umpteenth smile made your cheeks lift. “You have to be kidding-”

“I am,” Jake cut off, mirroring your smile. “I just wanted to make you laugh.”

You gasped and lightly punched his chest before letting your body fall against his again. “You’re so silly,” you said, sighing in bliss at the sound of his giggles.

Then all of a sudden, Jake pulled away and looked at you, almost frightened. “What about Sunghoon?” 

“What about him?” you asked back, confused by Jake’s question.

“I thought you- Didn’t you- you know…”

You tilted your head at Jake, a small grin spreading on your lips again. “I don’t know.”

“I thought you liked him…” Jake mumbled, looking away with a pout.

Before you could stop it, a noise of confusion left your throat. You looked at Jake like he was insane. “I can barely have a conversation with Sunghoon, what made you think I liked him?”

Jake pursed his lips and let a resigned puff of air out of his nose. “I, um- Remember when we mixed our backpacks up?” he asked and you nodded, smiling at the fun memory. “I may have, um, I may have read… your… diary,” he admitted, voice getting quieter with each word. He dared a glance at you - you looked horrified, eyes wide and mouth agape. “And you wrote that you liked Sunghoon,” he finished with a whisper.

It was silent for a few seconds, and Jake was bracing himself for a slap to the face or your screams, until you did the last thing Jake expected you to do - you laughed. You laughed so hard and for so long that he got scared you had gone insane and this was the first part of your mental breakdown before you murdered him in cold blood for having invaded your privacy. He would’ve deserved it, he thought.

“I don’t- oh my God, Jake, I don’t- I don’t like Sunghoon. I never really have, or not in the way you think, I can’t- oh my God,” you explained in between giggles, trying to catch your breath but starting to laugh again every time you managed to compose yourself. Jake tried to laugh along, but he was too confused to do so properly.

“You’re not mad?” Jake asked, eyebrows furrowed with worry.

“No,” you replied, shaking your head and the last giggles out of your throat. “You read it ages ago, and we didn’t even know each other back then, there’s no point in being mad now. It’s just funny - I know exactly why you think I liked Sunghoon, but I didn’t. Not really. And even if I did, those feelings are nothing compared to the ones I have for you now,” you said, beaming. A blush spread on Jake’s cheeks, and you could tell he was trying (and failing) to contain a proud grin.

You explained to Jake the ‘character’ thing you and your friends had going on and that Sunghoon (and hat guy) just happened to be one of them - you watched as Jake narrowed his eyes and slowly nodded, trying to understand this concept that was so foreign to him. 

“You know, it all makes a lot more sense now,” Jake said when you were explaining. “It would’ve been weird for you to like Sunghoon when I was right there.” He smirked down at you as you playfully rolled your eyes. 

“Oh my God!” you suddenly exclaimed, startling Jake in the process. Dramatic as always, he put a hand over his heart and exhaled loudly. “I have something for you. For us, actually.” You reached into your bag and got out the two accessories you’d made for you and Jake. “These are for us to put on our backpacks, so that we don’t confuse them again. They also match.”

Jake’s eyes were fixated on the string of beads as you placed into his palm. “I tried to give it to you over the week, but…” 

A teardrop fell into Jake’s palms, and when you looked at him, you realized he’d started crying. “Jake?” you cooed softly, and he sniffled, wiping away the tears from his eyes.

As a response, he wrapped his arms around your shoulders and buried his face in your hair. “Thank you. And I’m sorry. I promise you’ll never go a second without my undivided attention from now on,” he said, voice shaking with emotion, and you hummed happily.

“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

He leaned back, and you were relieved to find the familiar puppyish grin on his lips. You gazed into each other’s eyes for a few seconds, and before he could stop himself, he grabbed your head in his hands and pressed a delicate kiss to your forehead. You raised your eyebrows in surprise, but when his face was back in front of yours, your eyes immediately drifted to his lips. They looked soft and plump and pink, and were utterly inviting. Every time you’d started daydreaming about kissing Jake, you’d stopped yourself, not wanting to over-indulge in your fantasies. But was this finally, really happening?

“Y/N?” Jake said quietly. You could swear his face was getting closer.

“Hm?”

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

Your face broke out into a grin. Without warning, you pressed your lips against Jake’s - initially just for a peck, but as soon as you started pulling away, Jake chased after your lips and trapped them into a kiss, a proper one this time. You’d never done this before, so it was naturally somewhat clumsy, but you and Jake were so giddy with excitement that you couldn’t care less. So what if you were smiling so hard, your teeth clashed against his, or you kept bumping noses? You were kissing Jake Sim. 

The second time around, he let you pull away to catch your breath, and you wished you could photograph the sight in front of you - Jake with flushed cheeks, closed eyes and a serene smile on his face. He was so pretty, and now, he was all yours.

When he opens his eyes and finds you looking at him, his smile widens. “I’ll take that as a yes?”

“Yes,” you echoed, laughing. You pressed your lips to his cheek before burying your face in the crook of his neck.

He hugged you to him and the sweet sound of his giggles filled your ears and your heart. “My girl,” he whispered, before leaning his head back, face to the sky, and screaming it loud enough for the whole park to hear. You tried to shush him, but you couldn’t stop laughing yourself out of sheer excitement. Layla and Kiwi came running back to you, barking happily and trying to lick your faces. 

“I cried so much today, my eyes are gonna be puffy tomorrow morning,” you said between giggles. 

Jake pressed his lips to yours in a chaste kiss. “I’ll make sure you never cry again, Y/N,” he said, and he sounded so genuine, you almost wanted to cry again right then and there.

The rest of the afternoon went by in a blur - while you and Jake kissed, laughed, talked, and hugged, hours that felt like minutes passed you by. Jake kept on looking at the accessory you made him, poking fun at you for knowing his favorite color even though he’d never mentioned it.

“It was a lucky guess,” you grumbled. “Your room’s walls are that color,” you said, pointing to a particular dark blue bead.

“I love it,” he replied with a kiss to your forehead.

As always, he walks you home - and this time, you can take his hand without any hesitation. Your mom had come home from work while you and Jake were out, and you found her in the kitchen, prepping some veggies for dinner. 

As soon as Jake introduced himself, a flash of revelation struck her and she shot you a knowing smirk. “So you’re Jake,” she said, and the boy glanced at you with amused confusion. “That one over there has been badgering me about you these past few weeks.”

Apparently, you agreeing to be his girlfriend had already gone to his head, because instead of looking surprised at your mom’s words, he slowly turned to you with an arrogant smirk gracing his lips. “Has she?”

Your mom nodded slowly. “Oh, yes.” Then her expression slowly morphed into something else as she remembered your red, puffy eyes from the other evening when you’d told her about what was going on with Jake. She raised her kitchen knife and pointed it straight to him, eyes narrowed. “If you ever hurt my daughter again, I’m putting you in the lasagna, young man.”

Jake gulped, smirk completely wiped off of his face. You just watched in amusement. “I- I won’t,” he stuttered, eyes fixed on the blade of the knife.

A wide grin reappeared on your mom’s face as she went back to cutting the vegetables. “Good!” 

Jake looked at you for some sort of explanation, but you simply shrugged. He’d just have to get used to your mom’s crazy. 

“You know, you’re just as handsome as she described,” your mom told Jake with a wink.

“Mom, please!” you exclaimed, cheeks burning with heat. You liked it better when she was threatening your boyfriend with a knife, but he was relieved by the new turn this conversation had taken.

“What else has she said?”

“Oh, you know, just your typical he’s so smart, he’s so cute, he’s so funny-”

“Okay, that’s it!” you cut in before your mom could spill more on you. You ignored Jake’s noises of complaint as you grabbed him by the shoulders and led him towards the door. “I think it’s time for you to go home, no?” 

“Y/N, come on!” Jake whined, giggling. 

“Why don’t you stay for dinner, Jake?” your mom offered, making you stop in your tracks. You stared wide-eyed at her but she just looked at Jake, wearing an inviting smile.

“Sure!” Jake beamed. “I just need to call my mom.”

“Oh, invite her along! I always make enough to feed an army, anyway.”

“Really?” Jake asked, incredulous. Since his brother had left for university, it had always been just he and his mom at the dinner table. The thought of sharing a meal with you and your mom filled his heart with warmth. 

“Yeah!”

Jake smiled giddily as he got his phone out. “Thanks, she’ll be stoked.”

Although you both wanted to help your mom, she urged you to stay outside with the dogs and enjoy the last rays of sunshine of the day, insisting she didn’t need any help. So you and Jake spent some time throwing sticks for Kiwi and Layla and giggling at their cuteness. Kiwi quickly got exhausted and came to lie down at your feet, but Layla was tireless. “Your dog, your responsibility,” you said as you sat down next to Kiwi, rubbing his tummy and watching Jake throw the stick over and over again for Layla.

Jake was as relentless as Layla, and every time she ran after the stick, he ran to you and pressed a kiss to another part of your face, making you giggle every time. Once on your forehead, once on your nose, once on your cheek, then the other, and once on your lips.

Then his mom rang the bell, and as your mom opened the door for her, the oddest thing happened - they called out each other’s name and hugged as if they were old friends. You and Jake exchanged a confused look before turning your attention back to them.

“What a coincidence!”

“Right! Such a small world, I can’t believe you’re my daughter’s boyfriend’s mom.”

“Boyfriend? Gosh, has he finally asked her out? I was going crazy seeing him moping around in his room!”

“Mom!” Jake yelled, face already reddening as you burst into laughter.

You joined them inside the house and set the table while your mom finished up dinner. Jake’s mom had brought a bottle of red wine as a gift, so she poured two glasses for her and your mom, but you and Jake stuck to Sprite. 

Apparently, they knew each other from some yoga class they both went to every Sunday - you found out this was the woman your mom often went out for lunch or drinks with. They were so excited to meet each other like this that they talked most of the time, leaving you and Jake to eat your food quietly and giggling every time you made eye contact or your feet touched under the table. 

Just as you were about to take your last bite of lasagna, your phone pinged with a message. Curiously, so did Jake’s. Chaewon had sent a message into the group chat, asking to meet her at work when her shift was done because she was craving an Oreo milkshake.

chae bae y/n u better come ik ur not doing anything better tonight anyway

You scoffed. You were doing something better.

“Shit, today’s Friday! The boys are waiting for me at the diner, I completely forgot,” Jake exclaimed as he read the messages on his phone.

“Language, Jake,” his mom scolded.

“At the diner?” you repeated.

“Yeah, that one we went to last time. Why?” Jake asked when he noticed your surprised expression.

“That’s where Chaewon wants to meet.”

You both turned to your respective moms, silently asking for permission to leave the dinner table.

“Just go,” your mother said with a smile.

“I’ll take Layla home later,” Jake’s mom added.

You thanked them before rushing to get a bag and heading to the bus stop, hoping a bus would come by soon. Twenty minutes later, you were opening the doors of the diner and looking around for your friends, who were nowhere to be found. You were fishing your phone out of your pocket to call Chaewon when a familiar voice caught your and Jake’s attention.

“What are they doing together?” you heard Jay say, followed by loud shushes. You turned your head to find all five of your friends (plus Jaemin) crammed in a booth in the corner that was somewhat hidden from the rest of the restaurant. But they were trying so hard to be discreet that it made their presence even more obvious - they hid their faces with their hands as if that would make them disappear from your view. You and Jake shared a look before chuckling, shaking your head at your friends.

“Whatever, they’ve clearly found us,” Jay sighed and exited the booth, walking towards the two of you.

“Were you guys trying to get us to make up or something?” Jake asked with an amused smile.

“Yeah, we grouped up and planned this whole thing. It was a real team effort.”

“It might’ve worked better if you hadn’t all stayed here, you guys were so obvious,” you chided.

“Tell that to your friends over there! They insisted on watching it unfold,” Jay grumbled, and you looked behind him to see your friends frantically waving at you.

You switched to a bigger booth that could accommodate all seven of you, and as soon as you’d placed your orders, Yena practically pounced on you, demanding an explanation as to how the two of you were already made up.

You turned to look at Jake and smiled at him before answering. “It’s all thanks to Kiwi, really,” you told Yena.

“Kiwi? As in your dog Kiwi?” Chaewon asked with furrowed eyebrows.

“Mh-hm.” In your peripheral, you noticed Jake tilting his head at you.

“You mean Layla, right?”

You imitated his head movement. “No, I mean Kiwi.”

“But Layla made me go to the park today. I wouldn’t have gone there if it wasn’t for her,” Jake insisted, giving you an are you being serious look that you mirrored.

“I wasn’t going to go outside at all but Kiwi kept bugging me to take him on a walk, that’s why I was in the park in the first place. It’s thanks to Kiwi,” you repeated.

“It’s thanks to Layla,” Jake retorted, playfully narrowing his eyes at you.

“Trouble in paradise,” Jaemin whispered, and Hyewon slapped his arm.

The whole table was silent as you and Jake stared each other down, waiting to see who would cave first. It was like everyone could breathe again when Jake’s face broke out into a grin and he rested his arm behind your shoulders. “Okay, it’s thanks to Kiwi,” he conceded, making you hum in satisfaction. You rested your head on his shoulder and ignored Yena’s groan of disgust at the PDA.

But Jake, as always, wasn’t letting you off the hook so easily. “And Layla.”

—

02.06.202X - 12:18

rodrigo hater y/n i can see you being gross from across the courtyard can u guys not feed each other ur still on school grounds and ur ruining my day have some decency

sweet hyewon you guys are super cute <3  jaemin and i only have the same lunch period once a week i miss him

rodrigo hater ugh wheres chaewon she’d have my back

you hyewon love u yena frigg off you’re not going to like this… i think she’s with sunghoon rodrigo hater WHAT

sweet hyewon omg hahahaha saw it coming cuuuuute

rodrigo hater i hate you all so much you’re all kicked out of my celibacy club

chae bae we weren’t part of it in the first place

rodrigo hater GO AWAY YOU TRAITOR

03.06.202X - 09:15

you jake wake up  wake up wake up please

jake ??? R U okay?

you kiwi keeps whining i think he wants to see layla come over?

jake . did u just wake me up before 10 am on a sunday morning for this

you i made pancakes?

jake i’m going back to sleep

you but i miss you :(

jake running

07.06.202X - 16:39

stink #1 hey

jake no

stink #1 wtf man

jake im busy

stink #1 smooching ur girl?

jake yeah stay mad bro

stink #1 where’s hoon

stink #2 he’s at ice skating practice with me <3 this is chaewon btw

jake AYO????

stink #1 HE GAVE YOU ACCESS TO HIS PHONE???

stink #2 hehehe bye losers

stink #1 oh my god jake this is huge

jake right… our little boy he’s grown so much

stink #1 i’m getting teary eyed anyway i wanted to say i think we should invite the girls to bro night more often it’s always fun with them

jake oh? if u wanna see yena just say so bro

stink #1 fuck u man

jake ur literally so obvious you get 100% more obnoxious when she’s around

stink #1 idc she laughs at my jokes

jake which is proof that there’s something wrong w her anyway i’ll ask my girl about it

stink #1 ew and thx ^^

09.06.202X - 17:03

jakey-poo y/nnnnnn y/n hellloooooo y/n y/n y/n baby :(((( where are u what r u doing i miss you hello y/n my baby darling angel pls answer me layla misses you

you jake sim

jakey-poo HIIIIII

you jay is a genius i’m anime pomodoroing the hell out of this essay it’s working so well i’m almost done with it already

jakey-poo don’t compliment another man ever again i’m going to cry

you but jay’s your friend

jakey-poo i’ll kill him if i have to

you gosh okay jay’s an idiot

jakey-poo hahaha he is ice cream after dinner ???

you duh

31.07.202X - 21:03

jakey-poo i’m waiting for you outside the theater baby we have a lot of talking to do. i can’t believe you kissed someone else in front of me

you jake baby it was just acting <3 you know you’re the only one i really kiss

jakey-poo i know i am so come here and kiss me quick you did so well and you were so pretty on stage and i love you so much  COME QUICK I WANNA KISS YOU

you i’m hurrying i promise but a lot of people are trying to talk to me :(

jakey-poo ofc they are you killed it my baby’s already famous <3

you hehe love you my jakey-poo

jakey-poo STOP IT WITH THAT

permanent taglist: @zreamy @sunghoonmybeloved @lalalalawon @sd211 @w3bqrl @raikea10 @wntrnghts @moonlighthoon @4imhry @rikisly @loves0ft @iamliacamila @theboingsuckerasseater9000 @chaechae-23 (ask to be removed/added!)

© asahicore on Tumblr, 2023. please do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works. feedback and reblogs always appreciated!

[wolfiesmoon]

Hey I hope you are doing well when ever you are reading this but how do you think the 3rd year boys from twst would react to their s/o (gn reader) cuddling with a huge plush instead of them.

Like this.

Oh boy oh boy this kinda cures my writers block tbh, i have so many drafts but none of em look enticing enough to continue writing (´д｀|||)

I took out a few of the 3rd years bc its too many people for 1 fic but i might make a part 2 where i add the missing 3rd years at some point

i went with the more silly writing style again, hope that's fine by you ○( ＾皿＾)っ

𓏲 ๋࣭  ࣪ ˖ Malleus Draconia

He doesn't exactly get why, but he feels kinda annoyed just laying next to you while you hug a big ol plushie

This doesn't feel right🫤

But then again, you look rlly happy and satisfied so he stays quiet since if you're happy, he's happy (he desperately wants to be in the plushy's place)

When you playfully kiss the plush though, that rule no longer applies. After all, his rightful spot is in your arms🫠

He nudges you. "Put the stuffed animal away."

"You sound angry." You smirk and kiss the plush again, knowing he's probably annoyed about that

without another word, he pulls the plushy out of your hands and settles down in its place

"I am a much better than that object. Just so you know." he smiled smugly, expecting a kiss on the cheek just like you gave to the plushie earlier

you kissed him on the lips instead just to see his eyes widen and his face go red ofc 😏

𓏲 ๋࣭  ࣪ ˖ Leona Kingscholar

basically, it is NOT happening

"hell no." is the only thing he says before ripping the poor plushie out of your arms and chucking it across the room

like actually how DARE you try to replace him with a plushie

"Why would you do that?" You pouted at him, looking at the now discarded plushy from the bed🤕

"You know damn well why." He huffed, laying down on top of you without warning which tends to be a habit of his

"Because that's my spot, got it?" He answered for you. clearly you forgot😒

"Uhhh, right." you answered after a short pause...

"I won't remind you next time." he sounded rlly annoyed. it's kinda funny how worked up he got over a plushy replacing him 🤭

this also means he won't let you get up for like.... atleast 2 hours to atone for your sins

moral of the story: don't do this again unless you want a ripped up plushie and a pissed off lion man😠

𓏲 ๋࣭  ࣪ ˖ Idia Shroud

"This is so unfair. Even worse than an OP boss. " he sighed dramatically, laying down besides you and pouting at the sight og a huge plushie in your arms

"pick up the sock if you have enough energy to complain." you turned away from him, still annoyed with him

being the epic gamer he is (😎💯), he discarded one of his socks in the middle of his room and didn't feel like picking it up later even after you told him to

...which ended with you refusing to cuddle with him until he does pick up the sock

after a short while of very awkward silence...

he groaned in annoyance, begrudgingly getting up and finally picking up the sock, then leaving the room to put it in the wash

you smirked victoriously, placing the plushie away as promised and letting him hug you instead

"The things you make me do, smh." he sighed, relaxing into you 😒

"Picking up a singular sock?" you teased him, hugging him back

He didn't reply so that means it's your victory 😝

𓏲 ๋࣭  ࣪ ˖ Vil Schoenheit

this is an unforgivable offense, just because you had a little disagreement earlier doesn't mean you can just replace him with a plushie😠

love transcends disagreements, after all

does not help at all that the plushie's cute round face reminds him of a certain thorn in his side named Neige LeBlanche😒

he sighs, "I may have been too harsh back there."

your only reply is an annoyed huff and you hug the plushie tighter which makes one of those anime veins pop up on his face ����

he takes a deep breath "It was not my intention to hurt your... sensibilities." he's trying babe, he's really trying

You don't reply for a moment...

"Ugh." you throw the plushie away and hug him tightly "This doesn't mean I forgive you, just for the record."

"I still stand by my opinion too, just worded less harshly." he gently puts an arm around you, stroking your back

it was only a matter of time until you gave up with your stubborn pettiness, soon you'll forgive him too, he'll make sure of that 😌

𓏲 ๋࣭  ࣪ ˖ Lilia Vanrouge

He's actually surprisingly chill about it i feel like

He wouldn't get annoyed or be jealous per se, he'd just get a little sad it's not him you're hugging😔

he's there, you know? there's no need for a plushie...

"Am I not satisfactory enough?" He asks half playfully half seriously

"In what sense?" you totally knew what he meant but just wanted to tease him back

"Hey, isn't this supposed to be the other way around?" he smiled at you, immediately knowing what you were playing at

"Hahaha, you know me too well." you kiss his cheek, yet you still don't let go of the plushie which makes him pout

"I see you have found yourself a new lover." his eyes travel to the plushie for a moment, the betrayal is real😔🙏🏻

"You got a problem with him?" you raised a brow 🤨

"A little." he hugged you from the back, getting comfy

"Okay fine, maybe my ex is the better one after all." you let go of the plushie and turned around to hug him back 💗

[yrbladie]

♡ ﾟ˖ ॱ ▎HOW DO THEY MEET AND FALL IN LOVE WITH YOU .ㅤPT 1ㅤ𝅄 🌿 ꒱

˖ ࣪ diluc, wriothesley

warnings ：fluff, implied marriage, gn!reader, a tad bit of humor, pining, slight mention of blood (diluc), enemies to lovers kinda situation and teasing (wriothesley), maybe ooc idk, non fluent writer

ㅤThe way you both met was still quite a sore spot for you to talk about. Not because it was in a bad way, of course, it was just a little bit embarrassing, to you at least.

ㅤYou, a new person in Mondstadt, just having moved recently to the City of Freedom, felt like the customs should be learned. And what better costume the people of Mondstadt had than dancing?

ㅤAt least that was what the bard in the tavern told you, as he gathered everyone around together for some dance practice classes.

ㅤLike he said, "there was nothing better than learning together with your friends".

ㅤThe only thing he seemed to have forgotten is the crucial fact that you didn't have any friends yet.

ㅤAt the end of the selection, you were by yourself, completely embarrassed to not have managed to find a partner yet.

ㅤThe bard instead quickly said he had forgotten about you and decided to partner you up with someone himself, stopping you from leaving the place altogether to hide in your house for the next week.

ㅤAnd it just so happened that at the same time, Diluc Ragnvindr, as you knew him, passed by. His red locks of hair swaying in the wind.

ㅤAnd in a second, somehow the bard had managed to drag the man out of his duties to your side, a boyish smirk on his lips. Diluc seemed to be complaining that he had no intention of being part of the event whatsoever, but unfortunately for him, he had no choice in the matter.

ㅤHis murderous glances towards the bard dressed in green did not pass unnoticed by your eyes but you couldn't say anything before that ruby gaze turned to you.

ㅤDespite feeling completely speechless before the man you so heard of, all you could think was how you've never seen such beautiful eyes before.

ㅤIt took a while to notice that he was also staring quietly at you. Just you both, standing awkwardly by each other's side with shy shared glances here and there.

ㅤBut as the bard started the dance practice, every partner having their own fun. Friends, lovers and strangers gathered around under the same music and happiness, the tension between you both finally eased a tad bit, just enough.

ㅤ"Well, since we're already here. Care to share this dance with me, master Diluc?"

ㅤYou asked, a grin dancing in your lips, as you extended one of your hands to him.

ㅤAnd contrary to all of your expectations, having heard only rumors about him, the man they called ruthless and cold, grinned back at you. It was just for a few seconds, but it was more than enough to steal your breath away.

ㅤ"I suppose we could try, yes." And you thought you caught some sort of quiet confidence in his tone. Like he had practiced years for this.

ㅤWell, dancing was never your forte but it was probably not that hard to learn in a few seconds, right?

ㅤThat was what you thought before the missteps started to happen, of course.

ㅤ"Do not mind me." He said, but you felt desperate each time he winced as you stepped on his feet in the middle of a dance step.

ㅤAnd you found yourself admiring him for how well and flawlessly he sometimes managed to dodge your fumbled steps. His composure never wavering as he kept guiding you through a steady dance.

ㅤYou felt like Diluc could as well be your savior. The savior to your already nonexistent reputation that is.

ㅤEven if you stepped on his feet one too many times, instead of being annoyed as he would have been were it anyone else, Diluc found it endearing.

ㅤHe had to lean over you so that you wouldn't see his own small smile as you fretted over him, asking if his feet hurt. It did, but there's no need to mention that.

ㅤAt the end of the dance, Diluc had held your hands one second longer than he should have, and you also didn't feel like ending this so quickly.

ㅤSo you called out for him.

ㅤ"Let's meet again. I think I still don't get this dance."

ㅤAnd he smiled. You had no idea if this was a good or bad thing for your poor heart.

ㅤEveryone knows that fire burns fast and ruthlessly, taking away what it needs before disappearing with the break of dawn. But Diluc's love was the opposite.

ㅤIt was slow, hesitant. Carefully blooming like a fragile Small Lamp Grass in the soft glow of first-time affection. Diluc carried these emotions like a delicate dance of vulnerability and anticipation.

ㅤLike a steady flame, casting a warm glow over the tapestry of you both interwoven destinies.

ㅤThe touch of hands became a silent agreement, a subtle acknowledgment of emotions too profound to articulate. In the gentle ebb and flow of your interactions, a slow crescendo of emotions built, resonating with the innocence of a love untouched by the scars of the past.

ㅤYou both were so oblivious, despite the greetings that turned to hugs that lasted longer each time and the shared glances at each other's eyes for a moment too long. Small things that all seemed to notice but the both of you.

ㅤSo much so, that even Venti, the bard you've grown to know and whose presence was always within the vicinity, one day commented that you should invite him to your wedding next time, and immediately in the next second he was kicked out of the tavern.

ㅤDiluc felt himself slowly learning about the intricate nuances of what love was. Of what it could be.

ㅤYou taught him that love didn't always end on a rainy day, and that your blood would never stain his hands.

ㅤHe grew under your touch, with a newfound confidence of a love well nurtured slowly with the pass of time.

ㅤEven if you stepped on his feet a million times and by the end of this dance you both called love his feet felt beyond salvation, Diluc still knew that his love for you would never waver.

ㅤAnd he would keep teaching you just as much as you do for him, so that one day, when the dawn comes and you're both by the kitchen, quietly sharing smiles and your bodies are once again intertwined in an unfaltering dance, in a time where none of you have to worry about duties anymore, you won't step on him again.

ㅤAs the warm morning dew cast its light over the shared rings on your hands, Diluc didn't want to believe in gods, but he still had to thank Barbatos for bringing you to him on that day. With all your giggles and bright eyed smiles.

ㅤYou were his savior and his redemption, just as much as he was yours.

ㅤWriothesley, the so famously known Duke of the Fortress of Meropide and also your worst declared enemy.

ㅤYour friends would always tell you that it was an exaggeration, that it wasn't that bad. You both seemed to actually work very well together. But you begged to differ from their opinions.

ㅤYou are the secretary in the Palais Mermonia, working directly under orders of the Judge, Monsieur Neuvillette himself. A quite noble position if you were to say so yourself, in fact.

ㅤBut Wriothesley seemed to somehow doubt your high position as he kept asking you to simply do favors for him, taking advantage of the fact that he was 'close friends' with the Iudex.

ㅤYou dreaded each time Monsieur Neuvillette asked you to bring some documents over from the Fortress, meaning you would have to talk with the Duke too.

ㅤAnd you knew, each time you went there, that man had something in store for you. Just like the first time you both met.

ㅤ"You must be the secretary, right? Can you do me a favor then, and bring me a cup of tea?"

ㅤHe had said back then, and there was nothing more you wished than to wipe that wolfish grin from his lips with your own two hands.

ㅤHe seemed to get off on the exact fact that you would snap at him and get angry, like he reveled in your disappointed expressions and bitter stares.

ㅤAnd it seemed that each time you visited, no matter how much you refused — and perhaps that was the exact reason the man decided to try even more— the requests became more and more unusual.

ㅤ"Let me take you out on dinner."

ㅤYou didn't even know how he could be so shameless while asking this, but you still blatantly refused his approaches each time with fierceness.

ㅤAnd you told yourself each time, oh how you hated him.

ㅤInstead, all you didn't know was that Wriothesley thought of you the exact opposite of what you imagined.

ㅤSince the first time the Duke saw you, your tight and serious expression and the bags under your eyes, he had decided that he needed to see you smile at least once, no matter what.

ㅤThat's why he kept sending multiple letters to Neuvillette, practically begging the Iudex to send you once more, telling him of how much of a good work you did unlike all the other secretaries and how he still had forgotten to send him just one more document.

ㅤAll lies of course, but you can't blame a man for trying at least a bit.

ㅤHe had been enamored by you since the first time you walked in his office. The tenacity and unyielding confidence in your steps and speech.

ㅤWriothesley, and perhaps you, hadn't even realized how intertwined you two were, being part of each other's daily lives.

ㅤHadn't even realized how, slowly and steadily, something new was being shaped.

ㅤWith each sharp gaze of yours that made Wriothesley's heart skip a beat, and each argument that would slowly turn into a playful banter that had you almost lose your facade of sternness and harshness, you both were becoming soft for each other.

ㅤUntil one day, you went to visit him yourself, outside of the duties you held so passionately to yourself.

ㅤYou were also surprised at how easy the path was, and how earnest your steps had become after all these months of endless back and forth.

ㅤBut nothing could top the astonished and dumbfounded look that the Duke of Meropide himself had given you when you entered his office, not wearing your usual confident expression and work clothes.

ㅤ"Are… you free right now?"

ㅤYou had asked him, your fingers trembling behind your back, hating how shy your voice sounded for some reason.

ㅤAgainst your expectations, as always, Wriothesley found a way to surprise you. He recovered quickly from the awed state, promptly getting up from his chair at once and making his way to you, a reassuring smile on his face.

ㅤHe had never looked so happy ever since you met him.

ㅤ"For you? Always."

ㅤSo the both of you left the cold office with warmness in your hearts. Together, side by side.

ㅤHe even gave a try to holding your hand once before you slapped it away.

ㅤWell… small, baby steps, he supposed.

ㅤAnd Wriothesley decided that it was always worth it to have to spend the entire night finishing the documents due tomorrow if it meant having you for the entire day.

💙 Part 2 will feature Neuvillette and Thoma.

[citrusandrottefruit]

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Over the centuries, many poets, writers, painters, and sculptors were suspected of having Hanahaki. It seemed appropriate for an artist. A disease as poetic as it was tragic.

That's why, despite its rarity, Hanahaki was a famous disease.

Books, movies, plays, songs. It wasn't uncommon to find some portrayal of Hanahaki in the media. Everyone had some romantic and silly idea of ​​what it was like to have Hanahaki.

Usually, this knowledge was limited to emotional triggers and the fact that the sufferer lived with a chest full of roots. Sometimes, people believed that Hanahaki could be cured through love.

Steve hated that idea.

Because he knew nothing would cure him. He could get a lung transplant, a heart transplant, a liver transplant, a kidney transplant, or any other organ that failed. The most likely outcome was his lungs. He would probably need a lung transplant one day, considering how much scar tissue he had accumulated in his chest. Pulmonary fibrosis was a bitch.

But he wouldn't be cured, he would just have more time.

His mother had managed to improve her quality of life by following Mr. Harrington around the world. They even seemed quite happy sometimes. Steve figured that staying away from him, having few feelings for him, helped too, after all, he was one less thing for Mrs. Harrington to worry about, since she put most of her feelings into her husband.

And if not even his mother, who understood him better than anyone else in the world, was capable of truly loving him, who would be?

Hanahaki could not be cured through love, and Steve preferred it that way, or he would have to face the reality that he was not loved as much as he wanted.

But Hanahaki could be controlled as long as he was on medication, treating the complications, monitoring the disease, and having a support network. People who would take care of him, who would not hurt him so easily. Being loved so intensely helped, because his body would understand love. It would not cure the disease, but it would ensure a slower progression, giving his body more time to recover.

The positive side of the Upside Down was this. Steve gained the children, Robin and Eddie. With Eddie, came Wayne. And even Joyce and Hopper cared immensely for him, even if they were more busy being the parents their children deserved. Nancy and Jonathan were a more complicated subject, and yet they were trustworthy.

Steve found himself surrounded by more love, loyalty and protection than he could have ever dreamed of.

The negative side, besides all the trauma, was that having so many people close to his heart meant that each of them had immense power over Steve, and, except for Robin, none of them knew it.

So when Eddie and Wayne left, he smiled and accepted it graciously. He tried to help them move, but his health had become increasingly declining and they rejected any help. Instead, he simply wandered around their new house, watching as the people he had grown to love, who shared so much of his pain, fears, and traumas, helped make it a home.

When he got tired, Steve decided to sit in the garden and eventually fell asleep there.

That was another thing Steve had learned to hate: it seemed like the disease had decided to finish him off. Even though he had been sick for most of his life, everything was manageable, easy to hide except for the flare-ups. When the flare-ups were over, he would bounce back and be his old self again. A tired, aching, constantly medicated young man. Not anymore.

He would have terrible days, get a little better, and then have a worse day. It was like taking 3 steps back, 2 steps forward, and then 2 steps back again.

It had become impossible to go a whole day without taking at least one nap.

When he woke up, restless and with his heart racing, it was still light out, so it couldn't have been that long. Robin was there, staring at him intently through her hair, her eyes a little teary.

"You scared me, Dingus." Steve blinked, still feeling a bit of the brain fog that was becoming more and more common. "Your parents still pay for your health insurance, don't they?"

For the next three weeks, Steve and Robin were absent from activities and meetings with everyone else a lot. Steve because he had to go for tests, Robin because she wanted to be with him through it all.

"It's good that you have such a great girlfriend, Steve." The doctor, who had known Steve for years, commented almost too happily. "It'll be good for your health." The look of pity she usually wore when she met Steve seemed softer.

He had some blocked bile ducts, and they put in biliary stents. His platelets were low, and he received a transfusion. Since there were too many remnants of roots in his chest and throat, Steve had to stay in the hospital for two nights, dissolving and aspirating everything, to make sure he would be okay to go home.

He was also given a vitamin supplement, his medication was adjusted, and he discovered that he would need beta blockers to slow his heart rate and reduce the chances of having an upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage.

They also discussed the possibility of another surgery. Steve refused.

On the way home, Robin tried to convince him to accept it, to remove all the roots, every single one of them. “I don’t want to. With each surgery, there are more scars.”

“Who cares about a few scars? Steve! You… You never did, why now? Nobody gives a shit about that, and if some girl complains about it, she doesn’t deserve you!”

“On my lungs, Robin. I don’t think it’s worth another surgery right now, because it’ll just give me more scar tissue. They’re too deep, so it’s probably better to wait for them to get worse rather than dig through my chest to rip them out. Eventually, I’ll need a transplant, I guess, and I figure it’s better to put off unnecessary risks until there’s no other option. I don’t know. Does that make sense? I don’t want to have another surgery, just to delay the inevitable. Maybe it’s stupid, but…”

He paused, trying to find ways to say what he wanted to say.

“Sometimes I think if I keep doing all this, I’ll be so patched up that there won’t be anything left in the end. It’s stupid, isn’t it?” Steve laughed self-deprecatingly.

After that, they sat in silence until they reached Steve's apartment, and before they went in, Robin grabbed his hand and looked into his eyes with such intensity that he wanted to squirm.

"I'll be your donor, Steve. I have two perfectly healthy lungs."

"Robin…" She swung her arms so aggressively that she almost hit the door, and Steve's hand, which was still between hers, froze in midair. Robin's eyes widened even more, and she pulled his hand again desperately, as if letting go would make him disappear into thin air.

“If I’m not a match, I’ll steal it, Dingus. I swear I’ll steal all the organs you need with my own hands.”

Steve laughed and hugged him, because what else was there to do?

They spent the whole night snuggled up on the couch, watching movies until they fell asleep. Steve, who spent the whole day taking naps and had insomnia at night, woke up after a few hours, as usual, and almost went to Eddie’s room, before he remembered that Eddie wasn’t there anymore.

Steve coughed, just a little, with longing.

He looked at Robin, illuminated by the soft glow of the television, then looked out onto the balcony and, despite his better judgment, woke her up, who was alarmed until she realized he was smiling.

"I’m in love with Eddie."

[inabstentia]

I’m going to make some people mad with this one, but no, the content in Lucanis’ romance is not “lacking”. It’s here. You just don’t like it.

Him not responding to the flirt options is not because he was “forgotten” or put on the side. It’s because he decides not to answer Rook's attempt at flirting with him. Not for a lack of interest on his part, mind you, but because his life is literally falling apart around him and he does not want to drag Rook with him in his mess - and it’s something that he tells you in the game, loud and clear.

I hc that before he reached "peace" with Spite, he actually had no intention in being in a relationship with Rook - to protect them or whatever - so he did not want to lead them on (during the almost-kiss he was probably just tired and forgot he was supposed to lock in.)

Like do I wish we had special animated scenes between him and our protagonist ? Sure ! But that’s not where the writers wanted to go.

Rook and Lucanis have no serious discussion about their relationship before Tearstone Island (which actually makes everything sadder because Lucanis thought he lost the one he loved and was never able to tell them). It’s clear for the both of them that the love is here, but they never truly expressed it or what they were for each other.

When Rook comes back and chooses to say “I don’t know how to feel” and he answers “I do. I know exactly how to feel” he’s finally accepting his own feelings and the fact that he wants them in his life, so for the first time, he’s completely allowing himself to love and, most importantly, be loved back. The kiss that they share here is their first and it’s for me the real beginning of their relationship as a couple.

They warned that all the romances would be different. Lucanis is a slow burn where you have to be patient with him and accept that he has, at first, more important things to deal with in his life than you.

I understand that people are disappointed. I was too. But that’s just how he is as a character. He needs time to process his emotions and let himself be appreciated like he deserves.

If that’s not what you were looking for in a romance, it’s fine, you have six others wonderful characters that could fit your taste more :) maybe Lucanis is just not the one for you.

(But he is for me and I love him)

[bristola-blog]

I’m probably landing on a lot of block lists today, but I am properly fed up with the way some parts of the fandom are happy to completely ignore the intention of Tommy in Bucks life. Tim’s plan has always been a romcom for Buck to get him off the hamster wheel. The writers have clearly written a different love story for Buck this time, it’s more mature and clearly caring. They are showing us so much caring, it’s very intentional. And finally the actors are so proud about this storyline. They’re passionate about it, they are happy to be bringing it to us with so much thought and care.

Yet this whole episode was boiled down to how much Eddie cared for Buck and Tommy was dismissive. Please show me the scene where Eddie was caring for Buck? We are clearly not watching the same show anymore.

The hard part for me is that I love Buddie. I’ve shipped buddie for a long time and I’ll be so happy if it happens, but I also love the characters as individuals first and I’m happy for them being happy. And man Buck is happy. There is such a juxtaposition between Buck and eddies happiness this season. But I digress, I’m adult enough to accept it might not happen, and I’m happy with where the characters are headed this season for their own growth.

You can just, not like something, fine, but the constant disrespect for Tim Minear, the writers, and the actors, is exhausting and needs to stop. We’re not telling this story, they are, and we have fanfic for the rest. Respect the writers, respect the actors. They are loving what they’re doing for their characters, what feels true to them, and no one knows them better.

[williamvapespeare]

"every day i'm fucking smiling;" a rant (cogent, intellectual character study) about Charles

We all know that Charles Rowland is THE character of all time. Obviously. Undisputedly (except by Netflix) blabla. I, a mixed race bisexual idiot with daddy issues, am about to fucking get into it.

I think there are a lot of ways to get into that end of ep 4 scene – I think we can look from trauma, we can look from model minority syndrome, we can look from a place of people pleasing to the extreme, but I think the best way to get into Charles (for me, personally) is to look at him as a character formed of intersections. Of in-betweens. In literally EVERY way possible, he is between things. He’s mixed race, he’s (probably) bisexual, he’s between life and death, he’s between good and bad, he’s probably sitting somewhere between trauma and healing – like, he’s CONstantly engaging in coping mechanisms and that itself is an in between.

Ok this idea of “I must be liked” very obviously will come from living a life where the opposite of not being liked is always violence, and that definitely can’t be understated. But I think this whole scene and this line in particular really speak to this very specific feeling that comes with inhabiting an identity that is ALWAYS seen as “not enough” in some way. Like, if you sit in a place where you don’t speak one side of your family’s language well enough and simultaneously aren’t white enough (or whatever enough) for the other side, you’re just like fundamentally culture-less and fighting to just be ANYTHING.

(Another GREAT example of this I think is the game Life is Strange 2, which is about two Hispanic American brothers, one of them speaks Spanish and the other one is much younger and doesn’t and there’s a bit where the younger brother doesn’t want to leave the US and says “I don’t even speak Spanish” and the other one is like “don’t worry, everyone likes you.” Like YES being “““Likeable””” is maybe the only way in when you are so fundamentally detached from a thing that you are also fundamentally part of, anyway!!)

Similarly, like all of us bisexual people know we’re constantly getting shit from both sides, from straight people and gay people and probably like, corpses decomposing in the ground who are throwing around terms like “gold star lesbian” or whatever the fuck. People just look at whatever relationship you’re in and they’re like ah yep that’s you!!

Like the whole thing is the most reductive narrow-minded stupidity, but it’s also just THE WAY. It’s the way of stuff. And being like ok, I AM NOT ENOUGH OF ANYTHING THAT I AM. How are you going to deal with that, you’re going to try and be likeable?? Because that’s something you can control!!!

And I’m low key so mad that we can’t see a continuation of this story where we get to see a character slowly come to terms with these in-betweennesses and say like, I’m not actually two halves, I’m two wholes. This is intentional in-betweenness. Like yes, blabla let the boy be bi, but it’s SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT. And I trust this show and I trust these writers to get that right and we were robbed of that.

So yeah idk tldr “every day I’m fucking smiling” was like the gut punch of the century. Whoever wrote that I’m omw to haunt your local Denny’s with my extroverted mixed race bisexual energy THANK U

[zombie-eats-world]

Crocodad Theory: The not-so-Crack-pot Theory.

Making this post in order to replace my old Crocodad thesis since I think I can do better now. Plus I was still using the old theory name then and I dislike seeing it pinned on my tumblr now. You can find that older post HERE if you desire to!

Crocodad theory, chances are you have heard about this theory if you are even slightly invested in the One Piece fandom. But despite its infamy, and outside its stanch believers like myself, it's mostly considered a crack theory and used for a laugh.

Now let's be clear, Crocodad theory is not a crack theory. A crack or crack-pot theory is more of a headcanon built on vibes, it's a fun idea made up out of thin air and isn't really serious. If the Crocodad theory was a crack theory it would have evaporated into the nether by now. It's over a decade old, after all, and yet it persists to this day! That is because the Crocodad theory has real evidence from the canon, the One Piece offshoots, and maybe even Oda himself.

If you weren't aware of the Crocodad theory, sometimes lovingly called Dadodile, let me summarize it very succinctly. The theory is that Crocodile is a transgender man and gave birth to Luffy. Crocodile is Luffy's other father and his birthing parent. If you think that sounds ridiculous or even hilarious, let me walk you through it because I assure you- that is intentional.

Let us begin where the theory began... Impel Down.

The possibility for this theory was born in 2009 with these panels:

The simple fact that Ivankov exists and that he knows Crocodile, from "when he was just starting out" mind you, makes this not only possible but probable.

What other "secret" could Ivakov be speaking of here? It's definitely not his weakness to water, that would just be bad storytelling. It could be that Crocodile is the child of Rocks which is possible considering we now know Ivankov was at the Gods Valley incident. But if I could speak as a writer for a moment, it would really be a waste for an author to introduce a character that can change genders and then bring back one of the first big villains like Crocodile, AND THEN connect the two with the mention of weakness but not make that secret that Crocodile had once been a woman. Or even at least a part of the reason.

But if that reasoning falls through for you, here is some in-canon evidence for the idea that Crocodile is transgender:

First of all, the agents' code names are so gendered: Every single digit agent is Mr with a Mrs, or Ms partner.

Crocodile’s name. His moniker is different from almost every other powerful pirate the story introduces to us. He isn’t just Desert King Crocodile, he is Desert King Sir Crocodile. Again it is oddly pronoun-centered. As if he is trying to remind people that he’s a guy.

The introduction of Bon Clay. Bon Clay is our first canon queer character in One Piece. He makes mention of being a girl many times and feels like a joke character when we first meet him. But as we know in One Piece, a pirate crew is a reflection of the Captain. Crocodile isn’t prejudiced to queer people like Bon Clay alludes to others being a few times. Crocodile even allowed Bon Clay to be both the male and female of his team!

Next up was the reveal of Baby Crocodile and how it’s deliberating ambiguous what gender Crocodile is. In every other Warlord's childhood look reveal, their gender is obvious, so why was Crocodile left out of that?

Then of course we have Gold Roger's execution, and how almost everyone got a reaction panel. But not Crocodile. No, we only see the back of his head. Oda has shown that he loves to get every single character's reaction to major events, sometimes to a fault. So why is he trying so hard to hide Crocodile from us? It just isn’t Oda’s style to leave someone out unless there is some kind of secret he wants to build up too. Now be sure to keep this in mind for later.

Last but certainly not least is just how much of an absolute troll Oda is. This will not be the last time I bring this up, Oda is a HUGE troll. He loves to play to his favorite fan theories and he decides most everything on how funny it is. And wouldn't it be funny if the first antagonist in the Grandline was secretly the birth parent of Luffy?

I mean just look at this! Oda, you absolute troll.

Bottom line: Trans Crocodile is more likely than not.

But this is where a lot of people decide the rest of this theory is crack, they take Trans!Crocodile and leave Crocodad out for reasons I honestly can't understand. Despite that, Cracodad has just as much if not more evidence than the Transgender part of this theory.

Before I begin I would like everyone reading to keep a few things in mind. All throughout the Impel down arc and the journey to Marineford, and even the first few chapters into Marineford, Crocodile could not have given a shit about Luffy, Ace, or the war at all. He did not care who won the war or if everyone involved died. He came to the battlefield for the sole purpose of killing Whitebeard. PERIOD. He was never once shown reacting with any concern when Luffy began facing down anyone strong. Not even Magellan. Crocodile had been around Luffy, seeing him do inspiring things for a massive amount of chapters by the time we get to Marineford, and yet Crocodile literally didn't care if Luffy lived or died, he just wanted to fight Whitebeard.

With that clear let's move on to what happened after Luffy's father was revealed to the world in Marineford. This moment is where the most obvious evidence first came about:

When Sengoku announces Luffy's father to the world we get many reaction shots, but once again Crocodile is conveniently missing from the lineup. He even disappears for a whole chapter! The young man who took down his decade-long plan to take over Alabasta just got announced to be the most wanted man in the world son, and we get no reaction from Crocodile... its suspicious.

Crocodile stopped Ace’s execution: Now Crocodile explains this by saying he ‘didn’t want to let Sengoku have the pleasure of victory’ but seriously? What kind of petty ass BS reasoning is that?! Crocodile has dreams and ambitions, and yet he gives up trying to be the one to take down Whitebeard to randomly save someone he canonly mocks in Impel Down? Someone he doesn’t care about. Some people will tell you it’s because Luffy inspired him like Luffy does many others, but what exactly is Luffy doing in Marineford that he didn’t in Impel Down or even Alabasta? Nothing. That means Crocodile has an entire about-face for no believable reason while completely off-screen. Which we've already said isn't Oda's style.

Daz and Crocodile face Mihawk to help Luffy: When Daz blocks Mihawk’s strike, Luffy questions it. Daz answers: It’s an order from above! That means Crocodile ordered Daz to specifically protect Luffy. Again, why? What reason did he have to do that? If this was some latent Crocodile has been inspired™️ moment, why wouldn’t Oda show it? Oda loves to hype up those moments, and loves to detail it all to the smallest piece. But Crocodile just randomly decided to have his main man Daz look out for this person that he COULDN’T HAVE GIVEN A CRAP ABOUT JUST TEN EPISODES BEFORE does not fit within the story. Then, right after Daz blocks Mihawk, Crocodile appears out of the woodwork to block another attack.

When Mihawk questions why he’d protect Luffy, Crocodile’s only response is “I’m not in the best mood now, Mihawk, you better watch yourself.” It’s interesting that he has no reason, none, he just comments that he’s in a shit mood. Maybe because he just found out he once stabbed his own child in the gut and left him to die?!

Crocodile vs Akainu: The brother killing Lava Man™️ is probably the most dangerous person in the war. He has no mercy, no morals, no restraint. So the fact that as Luffy is lying comatose and weak, with Jimbe slumped over him, Akainu about to deliver the final blow, Crocodile coming out of nowhere once again is so telling.

The fact is: Crocodile went above and beyond to save Luffy. That final stand against Akainu is so powerful. Crocodile doesn’t just save Luffy, he rushes to Luffy's aid, slicing through Akainu and reassembles to stand protectively between them. He did not need to do this at all. Oda didn’t need to have him do this either!

There were plenty of other characters that could have essentially done the same exact thing, but Oda chose to have Crocodile, someone who shouldn’t have been on Luffy’s side at all, save his life in the final moment.

Lastly, without a word, Crocodile uses Sables to get Luffy to Law’s ship. He risked his life, faced down the one person who could kill him without a second thought, and sweeps Luffy away to safety without any stated reason at all. In fact, everything he says is deliberately vague. Crocodile doesn’t believe in loyalty, he dumps people if they are weak (see; Alabasta Crocodile vs Luffy desert fight) so his line of “you gotta protect the one you wanna protect! Don’t let them have their way!” Feels so out of character. Crocodile has to have a reason for this odd behavior. And no, it doesn’t end there! In the defense of Luffy, Crocodile has an awesome and powerful moment where he stands in unity with all the Whitebeard commanders. HIS ENEMIES. Crocodile stands in unity with the people, he himself stated he hated more than anything, for Luffy!

These are the moments that alerted people to what would soon be called the Crocomom theory, now called Crocodad. But just because it began there doesn't mean there wasn't foreshadowing from before Marineford.

Let's go over all of that now:

First to talk about is once again Crocodile's crew. Miss Father's Day debuted in episode 124 of the anime and chapter 205 of the manga. She has a green amphibian theme to her, which is interesting because she is a woman with the moniker Father's Day while also having a theme of an animal that is famous for being able to change its gender. Her debut episode even has her introduced along with the reveal that Luffy's using his blood to fight Crocodile.

The next point is something Oda has never explained. Crocodile has strange relationships with children. From hiring a sixteen-year-old Miss Goldenweek, leaving her out of the Mr. 3 assassination order, and her history of actually sinking Crocodile's ships before getting hired, all the way to how Crocodile lectured Luffy in their fight. It just had the cadence of a parent. Not even Luffy's parent, just a parent. He lectures like someone who has experience with children.

Next, Luffy does not look like Dragon. That is a direct quote from Luffy in the manga. But you know who he does look like?

That's right! Luffy looks a lot like Crocodile. If you need more convincing on this, there is a great post by Dashevacotton that puts together many of the best canon pictures of Luffy dressed up like Crocodile. That post is here!

Crocodile and Luffy are incredibly similar. Not just in looks, but in personality, and in their general life.

These two have so much in common. From having a way with animals, to the amount of unadulterated loyalty they've inspired in their crews, all the way to the cadence of their speech.

Crocodile and Luffy even have a similarly goofy reaction to seeing the underground passage to the Alabasta Poneglyph.

Episode 123, episode time 13:16 Crocodile spots the entrance and laughs, "Ha, now I see secret stairs." Also in episode 123, episode time 20:47 Luffy looks around and spots the secret stairs. "That hole... it looks gator-ish."

Even what we know of Crocodile's backstory is that he had a rapid rise to fame just like Luffy by being a rookie who came in and beat down non-canon characters like Douglas Bullet to the shock of the world.

Next, let's bring up an earlier point: Oda-sensei is a mega troll.

This isn't exactly new information, Oda once deflected to bringing up a dick fight instead of answering if Zoro or Sanji was stronger. He is a Troll. He loves wordplay, and he likes to hint hint nudge nudge us all day long. Just look at Oda having Sanji call himself a prince in Alabasta as a joke, only to realize years later that he actually was a prince.

It's because of Oda's tendency to play around and make knowing jokes we've gotten some pretty compelling evidence for the Crocodad theory.

First would be the wordplay!

-Crocodile is closely linked to a Bananawani-> Monkeys like Banana -> Monkey D. Dragon is a reptilian Monkey attracted to Banana reptile. Fight me - A 'crocodile smile' is a term most often used to mean a fake or ingenuine smile. Crocodile's scar has been liked to look like a 'crocodile smile', which would mean Crocodile is the only character that always has a smile on his face. What a fun bit of wordplay to foreshadow the birth parent of Joyboy!

Then there is this SBS alongside the One Piece School spin-off manga by Sohei Koj.

What a great way to get out of revealing Luffy's parentage without actually revealing it!

And of course, we have the One Piece Mafia Theatre episode of the anime.

Oda would certainly make this canon just because of his troll tendencies. This is a hilarious theory because the story supports it yet only a fringe group believes in it. It's hilarious and therefore it's probably true.

Lastly, the symbolism makes this theory truly great.

I've already mentioned how Crocodile's scar being a 'crocodile smile' and thus giving him a permanent smile on his face would make him the most meaningful candidate for Luffy's birth parent. Joyboy, our Sun God Nika, was born from a man with a permanent fake smile; who is also named after an animal with the world's biggest smile.

It's just such a perfect setup, it makes my writer's heart swell.

Since Oda has stated a mother in One Piece would stop the adventure, it would fit that the first major villain in the Grandline to try and stop Luffy's adventure ended up being the man who gave birth to Luffy.

If we are going to speak of symbolism, I'd be remiss not to mention what a crocodile spiritually symbolizes. I really don't think I need to explain why adaptability, creation, ambiguity, and duality mean so much to this theory.

This theory could die or be confirmed any day now that we've entered a God's Valley flashback. I will love it either way but truly, honestly, I believe this. I hope I convinced a few of you to. If you are interested in the succinct list of Crocodad evidence that post is Here!

So in conclusion...

Crocodad is canon!

[turtle--soup]

Okay.

I have not seen ROTTMNT yet, but I've picked up some stuff from just floating around the fandom. Something I've learned, which is discussed in this post here, is that Rise Leo is generally considered - and considers himself the 'Face Man' of the team. (GIFs below are swiped from the linked post by @risestarkiss - I couldn't find them in tumblr's gif search function...)

Anyway. This is interesting to me because I am, for my sins, also a fan of The A-Team.

(I promise this is going somewhere! If you want to find out where I'm going with this, I'll put the rest of the post under a cut because it got a little long...)

For those of you unfamiliar with The A-Team, it's a (very silly) 80s TV series about a group of Vietnam War veterans who are on the run from the government after being convicted of a crime they didn't commit. The four of them spend their lives in hiding, making a living by using their combat skills to help people in need.

Here they are:

Left: Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith, leader of the team, brains of the outfit and most likely to have become an evil mastermind in an alternate timeline.

Right: Sergeant B.A. Baracus. Nicknamed 'Bad Attitude' due to his lack of patience for bullshit, B.A. is the resident tough guy but also an absolute teddy bear of a man, and is always ready to help people, especially children and the elderly.

Left: Captain H.M. 'Howling Mad' Murdock is the team's pilot and can fly just about anything. As his nickname suggests, he's considered a bit eccentric and is a silly kind of guy. (He's also a permanent resident of a psychiatric hospital but let's not get into that right now.)

Right: Lieutenant Templeton Peck. His role in the team is to provide them with whatever they need, whether that be vehicles, weapons, tools or access to places. He usually achieves this using his charm and wit, gaining him the nickname 'Face Man.'

Okay, so bearing these descriptions in mind, look at Leo's dialogue in this GIF:

I'm assuming that Donnie is the brainy guy, Raph is the smashy guy, and Mikey is the 'eats peanut butter with his fingers guy'. And Leo is the Face Man. That's his role.

But these descriptions fit the members of The A-Team too. Hannibal is the brainy guy, B.A. is the smashy guy, Murdock is the guy who absolutely eats peanut butter with his fingers (while maintaining unbroken eye contact throughout). And then there's Face.

How is this in any way relevant?

Well.

It just so happens that someone else is a fan of The A-Team...

Of course the Mirage turtles watched The A-Team! It was a popular show in the mid-80s, and you have to admit - they do have a lot in common, being four guys fighting injustice from the shadows and all... The A-Team even have a friend on the outside who helps them out - Amy Allen.

She's a reporter. Like someone else we know...

But which of the Mirage turtles in the image above is suggesting they should watch The A-Team?

According to this bio card from 1990 that coincides with the 1987 series...

... it might be Leo!

Was this intentional on the part of the Rise writers? I don't know!

Is it relevant? Probably not!

Does this tentative link between these two silly 80s series make me ridiculously happy? Yes!

Was this entire post just leading up to this? Yeah... sorry...

I like to think that the link is intentional. I've heard that Rise makes reference to other iterations of TMNT, as they all do. I would just personally love it if someone on the team wanted to draw parallels between these two series on purpose!

Anyway.

I just noticed that and really needed to get it off my chest! Thank you to everyone who stuck with this longer-than-intended post right to the end! 💙💜❤🧡

[megamindsecretlair]

Mr. Black, Part 2

Pairing: Tre x Assistant!Black!Fem!/ Plus Size reader

Warnings: 18+, Minors DNI, You are in charge of your own reading experience. Intentional use of AAVE. FILTH. PWP, cursing, PIV, oral (fem and male receiving), dirty talk, praise kink, sex toys, dumbass reader, degradation kink, orgasm control, possession kink, power imbalance, Tre is a boss, all consensual.

Summary: The next morning, Tre gives you a special present. It is impossible to focus on work after this.

Word Count: 4,051k

A/N: I have no excuses for myself except that this was so fuckin' hot and I need to go lay down, WHEW. Thank you so much for the support! Please, please consider commenting and reblogging to help support writers! And please put ages in bios! Or get blockt!

Masterlist | Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 - Completed

Tagging the usual lovelies, please tell me if you want to be removed: @planetblaque @browngirldominion @notapradagurl7 @honeyoriginalz @blackerthings @sevikasblackgf @henneseyhoe @miyahmaraj @pinkpantheris @my1onlysenpai @darqchilddaydreamz @badassdoll @playgurlxoxo @eggnox @abeautifulmindexposed @theyscreamsannii @melaninpov

You spent the next morning, on your knees in Tre’s office, sucking the length of him down as far as you could. Somehow, you were able to redo the report and take out all of the typos. Circling them in red genuinely helped.

This morning, he called you into his office with barely a greeting. He simply sat down at his desk, rolled away from it, and you watched as he unzipped his pants and freed his dick. The smooth glide of the zipper already had you transfixed but it was the way he revealed his thickening dick that had you licking your lips. Dropping to your knees. 

You had placed your hands on his thighs and wrapped your lipstick stained lips around his dick and drooled instantly. He was so big. It was nearly impossible to fit him in your mouth. He stared as you as you gave him head, his thoughts indecipherable beyond that he liked what you were doing.

He coached you on how to take him. How fast to bob your head. You seeked the tip of his dick with your tongue and fresh cum leaked into your mouth. You swallowed it greedily. You licked the underside, catching on ropes of veins. 

Tre jerked and laughed a bit as you teased him. “I’m gon’ get you back for that one,” he groaned. 

He didn’t want to mess up your hairdo so he focused on caressing your neck instead. He brushed his fingers around your pretty neck, alternating squeezing it and letting it go. When you took him deeper, he closed his hand around your throat just so he could feel himself inside you. 

The pressure from that made you moan. “Mhm, let me hear that pretty voice moan for me,” he said. 

You kept up your moans. His hips jerked up while you did so, fucking your mouth now instead of you sucking him. He closed his eyes and you watched the light from the window play off of his glasses.

“Hmf, I’m ‘bout to bust,” he groaned.

A second later, his hot cum was filling your mouth. The hot pulses splashed down your throat and you sucked all of it down. He panted and slipped out of your mouth. You worked your jaw to get some of the kink out.

He smiled as he watched you lick the corners of your mouth for any remnant of him. “I got a present for you,” he said.

“For me?” Joy suffused you as you thought of him getting you a present. Though, knowing him, it was probably something generic as hell. Still, you’d treasure it. 

He zipped himself into his pants and stood up. On the side of his desk, he lifted up his briefcase and then rummaged through it. You straightened up and dusted invisible lint from your knees. 

You heard a package crumpling and then he held it out to you, unwrapped. You gasped as you saw it and looked at him.

“A vibrator?” You asked. It was the last thing you expected.

He moved beside you and leaned his hip on his desk. “A remote controlled vibrator. Slip them panties off for me,” he said.

“Now? Sir…” You smiled and looked around the enclosed office. People were starting to arrive. You heard faint murmuring on the other side of the wall. There was no way you could wear that thing and get work done. 

“You’re going to wear it. You’re not going to cum. At lunch time, I want you back in here, panties off, and legs spread for my lunch. Understand?” 

If you weren’t already soaked before, he might as well call you Niagara Falls. Your clit painfully throbbed as that mental image crossed your mind. 

“Sir…” Your voice wobbled as you tried to calm your breathing. 

“You seem to think I’m asking.” He tilted his head with a smug smirk on his face. Shit. Shit, shit. 

Your shaking hands reached under your skirt for your panties. Another lacy pair since he seemed to enjoy the other one so much. He opened the package while keeping an eye on you slipping your panties down.

“Get in position.” His deep, dark voice may as well have been a physical caress. 

You faced his desk, identical to the same position he had you in last night. Your heart thundered in your chest. You placed your hands on the desk and leaned over slightly. 

He roughly pulled up your skirt. A faint buzzing began and he trailed it through your slick entrance. “Oooue fuck,” you wobbled. Your knees turned watery but you held upright. 

The solid wall of him pushed into your back. He licked the shell of your ear and hummed with a chuckle. “I want you to remember that you are not allowed to cum. I’m gon’ be very disappointed if you do.”

“Y-Yes, Sir,” you said. Your bottom lip quaked as he teased you with the vibrator. It was on a low setting so it wasn’t enough to get you too excited. He swirled it around your clit and you dropped your head.

He continued to hum with that deep voice of his. It was like he was purring straight to your pussy. Mercifully, he finally pushed it inside your dripping entrance and you bit your lip to keep from crying out.

He kissed your neck, right below your ear. “And do remember that I control this shit,” he said. 

Too lost for words, your head flopped as you nodded that you understood. All day, he was going to torture you with this thing. Not only were you going to have to concentrate on work, you were going to have to concentrate on not cumming.

Your legs trembled as he leaned down and pulled your panties up your legs. He kissed your legs on his way up and then fixed them properly. He lowered your skirt and turned you to face him.

You knew your eyes were already lidded. The constant buzz was playing all kinds of dirty tricks on your pussy. 

He kissed your cheek with a wicked gleam in his eyes. He waved the remote in your face. “I’ll see you at lunch, right?” He asked.

You nodded weakly. “Yes, Sir,” you said.

“Good, now print the Turner contract for me, I have a meeting in an hour,” he said. 

“Yes, Sir.” Asshole. You took a deep breath and walked from behind his desk. As you neared the door, the vibrator ramped up in intensity. “Oue,” you said and tumbled toward the door. You caught yourself, barely, as the bastard chuckled.

“Just checking,” he said and laughed. Laughed! 

You mumbled under your breath while he turned the thing back to its lowest setting. You closed the door behind you and leaned against it briefly. Today was going to be a rough ass day.

For the rest of the morning, you did as you were told. You printed the contract and gave it to him. He seemed to sense you were approaching because the vibrator suddenly turned up and you had to fight tingles making your body shiver. You handed him the contract with a scowl on your face.

He barely glanced at you since he was on the phone and typing away at his computer. Blessed with a little free time, you turned back to the mistake you made. You worked at the problem, trying to figure out where you went wrong. All evidence to the contrary, you weren’t stupid. Something wasn’t adding up somewhere and it was driving you nuts. You knew you had to say something before it got bad, but you wanted to prove that you were capable. 

By the middle of the morning, your eye ached from staring at these tiny ass numbers. The vibrator was more or less background noise at this point. He had been too busy to remember to turn it up. He had been in meetings all day down the hall, so he at least wasn’t in the immediate vicinity. You didn’t know the range on those damn things, but you figured that he couldn’t just whip it out and torture you. Taking the blessing as a sign, you made it to the break room across from one of the meeting rooms. 

The bottom of the conference room windows were frosted blue so no one could really see inside. However, the top was clear and you could see Tre leaning against the table as he spoke. All that man does is fucking lean. 

He knew his affect on the women in the office. Every time he strolled by, the women - and some men - stopped and just gawked. 

“You okay?” You turned your head to look at Henry. Sweet Henry. He was a lanky Black man, dressed in khaki slacks and a blue shirt. His tie was festive today.

“That’s a pretty rude question, Henry,” you said and lifted your eyebrow.

He ducked his head and laughed. “I’m sorry. You just seemed a little distracted,” he said. He joined you in the breakroom while you poured yourself some water. Anything else and it would frazzle your nerves.

A sharp pain went through your abdomen. Ugh! If only you could cum. The pressure was unbearable. Your hands were clammy and your skin felt like it was on fire. 

You smiled at Henry. “I’m just messing with you. I have a work problem that I can’t seem to figure out.” You drowned the entire cup of water. Then, you refilled it at the water station and drank that entire cup too. 

Henry nodded and you looked him over. Why couldn’t you be attracted to sweet little Henry? You bet he gave the best hugs, would not shy away from a foot rub, and would cook you breakfast in the morning.

You tried to imagine Tre being so domestic. You couldn’t. You doubted you’d ever be able to imagine him in anything else but his suits, sitting and making deals from sunup to sundown. Realistically, you knew he had to sleep some time. But did he wear boxers to sleep? Sleep in the nude? Pajama set? 

“When I have a problem, I usually start over from the beginning. Sometimes it’s the methodology instead of anything someone did,” Henry said, snapping you out of your racy thoughts.

“Do you have a minute to explain that?” You asked. You had an inkling that you knew what he meant, but you wanted to be sure. Henry’s eyes widened but he smiled.

“Sure, yeah! Um,” he said and licked his lips. He really was rather adorable. 

You got comfortable sitting across from him at the small table in the breakroom. There were only 3 chairs so people hardly sat in it. Henry cleared his throat and launched into what he meant.

The vibrator kicked into overdrive. “Fu-” You closed your eyes briefly, before seeking out the bane of your existence. 

Tre stood across the way, holding the conference room open. The remote was held in his hand and he looked at you like he was seeing red. You stared at him as your orgasm crested and the urge shook you violently.

“Are you okay?” Henry asked, calling your name. You took deep breaths and looked towards him with a pleasant smile.

“Yes, please continue,” you said, your voice strangled. How could you fight this shit off? Oh fuck, this was the hardest thing you ever had to do. You weren’t used to denying yourself and you hated Tre for putting you in this position. 

You pointedly ignored Tre while he tortured you with the vibrator. At one point, you had to press your hand to your stomach as if to physically hold the orgasm at bay. The intensity finally lessened as Henry spoke. You got the gist of what he was saying. 

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I am feeling a little ill,” you said. 

“Oh, okay,” Henry said. He smiled and waved. “I hope you feel better.”

You only hummed as you left the breakroom, heading straight for the women’s restroom. Inside, you checked under the two stalls for any sign of life. When there wasn’t any, you stomped your foot and shook your hands.

Your nerves were on fire. Burning hot lava sludged through your veins. The sudden intensity after all that edging was too much for you to bear. You turned on the water and ran the coolness over your hands. You brought those hands to your forehead to try and cool yourself off.

In your mind’s eye, you saw how Tre looked at you. As if he wanted to bend you over his knee right then and there. The image made your pussy flutter as you recalled how he had spanked you just last night. 

You didn’t sit down at all after driving home in extreme discomfort. You couldn’t sit in a bath. Even that was too much. So you took a shower and spent the majority of the night laying across your bed on your tummy and redid the report. 

You recalled how he had taken sweet possession of your body, playing with it like a fine tuned instrument. The naughty things he had said. 

Oh shit. Your orgasm ripped through you. You bit your lip as sweet fuckin’ relief washed over you in pleasurable waves. You looked at yourself in the mirror as you did so. The way your eyes were at half mast, the slack jaw, the bit lip. You gasped and panted as it kept going, flooding your panties with arousal. 

You leaned across the sink, calming down. The vibrator was still going. Shit. Your look in the mirror turned panicked. Okay, now he was really going to kill you. You raced to an empty stall and cleaned yourself up. Somehow, you knew it wouldn’t be enough. He’d be able to tell.

You sniffled but refused to cry. You were a goddamn adult. A kid trapped in an adult’s body, but still an adult. 

You took deep breaths. You weren’t going to admit to shit anyway. Armed with new confidence, you washed your hands and left the restroom as if you didn’t have a care in the world.

Your eyes immediately found Tre from across the open floor space. He glanced at you and his eyes narrowed. Shit, how did he know? You gave him a goofy smile but he ran his hand down his face. Oh, you were in it now.

Dread slowed your steps, thinking of the incoming punishment as you walked towards your desk. 

Former employees with boxes were being escorted out or walked with such hang dog expressions. You met their gazes, each and every one. You offered a smile. Some smiled with watery tears leaking down their faces. Others scowled at you. You understood. You had a job and they didn’t. 

You made it to your desk and concentrated on the invoices. The temporary relief from the orgasm gave you enough energy to finally focus. Though, your mind kept drifting to the look on Tre’s face. 

Okay, no more of that. Taking Henry’s advice, you started the invoice over and followed through all of the steps. You relaxed into a zone as you went line by line, number by number. Double checking and triple checking your work. A message dinged on your computer. Lunch time. 

Your belly did somersaults as you paused your work. You stood up, smoothed down your skirt, and then walked into his office. You felt a little naughty being in here without him. He had intimidated you so badly when you first started working here. You knew from the first meeting that he was an asshole, but you had no clue just how mean he would be. 

Being in his office without him felt like sneaking into the kitchen before dinner, trying to snag a cookie from a plate on the sink. 

Instead, you followed his directions and pushed his chair out from his desk. You moaned a bit, free to do so, as the vibrator shifted inside of you. You lifted your skirt over your hips, wiggled out of your panties and then sat on his desk.

The sharp, freezing surface sent shivers down your spine. The vibrator was harder to ignore now that it was the only thing you had to focus on. Not a moment later, the vibrator turned to its highest setting. “Shit,” you moaned. 

The door opened, Tre steamrolling into the room. He shut the door behind him and then crossed to his desk. There was a smirk on his face, but you got the sense that he was more angry than happy to see you following his directions. 

“Didn’t I say you weren’t allowed to cum?” He asked. He pulled the chair so he could sit in it. He was at the perfect level to look at your dripping pussy. 

“I didn’t…”

“Don’t lie to me. You couldn’t help yourself, could you?” He asked. 

“Sir…”

“What were you talking to Henry about?” He asked.

“Huh?” The vibrator was still going, soaking yourself once more. You couldn’t believe how turned on you were. 

“Do you need your ears checked? What. Were. You. Talking. To. Henry. About.” The damn thing had a pulse option. 

Your eyes rolled into the back of your head as the pulses sent you into a shivering fit. You cried as these violent jerks bowed your spine. Tre gripped your thighs and spread them open further so he could see your pathetic clenching around the vibrator. 

“W-w-work,” you cried out. 

“Go on and cum then since you like it so much,” he demanded. Blazing hot flames of obsidian stared you down as you relaxed into a powerful orgasm. His grip on your thighs was the only thing you briefly noticed as you twitched and jerked your way through it. 

You tried to keep your moans and whimpers down. You tried. A drawer slid open and soon, Tre was stuffing something into your mouth. You looked down to see one of his black ties in your mouth. It smelled like him. Like crisp mountain air. 

You were able to moan more freely now that you were gagged. Tre pulled the vibrator out and attached his lips to your clit. You screamed out, rearing back and trying to scoot back from the edge of the desk. 

Was he insane? Your legs bounced at each swipe of his wide tongue against your sensitive nub. Your hand flew to the back of his head, pushing him deeper instead of away. 

You whined more, unable to stand it and unable to push him away. He dragged another orgasm out of you. Your thighs clamped around his head. He used his thick hands to push your legs apart. He pushed until your thighs screamed in protest. 

He lapped at your pussy like a starving man discovering nirvana for the first time. His tongue delved into your pussy, pushing in and out and mimicking how he fucked you yesterday. 

“Hmf, Tre,” you tried to say, but you were still gagged. He slurped up every last drop of you and then kissed your thigh.

He stood up and placed a wet kiss to your forehead. You gave him puppy dog eyes. “Sorry,” you mumbled. 

He grabbed your throat and yanked you towards him. “You watch how you speak to other mu’fuckas in this office.”

You worked your jaw until you spat out the tie. “I have to talk to people here, you know,” you said. 

“Not when they’re in love with you,” he said.

“Please, Henry is not in love with me,” you said and rolled your eyes. 

“You ain’t that dumb,” he said and squeezed harder. He picked up the tie from your chest, his eyes narrowed as he carefully pushed it back into your mouth. “You have a listening problem.” His face twisted in disgust as he looked at you.

You would have felt like a big under a microscope, except a quick glance down showed you how turned on he was. He looked at his watch and then frowned.

He deftly undid his belt and zipper with one hand as he revealed himself. Your pussy hungrily fluttered, needing all of that inside of you. You bit down on his tie, moving your hips forward.

“You lucky I’m in a hurry and the office is full,” he muttered as he slammed inside.

Your head fell back and you made a guttural groan. He filled you completely. He faced no resistance as your arousal let him slip inside with ease. He made a satisfied hum and began attacking your pussy in much the same fashion as before.

His other hand, around your throat, pulled you closer. “This my fuckin’ pussy, understand?” He asked. He titled his head and looked you in the eyes.

You barely had enough free space to nod. He lifted your left leg and it allowed him deeper access. Your eyes crossed as he finally hit your G-Spot.

“Mhm,” he said, satisfied that he found it. He attacked it with precision. Every stroke was deep and calculated. Your left hand steadied you against the desk as your right hand held onto his wrist around your throat. 

“Go on and let it go. Your needy ass can’t follow clear directions,” he said.

You came with a vengeance. The orgasm burrowing into your body like a live wire. Your sweat soaked skin made your dress plaster itself to you. Your knees trembled. Your body hung loose as the orgasm took you completely. Jolting through your veins. Robbing you of breath or sense.

Your orgasm triggered his. He grunted long and deep in his throat as he painted your walls with his cum. You trembled from the force of it. From the feeling of it filling you. 

He stroked two more times, like he couldn’t help it. There was a crack in his exterior as he finished. He dropped his head against your chest.

“Swear I turn into an animal when it comes to you,” he panted.

Your heart swelled. You had no idea that turning a man on like this would drive you crazy. That he would drive you crazy. Insane. An addict for this type of lust. 

He removed the gag and massaged your jaw. He softened inside of you and then he slipped out. He grabbed tissues off of his desk and cleaned himself up. He zipped away his third leg and then focused on cleaning you up.

He grabbed the vibrator from the desk, cleaned it off, and then worked it back into you. “S-Sir, please,” you begged. 

He kissed your forehead, his lips lingering there as he got the vibrator fully seated. “I’m giving you a second chance. Don’t disappoint me,” he whispered against your forehead. 

He pulled up your panties and helped you stand up so he could finish. He smoothed down your skirt. 

You stared at his lips, wondering what it would feel like to kiss him. To have that wicked tongue to play with. You ran your tongue across your teeth. You knew what he tasted like already, but you were still needy. Still begging for more.

Fuck, you were so sore from when he stretched you out. You’ve had time to recover from the ass spanking and you hoped that he wouldn’t try that again tonight. 

“Grab us some lunch and I’ll see you back in here at six.” He dismissed you. 

Your chest deflated as you skirted around him and headed to your desk. You opened the door without a look back, closing it behind you. 

You walked with wobbly knees and sat down at your desk. You sat there for five minutes while you contemplated your life choices. There was something wrong with you. It was the only reason why you were still letting him fuck you into oblivion instead of having a nice, normal, healthy relationship with someone that gave you kisses after sex. Cuddled.

Even thinking that, you wouldn’t be satisfied with someone so sweet. Someone walking by your desk pulled you out of your immediate flashbacks to what just happened.

Tre kicked the vibrator up to the medium setting. You cleared your throat as you went back to work, trying to pretend like nothing was amiss.

Masterlist | Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 - Completed

[miwiheroes]

Dropping Byler Evidence Every Day Until Season 5

Day 1 - The M&Ms scene

So yeah, this scene is never really talked about that much as like actual proof, more like a funni little thing where Mike looks at Will for a moment when he walks away, but analysis of the cinematography, framing and narrative of this scene can be revealing.

First thing: as soon as El wipes her nose, revealing it was her that helped Mike and Lucas, the camera zooms in on Mike, as if to be like 'oooh wonder how he's going to react'! and the audience is then in suspense, because they're probably expecting him to smile or try to take this opportunity.

What does he do? He just says 'Thanks." And the moment of suspense is broken. It's almost like a record scratch. We will come back to this reaction later, basically because it shows that Mike really does not mind being on these terms with El.

Second thing: At first glance there seems to be 3 main characters of this scene: Mike, Lucas and El. However, Will also seems to be included in this scene unlike Max who is also there. There is no reason to have Will be in some of these shots that, I want you guys to understand, is intentional. The directors didn't just accidentally set up this frame:

They didn't just forget to move Will out the way. In this shot, the Rule of Thirds can be applied. While El and half of Mike are in the second third/ third third, both half of Mike and Will are in the same third. This is also the third on the left, which is where (in western cultures) people begin to look at images from (reading from left to right). The fact that Will looks at Mike when he says 'Thanks' is the first thing that the audience is intended to notice (because its on the left), even if it is very subtle.

It is also important to note that the writers of the show know, in this moment, that Will is in love with Mike, they've had that planned out from the start (this is undeniably canon, unlike Mike's feelings to Will). Therefore, it is interesting that they included him in this shot and the next part too:

Like?? what was the point of the directors putting him in this part? Placing him in an interactional role with Mike in a Mike and El scene is just interesting to me. Like,,,, also could Mike not have talked to El with Will there?

After Will gets up, there is this really awkwardly long part where Will goes from the left third to the right third of the screen and just stays there? Like he's still in the shot (which they can easily catch and retake if they needed to). Why do the writers/directors want you to take such notice of his presence?

Also, going back to the fact that Will has to leave for Mike to be able to talk to El. Again, the directors did not need to put Will in this scene, they could have had him doing something else. Instead, they had him there to subtly further his character arc of being selfless/being shoved away by Mike in favour of El. It's also maybe simply because Mike just can't handle having both Will and El in the same context without ignoring one for the other, because he holds them to the same romantic standard.

We see this mishandling of El and Will in the airport scene, the whole time Mike is with El in the beginning of S3, Rink o Mania, the dinner after Rink o Mania etc. Basically, when both El and Will are around, he feels like he has to get rid of Will to be able to be romantic towards El, despite being able to talk about it to Lucas. When it's just him and Will, he's pretty happy (we see this in the 'Cool. Cool.' scene and the 'Guess it's up to us again' scene which are the only two scenes in S4 where Mike believes he is no longer in a relationship with El and just thinks he needs to team up with Will and go back to Hawkins without El). Therefore, he needed Will out the way because he can't be romantic with his girlfriend with Will distracting him lmao <3

Third Thing: Lucas is the one to encourage Mike to make up with El.

To be honest, him encouraging him alone isn't really that convincing of the fact that Mike is queer coded blah blah, like, your friend is allowed to say 'That was the Olive branch! Your way in!' without it being queercoding. The queercoding however, comes with the reaction to that information.

First, I want to point to something I may bring up in the future of this series. In S1, Lucas is the first person to ever suggest that there might be something romantic going on between Mike and El. When he says "Why don't you just marry her?", Mike does not go all ooooh flustery and blushy, he does not go 'EW GROSS' like a lot of boys that age would, instead he just acts confused. Multiple times.

The first time is when he goes, "Lucas what are you talking about?" The second is in response to Lucas going "Mike, seriously?" saying "What?" again. When Lucas then teases him about caring about her, he just says "Shut up Lucas" in this really tired tone, rather than a flustered or angry one. He basically gets the idea that he probably should like El romantically, if he shows even any care towards her.

Now, throughout S3, Lucas is the one to constantly question Mike's actions towards El. He's confused on why he won't tell her the truth about Hopper, and everything else, which all culminates into this "Oh my god. You're hopeless," when referring to picking up signals about girls.

I must say this rn too: You don't pick up on signals you don't want to receive. You do pick up on signals you do want to receive. I think most of us know what it's like to have a crush. You constantly look out for little things and overanalyse their actions towards you. But Mike has no clue. Maybe because.... he just doesnt feel that way.

Okay going back to reactions. Basically, you would kind of expect Mike's reaction to hearing that his girlfriend, that he's sooooo sad about losing oh nooooo, has decided to reach out and say that she's okay with him would be excitement, right?

When Lucas is describing how he's going to let Mike talk to El, Mike looks extremely nervous, which I get. It's normal to feel nervous in this situation, but the thing is, El seems okay with him, surely he would at least have a little light in his eyes?

When Lucas has to say 'Talk to her, alright?' (as if Mike has no fucking clue) Mike nods and then there is a swell in the music, the camera zooms in on him, and instead of the music swelling to some nice, positive tones, it's almost foreboding, mimicking the mixed feelings swirling in Mike's brain. His face also kind of looks.... weird like he's unsure, or maybe he's disappointed? Nervous? idk

I would understand this to be a little romantic if he smiles, but jesus, he does not crack a single grin at this part.

It almost seems like he's deciding to do something he doesn't really want to. I think he was completely content with the fact that she helped them, but didn't want to do anything about it because he's totally fine being on good terms with her, obviously, but not necessarily on romantic terms with her. Maybe he's fine with the fact she doesn't really want to be with him.

However, after Lucas says this stuff, now he's looking over at her and thinking, wait, maybe she does want to be with me.

But instead of a:

Wow, maybe she does want to be with me! :D

It's a:

Oh, so she does want to be with me.

^basically this means Mike decides, based on his encouragement from Lucas rather than his own feelings, that he should talk to her. What can he say to Lucas here? That he doesn't want to? That isn't really an option for him.

Fourth Thing: Okay this is very small but for some reason this scene is interspersed with scenes of Jonathan and Nancy getting almost killed by the mindflayer army like???

Why would they cut from this very tense scene where these beloved characters are about to be killed to this scene between Mike and El where everything is fine!

It's like.,,,, they want the audience to be tense watching them, even if it's not directly for the right reasons. They want the audience to maybe feel the tension in the foreboding nature of the fact that the mindflayer is in the same building as them, meaning there is always some danger lurking in the background.

Okay hope you enjoyed today's byler evidence :) stay tuned for tomorrow's!