#my dad just pretends like nothing is happening and ignores the conversation like the wuss he is lol

[covington-shenanigans]

christ alive I love my parents and I'm glad I got to see them but they are just. so fucking exhausting

[seungkwan-s]

second chances | thirteen

previous | next

pairing; lee heeseung x female reader, ft second lead jay park x female reader

warnings; one mention of blood from a papercut

genre; a little angst, some comedy and fluff

word count; 1.5k

taglist; @staysstrays @iminchaosnow @preciousdeerchild @fylithia @wooyoung-a @katyasrussianaccent @geminirules @lix-freckle3 @bluejayjay @blossomnct @shrutiajit @itsyaapollochild @witheeseung @seungstarss @meiinumaki @dreamyeyes26 @punneysushi01 @gtfovi @hrrhmay @soobnny @zhaixiaowen @leagreenly @grassbutneo @aurumness @minkyunheewon @milkycloudtyg @youreverydayzebra @liliansun @itsamemarioo (can’t tag)

a/n: yo this is the moment everyone has been waiting for. this was way longer than i intended it to be. i'll have the texts and stuff back in the next chapters ♡

as you step back into the cafe, the warm air and the smell of a freshly made cup of coffee hits you. you sigh, catching the attention of ryujin who's leaning against the coffee machine picking at her fingernails.

"y/n, are you okay. what happened?" you put your face into your hands, taking a deep breath and before you can say anything, the door opens and in walks heeseung, jake and sunghoon—the three boys soaked from the rain.

"do none of you own an umbrella?" sunoo blurts out, "i literally have two with me, do you want one?"

you see jake shaking his head, and mouthing a "no, thank you" to sunoo.

your mind is clouded with thoughts of the conversation you shared with jay earlier, was this related to that day when he asked you how you'd feel if you two were soulmates? or are you already overthinking this?

ryujin can sense something isn't right with you, she's noticed immediately that you're not your usual happy self; all smiles and laughter and you haven't greeted the boys as you normally do, in fact, you haven't even looked their way since they came in.

how are you supposed to start things over with heeseung? do you hold off for now until jay gets over you or do you just focus on working things out with heeseung and leave jay to sort things out himself? no matter what option you go for, you're going to hurt someone...

"y/n, what's going on?" ryujin puts her arms around you and leans her head on your shoulder, "i don't like seeing you sad, who am i kicking for hurting my favourite person?"

you shake your head, looking around the café before turning to her, "jay told me he's in love with me, and he reacted quite badly when i told him i didn't feel the same. and it's now put me in a position where if i start a friendship again with heeseung, it's gonna hurt jay. but if i hold off on things for now, i'm gonna hurt heeseung and i don't want to hurt anyone, and i feel like whatever option i choose, i'm gonna be made out to be the bad guy,"

"i'm sorry, y/n but you can't help how you feel. if you don't feel anything for jay, you can't force yourself to feel feelings plus the fact—and i really hate to say it, but non-soulmate relationships aren't destined to work out. they always fail, you read so much about them on the news, on social media. if you want my honest opinion, i think you should do what makes you happy. and i know there is absolutely nothing wrong with you working things out with heeseung. he is your soulmate after all. just give jay some space, he'll be okay,"

you let out a sigh of relief, you know she's right. you're only rebuilding the friendship you once had with heeseung, you're not just going to jump into a relationship, these things take time, and with time, hopefully you and jay can be friends again. you just hope he's okay...

~

a yelp from the back end of the cafe pulls you from your thoughts, "oh heeseung, you idiot, a papercut, really?"

"oh calm down, jake, it's just a bit of blood,"

"dude, you need a band aid, hold on—y/n! we need you," ryujin passes you the first aid box before whispering a "good luck" as you take it out of her hands. you're kinda wishing you didn't know first aid because not only do you now have to talk to heeseung, you have to touch him as well. baby steps first, you thought but no, destiny wants to throw you in the deep end.

you slide into the seat next to heeseung and place the first aid box on the table in front of you, "who's injured themselves now, hm?"

"your soulmate is an idiot, y/n, who cuts themselves on paper?"

"you'd be surprised at how many papercuts i've had to tend to in here, jake, especially with how thick people's books are and the amount of studying that goes on in here. they're the smallest of cuts and can hurt a lot but it's nothing serious," you pull out one of the alcohol wipe packets including the small box of band aids.

heeseung puts his hand out willingly and you're thankful you didn't need to ask, as the nerves are already creeping up on you. the last time you were this close to him was when you two were kids and it pains you a little. you really missed him...

"how did you learn first aid?" ah. you chuckle, thank god he initiated the conversation because you didn't know how the hell to.

"i took a course online, riki's always injuring himself, he's clumsy and because our mom and dad are always away working, i thought i might as well take up a skill that's going to be useful—that and cooking,"

he winces a little at the contact of the alcohol wipe and the cut on his finger, "don't be a wuss, hee," ...and there it is, the nickname you gave him when you two were kids. heeseung ignores that tiny little feeling in his stomach, he doesn't know whether it's guilt because he stopped talking to you or if he really missed the nickname you gave him. either way, he feels awful about how he's let this go on for so long.

"y/n, i'm sorry," you pause, you look down at his hand as it's now holding onto yours. the contact making you feel warm.

"it's okay, heeseung, we were kids—kids fall out over silly things, we can start over, it's fine," now you're rambling and trying to not look at him, fear you won't be able to look away.

"y/n, please, look at me," you can hear the sadness in his voice, you know he means his apology but you're not angry at him at all. if you did something to hurt him when you were kids, you owe him an apology. you raise your head and look at him, and it's a weird feeling you feel. maybe it's because the last time you looked into his eyes like this was that day you fell off your first bike and he tried to put a band aid on your knee and you were so thankful that he was there to help you.

"i'm so sorry, for ignoring you for basically most of our lives, it was over something so silly and i hate that i let this go on for so long, and i hope you can give me another chance to make things right between us. as each year passed, i just felt awful but i didn't know how to talk to you anymore, i thought you hated me. to be honest, it made it easier for me if i just pretended i didn't like you," his voice lowers to a whisper as you now hold his hand ever so gently.

"hee, i don't hate you, i never hated you, i just wondered what i did wrong. i wondered what i did that was so bad that you just pretended like i never existed. i won't lie, it hurt a lot but i- i missed you and i want us to be friends again but i need to know what i did so i can apologise,"

he lets out a sigh and runs his fingers through his hair, he's looking everywhere just not at you, "it's so stupid but do you remember when we were painting together? we were out in your garden and you were painting the sunset and i was doing a rainbow. i had it finished and you knocked over your jar of blue paint and it spilled all over my paper. i got so mad at you that i thought you did it on purpose because i told you it was a present for someone but instead of telling you the rainbow was for you, i just left you there alone, went home and that's why i stopped talking to you,"

"that's why you stopped talking to her, heeseung, oh my god, YOU GUYS WERE FIVE YEARS OLD!!??" jake snapped, slamming his hand on the table. heeseung turned to glare at him but the feeling of your fingers caressing his hand brought his attention back to you and his face softened.

"that was an accident, hee, i would never have intentionally ruined something of yours. i'm sorry i ruined your painting, and i'm sorry i made you think it was out of jealousy," you look up at him and he gives you a smile, "it's fine, i'll just paint you another one,"

"you don't need to paint me another one, hee,"

"i don't need to but i'm gonna do it anyway," he sends you a wink and you just about crumble to the floor.

~

as the clock hits 10pm and the lights go out in the cafe, you stand outside in the cold air waiting for the uber to come and pick the three of you up to take you home.

"so, y/n, how did it go with heeseung?" sunoo asks you, his arm linked with yours.

"it went really good, actually. better than i thought but i'm still nervous,"

"nerves are normal, my love, the two of you are going to be fine, just invite me to your wedding, okay?" you playfully slap ryujin, "shut up,"

[covington-shenanigans]

fuck it y'all get the tags from the original post on here (edited into something readable) because i need to scream into the void in a slighter more direct way:

<tag rant>

i've identified something about them, which is this: they genuinely do not grasp that other people have Real Experiences that don't map to their view of the world. like it's not that they don't view those experiences as valid or whatever, it's that they genuinely and truly do not grok that other people have experiences they don't approve of. like that the experiences actually happen and aren't made up.

“why do you insist on referring to X with they/them pronouns?”

“because they don't identify with a gender”

“well you're either one or the other”

“well they don't feel that way and they don't identify with a gender”

“well you're one or the other”

“okay but literally they do not feel that way. and you not liking that doesn't change it like wtf. and also sex and gender aren't the same”

etc etc etc ad fucking nauseum. fucks sake

also! this is always my mom who drops this shit. my dad just pretends like nothing is happening and ignores the conversation like the wuss he is lol. to be fair i get it because i would not go up against my mom either if i was him because he has to live with her stubborn ass.

it's probably obvious but they blithely misgendered me the whole goddamn time they were here, UNLESS THEY WERE IN FRONT OF OTHER PEOPLE IN PUBLIC LOLOLOLOLOLOL

HMMMMMMMMM, FUNNY HOW THAT WORKS

anyway fuck them and i hope they get home safe because they're old as fuck and probably going to die in the next 5-10 years. and when they do it will be terrible and also part of me will be relieved and idk how to feel about that tbh. so like... yeah. :/

(to be clear they just... didn't use pronouns for me at all in public. they have never once gendered me correctly and probably never will)

</tag rant>

anyway. yeah. this is why interacting with them leaves me exhausted and feeling like I'm playing 5-dimensional chess the whole time, even though I am trying very hard to specifically not do that, as I do not believe in using passive-aggressive non-verbal communication when I can avoid it. they just blatantly ignore the fact that people experience the world differently from them. like, if it doesn't fit within their conception of How The World Should Be, it doesn't actually exist, I guess? which is kind of impressive, considering I am sitting literally right exactly here being trans and getting "sir"ed by the server at the restaurant where we had supper together. :P

it feels to me like I'm being mildly gaslit every time we interact in person. as much as I love them, and as bad as they could be, I am never happier about having left the South as when they visit and then go the fuck home.

christ alive I love my parents and I'm glad I got to see them but they are just. so fucking exhausting