#my phone is only 4 years old and it already wants to be put out of misery | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

h5eavenly · 6 months ago

Text

blank canvas — park sunghoon. ➢ one - run your hands over me. ➢ mlist.

— when black and white sorrows loom on your life park sunghoon - a man with a cruel heart and destructive hands manages to color your days with splashes of rainbow. at least at first. wc: 17k

'They say there are two types of people in this world. The type to have big dreams, ambition. Ego so high up enough to touch the clouds but they lack potential. They think of themselves higher than they actually are. Then there's the second type of people. The ones with potential to rule the world. Get anything they can but they lack the desire, the drive–'

You feel a tap on your shoulder purloining your attention away from the broadcast reverberating through your ears, you take one of your earbuds out. Facing the person who just touched you. It’s an old lady, with thinning gray and a freight of years upon years accumulating in the wrinkles gracing her face.

“Oh my!” she speaks with as much enthusiasm as age in her face “you’re absolutely beautiful sweetheart!” adulation flow from between her lips as easy as the droplets of rain falling from the sky, it has your cheeks marring in red with embarrassment.

“Thank you.” you reply, tone laced with transparent diffidence, enough for her palm to cup your cheek in mystifying warmth. It’s in the heat radiating off her hand, in contrast with the freezing weather.

Adoration colors her gaze as if you were truly the most appealing looking person she had to pleasure to witness in a while, and you could only duck your head in bashfulness. Burying it in the heat of your scarf as she coos over you.

"Ah!" The old lady speaks up, eyes widening as she brings her palm to her lips as if she just remembered what she came here to say in the first place "I think you missed the last bus already." A frown climbs its way up over features, taking over the redness adorning your cheeks and the tip of your nose as you check your phone for the time.

4:35 pm

31st December

"It's not even 6 yet." You mutter. More to yourself but she catches it "I guess they're cutting them short because of the rain." You make a sound of comprehension. Eyes fliting to the graying skies, it has been raining heavily for the last two hours and you have been so immersed in your broadcast, you only realize now that you’ve been waiting at the bus ride for close to thirty minutes. The old lady leaves you with a smile sent your way, doused in affability akin to the truant sun. As you put your earbuds back on, you suck in a deep breath.

Inculcating yourself for what’s about to come, using your bag as leverage to shield yourself from the rain, you hold it above your head as you start running out of the bus stop.

'– But you know? There is a third type of people. That is hidden. Vaguely, we know of them. We know they exist but we're hardly aware of them. Even though they're the most destructive. Those type of people that take everything they want in sight, it doesn’t matter if they worked hard for it. If they had potential, if they thought lowly or highly of themselves. They consume everything they get their hands on. Even humans–'

You huff with overflowing exasperation, turning off the dumb podcast and shoving your phone in your pocket. Your attempts at being productive and listening to something that could feed your soul have failed miserably by now. More so it doesn't seem like you'll be able to get to work in this kind of weather. You blame it on the fact that you don’t own a tv - Or truthfully you own one. It's an old rusty thing that you stole from your grandma's house before moving. It barely works so how were you supposed to know such cruel weather was waiting to unfold?

Or at least those are the excuses you feed your brain as you stumble in the closest building that comes to view, droplets of water trickle down the side of your face as you look around. Turns out bags does little to zero coverage from rain.

With another look around, you realize you had walked into an old museum, with the rain remaining unforgiving with the way it pours you decide to take a stroll around the neglected building. Barely hanging on by the few devoted people who probably deemed this place cozy enough to call it comfort. pausing for no longer than a minute on some of the gold and silver artifacts probably turned in by struggling artists. There’s a layer of dust collecting on some of the pieces, albeit your lack of understanding for art - the closest you’ve been to art was when in elementary school, drawing with crayons and showing it to your parents. Seeking praises, you never actually got- the sight of abandonment sheathing this place throws you into commiseration for it.

You would have believed this museum was forsaken if not for the employee chewing his gum in the corner and scrolling through his phone mindlessly.

You amble your way through a couple of paintings, pausing by a few to scour through your brain for your own elucidation that is probably nowhere near what it means. You linger by one that seems to seize your fascination for longer than the preceding ones.

Your eyes flicked across it, it was a painting of a woman’s naked body that’s facing away, with deeper and lighter hues of flesh, her face was ablaze with shades of flames. For a quaint reason it stirs a sense of disturbance within you. holding your gaze captive in an unsettling matter yet you can’t pinpoint why.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" An audible gasp slips past your lips, snapping you out of a daze and has you jolting in surprise.

Your eyes shift, flitting to whoever spoke to you and in mere moments you’re rendered mute. Every single word flees your mind leaving it blank. As you behold the embodiment of the snow on a human’s skin, the darkness of the night in his hair every single piece of art in this building dims in comparison.

You marvel at a beauty that feels so implausible to belong to a mortal.

“I wouldn’t know.” You clear your throat.

The stranger – clad in everything black from head to toe with faultlessly styled hair only tilts his head at you, something parallel to curiosity flourishes in his eyes, taking a few steps to close the distance between you two.

“How come?” His voice is low, like the feeling of a cool breeze dawdling past you amidst summer. His words dripping with softness, akin to the scent invading your space. Something heady and sweet yet you can’t seem to put your finger on what does he exactly smell like.

“I don’t understand art enough to appraisal it.” You reply, your eyes shifting back to the painting.

“Who says you need to understand art to form an opinion on it?” He asks and you swallow around nothing, eyes fleeting to his- they’re almost as dark as his hair- for a second only to find him already staring at you. The right side of your face burns with his intensity.

“I just think it’s a little ridiculous for someone ignorant like me to say anything about someone’s hard work.”

“But we all view things differently, no? We all have our different version of the world. It doesn’t take away from anyone’s hard work.” He responds and surely it is more than enough for you to consider his words, finding candour in them. You eye the painting meticulously.

“I think it’s sad.” You say after a while, slicing into the thick silence and from the corner of your eye, you see him turning to face the piece of art as well.

“Why do you think so?”

“It almost as if your thoughts are too overbearing to the point where they take over you. and then before you realize it you lost sight of yourself.”

An eerie silence fills the space between you, it stretches long enough to have you growing unnerved. You wonder if your thoughts are comical to voice. Maybe you just embarrassed yourself in front of the prettiest man you’ve ever laid eyes on. Stealing a glance at him only to find his gaze already set on you yet again, the same sense of disturbance crawls over you once again, your heart starts beating rapidly.

“That’s interesting.”

“You don’t think it’s stupid?” You breathe out and his brows raise slightly upwards in what seems to be astonishment, it is the first display of emotions he unveils.

“Your words? Not at all.”

“Even though you found it beautiful and yet I can’t seem to find the same beauty in it?”

There’s a pause in the space between you two, his eyes prance over your features, and you fall into the same confusing haze as to why your heart starts picking up speed, as if tranced you cannot seem to look away from him. Your cheeks glow pink under the deliberation of his stare.

“We all have different versions of the world. It’s only fair we find beauty in contradictory aspects.”

You fail to find words to push out, stumbling into another silence. You find enough blame to place on the way he makes you feel, somehow you don’t feel the apprehensiveness that usually comes upon meeting strangers for the first time, instead it feels like finally stumbling upon a piece of paper you have lost track of a long time ago.

It’s uncanny, you and his harrowing glances that cut through you as if he knows the contents of your mind, as if he sees you.

“Do you think you’re beautiful?” he asks and you almost scoff at how ludicrous his question is, looking at him only to realize the seriousness clinging to his features. Pushing you further into confusion.

“I’m not sure what I think.” You say, softly. and his lips tilt upwards with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“How peculiar.” You don’t get to ask him what he means before he’s speaking again “You’re prettier than any of the paintings hanged on these walls.”

Your breath catches in your throat, your heart beats as if a hundred birds are trapped inside and they’re dying to be set free. Woven with unfathomable desolation.

You have always lacked resilience, a few words of adulation are more than enough to have you melting, there’s ample room in your heart to take claim over the sweet words, for your eyes to soften.

Yet you deem yourself demented with groundless thoughts provoked by him.

Your encounter with the man lingers in your head yet more than anything his eyes stay with you the longest.

They looked so empty.

"Good evening sweetheart." the sweet tone of none other than Yang Taeyeon rings in your ears and through the small store with familiarity, forcing a smile upon your face that was inundated with fatigue mere moments ago.

A mother with two children who has been coming to this small store ever since you could remember. A week doesn't pass without her stopping by. Sometimes to buy bandages for her acholic husband who loves getting into fights. Other times she's buying necessities with the little money she could keep from her three jobs. Her life is another sorrowful story that’s twined into the streets of this neighborhood.

"Hello, how are you doing today?" you ask, tone gentle and polite as you help her empty her basket.

"I'm good darling. How have you been? You're looking a little pale." She responds, eyes etched with worry as they rack over your face.

Worry. It’s an emotion you’re so accustomed to getting by now. However, with her It's more than just petty wrapped with worry. She’s the third person to have told you today and your smile only ceases to flatter for a moment.

Truth is sleep hasn’t found home in you for a couple of days now. It’s a proclaimed miracle If you manage to get three hours of sleep that isn’t disturbed by unsettling nightmares. You’d like to blame that damned painting. It only started after your visit to that shitty museum.

You start scanning her things from canned beans to random bags of chips that are probably for her kids, you try to make it quick guessing she's probably rushing somewhere after this. It's how she always is.

"Yes, I've been very we–" you’re cut off by her worn out hand circling your wrist stopping your movement and when you look at her, questioning. She wears a deeper distressed expression.

"Oh my. You have grown so weak. Have you been eating, at all?" This time your smile crumbles, and you don’t react fast enough to keep it.

"I am very healthy don't worry. Exams season just ended so perhaps that's why." You reply with practiced excuses flying your mouth, you hope it’s big enough of a barrier for her not to notice the trembling of your lips.

Freeing your hand gently from her grip and resuming your work, you hope she doesn’t notice the pitiable fragility of a human that still coats you, your words are always colored in loneliness and an imbecilic need for someone to ask, to care. You miss the way her eyes linger on you in exactly that.

"You can have this." She tells you after you helped her put all her groceries into bags. Extending her hand out to you with a homemade sandwich in it. A warm smile sent your way is enough to have you vacillating.

Wondering how she manages to stay as warm as summer despite the number of betrayals she has been through, pain cladding every atom of her being and yet she manages to still be so kind. Alongside your perplexity, an odious feeling of envy blooms within you.

How lucky her children are. To have such a warm-hearted mother.

"I'm fine," you wave your hand dismissively "Please do not worry yourself-" you don’t even get to finish before Taeyeon is shoving the sandwich into your palms. Refusing to take no as answer.

"Thank you for everything, sweetheart." With another warm smile, she packs her four bags of groceries and leaves.

Perhaps you’ve had a rough week, the walls of your apartment have added a magnitude weight to your already dreadful despondency, as you stare down at the sandwich in your hands an uncanny urge clamber over you. To get out of here. To quit this stupid job, quit school. You were never lucky, but if you could get away, somewhere far away or maybe not even that far.

Maybe you could stop by the sea and cry your eyes out for a while. Spill your agony to the waves and abandon all your burdens into the unknown.

And maybe then just then you could be reborn as a different person. Was it a foolish yearning to have? To be someone else, someone who’s not this being seared with indelible scars?

Your questions, as always, stay unanswered as you pack the sandwich away and continue going through the dreadful hours of your shift.

It's when the clocks hit 10:30 pm that your stomach starts rumbling in hunger. A light humming noise fills the store as you plopped your sandwich into the microwave. Your fingers drumming against the counter as you look out the glass. Your eyes dance across the empty streets. It’s usually super slow at this time of the night, the store empty of customers and darkness fills the neighborhood. Streetlights flickering on and off, remaining brushed aside, not worthy enough to be fixed.

Off

On.

A figure materializes on the sidewalk, as if they emerged from utter nothingness or magically brought forth from darkness, blending in with the night clad in black from head to toe. The drumming of your hand pauses, you can barely see anything from the distance, yet a daunting emotion slithers down your spine, evoking a shiver from you as if the person is looking straight at you.

You wait, brows furrowing together as unspecified anxiety manifests within you, working at a small convince store in one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in the city have made you tolerant of such disquiet. So, waiting for danger to unravel is more of a habit now. It’s only natural that you linger with unwavering gaze on the figure, with hope for them to do anything and help deny the looming thoughts that they're looking at you.

Beep Beep Beep!

Your body jolts in surprise, hand shooting to your heart in panic to calm the increasing speed, you turn to face the microwave.

'I'm imagining things' you keep repeating to yourself.

The sandwich is still semi cold, so you start the microwave again giving it another ten more seconds.

The figure across the street has not moved an inch when you turn to face them once again. Telling yourself you’re being paranoid. That the enervation of the week is probably catching up to you, alongside your cruel nightmares, it’s added fuel to your anxiety. So, you try to ignore it, trying your best to act normally. Chewing on your sandwich once it’s done, forcing your eyes to focus on the screen small tv hung up in the corner, trying to find your interest in the news despite your mind protesting.

in a somber irony the news are talking about two gruesome crimes that the police believe are linked together, with anarchic deliberation you manage to catch a couple of things that are being said, something about dismembering body parts. With a swallow you turn the tv off with too much of a force.

Instinctively your eyes travel back to the sidewalk, the light flickers on to life and the figure is still there. A chill has the hairs on your arms arising, somehow the panic in you is amplified sending your fingers into a tremble. Your eyes flit to the clock hang on the wall for a second, it’s five more minutes until your shift ends and this person won’t move.

You grow agitated, chewing on your nails as you look back at the figure. And you watch, from a distance as they slowly raise their hand, your heart hammers against your chest, crippling anxiety taking over you when the person holds their palm up and then, they wave. Tilting their head to the side.

“What the fuck?” you mutter, legs shaking with actual fear at the realization that you were not imagining things. They were looking at you all along and now they’re fucking waving at you.

Oh my god they’re waving at you.

Amidst your raising perturbation, you grasp that you need to do something. You don’t feel safe and calling the police is the first option that comes to mind but what would you even say? There’s a weird person waving at me from across the street? And knowing the time that they would take to come to such a disreputable neighborhood? You’d be dead by then.

Maybe you should call someone. One of your friends? Someone can come and pick you up. But what if they take too long? The what ifs are almost endless as they come to your mind like crashing waves. You’re fully panicked now, chewing on your nails ferociously.

You look back at the figure, gaze hardened into a glare despite your petrified state. In your mind it might be enough to scare them away. A big truck passes by, beeping its horn and blocking your vision from the sidewalk. You wait for it to pass, as soon as the street comes back in view it's empty. The figure is nowhere to be seen. It's like they disappeared with the truck or with the wind. You blink multiple times, as if your mind had started playing tricks on you and yet the streets remains empty.

What the fuck

With shaky legs you grab the bat the store owner had placed for you -just in case things got rough one day- he had told you.

You walk out of the store, crossing the street with a jog, right to where the person was standing. The streetlight flickers for a split second on and off. Only enough for you to notice the small pool of liquid on the ground but it's too dark to tell exactly what it is. You squat down, placing the bat next to your feet. With furrowed brows your curiosity drives you to touch it with your finger. Bringing it to your nose, you grimace at the strong smell of metal.

A whirlwind of images flashes in your mind at an agonizingly familiar scent.

The light flickers back on and your eyes widen. Your stomach starts turning and turning in nausea, you feel the sandwich you just had come up. Bringing your palm right upon your mouth with a wrinkled nose, you attempt to push the feeling away. But your body shakes violently and you’re about to throw up.

It was blood.

You are panting, tears cling to your eyelashes in plaintive attempts to keep pieces of you together. As if you’re gonna end up falling apart if just one slips. You’re leaning your head against the wall, the cold bathroom floor makes your body shake, or perhaps it's because you just threw up violently not even two minutes ago. Your stomach aches in horrible pain, throat dry.

You take a deep breath, closing your eyes and trying to simmer down your shaking. before reaching in your pocket for your phone. Scrolling through your contacts you stop at the name you were looking for. Immediately pressing the call button, you wait.

"yn?" His voice comes like waves of comfort washing over your body. For a mere moment, you’re okay. Breath’s steadier, they flow through your body easier now.

"Jaeyun," your voice is groggy, a giveaway of your distress that you cannot be witnessed with. Clearing your throat, you attempt to speak again "Can you p-please pick me up? I just finished work-"

you hear shuffling on other line, the sound of sheets being tossed like he's getting out of bed and culpability stirs within you. Knowing he was probably sleeping, and your call had woken him up.

"Are you okay?" He asks, voice heavy with sleep and you suck a deep breath in. contemplating on how to exactly answer him. Jaeyun was one of the few people you never seem to hide from. The truth spills from your mouth involuntarily.

"I'm okay," you attempt to reassure him "B-but please can you pick me up?" you ask, tone low with heedless reluctance.

You hear more shuffling on the other line, the sound of Jaeyun getting dressed and your heart is cradled with warmth at his unyielding care. With no questions directed at the obvious shakiness in your voice.

“I’m on the way yn, alright?” your tears come back faster than you anticipated, it has you biting on your quivering lower lip “alright? Need to hear you say it yn.” he asks again, and you nod your head ceaselessly.

“Okay.”

As soon as Jaeyun hangs up, you pull your knees to your chest and bury your head in them. Your shoulders hang heavy, as if the freight of the world’s anguishes deliquesces upon your flesh, encumbers them. Your stomach is constricting with pain and the same sickening nausea is building again. You can still smell the blood in your nose, as if you’re drenched in maroon.

The scent always sends you back to the same place, a reoccurring purgatory, where you’re sitting with your head in your knees just like right now. You’re covered in bruises and blood and the very same irritable nausea is evident there too. You’re too feeble, covered in mistakes and the indignation of your parents. Their arguing is a dull noise in the background, tear streaks are an eternal trace upon your cheeks.

You’re reprimanding yourself because you need to patch yourself up, you need to grow up. stop being such a spoiled kid. Just like how your mother always told you. And you try to listen. To obey, you try so hard to be good, you want to be good.

But the smell of metal is unbearable. As if it’s seared on your being, as if it’s a layer of your skin and no matter how many times you wash up, it’s burned into you.

You feel the cut on your knee bleeding, the liquid trickling down your leg.

Blue

Violet

Red

It’s all an interchangeable loop that you cannot seem to break free from, a curse that has been set on you the day you took your first breath in. torment runs through your veins and you’re nothing but a slave with an open chest. Accepting your fate is the only way. It’s in the way it all makes itself known to you, the option of running away, breaking free slips further away with your multiplying tears. It’s in the violent shudders wracking your body as you empty your stomach for the second time.

You sit on the floor of your parents’ dirty old bathroom floor, crying with crippling affliction and bleeding out with declaration of their callousness.

Nothing has seemed to change. Life always finds a way to cackle sardonically at you. You’re an adult now. Nowhere near your parents so how come you keep feeling like you never stepped foot outside that bathroom? How come every waking moment is haunted by the ghosts of your past. They’re vicious, with claws around your throat. The poison had long seeped in.

You cannot escape.

"Yn!" With that familiar voice you’re snapped back to your reality.

You look at the floor beneath you. And it’s dirty- disgusting really but it’s not your parents’ bathroom floor. There are no loud voices or shouting and yelling. There's just the sound of the sink running and It's just you.

You’re not hurt. You’re not a kid.

You make an attempt to stand up. Your body is still feeling a little weak and sluggish. Using the wall to support your weight, you take small steps towards the sink and close the running water. You hear footsteps growing closer and closer. But at this moment in time, you are not panicked. Instead, relief washes over you when the door opens and it's Jaeyun.

With eyes colored in concern he pulls you into his chest, wrapping his arms around you.

“yn,” he breathes out and you hug him back.

"I'm okay, Jae." You assure despite how your words flow out weak and choppy. Jaeyun squeezes you in his arms tighter.

Almost like you’ve been lost for years, and you’re finally found. You feel the same in a way.

When he pulls back his palms cradle your face gently, eyes darting over your figure in a rapid search for visible wounds and when he doesn’t find any, his brows furrow in confusion. You wonder what kind of panic you caused him.

"What happened?” he asks.

"Nothing." You answer, averting your eyes. afraid they will betray your wounds, display that your scars remain on your soul rather than your body.

Jaeyun doesn’t pressure you or ask you for anything further. With a tender smile he nods, because he always knows.

He helps you out the bathroom, hand on your waist in all too similar sentiment. And as he helps you collect your stuff, even closes the store for you, you find yourself being lulled into a comfort that only radiates from him. A too striking familiar of a scene as he helps you into his car, helping you put your seatbelt on with gentle touches, tender glances at your face.

It's all too sweet, a too striking familiar scene of what you guys once had. When you were his and he belonged to you. The world had stilled for a short while. The loop of agony paused, tricking you into a joy that was never meant to last. Because everything that ever belonged to you was only meant to fall apart, you were never foreordained to be a survivor.

You collapse each time, left behind to pick up the fragments of you. Always abandoned.

The drive to your apartment is silent, albeit Jaeyun glances being thrown at you occasionally, you keep yours stuck on the window. Watching as the world passes you by.

"We're here." he declares, coming to a stop in front of your apartment complex. You let out a breath.

"Thank you." you reply, looking at him with a forced practiced smile.

His eyebrows furrow and your smile only stretches wider, futile tries to hide.

"Are you sure you’re okay?" He asks with concern laced in his voice that you turn a blind eye to. You’re starting to feel choked up with the storm of emotions you went through tonight and right now you want nothing but to go inside your apartment, maybe have a good cry then sleep it all away.

"Yes."

You watch with confusion as he turns off the car and unbuckles his seatbelt, inching closer to you. Inadvertently you lean back, your back hits the door and when his hand finds your thigh, he squeezes, your body trembles with a slight jump.

“Sorry.” He mummers awkwardly, taking his hand off.

"It's okay. I'm just shaking because it's probably cold outside." You say softly. And his eyes find yours with evident brittle emotions swimming in them.

"yn." He calls for you like he used to. With a voice as sweet as honey and deeper than oceans. You’re taken aback to when there was a sparkle between you, before he burned you with it.

Your eyes fall shut and this time his hand finds your cheek with a caress, you let him. Your heart doesn’t skip beats the same way it used to, in an ironic way it’s only a reminder of the ashes left between you two. You feel his breath hit your face, and when you open your eyes, he’s so close, your melancholy is tempting you to give in.

"What are you doing?" you whisper, shaking your head. He ignores you, his other hand sneaking to your waist and you attempt to back away even more in the cramped space.

"We can't do this Jaeyun." You stop him with a hand to his chest, his heartbeat reverberates against your palm.

"Why not? I still want you." His confidence makes you waver. The ache in your chest tells you it will only ever be soothed by the touch of his lips, yet you find yourself unable to give in, avoiding his gaze as your eyes fall upon your lap. An unwieldy silence swirls in the air yet again. He takes it as sign to back off, his hands leaving your body alongside his warmth.

"Why did you call me?" He asks after a while "Why did you call me out of all the people you know?" You know exactly which answer he's looking for and if you were somewhere else. Somewhere where you felt like you could belong to him. Like he could heal all the wounds you believed he would maybe you would have been able to give it to him.

"Because you're the only one who knows about my panic attacks."

He lets out a sound of disbelief, his face crumbling with disillusionment. And when he falls back in his seat with nothing to say, you unbuckle your seat and get out of the car.

"Thank you and goodnight." you say closing the door hoping he had heard you and the wind did not steal your words.

12:45am 7th of January

your phone stared back at you in full brightness. In contrast with the dim lights flashing across your features. Purple, dark green and blue.

There's a light buzz in your system, evoked by the few glasses of alcohol you had been sipping on throughout the night. A thin layer of sweat covers your forehead despite how cold it is outside. The remaining liquor in your cup is tempting you.

Sunoo’s head is on your shoulder, adding unwanted weight to your body "He’s not eben hat hot, ight?" his words slur together, meshing into somewhat a coherent sentence that he whines out. You follow his gaze that of course lands on none other than Minji, her body swaying to the music with some guy that you recognize from one of your classes. Her arms circle his neck, a huge smile on her face the darker her eyes get with overflowing lust.

Even from this distance you could see it all. Sunoo clings to you further, leg thrown over your lap, almost engulfing your body entirely. His breath reeks of cheap vodka when another whine escapes him.

"yn, 'm hotter yea?"

You hastily drink the very little liquor left in your cup.

"You're so much hotter babe." Sunoo hums happily at your answer, closing his eyes as he nuzzles his face into your neck.

You could only exhale loudly, starting to feel a little choked up with this proximity. You’re not drunk enough to be dealing with this cat and mouse game Sunoo and Minji like to play. you haven’t been present enough mentally this semester to see it all unfold. you just know that somewhere between the first and the second week Heeseung had found you during lunch, mouth agape as he whispered in disbelief;

"Did you know Sunoo and Minji fucked?"

All hell broke loose since that day. Sunoo who's hopelessly in love and Minji who won't commit or be tied down by anyone. It's a classic tale really, a chess game that you had participated in before. It isn't hard to tell who's gonna win, there's no competition here. You just wish Sunoo would realize that too.

"You okay?" Heeseung all but yells at you, loud enough to hear him over the roaring music as he plops down on the couch next to you. His hand brushes your fringe out your face and away from your sweaty forehead.

"Uh huh," Heeseung isn't looking at you though, eyes glued to the awkward girl standing by the stairs. Fidgeting with the red cup between her hands, looking around in what seem to be anxiety. She looks innocent, a lost look in her eyes that gives away the fact that she's a freshman.

She's Heeseung's favorite type of preys.

"Good, good." He says absentmindedly, tongue darting out to wet his lips as his eyes rake over the girl's body. His hand travels from your hair to the back of your neck, squeezing.

You roll your eyes, already knowing what’s about to come, witnessed the words tumble out his lips repeatedly.

"I'm gonna go get some ass, yn" He decides loudly. Taking what's left from Sunno’s drink and chugs it down. He then gets up, rolling his shoulders and with confident strides makes his way to the girl. You watch as Heeseung puts on his usual charming smile, all warm and inviting. A blush dark enough to be seen by you on the girl's cheek as they start chatting.

You grow a little miffed. Feeling like you’ve been ditched by all your friends and left to deal with a very drunk Sunoo. This was definitely not what you had in mind when you agreed to come to this party. You untangle yourself from Sunoo with force, the older all but whines refusing to let go.

“I’m just gonna go get a drink,” you tell him and he only whines in response, not a word was probably registered.

You stumble, feet almost interlocking but you manage to stand straight. Your own blushed cheeks are evidence of your tipsiness. Not drunkenness. You’re not there yet. You feel like you’re swimming through a sea of people as you push between them, your knit white sweater gets stuck in someone's bracelet. A string of apologies spills from your mouth. It’s the only few mishaps that manage to unfold before your night passes by with you drowning yourself in liquor.

It's only a few hours later that feels closer to years have passed by. You find yourself in one of the few open rundown 7/11 with Heeseung and a sobered-up Sunoo slurping spicy noodles. Your mind a little less cloudless, limbs aching as you stand up.

“I’m gonna get some air.” You tell your friends, stretching your arms above your head. Sunoo only makes a noise of acknowledgement with his mouth full.

“Don’t walk too far.” Heeseung tells you, eyes lingering on the back of your head as you wave your hand at him.

The frigid air hits you square in the face as you pull your jacket around you tighter, wrapping your arms around yourself in search of warmth. the cheap fabric fails to provide such.

Keeping Heeseung’s words in mind, you don’t walk too far from the store, finding a bench close by that you settle upon with a sigh. Closing your eyes and breathing in fresh air. Your head grows a tad clearer. A comforting buzz settles in your being instead and despite the dull ache in your body, you feel okay.

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing out here all alone?” your eyes fall open, flitting to the source of the voice. It’s a middle-aged man so clearly high off his mind. A familiar sight in these streets.

You ignore him, too used to such situations.

“Didn’t your parents tell you it’s rude to ignore people?” When he speaks this time you glare at him, a scowl taking place upon your face.

“Fuck off old man.” You spit, tone imbued with indignation despite the tremble manifesting in your clenched fingers, nails digging into the insides of your palms.

“Watch your mouth bitch.” The man all but grunts, taking a step towards you, you brace yourself to run, your muscles growing rigid. Your palms are growing sweaty.

Just as the man takes another step towards you, you feel a presence behind you, the man’s eyes darting elsewhere.

“She told you to fuck off. Are you fucking deaf?” the voice is overfamiliar. Velvety smooth as it rings in your ears, evoking beats from your heart this time not out of perturbation. It’s something closer to exhilaration.

The man grumbles, a frown on his aged-up face as he glares at you then turns around and walks the other way. You let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. Your shoulders going lax as you turn your head, a familiar face of a stranger comes into view.

White as snow, dark as night and that same dizzying scent. heady and sweet.

It’s the same face that has haunted your mind longer than you’d ever admit, taking space you weren’t aware you’re willing to give. His eyes are hardened into a glare, glued to the back of the man’s head until he’s far enough to not be seen that they flit to you.

Just like the first time you saw him he’s clad in everything black, yet this time instead of formal attire it’s a hoodie and black jeans. Clear glasses on his face yet he remains prettier than any magnificent piece of art you had the pleasure to witness.

The way his gaze palliates instantly has your chest tightening, your teeth sinking into your bottom lip as a wind passes you by, somehow drowning you deeper into his intoxicating aroma.

“Are you okay?” His tone is so much softer, tender compared to the way he spoke mere seconds ago.

“Y-Yes. Thank you.” your words come out ignominiously scattered, tinted by your clear nerves that you cover up with a flimsy excuse, alcohol.

“You shouldn’t be alone this late at night. It’s dangerous, pretty girl.” He reprimands genially and your face burns, at the endearment, at his tone and more than anything at the tilt of his lip. A charming smile taking place onto his face, in contrary to how he was willing to shoot the man with his eyes not even minutes ago.

“I’m not alone. I’m waiting for my friends.” You lie, for unidentified incentives that you don’t even want to think about. It’s all deemed worthy when he tilts his head at you with a hum. A glint in his eyes and you’re overtaken by peculiar emotions. Rushing through you all the same as your last meeting.

“Shall I wait with you then?” he says, walking till he’s next to you, and you try hard not to stare at him, but it is reckoned unfeasible when he is so implausibly gorgeous.

You will enough strength to not to think about the way his necklace dangles when he leans down to take a seat next to you. Try hard not to imagine the same way his necklace would dangle over you if he was on top of you.

A space you hate remains between you two and you berate yourself, no amount of tipsiness should allow you to be this way.

“Don’t you remember me?” you ask. His eyes prance over your features in what seems to be attempts to recall where he had seen you before. You wither just a bit in disappointment, a strange hope in you dwindles ever so slightly.

Was it too ambitious of you to hope to take space in his mind as well?

“Ah! We met at the museum. Didn’t we?” his brows rise in recognition.

“We did.” You nod, chuckling nervously as you push strands of your hair behind your ears. You miss the way his eyes darken at your apparent shyness.

Above you the sky darkens just the same, collecting gray clouds as if to match his soul.

“It would be absolutely mad of me not to remember such a pretty face.” The words tumble out his lips so deftly, yet they remain brimming with intensity, and they manage to tinge your cheeks a darker shade of pink, a deplorable exhibit of your heartstrings being played with so effortlessly.

"Do you always flirt with people like this?" you ask, a playful smile tilting your lips upwards.

"I'm glad my attempts at flirting are being acknowledged," he replies, the same playfulness dances around his face and when his eyes dip to your lips for a moment before they’re flitting back to your eyes, it is enough to have your breath hitching.

There's a moment of silence that falls over you, it isn't necessarily awkward, yet the tension encloses itself around your neck, embraces you with a threat of bad decisions. At this moment, they don’t look bad enough.

The short silence is interrupted when you shiver, the cold remains cruel against your cheap clothing.

“Are you cold?” he asks, seeming to notice it all.

“A bit.” You admit, burying your hands in- between your thighs in search of warmth. He eyes your action carefully, and then he moves to take off his hoodie, left only in his turtleneck.

Extending it to you.

“Oh you don’t have to-“you attempt to refuse, shaking your head but he doesn’t let you finish, throwing the fabric onto your lap.

“Wear it.” Perhaps it’s the way his tone is so authoritative it has you crumbling quickly, not fighting back as you put it on, his scent engulfs you and your body rises in temperature instantaneously

“Are you perhaps afraid to look at me?" he asks when you keep your eyes on your tangled fingers, his tone is taunting, an underline of mockery prevails there.

A challenge presents itself to you and you swallow it up, head snapping to look at him with faux confidence clambering over your being. He smirks, somehow managing to remain doused in otherworldly beauty and something akin to victory ceases his eyes.

You wonder how it is possible to have such absurd desires like wishing you’re a mere emotion fortunate enough to flow within him. You must be going insane with loneliness.

"Why would I be?" your eyebrow raises, a plaintive venture to take the lead in whatever dance you’re having.

Something manages to coexist in the middle of all the loneliness meshing with your bones. A feeling akin to curiosity, excitement. A feeling that seems dangerous, a fire that will surely inundate you the longer you stay here.

Eyes midnight black, half lidded, stare back at you. Refusing to back down.

“Your eyes are prettier when they’re looking at me.” your confidence leaves, shattered as soon as it comes, the tips of your ears turning red and the flattery waters your heart so facilely. Your heart hammers against your chest, as if begging to be let out and you almost want to do just that.

At the realization that you lost so quickly you wish to throw up your heart, welcoming your defeat with open arms.

“If you’re gonna keep flirting with me, at least tell me your name.” You mumble, loud enough for your words not to be stolen by the wind and he chuckles.

“Are you interested in me?”

“Stop please.” You whine, bringing your palms to your cheeks. You’re so hot you could melt right on this seat.

“I’m only teasing, darling.”

“Well stop teasing me.” his eyes grow fond at the pout taking place on your face, you seem to be unaware of how utterly adorable you are.

“How about this,” he turns his body towards you, arms crossed on his chest, and you try your hardest not to stare” I have a little game for you if you manage to solve it then I’ll tell you, my name.” he suggests and you contemplate on what to say, yet you find yourself nodding.

“Give me your arm.” He whispers, inching closer to you and you do as he says, embarrassingly fast as if you were desperate to please, desperate for a glimpse of a smile from a stranger as you extend your arm towards him.

His touch is delicate as his fingers inch the sleeves of your (his) hoodie upwards, it has goosebumps erupting on your skin, setting your body ablaze and your breaths grow labored when his eyes catch yours, pulling you into him with a vigorous force

“I’m gonna write something on your arm and you have to guess it, simple yeah?” his voice is low as if he’s afraid to break whatever hue the both of you have fallen into and your lips separate with a familiar softness “okay.” You whisper back, the quirk of his lips, ever so slightly has a whimper bubbling at the back of your throat.

His nimble fingers feel cold against your skin, keeping his eyes fixated on your face as his fingers irritatingly, deliberately trace syllables upon your arm.

“Can you tell me what I just wrote?” You blink at him, realizing you have paid no attention whatsoever, instead all you did was stare at him, wandering in your own thoughts that are evoked by him.

“Sorry,” you clear your throat, attempting to pull yourself together “do it again.” You tell him and his lips twitch upwards in a way that slightly piques you. his fingers start tracing letters upon the skin of your arms again and this time, you pay your utmost attention to every move, every brush of his fingers.

“I can?” you answer when he pauses with a question in his gaze.

“Yes, good.” He resumes moving his fingers.

“I can, see?”

“Mhm.” You furrow your brows, seeming to have lost track and he’s lenient enough to do it again.

Your mouth shaping around the words fleeing to your mind, his stare stays affixed on your lips. A foreboding glint manifests in his stare, till yours widen, overtaken by brief triumph.

“I can see you! That’s what you wrote. I can see you.” you exclaim, excitedly. A gleam enough to blind anyone with your smile that has him chuckling and shaking his head.

“Hold on, I’m not done yet.”

“Oh,” you settle down with pink cheeks, embarrassed.

As his fingers move against your skin anew, akin to strokes of a paintbrush inundated with iciness, a benevolence lingers at the tips of his fingers. It’s competent at eliciting a shiver to run down your spine, your heart pulsating.

Can

See

Your

Just as he’s tracing what you assume to be the last word on your arm, the sky blights your little bubble, breaking through it with force as droplets of water hit your face. You look up at the sky as it starts to rain and his stays on your face.

As if feeling his stare slowly you find him, and then just like the first time you saw him he captures you in place. A hue of vulnerability and a sense of endearment colors his gaze. Just like the dewdrops of rain it grazes the surface of your heart prominently.

Inchmeal, he pulls the hood of the garment over your head, sheltering you from the rain and you hold your breath, waiting, anticipating for something as ardent as the feelings splashing across his face.

“Yn!” you hear Heeseung’s voice call for you from behind “Come on! Let’s go home.”

In a mere second, his eyes dart behind you before they’re back on you, he smiles, irreconcilable with how grim the sky looks above you.

Heady and sweet.

“Go.” He tells you, voice low and perhaps it was the tilt of his lips that has you obligating with a silent nod.

Your friends are not sober enough to ask you who you were with, and you colored with shades of red, attraction.

It is a veil against the questions that should be alarming like why a man with a such an expensive watch around his wrist lurking around this side of the city.

With a hand on your hip, eyes filled with flames of irritation you glare at an unconscious Heeseung sprawled on your couch. With a snore loud enough for you to grow deaf. Evidence of last night’s chaos lies on the ground. Empty bags of chips and empty beer cans.

You had awakened with a slight ache forming in the temples of your head, a myriad of visions conquering your mind, mainly of your mystifying encounter with the handsome stranger.

With a shake of your head, you take a seat on the small coffee table that's facing your worn-out couch. Your eyes stilling on your friend's peaceful sleeping face, too peaceful. delivering a hard jab to his side, the latter barely feels it, only groaning in response. You huff, reaching for his cheek and pinching, hard. And that seems to do the job because Heeseung’s eyes shoot open, slapping your hand away with enormous potency.

"Ow! what the hell?" He whines, rubbing his now reddening cheek.

"Had to wake you up somehow." You say with a shrug, getting up and walking to your kitchen, another overly dramatic whine of his has you rolling your eyes.

"You're fucked in the head, you know that?"

"Yeah, yeah" you sip on your water, Heeseung shuffles from behind you, yawning as he leans his head on your shoulder, his body almost engulfing yours with his weight, arms wrapping around your waist in search for warmth, the morning weather remains frigid, sweeping in through the thin walls of your apartment.

“You’re heavy Hee and your breath stinks.” You sigh and he hums, making no effort to move away.

“Last night was interesting.” He says into your neck.

“Was it?”

“Who was that guy you were with?” your hand stills around the glass, had not expected such question.

“You saw us?” you retort, tilting your head to look at him.

“I did.” His arm loosens from around your waist to dawdle past you to brew some coffee, in search for some needed energy “so who was he? Mr. glasses?” he leans his elbow on the counter, facing you with a scrutinizing gaze.

You busy your fingers with toying with the plate of grapes in front of you, an awkward avoidance drapes over you.

“Just some guy.” You shrug.

“Didn’t take you as the type to chill in the middle of the night with just some guy.”

“I don’t know him Heeseung. We met once at some museum, and I just randomly saw him again last night.”

He keeps quiet, pursuing his lips. Seemingly not awake enough to register anything that meaningful. At his speech impediment, you take your glass with you, and settle upon your couch with a sigh, relaxing into the cushions. Heeseung follows you shortly after, his own cup of coffee in his hands.

“Jaeyun has been blowing up my phone.” He starts, sitting way too closely next to you.

“So?”

“He said you guys almost kissed in his car the other night.”

"I don't even understand why he's telling you all this shit." You mummer with an exhale, running your hands through your hair warily.

"He's just venting you know he has no one." You know he’s right, but it doesn’t lessen how hard the strings of irritation are pulling at you.

"Stop telling me about it then."

"Okay someone's in a bitch mood." Heeseung grumbles, hands up in surrender.

His eyes shift to your face, seeming to notice the bags under your eyes, the fatigue pasting itself to you almost invariably these days, wordlessly he pulls you into him, arms around your shoulders and you go easily, his touches, as gentle and warm as ever.

“I hope you’re being careful, angel.”

You keep quiet, eyes zeroed in on his cup of coffee.

You are walking home from work.

The sun has set too early, and the streets are sinisterly empty. The lights flicker;

off

you’re feeling cold, you can barely feel the tips of your fingers and It's oddly windy, you’re clad in nothing, but a tank top and your mind is hazy. You can’t seem to recall where your jacket is. Did you leave it at home, or did you end up leaving it at the store? You wield yourself to remember yet nothing.

You pass by a clock that's arbitrarily tossed upon the cracked ground of the street, for an unspecified reason you go and pick it up. It’s pointing at 11, slowly turning to 12 and before you could blink the clock wire starts moving inhumanly fast, turning and you grow dizzy. Throwing it back on the ground as you bring your palm to your temples with a groan.

The clock disappears as soon as it touches the pavement.

I need to go home.

Your head is now pounding, legs wobbly as you stumble on the sidewalk. Your vison blurry and your chest tightens with insignificant trepidation.

I need to go home

You hear footsteps behind you and your chest tightens even more, breathing grows to be a harder task and you’re panting, terror nestles its way into you uninvited and hastily. You don’t need to look behind you to feel alarmed, instead your weak legs attempt to pick up speed, a futile way to flee from whatever danger lingering behind. abruptly pain spreads across the bottom of your feet as if you’re running on endless needles, it’s unbearable and you’re struggling to breathe, panting loudly yet no air seems to make its way into your throat. As if steel is lodged in the middle.

The footsteps grow closer and closer to you, agonizingly taunting, you can’t move when you feel a presence behind you, feel their breath hit the back of your neck and with one swift move, you feel a hand circle your wrist, its grip unrelenting and your body grows frail, unable to fight back.

You look down at the hand holding onto you and all you see is red blood. Dripping everywhere, down your wrist staining you. Your mouth opens with a scream but it’s silent, no sound can be heard.

With a frightened expression and widened gaze, you look up at the guy, with an unrecognizable face, he’s doused in blackness. It flings your soul into a substantial pool of horrific panic. You try to break free, your fingers twisting but to no avail. His grip is too strong, your own body too weak to fight back. You try to scream again, yelling to be let go and yet just the same it’s silent.

Your free hand touches your face only to realize your mouth has been sewn shut.

Suddenly the sky above you color with grey clouds and it starts to rain drops of crimson.

The scent of metallic invades your nostrils, you taste it on your tongue and your known nausea builds alarmingly swiftly. You only register your tears spilling out your eyes when the guy tackles you to the ground. His body is akin to a block of metal on top of you.

He starts to cackle at you, you can feel your heart beating its way out of your chest, loud and painful. You’re terrified, covered in blood and incapable of catching your breath.

There’s a knife in his hand, as his laughter gets louder and louder ringing in your ears, the blade cuts through your chest. He craves out your heart and you lie there, watching as he brings it to his mouth with a smile so wide and chews on it.

You can’t move, you can’t speak, you have no one to help you.

You wake up with a gasp, eyes lined with tears and shaking with tremors of terror running through your limbs. You look around and your panic subsides with an exhale, realizing you’re on your bed, in your room.

A wave of relief washes over you, like splashed cold water. It was just a bad dream. A really bad dream. Unwittingly your palm sprawls over your chest, right where your heart is and another exhale escapes you, it’s beating and it’s still here.

You’re okay, everything is okay.

Checking your phone, you scroll the seemingly monotonous messages from your friends. You had finished classes early and decided to go back home and nap before your planned study session with them. Your body has been feeling weak these few past days. Ever since your encounter with the pretty stranger, surely staying under the rain that late at night wasn’t the smartest decision. Despite it being short-lived it was more than enough for your frail body to fall apart with a sore throat and a runny nose. A flu lurks around the corner, and you know it’s coming.

Your eyes flit to the now washed hoodie you hung on the door of your closet, a constant reminder that whatever you felt was real. A hope etched onto the fabric for another chance, to see him.

You get ready in a haze, mind a little numb and limbs dragging with a dire ache. Heeseung ends up picking you up and he keeps rambling the whole ride about a new video game he needs to buy. You keep quiet, looking out the window, although your nap you still feel weary, head buzzing with recollection of the nightmare you had. You had an inkling that it was about the figure you saw outside your work a couple of weeks ago.

Although you’re accustomed to being surrounded by fret you never knew yourself to be this paranoid. You can't decide if you’re being way too anxious about such a minuscule matter, or you aren’t giving it enough magnitude.

You meet Sunoo and Minji outside the library, a small and cute one just around the corner from a cafe that you used to work at. Although it’s closed now.

The owner – who was a kind old man – had decided to close it after three years because he couldn't handle the terrible loss of his son and moved back to his hometown. You never knew the exact details of the incident.

The tension swirling in the air is hefty enough for you to feel it, somehow adding heaviness to your shoulders as your eyes dart between the two. Unresolved conversation hangs between them and it’s evident enough in the way there’s a frown plastered on Minji’s face. An avoidance in Sunoo’s gaze.

"Should we go for karaoke after?" Heeseung suggests as soon as you step foot inside, with an arm around your shoulder he brings you closer to him. It’s a salient striving to lighten the mood.

It earns him a glare from Minji who seems to have little to zero tolerance loitering in her.

“We have no time for bullshit. We came here to finish this stupid project.” She huffs and Heeseung holds his hands up in surrender.

“Damn okay. Chill.” He mummers and you chuckle, adjusting the falling strap of your tote bag.

On the contrary, Sunoo’s expression turns sour, his brows knitting together and his words fall like bombs that have been on edge, waiting to find a chance to be let loose “He obviously meant when we’re finished with our work.” He grumbles, voice laced with evident venom, Heeseung agrees with a nod.

"And you seriously think we're gonna have time to do anything? The due date is literally tomorrow." Minji retorts with an equal amount of venom tinting her tone.

You sigh at the glare the librarian throws your group, noticing the disturbance your discussion has caused across the stillness of the place “Can you guys cut it out and start actually doing your work?” the three of them look at you in union, nothing is said back at you and with a pleased nod you take a seat at one of the nearest tables. Your friends follow silently, unpacking their stuff, immersed in their work.

"yn," Heeseung calls. Brushing his shoulder against yours. His eyes are wide in a plea and a pout on his lips.

"What?" you ask with imitated disgust.

"Can you help me with this?" his pout intensifies as he points at the part he's confused about, batting his lashes at you and you bite back a smile as you lean over, bangs falling over your eyes and inattentive to the way Heeseung’s expression melts into an unfamiliar tenderness, gaze serious.

The question was related to personality psychology. You and he had decided to enroll in the course together. Thinking it would be easier if you had someone with you. It slipped your mind that one; Heeseung is an idiot at everything except for math and two; your attention span has been all over the place lately. Dozing off in almost every class.

"Sorry you're gonna need to help yourself because I don't understand it either." You say, patting his shoulder.

Heeseung looks away promptly leaving you with no answer and despite your perplexity at his behavior you don’t dwell on it. Putting your earbuds in and taking out your own notes to start studying.

A couple of hours have passed, Minji and Sunoo are much more mitigated, the air flows lighter and you can’t help the smile that disperses across your face at the sight of them working closely together. You stretch your arm above your head with an exhale, feeling your back muscles relax.

Leaning your chin on the palm of your hand, you look out the window. catching sight of the rain outside. Taking out your earbuds, the sound of raindrops hitting the window reverberates throughout the tranquil silence disseminating the place. It stirs a welcomed alleviation within you. Days of overworking yourself alongside the lack of sleep catches up to you, fatigue sears itself onto your being and you lie your head on the table. Eyes pasted on the dewdrops trailing down the window leisurely.

Minji's and Sunoo hushed conversation starts to feel like white noise. You fall into a distance lullaby and right at this mere moment you feel like you could relax for the first time in a while. A feeling so foreign you’re almost too afraid to settle in.

As your eyes grow heavier with sleep, you notice a familiar figure pass by in front of the window. Impossible to forfeit, amongst the crowd and the countless umbrellas there’s just no way for you to miss him. Not when he’s been haunting your mind for stretching hours. Not when your head hits the pillow and the only plaguing your thoughts are the words he traced upon your skin, as if tattooed by flames you cannot seem to relinquish.

You shoot up from your chair, your tiredness long obliterated as your eyes frantically follow him. The conversation of your friends dies down, their focus shifting on you with concern etched onto their features

"Are you okay?" Sunoo asks, his eyes shifting to where you’re looking.

"Yn?" Heeseung calls out to you.

But you’re impotent. Your attention stolen and you’re incapable of registering a word that’s being said to you.

"Sorry guys, I’ll be right back." You speak in a hurry, shoving your phone deep into your pocket and quickly storming out of the library. The rain is unforgiving as it dawns on your being, drenching you and earning you a few disdainful looks from the people passing by.

You don’t recognize yourself, you’re not usually like this. And you try to grasp meaning of your behavior, yet you’re empty handed, filled with a baffling urge for a glimpse of this man who’s nothing but a stranger to you. Perhaps it was the wind of grotesque emotions flinging through the air every time you two spoke, his few words have stuck in your mind like a record that won’t stop playing and no matter how many times you listen, you’re still scuffling to find elucidation.

Perhaps you were just edging yourself into deliration.

"What am I doing." You mumble to yourself as you’re about to go inside, you notice him at the end of the crossroad.

You stand still for three full seconds.

On the first one your brain chastises you, stridently yelling at you why do you care over and over again.

On the second one you shift onto rationality telling yourself to go back inside the library and continue the life you’re so used to. Where no weird guys you’re fascinated with exist and you act like a different version of yourself.

On the third one you start sprinting because the man takes a right turn, and you need to catch up. Water splashes under your feet as you gather whatever robustness is left in your body.

You don’t give room for yourself to abide on any raising questions in your head, like what would you possibly say to him if you caught up to him? You have no idea how you could explain this peculiar urge to see him again? Was this behavior odd enough for you to be deemed a stalker?

The space between you two grows smaller, your shorter legs remain lacking for you to fully catch up when he takes a turn to his right, you follow right after with a panting chest. Your feet come to a stop as the sight of an empty alleyway comes into view. Your brain racing with confusion that clampers over your face just the same. You attempt to look further yet only bags of trash greet you. The wetness of the rain mixing in with it makes the scent horrendous.

"Are you following me?" You jolt in surprise; a discernible gasp tumbles out your lips.

You swivel around, coming face to face with your desired target who stays as breathtaking as ever. Shrouded in black formalwear and hair styled to perfection, his glasses hang at the tip of his nose, His hand holding onto an umbrella while the other is buried in his pocket.

He’s a striking image of an ardent artist’s majestic creation, diabolically ethereal, nothing less. You in contrast, a ball of predicament, hair wet and a heaving chest.

"I wasn't." You answer shortly, an idiotic attempt to grasp control over the situation.

If the raise of his brow is anything to go by, he doesn’t buy it and you cannot blame him.

"Oh really?" he muses, taking a few steps towards you, a smirk curling at the end of his lips and you hold your breath in guilt.

He tilts his umbrella to you, harboring you from the rain.

He looks down at you, eyes dark and it is enough to set your cheeks ablaze, a blush mortifyingly potent enough to travel all the way to your ears. Your heart skips beat almost appallingly, loud enough you grow fearful he might be able to hear it. It sends you into enough panic to forget about how uncomfortable your clothes feel, sticking to your body.

“You shouldn’t be out without an umbrella when it’s raining this hard.” He reprimands, tone gentle.

“I know.” Sweat beads start cumulating at your forehead, albeit the frigid weather, your body growing hot.

“Where are you heading? I’ll take you.” he asks, tilting his head at you, a smile just as tender as the one that colors his voice, and you shake your head at him in disregard.

“Or would you like to admit now that you were following me?”

“I-I wasn’t following you!” you sputter, nowhere near convincing.

“I’m only teasing, darling.” He chuckles, a sound so strangely compelling, an urge crawls over you, so foolish like saving the sound between the palms of your hands alongside his sweet endearment.

“Aren’t you scared, to be here with me alone?” he deliberately asks, voice lowered.

“y-you don’t seem dangerous. Besides you saved me from that old man last time so.” You trail off, bunglingly and he hums, gauging the way you almost curl into yourself with precious diffidence.

Your eyes darts to his momentarily, holding you captive with manacles coaxed with deviant cravings, it tastes like candied impulses you wish to give into, it feels like addictive fire upon your skin ignited by his gaze.

Your body is overwhelmingly hot so that exhaling grows to be a harder task.

"We seem to always meet when it's raining." You whisper, traversing through the silence.

"I guess so." He hums, keeping his eyes on you “were you keeping track of our meetings?” He follows with a question, you dare with collected vigor not to look away despite the way your cheek burns so profoundly it feels excruciating.

“It’s hard not to.” You admit.

“How come?”

You chew on your lower lip, brain turning to putty, just like melting ice cubes under the vehemence of his stare. You aren’t feeling well, gravely trying to come up with a tolerable fib to spill. Yet the wheels in your head feel like they have turned rusty, unable to turn quick enough. The blink of your eye takes longer to unfold.

“they’re fascinating to say the least.” You settle with the truth.

“Mm. are they or do you find me fascinating?”

“Do you always ask random strangers this many questions?” you huff out, you’re growing dizzy, your knees unsteady.

“Do you always follow strangers into alleyways?”

“No.” you answer, airily.

He takes a few steps towards you, closing the already very small distance separating you. Tentatively he brings his hand up to your face, with the back of his fingers he caresses your forehead so delicately, your eyelids fall shut, missing the way his eyebrow shoot up in surprise.

“You’re very warm. Are you alright?” his words fall upon your ears laboriously, like they echo within your being, and it takes longer than necessary for you to find meaning in them.

“’m okay.” You murmur, absentmindedly stumbling forward and resting your forehead against his shoulder, his body aids in providing comfort you didn’t realize you needed.

“I don’t think so darling. Are you friends near?” he asks, and you shake your head, his arm wrapping around your shoulders vigilantly. It spreads a pleasant buzz throughout your body,

You’re so tired you want to go to sleep.

“I’m gonna take you to my house. Okay? We need to take care of you, it seems you’re running a fever.” you think you answer, or maybe you nod your head. You aren’t very sure.

All you know is that you felt indisputable comfort in a sustained amount of time.

When you awake, you’re met with a foreign ceiling. It’s painted with spatters of colors atop one another. Dominated by three shades black, white and red. They expand into bigger arbitrarily sketches you’re not sentient enough to understand just yet. It’s very well done, inherently distinctive that you can tell it’s painted by the hands of whoever is residing here.

You sit up with a groan, twined with the throb of your forming headache. Pressing your thumbs into your temples, it is not even close pressure for the pain to subside. Blinking, your eyes take a swift look around the room you’re in. The space larger than your entire apartment.

You don’t get to linger in how much money this man has before you hear the door clicking open.

"Oh, you're awake?" He asks, Looking fresh out of the shower, with slightly damp hair and barefaced.

His black clothes are now replaced with a white button-up dress shirt and black formal pants. You slightly raise your eyebrows at the choice of clothes. His hair leaves droplets of water on his shirt leaving some spots transparent.

"Did I pass out?" you ask, voice just a tad groggy, your eyes following him as he turns his back to you, fetching something from the coffee table that you didn’t even notice.

Just how big is this room?

“No. you just fell asleep.” He answers, turning to face you with a cigarette dangling from his lips, unlit while a lighter curls between the fingers of his other hand. The twitch of his lips is enough evidence of how comical he finds this to be.

“Oh.” You trail off, face burning.

As he walks to you, the intensity in his gaze remains as suffocating as flower petals blooming in the middle of your throat, you don’t allow yourself to breath as his slender fingers graze your forehead, your fists curling onto the sheets.

“Your fever has gone down. Thankfully.” He says, voice muffled by the stick between his lips.

His black hair drips water on your bare thighs causing you to shiver. It's cold. At the realization you look down at your lap, noting you’re not wearing any pants, clad in an unfamiliar sweatshirt.

“D-did you change my clothes?” you stammer, your cheeks falling into a darker shade.

“I couldn’t put you to bed with soaked clothes. Could I?”

“Well y-yeah.”

“I’m just teasing, darling.” He starts, his eyes skimming across your blushing face with relish “My maid changed your clothes for you. I’m a gentleman after all I wouldn’t undress you without your consent.”

“Gosh this is so fucking embarrassing. I’m sorry.” You whine, covering your face with your palms in hopes to somehow dissipate into air, or let this be another stupid nightmare of yours.

“Which is, the fact that you fell asleep on me or that you talked in your sleep about how handsome you think my face is?”

“Oh my god!” you exclaim, horrified at the information, you curl into yourself further. The way he chuckles so lightheartedly doesn’t make it any less humiliating.

"Would you like some food?" he asks, his finger brushing across your arm causing goosebumps to arise.

“No.” you groan “I wanna go home or maybe throw myself out the window.”

“Now you’re hurting me.” you peak at him through your fingers, expecting a teasing smirk to be displaying yet you’re met with an odd solemnity.

"I made some soup for you-" He pauses to light his cigarette, taking a deep inhale and puffing out the smoke. You watch with unalloyed attention as he throws the lighter on the table next to the bed mindlessly.

There’s an anomalous elegancy that coats his every move, enough to have you enchanted.

"So, you should really have some." He finishes, dark eyes finding yours with unfaltering assertiveness that has you silently nodding.

You cannot give voice to your emotions, not when he’s an embodiment of everything beauty gets the pleasure to breathe into. It’s an unyielding attraction, one that you cannot seem to scrimmage against, ideally you bare your neck, waiting to feel his teeth on your throat.

At your approval, he sends you a gentle smile, like a soothing wave of comfort descending upon your body that has been drowning in exhaustion. It’s ill-fitted, compared to his dusky room, or the cigarette slotted between his lips.

“I’ll go get it for you.” he tells you and you give him another nod,

With his absence, you fetch the opportunity with vigor, taking it upon yourself to snoop around. You start by examining the lighter he threw on the bedside table, the shiny exterior had managed to capture your attention. Brushing your fingers over the leather case, it’s not hard to tell even such a small item is expensive.

You notice an initial is engraved at the bottom, trailing the two letters with the tip of your index finger 'PSH'.

Putting the lighter back on the dresser, you stand up feeling slightly better, your legs gathering more strength compared to earlier. You turn your attention to the countless papers sprawled on the floor, collected in a pile as if they hold no importance anymore. Picking a few up, you go through them with inquisitive eyes. They all seem like first drafts of sketches, clearly unfinished. Few with a face etched onto them, void of any clear features, another is just a pair of eyes. While a different one is just an outline of a body, for some odd reason they all feel familiar. Like you have seen them somewhere or like you should know who they belong to.

It has an unsettling feeling nestling its way into you, the same one you felt back at the museum. Drifting your eyes to the corner of the page, the autograph there catches your eyes.

"Park Sunghoon." you read out loud. You check the other papers and surely every single one of them is signed with the same name. you don’t get to dwell on the discovery before you hear the door clicking open once again.

Placing the papers back in their original place, you face the door. He steals a glance at you, your gaze locking for a mere second before he’s walking over to the small coffee table, sitting in the middle of his room paired with a sofa that looks more expensive than anything you’ve ever owned.

"Come here." He tells you, setting the tray he was holding down, and you follow quietly. Sitting down next to him with a good, measured gap between you.

He eyes you but doesn’t comment on it.

"Help yourself." He says pointing to the bowl of soup with a tilt of his head, his fingers curling around one of the cups that seem to be holding coffee.

You only nod, scooting closer to the table as the delicious smell invades your nostrils, evoking your hunger to raise and the realization that you haven’t eaten anything all day.

“Good?” he asks after you take a sip, eyes fond.

“Really good. Thank you.” you answer with a smile, diving in for some more.

"Have some green tea." Sunghoon suggests and you nod. Setting the bowl down on the tray. You reach for the cup. Your eyes immediately dart to the label of the tea, and you recognize it as one of the more expensive brands. They don't even sell it where you work.

Amidst your sip, you look at him only to find him already watching you. Resting his chin in the palm of his hand, his eyes follow your every move with a slackened expression. With tinted cheeks you avert your attention to the huge window next to you, taking note that the rain has stopped completely. Although it's still cloudy outside.

You should head home soon before it starts raining again.

"So why were you following me?" Sunghoon asks, slicing into the congested tension. You don’t expect it, resulting in you choking on a sip, your face turning red in color as you fall into a fit of coughs.

Sunghoon’s emotions grow into amusement as if you weren’t on the verge of death.

"I wasn't following you." you state, clearing your throat.

“What were you doing then?"

“I was at the library with my friends,” you start, eyes lolling everywhere and he only hums, patience seeming unlimited “I saw you passing by, and I wanted to tell you that I figured out what you wrote on my arm that night.”

"So, you went out into the rain without an umbrella?” he puffs out a chuckle and you’re starting to feel a tad bit annoyed. Like you’re a source of entertainment to him.

“It was stupid. I’m so dumb for doing that I get it.” You huff, overwhelmed with discomfiture.

“It made me happy.”

“What?”

“Knowing I wasn’t the only one still thinking about you.”

“You think about me?” you ask, eyes flitting to his, they stay unwavering.

“I do.” There’s no way for you to prove it, but you know it’s the truth he speaks, woven with that same unfeigned smile.

Your silence stretches, as you ponder upon all the contingencies staring back at you. You can’t find anything worrisome and perhaps that’s why it worries you, you cannot be worthy of anything this gentle.

“You told me you figured out what I wrote on your arm?” he asks, pulling you out of your thoughts and you brighten with excitement, inching closer to him unwittingly, he leans into it. His arms stretching behind you.

“I did!”

“Mhm, go on. Tell me.”

“I can see your fears.” You answer, eyes dancing between his with overflowing delirium. Evoking a smile from him.

Your chest warms at the sight.

“Close enough.” He tells you and it’s enough for your excitement to melt right off you, replaced with a pout and a knot between your brows.

“I got it wrong?”

“It’s a T, not an F.”

“I can see your tears?” you ask, tilting your head in a too endearing of a manner.

“Yeah.” he answers softly.

“Does it have any special meaning behind it?” He shrugs at your question, leaving it unanswered as he stands up wordlessly, walking to his bedside table, he leans down to open a drawer and fetch something you can’t see.

You let your eyes wander, trailing over his slim figure, keeping yourself in check is almost deemed unobtainable. Not when you fall breathless as you’re pushed into the same space as him. He’s stunningly virtuoso as he’s surrounded by pieces of his own art, scattered around the floor, hung around the walls of his bedroom. Like it took decades to sculpt this man. Not a single flaw to be seen.

"Are you gonna tell me your name?" you ask when he turns to face you, a sketchbook between his hands and you’ve managed to stitch yourself woefully just in time.

“Although you got it wrong,” he sits himself back on the sofa right next to you, charm imbued into his grin “it’s Sunghoon. Park Sunghoon.” The name rolls off his tongue so fluidly, far from how it sounded in your head when you read it. The fact that you already knew is a hushed secret within the walls of your brain.

“What’s yours?” He opens his sketchbook, skimming through ones you don’t get enough time to steal glances at.

“yn,” you answer.

“Pretty name.” He doesn’t give enough time for his words to penetrate your mind, instead they hang over you like their own cloud replenishing with their own shades of emotions.

He inches closer to you, tilting your chin towards him with his thumb and index finger. You’re so taken back you don’t even get to inhale, cheeks glowing pink and body going rigid. His eyes skimming over your features, scrutinizing you as if you’re one of his paintings.

"W-what?" You stutter out.

His fingers loosen, abandoning the warmth of your skin, your fingers itch with a foolish urge, one like stopping him. An imprudent entreaty climbs up your throat, one like telling him you miss his touch the moment it’s gone.

“You have freckles.” he says, settling into an empty page and picking up a pencil that had been lying randomly on the table.

“They’re very faint. Nobody ever notices them.” You reply, dumbfounded.

“I can see them very clearly.” There’s a deeper meaning underlying his words, one that you cannot seem to comprehend "you’re bewitching. It has me questioning if you’re real." He continues, unceremoniously.

You find fiendish in his kind words, it’s as if your heart isn't swelling up in your chest. Inflating so beyond your control it feels like it might explode any minute. You exhort yourself not to be swooned so effortlessly. You shouldn't be taken away by so little yet flattering words like a weak branch swayed away by a fleeting wind.

You tell yourself you have been here before, you cannot stumble into the same mistakes over and over again, even if it grows harder by the minutes. The cravings of your heart screams grow louder when he looks at you, his hand pausing for a mere minute as if he’s taken back just the same. The softening of your gaze, an exposure of all your hidden fragility.

"I feel the same way about you," your words escape you without much thought, unconcealed.

You stare at each other for what almost feels like a decennary. Years of people dying, souls being reborn. And you’re still here, as if frozen in time and whatever colors the air between you two is enough to pump life into you for that long. It’s counted minutes, fewer seconds for you hold your breath and longer for you to blink.

Sunghoon doesn't reply, only hums as he goes back to drawing. Skilled fingers moving across the paper.

But you feel it, in the darkening of his eyes. The sharpening of his gaze. The tightening of his hold on the pencil. It's all so subdued but evident. A shift in the space between you, the tension amplifying, tethered with feverish intensity. You catch yourself breathing in deeper gulps of air. Wrapping an arm around your body, you look around. A failed attempt to calm your nerves.

"Are you uncomfortable?" Sunghoon asks, scrutinizing your movement.

"A little." You admit and he tsks, in what seems to be disapprobation, it has your arms tightening around yourself. An urge to please arises.

"You can ask me anything you want, if that will help." He suggests.

"Do you always draw strangers out of the blue?" you tease, striving for the air between you to be lighter.

It earns you a chuckle from him, a shake of his head that has you entranced. You never knew there were this many shapes of beauty and you did not know they could all exist in one person, in the tone of his voice, in the fluttering of his lashes, the sharpness of his jaw and even in between the strands of his hair.

"Only the pretty ones." He jokes back and you blush with a scuttling gaze, denying your heart.

"How old are you?" you inquire, attempting to start normal conversation.

"How old do you think I am?" He asks. Looking at you sideways with a tilt of his eyebrow that has you melting like butter. Squirming in your seat.

“Aren’t you supposed to be answering my questions?”

"I'm 28." He answers and you cannot hide the surprise taking place upon your face, not when he didn’t look a day over the age of 23.

“You’re young, aren’t you?” He asks, at your silence.

“I’m not that young.” Your tone comes out defensive, it has his lip twitching upwards in merriment “I turned 21 last month.” You continue and he only hums back.

You feel it again, the abrupt stopping of time for you, yet the ticking of the clock on the wall echoes resoundingly throughout the room. It is not enough to drown your heartbeat ringing in your ears. Not enough to conceal the allure swimming in his eyes when they dance between your eyes and then down at your lips.

You find yourself inching closer, you’re indistinguishable being pulled in by your heartstrings, with flames surging between you two, intertwined with lethal attraction and obscure intensity. The idea of burning alive does not sound all that bad right now. The space in the middle of you closes by inches, his breath reeking of cigarettes and coffee, the smell of his shampoo are all distinguishable.

He doesn’t move, like he’s waiting for you to make the first move, and you’re kneeling into it, with eyes turning hazy and labored breaths.

As your lips are about to touch, a striking sound cuts through, the ringing of a phone catches you both off guard. You wait for Sunghoon to get up, but he remains still, not moving a muscle, the twitch of his brows are the only giveaway of his annoyance.

"It's yours." He whispers, you’re confused for a minute but as the haze of enticement evaporates, you recognize the ringtone of your phone, spot it buzzing on the bed.

“Oh.” You stand up awkwardly, with stiffness in your bones you dawdle past him to grab your phone.

There are endless notifications of messages from Minji and Sunoo, a couple of missed calls from Heeseung. You cuss at yourself, had totally forgotten there are people waiting for you outside of whatever bubble you have stumbled into with Sunghoon. Who stays on the sofa with his back to you, seeming too busy admiring his own sketch of you.

You sway on your feet, with swaying thoughts, questions as foolish as the tint of red upon your cheeks. Is he admiring it because it’s you or is it an egotistical cherish?

Disappointment builds inside you at the thought.

"I should head home." You say, pocketing your phone.

"My driver will take you back." he replies, turning to look at you from the couch and you avert your eyes. Focusing on ripped up sketch on the ground.

It's disheartening to think about how something he probably cherishes so deeply is torn to shreds.

"There's no need. You have done more than enough."

"You're still tired. He'll take you." There’s an edge to his tone that kills the possibility of a clinch. It is not unkind in any way, in fact it’s implicitly sweet.

“I’m sorry and thank you for everything.”

“No need for apologizes, darling.”

You linger by the door, an evident nervousness coating the way your fingers are entangling and with the same meaninglessly endless tolerance inked into him, he waits for you just as well.

“I’m sorry for stealing your clothes again.” You say, an impish smile tilting your lips upwards as you point at the pair of sweats covering your legs.

The same one disperses across his lips, as he tips his head back at you, his arms crossing upon his chest and almost shamelessly his eyes trail over your body, loitering by your chest, it ignites a blazing fire right down to your core. Ardour -as cunning as you know it to be- coaxes it all. A master of temptation and the both of you toy with it religiously.

“They look better on you anyways.”

You are disentitled to silence, his words messing up the atoms of your being there’s no way for you to think straight. So you don’t ask how can you give them back, and instead you’re out of his space with a racing heart, wrapped in a deluge of his scent and an unendurable moisture between your legs. Your cheeks marring red with disgrace.

colored with shades of a duskier red, your attraction deepens, coexists with drops of lust.

The different atmosphere between your apartment and the place you were in kills your spirit. You were never really a thriver for luxury. You didn't grow up rich or poor. You had very basic living circumstances. In every aspect.

Although your living conditions were much better than now.

Is what you think as you greet the old lady that's dragging her drunken son into her apartment. Her face flushes with embarrassment every time. Even though you never comment on it nor mention it the next day. This happens every Sunday. Sometimes the timing is different, either it's too early in the night or far too late. But it's always Sunday and you always manage to witness it every time.

You unlocked the door to your small place and darkness welcomes you, killing your spirit a little more. Twist the knife in.

"Look who decided to finally show up." You almost jump ten feet into the air, eyes widening in shock at the sight of Heeseung sitting, crossed arms on your couch.

Like a fucking creep.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" you genuinely wonder, settling down upon the steps to take off your shoes. They have been feeling uncomfortable the whole ride, an itch you wish to scratch away. You hear Heeseung’s footsteps behind you.

"Where the hell were you? I was so worried you just disappeared."

"Okay dad." You roll your eyes, untying your shoelaces.

"I'm serious yn, that was fucked up. You just walked out without telling us anything."

He's right. And you know he’s right, an apology hangs at the tip of your tongue but in the same moment you reach into your shoe to feel a rough crumpled up piece of paper. With furrowed brows, you pull it out. Heeseung’s scolding continues yet your focus is displaced, you peel it open and everything around you feels like it stops moving for a second. The wheels in your brain coming to a halt at the digits staring back at you. 10 to be exact with PSH signed at the corner.

He gave you, his number.

Something in you blooms, like splashes of color on a blank canvas, manifesting to life with a smile against your will.

"Yn." Heeseung calls, and you shake yourself out of your thoughts, shoving the piece of paper into the pockets of your sweatpants.

"Yeah?"

"You okay? You have been off lately." His hands are on your shoulder, squeezing.

“I’m okay.” You assure, standing up to face him with a smile. This time it’s not enough to subdue the concern lingering in his eyes.

“What happened today?”

You knew the question was coming, and you knew hiding the truth from Heeseung is something you never succeed in, but you still feel yourself growing slightly nervous perhaps due to the irrational actions that you, yourself are embarrassed of.

Taking out the piece of paper from the confines of your pocket, you hand it to him. He raises his eyebrow in confusion but takes it from you, nonetheless. His eyes dart rapidly between the paper and you

"I'm confused?"

"Mr. glasses." recognition fills his expression as he looks at the paper once more.

"PSH? That's him?" You nod "His number?" you nod once again.

"I was at his apartment earlier- well more like penthouse but yeah." you explain, playing with your fingers.

"Right." He says slowly, evidently still befuddled with the amount of information you’re daunting on him out of nowhere, you cannot find blame to fling at him not when you also cannot fathom what's going on with you recently.

"It's why I disappeared earlier - which I'm so sorry about. that was shitty of me. I just saw him and I-i-" you trail off, failing to find proper delineation to your actions.

"Hey." He ceases your rambling, “It’s okay. I'm not upset with you." He assures and you nod silently, yet with a glance at him it was apparent that he still has words in his mouth, if his pursed lips and twitch of brows anything to go by.

“Just say it.”

"You want fun Hee or logical Hee?"

“Oh god there's two." You wince and his pursed lips turn into a forced smile, one that he wears whenever he finds nothing to say at your usual discomfiture.

"Logic. Go on." You signal with your hand for him to speak, with defeat dousing your face.

"Okay." his eyes lock with yours seeming to be collecting his words "I can see you're enamored with this guy-"

"I'm not."

"You're into him-"

"No." you interrupt him once again and he tilts his head at you with that same look.

"you're not into him?” he asks, with a deadpan expression.

"I'm not that either." You mumble with a pout.

"Okay. whatever." he pulls you closer to him, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ears with benign touches, you grow weak at the nice gesture.

"I just don't think it's a good time for you to be involved with anyone romantically." You keep quiet "You and Jae ended a couple months ago. Your dad passed away recently. You're grieving-"

"I'm not sad about Jaeyun." You tsk, his gaze softens, clouded with disquiet.

"You're grieving your dad, yn."

You always envied Heeseung. You never told him that. But you did ever since you were kids running around his backyard and he’d cry if he fell, complain if he’s hurt. You envied how he knew exactly how he felt. How he was never confused. He knew how to figure out his emotions, knew how to wear them proudly and what labels to stamp on them. Scratch that, he knew what to call yours.

Grief? you? you never know what you’re feeling. All you know is either black or white. Sometimes it's too dark. Your vision cannot see past your feet and other times it's the lightest white a human could ever experience, it’s blinding. Yet your black lasts months upon months. While your white usually feels like evanescent heaven, floating by with a blink, not enough for you to settle in, for your hands to clutch into anything.

Your blacks remain prevailing with counterfeit whites.

You chew on the inside of your cheek; your chest grows overwhelmed with the whirlwinds of emotions unraveling inside of you. you tell yourself you don’t want to shed tears – that you have no reason for agony to descend upon your cheeks. Yet pain spills into the cracks of your heart with familiarity, running down the same interchangeable patterns with a searing ache.

Your tears are persistent, filling your eyes with ineluctable force it makes you angry, feeding into your confusion. You can’t tell if you’re angry or sad anymore. You disentangle yourself from Heeseung’s embrace, turning your back to him as you melt upon the stairs of your doorway. Despicable tears fall from your eyes, silently colored with agony.

Heeseung wraps his arms around you once again, stubborn in being your comfort “I’m sorry.” He whispers, running his hands through your hair with tenderness that only flings you further into vexation.

“I can never forgive him.” Your words spill like an explosion of choked sobs, one that’s invoked by his hands traveling to your back with soothing swipes “It’s okay.” He tells and you could only shake your head with a heaving chest “now he's gone, and he never even apologized!" He pulls you further into his chest, a silly wish to take your pain for his "He's gone and it's so unfair because I have to deal with this."

"It's okay."

"I can never forgive him now." Your body is shaking violently with tormented weeping, a kind of heartbreak that cannot be caused by anything other than a parent.

"I wanted to." Your eyes flit to his and he can only nod at you with faith, his own eyes sparkling with unshed water "now I can't."

As you bury your face into his chest, his hold only grows tighter around you, with cravings to pacify your storms. You don’t know how much time passes by with you curled into his arms. It’s only when your sobs have died down, your breathing has settled and your tears have dried that he speaks;

"Angel?" he calls, carefully and you hum back an answer,

"What happened?" He asks, "You never told me what he did." Your mind goes blank, not finding enough words to explain. A strange numbness replaces the ache in your chest.

“Do you wanna make hot chocolate and watch shameless?” you ask, tipping your head back to look at him.

“Of course.” He smiles, standing up and offering his hand to you, a warmth envelope your body as you take it.

As Heeseung makes it to the kitchen before you, you linger by the stairs, eyes glued to the piece of paper that had ended up on the floor, picking it up, you brush your fingers over the initials.

"Come on! I'm not making yours!" Heeseung yells from the kitchen.

"Coming." You reply, tearing the paper into two and throwing it in the trash bin.

Your blacks remain prevailing with counterfeit whites.

258 notes · View notes

fryingpan1234567 · 7 months ago

Text

superheroes and social media

do you KNOW how often I see a cute trend on ig or tiktok or anything and I’m just like “man that would be cute for (insert hero ship)”

but that’s an issue because like… putting your face on the internet is DANGEROUS🙅‍♂️

I had. an idea. to solve all the issues!

as fun as it is to imagine the RobinOfficial account having 4 million followers, I think it’s more fun for everyone to have accounts that only follow and allow following in the caped community

so basically Instagram for just superheroes

the ones whose identities are known can post their faces, and the ones who are still under the radar have a close friends list that consists of the people who do know them

a very few amount of people who aren’t heroes are allowed on this Super IG

including Lois Lane, whose entire presence is standard mom posts but with like. Superkids and other Kryptonians. you get it

uhh Bernard Dowd too but he only follows Tim and Steph

Alfred, who only posts the Manor and London with captions like poetry

Selina Kyle because she already had a regular account but B was like “oh that’s dangerous now that we’re affiliated”

she was like “well how am I supposed to fuel my ego with no instagram for people to thirst after me”

B sighed and was like “well,,,,,”

Harley Quinn fluctuates between being banned and interacting with EVERYONE’S content with offensive amounts of emojis

anyways tell me WHY Conner Kent has the most iconic page on the internet

it’s full of these aesthetic photo dumps and crackhead videos of YJ doing dumb shit

also Tim. he’s got chaotic gen z billionaire vibes and most of his stuff is on his close friends list because B doesn’t need to see the REALLY dumb shit he gets up to

yeah they’re both hot and yeah they’re both elite pages. but Kon’s is Sabrina Carpenter energy and Tim’s is P!ATD energy so they’re different flavors of slay

on the opposite end of the spectrum we’ve got B, who has four posts, all exactly 365 days apart

it’s the yearly Father’s Day family portrait

Dick Grayson does that millennial vlog thing but Not

“a day in the life of a 24 year old cop (who also happens to be a vigilante)”

also a compilation of clips of him jumping off buildings, some taken by him and some by other people

can you IMAGINE this dumbass with a gopro

Red Bull wants to sponsor him what can I say

he lets his favorite villains follow him

WHEN I TELL YOU BILLY BATSON HAS THE MOST FAMOUS PAGE OF ANYONE IN THE COMMUNITY

because he was a public figure ANYWAYS. this is the idiot who used to walk around charging people’s phones with his powers and taking selfies for cash. people know him

so Captain Marvel has this crazy account with him doing memes and slo mo compilations of him punching guys from his body cam

his most hit post is a video where he found a cop harassing a bunch of kids on the street (who he happened to KNOW) and without saying anything at first just kindaaaaa walked over and fried the cruiser’s entire inner workings

“yo, copper! I think somethin’s up with your system, man!”

while the cop was trying to figure out how to start his fucking car again, Billy herded the kids down the sidewalk and they all took off running, giggling like maniacs

Damian Wayne doesn’t post a lot, but when he does, it’s to match with Jon

I mean like taking pictures of each other from across the same table and the captions are each half of a whole song lyric, stuff like that

his personal favorite is actually their softlaunch— they found an entire wall of mirrors at the planetarium on a date, Jon had his right hand on Dami’s waist and the other in his pocket, and Dami was standing in front of him, holding the phone with his right and tilting Jon’s face down with his left to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw. neither of their faces are in it and it was Damian’s wallpaper for a WHILE

my babies ANYWAYS

Diana Prince posts exclusively about her favorite ice cream shops

Bart is the kid whose note is always like “in the hospital👍” / “sick again” / “hate broken ribs I can’t eat seven burgers in this condition” / “got possessed by a death god again :/ third time this week” and it’s like jesus man can you catch a break

can you imagine finding fucking Superman has a verified instagram account but it’s private so you can’t even follow freaking SUPERMAN

Duke Thomas is thoroughly over his siblings’ shit and there’s a ton of videos of them being dumbasses with captions like “someone save me it’s two in the morning”

anyways A COMPILATION OF TRENDS

“nobody move, there’s blood on the floor” for LITERALLY any ship it’s so funny

“what? you’re not coming to my tea party? Bethany, I made BISCUITS” with increasingly low res crack pics of Red Hood falling off of things, generously edited and posted by Tim Drake

dance trends with Steph and Cass

“guess which outfit is whose” with Tim and Steph but they’re both in their Robin uniforms

Tim making a cringey thirst trap edit of Jason who in response posted a clip of Tim tripping his own gear and setting off an alarm

“wearing the same outfit so no one can tell us apart” and it’s all the Batkids in their Robin uniforms (most of which barely fit) ((Bruce and Alfred cried))

the Superkids did the same thing a few days later and dragged Clark into it

not-quite-thirst-traps where they just kinda stand there over music but everyone in normal comments would’ve gone crazy

calisthenics trends. Thanks

it’s like a THING between all the Titans where they’ll sneak up behind each other, yell “THIS IS SPARTA,” and kick each other off roofs

someone sneaking up behind Jason while he’s belting Seasons of Love

MOTORCYCLE CONTENT

somewhere out in the world there’s a shaky, blurry video of Robin, Superboy, Spoiler, Blue Beetle, and Beast Boy dancing to and half-singing-half-yelling Tell Your Girlfriend

if you think of any more social media trends or videos or pics you see that remind you of a hero tag me because I’m obsessed with the idea of these idiots on socials

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onepiecestarry · 4 months ago

Text

Katsuki Bakugo Fluff Oneshot

I've had this bouncing around in my brain for a few days and just needed to get it down :) This is lowk based off of my life so I apologize since its a niche situation. But enjoy some Bk fluff and lmk if you want another part to this!

Katsuki x Reader

2.3k words

Most days you wake up, go to class, study, and train late into the night. You are a busy person, with many priorities, but this didn’t stop you from making many friends. You got particularly close to Mina and Sero, and along with that the rest of the bakusquad- besides Bakugo himself of course. You had tried many times to befriend him but to no avail. You decided to give up since you were already a part of his friend group.

You tried your best to make time for your friends but most weeks you wouldn’t join the nightly hangouts. On any days off you went home to help your mom, only Mina truly knew why you were never in the dorms.

“Alright class, today we are-” Aizawa started his long speech about your new upcoming project. You start to zone out, but quickly focus again to get the project details, jotting down any important notes you might need.

“I am going to randomly assign partners for this, please do not ask to change because there will be no exceptions this time.” Mr. Aizawa says in his regular monotone voice.

He starts to list off the groups and eventually says your name. “Y/n and Bakugo”

“Not that fucking nerd!!” Bakugo yells slamming his fist onto his desk.

“Shut it Bakugo,” Mr. Aizawa says activating his quirk on the rowdy student.

The rest of the day went by normally, you finished classes and began packing your stuff to study and train.

Around 1 am you get a text.

Bakugo

“Where are you dipshit”

Y/n

“Training, why?”

Bakugo

“Tf you training so late for, gts”

Y/n

“Dude leave me alone, what do you want”

Bakugo

“Friday at 11 am common room”

Y/n

“The project?”

He likes the message and the conversation ends. You look at the time and realize you should be going to bed soon, you do a few more reps before heading back to the dorm.

It's a cool night, as you walk a chill runs up your spine from the cold. You shake it off and continue to your dorms. As quietly as you can, you open the door and make your way to your room. You fall asleep to the crickets and cicadas chirping outside your window.

The week goes by quickly as the weekend approaches. You completely forgot about having Friday off, but Mina reminded you on Thursday to text your mom to remind her.

What everyone in the class doesn’t know is that your mom moved with you when you came abroad to study at UA. She and your little sister rent a small house not too far from campus. Your step-father refused to move with them, so on any days you have off you go home to watch your 2-year-old sister while your mom works. The only person who knows about this arrangement is your best friend Mina. She covers for you whenever you are there.

You wake up to the loud beeping of your alarm, as you look at it to shut it off it displays “4:30 am”. You groan and move to get up. Your mom starts work at 6 on the days you have off so you have to get to the house early so your sister isn’t home alone.

You grab your prepacked bag and school backpack and start your walk home. The sunrise is barely a sliver when you get there.

As you take care of your sister throughout the day, coloring, watching movies, and playing dress-up, it doesn’t matter what you do as long as she’s happy. Once you put her down for her nap, you throw yourself onto the couch half asleep. Then your phone starts going off over and over. You grumble something about a group chat and open your phone to see it’s Bakugo.

Bakugo

“Where are you dipshit”

“If you aren’t here in the next 3 minutes I’m blowing your ass up in your dorm”

“Why aren’t you in your dorm”

“ANSWER ME”

Bakugo has requested your location.

“Oh boy” You mumble to yourself

Y/n

“Chill dude, I’m sorry I forgot we were supposed to work on the project today, can we do it Monday?”

Bakugo

“NO, dumbass it's fucking due Monday”

“Where are you, answer the fucking phone now”

Y/n

“I can’t answer the phone rn”

Bakugo

“Well then SEND ME UR FUCKING LOCATION”

Y/n

“Will u chill tf out if I do?”

Bakugo likes the message.

Y/n started sharing their location with Bakugo

You huff and turn your phone off falling asleep on the couch. Not long after you wake up to three aggressive knocks on your front door. Knowing Bakugo you jump up to stop him from knocking more and waking your sister.

“Chill tf out, I’m right here,” You say as you open the door. Bakugo pushes past you walking into your house and turning to look at you.

“You are so fucking useless, we were supposed to have this project done today! I fucking should’ve done it myself” He says with his fingers on the bridge of his nose.

“Look, I’m sorry but Aizawa would know if you pulled that shit AGAIN”

“YOU FUCKING RATTED-”

You slam your palm on his mouth as he begins to yell. Shock is written across his face when he suddenly pushes you off him.

“What the fuck” He spits at you.

“You have to be fucking quiet dipshit” You whisper.

“Why wou-” He gets interrupted by your sister crying and running to you.

You pick her up gently and start to soothe her from her startling wake call as you glare daggers at Bakugo. He stands there in complete shock, this time not hiding it at all. You nod your head in the direction of your dining table and say, “Go set up there, we can work on it now.”

He doesn’t say a word while he gets his stuff out and sets up. You put your sister down to start making some lunch for her.

“Did you eat?” You ask not looking at him.

“What?” He asks snapping back to reality.

“Did you eat lunch?”

“Oh um no”

“Ok,” You say, silently making another serving more.

As you continue to cook and Bakugo silently sits there trying to think of what to say, he blurts out.

“So, who’s the father?”

You turn around from the stove and stare at him blankly for a second processing what he asked, then you see how serious his face is. You burst out laughing- “BAHAHAHA, WAIT,” you say wiping a tear forming in your eye from laughter. Bakugo glares at you to stop laughing. After you take a second to compose yourself you answer, “Bakugo, meet my sister, y/s/n.” You say as y/s/n goes up to Bakugo and hugs him. He has a horrified look on his face realizing what he just asked you.

He tries to jump away and get her off unsuccessfully. He accepts his fate and allows her to hug his leg.

The next few hours went by awkwardly, you served lunch and while your sister was busy eating you spent your time working on the project, allowing Bakugo to have a break and eat too. But as soon as your sister was done you were up and taking care of her again.

Hours go by and you realize you have to figure out dinner.

“Fuck” You whisper so your sister can’t hear. “What do you want for dinner Bakugo?” You ask from your sister’s makeshift playroom in the living room.

“I don’t know, don’t care.”

You look at him exasperated as you sigh and ask your sister.

“PIZZA!!!” Your sister says excitedly. You pick her up and gently whisper how you can’t afford to order pizza right now, and how you can make her something at home. She begins to sulk and goes back to her toys. You get up walk to the table and look at Bakugo to ask again.

“Wha-” You begin.

“I already ordered it.” He says not looking up from his notes.

“What?” You ask baffled.

“The pizza, I already ordered it.”

“Oh, you didn’t have to do that, seriously.”

“It's fine. She said she wanted pizza.”

“Okay, how much was it so I can pay you back.” You ask getting your wallet out.

“No.” He says not sparing you a look.

“What?” You ask again.

“I said no. Don’t worry about it.”

“Oh, okay, well thank you.”

Once the pizza arrives you all sit down to eat, but once again you don’t eat so you can work on the project. As you sit at your laptop across from Bakugo eating his pizza, your laptop suddenly shuts.

“Wha- What the fuck man?!” You half-yell at Bakugo.

“You haven’t eaten all day, so eat the pizza and then I’ll watch your sister so you can work.”

“But-”

“No. I said what I said.” He stares at you, silently telling you that you won’t win any argument with him.

He kept true to his word, he took care of your sister while you worked efficiently on your project. Around 11:30 you come back to reality and close your laptop, realizing that you should have put your sister to bed long ago. You walk into the living room to see Bakugo and y/s/n on the couch watching her favorite movie, Totoro. Y/s/n being asleep on Bakugo you decide to sit on the other side of him and continue the movie.

“Everything is done, we just need to make the slides and practice.” You whisper.

“Alright cool, that should be easy.” He says continuing to watch the movie.

You look over and admire how calm he is. His arm wrapped around your sister, her head in his lap fast asleep. You had to admit, he was great with kids. While you were working he was playing dress up with her, you managed to snap a few photos of him with a tiara on before he noticed. He was so sweet and gentle with her all day, the opposite of his regular personality. He didn't call her a brat even once, not even one time?!?

He notices you staring and looks over, “What?” He says annoyed.

“Nothing,” You say silent for a few seconds, “Just- thank you for today.”

He lets out a scoff, showing you he was listening.

“Is this where you disappear every night?” He asks.

“What? Oh. no, I actually do train every night since I’m here on the weekends. I usually get up at 4:30 and either stay here or go back at 2 am.” You answer.

“You do this only on two and a half hours of sleep?” He asks with confusion and shock hinting in his voice.

“Yeah, I don’t have much of a choice. No one else can watch her.”

The conversation fades as you both focus back on the movie. Eventually leading to you falling asleep on him as well.

Bakugo sits there on your couch, with your sister asleep in his lap and you asleep on his shoulder. He quietly watches the movie until your mom returns from work. She opens the door and hears the T.V. on, so she goes to the living room to check and she sees all of you there. Bakugo’s head swings at the noise and sees her.

“Oh my, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to startle you. I didn’t know y/n had her boyfriend over!” She says quietly moving to sit on the adjacent couch.

“Oh- um, I’m not-” He starts.

“Here let me move her to bed, they both sleep like rocks don’t worry.” She says with a wink, picking up your sister and taking her to her bed. She returns to see Bakugo hasn’t moved with you still asleep on him.

“How long have you been here? I’m so sorry for any trouble they’ve caused.” Your mom laughs.

“I got here around noon. Me and y/n were supposed to work on a school project but she forgot so I came over to work on it.” He starts

“Oh! I’m so sorry about that dear.”

“It's okay.”

“So how long have you two been together?” She asks excitedly.

“We aren’t dating,” Bakugo says quietly still trying to not wake you up.

“Really? Huh, I swear I’ve heard y/n talk about you before.” A light shade of pink finds its way to Bakugo’s cheeks.

“Well, thank you for helping take care of my girls, I really appreciate it. You should stay here tonight, it's too late for you to go back to school. Y/n’s room is there and there are blankets in the closet.” Your mom says getting up to go to bed. “And thank you again Katsuki Bakugo.” She finally says before disappearing into her room.

Bakugo tightens up at the sound of his full name, knowing well that means y/n has talked about him enough for her mom to know who he is.

He decides to stay on the couch, not wanting to disturb your peace. He pulls a blanket on the both of you and shuts his eyes. He thinks about all the times he couldn’t spot you at parties or hangouts. Or how you would vanish off the face of the earth on weekends. It all made sense now, you were working yourself to the bone to take care of your family.

Bakugo always had a soft spot for you, which is why everyone would always make you ask him to hang out with them, even if you weren’t going to be there. He never knew why he was murder-y with you but it scared him so he pushed you away even more. Hence you trying to be friends with him but ‘failing’.

But now he’s here, lying on your couch with you on top of him asleep, coming to the realization that maybe his soft spot for you isn’t all that bad.

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dangermousie · 1 month ago

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2024 kdrama post

We are already in December and nothing new I am likely to be interested in is gonna drop before the end of the year - and if it does it will run into 2025 so I can address it in my 2025 kdrama post, unless we are all ruled by lizard aliens by then.

Normally I list all the dramas made this year that I watch, thoughts on them, blah blah but this year I disliked most of the kdramas I tried (it was the worst kdrama year for me since 2006 when I first started!) and I don't want to make a giant negative post, so I am going to only mostly talk about the kdramas I enjoyed in some capacity.

From least to most:

Love Your Enemy - I don't really like it tbh, but it's here for nostalgia over JJH.

Tell Me You Love Me - good and quiet but suffers in comparison to the original and that FL actress is just not my cup of tea.

Connection - Ji Sung gives a powerhouse performance in a very solid crime drama; it's not higher because it's just not my genre.

The Midnight Shop - it was nice seeing Joo Won in not a disaster of a drama. It wasn't as engrossing as it could have been but I did like both the mains and rooted for them.

Knight Flower - was I emotionally involved? Nah. Was I entertained? Yeah.

The Judge From Hell - "was I emotionally involved? Nah. Was I entertained? Yeah." Redux.

Queen of Tears - honestly, it should probably be in the below category but I enjoyed myself for the first half so much, I am willing to pretend the nonsense disaster plots and character interactions of second half were not as bad as they were.

My Demon - sucker for supernatural romance fantasy done right (to me it was, I know some people didn't like it.)

Goryeo Khitan War - I put it on my 2023 list too so it's double dipping but whatever. This is just a grand old school sageuk and I adored every moment.

Lovely Runner - normally youth dramas bore me but this one was so sweet, so lovely, so pitch perfect.

Black Out - did not really feel like a kdrama at all, more like a prestige BBC production, but I loved it anyway, as bleak and harrowing as it was.

When the Phone Rings - my current obsession, old school melo the way they haven't made in years.

The sad thing is, a number of these dramas started airing in 2023 and/or beginning of the year. Most of this year has been the Sahara.

Dramas which I enjoyed off the start and then fell off the cliff into what the hell land: Captivating the King (wonderful first 4-5 episodes, OK few following, stupid as hell the rest - solid acting brought down by a ridiculous script), The Story of Park's Marriage Contract (great first two eps and then downhill rapidly with each following episode), Love Song For Illusion (first ep not bad, second ep tolerable, after that with each ep, my ff fingers got twitchier and twitchier.)

OTP of the year: Duh, Baek Sa Eon x Hong Hui Joo, When the Phone Rings, have you seen this tumblr lately?

Trend I wish would die: 8 ep kdramas, 12 ep kdramas. Bring back freaking 16 ep as a minimum standard. Also pls get Disney and Netlfix out of kdrama world while we are on impossible wishes.

Genre I need less of: romcoms; Genre I need more of: proper sageuk.

Worst waste of my eyeballs: The Impossible Heir.

Most boobs per minute: Queen Woo.

Best non-2024 kdrama I watched this year: Beyond Evil. A total masterpiece.

And that's a wrap!

(My cdrama post is gonna be insane in comparison to this.)

#kdrama #kdrama 2024

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stop-talking · 11 months ago

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You're his ex, but he's desperate for a babysitter. (pt. 4)

Mike Schmidt x fem reader

2.4k words + 300 word epilogue

Tags: 18+, mike x fem reader, no use of y/n, exes, enemies to lovers, slowburn? sassy mike, sassy reader, pet names, banter, angst, fluff, comfort, happy ending.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

─────────────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────────────────────

Mike sits at his kitchen table, trying not to nod off into his cereal. Today is a quiet day. A lazy day. His one day off.

Except, not really. There's always work to be done. He just has to figure out what today's work would be. He's caught up on laundry and dishes, the house isn't too much of a mess... Hm. Maybe he should finally fix the dripping pipe in the bathroom. Or the living room window that's been stuck for years. Or one of the million other things wrong with his house.

He sighs and goes to take a bite of his cereal, only to realize he forgot the milk. Damn it. When he opens the fridge, he stands face to face with a little blue dolphin stuffed animal. Right... Abby's still testing him. He leaves it alone, she'll see it when she gets home from school and assume her "spell" still works. Pfft.

Mike nearly drops the milk mid-pour when he hears the phone ring.

*click.*

"Hello?" He mumbles groggily, a little annoyed to have his morning brooding interrupted.

"Hey, Mike? You free at all today?"

He immediately perks up at the sound of your voice. It's been two days since he last saw you, and he honestly wasn't sure if you'd ever speak to him again.

"Yeah, uh... It's my day off, actually."

"Good. I'm using that 2nd favor."

Mike's heart races. If this favor is going to be anything like the last one, he was definitely up for it.

"Oh? Missing me already, sweetheart?"

"As if. I need you to build me a shelf."

A shelf? Well, that was unexpected. Hm. Better than nothing.

"What, like build it from scratch? Are you expecting me to buy the boards, or-"

"No. I have all the pieces. It just needs to be assembled."

"You can't assemble a shelf?" Mike scoffs, but secretly he's pleased. Sounds like you just want an excuse to have him over.

"Mike. You know I'm no good with tools."

No, he didn't know that actually. Liar. You definitely just wanted to see him again. God, he felt giddy.

"Mhm. Sure."

"Just get your ass over here, Schmidt."

"Woah, what's with the attitude, Princess? I'm here to help." He can't help but let some smugness seep into his tone. Okay, more than some. He's a cocky bastard and he knows it.

"I've been working on the damn thing all morning. Almost three hours now. Not in the mood, jackass."

Shit. You sounded sincere. And really pissed off. Then again, what kind of a shelf took three hours to assemble? The fuck was it? A jigsaw puzzle?

"Alright, alright. I'll be over soon. See ya."

Mike slumps against the counter as you grumble something incoherent and slam the phone down. Damn, what is he getting himself into this time?

Only one way to find out.

・○・・・・・・○・・・・・・○・・・・・・○・・・・・・○・

When Mike finally arrives at your apartment half an hour later, he feels a bit silly. He put on a nice shirt and trousers to come see you, and here you are in sweats and a baggy t-shirt. Figures.

"Call for a handyman?" He greets you with a teasing smile, holding up his old rusted toolbox as he makes his way inside.

"Pfft. Someone's happy to see me."

Mike can't really say anything to that, so he doesn't try. He is happy to see you, even if you have attitude problems and dress like a bum.

"So, I bought the damn thing from a friend-of-a-friend, who got it at a garage sale. I swear, it has to be missing some parts or something, because-"

He nods as you rattle on and lead him to your bedroom, but he's only half-listening. He looks around your apartment, taking it all in. It's been at least six months since he last came over, probably longer. It doesn't look to have changed much. He likes your apartment. It's cozy.

"Anyways... can you fix it?"

Mike pauses in the doorway of your bedroom as you give him a sheepish smile and gesture to something in the corner.

Holy hell. Is that supposed to be a shelf? Mike can't help but think that the hideous agglomeration of boards and screws would only be good as a fire-starter. It looks more like a pile than a shelf.

"Uhh..." He bites his cheek, desperately trying not to burst into a fit of laughter. Maybe you really weren't lying about the whole "no good with tools" thing.

He finally loses it when you groan and flop down on the bed, hiding your face in a pillow.

"Ughh... Laugh at me, whatever. Just fix it."

"Jesus Christ. This has to be the sorriest excuse for a shelf I've ever seen. Sure you don't want me to haul it to the junkyard instead?" He snorts, sitting down on the edge of your bed and looking with disdain at the half-assedly assembled shelf.

Mike immediately shuts his mouth when you glare at him. Oops, right, you're in a bad mood.

"I mean, uh... you tried?" He laughs, shaking his head in amusement. He still can't believe you're actually this inept when it comes to assembly.

"Get to work, Schmidt."

Mike yelps as you kick him off the bed, but doesn't bother retaliating. He just grabs his toolbox and sits on the floor, examining the so-called "shelf".

"Well, the first step is going to be un-doing everything you did."

・○・・・・・・○・・・・・・○・・・・・・○・・・・・・○・

You lie on your stomach in bed, chin propped up on your hands as you kick your feet in the air and ponder the sight before you. Mike's back is turned to you as he quietly works away taking apart the monstrosity you assembled.

"How long is this gonna take?"

"Well, If it wasn't so..." He trails off, glancing at you and choosing his words more carefully.

"...sturdy, it'd be a lot easier to take apart."

"Hm? What do you mean?"

He gives you an incredulous look and gestures to a series of nails in a corner where two boards meet. It does look pretty ridiculous, the sharp ends pointing out the other side. Not your best work.

"You put nails in it, sweetheart." He scoffs.

"How else was I supposed to keep it together?" You give him your best pout, and gloat internally when he has to turn away. He's absolutely infatuated with you. Even the back of his neck is pink.

"It comes with screws for a reason, ya know."

"There's a difference?"

He turns and gives you a flat look, and you laugh. Damn. You can play dumb with him, but maybe not that dumb. Noted.

Still, it's a little boring just laying there and watching him grumble and pull nails from wood. You can't really mess with him too much either, because you really do what him to fix the stupid shelf.

"You want something to drink?" You finally break the silence, under the guise of trying to be a good hostess.

"Pfft. Need some whiskey to deal with this bullshit." He snorts, pulling yet another nail free. He'd almost gotten one board off. One. This was gonna take a while.

"I was thinking more along the lines of soda or tea."

"Jack and Coke, then?"

"Mike. It's hardly past noon."

"So?" He scoffs. "For me, this is like... evening, or something. I dunno. Sleep schedule's fucked with this new job."

That answer makes you pause.

"What is it you do now, anyway?"

He groans, finally prying one of the boards free of the clusterfuck.

"Night guard. Told you already, remember?" He tries to shrug the question off, but you're nosy.

"Where?"

"Uhh... Freddy Fazbear's Pizza..."

"Speak up."

"Ugh. It's this stupid rundown hellhole pizzeria. Honestly dunno why anyone would wanna break in there anyways. It's a dump."

"What kind of a pizzeria needs a night guard? Or any guard?"

"The haunted kind."

You decide not to ask about that, simply shaking your head as you walk to the door. He's truly a loon. A loveable loon, unfortunately.

"Just tell me what you want to drink, Mikey, or I'm getting you water."

・○・・・・・・○・・・・・・○・・・・・・○・・・・・・○・

Mike sits on the floor of your bedroom sipping his glass of water and wondering how he got here. If you'd told him a week ago he'd be building his witch of an ex-girlfriend a shelf, he would've gagged. Now...? Well, he just wants to go join you on that bed.

"So are you really just gonna sit there and look pretty while I do all the work?"

"Aww, you think I'm pretty, Mikey? You smile, lying on the bed with your feet kicking in the air, giving him a look of pure adoration. It wasn't hard to do.

"Pretty annoying, yeah." He turns away with a scoff, returning to his work. If only he could get this stupid nail untangled from the other two... why would anyone use this many nails?

"You know, I think I liked you better gagged."

"Oh I know, sweetheart. I could see it in those evil eyes of yours." He can't help but smirk a bit at the comment, though. Sometimes he liked himself better gagged, too. He shakes the thought away and keeps working.

"Why can't you just get on hands and knees and beg me to take you back already?" You huff dramatically and roll over onto your back, letting your head fall over the edge of the bed. He looks silly from this angle. Upside-down.

That question nearly makes Mike drop his tools. Were you serious?

"Why? So you can laugh me off again?"

Ouch. It was true you'd turned him down the last time he'd tried it, but that was six months ago.

"Maybe if you used those big brown puppy eyes of yours on me."

That only earns you a grunt, so you verbally prod him again.

"Besides, why can't I do both? Laugh at you, then take you back? Sounds fun."

"Pfft. Fun? To toy with me? You'd probably break up with me all over again just for shits and giggles." He responds bitterly, still refusing to turn around.

"Mikey. Look at me." You roll back over onto your stomach and rest your chin in your hands as he slowly meets your gaze.

"I didn't break up with you just for shits and giggles. You know that. I'm not letting you sit there and wallow in self-pity."

Mike goes stiff from your words, but your tone is soft, and your eyes even softer. You're still giving him that adoring look. Damn it.

"Well maybe I'd rather wallow in self pity than admit you were right all along."

"You've had six months to wallow. Grow a pair and come kiss me."

He can't say no to that. Not when you look at him that way. He shuffles over, kneeling by the side of your bed. On his knees for you again, damnit.

You kiss him. It's different from the lustful, sloppy kiss you shared last time. This one makes you feel warm. You kiss him again. And again.

Mike really doesn't want this to end, but the knot in his stomach forces him to pull away. He has to ask.

"Why? Why are you doing this, I mean? Do you really want... to take me back?" He sputters, looking down at the floor.

"I'm not completely sure yet." You answer honestly, shifting and lying back on the bed.

Damn. That's not the answer he wanted to hear.

"Are you-"

"Come here."

When you pat the spot next to you in bed, Mike melts. He's a wreck right now, but still wants nothing more than to be with you, in every sense of the word. He silently complies.

"It's not about right and wrong, you know. As much as I love being told I'm right." You give him a soft smile, breaking the silence and placing your hand on top of his as you both lie on your sides.

Damn it. He'd done this with you before, this and so much more. Why was such a small touch turning him to goo?

"What isn't?"

"The breakup. It's about growing as a person. As people. Both of us." You lace your fingers with his, and can't help but laugh as his face reaches a level of pink you've never seen before.

"And what exactly am I supposed to be growing out of?"

"Pfft. I don't know, the emotional unavailability? The way you never made time for me? Constant irritability?" You start to dramatically list off his flaws, using your free hand to count on your fingers.

"Okay, okay. I get it." He huffs, and grabs your hand before you can make fun of him more. Instead, he guides it to his side, pulling you in a little closer.

"And you're miss perfect?"

"No. 'Course not. I have flaws too." You give him a sly smile, and start listing your own "faults".

"Too hot and sexy, too intelligent, too kind, amazing, sweet and caring..."

That's as far as you get before Mike scoots closer, burying his face in your neck and giving you a playful nip.

"Too arrogant." He adds with a laugh, wrapping his arm around you and letting himself melt further into you.

"My arrogance is one of my best qualities, thank you." You reply haughtily, sliding your hand up his back and into his hair.

Mike couldn't speak, even if he could somehow find the right words to say. Everything in this moment felt so right. His arm around you. Your fingers in his hair. He lets out a soft groan instead.

You aren't exactly eager to let go of this moment either, and just hold him for a few minutes. It feels nice to play with his soft brown curls.

"I'll do better. Please." He finally mumbles something to you, not bothering to move his face from where it's buried in the crook of your neck.

"Please what, Mikey?"

"Take me back."

He finally pulls back, just enough to give you a glimpse of those puppy eyes of his. Damn it. How could you even think of saying no?

"Yeah. Okay."

You both lean in for another round of soft passionate kisses, and Mike feels himself relax completely. His stomach unknots and his mind goes numb. For the first time in months, he feels completely safe.

・○・・・・・・○・・・・・・○・・・・・・○・・・・・・○・

"So does this mean you'll babysit for me again?"

"Go finish the shelf, Schmidt."

"Yes, Princess."

─────────────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────────────────────

♡ Epilogue ♡

Over the past few weeks, you and Mike had fallen into a sort of rhythm.

He never did end up finding a new babysitter, and besides, you're the only one who could ever get Abby to finish her dinner. You had to graduate her from daily witching lessons to weekly ones, though, convincing her she needed to study for the more advanced spells. Secretly, Mike was just losing track of which objects in his house were supposedly invisible. It was quite amusing to watch.

Mike's favorite part of the day was coming home to you already asleep in his bed, and waking you up with a kiss. He'd then either lie down in bed while you shower, or hop in there with you, depending on how you felt. Either way, he loved the view.

The conflicting schedules made things complicated, but you were able to work around it. Mike slept better with you holding him, and consequentially, was a lot more agreeable. He did his best to make more time for both you and Abby.

He even started to open up to you for once, letting you take on some of his burdens. This man sure had a lot of guilt. You were certain he hadn't yet told you everything, but he told you enough. At least you finally knew what the fucking NEBRASKA poster on the ceiling was for. Now you kind of felt bad for all the times you teased him about it the first time you dated.

As for the damn shelf... well, he finished it. It was still hideous, but it was functional. There were holes in it from the nails, and the wood had even started to splinter in a few spots. You couldn't bring yourself to get rid of it, though. Not after how much work you both put into it. Even if most of Mike's work revolved around un-doing yours.

It definitely wasn't a perfect relationship, not by far. But Mike never promised to be the perfect boyfriend. He just promised to be better.

And he was, bit by bit, every day. Better. ♡

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Author's note:

Thank you all for the love!! This was my first time writing a fanfic of any kind so I'm really happy so many of you enjoyed it. Feels good to bring the story to an end.

Feel free to send me a request, I'd love to write more fics about Mike. Or any other J-hutch character for that matter, Mikey is just my favorite <3

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ningningsdream · 9 months ago

Text

[4:28AM] "i still love you, y/n. it was dumb of me to let you go.", ex! jeno pleaded as he stood on your doorstep at an ungodly hour in the night, "everything i see reminds me of you. i've tried to move on but i can't help myself comparing everyone with you. i miss you even when i'm in a room full of people to distract me.", jeno rambled, his rosy cheeks hinting that he was probably a little tipsy.

today would've been your fifth-year anniversary if you stayed together.

"i thought of you every single day for almost a whole year after we broke up.", you said, looking at him.

"me-"

"let me finish.", you interrupted him, holding your index up, "i tried so hard not to, but it felt like the more i was trying to not think of you, the more i did. you were the first and last person i talked to every single day. some mornings, when i was still in a sleepy haze, i found myself looking at my phone to see if you had texted me and when reality hit me, it was another kind of pain. you were part of my everyday, you became a habit. it's hard getting rid of habits. i had to get used to say that i didn't have a boyfriend when asked about relationships, and i couldn't use 'my boyfriend and i already planned something' when i wanted to get out of things. i was wondering if i was the only one that had to hold myself back from sending you a text. i was wondering if you too, struggled with not having me in your life anymore."

"i did. i do. so much, y/n. you don't know how much i want to go back to slap some sense into myself and not break up with you. i was so overwhelmed with graduation, work and keeping up with family and friends that i thought i needed to get rid of something."

"so you got rid of me..."

"and i regret it so fucking much. the minute i saw the tears in your eyes i regretted it. i thought it was for the better, i was so busy i couldn't even be a proper boyfriend to you, and you deserved better than that. i thought letting you go was the best for the both of us."

"the best? i cried every single night for three months straight. not only because i missed you, but because as you said i deserved better. i knew that... i knew it but i also knew that if you showed up like this at my door back then i would've taken you back in a heartbeat. and it made me hate myself, because i loved you more than i loved myself."

"i'm so sorry, y/n. i really am-"

"babe! where are you?", you heard bf!renjun screaming from your room, with his sleepy and worried voice.

"i'll be right back, junnie.", you answered with a little smile on your face, imagining your boyfriend with his eyes closed and a pout on his face as his arm was lying on your empty side of the bed. you turned back to face jeno, whose face seemed like he saw a ghost, "jeno, i appreciate the apology... but you're a little too late. i've stopped waiting for you a long time ago.", you gave him a small apologetic smile.

jeno looked at you and realized how much he fucked up. you've rightfully moved on and he was the only one being stuck in something he created. when you replied to your boyfriend, that was when he noticed the smile on your face, the same smile that used to be directed to him, and that was the only time he saw you express happiness since he appeared on your doorstep.

"fuck, you're really here.", a familiar voice said right after you heard the elevator doors open.

"i really wished i was wrong.", another familiar voice said.

you turned your head and saw two people, you thought you wouldn't see again, walking towards your apartment.

"time to go home, samoyed."

"haechan. jaemin.", you greeted your ex's bestfriends.

"sorry for the disruption.", ex's bestfriend!haechan told you before grabbing jeno's arm and putting it around his shoulders, helping his friend walk away from your apartment and your life.

"how have you been ?", your old childhood bestfriend!jaemin said, letting jeno and haechan walk away first.

"great...you?"

"same."

the feeling of awkwardness and nostalgia could be sensed in the air. you looked at each other a few more seconds as all the memories of your friendship, from when you met in kindergarten to when he stayed by jeno's side when you two broke up, flashed through your eyes.

"baaaabeee!!", your boyfriend whined from far away, "come baaaack!"

"well, it's late. we're going to let you go back to your night. sorry about that.", jaemin nodded towards your ex, "and everything else...", hinting at his own mistakes.

you nodded, acknowledging his apology, "bye, jaem.", you gave him one last smile. it had been a while since he heard his nickname coming out of your mouth.

"bye, y/n.", jaemin returned your smile.

you watched him walk away with his two other friends, knowing that your byes stood as an official farewell to your friendship and his presence in your life.

masterlist

#nct dream scenarios #nct dream imagines #nct dream fluff #nct dream angst #nct scenarios #nct imagines #nct fluff #nct angst #lee jeno scenarios #lee jeno imagines #lee jeno timestamps #lee jeno fluff #lee jeno angst #jeno scenarios #jeno imagines #jeno timestamps #jeno fluff #jeno angst

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mysticficti0n · 1 year ago

Note

hey girlie I have a question!

sooo I rlly rlly love ur writing and literally I read most ur stuff every night 🤭 but I was wondering maybe if you could write one about Colby Brock.... and just any idea but like I rlly want to see what you could do

from

Bun

I do not mind one bit! I grew up watching Sam and Colby so ofc!! For this I am gonna make up a place because I feel like it heheheh but this is my first Colby fic so don't judge pretty please <3 Ive tried my best and checked for mistakes and hopefully there's none (or very little)

Haunted house

･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

warnings- ColbyBrockxFem/Reader, swearing, mentions of death, death of children, fire, hanging, fluff/teasing, Y/H/T= your home town, smut!! kissing, smut, P in V, no protection,

words- 10k (sorry ☹︎)

"sooooo are you gonna come tomorrow?" Sam asked me over the phone, it's Halloween tomorrow and he, Colby and some friends had been working really hard the whole of October and decided on the 31st they wanted to do a haunted house sleepover, and this house was in the middle of fucking nowhere, 4 hours away, and miles from the nearest town "because we need to leave like... 9am ish tomorrow to get there in time to meet the owners" I waited a few seconds mentally reviewing my life and really asking myself I wanted to do this

"umm- yeah okay" I agreed and already regretted it "I'll walk to yours and be there for like 8-8:30?" Sam made a noise as if he was talking to someone else then made a huh sound to me "I said I'll walk to yours-"

"ohh- Colby said he can grab you but you'll have to go to the store with him"

"okay no problem, what time though?" Sam said 8am so I set my alarm for 6:30, enough time for a shower, get ready, pack then get in the car with Colby, our conversation continued until another voice interrupted telling the boy he needs to get ready "alright then, see you tomorrow"

"Bye-Bye" he sung and the phone cut. Tomorrow was about to be very interesting...

BEEP BEEP BEEP

I opened my eyes to find my room dark, and my phone reading 6:30am "ughhh" I groaned rolling out the warm covers and slowly made my way into my bathroom, I switched the light on and then put the shower on, turning the heat to the warmest it could be, sleepily I pulled my clothes off and jumped into the shower humming as the water washed over my skin. My morning went quick, at one point it was 7am and I need to still pack and now its 8am and my front door is being knocked because Colby is already here "shit shit shit" I chanted quickly stuffing chargers, torches, batteries and whatever else I could quickly grab before I sprinted to the door "morning!" I panted

"good morning, you okay?" he laughed putting a hand on my shoulder

"fi-fine yeah" I smiled standing to look at him properly "you good?" he nodded walking in "I've just gotta put a few last things in my bag, wanna come sit in my room?"

"oooh" he cooed, I slapped his arm as we made our way to my room, he walked in and quickly jumped onto the bed that was freshly made and crumpled the sheets which I made a face to, a cheeky smirk painted the tatted mans face as he shuffled creating a larger mess "you excited?"

"oh yeah- cant wait" I sarcastically answered grabbing my card "how like- bad is it?" I asked which I probably shouldn't have with the wide smile that crept onto the mans face

"well its known to have had 6 people hang themselves in the attic, two of those were children like 10 years old" my stomach sank, eyes widened "i'm kidding! only one 10 year old was hung" I sighed again regretting agreeing to going to this place and mentally slapping myself

"you're not helping the nerves I have right now" he laughed lying himself back, grabbing a pillow to go under his head "what are you grabbing from the shop?"

"water, snacks, any like little bits we need, plus were not filming it so we don't need much, oh and Amanda is coming, you guys will get on great" I smiled, I had seen Amanda in a few videos with the guys before and she seems really fun and interesting to work with as she's a medium

"okay well I'm ready now" with a breath he stood, fixing my bed and giving the pillow a slap to make it 'comfy', I pulled my little suitcase of the bed and onto the floor to follow me

"you'll love It once were there" Colby spoke grabbing my bag off me, carrying it down the stairs and walked to his car to put it in his trunk as I locked my door

"I've been told that one to many times" we shared a look before a laugh spilled from both of us

･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

The shopping was done, some water, crisps, and some lollipops, I sat myself in the front and waited patiently for Colby to get back in "oh another thing- one of the spirits at this place has a thing for touching girls backs and leaving like little bruises"

"great! gonna get molested by a ghost man" I grinned sarcastically looking to the dark haired boy "as long as I don't get like pushed down stairs or something I'm good-ish"

"well-"

"ugh" Colby laughed starting the car, sending me a quick smirk before we drove back to his house. It was a quiet drive, only the radio playing some songs, and the noises of traffic around us, It was defiantly the calm before the storm tonight.

We arrived at the house and went inside, I saw Sam and a blonde sat on the sofa talking but quickly stopping as we entered "Ayyyy she's here!" the man called holding his hands in the air "Amanda this is Y/n, Y/n this is Amanda" I looked to the girl

"hey how are you!" she asked sending me a warm smile, she was really pretty, dressed in a white knitted jumper, blue skinny jeans

"hi i'm great, how're you?" she looked a little taken-back but still with a smile

"Oh you're British?" I nodded "ohh- where are you from?"

"Y/H/T (if you're not from England just chose somewhere to be from), grew up there then moved to Kansas when I was like 14" she smiled and looked back to Sam, I turned to Colby who was stood leaning up the door way staring back to me "what?" I mouthed and he shook his head with a smile

"right guys, we need to leave like in 5 minuets, it's a 4 hour drive- and I have to drive" he groaned "who's sitting in the front with me?" I watched as Amanda quickly placed a finger onto her nose "Amanda is sat with me then!" she grinned grabbing her bag

"Looks like were together then" I said looking to the dark headed man still behind me, he giggled before quickly hurrying away to the stairs and went up, he's so weird sometimes "okay before we go ima go for a piss" Sam threw me a thumbs up and I went to the bathroom. I finished and washed my hands, I looked into the mirror and stared at my make-up, I hadn't put much on but my lips looked slightly chapped so I pulled out my lip gloss and swiped it onto my lips, with one last look I walked out and was met with the blue eye gaze of Colby

"that for me?" he looked to my lips and back up

"of course" I smiled, biting my lip jokingly, I walked past hitting his shoulder slightly, but the feeling of his grip on me pulled me back to be in front of him, I turned to look to his face but he nodded to his free hand, the one not still holding my other hand that was gently drawing circles on with his thumb, I looked to his hands and saw him holding something "whats that?" he opened his palm and revealed two cross necklaces

"one for me and this one is for you" I smiled at the gesture taking mine from his hand and putting it into my pocket, but that made me think- how bad will this place be if I need to wear a cross...

"right come on were going!" Sam called and hurriedly I grabbed my bags to now put in his Tesla, we didn't all have that much, just some extra clothes, food, drinks, and equipment for the investigations we'd be doing, everything was in and I climbed into the left side of the car, fastened my belt and took off my shoes getting comfy, Amanda got in after me and turned to me passing me a bag of something

"try one!" she offered, my hand dipped into the purple bag and pulled out a yellow boiled sweet "mango and passionfruit" my eyes widened at the tase, it was great

"holy shit" I laughed "please tell me you have another bag?"

"I have three- they're my favourite sweet in literal world" we high-fived in agreement and she sat back into her seat, the boys joined us, Sam in the front, Colby with me. As the car turned on some random song began to play which Colby let a huff out, throwing his head back in some sort of protest

"Dude put something good on" he complained "put- Christina Aguilera on" Sam flicked his head back to his best friend who just shrugged

"why her?" he asked with a confused grin

"first name that came to mind" Soon the sweet voice Christina came on and our journey began, I went into my pocket pulling out my phone, flicked onto snapchat and quickly felt my phone pulled from my hands and Colby turned the screen to him "pose bitch" he yelped, I quickly sat forward putting my hand on his shoulder and my head rested next to his, he thew up a peace sign and the picture was taken "I look so sexy"

"sure you do" I sat back feeling the gaze of him fall on me, crossing my legs and letting my head fall back "so whats up with this place? I asked this dickhead and he told me basically people hung themselves and me and Amanda might get touched by a ghosty man" the group laughed before the girl in front turned to me

"okay so the house is called Elgor Manor House, it was passed through around like six generations of the Sails family, the one of the last known member of the house walked out to find a women stood at the gates, she said she had red-ish eyes, very boney and long dark hair yelling it was on fire, and when she turned around she saw smoke and flames eating the house, she ran in to try find her children and they were found in the hall crying pointing to the attic, she supposedly ran up and found the attic door open and matches up there- her husband Charles Sails had done it" I nodded taking in all the information "Charles was known to have some mental issues... so assumed, but she said when she saw him, his eyes were black, skin very white, and his shirt was ripped open and where his heart was a huge red mark was there, like as if he'd been clawed. Cherrie, the mom then just ran out with her children but sadly- 3 out the 5 died but when she got out the women wasn't there but Cherrie believed it was a saviour as without that women she would've been able to save the children she did despite her appearance being quite devil like- thats what she told the newspaper anyways, and then she died about a year later; Charles was never seen again so he was told to be dead, and then the 2 children she escaped with both were mysteriously shot two days apart the day after their mothers death" my jaw dropped "all under 18 years old too" I couldn't believe what I herd, and Amanda just nodded

"fuck- when did that all happen?"

"1926, but thats not even the weirdest bit, Charles' great granddad, Stephan Sails was told to always let the children start fires around the land as if they got out of hand many times it resulted in some servant dying and never landed back on him, there's still a tree there thats all ashy, but anyways, the way he died was getting into the attic, and then there was a fire, and when they found his body- even though he was so badly burnt- there was a huge red mark over where his heart was" Sam added, pulling to a stop at a light "the odd thing is though, so many people died in that attic, Charles, Stephan, the other 4 and then one of those were a girl named Marlie, from what we know she was about 10 and was Stephans Grandmothers sister, and she was found hanging off the 6th rafter with a rope, wrapped 6 times on her neck, and 6 of her toys surrounding her, and one of those toys still remain in the house after the fires and over about 200 years" I sat astonished, no words able to leave my mouth

"so 6th rafters, 6 times around her neck and 6 toys around her? could this mean something maybe... took over her? because well 666 is the devils number" Amanda agreed sending me a knowing look "holy shit" I breathed

･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

"anyone hungry?" Sam asked looking back at everyone "there's a McDonald's over there" we all agreed to go grab something to eat, we still had a while to go till we got to the house anyways, the blonde pulled into the car park and all got out. The four of us walked in and went straight to the touch screens

"whats everyone having?" Colby asked, Sam quickly chose his food and Colby went after him, Amanda went next then me "ooh they have ice cream" he hummed in a childish tone, clapping his hands excitingly

"shall we all get one?" I asked and everyone nodded, so I added 4. I grabbed the receipt, me and Amanda stood waiting at the counter for the food while the other two went to find a table

"so how did you get to know the boys?" she asked

"oh I joined there school when I was 14, so... freshman year? because I had just moved from Y/H/T to Kansas because my mom got a job there, and I was in a few lessons with Colby but I was mostly with Sam, and they knew each other because of band that they were forced to do, then we started talking more and more until I found out we didn't live that far apart, started going to Sam's more, Colby was there a lot and then yeah, just stayed being their friends and we all moved here together but I bought a little place like 5 minuets away" she nodded, grabbing the one bag of food while I grabbed the two trays of drinks and ice cream

"to be completely honest when I first herd about you it was through Colby and I thought you guys were together from how he was saying it, he kept smiling while thinking of things to tell me and showed me photos of you, even blushed when I said you were pretty but I can see you two are just like really good friends" we laughed as I shut down the allegations, we were just best friends, every best friend sometimes have little flirty games together right?. We found the guys sat in a window seat laughing over something and me and Amanda sat across from them

"Whats funny?" I asked passing out the drinks

"just watching you two gossip like girls at school" Sam giggled red faced, him and Colby began impersonating us with high pitch squeals, I looked to the girl next to me and we just sighed ignoring them.

We all finished and got back into the car, I flicked my shoes off again and placed my legs over Colby who gave a stare to which I just smiled, placing my hoodie behind my head and laying back "really?"

"mhm" I yawned closing my eyes "feel free to give me a massage" he pretend heaved, but still placed his arms over my legs leaning back himself, the feeling of his rings felt cold against my skin, even through my jeans as he softly rubbed my legs. Slowly my body began to feel lighter, and the chatter and music became quieter.

･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

"Y/n.... Y/n/n" my eyes fluttered opened to the smiling face of Colby "we're here" he sung pulling me up, I turned to look out the window and saw the sign, a concrete block engraved with 'Elgor Manor' and soon the house came into sight. Sam parked the car and we all got out, a chill ran down my spine despite the warmth of the day. The exterior of the house seemed to loom over us, casting an eerie shadow across the grounds. The structure, though grand, appeared worn and weathered, as if the weight of centuries pressed upon its dark, aged wooden frame.

Massive, gnarled trees surrounded the property, their branches reaching out like skeletal fingers, seemingly trying to grasp onto the last remnants of life. The overgrown bushes and tangled ivy obscured much of the house, adding to its air of neglect and foreboding. The windows, adorned with tattered, moth-eaten curtains. Despite the expanse of land stretching out around the manor, it felt suffocatingly claustrophobic, The overall appearance was not shabby but uncannily surreal, as if the passage of time had twisted the reality of the place. It was as though I had stepped into a realm where the laws of nature and perception bent in unsettling ways.

"woah" I sighed "this is....creepy but beautiful" I spoke looking back to the group, they nodded staring back to the home, soon the noise off tires scraping along the rubble drive appeared behind us, we all turned and were greeted with two people, one walked up, a grin put across his thin lips covered by a white beard, his matching long hair tied into a pony tail, the next to come out was a women, black hair, freckles, and bright red lipstick painted on her lips, with a pearly white beaming smile.

"Hey there!" the man greeted shaking all our hands "I'm Jack, this is my wife Mary and welcome to Elgor Manor" his wife came over shaking our hands again then finding a spot next to her husband "so Elgor Manor, is a very very old house, built around 1798 from what we know, past through many generations of the Sails family but nobody has lived here since 1940's, We found out in about 2020, our friend, Timothy, is actually a distant relative of this family, he was Charles Sails fourth great-grandchild and his great-aunt was the last to own the house-which is now a great new fact we can tell you all" he laughed

"yeah we've herd so much about this place its crazy the history behind it." Colby spoke to the two "We herd about Charles and Stephan"

"Oh oh- they're just the start of it all, its when you hear Marlie's story and her mother Carol-Anne" we all went quiet "you haven't herd about her have you?" we all shook our head no "you'll learn" I gulped, a cold feeling running through me "what're all your names by the way?" Mary asked

"Y/n"

"Colby"

"Amanda"

"Sam" she smiled nodding

"so Y/n, Amanda- you being girls need to be careful tonight, if you go into the back dining room or sometimes in one of the bedrooms there's a man there, his name is Christopher Sails- he was very well known around here for being quiet the player, a playboy you may say in the late 1800" Me and Amanda shared a look, one of slight fear "he's known for touching girls back, leaving marks, and sometimes you may feel your cheeks get warm but then in the middle cold- thats him giving you a kiss... but he is... nice... just be- careful" she sounded slight unsure, I gave a look to Sam who sent me a small unsettled thin lip smile

"well we will get to the tour -we are going to quickly unlock the doors but anyways after that we can take you round!" Jack smiled walking away with his wife, Sam and Amanda went back to the car to grab different bags and I turned back to Colby

"I am terrified" he laughed wrapping an arm around me, giving me a slight squeeze "if I get fucked by a ghost or some shit I'm going home"

"eh don't worry- a ghost wont fuck you" I looked up to the man who smiled back

"who will then?" I hummed walking away from him feeling his eyes follow my moves

･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

It was time to go into the house, Colby and Amanda went in first and me and Sam followed behind, we walked into the hall and it was grand, gold accents everywhere, two huge mirrors, little objects protected by glass coverings "this part has been restored to how it would've been in 1910's, as you can see lots of gold and dark oak, this rug you see here has been here since 1890 and has been seen to move or make noise like its being slapped against the floor which is what the maids would've done" The couple went into another room, one with green-washed walls, plaster pulling from the walls, two sofas, wooden details decorating the outline, and a TV, we were told about the objects that have been told to move, especially one called Jessies Glass, it was a piece of glass with some spikes coming out

"so this is Jessies glass, so you see all the spikes- this was used agaisnst misbehaving children and staff, either they would stand on It or it was pushed into their backs" Mary commented making all of us do a collective groan "we've had experiences of people hearing screams by children and mostly maids as the heads of the house would usually punish those who didn't do their job right"

We carried on the tour around the house till we reached the last door on the third floor, it was shut, locked and had a sign reading 'Do not enter' I didn't even have a handle "so this is the staircase upto the attic. Obviously where Charles, Stephan, Marlie and others died" we nodded looking back to the ominous door "just- don't go up" we all nodded again and followed the guides down the stairs back to the last room

"think they'll know if we go up?" I hushed Colby who had a playful smirk twitching the sides of his lips "I know we all thought it" he whispered as we walked

We all walked into the dining room and stood around the grand oak table "so see that rocking chair in the corner, thats Christopher's, he's not here right now but That'll start rocking when he's in. He usually -in the day visits the yard, sits in the swinging sofa" all our eyes cast a gaze outside to the yard "mh doesn't seem to be out there either- odd" Mary spoke "well, thats everything, please call if you need anything, keys on the table so yes, just be careful, and respectful"

"thank you" Amanda spoke, the couple said a quick goodbye before leaving us in the house, we went back to our car pulling out all our things: EMF reader, music box, tap torches, spirt box and cat balls, then our things "Y/n wanna stay in one of the rooms up stairs or down here?"

"I think we need to sleep upstairs"

She agreed and the two of us ended up running up two the second floor "which room, Yellow or blue do you think?"

"oh defiantly blue!" as I spoke I herd a dismissive noise from below "what was that?"

"we want the blue room!" Sam yelled coming up the stairs "it's literally the most active, you herd what Jack said- we want it"

"we've already dibbed it" I sassed looking to the blonde

"fuck you" he pouted walking back down the staircase "Colby they're having the blue room"

"NU UH!" the other groaned as a smile crept on mine and Amanda's faces as we placed our things on the bed

"tonight it going to be amazing, do you see anything yet?" I spoke out of interest as I pulled on my hoodie

"no not yet, not even had any feelings either- might just have to wait a bit" I hummed listening to her explanation "why don't we go into the garden, see if Christopher is out there?" quickly we made our way down the stairs and into the kitchen to get to the garden, we stepped out and the warm air hit us, my eyes looked to the swinging seat, it was still.

"maybe we should try sitting there" I spoke making my own way to the cushioned seat, I sat back looking round while Amanda came over, I swayed gently on the swinging bench, my gaze wanders across the garden, taking in the peculiar blend of beauty and eerie ambiance that surrounds me. The garden appears deceptively tranquil at first glance, with an abundance of vibrant flowers in full bloom. Lush, colourful petals dance in the gentle breeze, painting a picturesque scene that should be serene.

The fragrance of the flowers hangs thick in the air, a delightful mixture of sweet scents that should evoke joy, yet there's an underlying sense of foreboding. It's as if the very essence of the garden is intertwined with an unspoken mystery, a silent narrative woven between the petals and leaves. Then I see a pond, the pond, nestled amidst the blossoms, reflects the azure sky above, mirroring the beauty of the day. Yet, despite the shimmering water's surface, there's a certain depth that seems to hold secrets, as if it conceals more than just fish and lily pads beneath.

"its really nice for a place thats meant to be extremely haunted" the girl spoke next to me "maybe... maybe it wont be bad" I hummed relaxing more into the seat

･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

The time ticked away, 2pm, 5pm and then the time finally hit 9pm "nothings even happened" Sam groaned "we've been around the whole house with all the equipment and nothing this is so stupid" The four of us had sat In the living room, Amanda in the arm chair, Sam, and Colby on the two seater and I sat on the floor flicking through channels on the TV "I mean even you haven't seen anything" he argued, I finally settled on some random sitcom and sat back leaning against Colby's leg for support

"it might just take some time" the brunette behind spoke

"fuck it taking time- we've been here since fucking 1:30 and nothing, I'm calling bullshit" Sam got up from his place and stormed into the kitchen grabbing a water bottle and basically gulping the whole thing muttering some words, I looked back to Colby who gave me a smirk then looked back to the TV

"well I'm gonna go change" Amanda said standing "come?" she gave her hand to me, pulling me up to meet her height, still in hand we began to go up the stairs, running like children to our room "Sam is so pissed off"

"I know, I've never seen him like this" I laughed pulling off my jumper "like he's never this angr-" I was cut my a creaking sound, then a thump "fuck was that?"

"probably the guys?" she spoke walking to the door "Sam?! Colby?!" she called, no response, then another bang- above us

"that was upstairs..." quickly I pulled my hoody back over me and walked out the room up the small crooked staircase, I looked down the hall, Amanda stood close behind me "nothings moved-"

"Y/n- there's a little girl, ran into the door down there" the blondes voice was small "red hair, blue bows, light blue dress" I looked to where she was gesturing to

"that...no- that fucking door is open" my heart sank "we need to grab the guys" the two of us hurried down the first flight of stairs then the second "the doors open!"

"what door?" Colby asked sitting up

"the door with no shitting handle and the don't enter sign" we all shared a look before they quickly came up past us running to the door, I quickly grabbed the Rempod and followed, switching it on so It was ready when we got to the door. I crept up the steps and was met with the back of Colby, I let my arm creep around his waist

"FU-fucking hell Y/n" he breathed turning to look at me, I gave him a quick sorry smile before squeezing past with the Rempod, I walked past the other two and went face to face with the door "be careful" he warned

"If there is anyone here... please touch this antenna" I spoke stopping the conversation between the two blondes , I took a few steps back looking at the machine intensely "we're not here to cause any stress, harm, anything negative- just want to talk" I spoke again. the box began to beep, red light flashing, I took a glance back to the group who's faces lightened "who are we talking to, erm can you touch once for a child, twice for adult" and there again it beeped once

"she's back- behind the door" I looked up facing the door, slowly I went to my knees, holding a warm smile on my face

"hi" I whispered and the box buzzed again "are you Marlie?" everyone went quiet "Marlie Sails?" the Rempod beeped again, I tried to not seem terrified and kept my stance, hands shaking by my sides

"She's gone... I'm guessing up the stairs" I stood going to take a step through the door

"wait" a hand gripped my forearm, I felt all the cold rings press against my skin, the same familiar feeling from earlier in the car "be careful- have you got your cross?" I nodded going into my pocket and pulling out, Colby took the necklace from my grip and gently moved my hair to the side, lifting the dainty metal over my head and clipped it around my neck "okay" I looked back seeing a tent pushed into his cheek, eyes low looking to me, sending me an unspoken message, Slowly, I pulled the door open more listening as it creaked, revealing deformed, water-damaged steps that ascended steeply to the attic. Each step groaned and protested beneath my weight, as if the old wooden structure itself was begging me to turn back.

With each step, the protest of the wood grew louder, a cacophony of distress that reverberated through the dimly lit corridor. The air felt heavy and suffocating, as if the very walls were watching, waiting for my next move.

Reaching the top, a chill slithered down my spine, instantly sending shivers across my skin. The attic lay engulfed in darkness, besides the faint glimmer of moonlight that seeped through a small window, casting elongated shadows that danced along the floor.

I squinted into the darkness, my eyes adjusting slowly. Shapes emerged, barely visible in the dim light, and among them, the faint outlines of rafters became visible. Counting softly, my voice barely audible in the oppressive silence, "One, two, three, four, five... six." My gaze fixed on the sixth rafter to my right, the very beam from which Marlie's life had been stolen. As I extended my hand to touch the wood, a shiver of uncertainty coursed through me. "You were so young," my voice quivered, barely louder than a whisper. "Why?" The words hung in the air, swallowed by the quietness of the attic.

A sudden change in the atmosphere sent a wave of warmth around me, a stark contrast to the chilling aura just moments before. My hair prickled on the back of my neck, standing as if trying to flee the unseen force that enveloped me. "Is... is that you, Marlie?" I stammered, my voice faltering as the air grew thicker, charged with an otherworldly energy.

"Y/n? everything okay?" Amanda called, I turned my head to look down the staircase where her voice was coming from

"can you come up?" I asked and herd the quiet steps coming up the stairs and then the face of the blonde girl appeared, her smile quickly dropped "what?"

"the little girl is down there- by the window" I turned my head looking to the window, it seemed blurred unlike before "she's looking directly at you"

"H-hi Marlie" I spoke "how are you?" I felt my stomach flip, my head going misty "does she look- happy?" I asked and Amanda looked back her eyes flicking around the girl

"she seems- okay? not happy but not anything else, almost emotionless, I...oh" my head went back to Amanda who seemed worried herself "she's gone"

I felt a cold chill run through my body as if something walked through me "shit" I spoke feeling my body quiver "shall we go back down?" I asked seeing Amanda's shadow nod, we began back down the staircase, we left the last step and looked to the two boys who stood silent looking to us "she was up there"

"I've never seen something like that- so....so clear" Amanda breathed scratching her head

"Marlie?" Sam asked and we nodded "woah- maybe we should take the spirtbox up, or at least stand here and do it, maybe she could speak?" we all agreed, Sam hurried down the stairs to the first room grabbing the things

"I need a drink before we do this" Amanda spoke looking to us "you guys want one?"

"please" I spoke looking back to the door, the girls footsteps wondered away leaving me and Colby again "this is crazy"

"Are you alright?" His words were barely audible, whispered with a gentle concern that wrapped around me like a comforting embrace. His arm extended slowly, encircling my waist and drawing me closer. I hummed softly, shifting my gaze toward him "you had me worried going up there" and a wave of reassurance washed over me as I met his eyes. There, I found a small but warm grin gracing his lips, instantly soothing my unease and bringing a sense of safety and care. Our eyes met, his piercing blue ones looking into my Y/C/E, Our breaths seemed to halt as we watched each other, our faces inching closer and closer, my heart stopped, falling but in the best way possible "can I-"

"Y/n grabbed you a water" hurriedly we pulled away, turning to see Amanda holding three waters, and Sam not far behind "have you felt anything since?" she asked handing my the bottle, I couldn't tell her the hot feeling that ran through my body was because I was close to kissing my best friend of 13 years

"er- no, nothing" I answered quietly pulling away from the man next to me to grab the bottle

"mh strange" she spoke

･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

The four of us now sat in a small circle as the clock struck 3:30am, little tea lights surrounding us, the spirit box in the middle "anyone wanna do the Estes method?" Sam asked

"can I try?" I wondered seeing everyones eyes flick to mine

"are you sure?" Colby said, I nodded picking up the blind fold and bringing it to my eyes, I held it behind me and faced my back to the brunette boy, he took the silky material out my hand, slowly he tied the knot and it tightened to my head "okay here are the headphones" he put the pair in my hands and I put them on, the static noises filling my ears almost defining me, I kept listening waiting for some words

"up..........tight..........sick..........momma..........help me..........waiting..........Rosa..........Dining room..........blue..........you..........Samual..........ten..........no care..........duck..........help..........kill..........he did..........made me..........devil man..........father..........fire" My breath began to pick up, chest heaving up and down, my body rocking trying to catch breath, 'he made us die' voices breathed into my ear I ripped the headphones from my head, pulled the material from my eyes "fuck that" I shuffled back from my place clutching the sofa behind me

"what what happened?" Sam looked to me with slight panic in his eyes

"something- something whispered 'he made us die' in only the left ear- and it was like multiple voices said it" I cried, eyes filling with tears "like a little girl and loads of others too but I could hear her the most"

"we do think it was Marlie we were talking to a lot" Amanda said gently, my lip kept quivering, I couldn't stop it was all to real "I saw her twice, peaking around the door" I smiled weakly

"need a break?" Colby spoke, I nodded I really needed some air, I got up walking to the front door and stepping out onto the porch, I let myself hang over the railing catching my breath while wiping away the tears that kept falling down my cheeks, I looked out into the pitch black landscape "drink?" I freaked turning to see the tatted man holding my water bottle

"thanks" I breathed taking a sip "that was terrifying" the warm feeling of his hand cupped my back, standing closely behind me, comforting me after the fright. I sucked another breath and leaned into him resting my head on his shoulder

"every question we asked got answered you know- but at one point you started rocking and...eh doesn't matter" I looked up to him, questioning him with my eyes "I was gonna grab you but didn't wanna ruin the experiment... yeah the experiment " he answered avoiding my gaze

"mh, maybe you should next time" I followed looking back to the darkness

"only if you let me" he whispered into the shell of my ear making my body go from freezing to burning

"maybe I will" I teased, I turned to meet his gaze, a smile teasing the corners of my lips. "So, what were you going to ask me earlier, upstairs?" I inquired, leaning in slightly, feeling a rush of excitement as Colby's head fell closer to mine, our breaths meeting in the air between us. Our lips were tantalisingly close, the anticipation crackling like electricity, a teasing tension building with each passing moment.

"you really wanna know?" I hummed, nodding my head gently "I was wondering if maybe I could-" before he finished his sentence another person walked out

"oh should I" Sam coughed, we tore apart going away from the sides of each other "erm me and Amanda are gonna go to bed its like 4 am so" I pulled my jumper straight and gave the blonde boy a quick smile

"yeah I'll go up- night guys" I said quickening my pace back into the house and up to mine and Amanda's room "hey" I called walking in

"hi- feeling better?" she asked settling into the sheets

"much" I grinned going to the bed and pulling my side open "first day meeting and already in bed together" I joked hearing a laugh come from the girl "anyways goodnight" I smiled one last time before I turned my lamp off and closed my eyes

"night"

･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

"Y/n....Y/n" I heard a whisper shout in my ear "wake up.... Y/n please" my eyes flickered open "someones in here" her voice was small

"what..who?" I asked sitting up, the room was pitch black, I grabbed my phone turning on the flashlight "one of the guys?"

"no...well its a man, he's In the corner watching" I turned my head to the corner of the room, shining my light there and there it was again a hazy mist "Y/n I see things like this but he seems different- I cant get anything from him, he seems.. I don't even know"

"shall we leave?" I asked pushing the covers off my body

"yeah- erm let me just grab my paper quickly" rapidly I left the bed, grabbing my jumper I seemed to have taken off and waited for Amanda to come to me, she followed me as we left the room and went next door, I pushed opened the door to reveal the two sleeping boys tucked untidily in the sheets "should we wake them up?"

"yeah- Sam, Colby" I called seeing neither of them shift, I went over to the bed shaking Sam by his shoulder and his eyes opened

"what the fuck Y/n- what?" his whispered, voice full of sleep "its like- 6 in the morning" the covers on the other side shifted and a murmur came from the boys mouth

"Amanda saw a man in our room" I spoke being quieter, I turned back to see the girl sat In the small desk chair looking to her notepad

"what do you mean? a real man?" Colby spoke up, the covers fell from him showing his toned body

"no- it was an older guy, green robe, little hair, and like I kept getting the words like 'ladies' 'kiss' and 'beauty'" Amanda told with a breath

"sounds like that Christopher guy" I shook my head feeling my cheek go hot then cold in the middle "Y/n whats wrong"

"I think you're right" I answered "he kissed me, like I felt what Mary or whatever told us" I sat myself on the bed setting back onto the frame "my cheek felt hot then ice cold In the middle"

"why has he followed you guys into here though? he must really like you" as soon as Sam finished a huge bang rattled the house "fuck was that" he called

"did you follow the girls in here Christopher?" Colby asked "Knock once for no, knock twice for yes" we all went quiet listening to the two thumps that filled the room

"you have no right to touch us- don't ever do that again" Amanda warned, her tone slick with anger "its wrong to follow girls like that- or anyone for that matter. Never do that again you hear me Christopher" the sound of footsteps rattled through and soon faded down the stairs, he left thankfully

"fucking hate this so much" I muttered looking to my phone, I unlocked it I switched onto snapchat, soon the dark outline of Sam Colby appeared on my screen "smile" I voiced, trying to take my mind from everything thats happened seeing the two sleepily posed and I pressed the button snapping a picture, it loaded back onto my screen and I went to look "no- fucking - way!"

"what?!" the three asked scrambling over to see, I pointed to in-between the two "is that a face?" Sam yelled, hands gripping to his hair, and there it was two eyes, nose and mouth "who is that?"

"let me see" Amanda said taking my phone "it looks like...Carol-Anne? like the painting in the living room, thats gotta be her"

"we never learnt anything about her" I spoke "is that you, Carol-Anne?" I felt a nudge next to me "oh" I called looking over my shoulder "is that a yes?" I felt the push again "Okay- erm why don't we get the spirt box out again" I said

"yeah but no Estes this time" Sam answered going into his bag and pulling at the box switching it on, the static taking me back to only a few hours earlier

"what happened to you?" I asked

"daddy" we all looked to each other

"your dad did something?"

"push"

"he pushed you? where did he push you?" Amanda asked grabbing her note book again writing something dow

"woods"

"pushed you into the woods?"

"dark...cold"

"where in the woods did it happen?" I questioned

"grave"

"holy shit was she buried alive?" I turned to Colby who's jaw was open

"yes"

"OH MY GOD" we all called horrified by the response

"why?"

"Naughty baby" it answered

"naughty baby? maybe she was looking after the baby and it did something?"

"moved"

"did you hurt it by accident?"

"poorly head" my eyes widened "speak no more" it finished and the static got louder and louder

"fucking hell" I sighed "well thank you" Sam reached over turning off he box

"well I'm not sleeping anymore" we all laughed "and why dod everything touch me!" I called flopping down into the bed

･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

the time ticked by until it reached 9am, we all decided to get ready for the day and wait down stairs until Jack and Mary returned, Me and Sam sat slouched in the living room looking around at the different history in the room "did we ever check if that other door closed? the one in the attic?" I asked looking up the the blonde

"me and Col checked- its closed and I couldn't even pull it back open.. do we tell the owners it opened?"

"maybe but just don't say me and Amanda went up" I told sitting back up "speaking of I think they're here" together we got up, watched as their range drover pulled onto the gravel drive

"Hi guys" Jack called walking into the house with Mary in hand, we all greeted the pair again before they led us to sit in the dining room. I pulled a chair between Amanda and Colby, across from the couple

"So what happened?" Mary spoke crossing her hands

"well nothing happened till about 9pm, erm me and Manda went to change or something up stairs and then we herd a massive noise from the third floor... we went up to see and you know the do not enter door?"

"did- did it open?" Jack asked with a worried tone

"mhm and we promise we did nothing to it, we hadn't touched it or anything, we put the Rempod there and it beeped, and I saw a little girl, red hair, blue bows..."

"Marlie- she doesn't come round much" Mary smiled "did she speak to you? she's often very shy" we all nodded telling her what we knew "was there anyone else?"

"we had Marlie, Christopher and Carol-Anne" Colby answered "can you tell us what actually happened with her before we tell you what she said?"

"sure, so she was the mother of Marlie, Kelsie-Rose, Robert and a toddler we believe the name was Marcus or Marc, one day while looking after the children she was struggling and Marcus kept misbehaving and while in her arms and she dropped him and he passed out but her father caught it happen, bare in mind she was 20 with 4 children, and her father was so angry he made the servants of the house dig a grave in the woods and she was buried alive because of it on January 9th, but the wood was chopped away for the garden and her grave is actually in the pond" my heart skipped- I knew there was something wrong with that pond

"thats what she told us" I said, my voice barely above a whisper

"its a horrible story- poor girl" Mary told looking down "when did she tell you?"

"this morning, around 6ish"

"thats when it happened, 6am she was buried, we found it in a diary that was brought up from the old basement- obviously that basement is gone now though" the group as a whole let out a breath, one of pure shock

"fuck" Sam groaned

Soon it was time to go, we all went up grabbing our stuff saying our good byes to the house, Jack and Mary too, we all went out to Sam's car, putting all our things into the back. I opened my door getting into my back seat and looked to the floor, the same sweets from the day before, I picked up the pack tipping a few into my lap.

"guys were going to do no stops so if you need a piss then fuck it" Sam called staring his car

Soon everyone was settled in and the trip began again, Colby looked over to me sending a quick smile my way as I toyed with the sweet pack in my lap , I handed him a sweet and he happily opened it putting it into his mouth

"good?" he nodded letting his head fall back leaning onto the window "I'm so tired" I jawed, Colby looked over to me again, patting his lap "you sure?" he nodded not sharing any words but turning himself to be comfier for me, I leant down letting my head rest on Colby's thigh "goodnight" I joked, I closed my eyes feeling a soothing warmth come over me, subtly I felt Colbys hand stroke down my arm, stopping near my wrist and his other going to my scalp drawing small circles around my head, slowly I felt myself become lighter and soon I was fast asleep

･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

"look at them" someone spoke "they're gonna laugh at this when they're awake" someone else said, my eyes flittered open to the two smiling, staring faces of the two blondes "hello" Sam cooed

"mor-morning" I hummed stretching slightly, my hand hit something and I looked up to see the other sleeping face of Colby above me, I couldn't stop the shy smile from appearing on my face "Col" I called shaking him slightly

"no babe I'm tired" he muttered turning away, my heart stopped 'babe'? he was asleep, he didn't know he said it.. but everyone else herd

"he's gonna regret saying that" Sam sinisterly grinned with a wicked laugh

finally we all got out, Colby sleepily shuffled inside the house, scratching his hair out his face "that went fast" he huffed falling onto the sofa

"indeed it did babe" Sam giggled looking to me and back to Colby

"what?" he spoke looking to us

"nothing- anyways I've gotta take Amanda to the airport" I looked to the blonde girl who pouted coming over to me, I wrapped my arms around her

"thanks for the last day it was so cool, and it was great meeting you, we'll, have to hang out again" I grinned coming away

"absolutely! I loved this so much, see you soon Colby" the boy stood hugging her too and we both waved goodbye as Sam and her pulled away, we both walked back into the living room flopping into the couch with a sigh

"gonna come to the next haunted place?" he spoke looking over to me

"hm maybe- just don't wanna be kissed by a random ghosty man again though" I giggled facing Colby again, I hadn't noticed how close we were, our shoulders grazing against each others, faces inches away

"maybe you could get kissed by someone else?" he questioned, eyes falling to my lips then back up to me "...can I tell you what I tried to tell you this morning?" I nodded, no words able to leave my mouth "I was wondering if maybe I could...if I could kiss you?" I looked to the boy, paralysed by his words

"yes please" I answered, it came out my breathy then I imagined but the smile that crept onto the boys face made me realise it wasn't a bad thing. Gently Colby's hand slithered up to my jaw, cupping my face pulling me in lightly

His breath hitched, a low, deep moan escaping as our lips melded. It was a soft collision, yet every touch carried an electric charge, as though our mouths were destined to be together. Each motion felt instinctual, a choreographed dance of desire. Sensing Colby's longing, his tongue traced a path along my lips, a silent plea for entry that I welcomed eagerly. The kiss intensified, a symphony of heat and passion, a growing ache in my stomach got so much needier.

My actions became thoughtless, almost instinctive as I straddled him, our connection unbroken. ''God, you're incredible'' he murmured, his hands finding their place on my waist, his voice a deep, gravelly whisper that sent shivers down my spine. The air crackled with an intoxicating blend of desire and appreciation, his lips moved from my lips to my jaw and then my neck

"Mhmm Co-Colby" I whined as he reached the sweet spot, hearing my sigh he kept going, sucking deeper and harder "agh fuck" my hands gripped his shoulders, scrunching into his shirt, my back arching making me come away from his lips

"if you keep acting like this we might need to go somewhere else" I smiled looking down to the boy "my room?" he spoke and I just nodded jumping from his lap watching him intently as he stood grabbing me again, lifting me to meet his lips, I curled my arms around his neck pulling him as close as I could.

We began climbing the stairs, Colby's hands keeping me steady around his waist until we reached the top, he set me down softly and my hands went quickly down to his waist, fingers curling around his his shirt lifting it above his head and threw it to the floor, his actioned mirrored mine, my shirt quickly being on top if his crumpled on the floor, his hands quickly found the underneath of my thighs again and lifted me up carrying to his room.

"you're so beautiful" he whispered, as he set me on his bed, my fingers went to my jeans, pushing the button out the hole and soon down my legs and onto the floor, as soon as they were off Colby crawled above me, eyes eating every inch of me "look at you" he cooed, hand drawing up the side of me until it met my bra

"take it off?" I teased, a playful glint sparkling in my eyes as I curved a seductive smile on my lips. A subtle nod from him and I propped myself up, stealing a swift kiss before turning around. I could feel the warmth of his gentle fingers as they skillfully unhooked my bra, his lips tracing a tantalizing path against my bare skin, sending shivers down my spine. I turned to meet his gaze again, a coy expression playing on my face, silently inviting him to continue

"holy shit" He gazed in awe, his eyes tracing down my body as his head dipped closer. With a delicate motion, his lips caressed my breast, the tantalizing touch of his tongue flicking along my nipple sent shivers cascading down my spine, igniting a thrilling sensation that lingered

"fuck fuck fuck" I sang as he sucked harder his hand massaging the other "Colby- please fuck I need you" I cried, hand wrapping into his hair pulling him up "please" I begged, I pulled his hand from my waist to my heat letting him feel my need, his pricing eyes glared into mine with the most lustful grin play along his lips

"shit" he smirked, quickly he stood pulling down his cargos revealing the tent that had formed in his boxers that were tightly pulled on his skin, he sat back onto the bed and I couldn't help but crawl onto him again, my heat meeting his bulge, my lips went to his jaw, sucking as sweet mumbles fell from his lips. Unintentionally I let my hips grind against his, I couldn't help but create some sort of friction "fuck doll" his head lulled back, his body hitting the mattress moments after, my hand lay against his abs keeping me up while I pushed harder onto his tent

"Colby?" I asked seeing him look to him again "I really need you" my voice was shaky, needy. My finger traced a path from his v-line to his boxer strap, toying with the underneath begging for entrance

"fuck- need to be in you" he spoke, as he sat on his elbows, I grinned taking that as a yes to pull off the restraint from his cock "ughh" he quivered as it sprung to his stomach

"fuck me" I breathed, it seemed to light a fire in the boy, I felt our position switch, Colby towered above me, his arms reached above my head

"let me take care of you Y/n" he asked, peppering my face with small kisses, I nodded feeling his fingers go to my hips pulling my panties from my skin, the cold air hitting my burning core.

his fingers sweep my entrance "unnngh" I sighed eyes clamping closed, I reopened my eyes to watch the boy stick his slick fingers into his mouth, sucking off the reminiscences of me off

"you're so sweet baby girl-just like those fucking sweets" Colby looked to me, and without any words shared my mouth opened, and his two digits entered my mouth "mm"

It was enough teasing, we knew we couldn't keep teasing each other, it was torturous, his hand grabbed his cock slipping it gently between my folds "Col-Colby please" before I could even finish my pleas his tip pushed in me "aghhh" I called, my finger tips dug into the sheets, slowly he pushed deeper, incoherent noises fell from my lips, he stopped, our bodies meeting as he bottomed out

"shi-shi-shit Y/n... fuck" slowly the brunette pulled back achingly slow, feeling every inch of my inside before plowing back in, moans, groans, yelps of pleasure started to seep from us as he found a fast pace, the sound of sex filling the room, Colbys hands gently groping the skin

"Colby- Colby" I chanted, I grabbed one of his hands leading it to my neck, delicately his hand held me, not restricting my breathing but enough to make me want more of him, I traced sharp lines against his skin until my grasp fixed to his hair, every time his tip brushed my core my body shivered and pulled a tuft of his brown locks

"thats it Y/n- Take it take it take it!" Colby growled, his cock disappearing into my body "shit-" he swallowed

"Deeper Col- Fuck- Dee-deeper" I cried as I curled my hands around his head. Colby's eyes snapped to mine, those god damn blue eyes- the ones I stared at for years but never got to see them like this before, half shut but open enough to see his pupils growing larger with every hit

"say my name-" he moaned, I took one last gasp of air before the name 'Colby' flowed from my mouth sending rhythmic shivers down his back "ugh- Y/n I need you to keep doing that for me" for the first time since we began the pace slowed, his cock barely coming out of me "Fuck Y/n/n I'm so close" he whimpered sending a chill through my burning body "are you?" I nodded, no words escaping my mouth, our eyes locked, his eyes seeming to be darker and more lust filled than before, his hands moved from being around my neck to caging around my face "I cant hold it any longer babe" he moaned, his hips stuttered each time hitting my g-spot

"Co-Colby I'm going to- fuck- I'm gonna cum" I purred, hands scratching into his skin making him hiss in pleasure, soon we both groaned, his head falling into the crook of my neck

"ffffuuucckk" he cried as he pumped his load into me, I rolled my hips against him gently, riding out my high before I felt myself come down to the soothing feeling of lips against my face

"fuck you were so good sweetheart" Colby breathed, looking at my face checking I was okay

"I... I cant even speak" I smiled, hands holding onto his face, tracing his features

"fucked you that good?" he smirked jokily, slowly he pulled out, his hand rubbing over my stomach

"shut up" I grinned. The two of us lay there quietly for a moment, his arms coming around keeping me embraced to his side.

"you wont believe how long I've waned to do this with you" he soothed, pressing a kiss to the corner of my lip

"I always thought it was just me" I spoke

"wanna go grab a drink?" I nodded standing going to grab my panties off the floor "need a shirt?"

"yeah I think someone through mine onto the floor"

"Oh who was that?" I shook my head taking the t-shirt the boy handed me, I slipped it over my body taking in the cent of him, I went to take a step by my body felt shaky "you okay?" he laughed, hands gripping my arms

"mhm- just need a second" I giggled standing myself back up, soon we made it down stairs walking to go in the kitchen, my view was full with a blonde giving the most evil look, but not evil in a bad way, the way were straight away I knew the both of us were in for it

"so?" he spoke cocking his eyebrow up

"when did you get back?" Colby asked, pulling the fridge open and getting two bottles of something out

"about 10 minuets" I sighed, closing my eyes trying to ignore the blush from burning a hole in my face

"I called it years ago" Sam grinned coming from his place and hitting the back of the other boy before walking away

"aha don't go all shy Y/n- it's fine" the hands of Colby wrapped around my waist pulling me into a hug "you know he's only playing- but he isn't wrong, he called that we'd be together one day"

"Together?" I asked looking up to meet the eyes of the boy

"well- that was my next question" he sighed, lips pressing against mine "what do you think?"

"mh- I think its a good idea" my arms wound around his neck, pulling him to kiss my lips again "what do you think?"

"I think calling you mine sounds perfect"

240 notes · View notes

harlowtales · 2 months ago

Text

A playdate goes wrong as Jack’s daughter goes missing ⚽️

18+ ONLY - ADULT THEMES

(Unedited)

“Daddy do I have to go to the game with you? I want to finish watching my show.” Patricia complained

“Don’t you want to play with Clover?” Jack said as he put her hair in two pigtails and laid out her clothes for her. You were off on a girls day with Jack’s mom, aunt, and Grandmother.

You were practicing leaving Jack completely on his own on his daddy daughter days as he was gone for days and weeks at a time and needed to bond as much as possible with Patricia or “P” as he affectionately called her. Patricia was a stubborn 4 year old and had many of Jack’s traits which included her already well developed negotiation skills.

“Ok daddy how about I finish my show and Duaney can drive me later to the game.” She tried which annoyed and impressed her dad at the same time.

“P” Jack said firmly “Clover is excited to meet you, now put this on or we’ll be late.” He held up her shirt to help her into it. She sighed and rolled her eyes. “When did you start rolling your eyes young lady?”

“Since now.” She retorted sassily. Jack didn’t know whether to laugh or chide her to mind her mouth and manners.

“I’m not the one P.” Jack said with a frown that had Patricia turn on the charm.

“Ok my daddy. I’ll be nice.” She said sweetly and planted a kiss on his forehead as she hung onto his neck for him to help her into her New Balance track pants and New Balance sneakers. Jack melted and a little smile creeped up on his face.

She had a complexion that was not as pale as Jack’s but not as brown as yours with gorgeous curls from both of you, 1 dimple, and hazel eyes, a compromise nature seemed to make between your brown eyes and Jack’s baby blues.

She had freckles on her nose like her dad and a lazy eye she wore glasses for like him. She was sassy, smart, and was already able to carry a tune, something you and Jack had butted heads on. You wanted her to go to college and he was always sneaking her off to the studio. “She has potential Y/N” he would argue and continued to take her to his sessions and beg her not to tell you. Patricia learned how to negotiate for extra screen time for her silence. Like his parents Jack and you limited her screen time to 2 hrs/day.

“If you play with Clover nicely I’ll give you an extra hour on your iPad ok?” Jack said knowing her currency to agree to almost anything except eating her vegetables.

NLE Choppa and Jack were in the same XXL Freshman class but hadn’t spoken much since they made the cover what seemed like a lifetime ago. Both their careers had taken off keeping them busy and on the road and both now were fathers.

NLE was playing in Kentucky and of course as all hip hop artists knew it was good manners to pay the King of Kentucky homage. Jack decided to invite NLE and his daughter Clover to a Louisville FC game so their daughter’s who were the same age could make friends.

NLE and Clover often made adorable daddy/daughter videos of them dancing but Jack kept things with Patricia less public as per his tendency to keep his private life private. Today Jack was sure would be all over social media and it was the rare time he was ok with it. Fans had been dying for a daddy/daughter moment.

In her first 4 years you and Jack made sure Patricia wasn’t in the public eye that much and family sightings by paparazzi were rare as the whole city protected you and respected your wishes. Louisville was a low key place so you and Jack had a fairly peaceful life…that is until 2 little girls joined forces.

Jack and Patricia headed to their box seats to mild cheers from fans who were expecting to see Jack as part owner but were thrilled to see Patricia. Cell phones came out immediately to snap a pic of her as she settled shyly on her daddy’s lap and hugged him around his neck drawing a collective awwww from the crowd. As Jack and Patricia were brought popcorn and drinks a buzz started in the venue and whispers.

NLE and Clover showed up dressed the same as they often did for appearances and events. Today they had on matching pink and white track suits. Clover had pink and white beads on the end of her braids to match her outfit that Patricia thought were really pretty. Clover shyly smiled at Patricia as she stuck to her daddy as well. Folks were used to Jack’s preppy and clean appearance so NLE looked like a rockstar to them as he was covered in tattoos and wore a stack of chunky gleaming chains with a full set of diamond grills when he laughed and smiled with Jack.

Both extremely handsome rappers were at the top of their game enjoying life to the fullest with Jack coming off a long hiatus about to once again dominate the charts, and NLE the fastest rising independent artist out with a streak of viral moments and hits. When the superstar showed up the media and fans went nuts at the unexpected appearance.

2 superstar dads on a playdate hit IG in minutes. Were they collabing? Was Jack performing at NLE’s show later that night? Were they working on a movie together? What was going on? Fans were losing their minds with chats exploding with speculation, and every girl made emergency plans to be ready for an any mention of an epic afterparty.

“What up playa?” NLE greeted Jack in a solid dap and a hug.

“Man you almost as tall as me.” Jack said sizing up the 6”2 rapper against his 6”3 frame and the 2 burst out laughing. It was too much for ladies in the venue watching the tall and handsome dads chat while their daughter’s hung onto them uncertain of what was happening. Clover was more used to the spotlight than Patricia who was already showing signs of being tired.

“Yo P.” Jack said lifting her little head off his shoulder and prying her hands off him to sit her down in the seat beside him and next to Clover. “Say hi to Clover.”

“Umm hi.” She offered quietly. This is one of many moments where Patricia was super shy in public. You and Jack had debates about giving her more opportunities to socialize but to say Jack was paranoid was an understatement.

“My name is Clover. I like your glasses.” Clover offered starting to warm up to her surroundings and her new friend. Patricia was in awe of Clover. Even as a 4yr old she was so glamorous to Patricia as she whipped out a phone from her little bedazzled designer purse to show Patricia pictures of her last outing with her dad where she got to dance with LA Laker cheerleaders. Jack was nervously eyeing the interaction and seeing Patricia in awe of Clover made him even more nervous. Clover was cute and he knew NLE was a good dad, but the 2 girls couldn’t be growing up more differently.

“I like your nails and your purse and your phone and your hair is pretty.” Patricia complimented all at once nervously trying to make a connection with Clover. The 2 girls giggled with their heads together as Clover showed Patricia pics and vids from her last run of adventures with her dad and silly videos they made together. “Your daddy is silly like my daddy.” Patricia giggled.

“Don’t worry bruh she got a phone but it’s parented protected like a MF. It’s a phone for kids so they feel grown but don’t have access to anything bad yuh feel me?” NLE told Jack in his thick Memphis drawl.

“I hear you fam. I kinda got Patricia bubble wrapped.” He joked but it was completely the case. If you had seen that phone he knew you would bug him to let Patricia have it. You grew up less sheltered than Jack and had responsibilities at a young age and felt it helped be who you were today, but up until Jack was in first grade he just came off a farm and had never played a video game.

His childhood in Louisville revolved around his large and close knit family. It wasn’t until his teens where he started to see more of the world and was in his later teens when he started drinking and “partaking in substances” as he put it. Even his run with that was short lived and he rarely did anything like that anymore.

You on the other hand were left at 16 to raise your two younger half-siblings. It was either that or foster care for them as your mom battled addiction and their father disappeared. You never knew who your dad was. Today because of Jack they were now stable and living close by and your mom was getting help. Jack had truly saved her life. He was your knight in shining armour you didn’t know you needed doing everything on your own. As you sipped on afternoon mimosas with your mother in law, you opened IG to find Patricia and Clover the hot topic of the platform.

“Babe…are you sure about this?” You frantically texted your bae. Jack had told you Patricia was going to the game but you didn’t know the NLE part which brought a whole other level of attention to the outing.

“We good baby. Just chill out and enjoy your day.” Jack texted back and put his phone back in his pocket.

“Clover has a phone??? Is it for kids? Where did NLE get that for her? HELLO??!” You texted to no response from your husband. He knew a barrage of questions would be coming. You were always pushing for Patricia not to be so sheltered. “OMG!! Look at my baby girl laughing and making friends!!!” Jack???! HELLOOOO??!” But he was clearly enjoying the game and not answering.

“Y/N what’s going on?” Maggie said looking over at you scrolling IG and texting like a mad woman.

“LOOK” you simply said tearing up and showed her what Hip Hop Central on Instagram just posted of Patricia and Clover now dancing to the music being played at halftime which was their dad’s music and falling all over each other giggling. The headline was “NLE and Jack Harlow Babysit”

“NLE and Clover wear matching outfits?? How adorable!” Maggie exclaimed “That’s Patricia? She just met Clover! She’s not shy right now! and excuse me you don’t babysit your own child.” Maggie said annoyed at the headline giving you your phone back and rolling her eyes. “She’ll be talking your ear off when y’all get back home.”

“How could he miss that the net was fucking open!!” Jack angrily exclaimed.

“Your daddy said a bad word.” Clover said to Patricia as both girls looked at Jack in a way that made him apologize to them.

“Calm down bruh.” NLE said to Jack who was now pouting at his team’s inevitable loss.

“I have to pee.” Clover said suddenly and jumped up to go to the bathroom.

“Me too.” Said Patricia who didn’t really have to pee until her friend said she had to go.

“I’ll take them” Katt said who was Jack’s assistant “Come on girls” she said and the 2 little girls followed her. As they went to the bathroom inside the boxed in area reserved for Jack, Katt waited for them while she faced the window watching the game. One of the staff who had their hands full left the door to the boxed in area open with the intention of coming back with more things to set up for lunch for the celebrity guests. Clover spotting the open door whispered to Patricia

“Wanna play hide and seek on our daddies?”

“Sure!” Patricia said up for anything Clover suggested.

Clover and Patricia snuck out the door and hid in the back of a golf cart used to get around the venue quickly that had a little canopy where you could put a little cooler for drinks. They hunkered down in the tight space. When the cart started moving they sat there quietly in hushed laughter. Their daddies would have to look all over for them and they thought that would be so fun!

Katt got an uneasy feeling and checked the small bathroom to find the girls gone. Her heart raced as she frantically texted Jack trying not to make a scene for the jumbotron to capture. Jack’s phone was in his pocket and he was preoccupied with shouting at the field over his losing team. Katt panicked and decided she had to tell him. She approached him as calmly as she could with all eyes watching and asked him and NLE to step inside the box.

“What’s going on?” They asked seeing the look on her face.

“The girls they…they were in the washroom and then…I don’t know how they disappeared.” She said wringing her hands and in tears.

“WHAT THE FUCK!!” Jack said angrily “Katt how did this happen?”

“Geezus where is my baby?” NLE panicked and seeing the door to the suite open he ran out with Jack and venue security close on his heels. “Wait let me call Clover.” He said but there was no answer. Immediately all venue security and police were notified and an amber alert went out on all attendees phones.

“Jack Harlow and Mr. Bryson Potts’s daughters are missing. I repeat, we have 2 missions children in the building. Please keep your eyes out and report to authorities immediately if you see these 2 little girls.” The announcer said and showed a picture of both girls on the jumbotron they had to take for security purposes when they arrived that day. “They are Patricia Harlow 4 years old, and Clover Potts 4 years old.”

Everyone in the venue held their breath as some joined the search party. The game came to a grinding halt with players joining the hunt for the 2 girls. You unknowingly were enjoying horse back riding with the women in your husband’s family on their family farm. Your phone was buzzing in your tight riding pants but you ignored it taking in the breathtaking Kentucky countryside.

The golf cart carrying its precious cargo came to a stop and the driver walked off. Patricia and Clover feeling they were no longer moving decided to poke their heads out. They thought they would pretty much be in the same spot as they had little concept of how big the venue was. They panicked once they didn’t recognize anything or anyone around them.

NLE remembered Clover had a tracker on her device. He checked his phone and picked up their location. “Found them!!” He announced “They on the other side but they’re running to somewhere. We have to catch up to them but they are in the building!” He led the search party in their direction.

“Are you lost?” A lady asked the two girls who were now running to find their dads and crying.

“Where’s my daddy?” Patricia said to the lady who instantly recognized her when she looked down and saw her face. “Patricia Harlow?”

Patricia nodded. “And who’s your friend?” The lady asked who was just making her way back to her seat when she spotted the two girls frantically looking around them. “That’s my bestie Clover.” Patricia said hugging Clover tight.

“Oh my god ok everyone is looking for you guys!!” The lady said as she called her husband who notified security. As Jack and NLE hadn’t yet caught up with them but were close.

“We got their location they are safe and being held in place.” They heard over walkie talkies. The fathers breathed a sigh of relief. Jack had never felt such dread in his life. They put the 2 dads and Jack’s security in a golf cart and speedily got them to where the lady was holding Clover and Patricia. When they saw each other they ran to one another. Jack scooped up Patricia and NLE scooped up Clover hugging and kissing the girls fighting fully crying.

“What were you thinking?” Jack asked Patricia sternly and she began to cry

“I wanted to play hide and seek daddy I’m so sorry!!” Clover bawled. “It’s ok princess don’t ever scare daddy like that again ok?” NLE said softly looking into her big brown eyes.

Bruh, where’d you get that phone for Clover? Imma need that.” Jack said holding Patricia close who was now drained and resting on him.

“Allow me boss” Duane said reaching out for Patricia “You want some ice cream girls?” He said reaching for Clover’s hand trying to calm the girls down and distract them.

“Tell me where you got Duane and I’ll tell you where I got the phone.” NLE said smiling. He was so impressed with how Duane was a part of the family.

“Thank you everyone. The whole building gets free ice cream on me for all your help.” Jack said and when they announced it everyone at the game cheered. The girls were carried out onto the field on the shoulders of a couple players and they waved to the crowd happy to see them safe. Boy would Patricia have a lot to tell you when you met up with them at home.

@ride4harlow @jackharlow502 @itsyagirljaz

#jack harlow #fanfic #jackman thomas harlow #jack harlow fanfic #romance #dramatic #jack harlow concepts #jack harlow x y/n #jack harlow x reader #soccer #Louisville #nle choppa #rapper #Spotify

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idontplaytrack · 6 months ago

Note

Regina(big sister of reader) connects the dots and realizes reader has a massive crush on Janis

Some fighting

Good ending 🫡

✧ Crush

Janis ‘Imi’ike x fem! reader(+ older sister Regina)

Warnings: coarse language, reader & Regina quarrel a little

In which Regina steps up and becomes reader’s wingwoman when reader’s crush on a certain someone becomes annoying (in Regina’s terms)

Part two / Part three

(Pictures used are from Pinterest & Auli’i’s IG)

After your Mom and Dad split up, you and your sister’s bond only grew stronger. Individually, you could still love your parents to an extend, and definitely appreciated them for what they’ve given you and Regina. But everything was still tumultuous so you and your sister have learnt over the years to stay away from them as much as possible. As a result, Regina pretty much paid for your food, new clothes and even your phone bill. Heck, she was the one who got you a proper working phone after a four-year old handed down device from your Mom had become absolutely just useless. You never asked for anything unless you needed it, but she would always get you a little something every now and then without telling you anything.

Regina was two years older than you, so when you first started high school, she was already in junior year. And that was the craziest year of all to you. Not just because of the Burn Book wrecking total havoc in her year but also the first time you’ve seen someone in a damn long time. You walked into school with Regina on one of your first morning of freshmen year, eyes curiously observing your surroundings. You had completely stopped in your tracks when your gaze fell on a familiar face. You couldn’t tell who it was, but definitely knew who it was.

Let’s put it this way…your brain couldn’t remember but your heart sure did. “Who are you looking at?” Regina noticed, closing her locker after getting out a book she needed.

“Is that— um, what’s her name? Wasn’t she your best friend?”

“Oh, that’s Janis. Yes, we were friends. Probably why you recognise her because she used to come over a lot and you would always cling onto her like a koala bear or something.”

“Are you still on that?” You grumbled, “I was four.”

“What did you want?”

“I don’t know. Reintroduce myself? I don’t know anyone here except you and Cady.”

“I could help with that.” Regina shrugs, “You…just go up to her and say hello.”

“Uh…no way, Regina.” You scoff, studying your schedule closely, “Where’s room 217?”

“I’ll take you there. Just go say hi.”

“Not doing that, just take me to the classroom.” You sigh.

“Whatever.” Regina smirked, “Let’s go then.”

Being in different years, the sisters obviously did not have any classes together. But, they did run into each other again at lunch since they had their break at the same time-slot. You had no one to sit with, so you just found a table in the corner and settled down to eat while Regina sat with her friends and Cady. “Hey.” You heard a voice walking up behind you. Your back stiffens as you sat up. Hold on…

You turned around and you saw her getting closer to you. “Wow, I thought I saw you earlier.” She says. “Haven’t seen you in forever. y/n, right?”

“Janis.” You chuckled, “Hi.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all, go ahead.” You shrug, trying to keep it cool.

She sits down opposite you, “So…how’s your first day so far?”

“Made a friend, we don’t have lunch together though. My two best friends from middle school got assigned to a different high school, so it kinda sucks a little to have to start all over.”

“Ah, just take it easy and let things happen on its own. Don’t stress yourself out over things that you can’t really control, you’ll meet the right people with time.”

You hummed, shrugging your shoulders as you stabbed the food with your fork and ate some of it.

“You know, I remember when you were probably like— 3 or 4. And you would always cling onto me while me and Regina played board games or cards or something.” Janis mentions.

“Oh, my God— you remember that too? Regina keeps bringing it up to make fun of me.” You sigh, but couldn’t help it and laughed a little anyway.

Janis grins, “I thought it was sweet that you trusted me that much.”

“Is that so?” You guffawed.

“Oh, very much so.” She nods, “I don’t have siblings so having you to dote on the way I did was great.”

Siblings. Well, what a weird feeling you were having in your heart right now. Staring at your tray, you twirled the spaghetti with your fork, avoiding her eyes.

Pushing that feeling aside, you soon continued to chat with Janis for the remainder of lunch, saying bye to her when the two of you went your separate ways to your respective classes.

————

After classes were all done for the day, you made your way to the parking lot to wait for your sister by her Jeep as discussed. You waited just a few minutes before she showed up with Cady. “Hi, y/n!” Cady waved at you cheerfully.

“Hey!” You smiled in return, getting into the car when the both of them did.

“How was your day?” Regina asked casually as she started to drive away from school grounds.

“It was okay, Janis talked to me at lunch, I made a friend in my art class.”

“Good— wait—” Regina nearly gasped but stopped herself, “She did?”

“Almost made a fucking fool of myself.”

“What? It couldn’t be that bad, you guys know each other.”

“The last time I saw her, I was 10. It’s been four years.” You glared at your sister, “You know what the first thing she brought up was? Exactly what you mentioned this morning.”

“Come on, bubs. It was cute.”

“Yes! Because I was four.” You groaned, “Did you remind her?”

“Hey, we’re not close like we used to be. Don’t overestimate either of us.”

“What…what are you guys talking about?” Cady asks, confused.

“She took forever trying to figure out who Janis was this morning. But that’s beside the point, what she’s referring to is, I told her how she used to always basically climb onto Janis and snuggle while I was trying to hang out with my best friend.”

“Oh, enough.”

“y/n, what’s the big —”

“You better watch it.” You warned.

“Ooh.” Regina glances at you with wide eyes, “Moody much. Cramps?”

“Shut up.” You huffed, crossing your arms as you looked outside while she drives.

You got home and just went straight to your room. Regina sighs, “I don’t even wanna know what’s going on.”

“She’s upset.” Cady pointed out, “She clearly didn’t want you to tell people that. You didn’t need to tell me.”

“It’s not a big deal, though. She always laughs at that and suddenly today she has a problem with it?”

“Well, things change?” Cady sat down, Regina does so as well.

“I only told you. I didn’t tell anyone else, so what I don’t get it why she’s so pissed off— oh my God.”

“What?” Cady asks, panicking a little inside.

“She said she almost made a fool of herself at lunch. Janis was with her.”

“So…”

“Do you think she likes Janis?” Regina gasped, “Like actually, has feelings for her?”

“I mean, it’s a possible explanation as to why she had such a big reaction to something she usually couldn’t care less about.”

“Janis talked to her.” Regina continued, “Janis doesn’t just talk to somebody.”

“She talked to your sister. Someone she knows.” Cady says.

“Not after four years of being practically strangers.” Regina smirks.

“What on Earth are you planning, Regina?” Cady asked nervously.

“Do you think…it’s possible that Janis would go out on a date with y/n?”

“I mean…”

“I’m gonna go talk to y/n. One sec.”

That did not go well, you two ended up yelling at each other and that subject subsequently got dropped. You cried yourself to sleep that night, not because Regina yelled at you, but because you were afraid Regina was right. That she was right about you having a raging crush on Janis. This was what scared you, you didn’t want to admit it because it will make you act more awkward around her. It was as if when she said it, it became real to you. So you freaked out and yelled back at her. Regina screamed back at you, frustrated and you told her to leave you alone so she did.

Fast forward to present day, six months after your first day at North Shore. Things have been okay with you and Regina after like a week, but since then, every time you somehow spent time with Janis(and Damian), you became so hyper aware of your feelings for the girl. And how your cheeks seem to heat up when you saw her, how you could barely look her in the eye when she talked to you. How nervous you felt. It was ridiculous. You felt like a crazy person in her presence. Each school day felt terribly long, and you couldn’t wait to get home every day.

“Okay, y/n. Honestly, you’re being way too stressed out about this.” Regina declared. “Sit down.”

“Like you weren’t this way with Cady.” You shot back. “I remember it, okay?”

“Let me help you.” She continues, unfazed.

“How? You don’t like her, still.”

“Do you have her number?”

“Yes, why?” You eyed her suspiciously.

“I could text her for you. Ask her out?”

“Are you crazy?!” You shrieked.

“Maybe a little.” Regina laughs, amused. “But I can definitely help you out, okay? I get it, you feel insane trying to keep calm. But nothing works— I get that. It’s very frustrating, but once you take that first step, everything just falls into place.”

“You can’t be so sure, Regina.”

“What makes you think that?” She squinted at you.

“She said, and I quote ‘I don’t have siblings so having you to dote on the way I did was great.’ So, Regina…do you still think I have a chance?”

“Yes.” Regina said confidently.

“I can’t— okay? What if I just make an even bigger fool out of myself? What if she rejects me and just cuts me off?”

“Okay, first thing’s first. You need to take some deep breaths and calm the hell down because we didn’t even do anything about the situation yet.” Regina started. “Give me your phone.”

“Must I?”

“Do you want to get your girl or not, y/n?” She spoke through gritted teeth, holding out her hand for you to put your phone in it. You surrendered it to her, “Match my tone, please? That’s all I’m asking.”

“I’m not an amateur, relax, y/n.”

“There. It’s done— didn’t even take her a minute to respond.” Regina smirks, “She asked you where you’d like to hang out.”

“Oka— what?!” You stared at her, stunned, “Really?”

“Yeah— look.” She handed your phone back to you.

“Where do you think—”

“Honey, that’s your choice.” Regina nudged.

You thought about it for a while then decided on just going to the mall. You two could grab a lunch then watch a movie, whatever works best for that day, you guessed.

“Oh, God.” You muttered, “What do I wear?!”

“Oh, you poor thing.” Regina teased, “You just wear whatever you like, be yourself. She’ll love it.”

“Yeah, yeah, thanks.”

————

Well, Friday night you stayed up late texting Janis. You weren’t even sure how it started but you guys were nearly three hours into the conversation.

You were this close to tossing your phone across the room after sending her your response with that emoji. But when she replied, your worries went away, and you get sucked back into the conversation quickly enough. Eventually, she tells you to go to bed.

Were you seeing things? Did she just send you a heart?! Nearly squealing, you rolled over, face down in your pillow to muffle the noise. Needless to say, you went to sleep the happiest you’ve felt, probably ever.

Oh, and…

🏷️ Tag list:

@ashecampos @auliisflower @cheesysoup-arlo @frogs00 @ludoesartnstuffs @pda128

💭A/N:

Uh so…part 2?

(Yes I gave Janis a Hawaiian name)

#auli'i cravalho #janis ‘imi’ike #renee rapp #regina george #reader insert #x reader #reader imagine #queer fiction #fanfiction #mgmm fics #mean girls 2024 #crush #fluff #requested #cheesysoup arlo #sibling reader #drabble #blurb #short fic

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irisbleufic · 9 months ago

Note

YOUR 3 CATS ARE SO CUTE OMG! How old are they/what are their stories?

Like many young-ish queer married couples, @one-eyed-bossman and I entered the fast track to pet parenthood in 2020. I was still recovering from extensive cancer treatment at the time, which is part of what makes our first kitty especially meaningful to me.

ZEL

Zel is my darling girl. She’s now 5 years old, and when we adopted her in June of 2020, she was already 1 year old. After being rescued on the streets at a few weeks old with her two personable siblings, she spent an entire year at this lady’s house with like 20 other cats at any given time. She was feral and unapproachable, but somehow I was able to get close enough to her at the rescue to pick her up and put her in the carrier. She nailed me with her claws in the process, but that’s the only time she’s ever hurt me or anyone else. The day after we got her home, I stuck my hand behind the bed in her safe room, and she set her little paw square in my palm and left it there for about a minute. I spent a couple of months crawling halfway under the bed to pet her while she was curled in her bed, and eventually I could get her to follow me around the house by asking, “Do you want to go for a walk?” She barely left my side after that. I spent a lot of 2020 sick in bed; she always curled up snugly between my ankles or my knees. She’s now the smartest cat I’ve ever met. Her language recognition shocks me even after 4 years of having her as a silly little shadow who likes to play fetch with her pink-eared mouse toy. She’s stuck to my side any time I’m on the sofa, and about a month ago she climbed fully in my lap for the first time. Her meow is barely a whisper when she does use it (only to talk to me and occasionally to the TV), but the trills, squeaks, and yowls she makes to talk to her toys are hilarious. She doesn’t even talk to her siblings like that. Unlike many white cats, she is not deaf.

NICKY

We got Nicky a year after we got Zel; he was about 8 weeks old when we brought him home in June of 2021. We met a kind lady who periodically bred her lovely Bengal queens, and Nicky was somehow a “non-show-quality” (?!!) discount kitten. He’s sweet, goofy, vocal, afraid of everything/everyone that’s outside the house, and occasionally very naughty. We hoped he would bring Zel the rest of the way out of her shell, and it worked. He just adored her from day one. She took a few months to warm up to him, but they bonded pretty fast. Now, at 3 years old, he’s a big boy—17 pounds. He likes to stand/sit on laps more than he likes to lie down in them, although he will lie down in mine a couple times a week. He brings me granola bars from the cupboard and loves trash more than he likes his toys:

EMBER

We hadn’t planned on a third cat, but the universe insisted. I mean that quite literally. On 31 July 2022, my mother died at my sister’s place a couple of states away. The morning she died, me and my four siblings took a walk around my sister’s neighborhood. We split up and went slightly different ways; my sister and her husband called me as I was getting back to the house to say that a tiny, tiny crying kitten had run out of the bushes toward them. My sister didn’t know what to do; one of my nieces is very allergic, and we were all burnt-out from dealing with Mom’s passing and the funeral home taking away her body. I told her to bring the kitten back to the house, because I was too grief-stricken to let another thing die that day. Out on the porch, I fed her milk from one of the droppers we were using to give my mom morphine, all the while making desperate phone calls to local rescues. After about 3 hours, a local vet with specialty in caring for bottle baby kittens came to pick her up. She told me that, because I didn’t live too far away in the grand scheme of things, she could foster the baby until she was old enough for me to arrange transport to my home state. There was no way I could walk away from that little baby, so I got regular photos, videos, and updates from her foster mom until I could arrange transport about 5 months later (she came home in December of 2022). She has grown up to be the feistiest tortie I’ve ever met. She has far longer hair than I ever could have guessed, and even now that she’s 1.5 years old, she has very short legs (longer end of munchkin, our vet says!) and an overall smaller stature than her siblings. She fucking adores Nicky, and he has never once played too rough for her given the size disparity. He lets her chase him, jump on him, bap him into play fights, etc. She will cry and cry at night if we don’t pick her up and carry her around before we close the bedroom doors (they get to sleep in the bedroom sometimes, but not always; Nicky likes to knock picture frames off the wall in there, and I’m not about exposing them to broken glass).

#nicky and zel #zel and nicky #ember #cats of tumblr #rescue cats

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ivysturnss · 6 months ago

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Ninja Warriors- Chris Sturniolo

Summary - Where the triplets get invited to the American Ninja Warrior in LA to film a video and they bring you along!

Warnings - FLUFF!!! Ass touching, swearing , kissing ,pet names but nothing else.

A/N - I loved this video so much so I decided to make a fic abt it hope u enjoy love ivy xx

Pairing - Chris x fem!reader

Divider - @ issysh3ll

Nick Matt Chris Aliyah

"You ready to go lia?" Chris questions picking up his phone and walking over to her who's flatting her slick back with her hands one final time before standing up. "Mhm , I can't wait but do I have to be in every part of the video?" Aliyah curiously asks exiting the bedroom and walking out to the garage. "You don't have to be in it at all if you don't want." chris says getting into the passenger seat as aliyah gets into the drivers. "I'll be in it as I want to have fun with you guys but I'll stay out of some clips!" " What y'doing in the front lia?" Matt says opening the drivers side door to see her sat in his seat. " I thought I would drive for a change so get in the back so we can leave." Aliyah answers shutting the door and waiting for everyone to get in so she can drive to the mall.

They arrive at main place mall and find memo's car so they can park next to it what they could so Aliyah reverses into the parking spot and unbuckles her belt and leans her head on chris' shoulder before getting out the car and going inside.

"You must wear running shoes on trust obstical course , you must wear toe grip socks for the infla-" matt reads out before getting interrupted by nick saying hello to a staff member.

"Can we go to the little kid zone first?" Chris asks the group whilst watching the safety video. "Chris no ur 20 years old not 4!" aliyah replies from behind the camera rolling her eyes before getting the look of annoyance from Chris. "My back hurts already" "Yeah matts been bitching all day he's been like sneezing and stuff and nicks been complaining about his back but aliyahs been the only one who hasn't complained!" Chris says pointing at each person then waving his hand for lia to come stand with him.

Aliyah walks forward and stands infront of Chris before turning around to face the tv what's listing the safety precautions when she has stopped moving Chris pulls her back if she wasn't close enough already and wraps his hands around her waist. "Be respectful of the other ones around you" matt repeats pointing at the tv then slapping Chris shoulder. Chris side eyes matt then kisses under aliyahs ear what makes her blush , as the cameras on her she quickly turns around and hides her face in his chest. "Dont do that!" aliyah mumbles into his black hoodie facing away from memo!

"Don't do what baby?" Chris whispers already knowing the answer but he wanted to annoy her. "Y'know what." she grumbles starting to grow temper in his supposed cluelessness. "Y'mean this?" Chris says then lifting her head and kissing her forehead , both cheeks, her nose , jaw then finally her lips what he repeated twice before putting his hands under her armpits and lifting her up to hold her. "Get a room chris!" Nick says after watching the whole encounter then the group being taken into the actual thing.

"You did the smallest one bro!" Chris says whilst running up the inflatable wall and grabbing on to the top but he didn't make it due to his socks coming off so he had a little help from matt. "Oh my god!" "Nick just pushed me , he pushed me!" Matt utters through laughter. They spend a few more minutes running up the thing and sliding down the slide before going to this area where u can climb a wall.

Matt, nick and aliyah are stood against the inflatable wall and Chris jumps into frame and grasps onto the wall like spiderman but slid down it landing on lia's feet making her topple forward and lands on chris stomach. They all start laughing but chris is first to speak up "Sorry aliyah , did I hurt you?"Chris asks with slight worry and aliyah nods in return and chris thinks of places she could've got hurt in his head then he realises the only place where she mostly would've got hurt. "Go stand right there ma, I'll be over in a sec let me just talk to these 3!" Chris says pointing behind them in a secluded corner with a comforting smile on his face. Aliyah stands up and walks into the corner as chris tells memo and his brothers to go to something else and he will find them.

With nick and matt:

"Ooo an obstical course let's go do that and we can wait for the couple!" Nick sates running over to the course followed by memo and matt. "Talking of the couple why did Chris make aliyah stand in the corner and us leave is he having some make up sex for hurting her!" "If they wanted to fuck eachother they would atleast go to the bathroom he's probably just checking where she was hurt." nick and matt just carry on with a random conversation after speaking about the couple waiting for them to get back.

With aliyah and chris:

Chris walks over to aliyah and looks down at her thats when he noticed her eyes are glossy. "My love you can cry no one is here to stop you infact I would you rather cry in my arms then have a breakdown on your own." Chris reassures aliyah and them words alone made her start crying. "Shh Shh , I'm right hear baby I'm not going anywhere , let it all out!" He says rubbing her back as aliyah let out sniffles. After a few minutes she steps back and stuggles a smile before speaking "It hurts Chris it really hurts!" aliyah let's out in one breath followed by a few hiccups. "I can't help you if you don't tell me where it hurts , I think I have an idea but I need to make sure!" The blue eyed boy states stroking his thumb across her cheeks wiping some tears. "When I f-fell I landed on the the top of ur stomach a-and my right boob hit ur r-rib and now it really hurts" she strings out still hiccuping. "That sounds like it hurt a lot , can I see it and I'm surprised ur not hot in that jacket?" he says looking at her up and down examining the outfit what was gym shorts with a sports bra and a white gym jacket. He gets ahold of the zipper and looks at aliyah for approval so she nods , he pulls down the zipper and takes off the jacket slinging it on his shoulder. He scans over he stomach to make sure there wasnt a mark there then he looks at her boobs and notices a red mark where she said it hurt. "There is a red mark there what will turn into a bruise but other than that there's nothing else beautiful" he tells her and giving her a kiss!

They make there way over to the obstical course and nick starts to take off his shirt "No ur not, no no!" Matt pulls down nicks shirt to stop him but nick refuses "let me , let me you guys don't know what I've got!" He says through giggles pulling the shirt over his head giving it to matt. "USA" the group start laughing there heads off , Chris falls to the floor as matt climbs over him falling to the floor also as aliyah just films her boyfriends laughter and cheesy grin! "Where did you-" Chris utters out before laughing again! Memo does a close up of his shirt and nick flexes his arms saying "Lets go , I'm doing it for my country!"

"Nick busted out the USA shirt for the American ninja warrior course!" Chris comments fixing his hat as nick puts his shirt back on. They start the race as memo films them going round and Chris was in the lead as matt and aliyah waited at the finish line. "I got like 50 bucks on nick!" Matt bets waiting for the race to finish! "NOOOO!" Chris whines due to his failed attempt to winning! " Congrats nick!" Lia congratulates nick with his winning by giving him a big hug! "I would like to see u do it that shirt was hard!" Nick pants like a dog out of breath hugging his best friend back. "Babe get out of the ball pit ur not a fucking toddler!" she grumbles watching her boyfriend sit in the pit of balls.

Chris goes over to this wall where matt was standing and puts his hand on a ladder "That's not- that's not an obstical course." matt hurriedly states to Chris before he started climbing. As matt carries on speaking to the camera aliyah walks up to Chris who's drinking some water , he swallows his drink then looks down at her. "Chris , can I have some please I didn't bring any." She asks pointing at the water bottle in his hands signifying what she was talking about. He nods passing her the bottle what she holds in one hand and puts the other on her hips and begins to chug it! "Woahh easy there tiger , don't want you to choke now do we!" he says placing a hand under her chin to catch some dripping water as the other one took the bottle out of her hand. "Hey I was enjoying that!" She pouts her bottom lip and frowns at him before he pulls down her chin and opens her mouth , he placed the bottle at her mouth what she closed taking small sips as chris kept lowering the bottle.

After there little break aliyah decides to race matt as she felt bad for chris having to run again, in her head her thoughts of winning was a 50/50 chance as she was very fast but not as fast as matt but as she hadn't been here before aswell as the brothers she didn't know what the course consisted of meaning she still might have a chance. Her boyfriend was at the finish along with nick and Chris was obviously cheering for aliyah and nick was cheering for matt but deep down nick wanted lia to win. Where memo was standing as the 2 ran past him it looked very close to the camera but in real life aliyah was winning by a tiny bit! Memo ran to end to capture it it was still very close as the ran across the red dots in the ball pit aliyah ended up coming first place due to matt slipping. "Image getting beat by a girl matt" nick laughs sticking out his tongue and matt just rolled his eyes. " That shit was hard but I still won!" aliyah comments as she sat on the floor to catch her breath "I'm so proud of you ma , I was cheering for u the whole time!" Chris says as he sat down beside her. "My legs hurt so bad after that I can't walk!" aliyah growns laying her head on chris shoulder as he lays his head on top. "Well we are going to the trust obstical course now so do you want me to carry you?" he questions even if she said no he would anyway. She nods lightly so Chris stood up once he was up he pulled aliyah up with ease and crouched down infront of her. "Jump" he indicates to let her know he's ready to catch her. Aliyah puts her hands on his shoulders and jumps up , as soon as chris felt her touch his back he grabbed on to her thighs lightly walking out of the inflatables as she conjoined her hands infront of him.

After playing a game of odd one out to see who went first nick started doing the course and successfully made it to the end matt went who failed on the second obstical as he thought his foot was on it but it wasn't. "Chris be careful I don't want to be looking after you because you've broke a mother fucking bone" aliyah says watching her boyfriend swing around but he did make it to the end with no broken limbs. It then came her turn she was scared as he arms weren't as long as the triplets and if she failed she didn't want to be caller a failure but she gave it a shot and made it with a little help from Chris. They did the second part of the course but memo didn't film it other than a bit of matts and Chris saying "I can't belive I lost to the cheese doors when I was ten I would tell myself I could do these with ease" as he fixed his hat and aliyah sat between his lap.They moved onto the next thing and the first obstical on it was a red bar you had to hold on to and go across "I have an idea" he says and jumps onto one side and makes it across. "Cmon nick!" "Ooh I like it that was my technique!" Chris jumps onto the bar using a diff technique to nick and starts going across it "Lets go bacon back" nick utters watching his brother do his turn. Matt dies the same technique as nick and makes it across just like his brothers then it became aliyahs turn. This was the part she was most scared for as her boyfriend and his brothers made it look easy but there significantly taller and stronger. This time memo decided to film her what made her nerves even worse she jumped up to grab on the bar as she was going to use the same technique as chris but she couldn't reach. "Can someone help me reach up?" She asks politely and nick came to the rescue and helped her she began her turn "I'm right here if you fall , I'll catch you lia" Chris says slowly walking behind her , she was very slow but made it then it came to the one where the 3 boys failed on but she made it across easily then it came to the rock wall her hands hurt already so she was a bit nervous how that would go she made it halfway across before she stopped. The boys look at eachother confused as she was doing so well and that's when chris noticed her hands began to tremble from how tight she was gripping on so just like he did with the bar he came up behind her. "I'm right behind you you can let go my love , I've got you!" He says sticking his hands out she can feel his breath fan her back so she knew he wasn't lying , she let go and just as he promised he caught her.

They made there way to the wall and started running up it a few times off camera and when the camera starts rolling matt and Chris are sat st the top of the mini wall whilst nick and aliyah are sat on the floor looking up at them they see a fireman's pole so they ask one of the workers if they could use jt and they said yes so chris goes down first and says "if I do that with less clothes it's worth a million bucks!" Nicks jaw drops ,matts expression drops and aliyah gasps and goes "CHRISTOPHER OWEN STURNIOLO DONT EVER SAY THAT AGAIN!" Chris and nick swap places as nick runs up the wall Chris sits criss-crossed and taps his legs for aliyah to sit on them so she does so. He leans forward and places his chin on her shoulder " Y'think you're going to have a turn it looks fun right?" He says watching matt and nick run up. "Mhm , it looks great fun but I don't think I would be able to do jt I don't have much upper body strength left and my legs are still a bit sore from racing matt." she murmers. "I can help you if you want I can either be up the top and pull you up or I can be behind you it up to you baby." "Can u go behind me to start and then if I can do that you go up the top!" "Whatever you want , cmon up you get" he whispers into her shoulder giving it a kiss before tapping her thighs.

Aliyah stands up and Chris stands at the bottom of the wall waiting for her. She runs up and as soon as she puts her hands at the top to push her self up Chris goes as high up as he can and places a hand on her ass and pushes her up. Once she's up Chris runs up and sits in the corner as aliyah lays infront of him placing her head on his legs as he attacks her face with kisses. "I knew you could do it aliyah , you just got to put a little bit of trust in yourself and don't be afraid to ask me or anyone for help you understand?" "I understand" she breaths out before climbing down followed by Chris. Little did they know memo was filming the entire thing from when they were sat on the floor until they climbed down.

The group move on to the big wall and matt tells nick "try the first one" as there was 2 different sizes. Nick runs but doesn't even manage to grab on so he runs back down with his shoelace untied "Tie your shoe!" Chris points out so nick does so. Matt grabs on to the top and turns himself around so he's holding on with one hand , he then slides down and stays sat down at the bottom of the ramp and the boys ask him questions. "That doesn't hurt?" nick asks getting a simple answer from matt "no." "That's totally not how ur supposed to do it." Chris mumbles and matt goes "I don't know , it felt most comfortable in my heart." with a big smile on his face.

Matt asks if they can still get slurpees and they was allowed so they go to the counter and they worker was making them for the group "They sell these at AMC and target and this is my ideal slurpee!" Nick tells the camera as he picked up the cup. "White cherry gross nick!" aliyah comments watching matts Cup get filled up."I don't know what I want , umm I just get the blue one!" Chris says as his voice starts to lower due to memo walking away to film some workers who wanted to say hello. "Aliyah do you want one?" Matt asks refering to the drinks as he took a sip of his "What flavours is there?" she asks walking over and standing in the middle of matt a chris "Theres white cherry , blue raspberry , cherry, orange cream, mango or frosted lemonade you can also get a small if you want." Chris tells her pointing out the flavours and cup size. "I'll have a mango one and can it be small please!" aliyah politely tells the worker who gives her a small nod and giving her what she wanted.

They try eachothers drinking before going home and getting ready for the night , aliyah and Chris have a shower then make there way upstairs to get some food before laying on the couch and watching some spongebob before falling asleep in eachothers comfort.

A/N PT2: I don't know if you can tell but I kinda gave up towards the end also comment on this if you want to be apart of the taglist!!!

@luvs4matt @6ix9inewiturmom @dirtylittleheart333 @evie-sturns @sturniqlo @delilahsturniolo @vanteguccir @sturnsforlife @hysteria-things @cherriesformatt @strawberrysturniolo @recklessmatt @777sturn @sturniolo-simp4life @bambi-slxt @pepsiboyy @lustfulslxt @luvsturnii

#Spotify #chris sturniolo #christopher sturniolo #matt sturniolo #nick sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #sturniolo fanfic #sturniolo triplets #sturn #fluff #ninja warrior #the sturniolo triplets

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durrtydawg · 2 months ago

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The Sadir Inheritance

{Sam Drake x F!Reader} Chapter 6 | 'We just need a lead.'

masterlist ✨

HA! it's been two and a half years. On we move. I've done this trek. It's a killer. oh! also! someone sent me an ask about what Scott looks like in my head but i accidentally deleted it!! I kind of see... Adam Martin from Yellowjackets, but with sliiiightly lighter hair. Hehe. Enjoy xox

CW: none - just bad language and poor writing skill as per x

Word count: 4.2k

Sam is no stranger to a sleepless night. His mind is far too practised at dredging up the past when he least wants it.

It usually takes hours of distraction - thumbing through a dog-eared old book, nursing a bottle, researching an obscure lead - just to dull the edges enough to finally let his guard down.

Tonight, though, none of that seems to be working. It’s a frustrating complication that he’s not prepared to deal with.

He paces by the window a few times, peeling back the blinds now and then to stare out at the quiet pool where they'd been just an hour before.

At one point, he lingers longer.

His eyes travel up a few floors to a balcony above, where he spots a figure. A man, alone, perched on a cheap plastic chair and staring down at his phone screen, his face faintly illuminated by its bluish glare. There’s something familiar in the man’s posture - the way he slouches over his screen, his movements slow and deliberate, like he’s waiting for something, tapping his thumb impatiently against it.

Sam feels an odd flicker of relief. He’s not the only one unable to sleep tonight, pacing through quiet unrest. The man raises his head, and Sam watches him scan the pool, his expression unreadable, though his gaze seems to linger on the spot where they'd been sat earlier. Sam watches, noticing the man’s hand twitch as he slips his phone into his pocket and rises, crossing to the open door with measured steps.

But then the man’s stare shifts down, as if sensing he’s being watched, and for the briefest moment, Sam is certain he catches his eye. The guy stiffens, his expression hardening, and then he quickly turns away, vanishing back into the shadowed interior of his room.

The movement draws Sam’s curiosity - maybe even suspicion. He frowns. He’s just a man, standing on a balcony in the middle of the night. And Sam's exhausted. It's probably just a case of sleepless paranoia, he tells himself.

Still, the nagging feeling remains, scratching at the edges of Sam’s awareness as he draws the blinds and steps back from the window.

The air in his room feels stifling, despite the low hum of the aircon coming from above him.

His eyes drift to his open cigarette packet lying nearby, though he doesn’t reach for it. Sam’s jaw clenches.

The laptop on the dressing table glows back to life as he resumes his half-hearted research, skimming through what he can find on Karam Sadir and the Petra excavation records. The icy screen hurts his eyes.

He squints with a tut.

It’s already at its lowest brightness setting. Nathan told him how to put some weird orangey filter over it once that made his eyes sting less but he can’t remember how to do it.

With a resigned huff, he slumps back in his chair, eyes tracing the waves of moonlight stretching across the ceiling.

It's a big place, and they're yet to find a starting point. This is the sort of work he’d normally sink his teeth right into, let it pull him away from whatever anxieties were clawing at him - but right now, it’s all blurred words and faded images. A distraction, just enough to keep his mind occupied, but annoyingly not enough to pull him away from the nagging ache that's been festering in his gut for the past sixty minutes or so.

He glances down at the last line he highlighted on the Sadir’s contributions to Petra and any sites surrounding, but the words bleed together, slipping through his tired brain. Not that they matter much, anyway - he’s hardly taking any of it in.

“Jesus Christ.” He mutters to no one but himself.

The heel of his hand rubs up and down his bare chest, before his fingers dig into his shoulder. He instinctively glances down, wincing at the tightness of his muscles.

He finds himself drifting again as he massages out a knot, thoughts pulled back to that playful glint she always seems to have when she’s testing his patience. It hasn’t taken her long to develop a knack for it. It’s all just fun and games, surely. Her shit-eating grin as she poked his star tattoo - she’d dug her nail in - for a second, it hurt. The slight pause after he’d joked about ‘getting with each other’. The way her weight felt in his arms, just in those fleeting seconds, warm and soft and... The knot pops and he rubs his temples, frustrated at his own wandering mind, forcing himself back to the screen.

He’s been down this road before, the signs all too familiar. It starts innocently enough, with a look or a laugh, but then it starts to unravel and tug at something more… convoluted. And he’d thought he’d kept it buried this time, told himself he was too old for this. That he wasn’t about to go entertaining thoughts he’s got no business having. Idiot.

With a muttered curse, Sam slams the laptop shut.

She’s young, lively, with a way of seeing the world that he’s not sure he ever had despite it being his everything . And it’s precisely that, he tells himself, that has him so twisted up. He admires her optimism. That’s it.

He pushes his way into the bathroom and flips on the faucet, splashing water onto his face. The cold shock helps. Not.

He stares at himself in the mirror, and runs a hand over his stubbled jaw, flexing it as if it might somehow make him look a decade younger.

Sam’s hardly insecure by nature, but the way Scott had shown up, caught her eye, confident and unruffled, pressed on him, subtly but surely. Add in the difference in age, and suddenly it feels like he’s staring straight at every wasted year that’s passed since his twenties, when he could count on his face and body without thinking twice. For the first time in... well, ever... he feels a small, nibbling urge to check, as if hoping he’d find some sign of that guy looking back at him.

He scoffs, chewing the inside of his cheek for a second before grabbing his toothbrush.

What the hell does it matter anyway? He knows who he is, what he’s been through, and has always been good at not letting those old doubts about himself creep in. So what’s changed?

He squeezes a splodge of toothpaste onto the dampened bristles and brushes, the motions automatic, almost meditative, as if a rinse and scrub will clear out the doubt creeping up from whatever strange feelings he’s caught himself having. He spits, rinses, then finally flips off the light.

Flopping onto the mattress, Sam knows full-well he won’t sleep much, though lying in the dark feels a little more forgiving.

By the time his alarm chimes, he’s showered and dressed, already stubbing out a cigarette on the patio, glancing back to the balcony he saw the man on last night. He swishes his mouth out again, tossing his things together and glancing out the window, trying to shake off the strange mix of anticipation and unease lodged in his chest.

Pushing the feeling down as deep as possible, he shoulders his small backpack, resolving to keep things... professional. Whatever had lingered from last night was just that - last night . He had work to do, and so did she, and Sam’s nothing if not a pro at compartmentalising.

The sound of her door opening beside his quickly followed by soft humming of what he thinks is ' What's Up ' by 4 Non Blondes is his cue.

He stands, cracking his neck as he tries to shake off the drowsy weight clinging to him.

God, he's tired.

He’ll grab a coffee on their walk down to the site - it's strong here - maybe he'll squeeze in another smoke before they arrive. At least a few hours in the ancient city might give him some clarity, the search giving his mind something concrete to focus on.

He gives himself a final shake, swallowing down the emotions rattling in his chest, and steps out into the hallway.

The dust, the heat, the people - it all feels like a heady swirl as you make your way through Petra’s narrow gorges and carefully excavated ruins. You’re somewhere between awe and disbelief, taking photos of every angle, every shadowed crevice and sunlit crack in the rocks and ruins. It feels like the focal point of a pilgrimage, history seeping into your every pore, and you’re so immersed in it all that you’ve been unable to stop yourself from grinning all morning.

You glance back at Sam, who walks with his usual sturdy, slightly impatient stride, his gaze occasionally shifting to the flood of tourists around you. Scott’s beside him, a good-natured, half-smirk on his face as he points out details along the route.

You can’t deny Scott’s enthusiasm - it’s infectious, and he’s been a more-than-capable guide. Occasionally, you notice him stopping to examine a detail, his fingers brushing over the carvings with practised ease, as though he’s been here a dozen times.

You catch sight of Sam a few paces back, his expression shaded by his sunglasses and a slight frown as he stops to read an information plaque. It’s not that he’s being rude exactly - he’s just, well… he’s quieter than usual today. And you can’t quite tell if it’s the heat, the crowds, or something else. His eye line flickers between you and Scott, his mouth pressing into a thin line before he looks away.

“He’s not much of a tourist spot guy, is he?” you murmur to Scott as the three of you veer closer to the start of the steep, winding staircase to the second Treasury.

Scott chuckles. "Eh, I suppose it’s not for everyone,” he says diplomatically. “Probably thinks he’s already seen it all.”

You hum in acknowledgement, and Scott gives you a sympathetic look, before heading a few steps ahead to read another plaque, leaving you and Sam to walk in silence. His stride is relaxed, unhurried, almost apathetic. You want to talk to him, find a way to draw him out of whatever mood he’s in, but every attempt to catch his eye seems to come up short.

A touch of irritation prickles at the back of your mind. Maybe you’ve been a little too enthusiastic, but so what? You give Sam a brief wave as he pulls away from another frame of text with a slight pout, hoping to draw him in, but he only nods, keeping his pace slow and steady.

Fuck it. God loves a trier.

“So,” You say, keeping your voice as light, but not sickeningly upbeat as you make it impossible for him to ignore you. “I take it you didn’t sleep much, either in the end?”

It’s silent for a few seconds before he speaks - he bristles slightly, like you’ve - rightfully - called him out for being weird.

“Could ya tell?” he says, a touch gruffly, but there’s a hint of something softer in his tone. You shrug, tucking your phone into the pocket of your shorts. “Just… one of those nights, y’know? Too much running through my head.”

It’s hardly a revelation, but there’s an openness to it that he usually keeps under tighter wraps. You nod, shooting him a look of understanding. “Yuck. Those are the worst. All the thinking that gets you nowhere.”

His mouth quirks slightly, almost a smile, but it’s tinged with something closer to defeat. “Right. Problem is, you’d think after all these years, I’d have some sort of trick to shut it all off.”

You let that hang for a moment, the two of you sidestepping a cluster of tourists crowded around a camel sitting, unbothered on the sand. It’s surprisingly… nice, to be let into his world, even if only a crack. He’s always felt so solid, so sure, but there’s something about seeing him unsettled that makes him feel oddly more human. The faint vulnerability catches you off guard, but hell, you'd be lying if you didn't appreciate it. Want it, even.

“Maybe you need more than a trick,” you offer gently, risking a small smile. “Like a change of scenery, or… I dunno, a bit of fresh motivation?”

He glances at you, expression unreadable behind the sunglasses, but there’s a tilt of his head as if he’s sizing you up. “That right?”

“Yeah,” you say, undeterred. “Might be why you’re here. This whole Sadir thing - maybe it’s not just a job. Maybe it’s something more. We just need a lead.” You shrug, trying not to seem too invested, but Sam’s brow furrows, and there’s something searching in his eyes now.

“Hmm.” he hums, a little quieter, his shoulders jostling as if he's chuckling to himself. You're not sure about mirth, though.

He seems about to say something more, but then he pulls himself away, rubbing a hand along his jaw.

"Well, if all else fails, maybe I can arrange a swift frying pan to the back of the head so you can get a good bit of shut-eye."

He actually laughs at this, but before he can respond, Scott calls out to you both from a few steps ahead, a teasing lilt to his voice.

“Hey, are we climbing these steps or chatting the whole day?”

You roll your eyes playfully and turn back to Sam, who gives a resigned shake of his head.

Onto the Monastery Trail. Just under one-thousand craggy rock steps making up a two-plus mile uphill climb. You're not fit. But you hope your enthusiasm will keep it tolerable.

"Cardio time, baby." You say with a click of the fingers, adjusting your backpack straps.

About ten minutes later, you're still motivated but, unfortunately, painfully aware you're nowhere near as fit as the men you're with.

Sam throws a glance back, raising an eyebrow at your silence. “You know, it’s weird hearing you so quiet,” he teases, his tone light but pointed. “What, savin' your breath?” He bares his teeth in a smirk.

“I’m sooo sorry that I’m not... a mountain goat,” you huff, voice drenched in almost as much sarcasm as your forehead is with sweat.

Scott's chuckle that follows is immediate, warm and a bit smug.

The two continue their chatter as they walk, their words punctuated by Sam’s occasional mutter of “show-off” whenever Scott throws in some tidbit about the ancient Nabateans or Petra’s construction. You listen to them as you trail behind, using their conversation to keep your mind off of your burning thighs and sore lungs - ugh the steps are definitely getting steeper.

“So how’d you pick up Arabic? I know Chloe said you both studied for a bit over in... Oman, was it?” Sam asks Scott, curiosity laced with a hint of begrudging respect.

“Yep. Picked it up a little more colloquially while working with a few archaeological digs near Jerash once I'd graduated. Came in handy since most of the crew spoke it. Nailed the basics, then took some proper classes,” Scott replies with a shrug, looking completely at ease as he hikes up the jagged steps. “I find it helps a lot with locals when I can talk to them in their language. Makes people… open up a bit more, you know?”

Sam scoffs lightly. “Gotta say, I'm - Arabic's one I could never get my head 'round.”

“Yeah, I mean my grandfather was stationed out this way in the forties too, so his stories gave me the enthusiasm from childhood.” Scott grins, then glances back at you, still valiantly pressing forward. “Speaking of enthusiasm, how are you holding up, darl'?" He teases, knowing the answer full-well.

You give him an exaggerated glare, wiping your brow. “Stop taking the piss while I can't defend myself.” Great. That sentence alone halved your lung capacity.

Sam just laughs, enjoying your persistence, you hope. “We're almost halfway there. You're doin' fine.”

“Oh, that’s encouraging.” you reply dryly, though she’s oddly glad he’s checking in.

After a long and exhausting climb, you finally reach the top. Well, almost. Just ahead of you, at a ledge overlooking the expanse of Petra, you spot another brief set of steps - the highest viewpoint, accompanied by one of the many Bedouin vendors with a small table set up. A kettle sits in the centre, steam rising into the air, and a small group of tourists huddles around.

You’re drawn to it immediately.

“Gents, this has been… horrible.” You sigh, your heart slowly becoming more steady as you take off your baseball cap and fan your face with it. “I’m gonna grab some tea,” You remove your backpack and take out your little notebook, “read up on a few things, and take in the view. I’ll keep my eyes peeled and come and find you when I can breathe properly… See you in a few?”

Sam stands a few paces away with Scott near the stone-hewn monastery, a local tour guide gesturing energetically to a group of tourists they've managed to integrate themselves into (three cheers for the unassuming baseball cap!), prattling facts about Petra’s history. But Sam’s mind isn’t entirely there. He keeps glancing around, his eyes skimming over the thinning crowd, half-listening as Scott peppers the guide with questions about excavation sites and artefacts.

“…so, nothing significant has been found here in recent years?” Scott’s voice is smooth, with that confident tone that always seems to get people to open up. Something about the Australian accent seems to give people who have it an instant boost to charisma. Sam notes the way the tour guide leans toward Scott, clearly charmed and eager to impress.

“No, no. No treasures have been found here in centuries.” The guide’s words are tinged with disappointment, but Scott doesn’t miss a beat, nudging him with another line of enquiry about restricted areas and less-documented sites.

But Sam’s focus wavers as he catches sight of a figure standing further off, hovering by the edge of a ruin. He squints. The person looks familiar, and it takes him a second before recognition dawns - the same guy from the balcony last night.

The man isn’t close enough to be eavesdropping, but he’s angled just enough to appear like he’s watching them, hands stuffed casually into his pockets as he leans against a stone column.

Scott catches Sam’s distant expression and steps closer, brows knitting together in concern. "Hey, mate. You with us?"

Sam’s eyes dart back to him, and he forces a smirk to cover his momentary lapse. "Yeah, yeah, I’m here," he replies, crossing his arms in a show of nonchalance. "Just… thought I saw someone I recognised."

Scott raises an eyebrow, glancing around before shrugging, his usual easy charm returning. He gestures back to the tour guide, who is wrapping up his explanation with an apologetic shrug, obviously not the wealth of information they’d been hoping for.

"So no dice on the inheritance?" Sam asks, slightly relieved to shift his focus back to their original purpose.

"Nah. Just the standard spiel." Scott sighs, offering the tour guide a polite smile before turning back to Sam. "Guess we’ll have to keep digging."

Sam nods, but he can’t shake the feeling that they’re being... watched. He catches a glimpse of the man again, just on the edge of his peripheral vision, standing with his arms folded, half-hidden by a weathered stone column. This time, Sam’s certain it’s the same guy.

"You okay, man?" Scott’s voice cuts through again, sharper this time, his eyes steady and probing.

They're staying in one of the cheapest hotels closest to one of the world's most famous heritage sites. They're bound to come across the same people during their stay. Snap out of it.

"Yeah, I’m fine. Just - long night. Didn’t get much sleep."

Scott studies him a beat longer, and Sam feels a flash of irritation at being read so closely. Scott’s perceptiveness borders on uncanny, the kind of thing that usually annoys him when it’s turned his way. But Scott’s well-meaning smile disarms him.

The silence between them breaks as the missing part of the trio skids to a stop beside them, her energy lifting the tension immediately. She’s practically glowing, a wide grin plastered on her face, notebook in hand, the edges dog-eared and a little torn from use.

“Alright,” she pants, catching her breath as she waves the notebook with an eager grin. "Umm ar-Rasas."

Sam’s lips twitch, grateful for the distraction, while Scott’s face lights up, already leaning in, genuinely interested.

"Umm ar what ?" Sam asks with a lopsided grin.

She pauses, looking between them both. "Wait - what have you two found?"

"Jack shit." Scott huffs, scratching his neat beard, "Go on, then. Umm ar-"

"Rasas. Yes. The Bedouin bloke was saying-"

Sam’s head whips around, a frown deepening. “You told him we’re looking for something?”

He watches her bristle a little, feeling the bit of accusation he'd thrown at her. “Not exactly. I didn’t spill everything, if that’s what you’re worried about. He saw the name at the top of my page. Got enthusiastic. That's all.”

"So he saw your damn notes?" He asks, sceptically.

She sighs. "Fuck sake, Sam, the word 'Sadir' in green bubble writing hardly told him we're disturbing the peace. A quick mention of my dissertation convinced him to spill."

Sam bites his lip, narrowing his eyes a little. He nods, though he's inexplicably on edge. She clears her throat.

"They're old Roman city ruins - a couple hours from here. Karam had a hand in the start of its excavation. Apparently..." She stops to go over her notes, "him and his wife -"

"Emaan's parents?" Scott interjects, arms folded in interest.

"Yep - they put in a bid for it when official funding for the excavation stopped in favour of Petra. He was convinced there was more there to be found, and wanted to fund it himself."

"So the Sadirs... owned this site?"

"That's what I've surmised. Yeah. Could’ve used it for anything."

Scott nods, pouting in a way that reads 'not bad'. She lights up. Sam lowers his sunglasses again just in time to roll his eyes.

"I'm going to presume that's our next stop then?" He asks.

"Thought you weren't convinced." She glouts, raising her brows up at him, head tilted.

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose with a sigh. "You're right." He sniffs, nodding. "It's more than we've found."

She gives him a relieved half-smile. It's laced with what he thinks is some sort of sympathy.

"Alright, well," Scott says, thumping them both on the back as he begins to walk ahead of them both, "I'm off to act like a tourist for the rest of the day. We can suss out next steps tonight."

As Scott strides off, blatantly giddy, Sam watches him disappear into the crowd, feeling a momentary pang of relief. But that comfort is short-lived as he glances back at her. She’s still looking up at him, brow slightly raised, waiting for him to say something. It's awkward, but she's unrelenting. A London thing, perhaps? He shifts uncomfortably, a bit too aware of her proximity and the glint of expectation in her crinkled brows. Oh, she's ballsy.

He sighs. “Look, I wasn’t-” He stops himself, catching the slightest hint of frustration flickering across her face. He doesn’t want to make this into a whole thing, doesn’t want to admit outright he might’ve overreacted or sounded harsh. “Just… good work.” he mutters instead, stuffing his hands in his pockets and looking off to the horizon. He can feel the moment teeter on the edge of unresolved tension, and he isn’t quite sure how to balance it.

But she only drops her shoulders and smiles, that same easy, understanding smile that somehow always makes him feel like the asshole in the room. “Don’t worry,” she says, amusement softening her voice. “I didn’t tell him we’re planning to raid his ancestors’ graves. Yet.”

“Glad to know you can keep it subtle,” he mutters, the corner of his mouth twitching despite himself.

The awkward moment stretches, her expression softening as she tilts her head. “Maybe next time you’ll trust me to handle things without…” She trails off, and he braces himself for the jab that never quite lands. Instead, she holds up her phone, grinning, tonguing her teeth. “Actually, if you’re serious about making it up to me, then maybe I’ll settle for a picture.”

He scoffs, shifting his weight. “You serious?”

Her smile is downright playful. “Oh, come on. You owe me at least one nice memory from this godforsaken climb. Besides,” she taps his arm teasingly, “think of it as evidence of the fact that we actually get on very well when you haven't got a pole rammed up your arse.”

Before he can protest, she nudges up beside him, raising her phone, her arm hooked around his shoulders as she leans in. He barely has time to force a smile, but she catches him off-guard - leaning up, she presses her lips to his cheek as the shutter clicks.

The instant it registers, his bravado turns to dust. She steps back, grinning, scrolling through the photo while he’s left blinking, thrown off by the sudden, chaste affection.

“Perfect,” she chirps, giving him a quick wink. “Now, let’s get down from here before I succumb to altitude sickness.”

She heads off, leaving Sam standing there, blinking after her, mind spinning with the confusion of that sudden kiss and how effortlessly she brushed it off. A corner of his mouth twitches as he watches her go.

Ah, shit.

#sam drake #samuel drake #uncharted #sam drake x reader #samuel drake x reader #tsi

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