#not every post i write needs to be written

[studioeisa]

the way the cookie crumbles 🍪 chan x reader.

you need one good story to get your career off the ground. lee chan is on a mission to try every chocolate chip cookie in seoul. better start somewhere, right?

🍪 pairing.  interviewee!lee chan x food journalist!reader.  🍪 word count.  14.4k.  🍪 genre/warnings.  alternate universe: non-idol. slice of life, romance, angst, hurt/comfort. mentions of food, disease (which neither mcs have); profanity. themes of food/memory/grief, svt ensemble as journalists. 🍪 footnotes.  this is part of the milestone: 100 collab. it’s been a while since i’ve written something that i feel like actually means something, and this is that fic for me. it’s my soul on a baking sheet, and i’m grateful that i got the chance to bring it to life. the two halves of my heart, a @chugging-antiseptic-dye & tara @diamonddaze01, proofread the outline for this months ago. thank you, @eclipsaria, @nerdycheol, @gyubakeries, and @shinysobi for the trust!!! 🎵 recommended listening ⸻ the way the cookie crumbles.

It’s taunting—the way the Google Docs cursor is blinking up at you. 

You swear you’re going mad. How long have you been staring at this empty document? An hour? Three? 

You heave out a sigh, slouching at your work desk until your forehead has landed on your mechanical keyboard. A couple of keys are smashed in the process, and you find an intelligible smatter of letters on your screen when you look up. 

That’s the most progress The Story has had in a couple of days, unfortunately. 

“You know,” a bemused voice calls from behind you, “maybe you’re trying too hard.” 

The thought draws a snort of laughter from you. Trying too hard. It’s more like you’re not trying hard enough. How else to explain the sheer lack of progress in what was supposed to be your magnum opus? 

You don’t wheel around to face your workmate. You already know who it is, anyway. 

“Easy for you to say,” you grumble. “Aren’t you accepting a Hinzpeter Award next week, Mr. Humans-Write-Recipes-Better-Than-A.I.?”

Joshua lets out a low chuckle at the light jab about his capital-s Story. You poked your fun at your senior, but you had to give credit where credit was due; the article had been a riveting read, and Joshua deserves all his flowers for tackling it with such finesse. 

“It’ll be your award next year,” he says with a certainty that should be comforting. 

Instead, it reminds you of looming deadlines, of your prickly Editor-in-Chief, of your empty fucking Google Doc. Another sigh. This time, heavier. 

“Or Seungkwan’s,” you say. “His ‘swicy’ story is doing crazy rounds on SNS right now.” 

That was Seungkwan’s Story: A bold declaration of sweet and spicy— aptly called ‘swicy’— being the flavor of the 2025 food scene. Even the new guy, Vernon, had already managed to write something worth reading. Some feature about how foreign candy puts American candy to shame. 

And you? Dozens of listicles and a couple of How-To’s later, you’ve yet to make your dent in The Korea Post’s Food beat. 

You can’t see Joshua’s face, but you can imagine his expression when he sympathetically chides, “What did I say about comparing yourself to other people?” 

You swivel around in your computer chair. Sure enough, Joshua is sporting a disapproving look.

“I’m not comparing myself to Seungkwan,” you say defensively. “I’m just factually saying that his article has over twenty thousand hits already.” 

“Stop.” 

“Okay, okay.” 

Joshua’s demeanor softens a bit when he notices the palpable frustration on your face. “You’ll get there,” he reassures. “I’m sure you’re closer to it than you think.”

You’re tempted to call Joshua out for the platitude, to wax poetics about the Google Doc collecting cobwebs on your screen. Instead, you flash him a tight smile and go to change the topic—bringing up instead his most recent baking endeavor. 

By the time Joshua has flounced away to go bother someone else, you’re ready to call it a day. Head home with your tail between your legs and watch Culinary Class Wars until you crash. It sounds as good of a plan as any, you gingerly think as you click on to Reddit one last time. 

Crawling the web was typically a good source for inspiration. You’d been coming up empty-handed for the past couple weeks, but it never hurt to try. As you click through r/foodkr, your mind wanders to mala cream shrimp dim sum and—

A post catches your eye. You have to backtrack a bit to check it out, having scrolled too fast the first time around. 

r/foodkr • 2hrs ago pichanlin

I want to try EVERY CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE in Seoul 😃

Now that I have your attention: Please name a cafe/bakeshop that sells chocolate chip cookies. Criteria: MUST be in Seoul, should be PURELY chocolate chip (no raisins, nuts, et cetera). Price is NOT an issue. Even if you personally think it is the worst cookie known to man, please please please name it. I am on A MISSION.

↑  12  ↓     🗨  8     ↷  Share

It’s a lot to unpack. The abysmal use of all caps. The ambitious declaration. Who the hell is this ‘pichanlin’, and what sort of death wish does he have? You tongue the inside of your cheek. 

Closer than you think, Joshua had said. 

The words ring in the back of your head as you go to send an invite message to start chatting.

--

For all intents and purposes, user ‘pichanlin’ isn’t the type who looks insane.

He’s bright-eyed and boyish in his attractiveness. He looks like he’s around your age, too, though that’s an assumption you make solely based on his megawatt smile.

Lee Chan, he had introduced himself prior to your meetup at Taegeukdang Bakery. 

He sits across from you now, one leg crossed over the other. When the waiter comes to give him the warmed cookie he had ordered, he flashes the stranger a charming grin. It occurs to you that he’s not trying to be particularly winsome; it seems to be a natural quality. 

You notice that his order doesn’t come with a drink. 

“Just service water for me,” he explains when he catches your scrutinizing eye. “I’m already going to be blowing so much money on cookies, so I have to cheap out somewhere.” 

You respond with a fake laugh. Such was the life of working in a corporate-adjacent setting. Mastering the art of the fake laugh was a must, and you’re convinced you’ve somewhat perfected yours. 

You’re not on the same budget as Chan, so you can at least enjoy an iced latte. You absentmindedly stir the drink as you ask the million won question. “So, what’s up with this insane cookie run?” 

The query is posed to be one that’s almost casual. When Chan responds just as coolly, you figure that you’re partly to blame. 

“I like cookies,” he says simply. 

You offer him a tight grin. “I like coffee,” you say, “but you don’t see me running around the city chugging Americanos.” 

Chan’s responding laugh is far from fake. He sounds genuinely tickled. “Are you making fun of me?” he jokes, feigning hurt as he places a hand over his chest. “And here I thought you were a serious, no-nonsense journalist.” 

A part of you bristles at this virtual stranger trying to poke and prod at you. You know he’s kidding, but the topic of being serious at work is a sore spot you’ve yet to find a balm for. You sip at your drink to try and forget the fact. The coffee is scaldingly hot, which makes you wince. 

“I need to know what I’m getting into.” Your tone is surprisingly sage for your internal conflict. That gut feeling is beginning to tug again—that fear you’re pursuing a dead end, interviewing someone who’s not about to make sense.

It doesn’t help that Chan’s smile only breaks at your words. You want to snap that this isn’t a joke to you, but you’re trying to reign in that temper that’s given your editors so much grief in the past. 

Fuck it. You should cut your losses. Head home and consider this yet another freak hoping to find his five minutes of fame with a viral TikTok series that won’t get more than a couple hundred views. 

You open your mouth to excuse yourself to the bathroom from where you have no intentions of returning when Chan, seeming self-aware of how insane he sounds, motions for you to wait. He fishes through his backpack and—

It’s a map of the city. Not one of those folded, English maps you can pick up at the airport, promoting tourist traps like N Seoul Tower and Nami Island. No, it’s meticulously scribbled, with splotches of ink and hasty scribbles. Chan lays it out in the table between you with excruciating care, as if the map isn’t already battered with its torn edges and faint coffee stains. 

There are dozens of hand drawn, red pins, indicating what you can only presume are the destinations that Chan wants to hit. Pain d’echo. Aoitori Bakery. Samarkand. It’s extensive, obsessive, and the work of either a genius or a lunatic. 

Said genius-slash-lunatic smiles up at you, unashamed of what he’s presenting. “This,” huffs Chan, “is what you’re getting into.” 

Touché, you decide, as you settle back into your chair. 

--

Your editor, Minghao, doesn’t look impressed. 

To be fair, it’s hard to impress a man like Xu Minghao. A part of you feels silly, proposing this cross-country cookie run to him. Minghao is a serious journalist. He brings to the table—no pun intended—narratives that are unheard of in the field of food writing. 

His Story was a thrilling investigative on Chinese fleets and their impact on the seafood industry. It landed him in this gorgeous corner office, where he edits drafts with a 0.3mm Muji Gel Ink Ballpoint Pen. In red, of course. 

He’s holding that very pen now as he surveys your pitch, printed on an immaculately crisp piece of A4 paper. Minghao is old school like that. He doesn’t believe in Microsoft Word; he wants you to get blood on your hands, in the form of his editorial genius. 

He clicks his tongue. You wince, bracing for impact. 

Instead, you get grace. “This has potential,” he says. 

To hell with I love you. Those are the three words you want to hear most in the world. This has potential, from the world’s most anal proofreader. 

You exhale. Let your guard down. “But,” he starts, and you have to scramble to bring your wits back together. “You haven’t filled out this part.” 

You knew it’d be called out. Before Minghao can even tap his pen at the empty portion of your pitch, you’re already prepared. 

Rationale. That’s what you’re missing. The reason why Chan is trying to speedrun himself into diabetes. 

“Yeah, well.” You shift from one foot to another as Minghao peers at you from over his glasses. “I was hoping I could fill that out later on.” 

“You’ve got balls,” says Minghao dryly, “for making a pitch when you haven’t got a reason for it.” 

“It’s interesting.” 

“So is the fact that cheese is the most stolen food in the world, but you don’t see us writing 7,500CWS for that, do you?” 

You bite back a laugh. A corner of Minghao’s lip twitches upward despite himself. He’s not as formidable as people make him out to be. He just has the tendency to make interns want to cry, and writers question their entire existence. 

You were already full of doubt the moment you stepped into his office, so—it cancels out, you suppose. Minghao sees right through you nonetheless. 

“Is this guy a frustrated baker? Is he someone planning to start a bakery?” Minghao poses, handing you back your pitch. The carnage isn’t bad today. A couple of struck-out adverbs, some dangling sentences with eight question marks next to them.  “You’ll have to figure that out, or else your story will have no gravitas. It will float.” 

“Float,” you repeat, clutching your pitch closer to you. 

“Float,” he confirms. “Like an astronaut jettisoned out into space.” 

You’re not sure you get the analogy, but you suppose a man who gets paid an annual salary of ₩100,000,000 deserves to be a little cuckoo. He rattles off your deadlines. You mumble gratitude and get ready to chase leads for a short-form listicle. 

You’re only halfway out Minghao’s office door before you’re pulling out your phone from your pocket. It’s your latest saved contact, which makes things infinitely easier. 

To: [INTERVIEWEE] Lee Chan 🍪 I’m in. 

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Lee Chan has a plan: To try every single chocolate chip cookie in Seoul.

Not every cookie, you realize a little later on. Just around a hundred. Which is still certifiably insane. 

A bakery and dessert café off Itaewon is where you two start your mission. Passion5 is gorgeous in that probably-overpriced way, set in an art-gallery like space. They boast of everything being made in house—cakes, ice cream, sandwiches. 

You and Chan don’t look too out of place. If anything, the two of you look like a couple on a date. It’s a horrifying realization, but it’s also a good cover. You like to think of your stories like that, sometimes. Like they’re something Actually Important instead of a lead followed from Reddit. 

Chan orders his chocolate chip cookie. You get an iced matcha that you put on your company card. 

“So,” Chan says loftily, setting the cookie down between you two. 

“So,” you respond, voice carefully measured. 

You wait. You weaponize the silence. It’s the first good tip you got about interviewing: letting the quiet stretch, so your subject might divulge more than necessary. But Chan doesn’t look like he’s about to spill his entire life story. He just stares at you for a moment too long. 

“Are we gonna half or what?” he asks instead of—I don’t know, giving you a quote you could use for your story. 

You force on a tight-lipped smile. “No,” you say. “Go ahead.” 

Chan doesn’t have to be asked twice. 

Being a writer has made you more attuned to the little things. Mannerisms that might make or break a sentence. Tics that could point to something just below the surface. Most of these habits are the kind you have to dig for, the one you need 20/20 vision to be able to clock. 

Lee Chan is as subtle as a foghorn. His fingers are stiff when he picks up the cookie. His bite is deliberately slow. When he chews and drawls out a comical, exaggerated ‘mmm’, you resist the urge to face palm. He’s putting on a show. 

You couldn’t care less, though. Chan can perform all he wants. You give him a beat, and he cracks. “Very chewy,” he says through his mouthful of pastry. “Uses chocolate chips. Mmm. Nice.” 

You jot it down in your notepad, even though it makes you feel like a student highlighting things that won’t be on a test. “Anything else?” you prompt. 

“It’s… sweet,” he says lamely as he swallows. “A bang for your buck.” 

At least that makes you laugh. Bang for the buck. “I didn’t know value for money was part of your criteria,” you jab. 

“It’s not,” says Chan, and you feel that slight thrill that comes with having an opening. 

You spring the question on him. “What’s your criteria, then?” 

It’s meant to be the first question to a dozen more. What’s your end goal? Do you come from a family of bakers? What’s the worst cookie you’ve ever had? 

But Chan doesn’t give, doesn’t bite. He only gives a noncommittal hum, finishes off his cookie, and wipes the crumbs off his fingers. He pulls out his city map from his bag and crosses out Passion5. No ceremony, no fanfare. 

You stare at him incredulously as he chirps, “Next stop?” 

--

You build your days around Chan. 

On days when you’re not expected to report to the office, you follow him on his mission. He agrees to not try anything while you’re gone lest he find himself finding whatever he’s looking for while you’re in Google Docs hell.

He always gets the same thing: a chocolate chip cookie, and a glass of service water. You get mostly drinks. Every now and then, you give in to something novelty—a cheesecake-cookie hybrid at Songpa’s Au de Cookie, a s’mores-flavored cookie at Cafe Chunk. You’re convinced you’re going to both be very broke and a couple pounds heavier by the end of this story. 

If you can even call it a story. The visits go like this: he orders. The two of you sit across from each other for seven minutes, tops. He eats his cookie, gives a half-hearted commentary on it, then crosses it off his map.

You’re not stupid. Chan obviously has no fucking idea what he’s talking about when it comes to the cookies. He doesn’t make any particular comments about the ingredients, about the consistency. He isn’t consuming them with the criticality of a pastry chef. By the fifteenth café, you realize maybe you’re just asking the wrong questions. 

You’re at Breadypost—another recommendation that looks like it’s about to be struck out—when you try a new approach. 

“What do you do?” you ask, the end of your pen tapping the table. “When you’re not on a cookie rampage, that is.” 

Chan chews at his cookie thoughtfully. You’re bracing for another evasion, some lackadaisical comment about his personal life, so you nearly jump when he answers, “I’m a dancer.” 

Your pen skids across your notebook. Dancer, you write down without ever looking away from Chan. “Oh?” You fail to sound casual. At least you sound interested, which, to be fair—you are. “A professional one?” 

“You could say that.” Chan brushes some crumbs off the front of his shirt. “My parents own a dance studio. I help run it.” 

Dance studio, you jot down. “Like… ballet? Hip-hop?” 

A boyish sort of smile tugs at his mouth. “All sorts of things,” he says vaguely. “I’ve been training since I was a kid, so it was pretty natural for me to start teaching once I got old enough.” 

You feel dizzy. A dance instructor. No, dance prodigy. Has a better ring to it. You have a feeling you’ve struck gold, but there’s still that hint of suspicion. Whether the gold is real. Whether it’s just the truth wrapped in gold. 

“Being a dance teacher,” you start, brain already working on overdrive, “is that something you’ve always wanted to do? Or is this one of those, like, tiger parent situations?” 

Chan seems to catch on to the underlying question. Really, you have to start giving him some more credit. His smile breaks into a laugh, one that’s still rattling through his chest as he pulls out his map. “I want it on record,” he teases, “that whatever you’re thinking is wrong.” 

You hiss in some air through your teeth. He knows you’re still trying to find that rationale, still trying to land on a reason for all this. “What is it, then?” you ask, frustration leaking into your tone.

It’s highly unprofessional; Minghao would probably flay you alive for speaking to a source like this. But going on just enough cookie runs have made you kind of crazy, and perhaps a little too comfortable around Chan. 

He doesn’t clock you on it. He just gives the same, infuriating answer. “I like cookies.” 

Your pen jabs into your notebook. A period to the same sentence spoken time and time again. Chan pretends not to notice. 

You do notice, however, the slightest quiver in his fingers as he crosses Breadypost off his map.

--

“What should I do if my interviewee is lying to me?” 

Seungkwan levels you with the most vicious side eye mid-salad bite. Vernon pulls off one of his earphones, pausing his transcription of his Ahn Sung-jae interview. 

You’re caught somewhere between the two of them. A working lunch. Greasy fingers flying over your keyboard, chasing a deadline, as you try out KyoChon’s new dakgalbi.  

“Is this the cookie monster?” Vernon asks. 

“Ha. Cookie monster.” You snort out a laugh. “Nice one. I should have that somewhere in my title.” 

“Only if you want Minghao to murder you,” Seungkwan deadpans, and Vernon gives a jerky nod of agreement. 

You take a quick bite of your lunch. The gochujang is a little on the sweet side, but the perilla leaves are a nice touch. You briefly contemplate paying extra to have it with cheese next time. 

“I’m just saying,” you say after swallowing. “He’s hiding something.” 

“Everybody’s hiding something,” Seungkwan says loftily, brandishing his plastic fork at you. “That’s why you have to build trust with your interviewee.” 

“This is a story,” you shoot back. “Not a relationship.” 

Vernon, who has gone back to transcribing, grunts. “Most stories are just situationships,” he says absentmindedly, already half-tuned out of the conversation. 

A muscle in your face twitches. “What does that even mean?” 

“He means,” Seungkwan interjects, “that you’re building something with every story. Like one does with a relationship or—fuck it—a situationship. Conversation. Rapport. All that shebang.” 

You’re sure the three of you sound crazy. Such was the life of the newsroom, anyway. Long-winded metaphors, thinly-veiled critique. You’ve all mastered the art of saying things the way each of you can understand, and Seungkwan’s explanation—no matter how insane—makes sense. 

You rub the heel of your palm into your temple. “Okay,” you sigh. “Build trust. Got it.” 

Seungkwan and Vernon share a look. Quick enough that it could be missed, but you catch it. Before the scowl can fully form on your face, Vernon is jumping in to explain. “What if he’s just… dunno.” He gives a half-hearted shrug. “A guy who likes cookies?”

“It’s pretty interesting in itself,” Seungkwan offers as he pops a cherry tomato into his mouth. His next couple of words are muffled. “A dancer with a sweet tooth.” 

“Right.” You hit your Enter button a little too hard. The key gets stuck, and so you jam on it a second time until it clicks back into place. “Interesting.” 

It could be, really. Chan’s attractive enough for the article to fly as one of those cutesy photo essays, and the mission is amusing in that semi-viral TikTok sort of way. 

But you don’t want fifteen seconds of fame. You don’t want fluff about a ‘cookie monster’ dance instructor. You want a capital-S Story. The Story. 

Seungkwan demolishes his salad and makes unsolicited comments about the croutons that came with it. Vernon complains under his breath about Ahn Sung-jae’s lack of decent audio recording despite being filthy rich. 

You nod along as you think about what it means to trust and be trusted. 

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There’s a secret to the perfect chocolate chip cookie, and only Lee Chan knows it.

The days start to blend together. Cookies. Iced coffees. Cafés and patisseries, places you’d never have thought to visit if it weren’t for Chan. 

He keeps crossing out places on his map. You keep prying, slow but sure, snatching up every little piece of information he drops. Born in February. Came from Iksan. Graduated from Seoul Broadcasting High School. A breadcrumb trail. 

After a productive day (five cafés!) that was ultimately futile (all crossed out!), you find yourself on the same path with Chan. Something about the nearest bus route being the same one you two could take. 

You’re making small talk about the day’s weather when Chan’s ears perk up at a commotion. “Oh?” He cranes his neck in the direction of the crowd. “Let’s check it out.” 

You really, really don’t want to. You want to go home, order takeout, and start your fourth rewatch of Inventing Anna. But Chan is already moving before you can politely deny him, and so you drag your feet towards the loose circle of people gathered in Seoul Plaza. 

The noise hits you first. A The Boyz song on full blast. THRILL RIDE, you think it might be. People squeal, rush to the center. 

Chan smiles. A kind of smile you haven’t seen yet. This isn’t cookie-induced, isn’t a grin given after you’ve made a dry joke. This one is bright and wide with realization. “It’s a Random Play Dance,” he says in explanation. 

You give a small ‘ah’ in response. It’s not really something you care much for. You’ve seen it on your For You Page, sure, but this wasn’t the sort of thing you sought out. Chan, on the other hand, starts to shoulder through the crowd. You follow a couple of steps behind, mumbling apologies to the people you squeeze past.

“Have you ever?” Chan asks once you’ve come up to his side. 

“Me?” A high-pitched laugh escapes you. “God, no.” 

Chan’s grin is lopsided, a little crooked. You really wish he wasn’t so pretty; when he’s smiling like this, it’s so easy to get distracted. “Why not? Shy?” he prods. 

Your nose scrunches on instinct. “Let’s go with that,” you say, and Chan drops it. For now, at least. 

He has his arms crossed over his chest as he surveys the dancers in the middle. You realize he’s leaning down a bit, stepping into your space so he can whisper into your ear. “The girl in red has good form,” he says, his voice taking on the type of quality you personally reserve for discussing the merits of one-pot meals. “And see the guy over there—the one wearing Converse? His footing’s a bit off. Watch.” 

You watch. Chan is right. Budget Juyeon is one step behind for the t-thrill ride, t-thrill ride, how ya feeling. “I wouldn’t have noticed that,” you say, eyes still fixed on the people have Chan pointed out. 

He shrugs, feigning nonchalance. The smugness rolls off him in waves anyway. “‘S my job,” he says. 

A new song strikes up. You’re startled when, only a beat in, Chan is already laughing to himself. Instant recognition. He shoots you a sideways glance before breathing out, “Give me a minute, yeah?” 

And then he’s gone, again, but not somewhere you can’t see. You watch, both awed and mortified, as he skids to the center of the circle with practiced ease. A couple more people follow suit. The new song bleeds into the crowd. Hey girl, take you home tonight. Get that give me, get that give me, give me. 

Lee Chan transforms before your eyes. 

Gone is the boy who said ‘you too’ when a barista told him to have a good day. (Twice.) In his place, somebody else. Someone entirely new. A Lee Chan who moves like water, who hits all the marks. A dancer. 

People make room for him, as if sensing just how much of a force he is to reckon with. Chan doesn’t notice. Doesn’t care, maybe. He just dances—perfect steps, controlled movements, one well-placed wink that isn’t cringe at all.

He’s so happy about it, too. You see it in the looseness of his limbs, the spark in his eye. He laughs with the people at his side, sharing that secret language that only dancers can speak, as he hums along to 2PM’s it’s alright, alright, it’s alright. 

When the song transitions to something by aespa, you expect him to keep going. Maybe you even want him to keep going. He doesn’t, though. Just half-jogs back to you with beads of sweat clinging to strands of his bangs. 

“Ready to go?” he asks offhandedly, and you can only nod. You don’t trust yourself to speak yet. 

The two of you go back on your merry way to the bus station. “That was nice,” he huffs out; you have some vague sense that he’s fishing. 

You bite. He deserves that much. “You were good,” you say. “Like, really good.” 

His grin is very what, me?, but you cut him some slack. “I told you,” he shoots back. “Dance studio.”

Even the way he says it. The word ‘dance’. You notice, now, how his voice lilts a bit. Reverence for the craft. There is no doubt: Lee Chan loves to dance. He lives to dance. Which means—

You let out a groan. “I really thought you were a frustrated baker,” you admit, drawing a breathless laugh from your interviewee. 

“I told you it wouldn’t be something like that,” he sing-songs. 

Your shoulders briefly bump into each other. You put a half-step of distance between the two of you. After he’s caught his breath, Chan catches you off-guard: “What about you?” 

“Hm?” 

“You know. Is journalism just a pit stop before you become Seoul’s genderbent Gordon Ramsey?” 

A laugh bubbles out of you before you can stop it. “No,” you answer without missing a beat. “Journalism is… it.” 

“How long have you known you’d get into the field?” 

You feel it, then. The bricks of the wall, sliding into place. Your next words feel like mortar sealing the cracks. “I’m supposed to be the one asking the questions,” you tease, your fingers unconsciously flexing at your side. 

Chan does that thing again where one shoulder rises and falls with attempted nonchalance. Having spent enough time with him, you’ve started to keep a mental repository of his quirks. How he is when he’s faking it until he can make it. How he is when he actually thinks something is good. 

He doesn’t say anything more. You wonder, briefly, if this is a page right out of your book. Waiting for the silence to stretch unbearably so the other person might be forced to fill it. 

You clear your throat. You think of Seungkwan, of Vernon. Build trust. Conversation. Rapport. 

You will have to give as much as you want to get. 

“I’m a bit jealous,” you admit, your voice low like you’re sharing a secret. Maybe you are. It feels like it. “I don’t think there’s anything I’m passionate about outside of writing. And even that, I’m a slave to, you know?” 

It’s supposed to be light. Supposed to be a joke. But Chan is looking at you like he understands, like he sympathizes. It’s in the wry way he smiles, the way he shoves his hands into his coat pockets as if to keep them from clenching and unclenching. He does that, you realized. When he’s excited about something. 

“I hear you,” he says, and it strikes you that he means it. 

So you keep going. It might not be the most ideal situation—could this qualify as trauma-dumping?—but Chan listens well. He nods in all the right places. Throws in a joke or two himself. The two of you are still discussing the whole turning-what-you-love-into-your-job debacle by the time you get to the bus stop, and the conversation is good enough for you two to linger by the benches and let at least two buses pass. 

“Yeah,” you say as the conversation comes to its natural end. “It’s just—I guess I want to write something that matters.” 

You don’t expect Chan to meet you halfway on that sentiment. You don’t doubt his dancing has its own legacy-making end goal, but story-telling is in an entirely different league of its own. Chan understands that much. 

He looks at you, his smile softer at the corners. “Let’s hope I can give you that, then,” he says, the teasing dulled by the sincerity he can’t tamp down. 

A story that matters. 

--

The cookie list is halfway conquered now, sugar and flour and cocoa powder a familiar terrain you navigate with something bordering on affection. Each crossed-off name feels like a mission completed. Almond crinkle from a hole-in-the-wall near Hapjeong that melted on your tongue, a New York-style chocolate chip so thick it could double as a doorstop, a miso caramel that you and Chan argued about for a full subway ride.

You’re walking side by side, crumbs on your sleeves, when Chan, entirely unprompted, drops the bomb like he’s been carrying it in his pocket all day.

“Buttery. Chewy. Thick.” He ticks each word off with a finger, eyes trained straight. “Semi-sweet chocolate chips, probably. Definitely not milk chocolate.”

You stop mid-chew, blinking. “Wait. Are you—are you just now telling me your cookie criteria?”

He nods with all the gravity of someone revealing state secrets. “Yes. I’ve decided you’re ready.”

Your phone is in your hand within seconds. Notes app open. “Say that again,” you prompt. You’ll transfer it to your notebook later. “Slower.”

Chan repeats himself, voice low and deliberate. You transcribe dutifully, thumbs flying over the screen, but your brow pinches at the word thick.

“Thick?” you echo, narrowing your eyes.

“You can’t trust a cookie that flattens like a pancake.”

You honest-to-goodness gasp. “That’s slander. Thin cookies are elite,” you argue. “They’ve got edge crisp. They shatter when you bite in. That’s half the joy.”

He looks at you like you just confessed to liking soggy cereal. “And no raisins,” he throws in for good measure. 

The indignation rises in you like steam. “That’s a hate crime. Raisins have their place!”

Chan grimaces theatrically. “In oatmeal, sure. But not in cookies.”

“But oatmeal is a cookie. It’s nostalgic! Textured! Wholesome!”

“It’s betrayal disguised as dessert.”

You snort. A full, undignified laugh escapes you, loud enough that a couple of people passing by glance over. You duck your head, pretending to examine a croissant in the bakery window. Chan, of course, is utterly unbothered. He’s basking in the win. In riling you up after days of indifference. 

And then—

“See?” he half-joked. “You’re passionate about other things, too.”

You’re not ready for it. The words land like a thud in your chest. You blink, trying to play it off.

Because it’s such a throwaway thing for him to say. A casual observation. Still, it knocks something loose.

You’ve been clawing at meaning lately. 

Tired drafts. Half-finished essays. Interview transcripts that go nowhere. You thought writing about food would save you, would make it matter. That if you turned love into narrative, maybe it would give you something to hold onto.

But here’s Chan, not even trying, reminding you of something you forgot: it’s okay to love something without needing to spin it into something useful. To just love.

You let the thought settle. The warmth of butter. The snap of a crisped edge. The comfort of chewing something that tastes like your childhood.

Maybe you’re allowed to love food for food’s sake. Maybe you’re allowed to love writing separately, too. And maybe—maybe it’s okay not to love them both at the same time.

You glance sideways. Chan’s attention is on a chalkboard menu now. He has no idea that he’s just pulled the rug out from under your existential crisis. No idea that you’re reordering your worldview between bites of cookie.

“I’m gonna grab a coffee,” he says, already stepping toward the register. “If we’re about to argue for another hour, I want to be awake for it.”

He grins at you before he leaves, a flash of teeth and a crinkle of eye. Easy. Unbothered.

You nod mutely, still holding your phone like a lifeline. The cursor blinks at the end of your note.

Buttery. Chewy. Thick. Semi-sweet.

You tuck your phone back into your pocket. Some conversations should be off the record. 

--

You’re supposed to be writing about Seoul’s independent café renaissance. Instead, you’re staring at a blinking cursor and a blinking Chan.

Well. A photo of Chan.

He’s mid-bite in this one, cheeks puffed out slightly, eyes wide with theatrical delight. The cookie in question is half gone. There’s a second photo, blurry, of him doing a little wiggle in place, what you’ve now internally dubbed The Happy Dance. You remember the exact sound he made, too. Something like a muffled mmmph! that might’ve been embarrassing if it weren’t so endearing.

You exhale through your nose, set your phone down screen-first. Focus.

You pull up a different document and try to switch gears. An interview transcription. A listicle about croffles. A half-finished pitch about post-pandemic dessert trends. You give each one a valiant 30 seconds of attention before your mind veers off course.

Back to Chan.

Your fingers sift through the pages of your notebook. It started structured. Professional. Clean. Now?

hates raisins in cookies

buttery chewy thick semi-sweet ONLY

says thank you to bus drivers. every time.

does the happy dance when cookie is a 9.9/10, but will still cross it out on the map wtf

crinkles by the eyes when he laughs (every time??)

once said “i think choreography is just storytelling with muscles”??? what does that MEAN???

You stare at the last one for a second too long. You shake your head, as if that will rattle the thoughts loose.

You have a Google Doc named [Writer’s Close] Lee Chan Cookie Tour. You open it. Read the first sentence. It’s fine. Serviceable. You could probably write four more paragraphs after it, waxing poetics on Chan’s criteria and the fifty cookies you’ve seen him try so far. 

It wouldn’t matter. It doesn’t say anything. 

It doesn’t say that Chan cares deeply and easily. That he notices things like foot placement and poor form in a crowd of strangers, not to nitpick but because he believes people should move like they mean it. That he lights up when he talks about his students. That he grins with his whole body. That he likes cookies the way some people like vinyl. Specific, devotional, particular.

It doesn’t say that he’s surprised you.

You chew your bottom lip, flipping through your camera roll again.

Chan, reaching for a cookie with both hands. Chan, trying to stuff half of it into his mouth at once. Chan, dramatically pretending to faint after a good bite. You catch yourself smiling. Oh no.

You sit back in your chair, stretch your arms above your head like it might pull you back to objectivity. Like the physical act of recentering your spine might recenter your heart, too.

The blinking cursor waits. So does the draft. And you, God help you, are still thinking about the boy who hates raisins.

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How many cookies can a man have before he starts to go insane?

Coconutbox Cafe & Gallery smells like burnt sugar and acrylic paint. It’s the seventy-something café on Chan’s map—an exact number he could recite in his sleep but one you stopped trying to keep track of after number forty-three. 

Today’s pick is sun-drenched and quiet, tucked between a pilates studio and a bookstore with faded signage. The playlist is indie enough to make you feel cultured but familiar enough not to distract you. Mismatched furniture fills the space in organized chaos: chipped wooden stools, velvet armchairs in colors that were probably fashionable once, and a swing bench that no one actually sits on. 

Chan seems to like it immediately. He always does. There’s something about the newness of a place that makes his face go soft at the edges.

You’re halfway through your drink—something frothy and complicated that you didn’t mean to order but didn’t correct the barista on—when he leans across the table. Chin in hand, eyes curious. “Can I read it?” he asks.

You don’t look up from your laptop. “No.”

“Aww.” He drags the syllable out, mock-wounded. “Why not?”

“Because I want it to be honest,” you say. “No preconceived biases. No shifts in behavior. You might start… posing more.”

He glares at you, dramatically offended. “You think I’m that self-conscious?”

“You wore a beanie for three days straight because you didn’t like how your ears looked in that one photo.”

“Wow,” he mutters, sitting back like you’ve physically wounded him. “Low blow. Personal foul. Yellow card.”

You glance up. He’s pouting, full-lipped and cartoonish. You don’t feel bad about it.

“Just give me a little spoiler,” he pleads. “One sentence.”

You don’t tell him that one sentence is all you have. That you’ve written and rewritten that first sentence countless times in the past couple of months. To be fair, it’s the golden rule of journalism. 

An article is only as good as its hook. With all the time you’ve spent with Chan, you want that hook to be foolproof. The kind they give a Pulitzer to. 

Met with silence, Chan amps up his act. He gasps, clutching his chest like you’ve just told him he’s being cut from the final edit. “Am I that boring?” he bemoans. 

You roll your eyes. “I’m still trying to find the right angle. The perfect execution. I’m biding my time.”

He narrows his eyes. “Uh-huh.”

Then he leans back, and you can see it happen. The spark. The tiny gleam of mischief in his expression. You’ve come to fear it. “Oh,” he says ominously. “Well, if I’m not interesting enough as is, maybe I just need to give you material.”

“Chan—”

Too late. He’s already on his feet. He grabs the empty coffee cup from your tray and balances it on his head like a crown. Then, he plucks a single dried flower from the centerpiece and tucks it behind his ear, like he’s a painter’s muse from a pretentious student film.

“This,” he announces in a deep, solemn voice, “is my artistic era.”

You stifle a laugh. It doesn’t work. “I’m a tortured soul,” he goes on, arms wide, spinning slowly in place. “Fueled only by caffeine and existential dread.”

“Please sit down.”

“Would a boring subject do this?” He strikes a pose in front of the gallery wall, back arched as if he’s modeling for an extremely niche fragrance ad. The dried flower falls out of his ear and lands in his sleeve.

You cover your face with your hands. When you peek through your fingers, he’s still going. Shuffling dramatically across the floor like he’s in a modern dance interpretation of heartbreak, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to make sure you’re watching.

You are.

You’re even laughing now, full and real and impossible to suppress. Your stomach starts to ache in the way it does when you laugh too hard and too long. The barista looks vaguely concerned. Chan doesn’t notice, or maybe he does and just doesn’t care.

Eventually, he returns to the table. Smug and satisfied, like this was all part of a well-rehearsed plan. He sips the last of your drink without asking.

“I take it the writer’s block is gone?” he says, not looking at you as he adjusts the empty cup back onto his head.

You shake your head, trying to steady your grin. “You’re insufferable.”

“Mm,” he hums. “But useful.”

You glance down at your laptop. The sentence still blinks, alone, on the screen. But your fingers twitch. The weight that’s been pressing into your ribcage for days now loosens, just a little. 

You think, maybe, you’ve got your second sentence now. Maybe even a third.

--

You meet Minghao at a tiny place near the newsroom, the kind of café with two outlets per table, quiet lo-fi playing through ceiling speakers, and a chalkboard menu written in both English and a half-hearted attempt at French. It’s clean, minimalist, and exactly the sort of place he’d approve of. Muted palette, simple typography, no nonsense. Even the pastries are geometrically intimidating.

Your coffee arrives first. His, second. Then, without thinking, you add a chocolate chip cookie to your order. It’s not until the cashier bags it that you realize what you’ve done.

Minghao raises a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “That for you?”

You stir your drink like it’s suddenly the most fascinating thing in the room. “No.”

He watches you for a beat, then nods. Like he already knows, but he’ll let you say it anyway. He’s good at that. Letting you inch your way to honesty instead of forcing it out of you. It’s what makes him editor material; you both adore and despise him for it. 

“It’s for Chan,” you finally admit, not meeting Minghao’s gaze.

The corner of his mouth twitches. Just barely. “You’ve grown to care for him.”

“No, no,” you say quickly, too quickly. “This is just—part of the mission. A gesture. Fuel for the fieldwork.”

“Sure.”

You glance at Minghao. He sips his coffee like it’s nothing, like he hasn’t just called your bluff in six syllables or less. “It’s okay,” he says after a moment, voice neutral but not unkind. “It’s not a sin to care about your story and the people who comprise it.”

You nod slowly, but wait. There’s always a but with Minghao. You know it’s coming. He’s not the type to leave things at kindness. You sip. You brace.

“But,” he says, as expected, “remember why you’re here.”

There it is. The bucket of cold water. No dramatics, just clarity. The kind that slices right through the comfort you’ve been pretending isn’t there.

You look out the window, where a new wave of commuters spills onto the street. People moving with direction, with purpose. Everyone headed somewhere. No one wondering if they’re already too close to what they’re supposed to be observing.

You came into this story ready to dig. To get close enough to see the seams and the flaws, to understand what drives a person to visit dozens of cafés in search of the perfect cookie. You thought it would be clinical. Interesting, maybe even charming. But not this.

You didn’t account for how Chan would worm his way in—through humor, through dance, through the moments between café visits. You didn’t expect to memorize the sound of his laugh or learn the difference between his fake pout and the real one.

And now, you’re too close. Not just to the story, but to the boy at its center.

“This is work,” you say as firmly as you can manage.

“It is,” Minghao agrees. He doesn’t press. He doesn’t need to. “So do the work.” 

You nod, even if part of you bristles. Not because he’s wrong, but because he’s too right. You hate how much sense he makes.

The conversation mellows from there. You finish your coffees. You talk about deadlines, the new layout for the online features page. You trade stories. He tells you about the intern who once spelled sablé as sable and defended it with a passionate monologue about endangered animals. You laugh, and the sound is not forced. Minghao smiles, rare and real, like a crack in glass that somehow makes it prettier.

When you stand, he reaches for the cookie bag, peeking inside with an appraising eye. “Thick. Buttery. Semi-sweet,” he observes. He’s seen your notes. He has the memory of a goddamn elephant. “You remembered.”

You snatch it back with a roll of your eyes. “It was a coincidence.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” he says, tone dry.

He lets you go with a knowing look. Doesn’t say anything more. He doesn’t have to. That’s the thing with Minghao. You always leave with more questions than answers, and a better draft because of it.

Late afternoon has dipped into early evening, and you pull your coat a little tighter around you. The cookie bag swings lightly at your side. You walk toward the train station, footsteps steady.

When you pause at the corner, waiting for the light to change, you glance at the nearest trash bin. The thought creeps in: maybe it would be simpler to toss the cookie. Make it a clean break. Cut the thread before it knots.

You hover. One step closer, maybe two.

But you don’t throw it out.

You grip the bag a little tighter instead.

The light changes. Green. You cross the street, the lines, until your feet are taking you where you have to be. 

--

The park is quiet, brushed in soft gold. Everything is painted in warm tones. Leaves, benches, kids on scooters, the worn path beneath your shoes. A dog runs off-leash in the distance. There’s a couple on a blanket sharing earphones. The air is warm, but not oppressive, touched by the early edge of evening.

You spot Chan before he sees you, and for a second, you don’t move. He’s crossing the field, steps light, head tilted slightly like he’s listening to music only he can hear. That same bounce in his gait. Hoodie sleeves pushed up, hair caught in the breeze. The sight of him tightens something in your chest.

You hate that it does.

You’re supposed to be the one in control. The observer. You even practiced the speech in your head on the train ride over. Professional boundaries, clarity, distance. Reminders of what this is and what it isn’t. You swore it wouldn’t get messy.

But then he gets closer, his joy unrepentant in the face of your internal conflict. “I got you something,” he says, lifting a small paper bag like it’s a peace offering.

Your hands tighten around your own little gift. “What?”

“Oatmeal. Thin as cardboard,” he sings. “Thought of you when I saw it.”

Your fingers close around the bag when he offers it, but you don’t look inside. You look at him. You were just about to tell him. Just about to say all the things you rehearsed. How this needs to stay professional. How you can’t afford to blur the lines any further. But now you’re holding this ridiculous cookie, and he’s looking at you with the kind of warmth that comes with preheated ovens.

The bag smells like raisins. He remembered, too. 

You don’t think. Your body moves before your mind can catch up.

You kiss him.

The bag falls, forgotten between you. The cookie, you suspect, is probably flattened beyond salvation.

He freezes for half a second. Just half. Then one hand finds your waist, tentative but sure, while the other slides up to cup the back of your neck. He kisses you like he’s catching up. Like he’s been holding back and didn’t realize until now. There’s the briefest hitch in his breath, then something else takes over.

He kisses you like he means it—and for a second, you let yourself mean it, too.

But it doesn’t last.

Reality crashes in all at once. Too sharp, too loud, too late. You pull away fast, like the kiss burned you. Like the world has snapped back into focus and left you gasping for air. “This isn’t—” You inhale sharply, taking a step back. “God, it’s not right. Fuck!”

Chan looks stunned. “Wait, what?”

“I shouldn’t have done that,” you say, still backing up, swiping your hand over your mouth like it might erase the taste of his Chapstick. “It’s not appropriate. I shouldn’t have—”

“But you kissed me.”

“It was a moment of weakness,” you say, harsher than you mean. “It didn’t mean anything.”

His face falls, just a little. “Didn’t mean anything,” he repeats.

You can’t look at him. You start to turn, hoping maybe the wind or the silence will carry you away from this. “Don’t do that,” Chan says. His voice cuts through the stillness. More steady than you expect. “Don’t walk away like that didn’t just happen.”

You whirl back around, jaw tight. “You don’t get it.”

“Then explain it to me.” 

He’s not screaming. Not really. But his voice rises just enough for a couple of heads to turn, and your stomach churns at the thought of this being some teenager’s tweet of the day. saw a couple breaking up at seoul park lol omg frfr. 

You’re not supposed to be part of that. Part of anything, really. 

“I can’t care about you,” you say. Your voice isn’t steady anymore. “I’m not supposed to. This is a job. You’re—”

You stutter. He waits. You wish he wouldn’t.

“You’re just a guy who likes cookies,” you finish, flat and hollow. “You’re nothing but a story to me.”

Silence follows, thick and immediate. 

You can practically hear the rush of your heartbeat in your ears. The pain doesn’t register on his face all at once. It unfurls, slow and soft, like paper tearing. Chan nods once. He swallows. His mouth curves, barely, into something that might look like a smile if you didn’t know better.

“Okay.” He swallows hard. His shoulders are tight, drawn inward. As if he’s keeping himself from unraveling. 

You want to claim you’re not being cruel. This was just the way of the world, the unsigned contract you two had drafted up. You were the journalist; he was the interviewee. You’re not cruel. You’re not cruel. You’re doing your fucking job. 

Right? Right? 

“Well,” Chan says, his voice quieter than you’ve ever heard it, “if a story is all I am, then I’ll make sure it’s one that matters.”

Your own words, thrown back at you. You dare say you deserve it. There are some lines you can’t uncross, and this feels like one of them. 

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You’re back on the trail. Kind of. Not really.

Chan’s walking beside you, but the lightness in his step is gone. You feel it before you see it. Something dulled at the edges, like music with the treble turned down. The city hums around you, oblivious. There’s a café on every corner, but none of them look promising. They all look like endings.

You try to make conversation. About the weather. About the new seasonal menu. About how one of the cafés you visited last week now sells espresso in waffle cones. Chan nods, polite but absent.

The cookie tasting continues. Technically. The first café’s cookie is overbaked. Dry. Crumbles like disappointment.

The second one has promise—a good smell, a nice shape—but too sweet. He barely chews before passing you a napkin to spit it out. The third café? He doesn’t even bother tasting. One glance at the chalkboard menu and he’s out the door.

You finally say, “I’m sorry.”

Chan cocks his head to one side. “What?”

“For earlier. The park. The kiss. The... everything.”

He doesn’t stop walking, but he slows. Just enough to let the moment catch up. “Let’s just finish,” he says. Not cruelly, but measured in a way that indicates he is truly done with all this. He’s just… going through the motions. “One more left.”

The final café is small and tucked between a laundromat and a nail salon. It’s got a handwritten sign and a cinnamon-heavy smell. There’s a single cookie on display.

You both get one. You eat in silence. It’s chewy, at least. You observe Chan carefully, wondering if this is it. It would be a nice climax. The one hundredth store being the one.

Chan pulls the map from his back pocket. 

You watch as he crosses off the last location. 

He stares at it for a second too long. The whole thing is covered in tiny red x’s, like battle scars. You swallow your bite of cookie, tasting the weight of the world in the chocolate chip that’s not what either of you needed. “So,” you say delicately, “what now?”

He folds the map neatly, tucks it away. “You write your story.”

“And you?”

Chan exhales through his nose. A humorless little breath. “I never eat another cookie again.”

It’s supposed to be a joke, but the punchline never lands. You laugh anyway, the sound unconvincing and weak, because it’s better than silence. It’s better than the look on his face, the one a man gets when he’s lost something. When he hadn’t gotten what he wanted. 

It’s beginning to feel like neither of you are about to get what you want. 

“I’m sorry,” you say again, this time softer. Not for the kiss. For this. For the empty hands and crossed-out boxes.

Chan doesn’t speak right away. His jaw flexes. Then he turns to you, eyes catching yours—and this time he doesn’t look away.

There’s a beat. Two.

His gaze lingers, and it does something to you. “Yeah,” he says at last. “I’m sorry, too.”

And that’s it. That’s all there is.

You stand there beside him in the dying light, two people who went searching for something sweet and ended up with something else entirely. You don’t ask what that something is. You’re not sure you want to know.

--

The cherry on top is that you get tonsillitis.

Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Not the kind of ache that curls under your ribs or hides behind your ribs or flares to life when you pass a bakery that reminds you of a certain boy who used to smile like he’d invented happiness.

No. This time, it’s literal.

Your throat is on fire. Your glands feel like someone slipped rocks into the hollow of your neck. Your voice is gone, your sleep disrupted, and you can’t even swallow without it feeling like glass.

And of course, of course it had to come after all of that. After the story. The kiss. The silence that followed. The slow disintegration of something that was never meant to be more than an assignment.

You sit slouched in a hospital hallway, head tipped against the cold wall, wondering if you’ve somehow earned this. Tonsillitis as divine retribution. An inflamed throat to match an aching heart. An article that hasn’t even gotten past the first sentence.

The fluorescent lights buzz overhead. Someone down the corridor is watching a mukbang on full volume. You are seconds away from shoving a tongue depressor in your own ear just to make it stop when a familiar voice cuts through the din.

You freeze.

It can’t be.

You look up—slowly, cautiously—and there he is.

Chan.

He’s standing not far from you, wearing a navy baseball cap and an oversized hoodie like he’s trying not to be noticed. He’s not alone. There’s an older woman beside him. Elegant. Unsmiling. Her features are drawn in that unmistakable way of someone with experience in the art of shutting people out.

You don’t catch everything they say, but you see it. The subtle tension. The way Chan follows half a step behind, reaching out like he might steady her. She brushes him off. Keeps walking.

Something twists in your stomach.

You don’t know what she is to him. A relative, maybe. His mother? An aunt? The resemblance isn’t glaring, but there’s something in the posture, the deflection, that feels practiced.

Chan calls after her softly. Not loud enough for anyone else to hear. You watch as he jogs after her, gentle hand at her elbow. She doesn’t stop. He falters. He looks around, helpless, and that’s when he sees you.

It’s a split-second flicker of recognition. His eyes widen, just a little. The barest twitch of his mouth. You can’t tell if it’s surprise or guilt or something else entirely.

But you look away.

Because it’s none of your business. Because whatever this is, whoever she is—you’re not a part of it. 

For once, the Universe is on your side. The receptionist calls your name. You scramble towards the doctor’s office, the feeling of Chan’s gaze burning into your back. Dr. Jeon asks everything you expect him to, but all you can really manage are a few choice words that feel like barbed wire being dragged through your throat. 

“It hurts,” you tell your doctor, voice broken and raspy. “It really, really hurts.” 

--

Joshua pokes his head into your cubicle with a grin that immediately puts you on edge. “You have a visitorrr,” he croons. 

You glare at him, throat still raw from last week’s tonsillitis-adjacent hell. “What kind of visitor?”

“The attractive kind.”

You already know who it is.

Still, you don’t expect to see Chan standing in the lobby of your workplace, hands tucked into his jacket pockets, eyes trailing absently across the ceiling like he’s rehearsing something in his head. When he notices you, he straightens. Offers a small, careful smile. Not his usual one. This one’s dimmed, as if someone turned the dial down on him.

You don’t say anything as you lead him to the cafeteria. The air between you carries the ghost of too many almosts.

The coffee here is terrible. The cookies are worse. Neither of you bother.

Chan settles across from you at a small table scratched with initials and hearts carved by interns who fell in love with the wrong people. His hands are clasped together on the table, thumbs twitching in search for rhythm. You realize you haven’t seen him this still in a long time.

“After everything,” he begins, voice forcibly steady, “I think I deserve to ask you one question.”

You suck in a breath through your teeth and ready for impact. For something heavy. Something that might break the room in half.

Do you love me? Why did you kiss me?

Instead—

“What’s your story with food?”

You’re not sure you heard him right. You stare for a minute too long, and he stares right back, as if saying yeah, that’s what I want to know. When you laugh, you’re surprised by how much it aches.

“Do you have the time?” you start, your heart rattling in your chest.

He nods. 

You tell him about your childhood kitchen. The yellowing linoleum, the faded recipe cards, the way your mother used to hum while slicing scallions. You tell him about the little step-stool you stood on to watch her stir soups, how you’d sneak pinches of dough and get scolded half-heartedly.

You tell him about the messes you made trying to bake from memory. About the apple crumble that turned into applesauce. The birthday cake you forgot the sugar in. The ramen experiments that ended in smoke alarms.

You tell him that food was love before you ever had a word for it. That it stitched you and your mother together in ways language never quite could.

Then you tell him about your first story. The one that got you published. A noodle shop three blocks down from where you grew up, run by a ninety-two-year-old widow who spoke in proverbs and gave out extra toppings when no one was looking. You wrote about her hands. Her children. The lineage of flavor passed from one generation to none, and how storytelling, like cooking, could preserve things.

People. Taste. Time.

You tell him about the guilt, too. The constant, low hum of it. How ridiculous it sometimes feels to write about something so soft in a world that feels like it’s made of broken glass. How food writing isn’t just about what’s delicious. It’s about what’s been lost. What you’re desperate to hold on to.

Chan listens. He buys you a bottle of water when you start to stutter. He never looks away. 

When you run out of breath, out of steam, he exhales slowly, like he’s been holding his own this whole time. His turn. 

“I guess,” he says, “if I had to pick one story to explain me, it’s her.”

You don’t need to ask who. You already know.

“She always had this chocolate chip cookie in her purse. Same brand. Same crinkle on the packaging,” he says, and the look on his face shows he’s already half-lost to memory. “I don’t even think she liked them, but she made sure I always had one. She’d hand it to me at the end of every visit. Channie, for you.”

His eyes are glassy, but not wet. Not yet. “I know it was store-bought. She wasn’t a baker,” he goes on. “She burned toast. But that cookie—it stuck. It was her. A kind of love language, I guess.”

“And that’s what this was all about?” you ask. Gently. So gently. “Finding it again?”

He nods. “I thought if I could find that exact one, maybe it would… I don’t know. Bring her back. Even for a second. Maybe time might crack open a little and let her through.”

The implication hits like a truck. Your voice lowers. “She’s sick?”

“Alzheimer’s.”

He doesn’t say it for sympathy. He says it like he’s still talking about the weather. Inevitable. Slow and cruel and impossible to predict.

“She started forgetting where she put her keys,” he narrates. “Then names. Then faces. I thought it was just age catching up to her. I didn’t… I didn’t think it was this.”

He glances away for the first time, and you don’t demand he keep his eyes on you. You don’t ask if you can pull out your recorder so you can get all this verbatim. This isn’t that kind of moment. 

“And now, she barely knows who she is,” Chan goes on. “I visit. I talk. Sometimes I sing old songs she used to like. Mostly, I just sit. I just sit there and hope. I sit with my hope, you could say.”

There’s no drama in the way he says it. Just grief. Lived-in. Paper-thin. There is no teeth in your silence. Not this time. There is only space for Chan to be, and that’s exactly what he does. What he gives you. 

“I thought maybe if she tasted it again—just once—it’d click,” he finishes. “She’d remember me. She’d call me Channie again. I thought that would be enough.”

You want to say something. Anything. But there are places that words don’t reach, where no degree in journalism can help. Where you can hear the quiet, It was not enough. 

You do what is second best. 

Your hand rests over Chan’s. He doesn’t pull away, but he doesn’t reciprocate either. He just lets the warmth of your palm stay there. In fact, he stares at it as if the answer might exist in the spaces between your fingers. You have taken what he’s come to give. You’ve given what he’s asked. 

He stands after a long while. The chair scrapes back with a reluctant sigh. “I should go,” he says, tight-lipped and dry-eyed despite the waver in his voice.

You rise with him. “Chan—”

“Thanks for listening.” It’s plain and simple. No frills. An echo of affection, maybe, but not the kind that demands. 

You draw back. You give him grace. “Thanks for trusting me with it,” you respond.  

This is where the sentence should end, where the line should break. But Chan offers you a rueful smile, hands stuffed in his pockets, head tilted just slightly. “You’re missing the point,” he says.

He walks away before you can ask what the point is. What’s the point of anything, really. 

You’re left there at the table with its long-forgotten initials and hearts, feeling like something else is carving within you. 

100% ▼   |   Normal text ▼   |   Arial   ▼     |   - 12 +   |   B  I   U   A

Food is magic, because food is memory. A man named Lee Chan has tried to chase that magic for over half a year.

Minghao reads your first draft in silence.

You hate that you’re watching him instead of looking over your own work. Every flick of his red pen feels like a personal attack, even when it doesn’t land on anything at all. He’s halfway through page three when you realize you’ve been holding your breath.

You pick at your thumbnail. Regret it instantly. It throbs under the pressure, but the pain feels easier to manage than the tension building in your chest. When Minghao finally sets the pages down, you sit up straighter and prepare for carnage.

“It’s good,” he says simply.

You blanch. “Good?”

He nods. Crosses his arms over his chest. “Solid structure. Strong voice. A little long, but it’s got bones.”

You know you should be relieved. Instead, there’s this twisting in your gut. It’s like you ate something bad, and you try not to let it show on your face. 

Minghao narrows his eyes, immediately catching on. “But?”

You try to deflect. “No but.”

“Liar.”

You deflate. “I’ve been so scared of screwing this up,” you blurt out. “Of letting you down. When you said ‘remember why you’re here,’ I thought... I don’t know. That maybe I wasn’t doing enough. That I was getting too close. That I was crossing a line.”

Minghao tilts his head. The sharpness of him softens, just a little. “You misunderstood me.” 

He leans forward. Taps a finger on the table between you. “What’s the most important thing about a cookie?” he asks. 

Your eyes twitch. “The... flour?”

He stares. “Okay. No,” he rephrases. “Let me rephrase. What’s the most important thing about food?”

“Salt?”

“God.” He presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “People. It’s people.”

You stare. He continues, more gently now. “Vernon’s story about candy shone because it was about tradition. Culture. Community. The way a single sweet tied together generations. Seungkwan’s was about food tech, but really, it was about ingenuity. Human innovation in the face of resource scarcity. Even Joshua’s piece about AI ramen wasn’t just about automation. It was about how technology still tries to mimic human intuition.”

His voice is measured, but there’s something in it. A belief. The kind that only comes from loving something deeply, and for a long time. You’re silent, letting it wash over you. Letting it settle in the hollows of your chest.

“At the root of food,” Minghao continues, “behind every recipe that’s unwritten or winged, every craving, every comfort—there’s people. Someone made that dish for someone else. Or remembered it. Or passed it down.” 

“The food we love is only as good as the people who make it,” he says. “The stories we tell are only as good as the people behind them.”

You don’t realize you’ve stayed quiet until Minghao looks at you with that familiar editor’s patience. The kind he uses when he knows you’re on the edge of a revelation, only needing a push.

You think of Chan. Not the cookie-searching version. Not the boy who tried and failed to track down a taste from his past. Just Lee Chan. His grin. His terrible jokes. His self-assured rhythm. 

The corners of his eyes, the crumbs underneath his nails. The way his voice wavered when he talked about his grandmother. The weight he’s carried all alone. The hope, still flickering.

“I made him a punchline,” you murmur, the horror settling low in your gut. “I made him a mission.”

Minghao shrugs. “You made him a start,” he says, forgiving in a way you’re not sure you deserve. “Now you get to decide where you finish.”

You exhale. A long, unsteady breath. There’s a beat of silence. The air feels different now. Lighter, but charged. Like the moment before a storm breaks, or the second before a leap.

“I need an extension,” you declare. 

Nobody asks Minghao for extensions. He runs the newsroom with military precision, and you can’t blame him. Journalism relies on clockwork—press cycles, deadlines in red pen. But you’ve come to understand that some things are bigger than that. More important. Worth going against everything you believe. 

“Yeah.” You meet Minghao’s gaze, steady and unwavering. “I want to tell the story right.”

For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. Then he taps the table once. When he smiles, it’s slow and small. Real. 

“Okay,” he concedes. “Go write something that matters.”

This time, you know what that means.

You just have one thing to do before that. 

--

You show up to Chan’s studio and immediately wonder if this was a mistake.

He answers the door in a hoodie too big for him, sleeves pushed to the elbows, hair damp like he’s just showered or maybe it’s sweat-slick from rehearsal. There’s a beat of surprise in his expression before it hardens, folding in on itself like wet origami.

“Hey,” you try, voice quiet but even.

“Hey,” he echoes, flat.

It stings more than it should. A hollow ache opens up in your chest, sharp and cold. You shift on your feet, offering a small, uncertain smile. “I have something for you.”

He raises a brow. “Unless it’s the cookie I’ve been looking for, I’m not sure I’m interested.”

You breathe through your nose. “Give me one chance,” you say, wincing at the sound of your own begging. “That’s all I’m asking.”

Chan looks at you, unreadable. For a second, you think he might actually shut the door in your face. You’d deserve it. 

But then he sighs, grabs a jacket hanging from a hook behind the door, and mutters, “Lead the way.”

You’re not sure why he agreed, but you’re not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe he took pity. Maybe there’s still some residual respect from the moment shared in your company cafeteria. Whatever it is, you know it’s temporary. Fleeting. One shot to get things right. 

You take Chan to a co-baking studio tucked into a homely alley in Mapo-gu. 

The air inside smells like vanilla and ambition. Stainless steel counters stretch out in clean lines. There’s sunlight pouring in through high, smudged windows. Rows of labeled jars—sugar, nutmeg, semisweet chocolate chips—stand like small sentinels. It’s industrial, but cozy. Clean. Bright. Full of possibility.

Chan squints. “What is this?”

“A baking studio.” You gesture around with a tilt of your head. “I booked us a session. You have everything you need to try again. One last time.”

His head snaps to you. “You want me to bake?”

“Yes.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“You do realize I don’t know how to bake, right?”

“That makes two of us.”

You see it, then. The tiniest crack in his demeanor. The corner of his mouth twitches, the beginnings of a smile surfacing, then retreating like a wave too nervous to reach the shore. He gives you the ultimatum you were already half expecting: “I’m not doing this without you.” 

You sigh, mostly for show. “Fine.”

The instructor gives you two a brief rundown, gesturing toward the pre-measured ingredients and the recipe card in bold type. Then, mercifully, she disappears, leaving you alone. 

The two of you pull on aprons that are slightly too big and immediately begin fumbling like contestants in a reality show neither of you signed up for. The butter isn’t soft enough. The sugar spills. Chan nearly drops an egg on the floor, and you burn your hand lightly on the oven door.

There’s flour on the counter, on your sleeves, in your hair. The vanilla extract sloshes over the measuring spoon. The dough looks more like cement than something edible. 

It’s a disaster, but it’s yours.

You glance at Chan after a particularly clumsy attempt at whisking, and the two of you dissolve into laughter. It bubbles up from your chest, full and warm, like something you’d forgotten you still had in you. Chan looks startled to hear it, like he hadn’t expected joy to make an appearance.

“This is terrible,” he says, grinning despite himself.

“Objectively,” you agree, shaking your head.

His smile stays this time. 

You lean over the counter to scoop a bit more flour, and in doing so, you miss the look he gives you—soft, open, maybe even wanting. He reaches out without thinking. His thumb brushes your cheek, slow and sure, wiping away a smudge of flour you didn’t know was there.

He doesn’t say anything about it. Neither do you. You don’t have to. The moment stretches, unspoken and delicate, like a string pulled tight but unbroken. There’s something in his eyes when you finally meet them. Something fragile and fierce all at once.

You look away first.

The cookies make it to the oven. You’re both perched on metal stools, watching the timer count down. The smell starts to fill the room. Warm, chocolate-laced, a little too sweet.

It’s not quite forgiveness. Not quite love, either.

But it feels like it could be.

--

“You don’t have to do this,” you say, which translates loosely to I don’t have to be here for this. 

Chan shakes his head, as if to say, You should be here. 

The fluorescents of the hospital lights are unforgiving. The only warm thing in the hallway is the tupperware of cookies nestled in Chan’s death grip. Your fingers instinctively brush over his knuckles, and he loosens his hold enough to let the plastic grip. 

You’re standing in front of the hospital room. Once again, you have that striking feeling that you don’t belong. That this isn’t somewhere you should be, not a story you should be a character in. 

But Chan is looking at you with please written all over his face, and who are you to deny him? 

Your throat works around the words. “Ready?” 

He takes a shaky breath. “Give me a minute.” 

You would give him the world, really, if he asked. The two of you stand side by side for a couple more moments, until Chan breaks it with words that are edged with a healthy dose of nervousness. “Do you remember the conversation we had at the cafeteria?” 

You nod wordlessly in response. His eyes dart skyward for a moment. “I said you were missing the point,” he notes. 

Right before he’d left. You’re missing the point. 

You think of Minghao’s claws retracting enough to tell you about the people behind food. You think of the stories you’ve written, the voices that bleed into every single one of them. You think of your own mother. 

You think of kitchens you’ve outgrown, and people you’ve loved, and you understand. You know, now, what the point is. To Chan’s mission. To your article. To everything. 

Your hand rests at his elbow. You give it a gentle squeeze. This story is bigger than the two of you. It’s always been, hasn’t it? 

Chan nods and pushes the door open. 

It’s all a little clearer with context. The silver-haired woman you’d seen way back then is undoubtedly a blood relative of Chan’s. The same nose, same set of lips. She’s still unsmiling, still closed off, and the knowledge of what she’s gone through has the puzzle pieces in your mind falling into place. 

She looks up when you and Chan walk in. She says nothing, though, even as Chan pauses by the door. As if he’s waiting to be yelled at, to be told to leave. It makes your heart clench in your chest. 

Chan’s voice is impossibly soft as he pads further into the sunlit room. “Halmeoni,” he greets. “It’s me. I’ve brought… a friend.” 

She glares at Chan, face devoid of recognition, before glancing at you. You raise your hand in an awkward wave before folding into a clumsy bow. Chan’s grandmother says nothing about your abysmal manners. 

You’re a stranger to her. That adds up. But Chan being a stranger to her—

You feel the sudden urge to cry. You have to glance away from this shell of a woman lest you actually do start sobbing. This moment is not supposed to be about you.  

Chan approaches her as if he were nearing a particularly skittish animal. “I’ve brought you a snack,” he says, already popping the top off the Tupperware. His fingers are shaking as he says, “Do you want to try one?” 

The smell of chocolate and sugar wafts through the room. Something shifts in the old woman’s expression. The slightest twitch. You watch, wretched, as Chan perks up. 

His grandmother reaches into the Tupperware. Her bony fingers bring the cookie to her mouth, and she takes the smallest of bites. 

Despite having already said earlier that the cookie is nothing like the one he used to have as a kid—too sweet, too crumbly, too obviously made by someone without experience—Chan looks devastatingly hopeful. He doesn’t look his age. He looks like a child waiting in the pleats of his grandmother’s skirt, hoping to be handed the love that was his since the moment he was born. 

His grandmother chews, careful and slow. Considering, you want to believe. 

She keeps chewing. She takes another bite. 

Nothing in her face changes.

Chan’s shoulders fall. 

You’re at his side in the next moment. You don’t say anything, don’t do anything drastic. A hand at the small of Chan’s back. That’s all you offer. A reminder of what has been done, who has been loved. Despite, despite, despite. 

Chan looks towards you and breathes. In, out. An inhale that bears the weight of memory. An exhale that lets the grief unravel. 

“Well,” he says, managing a smile, “I guess that’s it.” 

You smile back at him. “It’s okay,” you say, even though it’s not, and Chan nods, even though he doesn’t think so, either. 

Chan lingers for just a couple minutes more, giving his grandmother updates about his day even though she says nothing in response. She just works her way through the cookie, blank eyes fixed on Chan as he talks about his parents and the dance studio. 

Eventually, Chan catches your wrist and gives it a gentle squeeze. “We should head out,” he says. “Visiting hours are over soon.” 

You nod. You look to his grandmother who still has crumbs at the corners of her mouth. 

“It was nice meeting you, halmeoni,” you say, and though you’re not quite sure why, you feel compelled to add, “Thank you.” 

That, at least, makes Chan’s smile a little more genuine. Like he understands the weight of you thanking her. He keeps his hold on your wrist as you two turn away. 

When his grandmother speaks, it’s with the musicality that undoubtedly runs through Chan’s veins. You catch the way her eyes crinkle—a joy that is inherited, passed down. Pressed into a grandchild’s hands at family gatherings. 

“Where did you get this cookie, boy?” she asks Chan. “I think my grandson would like it.” 

--

The cashier offers you a free cookie at the register—some kind of promotional thing—and Chan immediately shakes his head.

You glance at him. He glances back. A shared look. A brief pause. Then, unbidden, a laugh slips from your lips. It startles you in its ease. He chuckles, too. 

You take the cookie, cradling it like something precious. “Old habits die screaming,” you say as the two of you slide into your seats.

Chan grins fondly. "Some things are worth keeping alive."

You sit across from each other, mugs nestled between your palms, steam curling into the space between you. The café hums around you. Low music, clinks of cutlery, snippets of conversation that blur into background noise. It acts like a privacy screen. Cocooning. Comforting. There’s a subtle stiffness to it, like a page that’s been folded one too many times.

It’s been a couple of months.

After the hospital. After your deadline. After you had to text Chan that the story was being banked for a bit, and he responded with a GIF of a cartoon otter sobbing. Romance didn’t click into place like you thought it might; it’s not like you were owed that, either. The two of you didn’t really keep in touch, but the tension nonetheless lingered in every pastry listicle, in every dance video, in every article about being one step closer to a cure for Alzheimer’s. 

You were the one to eventually invite him out for coffee. You made it a point to choose a place that hadn’t been on his map, which had been a near-impossible feat. 

“I’m sorry for disappearing,” he says first, thumb grazing the lip of his mug, his voice pitched low.

“You didn’t,” you say quickly. “Life just shifted.”

Shifted. That’s one way to put it. Chan nods, taking the grace. “My grandmother’s back home now. Out of hospice,” he tells you. 

Your breath hitches a little at that. “That’s good,” you say, and there’s nothing feigned about your enthusiasm.

“It is. I’m with her most days now. She doesn’t always know who I am, but…” He cracks the smallest of grins. “Sometimes, she smiles when I sit beside her.”

Your chest aches in that quiet, bruised kind of way. You reach across the table, let your pinky hook against his. The contact is small. It feels monumental. “I’m glad she has you,” you say.

He gives you a look you can’t quite name. It lands somewhere between gratitude and grief. “And you?” he asks, pinky curling around yours like muscle memory. “What’s the story these days?”

You shrug, take a sip of your coffee. It’s a little too hot, but you welcome the burn. It grounds you. “Got assigned something called The Joy of Food.”

Chan’s face lights up. That same rare brightness you’ve always been drawn to, like a match flaring in the dark. “That’s your Story.”

You tilt your head, smile lopsided. “You’d think so. But I’ve spent more time polishing yours.”

He mimics you. Head tilted to one side, grin crooked in an endearing, confused sort of way. “Mine?”

“It’s not ethically sound to show an interviewee the final article,” you say, trying for professionalism. Failing miserably. You’re nervous. More nervous than when you pitched the sugar conspiracy article to Minghao. 

“But—” you say, “I could show my boyfriend.”

Chan’s brows shoot up so high they disappear behind his bangs. Then, he laughs. Really laughs. Wide and real, the corners of his eyes crinkling in that familiar way you’ve come to adore. It makes something in your chest loosen. “Are you asking—”

You shrug again, casual in that not-so-casual way. “Depends,” you say, too quick to be casual. “Are you saying yes?”

He leans across the table, hand sliding over yours. “Let me have a taste first,” he hums, “and then we’ll figure out the rest.”

You meet him halfway. 

His lips are soft, a little coffee-warmed, a little sugar-slick. There’s a stillness to it, the kind that comes after a storm. You feel the curve of his mouth against yours, and so you let yourself smile, too. Let the kiss be nothing more than a kiss. Not a story to tell, not a metaphor for anything else.

He pulls back just enough to murmur against your mouth, “Sweet.”

“Like cookies?”

“Even sweeter.”

You groan, but it’s affectionate. He kisses you again just to prove a point. You pull back this time, breathless and just the right amount of dizzy. “Don’t you want to see my first sentence?”

“Let me kiss my girlfriend for a little more,” he argues, mouth already chasing yours.

The Google Doc glows faintly on your phone screen beside the mugs, open but unattended. It bears the title you agonized over for weeks. The cursor blinks after the last sentence. 

You don’t care if a thousand people read it, or if only one does. You don’t care if it wins awards or garners likes or clicks. It holds everything that mattered, all in a few thousand words. 

It’s not your story anymore.

100% ▼   |   Normal text ▼   |   Arial   ▼     |   - 12 +   |   B  I   U   A

In a Seoul hospice, there is a grandmother who loves her grandson more than anything in the world—even if she may not remember him.

[delilahsturniolo]

— 𝜗ৎ blue . . . m.s

in which . . . you can’t get over how much you still love your ex boyfriend matt, you’re both trying to hold it together for the sake of your daughter

warnings . . . unresolved angst, babydaddy!matt, toxic relationship between matt and reader, arguing.

written by @delilahsturniolo. do not copy, steal, or modify my works. if you are taking any inspiration from this, please ask me first before posting and credit me in your description. happy reading! :)

HIT ME HARD AND SOFT WRITING MARATHON . . . fic #10

the door creaks open and there he is, matt. messy hair under a gray hoodie, tattoos peeking out of his sleeves, shadows under his eyes from nights you don’t ask about anymore. “she’s already had her bath,” you mumble, not looking at him. “just needs her book and bed.”

“got it,” he mutters back, brushing past you like it doesn’t still feel like a punch to the chest every time he’s this close. you watch him go down the hall to her room. you shouldn’t. but you do. you hear her laugh. you hear his voice soften in that way it only does for her. it twists something deep in you. they’re your world, both of them. but god, you hate him. you hate how much you still love him.

ten minutes later he walks back into the living room, rubbing the back of his neck. “she’s asleep,” he says. “cool.” silence. not the quiet kind. the thick kind. heavy. waiting to explode. he stands awkwardly for a second, then drops down onto the couch like it’s still his.

“don’t get too comfortable,” you snap, arms crossed, leaning against the wall. “you’re not staying.” his jaw tenses. “i didn’t ask to.” you roll your eyes. “but you’re acting like you live here.” he scoffs. “i used to live here.”

“yeah, well, you threw that away.” and that’s it. he sits up, eyes locked on yours, voice already sharp. “don’t act like you were some perfect angel, like i just walked away for no reason.”

“you did walk away,” you spit. “you left me to raise her while you went out and played house with every other girl that gave you attention.”

“are you serious right now?” he’s already getting loud. “you pushed me away every damn day. made me feel like shit for breathing wrong.”

“because you never tried, matt! you never grew up. you were still trying to live like you were nineteen when we had a whole ass daughter depending on us.” he stands now too, both of you facing each other like you’re about to break something. maybe you already have. “and you never gave me credit for anything,” he growls. “i was working, providing—”

“you were barely around! and when you were, you were either starting fights or sulking around like fatherhood was some punishment.”

“don’t you fucking say that,” he snaps, voice cracking. “don’t act like i don’t love her.” your throat tightens. because you know he does. you know he does. but that’s what makes all of this worse. “then why couldn’t you love her enough to stay?” you whisper. “why couldn’t you love me enough to fix things?”

his eyes flicker. he looks away for a second like he can’t face what’s behind your words. “i did love you,” he says, quiet now. “i still—i don’t know. we’re just… toxic.” you let out a bitter laugh. “wow. that’s easy for you to say when you’re not the one here every day trying to clean up the mess.”

“you think i don’t feel that? you think it doesn’t kill me every time i leave without her?” his voice is raw now, stripped down. “you think i sleep at night knowing she’s growing up thinking her parents hate each other?”

“then do something, matt!” you shout. “stop coming here like this is just some visit. stop acting like we didn’t build a life together before you fucked it all up!” his eyes flash. “you think i don’t regret it every fucking day?” your breathing is shallow. chest rising and falling too fast. his fists are clenched. yours too. the room feels like it’s going to implode.

you both stand there, staring, all the rage and sadness and history between you like smoke you can’t breathe through. and then…quiet. just the hum of the fridge. the ticking clock. the ghost of everything you used to be. “i don’t want her to grow up thinking this is love,” you say, quieter now. “us screaming like this… hurting each other.”

he nods, slowly. his eyes are glassy. “me neither.”you look away. wipe your face before a tear can fall. “just… go,” you whisper. he hesitates, like he wants to say something else. but he doesn’t. he just walks out the door, soft and slow, like he knows he doesn’t belong here anymore.

and when it shuts behind him, it’s quiet again. but not peaceful. you slide down to the floor, bury your face in your hands, and wonder how something that started with so much love could end up like this. and somewhere in the other room, your daughter sleeps, safe. thank god for that. you’ll keep her safe even if it means breaking your own heart over and over again. because that’s what love looks like now. blue. and bleeding, but still showing up.

© delilahsturniolo

💌: BOW BOWWWW 3RD WRITING MARATHON FINISHEDDDD WOOOOHHOOOOOOO!!!!!! loved this one but nothing will ever beat my so close to what marathon in my eyes :3 anyway thank u to everyone who supported me and my writing during thissss i love you all so so much!! now, it’s time for my one year special! :)

[sirjaketkiszka]

Touch Tank - Jake Kiszka

“Just let me take care of you first.”

Jake Kiszka x Fem!Reader

Summary - A heated early morning endeavor with Jake turns sweet and slow.

Word Count: 2.1k

Warnings: 18+!!, sexual content, kissing, cursing, literally no plot, not even penetration, oral fem!receiving, dirty talking, multiple orgasms, and written very quickly.

(Let me know if I missed any.)

Disclaimer: Apologies for any potential spelling errors or grammar mistakes.

a/n - If you saw my post before, you’ll know that this is a part of a series I’ll be calling “quick writes,” where I quickly write up a one shot to not lose momentum or motivation to write. If the title didn’t give it away, it’s heavily inspired by Touch Tank by Quinnie, sorry if it’s cringe. Give it a listen! Enjoy!

Quick Writes

Jake’s fingers lazily caress your clit, your legs spread wide and face buried in his shoulder as you whimper uncontrollably. His lips whisper sweet words of praise into your ear, encouraging you to simply enjoy the building pressure deep in your core. 

What began as tender good morning kisses had morphed into insinuating touches as Jake’s fingers danced along the waistband of your sleep shorts—finding their way into your underwear and spreading you open as he props himself up on his elbow, a growing smirk on his lips from your trembling body. 

“Jake—“ your voice is soft, breathless. 

“So beautiful.” He coos. 

The golden rays of the morning sun melt through the thin fabric of your sheer curtains—cascading along your soft features, and emphasizing Jake’s perfectly tanned skin—golden like the shaft of light. 

Pleasure tightens your core, making your brows furrow, focusing on the meticulous movement of Jake’s fingers. While they move slowly, they’re very calculated. He knows your every curve, every crevice, and uses it to his advantage. He‘s sure to watch the way your breath quickens when he applies a bit more pressure, focusing solely on your aching clit—-making your legs twitch slightly, threatening to close from the overwhelming sensation. 

“I’m so close…” You confess, your cheeks a deep shade of cerise. 

Your eyes flutter shut, your forehead nuzzling against his shoulder, preparing for release. Your hands, previously grasping at the thick comforter underneath you, grab onto his forearm, needing to feel his warm skin beneath your fingertips. 

The muscles in his forearm flex, with the building speed of his movements, and from your desperate hold on him as hushed words melt from your parted lips. Encouraging him, begging him, praising him. 

“Almost there, baby.” He assures you, maintaining the same pace, taking note of how well you’re receiving it—moans replacing whimpers, and small pants becoming breathless gasps. Leaning down, he presses a firm kiss to your temple, his lips hovering over your ear, ”I’ve got you.”

“Oh, my God, Jake—“ your words are lost on you, barely coming out in a forced whisper as your climax overcomes you in a harsh crash. 

Your hips sputter frantically, your lower stomach tensing up as waves of arousal flow through your limbs, into your core, and coat the tips of Jake's fingers. Your nails carve half-moon shapes into his forearm, using it as support through your orgasm—his movements never halt, being sure to ride out the entire orgasm before ever considering pulling away. 

He does so when your pleasurable cries cease, and overwhelmed whines take their place. His fingers gently slide away, spreading your arousal in the wake of his dragging fingers. 

You open your eyes to find Jake smirking, though he’s not looking at you, but rather admiring the shine of your release on his fingers. His pupils dilate, his lips parting in fascination and hunger.

“Look at that.” He whispers, bringing the soaked digits to his lips and placing them in his mouth, making you release your hold on him. A low hum vibrates from his chest, his eyes shutting for a brief moment as the taste floods his taste buds. He slowly pulls his fingers from his mouth, his tongue shooting out to swipe his bottom lip. “Come here.” He leans into you, capturing your lips in a deep, heated kiss. 

Immediately, he brushes his tongue past your partially open lips, entangling his own with yours. The remaining taste of yourself is vague, but noticeable, and surprisingly likeable. Your previous fatigue of just waking up and immediately coming undone by Jake’s fingers is now a distant memory, and your only mission is to return the favor. 

The kiss remains a battle for dominance, with you pushing back slightly, showing Jake just how badly you want him. His lips break from yours, a breathless chuckle leaving him. 

“Slow down, baby, we have time.” He softly laughs, meeting your gaze.

Sun beams glow behind him, making his long strands of auburn hair shine in the warm sunlight. The soft purple hues of his eyebags reflect his sleepiness, his lips a dark shade of maroon from your eagerness. 

“I want you, Jake.” You quietly beg, your hands reaching for the waistband of his boxers, “I need you. Please.” 

“Shhh—later.” He reasons, and your hope has plummeted. Later? “Just let me take care of you first.” 

All is not lost when he shifts his position, moving above you as he cages you in between his arms, and his hips fall against yours, welcoming him between your open legs. His hair falls to one side, a smile tugging at his lips when he recognizes the desperate look on your face, needing his touch. 

You expect him to kiss you again when he leans down, but he goes further, his lips brushing against the soft skin of your neck. You shudder against him, his kisses feather-light as he works his way down, pressing tender pecks along your bare shoulder. 

Usually, he’d move with much more haste—placing open-mouth kisses along the heated skin, nipping and sucking harshly as he takes your clothes off with fervor and ease. The anticipation for it builds in your gut, your hips growing restless as you only feel slight brushes of his erection, confined by his tight boxers. 

“C’mon, Jake.” You whine, tangling your hands into his hair, brushing it back to keep it out of his face.

“Has anyone taught you how to be patient?” He jokes, looking up at you briefly, and returning to your collarbone. 

You roll your eyes, knowing he hates it when you do that. He pauses, slightly shaking his head, and resumes. 

No reaction.

“What’s going on, Jake? You’re never this…” Agonizingly slow? Frustrating? Irritating? “Gentle.”

Sex with Jake is anything but gentle. 

The two of you have only been seeing each other briefly. That is, at least physically. And in all honesty, you have no label. Simply because what started as reckless fun and giving in to unspoken physical attraction, became something uncertain and uncharted. 

You gave in to desire, pouncing on each other every second you got; roughly, quickly, and efficiently. Jake is an animal, leaving his invisible mark on you, making you think of him for days before you come crawling back for more. 

Lately, something’s changed. Only recently have you started sleeping over, just to begin each morning with a mess between your thighs and an ache in your core. 

“I am when I want to be.” He says quietly, his breath fanning across your skin. 

His words leave you stunned, unsure of what he means. You take it as a sign to enjoy whatever it is he’s doing as his body slowly inches its way down yours, hovering lowly as his chin drags along your flimsy silk tank top. 

His eyes lock onto yours, observing your features while he leans back, just enough to hook his fingers into the waistband of your shorts. With your eager assistance, he pulls them off carefully, taking your underwear off with them. 

With your bottom half exposed to him, you watch the muscles of his jaw clench, his eyes focused on your glistening cunt—-courtesy of the rising sun still piercing through the curtains. 

A brief moment of admiration passes, his lips parted as his eyes travel over the state of you; your legs spread just for him, propping yourself on your elbows with your hands now free, silently pleading that he’ll touch you. Do anything to you.

As if reading your mind, he repositions himself, lowering himself to hover just above your aching cunt. He lies on his stomach, his head just inches from your core, stopping to turn his head and press soft kisses along your inner thighs. A strained groan catches in your throat, your walls clenching around nothing from the anticipation. 

“Please, Jake…” You eliminate the whininess from your tone, replacing it with genuine pleading. 

“Since you asked so nicely.” He grins, inching closer to right where you want him. 

His warm breath is welcomed first, and you struggle to stay still, your hips twitching upward slightly. His lips brush against your cunt, his touch so light it’s nearly unnoticable. You try to push your hips toward him, meeting him halfway, but his hands are quick to snake around your thighs, resting on your hips to pin them down. 

You let out a frustrated noise, your hands gripping the comforter beneath you. You quickly shut up when Jake presses a firm kiss to your core, a smirk pulling at the corners of his lips when he notices your reaction. Your chest heaves as quickened breaths push past your parted lips, waiting for more than just a kiss. 

He repeats the gesture a few more times, pulling back and diving in to place another open-mouth kiss to your cunt. The teasing motion builds a tantalizing sensation in your core—you need more. 

Slowly, his tongue sticks out, flattened and pressed against your folds. A cry of relief claws its way from your throat, your head tilting back as your back arches and chest points toward the ceiling. It’s such a gentle gesture, especially compared to what you’re used to, but the building anticipation has brought you to this moment. On the brink of another orgasm from a simple swipe of his tongue. 

His tongue moves skillfully, being sure to lap up the remainder of your previous climax, collecting the sweet arousal on the tip. He hums deeply, his eyes closing as he dives deeper, his nose nuzzling into you. It brushes against your swollen clit, making you let out a loud moan. 

“Holy shit, Jake.” You’re breathless, your head hanging back as he continues his leisurely pace. 

Despite the unusual unhurriedness, you can feel your next release sending ripples to your core, creating waves of arousal and faint pulses of your cunt. You refuse to believe that such gentleness can produce the same effect as your usual endeavors with Jake. And it lasts much longer. 

“Tastes so good.” Jake’s voice is muffled against you, coming out in a mumble. 

His tongue is in no hurry to bring you to release, rather it’s calculated—exploring your every crevice and fold, like his fingers before. When he’s tasted every inch of you, occasionally dipping the tip of his tongue into your entrance, he focuses on where you need him. He circles your clit, slowly and deliberately. 

“I’m getting close, Jake.” You cry out, leaning your head forward to watch him. “Right there, fuck.” 

His pace remains the same, his lips closed around you as his tongue does all the work. The sensation only builds higher, creating a burning feeling in your gut—it’s frustration, excitement, and arousal all bundled together and ready to release. 

His eyes watch intently, observing the pink tinge on your cheeks, the sheen layer of sweat causing your hair to stick to your temples, and the glaze over your eyes as your orgasm teeters on the edge. A string of uncontrollable moans and curses passes with every heavy breath you let out. So close. 

A single slip of his tongue does it—flicking your clit once and falling back into routine as you cry out. 

“Oh, fuck, Jake!” Your arms give out, making you fall back onto the plush mattress, your head sinking into the pillows as the heels of your feet dig into the bed. 

His hands hold your hips down, still moving his tongue against you as you ride out your second orgasm, crashing into you harder than the previous. A wave of arousal coats his lips, and his movements become sloppier, losing traction from the natural lubricant impairing his flow. Your walls frantically squeeze around nothing, leaving your clit pulsing against his mouth.

Slowly, Jake pulls back, his plump lips parted as he does so—a string of your arousal connects him to you, breaking and falling onto his chin. The sight is otherworldly—his face is flushed, his pupils blown, and the lower half of his face shines with you. 

Without a word, he sloppily wipes his face with his hand, making his way toward you. You expect to continue, despite your exhausted state, but he lies beside you, moving you to curl into him in a spooning position. Throwing the covers over your still-trembling body, he rests his chin on your shoulder, dragging his lips along the smooth skin occasionally. 

“We should do this more often.” He says, breaking the brief silence.

“Yeah, that was nice.” You admit, still catching your breath, staring at the window in front of you. The sun has fully risen, the early morning now creeping into late morning. Plenty of people have started their day, and yet you lie tangled in the sheets with Jake, silently hoping this could be your usual morning. 

“No, I mean this.” He points out, snaking his arm over your waist and pulling you closer to him. You smile to yourself and nod, your face heating and your eyes closing, melting into him. 

Tags:

[pohtaytoh]

UNSEEN

.° ༘🎧⋆🖇₊˚ෆ Lara Raj x Idol!Reader

In the dazzling, fiercely competitive world of fame, Y/N, a rising star from Huntrix, and Lara Raj, a captivating idol from rival group KATSEYE, share a love that defies every rule. Their secret, a fragile flame nurtured in stolen moments, threatens to ignite a scandal that could shatter their careers.

At a grand award show, a single, lingering glance, a moment meant only for them, is caught by eagle-eyed fans. Suddenly, whispers turn to shouts, and the internet explodes with theories, dividing their devoted fandoms. Their powerful companies, desperate to control the narrative, impose a harsh silence, forcing Y/N and Lara apart, pushing their hidden connection to its breaking point.

As the pressure mounts and their futures hang in the balance, Y/N and Lara face an impossible choice: cling to a love that must remain hidden, or risk everything to bring their truth into the light. Will their bond survive the relentless glare of the public eye, or is some love simply destined to remain Unseen?

part: one. <two.> three. four.

The quiet joy Y/N felt after the award show didn't last long. The internet, a place where every tiny detail was picked apart and analyzed by millions, had noticed. It started slowly, with a few curious posts on fan forums. Then, like wildfire, "fan cams"—those close-up videos taken by dedicated fans—started popping up online. 

These videos showed the very moments Y/N and Lara had shared those secret glances, those lingering looks across the stage. People started putting the clips side-by-side, zooming in on their faces, pointing out the subtle smiles, the way their eyes seemed to find each other in the huge crowd, the almost imperceptible shifts in their expressions.

At first, it was just whispers, barely audible above the usual online noise. "Did Y/N and Lara look at each other a lot during the show?" "Is it just me, or was there something there between them?" Then, the whispers grew louder, turning into shouts. Hashtags started trending: #YNLara, #HuntrixKATSEYE, #SecretLove. "Huntrix's Y/N and KATSEYE's Lara? Are they... dating?" The question exploded across social media.

The fan reactions were a wild mix of everything, a digital battlefield of emotions. Some fans, often called "shippers," were absolutely thrilled. "OMG, my new favorite couple! The chemistry is insane, I knew it!" "They would be so cute together! Imagine the power couple they'd be!" These fans, fueled by excitement, started making beautiful fan art, writing detailed fan fiction stories about their secret romance, and creating edits of their award show moments, celebrating the idea of a hidden love. They saw it as a fairytale, a brave and exciting secret.

But a very large number of other fans were not happy at all. Their comments were filled with disbelief, anger, and even jealousy. "This is ridiculous. They're rivals, not lovers. It's just a coincidence. Idols look at each other all the time, it means nothing!" "This has to be fake. It's just for attention." 

Some comments were much harsher, filled with a possessive anger. "She shouldn't be dating anyone, especially not someone from another group! This is a betrayal!" "This is just a distraction from their music and their careers. They need to focus on us, the fans!" There were even truly hateful comments about their possible relationship, saying it was wrong, unnatural, or would completely ruin their groups and their careers. The online world became a messy, toxic place, full of arguments and attacks aimed at Y/N and Lara.

The dating rumors quickly became a huge scandal, impossible for anyone in the world to ignore. News articles were written, entertainment shows discussed it, and the buzz reached a fever pitch. It wasn't long before the group members themselves started to notice the intense online chatter. One afternoon, after a long, exhausting dance practice, Y/N's Huntrix members gathered around her in their practice room, their faces serious and worried.

"Y/N," her leader, Minji, started, her voice gentle but firm, her eyes full of concern. "We've been seeing things online. A lot of things. About you and Lara from KATSEYE. Is there… anything you want to tell us? We're worried about you."

Y/N's heart sank, a heavy stone in her chest. She had hoped to keep it secret forever, or at least until they were ready to face the world together. But now, looking at the worried faces of her friends, her family, the people she lived and worked with every day, she knew she couldn't lie. 

Taking a shaky breath, her hands trembling slightly, she told them everything. About meeting Lara at a small industry event months ago, about the quiet talks that turned into deep conversations, the stolen glances that grew into undeniable feelings, how their love had blossomed in secret, and how they had tried their best to keep it hidden from everyone. 

It was hard, and tears welled up in her eyes as she spoke, the words catching in her throat, but her members listened quietly, their expressions shifting from shock to understanding, and finally, to a quiet sadness for the burden Y/N had been carrying.

At the very same time, across town, Lara was having a similar, equally tough conversation with her KATSEYE members. The shock on their faces was clear, but also a deep concern for their friend. They were her closest friends, her confidantes, and she trusted them completely. With a heavy heart, she explained how her connection with Y/N felt real and special, something that had grown naturally and deeply, something they couldn't control or deny. She confessed the fear they lived with every day, the joy they found in their secret world, and the pain of knowing it might all come crashing down.

The news hit their respective companies like a sudden, violent storm. Both Huntrix and KATSEYE had just made big comebacks, releasing new music, planning world tours, and working incredibly hard to promote their latest albums. A dating scandal, especially one involving members of rival groups, was the absolute last thing they needed. It was a huge, damaging problem for their public image, their carefully crafted plans, and their financial investments.

The company bosses were furious. They called emergency meetings, shouting about broken contracts, ruined reputations, and the need for immediate "damage control." Y/N and Lara were called in separately, facing stern, angry faces that showed no warmth or understanding.

"This is unacceptable, Y/N," her company CEO said, his voice cold and sharp, echoing off the walls of the sterile office. "You know the rules. Relationships are strictly forbidden for idols, especially one that causes this much noise and controversy. And with a member from KATSEYE? This is a disaster for both groups, a direct threat to our investments and your career." He slammed a hand on the table. "You have put everything we've built at risk."

Lara faced similar, cutting anger. "Lara, your focus should be on KATSEYE, on your fans, on your career that we have invested so much in," her CEO told her, his words like daggers. "This 'relationship' is a distraction. It's hurting the group's image and our upcoming plans. Do you understand the consequences of this?"

The decision from both companies was clear, harsh, and immediate. Y/N and Lara were told they were not allowed to interact anymore, under any circumstances. No calls, no texts, no secret meetings. They couldn't even look at each other at public events if they could help it, let alone acknowledge each other. 

Both companies immediately went into full "damage control" mode. They quickly released official statements to the press and fans, saying the rumors were "false" and "baseless," just "friendly interactions between colleagues distorted by overzealous fans." 

They started scheduling Y/N and Lara for different events, making sure they wouldn't be in the same place at the same time, separating them physically and publicly. Their social media teams worked overtime, trying to push out new content, flood the feeds with other news, and desperately change the conversation.

Y/N and Lara felt like their world was being pulled apart, piece by painful piece. The secret they had guarded so carefully, the love they had nurtured in hidden corners, was now out, but instead of bringing them closer, it had forced them apart. The quiet joy they had found in each other was replaced by a heavy sadness, a constant ache, a longing for the simple touch or glance that was now forbidden. 

They were idols, yes, bound by contracts and public image, but they were also just two people who had fallen deeply in love, and now they had to pretend it never happened, forced to live a lie that hurt more than any secret ever could. The future, once full of hidden possibilities, now felt bleak and uncertain.

previous part. // next part.

a/n: so here is part two! let me know what you think guys!

[weheartdracofest]

We 💚 Draco Fest PR Day Four: Unapologetic Smut

Okay, who likes a bit of smut? Or even a lot of smut??? If your answer to this is a resounding yes, check out the fics below. It goes without saying that these are definitely NSFW...

💚💚💚

Praise for: Sent Down

“OKAY IM REALLY WAITING FOR THE REVEAL”

“so beautifully written and SO HOT”

“I was on the edge of my seat!!! The ever present danger was so palpable. Excellent.”

“Damn what a wild ride. Such an awesome story”

Rating: Explicit

Word count: 42,615

Summary: When a scandal forces Harry into a post at Azkaban, he braces himself to see Draco Malfoy again. After ten years in prison, he’s certain he’ll find a desperate, broken, shell of the boy he once knew.

Except Draco isn’t desperate. Or broken. Or in need of saving.

Draco Malfoy is thriving.

💚💚💚

Praise for: Shadow of Sunshine

“Devastated. I am devastated. (In the best way possible omg!!!) This is a master class, what a treat.”

“This fic was absolutely fantastic!!!! The banter and chemistry was just perfectly done and they're just the softest boys 💕 Wonderful fic, thank you for sharing!! 🥰❤️”

“This whole thing had me absolutely in awe. Absolutely beautiful writing. The aching and yearning and just mooning over each other. I loved every piece of it.”

Rating: Explicit

Word count: 16,038

Summary: Draco always told himself it was just physical. Stolen nights and silence in the morning. But it was getting harder to lie when Potter touched him like he meant it. And harder still to pretend it was nothing, when it was the only thing that ever felt like something.

💚💚💚

Praise for: Happy birthday, baby

“Lovely: hot, intimate, sweet, and beautiful prose <3”

“I cant for the life of me comment with a gif so picture the screaming cat”

“Hot and gorgeous and lovely and did I say hot? Thank you for this gift to us all ❤️🎁”

Rating: Explicit

Word count: 1,056

Summary: This is just straight-up unapologetic porn featuring Trans Harry. Draco adores him and loves his body. They have hot birthday sex. That’s it.

💚💚💚

Praise for: How Hermione Started Shipping Drarry

“Hehehehe this was such a a delightful fic 🥰 … and the bedroom scene was just *chefs kiss*”

“hermione getting to sit in the metaphorical fujoshi cuck chair that the rest of us are always in was shockingly hot, well done!!”

“*fans self* Nicely done.”

Rating: Explicit

Word count: 8,435

Summary: Dumped by her boyfriend and needing somewhere to stay, all Hermione wants to do is get comfort from her best friend. But there's just one problem. Harry is incomprehensibly living with that pointy git, Draco Malfoy.

This is 100% Drarry but from Hermione’s POV. How does that work? Read it and find out!

[sillytheta]

@fairyblue-alchemist decided to put this in a post of its own bc it was getting FAR too long for a comment lol but just. beware. there is a lot here (A LOT !!!!!!!!) fbdjshanan

HI MARI !!!!!! BEAMS AT YOU SO WIDE ILYSM !!!!!

okay so ☝️ earlier this morning i rewatched the music video for one of will wood's songs called 'love, me normally' (comma placement is important i promise!!) and i am. still thinking about it this mv makes me CRAZY every time....

okay so basically. 'love, me normally' is the second to last song on will wood's 2020 album called 'the normal album' (it was remastered last year!! now under the name 'the new normal' with the new version being rerecords of the original songs and includes some live in studio demos of some of the songs on the album!!) and the thing with ☝️ second to last songs on will wood albums is that these songs always feel like they Should be the end of the album it's very inchresting...

(the rest of this is under a cut for good reason!!!! this got incredibly long I'm very sorry fbdhdbd but under the cut i yap about the major themes of the normal album (little sidenote on suburbia overture), how 'love, me normally' ties into these, and the imagery in the song's music video :D)

the second to last songs are usually the climax of the themes explored throughout the album (the normal album follows a major theme about conformity, and there's a bit of tradition vs. progressiveness that's pushed in there as well... a lot of will's music follows themes of mental illness as well due to his own experiences and that is Also very present in the normal album it's just. augh it's SO peak) and the last song is usually quite a bit more reflective and different in character to the rest of the album (the final song on this album is called 'memento mori'!! you Might recognise some bits of it?? the remastered edition of memento mori makes a reference to the layout of will's albums being Like This so it's nice to know that it's on purpose :3)

ANYWAY. anyway. i have gotten this far without even talking about the song yet what... so anyway :3

'love, me normally' is the climax of this theme of conformity - the narrator (who is probably just supposed be will wood himself but i'll call them The Narrator just to avoid confusion lol) pushes this idea that they just want to be loved for Who They Are, instead of needing to change to fit into societal standards

(this comes back to the comma placement i mentioned earlier!! the first song on this album, 'suburbia overture' (you may have noticed me losing my mind over this song many times i love it so much) has different names for each of its sections, and the final section is called 'love me, normally'! note the comma being in a different place this time - 'suburbia overture' works as. well. as an overture for the whole album (who would have guessed??) and this final section of it uses the same motifs as 'love, me normally' goes on to use later in the album :) the different placement of the comma in this title places more emphasis on 'normally', which ties into the theme of normality and conformity introduced in the first two sections of 'suburbia overture', which also sets the theme up for the rest of the album)

GOD SORRY THIS IS GETTING LONG........ nearly done i promise :) now going to talk about the music video :)

(took a Big Ol Break from writing this as i had the Dreaded Things To Do Today... i've reread what i've written but just. apologies if anything sounds Disjointed it has been about 8 hours </3)

so!! you can watch the music video here if you're interested :) it is SO fire i love it so dearly (warning for flashing lights/flashing images/eyestrain!)

the scenario the song is put into is that of a talk show!! this is interesting from the Very Beginning i like to think :) the little wwatv (i believe this is supposed to be a play on the commonly-used acronym for will's band, will wood and the tapeworms!! (i could yap about the tapeworms forever i fear but. different can of tapeworms for a different time......) it makes me very happy) graphic at the beginning (i keep meaning to screencap this and use it as my laptop background...) says that this is Televised Live! which just highlights being in the Public Eye... being Perceived... could tie into an idea of Everyone Watching Your Every Move (another theme that's explored in this album!! listen to '...well, better than the alternative' for me please <3 also the mention of mary bell township in this graphic ties it back to what's set up in suburbia overture and links into what i just said too i wanted to mention this bc i love this callback but didn't know how to put it in djahkdha)

so. the Talk Show. one Interesting Thing that happens almost straight away is that after will is introduced by the talk show host and walks on, he confidently puts forward his left hand for the host to shake, while the host offers his right hand... social blunder? or representative of will's failure to fit into societal norms? (THAT SOUNDS SO MEAN I JUST. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN LMAO)

so! very quickly this Talk Show Facade (english lit flashbacks... i've been yapping about facades for the past 2 years...) falls and it becomes a Performance... becomes will's Stage... the viewer watches him come more into his element as this facade drops and this is shown to you through pretty much everything in this section of the video - one part i particularly like is the musicians! there are three other musicians in this music video (who i'm pretty sure are some of the original members of the tapeworms!! mario conte my goat forever and ever <3) and they play the intro of the song as will comes on... it looks very passion-less (? you know what i mean)... but as the tone shifts they visibly become much more passionate and happy and it's just. i love watching it every time :)

now then. in the middle of the song will has a little monologue (now this is the part of the song where i like to talk to my audience...) which i love very dearly <3 i mainly wanted to focus on what Happens in the video at this point just because it's so good......

up to this point the Talk Show Setting has become Increasingly Strange. we've had lighting changes, rats on the interviewer's table (i believe they're will's own pets!!), and additions of many many decorations (the flowers are a personal favourite <3) but ☝️ at This Point!! when we get to the quicker part of the monologue!! it all devolves into Chaos. bright neon lights....... decorations go Crazy..... they rope the interviewer into it all...... the band fucking jumps on each other??? ykw hell yeah- but! throughout all this we keep switching Back To the original setting where we started...... with the interviewer doubled over on his desk and fucking dying..... people in the comments of the music video interpreted this as the facade continuing to break, i like to think it has something to do with the stifling of individuality that this song deals with but in? reverse?? if you know what i mean??? like the Vulnerability (?) that we're shown in this song (THE BIT BEFORE THE FINAL CHORUS. HELLO. I WON'T LYRIC DUMP BUT. AUGH) is far too much! far too different! for this society that we're shown time and time again throughout this album... and it just. fucking kills him. i guess.

BUT !!!!! EVEN THOUGH THE SONG IS FINISHED !!!!!!! WE'RE NOT DONE YET !!!!!!

the best (see: most emotionally devastating) part of this music video is Right At The End !!! turns out that the talk show host Was Not In Fact a talk show host... he was in fact will's psychiatrist. this whole thing !!!!! has been an appointment with will's psychiatrist. drives me CRAZY EVERY TIME

there are Millions of things in this Final Scene of the music video that kill me dead so i will try and sum it up quickly. basically at the end of the song with the piano outro it's a Gradual Fade between will sat at the (fake?) piano in the Talk Show and will sat in the psychiatrist's office, just playing the air piano... idk what it is about this shot but it makes me fucking CRAZY..... maybe it's the fact that it's just his hands?? we don't see will's face until he sits back and the psychiatrist starts talking... but even then you just Can't Name the expression on his face and it makes me. omfuckingcheese. augh. augh augh augh

so. the psychiatrist is a Little Bitch (PROBABLY NOT. BUT THIS IS HOW IT COMES ACROSS) and just. dismisses Everything will has said in the song. calls the symptoms 'normal' (FUCK !!!!!!!) for people with cluster-b personalities. and the only thing he really does is say that he'll increase the medication and they'll have another appointment......... it's just. i just wanted to SAY this bit because really the scene does the talking for itself it's just. augh.

special shout-out to the Millions Of Pill Bottles on the psychiatrist's desk that we see here because i always notice them and it always makes me crazy... we actually saw these pill bottles before because they were added alongside the one million decorations onto the talk show host's desk but they're only Just in frame it's very easy to miss them.....i haven't thought much about what this could mean but it could be the Real World seeping back through maybe??

i think the fact that it's So Many is also significant... with how the psychiatrist mentions boosting the medication and will just having No Reaction to it in the final scene could imply that they've just done this So Many Times... it's always this back and forth... this sense of frustration with the established system (especially in terms of mental health and those associated services) really comes through in a few songs in this album ('marsha, thankk you for the dialectics, but i need you to leave' is one that comes to mind) so i think this could be supporting that idea for lack of a better phrase ajsldasdlj

ANYWAY !!!!!! THAT IS MY YAP ALL DONE !!!!!!! i have no idea how long this has gotten but it was over 1000 words last time i checked......

if you've read all this way thank you very dearly!! i promise i am a normal and functional human being who enjoys her interests in a way that is not disconcerting to people around me. look into my eyes. i promise

it is nearly 11pm as i type this final bit so. i'm not sure how much sense a lot of this makes. i hope it is Coherent at least <3

i wrote this in a way that i hope will make sense to my friends who are unfamiliar with will wood and what he does so a lot of this is probably just. surface level lol there's probably not really anything Groundbreaking here i just had a lot to say </3 as is evident </3

anyway thank you for reading!!!! i love you!!!! this has been your reminder to listen to the normal album <3

[radishingaround]

20 Questions with a Fanfic Author

1. How many works on AO3?

4 of 'em!

2. Total AO3 Word Count?

36,618

3. Top 5 Fics by Kudos

Since there's less than 5, my number one is: Missionary, So We Can Keep Arguing. It's the shortest and the horniest, lol.

4. What fandoms do you write for?

Just Spideypool atm, but there's a couple of other fandoms in the drafts.

5. Do you respond to comments?

It's so cool when ppl comment <3 I do respond, but I've never used many socials, so it's sort of a new thing for me.

6. Angstiest Ending?

Feeling Yourself? has a hopeful ending, but things are dicey getting there. The gays don't get a ton of happy endings in mainstream media, so I try to write 'em optimistic.

7. Fic with the Happiest Ending?

Wife Guys is pretty fluffy all around.

8. Do you get hate?

I don't think I'm popular enough to have any dedicated haters. I will say I think the way I write the Avengers is probably not in line with the way most folks on AO3 view them.

9. Do you write smut?

Hell yeah

10. Do you write crossovers?

Not really my thing, but I respect the game.

11. Ever had a fic stolen?

Don't think so?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Oh man, I would die. That would be such a massive compliment.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic?

The first fic I ever wrote I was cowriting with my partner. It was a rarepair from Gideon the Ninth of Pash and Cam in a college au. He informed me the other day that we got several pages in.

14. All time favorite ship?

The way @punch-love writes Spideypool got me into the fandom!

Outside of Spideypool, the @silentwalrus1 Fullmetal Alchemist series is great.

15. WIPs you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Like everyone I've got a stack of those guys. I think I end up discarding two thirds of everything I write, so I'm trying to make my peace with it.

16. Writing strengths?

I've been told I have good style and characters, and I agree.

17. Writing Weaknesses?

Blarg. Plot. It's like I'm figuring this shit out for the first time, every time. I don't know why people do what they do. I don't know why I'm doing half the things I do.

18. Thoughts on mixed language dialogue?

If you're planning to do a lot of it, hopefully you're multilingual in the languages in question or have listened to a lot of them. Languages are complicated and besides all the formal conventions our personalities, values, and pasts shape the way we use them. So. A lot to mine there but also a lot of homework for most people.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

That Pash/Cam one, but there was also a Daredevil/Punisher fic I worked on for a long time early on. I think that one was mostly stress-writing because a lot of stuff was falling apart in my real life. I've never seen or read any of the cannon for either of those characters, so it's all based on vibes. It's like 17,000 words. I was pretty stressed.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

I like all of 'em! Feeling Yourself? did some things my writing usually doesn't, but the posted version was my fourth (?) full re-write of that thing. Maybe when you get that many versions in things start to get weird. Maybe I just need to let my writing be weird.

20 Questions with a Fanfic Author

1. How many works on AO3?

15

2. Total AO3 Word Count?

243,788

3. Top 5 Fics by Kudos

I am not surprised the first three are my most conventionally-standard spideypool porn + my long-fic. I am really delighted though that my most emotionally poignant fic and least conventional spideypool porn are the runner ups!

truth or dare

That Works For Me

love-punch

atlas

just go for it

4. What fandoms do you write for?

I mostly write for Spideypool. I have a few works for Loki. I always talk about branching into other fandoms/have some unfinished WIPs but it hasn't happened yet. I have a bunch of mostly niche heterosexual couples I want to write for which will please no one but myself. (my favorite audience) but again. I don't have huge output, and I don't branch out from my comfortable paths often.

5. Do you respond to comments?

It's probably my favorite part of publishing work outside of like, actually writing. I love engaging with people who enjoy my work and discussing or having conversations about our collective thoughts on it. There is of course a very specific flavor of comments I never respond. I also don't respond to people who read my works in a way that are antithetical to what I wrote. 1) I believe in the readers write to interpret work however they want without backlash from the author 2) It pisses me off.

6. Angstiest Ending?

I think the closest I got to an angsty ending was probably atlas. It's not even a bad ending, it's just heavy because you know that it doesn't actually resolve the misery they're experiencing in the world. Love doesn't fix their problems (mental, or physical) but it does create a safe space where they don't have to be alone in them. It makes me a little sad whenever I read it, at least.

7. Fic with the Happiest Ending?

I think just go for it absolutely has the happiest ending. They fuck inside a club bathroom and then scamper off to their shared door room after drunkingly asking each other to be boyfriends. c'mon.

8. Do you get hate?

I feel like what I get is worse than hate, frankly. That being said the worse I ever got to actual hate was someone was being weird about my choice of making Peter trans in one of my works. They very earnestly asked what the narrative point of making him trans was/they didn't understand after reading the work and it really ticked me off. There isn't a narrative point of being trans! Some people are just trans, jackass.

9. Do you write smut?

Recreationally.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I don't! I think they're kinda cheesy and not my thing. I did have an entire fully fleshed out crackship with a high school friend about Thor/Jason Todd though so take my judgement with a grain of salt lol.

11. Ever had a fic stolen?

Yes! Someone uploaded the golden dildo on wattpad and man, was it not well received lmao.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No! It's one of my fic author white whale goals. I would be incredibly flattered.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic?

@primewritessmut shared a google doc with me and helped write the ending and several sections to personal space which I think absolutely counts. I also consider ever beta I've worked with a coauthor to my work as they do contribute so much tonally and also sometimes literally to the work.

14. All time favorite ship?

I don't think I have a favorite ship. I more have favorite dynamics that I look for in media and then enjoy because it fulfills that specific itch that I am constantly looking for more replicas of.

15. WIPs you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Hundreds. Googledocs is like a graveyard for WIPs. There's like, two, at least that I would really like to post someday but like, we'll see.

16. Writing strengths?

I am really good at writing action scenes in a way that translates to me being good at writing porn. I think I'm just good at writing about the intersection of bodies in violent and erotic ways. Also dialogue.

17. Writing Weaknesses?

b-plots! I also prioritize character interaction over plot in general. My betas have all collectively told me that I don't describe the scenery enough and they're right. Though I think I've improved on that since starting to have my work regularly beta'd.

18. Thoughts on mixed language dialogue?

I feel like I've seen it done SOOO badly that I'm not sure if I've ever seen it done well unless it's a fantasy language. I just think a lot of people really do not understand the flow or linguistics of a language so their representation of it comes across racist at worst or ignorant at best. I speak enough of a couple languages to know when people don't speak the language at all and so it's kind of a universal turn off for me. Unless the writer actually speaks the language. Otherwise, I really think....it's kind of in poor taste? Or if you do it, you should really put some thought and care into how you're having these characters speak and whether you're indulging in racist characterictures or stereotypes about that culture.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Warrior Cats. I had a very popular crack fic that I abandoned at 14 because people were pressuring me for updates and I just couldn't handle it.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

atlas. I just think it's the work I read and think "I'm a good writer. What I have to say is important. I should keep on writing."

tagging: @puzzled-on-main @primewritessmut @radishingaround @farmhandler @waterme-stories @devilbearingtrouble @thistleraven and anyone else who wants to

[taradactyls]

So I could be totally wrong but, I believe it was sort of expected that men/gentlemen lose their virginity before marriage in regency times. But I also there’s some fandom ‘debate’ about whether or not Mr Darcy would’ve had sex before getting married. So I was just curious about what your canon for Mr Darcy in T3W is. Is he a virgin or not?

I knew someone would ask me this eventually, haha. I've actually had really long conversations with my beta reader about this trying to figure it out. It sounds like this might all be stuff that you’ve already seen discussed in the fandom, but I’ve never thought about it deeply before and so these are new thoughts to me.

I keep going over the historical real-world likelihood, the authorial intent, and the text itself but I’m still not 100%. I’ll explain my thinking and what I find most likely, but here’s your warning that it’s not a clear cut yes/no.

Because on one hand, at that time period it was most common for men in his position to have seen sex workers or have casual encounters/mistresses with women from their estates. Though I do absolutely believe not all men did that, no matter how much wealth and power they had. To go back some centuries, William the Conqueror seemed to be famously celibate (no hints of male lovers either according to the biography I read) until his marriage, and there's no evidence of affairs after it either. The best guesses as to why are that it was due to his religious devotion and the problems that had arisen from himself being a bastard and not wanting to recreate that situation. Concerns over religion and illegitimate children would certainly still have been applicable in the regency to men who thought that way. And in modern times I've seen sex workers say that when an 18/21yo is booked in by his family/friends to 'become a man' often they end up just talking and agree to lie about the encounter. After all, it’s not like every man wants casual sex, even if they aren’t demisexual or something in that vein. But, statistically speaking, the precedent of regency gentlemen would make Darcy not a virgin.

On the other hand, just how aware was Jane Austen, the very religious daughter of a country rector, of the commonness of this? There’s a huge difference between knowing affairs and sex workers existed (and no one who had seen a Georgian newspaper could be blind to this) and realising that the majority of wealthy men saw sex workers at some point even if they condemned the more public and profligate affairs. The literature for young ladies at the time paints extramarital sex - including the lust of men outside of marriage - as pretty universally bad and dangerous. This message is seen from 'Pamela' and other gothic fiction to non-fiction conduct books which Jane Austen would have encountered. Here's something I found in 'Letters to a Young Lady' by the reverend John Bennett which I found particularly interesting as it's in direct conversation with other opinions of the era:

"A reformed rake makes the best husband." Does he? It would be very extraordinary, if he should. Besides, are you very certain, that you have power to reform him? It is a matter, that requires some deliberation. This reformation, if it is to be accomplished, must take place before marriage. Then if ever, is the period of your power. But how will you be assured that he is reformed? If he appears so, is he not insidiously concealing his vices, to gain your affections? And when he knows, they are secured, may he not, gradually, throw off the mask, and be dissipated, as before? Profligacy of this kind is seldom eradicated. It resembles some cutaneous disorders, which appear to be healed, and yet are, continually, making themselves visible by fresh eruptions. A man, who has carried on a criminal intercourse with immoral women is not to be trusted, His opinion of all females is an insult to their delicacy. His attachment is to sex alone, under particular modifications.

The definition of a rake is more than a man who has seen a sex worker once, it's about appearance and general conduct too, but again, would that distinction be made to young ladies? Because they seem to simply be continuously taught 'lust when unmarried is bad and beware men who you know engage in extramarital sex.' As a side note, Jane Austen certainly knew at least something about the mechanics of sex: her letters and literature she read alludes to it, and she grew up around farm animals in the countryside which is an education in itself.

We can also see from this exert that the school of thought seems to be 'reformed rake' vs 'never a rake' in contention for the title of best husband, there's no debate over whether a current rake is unsuitable for a young lady. And, from Willoughby to Wickham to Crawford, I think we have a very clear idea of Jane Austen's ideas of how likely it is notably promiscuous men can reform. This does not preclude the possibility that her disparaging commentary around their lust is based more on over-indulgence or the class of women they seduce, but it's undoubtedly a condemnation of such men directly in line with the first part of what John Bennett says so it's no stretch to believe she saw merit in the follow-on conclusions of the second part as well. Whether she would view it with enough merit to consider celibacy the only respectable option for unmarried men is a bit unclearer.

I did consider that perhaps Jane Austen consciously treated this as a grey area where she couldn’t possibly know what young men did (the same reasoning is why we never see the men in the dining room after the ladies retire, etc) and so didn't hold an opinion on men's extramarital encounters with sex workers/lower-class women at all, but I think there actually are enough hints in her works that this isn’t the case. Though, unsurprisingly, given the delicacy of the subject, there’s no direct mention of sex workers or gentlemen having casual lovers from among the lower-classes in her texts.

That also prevents us from definitively knowing whether she thought extramarital sex was so common, and as unremarkable, as most gentlemen treated it. But we do see from her commentary around the consequences of Maria Bertram and Henry Crawford's elopement that she had criticism of the double standards men and women were held to when violating sexual virtue. Another indication that she perhaps expected good men to be capable of waiting until marriage in the way that she very clearly believed women should. At the very least, a man who often indulges in extramarital sex does not seem to be one who would be considered highly by Jane Austen.

She makes a point of saying, in regards to not liking his wife, that Mr Bennet “was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice.” This must include affairs, though cheating on a wife cannot be a 1:1 equivalent of single young men sleeping around before marriage. However, the latter is generally critically accepted to be one of the flaws that Darcy lays at Wickham’s door along with gambling when talking about their youth and his “vicious propensities" and "want of principle." Though this could be argued that it’s more the extent or publicity of it (but remembering that it couldn't be anything uncommon enough that it couldn't be hidden from Darcy Sr. or explained away) rather than the act itself, or maybe seductions instead of paying women offering those services. I also believe Persuasion mentioning Sunday travelling as proof of thoughtless/immoral activity supports the idea that Jane Austen might have been religious enough that she would never create a hero who had extramarital sex.

So, taken all together this would make Darcy potentially a virgin, or, since I couldn't find absolute evidence of her opinions, leave enough room that he isn’t but extramarital sex isn’t a regular (or perhaps recent) thing and he would never have had anything so established as a mistress.

I’ve also been wondering, if Darcy isn’t a virgin, who would he have slept with? I’ve been musing on arguments for and against each option for weeks at this point. No romantasy has ever made me think about a fictional man's sexual habits so much as the question of Darcy's sexual history. What is my life.

Sex workers are an obvious answer, and the visits wouldn’t have raised any eyebrows. Discretion was part of their job, it was a clean transaction with no further responsibilities towards them, and effective (and reusable, ew) condoms existed at this time so there was little risk of children and no ability to exactly determine the paternity even if there was an accident. It was a fairly ‘responsible’ choice if one wanted no strings attached. In opposition to this, syphilis was rampant at the time, and had been known to spread sexually for centuries. Sex workers were at greater risk of it than anyone else and so the more sensible and risk-averse someone is (and I think Mr Darcy would be careful) the less likely they would be to visit sex workers. Contracting something that was known as potentially deadly and capable of making a future wife infertile if it spread to her could make any intelligent and cautious man think twice.

Servants and tenants of the estate are another simple and common answer. Less risk of stds, it can be based on actual attraction more than money (though money might still change hands), and is a bit more intimate. But Wickham’s called wicked for something very similar, when he dallies (whether he only got to serious flirting, kissing, or sleeping with them I don’t think we can conclusively say) with the common women of Meryton: “his intrigues, all honoured with the title of seduction, had been extended into every tradesman's family.” And it isn't as though Wickham had any personal duty towards those people beyond the claims of basic dignity. Darcy, who is shown to have such respect and understanding for his responsibilities towards the people of his estate and duties of a landlord, would keenly feel if any of his actions were leading his servants/tenants astray and down immoral paths. Servants, especially, were considered directly under the protection of the family whose house they worked in. I think it's undoubtable that Mrs Reynolds (whose was responsible for the wellbeing - both physically and spiritually - of the female servants) would not think so well of Mr Darcy if he had experimented with maids in his youth. It would reflect badly on her if a family entrusted their daughter to her care and she 'lost her virtue' under her watch. Daughters/widows of others living on the estate not under the roof of Pemberley House are a little more likely, but still, if he did have an affair with any of them I can only think it possible when he was much younger and did not feel his duties quite so strongly. Of course lots of real men didn't care about any of this, but Darcy is so far from being depicted as careless about his duties that the narrative makes a point of how exceptional his quality of care was. Frankly, it's undeniable that none of Jane Austen's heroes were flippant about their responsibilities towards those under their protection. I cannot serious entertain an interpretation that makes Darcy not, at his current age, at least, cognizant of the contemporary problems inherent in sleeping with servants or others on his estate.

A servant in a friend’s house would remove some of that personal responsibility, but transfer it to instead be leading his friend’s servants astray and in a manner which he is less able to know about if a child did result. That latter remains a problem even if we move the setting to his college, so not particularly likely for his character as we know it… though it wouldn’t be unusual for someone to be more unthinking and reckless in their teenage years than they are at twenty-eight so I don’t think having sex then can be ruled out. Kissing I can much more easily believe, especially when at Oxford or Cambridge, but every scenario of sleeping with a lower-class woman has some compelling arguments against it especially the closer we get to the time of the novel.

Men did of course also have affairs with women of ranks similar to their own, though given Jane Austen’s well-known feelings towards men who ‘ruined’ the virtue of young ladies we can safely say that Darcy never slept with an unwed middle- or upper-class woman. Any decent man would have married them out of duty if it got so far; but if he was the sort to let it get so far, I think it impossible Jane Austen would consider him respectable. Widows are a possibility, but again, the respectable thing to do would be to marry them. Perhaps a poorer merchant’s widow would be low enough that marriage is off the table but high enough that the ‘leading astray’ aspect loses its master-servant responsibilities (though the male-female ‘protect the gentler sex’ aspect remains) but his social circle didn’t facilitate meeting many ladies like that. Plus, an affair with a woman in society would remove many layers of privacy and anonymity that sex-workers and lower-class lovers provided by simply being unremarkable to the world at large. It carries a far greater risk of scandal and a heavier sense of immorality in the terms of respecting a woman’s purity which classism prevented from applying so heavily to lower-class women.

I think it’s important to note here that something that removes the need to think about duties of landlords towards the lower-classes or gentlemen towards gentlewomen is having affairs with other men of a similar rank. But, aside from the risk of scandal and what could be called the irresponsibility of engaging in illegal acts, it’s almost certain that Jane Austen would never have supported this. For a devout author in this era the way I’m calculating likelihoods makes it not even a possibility. But if you want to write a different fanfiction (and perhaps something like a break-up could explain why Darcy doesn’t seem to have any closer friend than someone whom he must have only met two or so years ago despite being in society for years before that) it does have that advantage over affairs with women of equal- and lower-classes. I support alternate interpretations entirely – it just isn’t how I’m deciding things in this instance.

I keep coming back to the conclusion that, at the very least, Darcy hasn’t had sex recently and it was never a common occurrence. It wouldn’t surprise me if Jane Austen felt he hadn’t done it ever. Kissing, as we can see from all the parlour games at the time, wasn’t viewed as harshly, so I think he’s likely made out with someone before. But in almost every situation it does seem that the responsible and religious thing to do (which Jane Austen values so highly) is for it to never have progressed to sex. I also don’t think it conflicts with his canon characterisation to say that he wouldn’t regard sexual experience as a crucial element of his life thus far, and his personality isn’t driven to pursue pleasure for himself, so it’s entirely possible that he would never go out of his way to seek it. So, I’m inclined to think that the authorial and textual evidence is in favour of Darcy being a virgin even if the real-world contemporary standard is the opposite. (Though both leave enough room for exceptions that I’m not going to argue with anyone who feels differently; and even if you agree with all my points, you might simply weight authorial intent/textual evidence/contemporary likelihoods differently than I do and come to a different conclusion).

Remember that even if Darcy is a virgin this wouldn’t necessarily equate to lack of knowledge, only experience. There were plenty of books and artwork focused on sex, and Darcy, studious man that he is, would no doubt pay attention to what knowledge his friends/male relatives shared. Though some of it (Looking especially at you, 'Fanny Hill, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure') should NEVER be an example of appropriate practice for taking a woman's virginity. Darcy would almost certainly have been taught directly or learnt through exposure to other men talking to make sex good for a woman – it was a commonly held misconception (since Elizabethan England, I believe) that women had to orgasm to conceive. It would be in his interests as an empathetic husband, and head of a family, to know how to please his wife.

Basically, I’m convinced Darcy isn’t very experienced, if at all, and will be learning with Elizabeth. But he does have a lot of theoretical knowledge which he’s paid careful attention to and is eager to apply.

[justalittleguest]

Why is the spiciest, vilest, sinisterest take on Horror him being a cannibal. Girl that’s NOT his toxic trait. He’s so much worse.

[itsbenedict]

Okay, but what would the roster of that game look like? I... actually need to know this now. Let's break it down.

First: who in the cast does and does not have a mom?

First- characters who definitively do not have mothers who make any visual appearance in any Nintendo media:

Princess Peach (knows not of her past; adopted by Toads)

Donkey Kong (Wrinkly is his grandma, and we never learn who his confusingly-named father Donkey Kong Jr. sired him with.)

Captain Falcon (international man of mystery)

Falco Lombardi (intergalactic bird of mystery)

the Ice Climbers (we know nothing about their relationships, even with each other. official sources are inconsistent on whether they're related, romantically involved, or just good friends.)

Kirby (shaped like a friend)

Princess Zelda from Ocarina of Time (though we'll get into other Zeldas)

Link (and his younger self) from Ocarina of Time

Mr. Game and Watch (?????????????)

And special mention to Mewtwo, who wins the prize for being the least mom-having character in the entire game, being the only one to canonically, definitely not have a mom of any sort, being a clone of Mew created in a lab.

Next up: the characters who are basically just animals.

Yoshi is sometimes treated like a specific character, but there are hordes of technicolor Yoshis all over the place, many of whom fall tragically into pits. They give birth to eggs all the time, so a Yoshi is technically Yoshi's mom, unless of course you want to count Mama Luigi.

Likewise, Pikachu and Jigglypuff are species of pokémon capable of breeding and producing more of themselves as offspring. Due to the way egg groups work, any pokémon in the Field or Fairy egg groups is capable of being Pikachu or Jigglypuff's mom, respectively. Who's to say Pikachu's mom is not a Dunsparce? No one, that's who.

Notably, Pichu is the only one of these who cannot just continue to be in the game as its own mom. Baby pokémon cannot breed- so Pichu's mom could be in the game, but not Pichu itself.

It is time for legit mom-havers.

First, the Mario Brothers. It's a bit of a tricky situation, but... yes, they have a mom. The only appearance she ever makes in the games is in SMW2, Yoshi's Island, as presumably one of two pairs of hands:

Mama Mario does technically make an appearance in the Illumination movie, but for the purposes of this exercise we are not going to acknowledge that thing. Instead, we can go by the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, wherein she makes several appearances, played by Captain Lou Albano:

So that's definitely fair game.

Again diving into the Super Show well, Bowser has a mother- and she even shows up in at least one game! It's Mario's Time Machine, but I'll count it.

I'm sure she's very proud of her son. Much like Mama Mario, her moveset is probably pretty similar to that of her progeny.

Ganondorf is a bit of an edge case- his biological mother is never mentioned by name, and may or may not appear in-game. He was given up to and adopted by a pair of surrogate mothers:

Now, these two could be a duo character like the Ice Climbers, but luckily these two diminutive women with fire and ice themed powers with gems embedded in their bodies can magically fuse into a single very tall person, named Garnet:

Uh- wait, no, sorry, my mistake- named Twinrova:

Fox McCloud does have a mother with a name and confirmed appearance, very technically:

Vixy Reinard (presumably later McCloud, unless the leader of Star Fox was scandalously born out of wedlock or if she kept her name after marriage) was killed by Andross with a freaking car bomb, but presumably if she hadn't taken her husband's car to work that day she'd be just as proficient with a blaster and/or Arwing as her son.

Ness has a mom! She makes steak! And screw you if you don't like it, Pokey. She knows her way around a tenderizer! She has no need for psychic powers- she is going to beat the absolute stuffing out of everyone. And you might think, well, technically she doesn't have a name--

--the whole dang game is named after her, you fools!

Samus's mom, Virginia Aran, does technically have a name and face and appears in the games! She doesn't do a whole lot besides getting murdered by Ridley, which her daughter demonstrably does not do very often, so an argument could be made that the Metroid franchise has better options for mother representation. Mother Brain actually kind of is a mother figure to Samus in the manga backstory- and if you're willing to go along with Team Ninja's character assassination in Other M, Samus herself is kind of already a mom.

Now, Princess Zelda from Ocarina of Time doesn't have a mom, and in fact the only other viable moms among all Zeldas are the unnamed and unseen Queen of Hyrule in Breath of the Wild, and...

...this portrait of a woman seen on Tetra's pirate ship in Wind Waker. It's a sort of obvious implication, but there's technically nothing confirming it and she's never given a name.

That said, most Zeldas do in fact have an in-game mother figure, whose exact relationship to her varies but is usually explicitly Zelda's guardian and caretaker. Impa is a strong candidate for this game's roster, and depending on how you define your terms you could say she's Sheik's mom, too.

Marth has a mom. Her name is Liza, she's the queen of Altea, and she has no particular traits and gets killed offscreen by the badguy for fridge motivation reasons. Probably the most perfunctory appearance on this roster, but she does technically meet the requirements.

Roy is an interesting case. We know he has a mom, and we technically know her name and appearance, but we don't know who specifically she is. Eliwood, his dad, has three A-rank supports with women in the prequel/sequel Blazing Sword- with Lyn, Ninian, and Fiora.

Eliwood likes blue hair, apparently. Can't knock him for that. Apparently all three of these moms are potentially canon, but by far the most likely option (being sort of the central romance and Eliwood's main motivation for the latter half of the game) is Ninian. That said, we do have to consider this is a fighting game- Ninian is a noncombat dancer unit, and while we could hypothetically teach her some kung fu or let her do some Corrin-style partial dragon transformation attacks she never exhibits in-game, the others might make a little more sense. Lyn is an assist trophy already, so maybe Fiora is the best choice? A pegasus knight would be fun to play, probably. I dunno. Make up your mind, Eliwood!

(The Super Smash Mothers Ultibrate roster is out of the scope of this post, but would likely run into numerous complications of this nature:

The Roy situation would of course repeat itself due to Lucina's Schrodinger's parentage situation.

Diddy Kong also presents issues, as he may or may not actually be the nephew of Donkey Kong, whose sister is never shown and might not exist.

Which Piranha Plant had bone in it?

Bernadette Hedgehog apparently only existed in something called the "Pre-Super Genesis Wave Timeline", which was erased from existence (presumably by some sort of Super Genesis Wave, judging by the name), and the less I know about that, the better.

Bowser Jr. is in Ultimate, and the academic debate over his parentage could fill more than triple the length of this post alone.

The only thing I think we can definitely agree on is that 5-Volt, despite not being Wario's mom, needs to be on the roster somehow.)

Super Smash Mothers Brelee

[delilahsturniolo]

— 𝜗ৎ bittersuite . . . c.s

in which . . . two best friends who are unsure of their feeling for each other take it to the next level

warnings . . . bsf!chris, smut, kissing, dirty talk, a bit of dry humping, clit play.

written by @delilahsturniolo. do not copy, steal, or modify my works. if you are taking any inspiration from this, please ask me first before posting and credit me in your description. happy reading! :)

HIT ME HARD AND SOFT WRITING MARATHON . . . fic #9

you and chris have been best friends for as long as you can remember. you've always been there for each other through thick and thin, but lately, there's been an undeniable tension between you two. you can't help but notice how attractive chris has become over the years, with his piercing blue eyes, chiseled jawline, and that infectious smile that makes your heart skip a beat.

one night, you find yourselves alone in your apartment, sipping on some wine and watching a movie. the atmosphere is electric, and you can feel the sexual tension mounting with every passing minute. chris leans in closer, his warm breath tickling your neck as he whispers, "i've been thinking a lot lately... about us." your heart races as you turn to face him, your eyes locking onto his. "what about us?" you breathe, your voice barely above a whisper.

he reaches out, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, his fingers lingering on your cheek. "i don’t know, i just..think about you a lot.” he whispered, you knew what he was hinting at, and you wanted him more than anything, it felt like you couldn’t breathe whenever you looked at him.

your breath hitches in your throat as you realize that you want nothing more than to explore this new, uncharted territory with him. it happens so fast, the moment your lips meet, it's like a dam breaking. all the pent-up desire and longing come rushing to the surface as you kiss passionately, your hands roaming each other's bodies. chris pulls you onto his lap, his strong arms wrapping around you as he deepens the kiss.

you moan softly into his mouth, feeling his hardness pressing against you through his jeans. "i want you so badly," you whimper, grinding against him. chris groans, his hands slipping under your shirt, caressing your smooth skin. "fuck, you have no idea how long i've wanted this," he murmurs, trailing kisses down your neck.

you help each other out of your clothes, revealing your bare bodies to one another for the first time. you take a moment to drink in the sight of chris's toned physique, his muscular chest and defined abs making your mouth water.

he lays you down on the couch, his body covering yours as he trails kisses down your chest, his tongue swirling around your sensitive nipples. "you're so fucking beautiful," he whispers, his hands exploring every inch of your body.

you arch your back, moaning in pleasure as his fingers find their way between your legs, thumb circling your clit. “please, chris... i need you," you beg, your body trembling with desire. he obliges, positioning himself at your entrance, his eyes locked onto yours. "i've wanted you for so long," he breathes, slowly pushing inside you.

you gasp at the feeling of fullness, your walls clamping around him as he starts to move. "yes, chris... fuck me," you moan, your nails digging into his back. he sets a steady rhythm, thrusting deep inside you as he kisses you passionately. the sound of skin slapping against skin fills the room, mingling with your moans and cries of pleasure. "you feel so good," he groans, his pace quickening.

you can feel your climax building, your body trembling as you near the edge. "i'm gonna cum," you whimper, your walls clenching around him. "cum for me," he encourages, thrusting harder and faster. "i want to feel you come undone around me."

with a final thrust, you topple over the edge, your body shattering into a million pieces as your orgasm crashes over you. chris follows soon after, spilling inside you with a guttural moan. as you both come down from your highs, he pulls you into his arms, kissing you tenderly. "that was... incredible," he breathes, a satisfied smile on his face.

you nestle against his chest, feeling a wave of emotion wash over you. "what do we do now?" you ask softly, unsure of where this leaves your friendship. he tilts your chin up, his eyes filled with warmth and affection. "we take things one day at a time," he says softly, kissing you again. "but i know one thing for sure... i don't want to lose you." you smile, your heart swelling with happiness. "you won't," you promise, sealing it with another kiss.

© delilahsturniolo

💌: i’m posting a very long fic later too!!! :)

[amberishrose]

Poll time! For my upcoming Scarian reincarnation au fic

[renirae]

FABLEHAVEN MOVIE IS REAL??? oh my god that is my FAVOURITE book series. please god I hope it ends up being good <3

(I'm keeping my expectations very low of course lmao, I've been burned wayyy too many times by bad movie adaptations. but honestly I'll just be happy if it brings more people into reading the book series!!

other than one or two things (*cough cough the horrific disaster of Brackendra cough cough*) it's such a SEVERELY underrated series and one of the only childhood favourites of mine that has actually held up enough that I enjoy rereading it to this day!!!) (also hands-down the best inclusion of indigenous peoples into worldbuilding that I've ever seen, which is really cool!!)

[briony-tallis]

i did not care for josh/donna.

[fiona-fififi]

...

[johnslittlespoon]

all the actor/celebrity au posts lately combined with troye bringing ross on stage last night for one of your girls has got me thinking...

a musician x musician au where gale is a troye sivan–esque ultra–famous queer pop star, and john's the singer of a well known indie rock band, and he gets asked by gale's team to star in a music video similar to one of your girls...

to everyone who doesn't know him personally, gale feels like this untouchable pop star. he's been in the industry for years, one of those classic 'i used to make music in my bedroom in my small town' stories, working his ass off before finally a song of his blows up and gets traction and then it's such a fast rise to stardom that he doesn't have time to wrap his head around it.

he never gets used to it, but he doesn't get an ego from it; he still hangs out with the same group of friends he's had since high school, and his team does most of his social media posting for him, because it freaks him out having all that attention, as grateful as he is. he's not shy by any means, not like he was when he started out, but he's not the biggest fan of all the fanfare and interviews and being put on a pedestal and all that. he keeps himself pretty distant online, and that coupled with the diva/superstar energy in his music/projects gives him this air of being on another level– a rare type of star all around.

john has a similar story, the whole growing up on the internet thing, making music in his basement in high school with the friends he's now in a pretty popular indie rock band with, working tirelessly to make a name for him and his friends. but that's kinda where their similarities end.

because john is known for being an absolute shit–poster, a little fiend online, a running joke in his fandom that 'john doesn't know that he's famous', 'should someone remind him this isn't a finsta?' type of vibe. he feels so accessible and down to earth, and while he's just as level headed and humble about his celebrity status as gale is, he displays it by being more present and trying to show the human side of it all, vs gale trying to create distance between gale cleven and the gale persona the world knows.

the band is first and foremost john's thing, but as he's grown in popularity, he's of course gotten offers for other avenues here and there, and at the insistence of his manager he decides to agree to try out a modelling shoot one day. he's not naive; he's more than aware of all the comments going on about his looks, stumbles across more tiktok thirst trap edits of him sweaty and shirtless on stage than he can count, isn't all too sfw in some of his band's songs, either.

he finds it all funny, but he also is someone who will always jump on new opportunities/experiences, and he ends up having a good time modelling, and picks up more gigs as time goes on. this is how gale becomes aware of him, somewhat because gale does occasional modelling too, but mostly because he's worked with a lot of big fashion names for tours and videos, so his and john's circles occasionally crossover, though they never actually meet in person.

so then comes this music video shoot, one that gale's been agonizing over for months, planning every little detail and making sure everything is perfect. it's something that drives his manager (marge? <3 gotta include the angel in every au obvs) insane because gale's got so much on his plate as is, but he likes to be so hands on with his projects, and she knows by now there's no talking him out of that. and everything is going great, until the person who's meant to be starring opposite gale has to pull out last minute due to a scheduling conflict or personal emergency or something.

and the usually very collected and put together gale is freaking out. it's the day before the shoot, everyone involved has already travelled to be on location, choreography is set in stone– this is his nightmare scenario, never doing well in situations where he has a lack of control. it's half of what scares him so much about being as famous as he is, is that he doesn't have a lot of autonomy or control over his own image or how he's perceived in the public eye (and digging deeper into backstory, probably stems from wanting to take back control after a childhood filled with being controlled by family.)

but it's situations like these where he's reminded why marge is his manager and he isn't, because she leaps into action the moment they find out about the cancellation, calming gale down so they can put their heads together to find a replacement. they reach out to a few of the names they have connections to, but it's too short notice for all of them, so maybe marge even just resorts to going through the people gale follows on instagram, and stumbles across john's page. he's got a good rep in industry and has worked on less 'conventional' projects before, so marge shuts down gale's fretting over "would he be comfortable with something like this?" by telling him there's only one way to find out, and contacting john's manager.

john agrees before he even hears the full pitch, and he's just as keen afterwards (albeit a bit nervous because by no means is he a professional dancer), knowing it'll be good publicity, and curious to explore a more artsy/out there gig, but also curious about the illusive gale, who he'd been surprised to receive a follow from a few weeks back.

john is flown out that night to the city of the shoot location, barely having a few minutes to change and head to the rehearsal space, where he meets a very frazzled but very thankful gale for the first time.

maybe they both have some preconceived notions about each other, despite having mutual respect and no actual interactions; john probably expects gale to be a bit stand–offish or conceited given his high celebrity status, but finds gale's actually bashful and quiet and easygoing when the cameras are off (when they're on, it's like he flips a switch, slipping into this persona, exuding confidence and sexuality and it honestly blows john's mind to witness in person).

gale probably expects to john to be loud and abrasive based off his well known social media posts, maybe even a little uncomfortable around gale, who is openly queer, whereas john isn't– maybe john hasn't ever stated his sexuality, has never given much thought to it, it doesn't matter much to him. instead he finds john's actually a little shy, much less bravado than he'd anticipated, but very enthusiastic and eager to learn and get the choreo and everything else right, assuring gale repeatedly that he's down to do whatever is needed.

so the two of them rehearse till the early hours of the morning, john taking it as seriously as though it's his own project he's invested months into, and gale gains such admiration for his commitment and willingness to stick his neck out for a borderline stranger (even though he's obviously aware this is a big boost for john's career). john gains a newfound appreciation for gale's work ethic and how much effort goes into every little thing for a huge artist like him.

and inevitably... there is sexual tension during the rehearsals. they're both overtired and sweaty and it's such a strange situation to meet for like five minutes and then jump right into dancing together so intimately, having to shed any inhibitions and self consciousness, but it's a blessing in the sense that they have to get comfortable around each other so quickly. there's no room for modesty or shyness, and john is genuinely speechless at how gale puts business first, and after double checking that john isn't uncomfortable, how he has no qualms about physically directing john, moving him how he wants him.

it's hot to john, the way gale knows exactly what he wants and is so passionate about his vision, and he'd be lying if he said the combination of being starstruck and being lowkey manhandled isn't getting to his head a bit. which is a whole other thing to unpack, because aside from vague acknowledgement of some men being attractive/beautiful, he's never actually found himself flustered by one like this, and it catches him off guard. he stays professional, but he still can't help but let his naturally flirtatious/joking personality slip out as the night drags on; he's like that with everyone he works with or hangs out with, and he thinks it would be weirder if he wasn't like that with gale, like everyone else would somehow notice.

meanwhile gale is fighting his own demons because he's got a very sought–after, very hot, very straight man dropping everything for him and letting him puppeteer him, on top of being so stubborn that even though gale can tell he's exhausted, john's refusing to call it a night until gale does, and THEN as if all that's not enough, john's effortlessly witty and complimentary and flirty. and gale's not one to mix business and pleasure, so he's not even entertaining these emotions, but he can't help but feel flattered by it all, while also reminding himself that john probably doesn't swing that way.

basically they both are discovering they have competence kinks lmao, like objectively they both find the other attractive, but it's not like they aren't constantly surrounded by beautiful humans in their lines of work, so it's more so the emotional side/work ethic that gets them both flustered, coupled with the inherent sexuality of dancing with very little clothing, hands on sweaty skin and toned muscles. but neither of them act on it, too tired by the time they call it a night even if they'd wanted to, and then it's back to their respective hotels to get a few hours of sleep before the shoot.

john isn't called to be on location until mid afternoon, and when he wakes up to his phone ringing and glances at the time, he freaks out, thinking he's slept through the shoot or something because he'd expected to be called early in the morning. he's told that he didn't sleep through it, but he's disoriented until he shows up, when he's told that gale had moved things around, filming as many scenes as he could without him before john was needed for his part, so that john could get more rest. (john swoons. just a little.)

he gets swept up in the capable hands of hair and makeup and wardrobe in his own trailer, and he doesn't see gale until it's time to film, and when he does, he almost doesn't believe it's gale. the glam makeup, the long blonde wig, the form–fitting sheer black dress and heels– gale's pretty as is, but with his features accentuated like that, john doesn't even know what to do with himself, feels like he's going through a midlife crisis at the ripe age of 25. he'd known gale would be in some sort of getup for their choreo, but nothing could've prepared him for this.

it makes it even more endearing that gale seems so awkward about it when he greets john, clearly out of his comfort zone in the ensemble, but john knows there's no way gale doesn't know how stunning he is, it's not a lack of confidence that's making him awkward. john keeps it together, reminds himself to be professional. tells gale it was really sweet that he let him sleep in, that he didn't have to do that, to which gale waves him off like it's no big deal. and he compliments gale too as they walk onto set, tells him, "you look great, wow," tame as he can be, and gale tells him "could say the same for you," and john snorts, gesturing to his simple jeans and boots and lack of shirt, says "feeling a bit underdressed, actually," and it gets a laugh out of gale.

when the cameras are rolling, any of that visible discomfort or awkwardness in gale disappears like someone's snapped their fingers and rid him of it, movements fluid like water, not an ounce of anything other than confidence and power and sensuality seeping through as he commands the camera with his energy. despite his aching body, john's grateful they ran the routine into the ground last night to the point that it's nearly muscle memory, because it's hard to concentrate when gale's looking down at him through long faux–lashes and gloss–plumped lips, caressing his jaw, playing with his hair, the sway of his hips and roll of his waist beneath john's hands so mesmerizing, john's half convinced he's being serenaded by a siren.

the tension would be insane, but equally confusing because neither of them would be able to discern what's an act and what's not, or if it's all just an act, pushing and pulling at an invisible line but never quite stepping over it even once the shoot wraps, both for the sake of professionalism but also for fear of rejection.

maybe after it all, john's on his flight back home and realizes in the whirlwind of everything, he never got gale's number (has a moment of 'why would i need it? this was just a gig' lol okay yearner). john's not even sure at that point what/how he's feeling about gale, the conflicting emotions of feeling attraction to him while in borderline drag doing nothing to help the confusion, especially because he can't excuse the attraction as just that when he was feeling things during rehearsal in casual clothes too.

he knows he could easily ask his manager to reach out to gale's manager for his number, but then he gets in his head convincing himself that if gale had wanted to talk further, surely he would've asked for john's number, since gale has way more reason to be selective with his own with his status.

he doesn't realize that on the other end of things, gale's realizing he also never got john's number, only he's talking himself out of reaching out because he doesn't want to read into john's friendliness as something flirtatious when as far as he knows, john is straight, and this was likely just a job for john, as well as they seemed to get along.

cue miscommunication when one of them actually works up the courage to dm the other on instagram since they're mutuals– either john dms gale something simple, a 'thanks again for the opportunity', and because gale is never on his socials and gale's team doesn't check messages much, it's weeks before anyone clocks john's message, during which john becomes sure he's nothing more than a coworker to gale, which he understands but is sad about. or, gale dms john, but from a private account with an innocuous username that he has just for friends and family, and john never even opens it because the lack of profile picture and generic user blends in with all the other message requests he gets a day.

they only end up reconnecting when the music video actually drops, because obviously it breaks the internet, and john happens to be doing promo interviews and radio shows at the time for his band's new album and tour, so an interviewer of course asks him what the experience was like working on a set like that and working with gale. john gives a glowing review, goes out of his way to praise gale– "the nicest guy you'll ever meet, and the craziest work ethic i've ever witnessed firsthand in hollywood."

when the interviewer asks if john would ever consider working with him again, y'know, the classic question an interviewer has to ask so they can drum up clicks with a 'john egan hints at possible future project with gale cleven!' title, john lays it on thick the way he always does with a wink at the camera and a "he can call me up anytime," but then adds a serious "no, really, i would love to work with him again, he was great."

predictably, the people who are already losing their shit over the music video and making edits and fan theories about the two of them go even crazier, spam–tagging gale and his team in the comments of this interview post, which leads to it eventually making its way to gale, and gale then realizes that john hasn't been uninterested; he must've just not seen his message since surely he would've replied if he had (marge looks at him with so much disappointment when gale mentions his attempt to reach out– "gale, no one with that kind of following is going through dm requests from faceless, private instagram pages, you of all people should know this").

gale hasn't told marge about his possible feelings, but marge isn't dumb; she didn't stand on set for nearly 24 hours with her eagle–eyes and not notice the way gale had been looking at john. to anyone else, it might've just seemed like he was leaning into his persona, but marge has known gale for a long time, and she could tell it wasn't all him playing it up for the cameras.

so marge puts her manager–brain and best friend–brain together and decides that with all the hype surrounding the new song and video, the two of them being seen together in public and making a few posts together would be a great boost for both of them. but she knows gale will never go for it if she voices this to him, because he'd see it as using john for popularity; she reasons that if he doesn't know, it can't be using. so she reaches out to john's manager and figures out when they'll both be back in the same city, and relays her plan as if it's just business, asking for john's manager to let john know that gale will be in town the next week if he wants to set something up, and she gives the manager gale's number for john to contact.

when gale wakes up one morning to a 'hi, this is john! my manager passed on your number to me, hope that's okay. i was told you're in town next week? :)' and then 'egan. btw. lots of johns out there.' and then 'the music video guy.' (john, absolutely panicking on his end, worrying that gale might not even remember his name, not knowing gale's been stalking his socials and confusion–pining just as much as john has been doing the same.)

and then more miscommunication after they arrange to hang out, because john assumes this is just for publicity based on what his manager told him, and he understands, as much as he wishes they're hanging out properly. but gale assumes this is a genuine hangout, because john never says otherwise, until the end of the evening, when gale has to leave for a dinner event and john says "we better take those pics for the 'gram before we say goodbye, or the big guns'll have a fit."

and either gale masks his surprise and then disappointment and goes along with it, thinking maybe he missed a memo or misread things, and this conflict and miscommunication is dragged out even longer, or gale doesn't hide his confusion in time, and john is then equally confused, says "your manager didn't...?" and gale says "sorry, i didn't know; i guess i misread your texts," feeling stupid that he's been thinking the hangout is anything other than a pr stunt. and then there's the awkward "no! no– well, yeah, i was told that this was to promote the video, so i thought– i mean, i would've liked to hang anyway, i just didn't think you wanted to?" from john.

gale is slowly connecting the dots in his head and he's so embarrassed, but also relieved that he hasn't misread things and made a fool of himself. john looks on the verge jumping out of his skin as gale sits quietly, so gale puts him out of his misery, smiles and pushes his irritation about the incident down and says "i do want to, john. i think marge– it doesn't matter. it was a miscommunication, i guess." and all the tension evaporates out of john's body, and he lets out a laugh, and a "oh, thank god. fuck. i was about to walk into the street," and gale lets himself relax too, scoffing at john.

so they decide to have a redo the next week, since they both do feel obligated to take their stupid pictures now to please their teams (and the internet), and thus a tentative friendship is born, the two of them dancing around each other and around feelings because everything is confusing as is, let alone with the way their careers affect every aspect of their lives. so much slowburn, lots of john trying to figure his attraction out and gale keeping his walls up because the thought of literally becoming the person he's singing about in his music video is laughable, he doesn't wanna be strung around or used as an experiment for john.

and john respects this unspoken boundary and also appreciates that they can get to know each other as friends while he tries to stop freaking out every time he pictures him and gale doing less than platonic things. probably a whole lot of chaos on john's end with the absolute tornado that he is, ie: '4am 'am i gay' quizzes taken in the dark of his bunk on a tour bus, asking an openly queer friend from his band if his feelings toward gale are normal, rumours started by a fan that they saw john in a gay club after a show, etc.

because john doesn't do anything halfway– he's ready to literally go out and kiss men and explore his newfound feelings, not just to prove himself to gale, but to figure himself out, because he's terrified of hurting gale since john doesn't have the best track record with relationships. overthinks the shit out of everything and doesn't realize it's not that deep, that liking gale doesn't mean he's suddenly attracted to all men, that all gale wants is for john to be confident in himself and his feelings for him before pursuing anything.

there's a lot of back and forth and messiness and emotions stacked on top of their already crazy hectic schedules and lives, the theorizing and prying from fans and paparazzi, caution from management, but when they eventually have their point of no return moment and cross that line from friends to more, the chemistry is so intense that both of them feel stupid for dragging things out for so long.

when the initial new relationship shyness wears off, the sex is also insane, all the exploration and playfulness (and inevitability of the whole feminization thing coming back into play since that's what starts everything in the first place lol). they're barely able to keep their hands off each other, almost always spending the night at each other's places, stealing as much time as they can to make up for the time apart when there are tours or other events separating them.

they try to keep things private for a while, but with how active john is online, he slips up a good few times– tiktoks where a hat or something of gale's is accidentally left in the background, story posts where john's wearing one of gale's hoodies unthinkingly, mirror selfies where there's a mystery hand or leg in the background. the internet is torn, some convinced it's coincidence, some certain it's all a pr stunt to get people talking, some adamant that they're in a secret relationship. gale's never upset about it; they both just know how much things will change if they go public.

months are spent sneaking around, rarely going on public dates, the odd paparazzi shots still leaking out until it finally gets to the point that there's no point hiding things anymore, it's obvious that they're not just friends. they never actually announce it or make some relationship launch post; they just stop caring, and it's freeing and neither of them expect to be so affected by being able to publicly show affection for each other, but it's such a sweet thing and makes things feel so much more real.

john goes to gale's sold out arena shows and stares up at him in awe and can't believe that gale chooses him every day, and gale goes to john's band's high energy festival sets and watches his golden boy light up with joy every time he glances at him side stage and can't believe john chooses him too.

:-)

lol this post was meant to just be the two lines above the cut but then i got to thinking about origin stories and whoops new au drabble because i'm a master at getting carried away!!