#not quite ready for love. she had been hurt too much in the past to try again

[runes-menagerie]

Sky tightened her love and power around Viktor when she heard him whimper, adding more pressure to the blanket feeling to try to help him until he was ready to be touched by them.

"(I forgive you Jayce. From now on just remember that I choose to move in the background but that doesn't mean I'm not fully capable of standing beside or in front of either of you if needed. There's a reason I keep calling myself a guide and a guardian.)" She replied with a bit of amusement, mostly for the thoughts about himself that she was picking up on. "(You are attractive Jayce. Even more now with that beard, it shapes your face and makes you look more like an adult rather than a teenager. Your eyes are also a lovely color that always makes me think of the metals you work with. As for the rest of you...)"

She paused to give Jayce a slow once over, letting her desire be seen and felt. She loved both her boys including the fact they were so opposite in their body types. She'd often spent nights mapping out Viktor's body and telling him all the things she loved about it. Now it was Jayce's turn to get a taste of that.

"(You have such broad shoulders but you aren't overly muscled like some men. You muscles come from your work in the forge, your physical strength comes from swinging hammers and working the bellows. Seeing you use that strength has always been a turn on for me and I had quite a few fantasies about you holding me tight in hugs.)" She continued, a blush slowly coloring her cheeks but she felt no shame in her desires and turn-ons. "(And don't get me started on you hands. So large and capable. I always melted any time you massaged my shoulders and had to try not to think about how it might feel if you massaged my back or legs too.)"

Feeling that she had made a start on getting Jayce to realize his own appeal and perhaps planted a few seeds for later meetups, Sky turned her attention to both boys. She gave Viktor a reassuring kiss on the lips before moving so she had better access to his legs. She'd recognized the signs and while she had hoped to avoid this for his sake, she was prepared to help him through the shutdown.

"(Hold Viktor as tight as you can Jayce, you literally can't hurt him here. He can take your full strength and will probably ask for more. There's no such thing as too tight or too much pressure here like we usually have to worry about with Viktor.)" She instructed with a hint of teasing while her hands began to work on Viktor's thighs, pressing deep in a massage with a strength and technique that would have qualified as a deep tissue massage in their physical bodies. She would work from his hips to his feet over and over until he seemed to be past the shutdown.

 Viktor, upon feeling her love and protection, finally broke. He let out a soft whimper of acceptance toward her feelings, fighting hard to feel worthy of them, despite his lifelong, ingrained instincts telling him otherwise. He would fight that self-hatred with everything he had, now, and believe the words of his partners. She loved him, despite all the wrongs he had committed against her. It was almost too much grace to bare, but he would accept it wordlessly. Right now, he had to try and focus on pulling himself out of the shutdown he was barreling toward.

 Jayce’s lips drew to a line as he was rightly called out on his assumptions. It was true. She knew his schedule, his connections, and his responsibilities. To think she wasn’t prepared for the possible consequences of a relationship with him would be a wild assumption. He closed his eyes and nodded his head with a resigned sigh as she explained her position, and how she was not to be coddled or protected from the world she knew just as well as he did.

 It was always surprising to him to hear that his looks were what brought people in. He knew he was decent looking, but was he really that attractive to pull the attention of Sky Young and Mel Medarda, as well as his own lab partner? He had a hard time thinking of himself, that way.

 But she had made her choice not based upon his looks, but upon his convictions and personality, which is what really warmed his heart. She deserved to know just how correct she was. “(You’re right. I can see that now. I suppose, in the end, I was just too afraid to make the wrong choice and get others in trouble for it. I’m sorry that got in the way.)”

 When she extended her arms out for them, Viktor immediately pressed himself against her side, burying his face in her hair while holding her at the waist. He would have climbed into her lap, had he the space. Jayce took the other side, closing the circle by wrapping his arms around Sky and Viktor, both. As they settled against the bed, Jayce caught onto her plan to put Viktor in the center, and made sure she was able to do so smoothly.

 Viktor tried to speak, but words were still difficult. “(W-what are… But Sky…)” He could suddenly relate to her timidness from earlier, now being the center of attention when he felt undeserving of it.

 After years of working with Viktor, and learning about how his mind and needs functioned, Jayce had a rough idea of what to do. “(Shh, Viktor,)” he softly instructed while pulling his partner into a tight hug. He fully knew that Sky probably understood this just as well, if not better, than he did, and left her room to do what she needed to in order to help Viktor through the shutdown. “(It’s alright, just relax.)”

 “(I…I don’t… Hnn…)” Viktor let words slip out in restrained fragments, but didn’t try to pull away. The pressure felt too soothing.

[prettycoolducks]

It's really funny seeing new fans be like "Wait the doctor is gay/bi/nonbinary/etc???" As if they haven't been kissing men and women and all else left and right and ignoring gender as a concept since the very beginning

[ellecdc]

hi!! i saw that you had your request open and i was thinking maybe poly! marauders + lily taking out (or asking) reader on a first date? i think it would be cute.

i read your last fic on them and i loved how you wrote for them! also i just want to say i love your writing!!

poor shy reader - thoughts and prayers fr

marauders + lily x shy!reader who go on a date

pt 1 // pt 2 // pt 3 // pt 4 // pt 5

CW: continuation from this fic, fem!reader is in Hufflepuff, some nerves/anxiety, fluff

You’ve made a mistake.

You’ve made a mistake and think it might be too late to do anything.

“Are you almost ready? The Gryffindor’s bullied a first year into letting them into the common room and now they’re downstairs waiting for you.” One of your roommates advised you in a bored tone as she moved to sit on her bed.

You’ve made a mistake.

“Can you tell them I’m poorly or something?” You begged; tone inlaid with a shrill quality you tried to clear away. “I can’t do this.”

She looked at you like you had grown three heads. “What? You can’t go on a date with four of the hottest people in our year? Get a grip.”

“Please.” You tried again.

“I’m not a bloody owl, L/N.” She spat as she opened up a magazine, effectively shutting you out.

You stared at yourself in the mirror again; the fourth outfit you tried on for your date with the four Gryffindor’s you’d stupidly agreed to while still sat in Remus’ lap at the Gryffindor party where you’d actually sodding kissed Lily Evans.

You’ve made a mistake.

“Hey gorgeous.” You heard at your dorm room door, causing your room mate to groan dramatically as she fell backwards on her bed.��

Lily’s auburn eyebrows furrowed at her before her eyes flit back to you; any tension immediately melting into a look far too soft to be for you. “Are you ready to go?”

No.

You looked at yourself in the mirror one last time; you were about to be escorted to Hogsmeade by the most beautiful people to grace the halls of Hogwarts arguably ever and you couldn’t help but feel entirely too plain. 

Lily breathed out a chuckled through her nose and moved to stand behind you, looking at your reflection in the mirror as she moved a lock of your hair behind your shoulder. “As much as I too would love to sit here and admire your reflection, I’m afraid it’s not wise to leave the boys alone unattended for too long.” She murmured as she pressed a kiss to your cheek.

They were going to be the death of you.

As if punctuating the end of Lily’s sentence and your thoughts, you heard a faint popping sound from the common room and the sound of chuckling.

“We ought to go.” Lily said, casually (for her…not for you) taking your hand and all but dragging you out of your room.

When you got downstairs, it was to the sight of first year Hufflepuffs glaring as menacingly as first year Hufflepuffs could as they all marched past the Marauders.

“What did you boys do now?” Lily chided playfully as they all turned to see you.

Their mischievous smiles quickly turned soft and sweet as they took you in. 

“Oh my gods!” James exclaimed as he stepped towards the two of you. “My sweet Lily flower, where did you find this angel?”

Your gaze dropped immediately to your feet as Lily - the traitor - moved away from your side to stand near Remus. 

“I’d ask if it hurt when you fell from heaven but, I don’t see a single imperfection, Gorgeous.” Sirius continued.

You huffed and crossed your arms as you looked across the room to see the first years still glaring at the group of you as they shed their - quite ashey - robes.

“Erm, why are the first years shaking ash off their robes?” You asked cautiously. 

As if they had only just remembered that they’d been causing mischief a mere few moments ago, James and Sirius stepped into action. 

“Oh right!” James said with an awkward laugh. “We, uhm, we should get going.” 

And before you could ask any follow up questions (or ask to reschedule, perhaps), you had Sirius on one of your arms and James on the other and were being ushered from the Hufflepuff common room.

Helga help me. 

The other four did most of the talking on your walk to Hogsmeade, which you were eternally grateful for. But you were now standing in line at Zonko’s - to which the boys insisted they go and Lily had left it up to you and…well…have you seen those boys? How were you expected to say no? - and you felt like every other student’s eyes were on you.

What is she doing with them? You could imagine them snickering to each other. 

Think this is one of their pranks? Their friends would respond. 

Evans usually isn’t the type but… it could be funny to watch anyhow.

Your body was itchy and your skin felt hot; you needed to get out of the store.

“Hey.” James murmured quietly, resting his chin on your shoulder as his body created a barrier between you and the other patrons of the store; strong arms wrapping protectively around your front as the other three pretended not to notice. “I think we lost you there for a second; you okay?”

You nodded, not quite trusting your voice not to betray your anxiety. 

“Do you regret agreeing to come out with us?” He asked quietly; no ire or contempt detected in his voice. He truly was just trying to check in and make sure you were okay.

“No.” You responded firmly, quickly. Clearing your throat and responding again. “No, I don’t.”

You could feel James smile as he pressed a chaste kiss to your cheek. “We’re almost done here and then we can go wherever you want.” He promised; and though that had been the end of the conversation, he stayed glued (what certainly felt like possessively) to your side until you had all exited the joke shop and stood on the cobble stoned roads of Hogsmeade. 

“So where do you wanna go, Princess?” Sirius asked as everyone paused to face you in a semi-circle.

For the ground to swallow me up, maybe? 

“Erm, I…I’m not sure, I didn’t…really think about it.” You admitted awkwardly, wrapping your arms around your middle as if trying to shield yourself from your dates’ gazes. 

Sirius looked like he was going to make a teasing remark when Lily elbowed him. 

“Do you like sweets? Why don’t we head to Honeydukes; Moony needs to restock his chocolate stash anyway.” James offered jovially, turning towards the direction of the sweets shop without waiting to see if anyone was following him.

Sirius winked at a blushing Remus as he and Lily followed James and Sirius offered you his hand.

“Come on; I’ll buy you a pack of those sugar quills you like.” He said as he swung your hands between the two of you playfully, slowly following your little group towards the shop.

“How d’you know I like sugar quills?” You asked quietly, earning you a snort from the black-haired boy. 

“Do you know Lily’s favourite lolly flavour?”

You felt your cheeks heat but nodded. “Cherry.”

He made a quiet proud sound as he carried on. “And James? What does he like from Honeydukes?”

“Jelly Slugs - particularly the watermelon flavour.”

Sirius hummed in acknowledgement and bumped into you before continuing to swing your arms together. “And mine?” He asked; and if you weren’t mistaken, there was a hint of vulnerability in the notoriously cocky boy's voice. 

You smiled up at him at that. “The Peppermint Toads.”

That caused him to beam at you, looking down at your lips before his brows furrowed slightly and he dropped his gaze shyly to his boots.

“And how do you know our favourite sweets?”

You grumbled and went to pull your hand away from him, but he held fast. “Because I’m a creepy tosser.”

He let out an offended scoff at that and pulled you over to him, tickling at your sides in punishment. “You are not a creepy tosser, you little minx!” 

He relented his attack on your sides as you fought to catch your breath; staring up into his silver gaze in anticipation - for what? You weren’t sure. 

“Is it because, perhaps, you fancy us?” He offered. 

You lowered your head to his chest; embarrassed at being known, perceived, caught in your obvious affections for them - notwithstanding the fact that you’d actually accepted an invitation for a date with them which should have tipped them off anyways. 

“So,” Sirius continued, resting his chin on top of your head and pulling you in tighter to his chest. “Shouldn’t we know the same of you if we were to fancy you?”

You sucked in a deep breath - definitely not savouring the smell of sandalwood and mint emanating from Sirius’ chest - and pulled away.

“It would have been quite brash of me to assume so many Gryffindor’s could possibly fancy me.” You admitted quietly as you carried on towards the shop where James was waiting rather impatiently as Lily tried to convince him to stand still. 

“Then be brash, darling.” Sirius drawled. “‘Cause it’s true.”

“Don’t kill the poor thing before we’ve a chance to spoil her, Pads.” James called as Lily and Remus smiled at you.

“I’m not, I’m not.” Sirius grumbled as he swatted James’ arse and all but forced him into the store.

“Can’t believe you didn’t kiss her.” Lily hissed as they walked ahead of you and Remus.

“I was nervous!” You heard Sirius whisper back.

“Nervous!?” James and Lily bawked; you and Remus sharing a shy, awkward smile as you pretended you couldn’t hear them.

“Come with me.” Remus finally offered, motioning towards the wall of Chocolate Frogs with his head as he took your hand. “We’ll find them later.”

You and Remus walked through the aisles as he told you stories of Sirius, James, and Peter trying each and every one of the sweets (even the silly ones). Apparently, they learned Peter was allergic to earthworms due to an unfortunate selection of Berties Botts Every-Flavour Beans.

“How was that the thing that tipped him off? Did he never try picking one up as a kid?” You asked through a laugh.

“Right? What kid doesn’t spend time making mud pies and catching earthworms? We figured just for that, the sod almost deserved to go anaphylactic.” Remus joked with no real malice. 

You approached a stand of sample chocolates that caught Remus’ eye.

“Hm, nutmeg Cauldron Cakes; that looks good.” You commented as you considered the pastries.

Remus’ mouth tipped up in a mischievous smile as he quickly picked up one of the small samples and held it in front of you.

“Open.” 

You stared at him dumbly. “I…I’m sorry?”

His smirk only grew as he kept his eyes on your lips. “Open.” He instructed again.

Not willing to stand here with a pastry held in front of your face asking stupid questions any longer, you acquiesced and allowed Remus to feed you the pastry. 

He moved, likely slower than necessary, and just as you went to close your mouth, he paused his movements and slowly slid his thumb between your lips, pulling your bottom lip down as he went.

You didn’t realise you’d been standing there in shock until he raised an expectant eyebrow at you, prompting you to chew the treat now sitting idly on your tongue. 

“Good girl.” 

Merlin’s fucking tits, he was going to make you choke.

Apparently you weren't the only one, if the sound of James’ strangled groan echoing from where he, Sirius, and Lily had been standing and staring at the two of you.

James looked like he couldn’t tell which of you he was most jealous of, Sirius stood staring with his eyebrows up near his hair line and his mouth wide open, and Lily watched with a knowing smirk adorning her face. 

“Was it good?” James whispered over to you.

You nodded dumbly, looking up at Remus as if you were somehow asking for his agreement.

“Better let me confirm.” He murmured as he leaned down; one hand cradling the back of your head and the other tilting your chin up to meet his lips, though he stopped just before they connected. 

You could feel the gentle puffs of Remus' breath hitting your lips from where your eyes were glued to his mouth. When it became obvious you were at a stalemate, your eyes flitted up to meet him.

His eyes were on yours as they danced with a mixture of mischief and questions.

Questions.

...“Is it okay if she kisses you, pretty girl?”...

And you weren’t a Gryffindor; you weren’t brave or bold, nor were you daring. But dammit, you were a Hufflepuff; you had a propensity for hard work, and you could do hard things!

So, you let your eyes fall back to Remus’ lips before you closed the distance between you two.

You felt him smile into the kiss before he deepened it, finally pulling away with a pleased hum though he kept his hands on either side of your face. 

“She wasn’t lying, Prongs; it was good.” He called over, gaze never leaving your face.

You heard what you could only imagine was Sirius’ boot stomping petulantly from his place as Lily barked a laugh at him. “I was this close to being the second one to kiss her!”

You dropped your head into Remus’ chest only for him to chuckle as he wrapped his arms around you.

“Better luck next time, Pads.” He taunted.

You officially knew your suspicions were correct: the Gryffindor’s really were trying to kill you.

[kotoku]

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪ - ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴀɴɪᴏɴ ᴏꜰ ᴄʜᴏɪᴄᴇ

synopsis - after making a decision, you pack up the last of the things your dear companion needs in the trunk. with your new friend secured carefully, you drive back home to organize all the new stuff you bought into your guest bedroom. hopefully they are liking their new home so far.

⋆˚🐾˖°

It had taken a bit of walking back and forth but you finally settled–

–on one of the doves! You wanted to adopt Sunday and his sister, Robin, but someone had already reserved her. ˙◠˙

With a grunt, you loaded the trunk with the cage, food, toys, and other necessities that would ensure Sunday’s comfort. He was placed in a little carrier with wide holes to breathe and see through, big enough to freely move around as you secured him in your passenger's seat. 

Throughout your drive home, you could hear him pacing around in his carrier. Your fingers tapped on the steering wheel as you would glance at him every now and then. You were starting to get worried about him, not wanting to cause a lot of stress for him on his first day in his new home. 

When you finally reached your house, you quickly unloaded your car and brought him in, careful to not tussle the box. 

Your home was pretty big but cozy. You had a guest room in case any of your friends were to come over, and two bathrooms, one being part of your room. Lucky you. You had decided on making the guest room Sunday’s new room so that he could fly around freely. 

Constructing the cage was pretty easy, it had a large space with some perches and toys for him to entertain himself with when he wasn’t flying around outside. You hoped he would like it. 

Carefully, you placed the box inside and opened it, closing the cage door so he wouldn’t fly out in a panic and hurt himself. 

“Sunday? You can come out now, I have your new home set up.” You watched as the dove slowly inched his way out, head tilting in different directions as he observed the area. You already left some food and water for him, organizing the rest into containers with a corresponding label. 

“Liking your new home?” You stared curiously as he climbed the walls of the cage, staring at you. Hesitant to move your finger towards him, you decided to show him your hands from a distance. “I’m much bigger than you but I hope you aren’t too scared of me, Sun.”

The dove had only continued to observe you before settling onto a perch, puffing his feathers out with his head tucked between his wings. Seems like he was ready to sleep.

With a chuckle, you brought out a blanket to cover his cage so he wouldn’t get frightened by any passing lights outside. With a soft ‘goodnight’, you closed the door gently and walked back towards your own room. 

—on a small, blond Norwegian Forest cat who had unique eyes. They were an extraordinary color, one you have never seen before with cats. Questioning the old lady about this, she could only give you a shrug, saying that he was rescued from an abusive home that adopted him from a breeder, so it could’ve been the breeder’s doing. 

Hearing of his past pained you, fueling your determination to give him a loving home.

Along with Aventurine, you bought him his necessities. Litter, cat food, a brush, etc… You even got him a collar, one that was quite pricey but glamorous, living up to his name. 

He was in his crate, his small body curled up as he peeked through the openings. Sometimes you’d put your finger near the holes for him to smell, his paw poking out as if reaching for you.

The lady had already filled you in on his vet details and history, providing you the necessary paperwork as you signed your consent. It was official, Aventurine was now adopted by you and placed in your care. 

“Please be gentle with him, he can be quite the troublemaker but he’s also a sweetheart. Come again soon!” With a wave goodbye, you brought his crate to the car which already had all his things in. 

The ride home was pretty quiet, it seems like Aventurine isn’t much of a talker. You smiled, finding his shyness adorable.

After you had put all of his things away into a guest bedroom, you opened his crate, watching as he slowly got out to stretch. He sniffed the area before cautiously walking towards you, smelling your out-reached hand before backing off, continuing to wander. 

You’d figured it would take some time before he got used to you. Standing up from your kneeling position, you started walking towards your room.

“I’ll leave the doors open for you to explore, Aven.” Of course, you left the bathroom doors closed, not wanting him to make a mess out of the toilet paper in there. You thought about the kitchen and living room, but there was nothing too dangerous for him to get into, so you let it slide. 

Cracking your door ajar, you crawled into bed, already changed into your pajamas. 

“Night, Aventurine.” You called out, hearing his footsteps pitter-patter against the hardwood floor. 

You hoped he would like it here.

—on a violet-blue ring-necked parakeet named Veritas Ratio. An odd name, but from what the lady had told you, it seemed pretty fitting.

“Veritas is an intelligent bird who requires much stimulation otherwise he’d get bored easily. He’s a bit standoffish, but he’ll warm up to you eventually.” 

…You were a bit nervous, but you were determined to build a bond with him. Birds have always fascinated you with their intellect and colors, their trust often being hard to obtain as they are both cautious and observant. When you were standing in front of Veritas’ enclosure, you made sure to read all the details and information about their breed so you knew what you were getting into. 

‘You’ve owned birds before, this wouldn’t be new,’ you thought to yourself, carrying Veritas to your car. The old lady was kind enough to walk you back to your car with all the necessities you needed, holding the bird food and toys while you carried the heavier things. 

After packing everything in, you secured Veritas in the passenger seat and started up your car, driving out of the parking lot and into the direction of your home. 

Every now and then, you would hear him flutter his wings, most likely stretching them as the carrier allowed him sufficient room to do so. It wouldn’t be long before you parked in your house’s garage, moving everything inside the guest room upstairs before bringing Veritas in. You could see him peeking through the holes, trying to get a glimpse of his surroundings.

“Let me set up your cage first and then you can come out, okay?” Setting him down beside you, you quickly got to work on building the cage, arranging some toys and perches for him. Once you were satisfied, you refilled his food and water bowl before picking up his carrier and opening it to let him walk inside. 

Veritas cautiously got out of the carrier, head tilting from side to side as he observed the cage. His eyes were pinning his surroundings, curiously walking around and climbing up the cage walls so he could sit on a perch. He turned his head to the right so he could get a good look at you.

“Hello.”

You slightly jumped in your spot, startled by the sudden greeting. You didn’t know he could talk, he was relatively quiet when you were in the store and during the car ride! Is he slowly warming up to you?

“Uh– hello! Welcome to your new home, do you..like it?” You felt a bit awkward talking to a bird, not really expecting any other answers from him.

“...”

Veritas didn’t say anything else, only continuing to look at you before he started grooming himself. You sighed, a bit relieved to see that he was comfortable and not stressed in his new home.

“I’m gonna head back to my room now, I’ll see you in the morning.”

Getting up from your spot on the ground, you draped a small blanket over his cage before turning off the lights. With a final goodnight, you gently closed the door with a ‘click!’, walking back to your room and flopping onto your bed with a sigh. 

–on a border collie named Boothill! He was quite energetic, sniffing all around you before sitting in front of your feet, staring up at both you and the old lady. 

“Boothill is a very protective dog, always following their owner and basically accompanying them during every task. He’s a sweet little fella, I’m sure you’ll love him.” The old lady gave Boothill a small pat on the head, offering the leash to you. 

“Here you are, young one.” 

Taking the leash from the old lady’s hands, Boothill immediately sat up and started dragging you around the store.

���B-Boothill! Where are you going??” You yelped, tripping over your feet as he sniffed around the aisles. He sat in front of a particular shelf, one full of dog treats. Ah, did he like a specific brand? 

Grabbing the one he was looking at the most, you read the label and ingredients out loud to yourself. The old lady had popped up next to you after you finished reading it, an apologetic smile on her face. 

“Sorry about that, Boothill can also be a little bit of a troublemaker.” She adjusted her glasses, looking down towards Boothill with a chuckle. “You naughty fella, don’t be too hard on your owner okay?”

Boothill barked in response, glancing up at you with his piercing red and gray eyes. He almost seemed to be making puppy eyes at you…

“I’ll get you this treat if it makes you happy, then.” You smiled, tucking the bag underneath your arm. You walked around the store with a small cart the lady had offered you, pulling different necessities off the shelves and putting them in the cart as Boothill strolled next to you. 

After paying for everything and getting all the documents you needed, you led Boothill towards your car and packed everything inside the trunk. He immediately jumped in the backseat, laying down as you buckled up and started the engine. 

“We aren’t too far from home, but be careful back there okay?” You glanced at him through your rear-view mirror, making sure he was comfortable before pulling out of the parking lot.

It took a while to move everything inside, but eventually, you had his little room all set up with his food and water. You let him roam around your backyard for a bit in case he needed to use the restroom, but he just came back to you after smelling around the fences and shrubs. Guess he was just getting used to his surroundings.

“Everything is set up in here, but I’ll leave my door open if you need anything.” You spoke, looking down at him as he sat beside your legs. You gave him a couple pets, moving to turn off the bedroom light before going to your own room. 

Unsurprisingly, he trotted after you, hopping onto your bed and kneading the comforter until he was satisfied. Chuckling, you pulled back the comforter and made yourself comfortable in your bed, feeling Boothill’s warmth near your feet. 

“Goodnight Boothill.” 

You heard a huff in response. 

⋆˚🐾˖°

taglist - @vash-yuu

[silent-stories]

𝐓𝐎 𝐁𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐃 𝐀 𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘 - 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄

Pairing: Noah Sebastian x reader

Summary: When Noah was left alone to take care of his daughter about two years ago, he never thought he would find someone else he would trust enough to include in his little family. But things can change.

Tw: parent abandoning their child, fluff, angst

Series masterlist

The afternoon sun filtered through the living room window and cast a swath of gold over Noah's house. You were sitting crossed-legged on the couch, watching Luna play silently, her small hands precisely set her favorite toys in a small, neat row, where Mr. Flop, her favorite bunny, had proudly taken the central point, guiding whatever game was in her head.

You smiled at her concentration, something warm blooming in your chest.

She was a perfect blend of Noah's features, a mirror image of him in her own way. She had his warm, deep brown eyes with his same subtle almond shape, dark hair, with a way chubbier face.

Noah leaned against the counter in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee. Some brown locks fell over his eyes as they darted between you and his daughter in quiet contemplation and hesitation.

You could tell something was on his mind. It had been incredible between you and Noah in the past few months, but there was one part of his life he'd held carefully at arm's length: Luna.

That wasn't because he didn't trust you, you knew that. It was deeper than that, more complicated. He was protective of her in a way hard to explain unless you knew the full story, which he had only recently begun sharing with you.

It had been late one night, just the two of you curled up on his couch after Luna had gone to bed, when Noah first opened up about the relationship with his ex. In the beginning, it had been passionate-whirlwind-type love, felt like the kind that could move mountains.

But once Luna was born, everything shifted. She was never ready for the reality of being a mother, and slowly but surely, it dawned on him that with each passing day, she actually resented it. Noah tried to understand her, tried to support her in whatever way he could, but nothing seemed to help. The more he tried, the more she pulled away.

One night, Noah had come home to an empty house. No note, no explanation, just Luna, not even a year old yet, lying in her crib, and complete silence in every room. His ex was gone, had walked out on both of them, and though Noah tried to reach out, tried to get her to come back, she never did.

From that moment on, he'd vowed to protect Luna from anything or anyone that might hurt her. Or perhaps that was his way to protect himself, too.

You both were up late, the only sound in his living room coming from a small lamp in the corner of the room, its dim light.

Noah was sitting next to you on the couch, his back hunched and his elbows to his knees as he stared into the floor for thought collection. You knew he had been carrying something heavy in his head for quite some time.

"I never thought that I'd ever be a single parent," he said gruffly, as though the words hurt him to utter. "But then again, after what happened …I don't really see my life in any other way anymore. She is everything to me."

He stopped, rubbing a hand over his face, and in those eyes you could almost see his tiredness, not physical, but an emotional toll, when one carries so much on his shoulders alone. You said nothing, just let him work through the words at his own pace. You could feel his vulnerability hang between you like some fragile thing he was just willing to show you.

"I didn't have time to process what happened," Noah whispered. "One day I'm in this relationship and we're trying to make it work for Luna, and the next… she's gone. Just like that. I came home and she'd left. No explanation. No good-bye."

Your heart ached with the pain in his tone, even now raw with emotion.

“I didn’t know what the hell I was doing,”, he admitted, shaking his head. Just like that, it was him and Luna against the world.

"I was fucking terrified" he said, the corner of his lip curling up in a self-deprecating smile. "I had to figure out how to be a dad by myself, how to balance that with the band, how to be there for her when I was barely holding it together myself."

He glanced up at you then, his eyes warm with appreciation and a little fear. "She's the reason I'm so careful, you know? With relationships, with people in general. I don't ever want to bring someone into her life unless I am really sure."

He paused, his throat swallowing hard as his eyes drop once again to the floor. You could tell there was more he wanted to say, but it was hard for him to speak.

"I'm scared that…," he started, then had to force himself to continue, his voice faltering. "I'm scared that you're mad at me. Or disappointed, maybe. That I'm taking things too slow with you. That I haven't fully… let you in yet. It's not because I don't care about you, because I do. A lot. It's just—"

"Noah," you said softly, leaning in closer to him. "I'm not mad. I'm not disappointed. I get it, why you want to be careful. It's okay."

His eyes finally met yours, surprise flickering in them. He had been so consumed by his fear of messing things up that it hadn't occurred to him you might actually understand where he was coming from.

"You've been through much," you went on, your voice soft but clear. "And I get why you'd want to protect Luna. I'd be more concerned if you were being anything less than careful, honestly. It says how much you love her, and how much you want to do right by her. And I respect that, Noah. I'm not going anywhere."

He blinked, like he was trying to absorb what you were saying, his shoulders loosening as your words soaked in. You reached for his hand, threading your fingers through his. His hand closed around yours, clasping at it like he was holding onto something solid for the first time in a long while.

"I can wait," you said with an even voice. "You need more time, I'm waiting. I do care for you, for both of you. And I don't want to make anything if you are not ready yet. What matters to me is that we're moving forward, even if it's slow."

Noah's breath slightly caught, emotion swelling up in his eyes as he continued to carry that weight for such a long time, terrified that by taking things slow, he was pushing you away, when all you wanted was to meet him where he was.

"I don't know how to do that," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "I've been so scared of screwing this up, of screwing us up. But you… you've just been there."

You smiled softly and squeezed his hand. "You've been hurt, Noah. And it takes time to heal from that. I'm not here to hurry you or push you into something that you're not ready for. I am here because I care about you. And I care about Luna. I want you only to know that I'm in this for the long haul whenever you're ready."

He breathed shakily, his forehead leaning forward to rest against yours while his hand remained tightly wrapped around yours. You could feel the tension start to seep from him, replaced by a silent sort of relief that he didn't have to bear the burden of his fears alone anymore.

"Thank you." he whispered, his voice full of gratitude. "For understanding. For being… you."

You pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his lips, silently communicating that he had nothing to thank you for, that this was where you wished to be.

You saw Noah in all his completeness: a good father, a man who had been wounded but kept trying, learning how to trust once more. You were more than ready to wait for him to fully open up that part of his heart.

You sat in that silence, the weight of the past there still, yet lighter now. You knew Noah still had a really long way to go before letting go of all the pain he had been carrying with him, but you knew he was on his way. You would be here every step of the way, to build something real, something lasting, with him and with Luna.

Now, months after you and Noah had started dating, you were sitting in the middle of that guarded space he had created around her.

Now you knew why he was being so careful, why he had not pushed for more interaction between you and Luna.

She meant the world to him, and after all she had been through, he would never risk anything that could disrupt her life. But still, you waited. You had cared for Noah, and by that extension already cared for Luna, too. So you gave him the time he needed to let you in.

Today, though, there was something different in the air, something to let you know Noah was about to take a step forward.

"Hey," Noah finally said, breaking the comfortable silence that had overcome the room. He set his coffee cup down and rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous quirk you'd come to know well. "Can I ask you a favor?"

You raised an eyebrow. "Of course. What's up?"

He turned to Luna, still deep in her toys, and back to you again. He paused a beat, you basically saw the cogs turning as he picked his words with all care.

"The band's got a thing later today, just some planning stuff for the new album. I was supposed to go meet the guys, but…" He trailed off, gesturing toward Luna with a helpless look. "Usually, I ask one of them, but they are all busy today."

You chuckled softly at that, imagining Luna in the hands of Noah’s bandmates. As much as they loved her, you knew they weren’t exactly all equipped for child care even if you were sure they all deeply cared about her.

"So… you want me to stay with her?"

Noah nodded, his expression softening as he met your gaze. "Yeah. If you're okay with it. I mean, I know it's last minute and I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important, but—"

"Noah," you interrupted softly, standing up and walking over to him. You reached out, resting your hand on his arm. "It's okay. I'd love to stay with her."

He exhaled, the relief washing over his features, but there was still that damned hesitation in his eyes. You knew how big of a deal this was for him, trusting someone with Luna, especially after everything he'd been through.

"Are you sure?" he asked more quietly now. "I mean, she's really shy, with most people and with you too, and I don't want any of you to feel uncomfortable."

You smiled, leaning up to press a kiss against his cheek. "I'll be fine. We'll be fine. She just needs time, that's all. And I think she got her shyness from her dad."

Noah closed his eyes for a second, his head slightly leaned into your touch before pressing a gentle kiss against your forehead. When he pulled back, his eyes were different, warm and a deep well of silent appreciation.

"Thank you," he whispered. "This… this means so much."

Now, you were sitting on the floor, after Noah had gone off to his band meeting. At first, Luna had been quiet, keeping to herself to play with her toys, but bit by bit, she'd started to warm up toward you, like you'd wanted.

You leaned forward for Mr. Flop, the stuffed bunny, and held him out to her with a playing grin. "You think Mr. Flop needs some tea?"

Luna's eyes sparkled, a shy smile overspreading her face as she nodded vigorously. "Yes! He is very thirsty."

You laughed softly, watching her scurry over to her tiny plastic tea set. She first poured an imaginary cup of tea for Mr. Flop and then one for you. As she handed you the pretend tea, your heart swelled with affection for this little girl who was letting you into her world slowly, piece by piece.

"Thanks, Luna," he said, making a big show of taking a sip. "This is the best tea I've ever had."

She giggled, her cheeks blushing with pride. For several moments, the two of you played in comfortable silence, with her showing you through the rules of the tea party.

"You think Mr. Flop would like to go on an adventure?" you asked after some time, breaking the silence as Luna finished pouring more imaginary tea.

With eyes aglow with excitement, she said, "Yes! He loves adventures!"

"Okay, where shall we go?" you asked, leaning in conspiratorially.

Luna tapped her chin, and then a huge grin spread over her face. "The jungle! I love jungle! Dad loves jungle too! We have to find the lost treasure!"

You gasped melodramatically. "The jungle? Wait. Noah made you listen...nevermind. That does sound dangerous! You think we can make it?"

She laughed again, her head bobbing up and down quickly. "We can do it! Mr. Flop is very brave."

And then you both launched into your make-believe jungle adventure. The shyness had left Luna by now, replaced by a bubbly, fearless energy that took your heart soaring.

The front door creaked open a couple of hours later when Noah returned home, but you didn't notice him first, too caught up in the game with Luna sitting next to you on the floor.

Noah stood in the doorway, watching the both of you, and his heart swelled in his chest. He had always known you were special, knew from the moment he met you that there was something different about you, but seeing you now, playing with Luna, made him feel something he hadn't felt in years.

Love, not just for you, but for the idea of you becoming a part of him and Luna's lives in a deeper way.

When you finally saw him standing there, you smiled. "Hey, you're back!" you said. Noah nodded, stepping closer, his eyes soft. "Yeah, I'm back."

Luna ran to him and wrapped her arms around his legs as he scooped her up, holding her close to his chest for a moment before turning back to you. "You two seemed to have fun."

Noah had Luna in his arms, babbly excitedly about some "jungle adventure" and lost treasure. He listened intently, though his eyes never left you. There was something there in his gaze, something so raw and deep, that made your heart go racing. It wasn't the usual softness, the usual affection, it was heavier, like something nestled between you when nothing was said.

"We did," you said, smiling at Luna as she continued her excited recount of the day. "We found the lost treasure, and Mr. Flop was the hero of the day."

Luna giggled, snuggling into Noah's chest as she added her own details. "We were very brave, Daddy! Mr. Flop was so good at being quiet, and we didn't get eaten!"

Noah chuckled, brushing a hand through her hair as he kissed her forehead. "Sounds like you had quite the adventure."

"Yes! We had a lot of fun. And your friend is amazing. I want to play with her again. I think she is my friend too now."

Noah smiled, his brown eyes full of affection for the both of you. "I'm glad you made a new friend. We'll ask her again, okay?"

Luna nodded, her eyelids drooping as the excitement of the day finally started to catch up with her and she rested her head against the soft fabric of his dad's hoodie. Noah glanced at you over her head, a soft smile tugging at his lips once again.

"Would you like to help me get her ready for bed?" he whispered, and with Luna nuzzling her head into the crook of his shoulder, half-asleep.

You nodded, and your heart fluttered with the thought. This felt like some sort of minor but meaningful step in being included in the nighttime routine, part of something as personal and intimate as this.

All three went into Luna's room together. It was not a big room, but it was cozy with soft toys, bookshelves, and a little carpet that glittered from strings of tiny fairy lights.

Noah was soon to gently lay Luna down into her bed, and you sat down beside him, watching as he tucked her in, his hands moving with the sort of practiced ease that came from more than two years of being a single parent. You leaned over, setting Mr. Flop down beside Luna, who smiled sleepily as she cuddled the bunny close.

Noah leaned over her, placing a gentle kiss against her forehead with tenderness that would ache your chest. "Goodnight, sweetheart," he whispered into her hair. "I'll be right outside if you need me."

"Goodnight, daddy," she muttered the tone in her voice drowsy. Then her tiny eyes flickered open just enough to glance at you. "Goodnight Y/N."

You smiled warmly, your heart swelling in the simplest of words. "Goodnight, Luna."

After several minutes of quiet whispers and soothing reassurances, she fell asleep, her breathing evening into the quiet rhythm of her sleep. Noah leaned forward and pressed another soft kiss to her forehead before he eased himself up, motioning you to follow him from the room.

As the door is shut quietly behind you, he let out a very, very long breath, running his hand through his hair, leaning against the wall.

"Thanks," he whispered, his voice trembling with emotion. "For sticking with her. For being so… incredible with her."

You shrugged. "She's a pretty amazing kid. It wasn't hard."

Noah turned fully toward you now, his eyes searching yours with a sort of intensity that hitched your breath. His hand rose and delicately swept a strand of hair back behind your ear, where it lingered on the side of your face. His thumb tracing the line of your jaw sent you leaning into his touch, your heart beating with each passed second a little faster.

"I never knew whether I would find anybody that could fit in this part of my life," he whispered, his voice not a decibel over a whisper. "With Luna, after what happened… I felt I needed to keep her world small, you know? Keep it safe. I didn't want to bring someone in that might hurt her."

His eyes welled with that same vulnerability you had seen before, and you knew how hard this was for him, to open up, to let you into this part of his life he had guarded so much.

"You don't have to worry about that," you said softly, laying your hand over his. "I would never hurt her. Or you."

Noe's thumb stroked over your cheek, his eyes sealing to yours in an tight seriousness, as if you were the only person existing. "I know. That's why I love you."

The words hung between you and him, heavy with tension. You couldn't breathe for a second, heart pounding in your chest as you tried processing what he just said. He loved you.

You hadn't expected it, not so soon, not in that moment, but the way he looked at you, the way he had been with Luna, it made sense. It wasn't just the two of them anymore; it was all three, the small family that had formed.

A soft smile overspreads your face as you looked up at him, your hand clenching a little tighter around his. "I love you too, Noah."

The relief in his expression was genuine, and for him at least, it was as though the weight had finally been pulled off his shoulders. He pulled you into his arms, and you wrapped yours around him, holding close as he buried his face in your hair, breathing you in like he couldn’t believe you were real.

And for a long time, neither of them said anything. They only stood there with each other, wrapped in their own warmth, and the silence just told it all.

Then Noah leaned back, just a little, just enough to look down at you. And then his eyes were deeper and surer.

"I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't met you," he whispered huskily. "I don't think I even knew how much I needed someone like you, not just for me but for Luna, too."

You reached up and brushed a thumb over his cheek. "You're an amazing dad, Noah. You've done everything right for her. But you don't have to do it alone anymore."

He closed his eyes, like almost to let your words sink in. Opening them a second later, there was something soft, something vulnerable, that made you want to pull him closer still.

"I don't want to do it alone anymore," he whispered with his forehead against yours. "I want this. Us. You and me, and Luna. I want a family."

Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as you nodded, your voice barely louder than a whisper. "Me too."

Noah's arms tugged closer, his lips finding yours in a gentle unhurried kiss that felt almost like a vow, like a start, the type of kiss that spoke of love, of trust, of a future that finally was starting to feel real.

He drew back and his eyes shone bright now with a happiness in them that hadn't been there before. He reached down, took your hand in his, and guided you back onto the couch. You sat together in the quiet glow of the livingroom.

You knew you would have one of those movie nights where you definitely fall asleep in his arms on the couch.

Noah for once in a long while felt something he hadn't dared to believe in, peace. Peace in knowing that he didn't have to protect himself and Luna anymore. Peace in knowing he was finally able to let you in, fully without any fear.

You sat there, his arm around you, knowing this was only the beginning of something beautiful: a life no more his or yours, but one which both of you had started building together.

hello friends in my phone! would you like more parts of this? (｡◕‿◕｡)

Tags: @anything-more-than-human @ladyveronikawrites @iloveyoutodeathbutimdrowning @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard @fadingangelwisp @xmads-omensx @iwasntstable @thisbicc @pathion @mathfairchild1 @flowery-mess @into-the-grey @lma1986 @tosoundlessdarkistare @stardustsirenmelody @thewrstinme

TBAF Tags: @aubrey-melinoe

[alisonwritesimagines]

Please Don't Be In Love With Someone Else ~LA!Shanks x Reader x LA!Mihawk Imagine~

Summary: You keep waiting for Shanks. But someone new comes along and suddenly, you're not so lonely.

Author’s Note: You read the title correctly. I'm evilly laughing right now as you read this in pain. Also, this is technically a rewrite of the angst ending cause the one I wrote and in my drafts is more fluff than angst.

Angst Ending to I Was Enchanted to Meet You

Reader’s Pronouns: She/Her

Warnings: angst, fluff, but angst to all you Shanks lovers

Side Note: This is a secondary blog. If you comment a question down below, I will not answer since this is not the main blog. Please send the question to my inbox if you want a response back!

Do not repost this anywhere!

It had been years since you last saw Shanks. And it's been a year since you last saw Luffy. Ever since he was old enough to sail off in the world to find the One Piece to become King of the Pirates, you had been by yourself since. Of course you did a lot for your small village to keep you occupied but you still missed your boys.

You were tending to your garden as it was time for you to harvest before it became spoiled and over grown. That was until you heard someone say something behind you.

“You don’t seem like someone who can harm a fly."

You turned around to see the warlord Dracule Mihawk standing before you. You stood up straight to seemed less intimidated.

“I can hurt a fly. Don’t think I’m good at harming anyone else,” you tell him as you crossed your arms.

“I see.”

“I know who you are so what do you want?” You asked.

“I was sent to kill you but in all honesty, I don’t think I can kill you. You’re too beautiful to be killed,” he tells you.

“Who sent you to kill me?” You asked, now worried. You’ve stayed in the island since you were born. Not only that, you stayed even when Luffy left.

“Not to worry now. I don't have any intentions to kill you," he tells you.

"Then what are you still doing here?"

"I'm curious to see why someone would send me to go after you."

"Feel free to stay. Just to tell you, it's going to be quite boring," you tell him.

Mihawk stayed around the next day to watch over you. He didn't understand why Vice Admiral Garp would want a warlord like him to kill a sweet little thing like yourself. You did nothing of the sort that would be considered dangerous or even pirate bounty level dangerous.

"Ow!" You yelled as you accidently burnt yourself with the pan.

"What happened? What's wrong?" Mihawk asked you as he rushed inside your home.

"Just burned myself," you tell him.

Mihawk quickly grabbed your bucket of water before gently putting your finger in the cool liquid.

"Thanks," you tell him.

"Of course."

"I made extras if you'd like. I got used to cooking for two," you tell him.

"Was it for you and your past lover?" Mihawk asked you.

"Not really surprisingly. I used to take care of a little boy who used to live with me who had a bottomless stomach. He wanted to become a pirate so he set sail a year ago," you tell him.

"I see."

"So, dinner?"

"Why not."

—

Mihawk stayed for a couple more weeks before he needed to back out to sea. You stood on the deck as you watched Mihawk get ready to leave.

"So I guess this is farewell?" You asked him.

"For now. I will be back in a month at most," he tells you.

"To finish me off and claim your berry?" You asked.

"No. To come see you again," Mihawk said before sailing off. You shook your head at him before walking back to your home.

You assumed Mihawk was lying or joking when he said he was coming back to see you. But to your surprise, you opened your door to see him standing before you.

"Brought you some new seeds for you to grow in your garden," Mihawk tells you.

"I'm guessing you're staying for dinner?" You asked with a small smile.

"If you'd have me," Mihawk said. You nodded before letting him inside your house.

-

As much as you didn't want to admit, you fell for Mihawk. Even though part of you hoped for Shanks to come back, you appreciated the fact that no matter how long Mihawk was gone for or even if he was wounded badly, he came back to you. Even though Shanks would come back to you, he hasn't for years.

"Will you be mine?" Mihawk asked you one night. After a midnight stroll, you both headed back to your home. Mihawk stopped you from walking inside by holding your hand.

"What?" You asked in shock.

"Be mine. I've fallen for you Y/n. And I swear to you, I would never let anything happen to you," Mihawk tells you.

"Alright. I'll be yours," you tell him. Mihawk gave you a small smile before pulling you towards him.

"May I kiss you?" Mihawk asked you.

"Yes."

Mihawk cupped your cheek with his hand before leaning in to kiss you.

-

Shanks rushed over to your home after being away for so many years. He was excited to tell you his adventures and was looking forward to seeing you once again. He knocked on your door, his heart pounding in excitement.

Instead of seeing you, he saw someone else open the door. His smile faltered as he stared at the stranger in front of him.

"May I help you?" The stranger asked him.

"My apologies. I was hoping to find Y/n L/n? The woman who lived here?" Shanks asked.

"Oh. I'm sorry. She's been gone for quite sometime. She left the village I want to say two years ago? Her and her husband moved to another island."

"Her husband?"

"Yes. I'm surprised she married a warlord but he had been kind to the village whenever he was here," the stranger pointed out.

"Do you happened to know her husband's name?"

"I believe it was Dracule Mihawk."

—

Shanks made it to Mihawk's castle where he knew you would be at. After demanding to see you, Mihawk came out to talk to him.

"You should know my wife is resting," Mihawk tells him.

"You took her from me," Shanks angrily tell him.

"I didn't take her from anyone. When I met her, she was alone," Mihawk informs him.

"She never told you about me?" Shanks asked.

"No she has. I just never told her that I knew you."

"Please. Let me see her!" Shanks asked.

"Let me see if she's well enough to move," Mihawk said.

"Is she sick?" Shanks asked.

"Not entirely."

Shanks waited anxiously for you to come down. His eyes widen when he saw Mihawk helping you down. Your stomach was large but he knew that it was because you were pregnant. And what's worse was that it wasn't Shanks's child you were carrying. It was Mihawk's child.

"Shanks?" You asked in shock.

"Hi, Y/n."

-

You sat in the garden with Shanks alone so you two could talk. Shanks stared at you, admiring your beauty once more. While you thought you were alone, Shanks knew that Mihawk was watching nearby.

“Are you happy my love?” Shanks asked you as he held your hand.

“I am. Hawk Eye makes me happy,” you tell him with a small smile.

“I’m happy that you’re happy.”

“I did wait for you Shanks. I really did. But I feared that if I waited any longer, I’d be too old for you,” you tell him with a frown.

“You could never be too old for me. You could have white hair and many wrinkles and I’d still think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world,” Shanks tells you. You smiled at him before tearing up.

“I loved you Shanks. And I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you longer."

“Don’t apologize my love. I’m sorry I didn’t come back to you sooner,” Shanks said. You nodded before taking off your makeshift necklace that held the ring Shanks gave to you. You handed it over to Shanks before kissing his cheek.

“I hope life treats you well and I hope you find a woman who will love you endlessly as much as I did,” you tell him.

“And if Hawk Eyes dares to lay a hand on you, come find me. I’ll protect you.”

“I know you will."

"So this is goodbye then huh?" Shanks asked you.

"If you find Luffy, tell him I miss him and love him dearly. And that, he's more than welcome to visit me or find me whenever he wants," you tell him. After all, Luffy was yours and Shanks's unofficial son and you two were his unofficial parents.

"Goodbye, Shanks,” you tell him before giving him a kiss on the cheek once more.

“Goodbye, my love.”

—

You sat on the couch in your lounge room waiting for your son to arrive with his new fiancée. Twenty five years had gone by and you had lived your life. Dracule sat next to you as you both waited for your son to come home. Now that your husband has retired from being a pirate, he had spent his time with you while your children explored the world.

“I wonder what she’ll be like,” you tell your husband.

“I trust his judgement. After all, I chose well didn’t I?” Dracule joked.

“You most certainly did,” you smiled.

“Mom! Dad! I’m home!” You heard your son say.

“Over here!” You called from where you were.

You smiled at your son the moment he walked in but your eyes widen from the sight of the woman next to him. Not only did she have the exact same hair as Shanks, but she also had the same eyes as him. It was no doubt that she was Shanks's daughter.

“Mother. Father. This is my fiancée, May,” your son said proudly. You smiled at the woman before getting up from your chair to greet her.

“It’s nice to meet you, May,” you tell her.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Mrs. Mihawk.”

“Please call me Y/n,” you tell her as you shook her hand. You noticed her necklace with a ring on it. It looked exactly like the one Shanks gave to you from years before.

“I like your necklace,” you say.

“Oh thank you. My father gave it to me. Said it was his prize possession,” she tells you. You felt your heart break a little from what she said.

“Will we be able to meet your parents soon?” You asked.

“Unfortunately no. My mother passed away from childbirth and my father passed away not too long ago,” she tells you. You frown from hearing that.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright. I’m really glad to have met your son,” May tells you. You smiled at her before giving her a hug.

“Well, I know my son will treat you well. And if he doesn’t, you tell me,” you tell her. May smiled at you before looking at your son.

At the end of the night, you stood outside on your balcony as you stared up at the stars.

Maybe this was the universe telling you that in another life, you and Shanks end up together. But you did wish he didn’t have to be gone so soon. You wished that he would’ve came back to you sooner and maybe you two could've had the future you two wanted together.

[kfaem]

drunk thoughts - Zayne Li (LNDS)

pairing: Zayne x Mc genre: fluff, comedy, suggestive-ish (mostly inappropriate comments), some angst if you squint (it's implied that caleb and grandma are dead), domestic cw: established relationship, drinking, she really wants to get into zayne's pants lol, she's hungover in the morning authors note: it's late an i am really tired but got motivation to write so here we are. unedited mess. fun fact about me, I don't get hung over anymore :)

It would be a lie to say Zayne was shocked when his phone rang at the late time 2:36 AM, his lover's name appearing on his screen. Zayne had grown familiar with the Saturday night calls after a mission, her colleagues were always hosting post-mission dinners, which almost always involved alcohol. Zayne glanced at the clock, figuring that the night at the hospital had been slow enough to allow him to slip away just to make sure his girlfriend gets home safe.

Greyson wraps his knuckles on the door, announcing that his girlfriend's colleague was on the line saying she needs a ride home and won't get into the cab they called for her. He sighed, slipping off his glasses and setting them down beside his computer.

"I hope you won't mind my absence, I have to make sure she gets home safely." Zayne hung up his lab coat and grabbed his normal jacket, glancing outside at the freezing cold rain slamming down from the sky. "I shouldn't be more than an hour."

"Go ahead, not like we don't have enough help here anyways." Greyson nodded at him with a knowing smile, leaving the door open behind him knowing the other doctor would follow soon after.

He would be lying if he said her behaviour didn't worry him. The frequent Saturday late night's and the drinking. But he also knew life hadn't quite exactly been kind to her.

Zayne pulled up outside of the bar, spotting a familiar tall blond male and Tara, who were both struggling to keep his girlfriend from running off somewhere. "Oh thank god you're here Zayne, she kept insisting that she knew her limit and just... kept going. I tried to stop her but it... obviously didn't work." Tara chuckled awkwardly.

MC's eyes lit up at the sight of her tall, handsome boyfriend and she rushed over, throwing her arms around him. "You didn't forget about me!" He sighed as she nuzzled her red flushed cheeks against his chest, continuing to blab about how much she missed him. "Mmm, someone tried hitting on me and I told them that my big scary boyfriend would hurt them if they tried anything."

Tara met Zayne's eyes, nodding in confirmation at the girl's claims. "He was kinda scary- real big and muscley, I was actually kinda scared but I knew you'd be here to protect me if I needed help." Zayne frowned, petting her hair comfortingly. "Can we go home now? I wanna sleep..."

"Thank you guys for taking care of her, I'm sure she'll share her appreciation with you both in the morning."

"It's no problem." Xavier nodded.

The ride home was surprisingly quiet, he figured the drunken girl had fallen asleep pretty quickly. That was until they drove past her old apartment. "Y'know..." she slurred. "Hm?" Zayne hummed in acknowledgment. "Even though my old place was nice, I'm glad you asked me to live with you... I feel so much happier having you with me."

"I'm glad." The corner of his mouth lifted, sneaking a glance at her glossy eyes, flushed face, and pouty lips. "We're almost home, are you alright with me getting you ready for bed?"

"We've had sex Zayne, I don' care what you do." She lazily looked at him, lips curled into a smile. "As long as 's you."

He coughed at her brazenness and refocused on the road. "You're always so forward when you drink, it's as if you took a truth serum."

"Mmm, I don' need a truth serum when it comes to you." She let out a deep, content sigh, turning almost on her side to look at him fully. "Zayne?"

"Yes my love?"

"I love you. A lot. Like, way too much. I dunno what I would do without you." Her hand found it's way onto his shoulder, where she allowed her fingers to wander. "You're all I really got left." She mumbled. "I can't wait to get old with you."

"Anyway..." she hummed, mood shifting completely, "we don't get to see each other as often anymore. I don't remember our last date night." As she pouted, he smiled slightly. The memory fondly reappearing in his mind.

"Last Sunday we went for a picnic at that lake a few miles out, a goose stole your sandwich and you pouted for almost the entire day. After that, we went to an older style arcade where we played some games from our childhood and won... three plushies, one of which now sits in my office next to a photo of you."

"How do you remember all of that so perfectly?"

"Because I cherish every moment we spend together." Upon realizing that she likely wouldn't remember much of this, he decided to stop. "There, we're home."

He held back a chuckle as she fumbled with the door handle, failing to open it for a long enough time that he found his way around to pick her up out of the passenger seat. "I could've gotten that!"

"Right, that's why I had to grab you."

"Hmph!" Even with her arm wrapped around his neck and her face cuddled into his chest, she found a way to complain.

He felt her eyes on him the entire walk over to the elevator, a smirk found it's way over his face. "Is there something you wish to say, my aurora?"

"Hmm...no, you're just reallllllly pretty... I wanna kiss you..." He sighed, his thumb caressed her thigh. "Mmm, do you wanna kiss me too doctor?"

"Not when you're like this, no." Zayne fumbled for the elevator button, trying to keep her steady in case she slipped out of his grasp. "If you can remember this tomorrow, I'll gladly kiss you after you've cleaned up."

"You're no fun, y'know that right?"

The elevator dinged as it reached their floor and luckily, she seemed so focused on staring at his face that she stopped trying to make advances on him. "Shit..." he mumbled, reaching their door and realizing that his keycard was in his back pocket. "I have to set you down now, can you stand?"

"Mhmm, I'm not a baby deer, I can take care of myself!" She said this with a childish pout that had him chuckling. "What's so funny?"

With the door open, he quickly went to pick her up again, but much to his dismay, she rushed inside. As if she was on ice, she slipped, falling into the table next to the door. "Alright, that's enough..." He swept her up, not letting her squirming deter him from getting her to their room. "I'm going to change you now, is that okay?" She stared at him with big doe eyes, as if none of his words made it out of his mouth. "MC?"

Her gaze lowered to his lips and back up to his eyes, a knowing look came over her eyes. "I...really want you right now."

"As I said earlier, if you can remember this tomorrow, I'll consider humoring you."

"'m not that drunk though, please babe? It's been so long..."

"I already said no, now I am going to ask again, is it alright if I change your clothes?"

Her lip stuck out in a childish pout, clearly upset that she was turned down yet again. "Mhm, go ahead."

After a rough fifteen minutes and very much struggling, she was out of her clothes and into her pajamas, and now laying down on their bed. "You...didn't win, but I'm tired now...'m gonna go t' sleep now..."

"Of course I didn't, go to sleep my love, I'll see you in the morning."

Zayne gently shut the bedroom door behind him as he left the room, letting out a deep sigh as the chaos was finally over.

She woke up with a pounding headache, her body aching all over. Her hand felt around the bed, searching for the familiar heat that she craved. But it was cold. She opened one of her eyes, blinking away the sleep and pain at the bright sunlight that flooded the room. "Ughhh, did I get hit by a truck or something?" MC mumbled, pushing herself up.

"No, but you did drink far too much." Zayne's calm voice reminded her that she was at home, thankfully, and she was safe. "Not to mention, you apparently got into some trouble prior to me showing up to rescue you."

She racked her brain searching for memories from last night, bits and pieces coming to her in a embarrassing rush. "Gods...please tell me I wasn't too bad."

"Aside from trying to sleep with me and talking a bunch of nonsense, I can't say you were... too bad. Just mildly inappropriate." Finally he set a glass of water down, followed by him holding two painkillers up to her mouth. "Open."

Her throat was sore, likely from a night of shouting and reckless drinking, but the water felt nice. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I drank so much this time."

"You're fine, but I do recommend checking with Tara to see if there's anything you may need to apologize for." Zayne brushed a piece of loose hair away from her face. "Don't worry too much, just rest today. I made breakfast, would you like to come out to eat or should I bring it here for you?"

"I'll come out."

"Alright, I'll meet you out there."

[phoneduk]

I love Reverse Robins Au but I feel like a lot of people interpret it as reverse roles Au rather than how I interpret it Reverse Age au.

Here's how I see it:

Damian:

Is dropped off with Bruce at age 8 - violent assassin child who meets tired goth Bruce who's not quite used to being batman yet and is nowhere near equipped enough to raise a child but he's damned if he's not gonna try his hardest.

It's a bit of a mission at first trying to curb the violent tendencies and raise a whole antisocial person (and wow, he admires Alfred so much more now). He almost quits Batman for a bit until he figures out that making Damian his sidekick might be a good outlet for him.

Duke

Bruce is out on patrol with Damian when he finds a little boy who's parents are out of commission and is too stubborn to believe that the Bat would actually help him.

Damian hates that he's not an only child anymore but eventually warms up to the idea when he realises they can team up against Bruce and that they are not in competition.

When Bruce finds out that Duke is a meta he wants to flinch back and send him away, but he doesn't, partially because he loves Duke so much the idea of losing him so quickly repulsed him and partially because Damian pulled a sword on him at the idea.

Tim:

Roughly 9 years after Damian is taken in Bruce, Damian and Duke are approached by a small boy saying he knows who they are and wants to join them. Bruce refuses but Damian spots the opportunity to have someone else be Batman's sidekick whilst he can become a hero in his own right.

Damian starts following Tim around and looking out for him and then he realises that Tim is being neglected and come on he can't just leave Tim there so he brings him home and Bruce can't really argue against that.

Two months later Batman has a new sidekick and Gotham has a new lone hero.

Cass

They only notice her because she wants them to and absolutely no one questions it when she's bought home. All three boys had wanted a sister at some point and none of them cared about her past or her speech.

Jason:

Tim's a teenager now has almost finished highschool when Bruce goes out one night with the batmobile and comes back to where he parked it find a kid stealing the tires. Bruce can sense that Tim is going to inevitably leave him as well so what better time to take in a new kid when he also will need a sidekick soon.

The decision hurts Tim more than anything else because he's being replaced and he's not ready to be on his own even though he's never been more ready.

Jason grows quicker than either of his other two boys and he's more determined than either of them to right the wrongs of Gotham. That determination was what led him to Ethiopia where his the joker killed him.

Dick

Bruce was at the circus at Alfred's suggestion, something to distract him from the empty seat at the table where his youngest should be. It's at the circus where he sees the trapeze line fail and he can't stop himself from reaching out to the falling artists. It hurts him to take in another child so soon after losing Jason but the thought of that tiny boy who saw his parents die going into Juvie almost kills him.

Dick brings joy into the manor that hadn't been known since Bruce was a boy and everyone in the family falls in love with him.

When the Red hood emerges, angry at his older siblings for not protecting him and wanting to kill Dick they're all a worrying amount of relieved and angry. Surprisingly it's Dick that manages to get him to come back to the family.

[sebscore]

Hi!

I wanted to request for fem!driver. Like I can’t stop thinking about two situations.

One being if she started dating a guy or a girl. Not a driver or anything like that. I would feel like everybody would either be protective or make fun of her. I can also see them stalking her date.

The other one being what if she got into a crash. How would she react? Or how would everyone else react?

(I just wanted to say that I love this series you have going on with fem!driver. It’s so fun and cute!)

LET IT SPIRAL

pairings: sebastian vettel x driver!reader / george russell x driver!reader / carlos sainz x lando norris / (indirect) lewis hamilton x driver!reader

warnings: car crashing. swearing. medics. mentions of the hospital. reader passes out for a moment.

author's note: thank you so much for the request, I had fun writing this one and I hope you enjoy reading it! 🙂 I’ll get to the reader having a significant other another time! ❣️

• • • • • • •

''Y/N? Are you okay?'' Her engineer sounded over the radio, surprised by the sudden turn of events.

Up until moments before, the qualifying had been going fine. Yes, there was a lot of rain and there wasn't much grip, but there hadn't been an incident yet and it was still manageable. She had made it into Q2 and she seemed to be on her way to make it into the next sector.

She knew she was taking a risk by going into the corner that fast, but those kinds of risks had paid off in the past, so she didn't think twice about it. Only this time her car started spinning and she crashed into the barrier at quite a high speed.

The lack of response made her team worried, her usual snarky comment not coming through the radio.

''Hello? Y/N? Can you confirm if you're okay?'' Her engineer tried again to get some sort of response out of her, not immediately wanting to think about the worst case scenario. However, nothing came through the radio again from the female driver.

Meanwhile, the two remaining cars behind her were informed to slow down and watch out for debris on the track. Sebastian and George right away reduced their speed, but reacted concerned as to why they needed to do that.

''Red flag, Sebastian. Y/L into the barriers. Lots of debris.''

Sebastian wasn't too pleased to hear about Y\N's crash as earlier he had complained to the directors that they shouldn't be allowed to drive in these rainy weather conditions. ''I told them to red flag the whole thing! There's too much fucking water! I fucking told them!''

As soon as the German saw her car, he pulled up next to her and put his car in neutral, ready to jump out if he needed to. Sebastian held his thumb up in the air, hoping she would see it and would hold hers up. His heart dropped to his stomach when she didn't do that.

He didn't waste one second and jumped out of his cockpit, running up to her and crouching down. ''Y/N! Can you hear me? Are you hurt?'' He pulled up the visors of her helmet and saw her eyes were closed. Upon seeing that, he grabbed her arm and felt her pulse, relief going through his body as her heart was still beating.

George reacted more reserved and calm than Sebastian, but still voiced his concerns for his friend. ''Is she okay? What happened?''

''She lost control of the rear, there hasn't been a response from her.''

He fell quiet when told that she wasn't responding to her engineers, it wasn't in her character to just go radio silent. ''That's not good.''

Turning into the corner, he saw Sebastian by Y/N's car and just like the older driver did earlier, he pulled up next to them and swiftly got out of his car, seeing if he could be of any help to them.

''Is she alright?'' George asked Sebastian, crouching down on the other side of her car. Sebastian shook his head. ''I think she passed out, we should get her helmet off that way she gets more air.'' He told the younger one.

They both stood up and carefully tried to move the helmet from her head, not wanting to hurt her. The two men successfully got the helmet off and Sebastian cupped her cheeks, lightly shaking her. ''Wake up, Y/N dear.''

Her eyes slowly opened, blinking due to the sudden light causing pain to her eyes. Y/N groaned, her muscles hurting immensely and also still not realizing what just happened.

''You okay, darling?''

George's question remained unanswered as the arriving marshals and medics pushed them out of the way, getting the driver out of her car and quickly getting her into the vehicle that would bring her to the hospital for a check-up.

They watched as the car drove away with their colleague in it, Sebastian holding onto her helmet. George patted his fellow driver's shoulder.

''Come on, let's go, Seb.''

In the Mercedes garage, Lewis had already made his way out of the car and was discussing with Bono when he saw the spinning car crashing into the barriers on the small monitoring screen.

''Oh, that doesn't look too good.'' He noted, his face in a frown as the red flag was called out. ''Wait, is that Y/N?'' The Brit took a closer look at the car and realized it was Y/N who had fallen victim to the rain.

Angela joined him, growing concerned for the younger woman she had grown very fond of in the last years. ''Why isn't she getting out?'' She mumbled to herself, confused as to why there was no movement coming from the car.

''Oh, Seb's getting out of the car.'' Lewis' focus was solely on the scene in front of him, his heart rate raising as now both Sebastian and George were by her car, yet there was no movement coming from Y/N's side.

''Why aren't there any fucking medics helping her?'' Lewis cursed to no one in particular, frustrated that the two drivers had to help the woman on their own.

Bono calmed him down. ''Look, they've arrived, Lewis.''

''I hope she's okay.''

On the paddock, several drivers who were giving post-qualification interviews watched with worry as the crash replayed over and over again on the big screen.

Carlos stopped talking in the middle of giving the reporter an answer, more concerned with seeing for himself if Y/N was okay or not. Lando appeared next to him, his eyes wide and attentively looking at the screen. ''That's Y/N, right?''

The older one nodded. ''Yes, that's gonna leave some bruises later.''

''I hope her nails are fine, remember the last time when Daniel crashed into her? For weeks she would walk up to him and shove her newly done nails into his face.'' Lando recalled, trying to lighten up the tension.

Carlos chuckled, remembering all the times Y/N would proudly show off her nails to Daniel and the rest of the drivers. ''Yeah, I think Daniel will think twice before taking her out on track again.''

''Look, George and Seb are with her.'' The McLaren driver pointed out, grabbing Carlos' attention. ''What are they doing?''

''I think they're trying to take her helmet off.'' Lando answered, narrowing his eyes as he tried to get a better look at what was happening.

Sighs of relief came from them as the marshals and medics helped Y/N out of her car, and they could see she was conscious and didn't have any significant injuries. They resumed their interviews and made their way back to their own respective hospitalities.

As soon as Sebastian was informed that Y/N was back from her check-up at the hospital, he made his way to her garage, knowing the young lady well enough that she would want to check out the damages that had been done to her car.

''Hi, little one.''

Sebastian's voice made her turn her head in his direction, greeting him with a soft smile. ''Hey, Seb.''

He walked towards her and pulled her helmet from behind him, handing it over to her. ''I thought you might want this back.'' She laughed as he gave her the helmet, only now realizing she had been missing it. ''Thank you, I appreciate it.''

''How are you?''

Y/N shrugged her shoulders. ''My wrist hurts a bit, but it's just bruising. Besides that, I'm fine.'' She showed off the supporting tape the doctors had put around her wrist.

''I'm happy to hear that, I was scared you might had a concussion or something.'' The German told her, recalling finding her passed out form in the car. ''I'll leave you then, I'll see you tomorrow.'' Sebastian was about to take off when she stopped him.

''Hey, Seb,'' he turned around upon the call of his name, ''I already talked to George, but thank you for helping me out there, I don't remember it, but it was very nice of you and you could have just kept driving, but you didn't.'' She thanked him, taking a few steps closer to him.

He brushed it off. ''You don't have to thank me, Y/N. It was the right thing to do and I wanted to make sure you were okay.''

''You know, I don't wanna get sentimental and all, cause that's embarrassing,'' he laughed at her words, ''but I really appreciate that you've been kinda taking care of me ever since I joined you guys, even before when I was still karting, and you didn't have to do that, but you took it upon yourself to guide me and stand up for me, and I- well, I'm just really thankful, that's all.''

The sincerity in her voice almost brought tears to his eyes. This sport hasn't always been kind to people who fell out of the usual norms of F1, especially to women. So, when he heard about a young girl that had been winning against boys older than her who had more resources, he took it upon himself to reach out to her and her family. Sebastian saw potential in her and offered to mentor her, and even financially help her out. Now, many years later, she's racing alongside him and many other top drivers.

He remained silent, but pulled the girl in a heartwarming embrace. Y/N was surprised, but nevertheless put her arms around his shoulder while his were around her waist.

''Don't make me cry, I just put on mascara and it's not waterproof.''

[hauntedjellyfishwitch-blog]

Could i please request something with reader getting a large slice on her arm and daryl has to stitch it shut as best he can because they’re on a long run?

Stitches and Kisses

Summary: He'd meant to take her on a date in the woods, well no, he'd meant to ask her on a date in the woods. But now she's bleeding and he's panicking, and is romance always this hard?

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader (No use of Y/N)

TW: Blood. Medical procedures. Angst. Fluff. Nervous!Daryl. Friends to lovers. Prison-era.

A/N: Thank you so much for this request. The idea staff in the crumbling factory that is my brain have gone on strike so I'm so grateful to everyone who's sent in requests to get my cogs turning again!

-

They’ve learnt, as a collective, never to say ‘it’ll be a simple run’, but he just fucking had to, didn’t he? Had to try and convince her to come out to the woods, because he thought he was ready to tell her he loved her. He’s never been romantic, has never had the opportunity or the inclination, but women liked this stuff, right? That’s what Merle had said, ‘chicks dig all that mushy shit’, and it’s not like he has access to candles and music and…teddy bears, maybe. But he had the woods, and she likes the woods, the birdsong and the flowers, the lack of walls. So he could take her to the trees and he could ask if maybe she likes him too, and shit asking was so much easier in front of the mirror in the prison showers.

It’s going great. So far he’s snapped at her because he was nervous, tripped on a stick of all things and spilled a full bottle of water all over the ground, they’ve been ambushed by an unexpected herd and now she’s gashed her arm open trying to pry the door open with the knife. He’s fucked it, royally, sideways and without a shadow of a doubt. You just can’t confess your affection for someone whilst covered in their blood and pouring alcohol into a wound, can you? It’s not the done thing.

In hindsight the knife thing might have been her fault, but when has that ever stopped him taking the blame? At least she’d gotten the door open, barricading it behind them before she realised how deep she’d sliced.

She sucks in a sharp breath through clenched teeth as the liquid hits the cut, and he flicks his glance quickly up to her face to catch her eyes squeezed closed. He’s never been okay at this part of runs, not really; he can sort an injury out, sure, he’s stitched himself up numerous times, he’s not bad at it, but even if he knows logically that its necessary it feels too much like inflicting harm. It eats at him for the rest of the day, every time, longer when its her.

“’M sorry” he mumbles, hovering his spare hand above her knee as she perches on the bench in front of him. He likes touching her, finds comfort in it usually but he’s never the one to initiate. She’d put her hand on top of his and hold it all day if she wasn’t squeezing her own fist closed quite so hard. The pain is awful, stinging and pulsing at the same time, but the look on his face is almost worse.

“If you apologise every time this hurts we’re never going to get it done”

He scoffs, blowing the hair out of his eye as he does so. It’s a deep cut, mere inches past where it could have hit something major, and he has to swallow hard around nothing as he puts the bottle down by his side. Walkers are groaning outside the door, unaware of their presence but far too close for him not to be concerned, he needs to get her stitched up. The bag rustles as he rummages with one hand for a needle and thread, he knows they’re in there somewhere, but a murmured curse leaves his dry lips as his panicking fingers fail to locate them.

“Daryl” finally pressing her palm to his knuckles, bringing his hand down to her leg with a gentle squeeze as if he’s the one that’s injured. His fingers still inside the bag, locking his eyes with hers, clocking the pained but confident determination on her face. “We’re going to be fine”

Nodding, he moves the hand off her knee with a brief pat before turning fully to the bag, reaching into it to locate the small plastic case that holds a sewing kit. Now still hands thread the needle carefully, gripping it firmly as he snaps his lighter, holding the end under the flame to sterilise.

“’S gon’ hurt”

“I know the drill” She smiles, reassuringly, and if he wasn’t so besotted with her he’d berate her for it, the overwhelming need she has to placate him, to work out his feelings before he’s had a chance to feel them. He usually finds comfort in it, relief that someone understands him well enough for him not to always have to explain himself. But now he’s irritated that she seems to be so set on how he’s doing when she’s bleeding right onto his fucking jeans.

He wants to smile back like he always does, but he hates it, can’t stand that she knows the drill, there shouldn’t be a drill, she should be warm and protected and happy in a normal world, far away from all of this. She’d be away from him but at least she’d be safe and he thinks maybe that’s a sacrifice he’d make it he could.

The thought is shaken away from him as the needle hooks under her skin and she lets out a low whine of pain, dragging an expletive under her breath. It burns. A different pain from the slicing of her flesh, which was at least quick, stitching a wound is slow, like fire poking at the surface in a drawn-out pierce.

“I know, ‘m sorry”

She slumps forward, resting her head on his shoulder so she doesn’t keep looking down at the needle going in, her body is hot and cold all at once, nausea coiling at the back of her throat, why did she have to look? He works as fast as he can whilst still being gentle, it’s impossible not to cause pain but if he can limit any of it he will. Maybe if he’d have told her he loved her this morning, before she’d hopped on the back of his bike, she’d know he didn’t mean any of the hurt he’s currently inflicting.

He turns slightly, voice low as he whispers in her ear. He can’t afford to get distracted now, but he can’t stand the way she’s whimpering against his collarbone so he pauses as he speaks, trying to ignore how it feels to have her cradled so close into him.

“’S’alright, almost done”

A punched chuckle against his shirt shoots from her when the needle pierces her skin again, its synced with a tight grip on her own knee, the kind of laugh that comes out instinctively with pain, the same one he heard when he had to pop her shoulder back into its socket once. On bad days, when his brain is somehow too busy and too quiet, he can still hear the crunch.

“Sorry, I’m being pathetic” she breathes against the fabric of his shirt, trying hard to resist the urge to bite the material for something to ground her.

“Nah, shit hurts, ya need t’ take a break?”

“No, keep going”

He wraps her arm in a spare bandage when he’s finished, watching her sway a little on the bench. Arms out in front of him in case she falls, he watches as she sips the small amount of water he’s handed over. She’s lost a fair amount of blood, not enough to kill her but enough that he’s worried about getting them back safely. Her fingers brush against his when she hands the bottle back, and he’s briefly thankful for the walkers that make him turn to look at the door, hiding his blush.

“We gotta get back t’ camp”

She hops off the bench with a slight wobble in her step, looking down to see if her arm is bleeding through the bandage; she’s unsurprised when it’s not, Daryl’s adept at a lot of things and anyone surprised that he’s as sufficient in care as he is in battle doesn’t know him very well.

“Daryl, we have stuff to get, there’s still at least three places that haven’t been raided”

Her face is pale and drawn. He knows she’s faking feeling alright because he’s been studying her every expression since the moment they met. He knows the way her face moves with each emotion, the arch in her brow, the set of her lips, the way her eyes change colour ever so slightly. He knows that she needs to see Hershel.

“Nah, ya need to get this sorted. I can come back”

“Daryl-“

“No” his voice is short and sharp, accent lost under the clipped insistence as he shoulders the bag of supplies, readying to take on the meandering walkers that remain between them and the bike “Ain’t risking ya, not for nothin’”

“People are relying on us, we need supplies”

He turns towards the door, takes three strides forward before stopping, fighting the battle in his head, he knows they need to keep going, but he’s almost out of water and she’s lost enough blood for him to be worried. Tense shoulders tighten.

“If it’s ya, or supplies, or anyone else, I pick ya, every time” His voice lowers as he turns, body stiff as he faces her, holds her line of sight in a way that should make him nervous but there’s something close to anger in his face, the resentment that she could possibly think he wouldn’t put her first “Dun’ ever make me choose”

“Why?” She studies him for a moment, eyes softening in realisation as she finally understands the way he looks at her, the way he’s always looked at her, the way she’s looked at him and been so blind not to notice. Hope starts squashing the insecurity she’s had over her feelings “Oh”

When he doesn’t move, eyes flicking full of panic between her and the floor, she steps towards him gingerly, one foot slowly treading the ground at a time to make sure he’s not about to turn and run the other way.

His eyes are wide as she rests a hand on his cheek, thumb running tentatively over his cheekbone. She feels him release a breath.

“Can I kiss you?”

He nods, a stuttering shake of the head that has her almost laughing, she’s gotten used to his acerbic wit in the face of discomfort, he hasn’t been quiet with her in months, not like this. His breathing stutters, swallowing heavily as she kisses his jaw, slowly, unwilling to spook. She moves her lips across; never leaving his skin as she trails kisses all the way along to his lips, pausing at them.

She can feel his breath against her lips and she flicks her gaze up slowly to look at him, pupils blown dark and wide as his body stays stock still, as if he is afraid of scaring her off, afraid of running himself.

“I’d pick you too”

She’s wanted him for so long the moment her lips touch his she’s pretty sure she’s actually died and is well on her way to thanking her lucky stars when his hands settle against her hips, pulling her against him firmly. It’s the shake in the arm that she tries to move around his waist that makes him pull away; breath heavy and lids drooping but his demeanour is firm when she tries to lean back in. He doesn’t want her to regret this when she’s not worn out from injury so he stops her.

He brushes a strand of hair out of her face, other hand giving her hip a gentle squeeze, thumb resting on the waistline of her jeans. A small, quirk of a lip smile graces his face.

“Nah, ya can kiss me ‘gain when ya got all ya blood back, c’mon”

[luvismenu]

08 — a motherfuckin' train wreck ✎ ,, index

wc: 4.2k

note: i am sorry idk abt the warnings cuz the whole chapter is messy 😭 and yes you guys guessed it right (iseul's gonna make an appearance!)

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“i am rethinking. about us.”

her words from the night before wouldn’t stop echoing in his head

jungkook exhaled sharply, leaning back in his chair. his gaze unfocused, caught somewhere between the present and the past.

iseul.

she had been everything to him once.

his first real relationship. his first real love.

the memories came flooding back, uninvited and relentless. the way her laugh used to light up a room, how her hand had felt so perfectly small and warm in his, those late night talks where they dreamed up futures that, deep down, he always feared were too perfect to last.

but with those good memories came the ones that stung like old wounds being reopened. the arguments that spiraled over nothing, the long silences that spoke louder than words, the way she’d criticize him without realizing how deeply it cut.

he always held himself back with her. constantly.

he never told her how much it hurt when she brushed off his insecurities like they were nothing or when she dismissed his emotions because she was too consumed by her own. every fight left him questioning himself, every moment of indifference making him feel like he was chasing something he could never quite reach.

he loved her.

god, he loved her with everything he had. but it was like pouring water into a cup with a crack. it was never enough to fill it.

so why, after all this time, did a part of him still miss her?

his jaw tightened as the question lingered, gnawing at him.

do i even miss her? he thought, his fists clenching against the edge of his desk. or is it just the feeling of someone being there for him?

he wasn’t sure. maybe it was the comfort or the familiarity, the security of knowing someone so deeply. even if they never truly knew you back.

he let out a frustrated sigh, running a hand through his hair. just as he was about to shut the door on the memories, another one crept in.

“i miss you.”

it felt so real. and maybe that’s why he felt so thrown. because she had always been his first. and part of him wasn’t ready to accept that she is now his past.

he didn’t even notice when he started pacing around the room, his thoughts spiraling into a chaotic mess. the sound of students outside didn’t register. he couldn’t stop replaying it all in his head; the good, the bad, and the confusing.

then his phone dings.

the sound cuts through the noise in his head, drawing his attention away from the chaos of his own thoughts. he glances at the screen, and it’s a text from you.

he can't see you right now. not with everything that’s been weighing on him. he won’t be able to talk to you like everything’s fine, like nothing’s wrong.

but he still wants to see you.

he wants to apologise for giving you the cold shoulder last night. that was not okay. he knows it.

he texts you back and when he sees—

y/n: can you take me home,, i feel weird

the words are simple, but they hit him like a jolt. his shoulders tense as worry rushes in, overtaking everything else in his mind.

without hesitation, he types back.

he doesn’t give himself time to think. he shoves his phone back into his pocket, glancing at the clock on the wall. the campus café is all the way on the other side of the building. ten minutes feels like a stretch, but it doesn’t matter.

jungkook grabs his bag, tossing his scattered papers into it with little care, and slings it over his shoulder.

the weight of everything else; iseul, the confusion, the lingering ache of his pastfades into the background. right now, all he cares about is getting to you

but then, as if summoned by his thoughts, a voice broke through the haze.

“jungkook.”

his heart sinks.

he turned, and there she was. iseul. standing there like a ghost from his past, her presence pulling him under like a tide he couldn’t fight.

“we need to talk,” she said softly, taking a step closer.

he froze, every instinct screaming at him to leave, to walk away before he fell back into the same cycle of hurt and longing.

“what are you doing here? iseul, i—” he started, but the words died in his throat.

“just..,” she interrupted. “hear me out.”

he shook his head. “this isn’t a good time. i have to—”

“please,” she interrupted again, stepping closer. “just a few minutes. that’s all i’m asking.”

hs wanted to say no. to tell her it was too late.

he wanted to walk away, to find you and make sure you were okay. but another part of him—the part that still hadn’t figured out how to let go of her—kept him rooted to the spot, like he's caught between the person he used to be and the person he iis now.

“why now?” he asked quietly,

“because i can’t stop thinking about you,” she said, her voice trembling. “about us. jungkook, i know it's messed up, but i... i don’t want to lose you for good.”

her words hit him like a weight, but they didn’t bring the clarity he thought they would. instead, they only added to the mess in his head.

“iseul,” he started, but his voice faltered.

“we were good together, weren’t we?” she asked, her tone almost pleading. “don’t you miss it?”

he clenched his jaw, his hands curling into fists before slowly loosening them again. “i don’t know,” he admitted, his voice barely audible.

it was the truth.

he didn’t know what he missed anymore. was it her? the person she used to be? or was it just the memories of her, those glimpses of a time that felt simpler, even if it wasn’t?

“have you.. have you moved on? from me?” iseul’s voice was light, almost disbelieving, like the idea of him letting go was unfathomable.

he stood there, silent, confusion swirling in his chest like a storm he couldn’t calm.

“i want to,” he said at last, his voice steady but low.

her breath hitched. “why? don’t you love me, jungkook?” her voice trembled, the edge of desperation creeping in. “you love me, right? remember what you told me? you loved being with me. you told me you’d always love me. you love me, don't you?”

he didn’t respond immediately. her words wrapped around him, tight and suffocating, dragging him back to moments he wasn’t sure he wanted to revisit.

“iseul, you were my everything. but i... wasn’t yours.” his voice was low and steady.

her eyes widen, panic flashing across her face. “what are you even talking about? honey, i loved—” she hesitates, catching herself, “i love you.”

he let out a bitter chuckle, one that held no warmth. it was hollow, sharp. “you loved me?” he repeated, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “is this why you broke up with me? because you got tired of me, isn’t it?”

“no, i—”

“i was showing off, wasn’t i? that’s what you said. that i was trying to prove i was better than you. isn’t that it?”

she opened her mouth but no words came out. her silence was damning, and he felt the old wound tearing open again.

“how do you expect me to come back after that?” he asked slowly, his voice softer but cutting, his eyes burning into hers. “after you told me how you really thought about me?”

“i-i’m sorry, jungkook—” her voice wavered, cracking under the weight of his glare.

“shut up.” his words were sharp, final, a wall slamming down between them.

she frowned, her eyes narrowing slightly. “you found someone else, didn’t you?” her voice softened, but the edge was unmistakable.

jungkook’s jaw tightened. “that’s not—”

“it is, isn’t it?” she interrupted, stepping closer, her gaze searching his face. “you wanna move on, it’s because of her, isn’t it?”

“iseul,” he said firmly, taking a step back, “this isn’t about anyone else."

“no, it’s about you forgetting me!,” she said, her tone turning sharp. “you’re moving on like none of it mattered. after everything we had? after everything i gave you?”

he stared at her, disbelief flashing across his features. “everything you gave me? iseul, you walked away. you ended things.”

“because you made it impossible!” she snapped, her voice trembling, but not with sadness, it was frustration. “you were always so… so needy, jungkook. always wanting more from me than i could give, and now you’re giving that part of yourself to someone else? it’s not fair.”

“not fair?” he repeated, his voice rising. “iseul, do you even hear yourself? you’re the one who—”

“but you still love me,” she said suddenly, her tone dropping into something softer, almost pleading. “i know you do. you can’t just stop loving someone like me. i can see it in your eyes, jungkook. don’t lie to me.”

he shook his head, trying to clear the fog of her words, her voice wrapping around his thoughts like vines. “iseul, this—”

“come back to me,” she whispered, her hand brushing his arm, her touch cold despite its gentleness. “we can make it work this time. i’ll be better, i promise. you will be better. don’t throw us away because of some stupid misunderstanding.”

he pulled his arm away, his chest tightening with a mix of anger and something he couldn’t quite name. “you don’t get it do you? you don't get to decide this anymore.”

“jungkook,” she said, her voice trembling, a tear sliding down her cheek. “please.”

but he could see through it now. the desperation in her voice wasn’t love. it was control. it was the fear of losing something she always controlled. something she can use for her own satisfaction.

without another word, he turned his back on her, to walk away.

“she will hate you!” iseul’s voice broke through the quiet, it was sharp. there was no pain in her tone, only anger, her tears more of a weapon than a sign of sadness.

he stiffened at her words, but he didn’t stop. his steps were steady, as he moved further away from her.

“you’ll fuck this up with her too!” she spat, her voice trembling with frustration. “just like you always do, jungkook! you ruin every fucking thing!”

he clenched his fists, his shoulders tightening for a brief moment, but he didn’t look back. he kept walking. each step felt heavier, but he told himself it was the right thing. he couldn’t give her the satisfaction of a reaction. not anymore.

as he reaches the exit of the building, he remembers..

you.

you asked him to take you home.

that's when he realizes,

he messed up.

his chest tightens as he pulls out his phone, his fingers fumbling to unlock it. there are a few unread texts from you. each message making it clear that you aren’t doing well.

his stomach churns. he clenches his jaw, pushing down the wave of guilt threatening to consume him. without wasting another second, he strides towards the café, his pace quick and uneven, his breaths coming heavier with each step.

when he finally arrives, his eyes scan the room, darting between the tables, searching desperately for you.

but you’re not here.

the sight of the empty chair where he expected you to be makes his heart drop.

he told you he would be there.

but he wasn't.

panic floods him as he unlocks his phone, his heart racing. there’s no new message from you, no call. just silence. he swallows thickly, the guilt clawing at him.

what if you waited too long? what if you left because he made you feel like you couldn’t count on him?

fuck.

“you’re crazy, you know that?”

“heard that a lot before,” you chuckle tiredly, lifting the glass of water to your lips. the cool liquid does little to ease the heaviness in your chest.

min yoongi glares at you, crossing his arms.

“you should be glad i was going to meet someone from campus and happened to see you,” he says, standing stiffly beside your bed like he’s holding back a lecture.

“t-thanks, min yoongi, for bringing me home and taking care of me,” you mumble, offering a small smile.

he sighs, his expression softening. “just call me yoongi.”

you nod, your smile growing a little, though it doesn’t quite reach your eyes.

“seriously, though, what were you doing there alone?” he asks, his tone concerned but firm.

you freeze for a moment, your fingers tightening around the glass. you remember. you were waiting for jungkook.

and now, the memory stings.

it was stupid of you to even ask him. why would he help you? you’re not even close friends. you’re just... you don’t even know what you are.

your chest tightens with a mixture of emotions.

anger. sadness. disappointment.

he’s been distant and you’ve ignored it, convincing yourself it was fine, that it's none of your business.

but this? this was too much.

“i... i was going to call someone, but then you saw me,” you lie, forcing a casual shrug.

yoongi narrows his eyes slightly, not missing the hesitation in your voice. “call who?”

right. of course, he’d ask. he knows how lonely you are.

“i don’t know, someone.” you say quickly, hoping it sounds believable.

yoongi exhales deeply, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “next time, at least call jungkook. i won’t always be hanging around that area, you know.”

your head snaps up, and the words tumble out before you can stop them. “why would i? it's not like we're friends.”

his brows lift in surprise. “not friends?”

“we’re hooking up. that’s it. nothing more.”

his lips press into a thin line, and he nods slowly. he doesn’t push further, though you can see the questions in his eyes.

“i’ll get you some meds. take some rest, okay?” he says finally, his voice softer now.

you nod, watching as he leaves the room, the sound of his footsteps fading.

as soon as the door clicks shut, you sigh and sink into your bed, staring up at the ceiling.

this is stupid. all of it.

as yoongi heads to the front door of your apartment; a small plastic bag with medicines in hand, he stops short when he sees jungkook standing there. his breathing is uneven, his chest rising and falling like he just ran all the way up the stairs.

“jungkook? what are you doing here?” yoongi asks, his brows furrowing in surprise.

jungkook glances at him, his expression a mixture of worry and hesitation, like he’s not sure if he should be there at all. “___... is she here?” he asks, his voice low and strained.

“yeah, i just brought her home,” yoongi replies, still studying him. “she has a bit of a fever and—”

“is she okay?” jungkook cuts him off, stepping closer. “did you take her to the hospital?”

yoongi blinks at the urgency in his voice, raising a hand to calm him. “it’s just a fever, jungkook. she said she hasn’t been sleeping much these past few days. she'll be alright if she takes some rest.”

jungkook exhales, his shoulders slumping slightly as relief washes over him.

“what are you doing here anyway? don’t you have the expo to prepare for?” yoongi asks, raising an eyebrow.

jungkook shifts on his feet, looking down for a moment. “i... i need to give her the book,” he says, the words hesitant and unconvincing. “so, yeah.”

yoongi glances down at jungkook's hands, his brow furrowing slightly as he notices the obvious absence of the book he was supposed to bring.

yoongi doesn’t buy it for a second, but he doesn’t push.

“how did you find her?” jungkook asks, clearly wanting to steer the conversation away from himself.

“i was going to meet jimin at the café and saw her there,” yoongi explains. “girl looked like she was about to faint. i keep telling her to stop overworking herself, but you know how she is.”

jungkook’s jaw tightens as he listens, guilt creeping into his expression.

“are you guys...” yoongi starts, pausing as he studies him. “fighting?”

jungkook looks taken aback, blinking rapidly. “n-no. why?”

yoongi shrugs casually, though his eyes are sharp. “nothing. just curious.”

he holds out the bag. “here, give these to her.” his voice softens slightly. “and both of you, calm down.”

jungkook hesitates for a moment before taking the bag, gripping it tightly as yoongi steps aside to leave. he watches as yoongi walks away.

jungkook steels himself, his hand hovering over the doorknob. he isn’t sure what he’s going to say, but he knows he needs to see you.

you close your eyes again, trying to steady your thoughts, but they keep circling back to him.

jungkook.

why does he have this hold on you?

he's just someone you're hooking up with, nothing more. at least, that's what you keep telling yourself. you shouldn’t be so worked up over this. it’s not like you’re dating, or even that close outside of… whatever this is.

but still, you asked for him. for once, you needed something more than just hooking up.

you can take care of yourself. it's not even a big deal, you've been through worse but earlier today, for some reason, you needed him to just be there. with you.

and he wasn’t.

a bitter laugh bubbles in your throat as you think about it. maybe this was your mistake. leaning on someone who wasn’t meant to be leaned on.

but then, another thought creeps in, one you wish would stay buried.

maybe it wasn’t his fault. he did say he was busy, with all the chaos around the business expo. he must be exhausted too, running himself into the ground like he always does.

and it’s not like you ever check on him.

what right do you have to be mad?

how can you be mad at him?

but then the memory of sitting at that café alone, feeling sick and hoping he’d come, flashes in your mind.

fuck that.

how can you not be mad at him?

you sigh, opening your eyes and staring blankly at the ceiling.

and just when you think you’ve finally managed to push him out of your mind, you hear the sound of the front door closing. you assume it’s yoongi coming back with the meds, so you don’t bother looking.

but then his footsteps sound different, heavier than yoongi’s usual quiet steps. your brows furrow as the sound grows closer, and before you can fully register it, there he is.

jeon jungkook.

he steps into the room, a plastic bag in his hand, his expression tense and unmistakably guilty. his eyes find yours, and for a moment, he looks like he’s about to say something, but no words come out.

you blink at him, sitting up slightly, your emotions a mix of disbelief, anger, and something you can’t quite name.

“jungkook,” you say, his name barely more than a whisper, a mix of disbelief and something sharper laced in your tone.

he doesn’t say anything at first, just stares at you, as though trying to figure out what to say or whether to even say anything at all. the tension hangs heavy in the air, and it takes everything in you not to crumble over your own emotions.

“hey,” he finally breathes out, his voice soft but uneven.

you sit up straighter, “what are you doing here?”

he shifts uncomfortably, glancing down at the plastic bag in his hand. “you weren’t feeling well and-”

“and you suddenly care?” you bite back, the words slipping out before you can stop them.

he flinches at your tone, his gaze meeting yours, and for a second, you see something vulnerable flash across his face.

he takes a step closer, his voice soft. “of course i care—”

“then where were you?” you snap. “where was all this care when i just wanted you to...” your words trail off, stuck in your throat.

to take care of me? to be there for me?

you shake your head at yourself, biting back the words.

that’s ridiculous.

this shouldn’t even matter.

but why does it matter?

why do you care about him not showing up?

“i had to take care of something,” he says, carefully placing the plastic bag on your bed. his tone feels apologetic, but it doesn’t reach you.

you cross your arms, narrowing your eyes at him. “something?” you repeat bitterly, your voice laced with doubt.

he sighs heavily, running a hand through his hair. “i... i met someone, okay?” his gaze flickers away from yours, like he can’t bear to meet it. “and i don’t know, i froze a little. she... well, that doesn’t matter. the point is that, i know i took too long. i know i messed up. i’m sorry, ___. i didn’t mean to stand you up like that.”

she.

that one word hits you harder than you expect, twisting something deep inside your chest. you can’t stop the flood of thoughts racing through your mind.

someone else.

he was with someone else.

your jaw tightens, and you try to keep your voice steady, but it comes out colder than you intended. “and that’s supposed to make this better?”

he doesn't say anything

“why are you here, jungkook?”

“i wanted to check on you, i am worried.” he finally says, his voice quieter than usual.

“check on me?” you repeat, the bitterness in your tone impossible to hide. “you weren’t too worried when you left me waiting.”

his jaw tightens now, and he takes a tentative step closer. “i know. i messed up, alright? i know i did. that’s why i’m here.”

you scoff, turning away from him as frustration bubbles up inside you. “what do you want me to say, jungkook? that it’s okay? that i’ll just forget about it? i feel stupid to think that i even texted you.”

“___.” he says quickly, his voice firmer now. “i’m not asking you to forget it. i just... i just want you to know i didn’t mean for it to happen. i didn't mean to keep you waiting.”

“but you did,” you snap, spinning back to face him.

his face falls, and for a moment, you almost feel bad. almost.

you mentally curse yourself for letting your emotions take control. this is stupid. he’s not even your boyfriend. why should it matter who he was with? or what he was doing with her?

this shouldn't be a big deal.

but you can’t stop it, the anger building up inside you. “it’s not even about this,” you admit, your voice barely above a whisper. “you’ve been acting distant lately, and i get it, you’ve got your own things going on, but that doesn’t give you the right to treat me like this. it makes me feel... i don’t even know, it just feels really fucking awful. and let me be clear, i’ve got my own stuff to handle too. nd i don't want to feel this way. if you're busy and you can't be there, just fucking tell me that you’ve got other things going on. don't think i'm gonna be okay with just waiting around and dealing with it.” your eyes snap at him. “i will not play that game.”

he lets out a deep breath and looks at you. “it’s not a game, okay? i just... i had to deal with something. and the moment i could, i came straight to you. i feel shitty about it. and let me be clear too. i would never do something like this to you, not again.”

“okay, good.” you deadpan.

silence.

“you should rest,” he says, his voice quieter now.

“yeah," you reply, not even looking at him, your eyes fixed on the bed, anything but him.

“do you need any-”

“jungkook.” you cut him off, your voice steady but sharp. you finally look up at him, eyes cold. “i need to be alone. please, leave.”

he just sighs, his face falling. “okay.” he nods, his voice low, almost defeated.

without another word, he turns and walks out, the door clicking softly behind him.

and as the silence settles in again, you sigh.

“i'm a motherfuckin' train wreck.”

[jnnul]

ready for love

PAIRING ▸ lee jeno x fem!reader (ft. tbz's juyeon)

GENRES ▸ fluff, non!idol au, college au, slice of life, friends to lovers but also...it’s complicated?

WARNINGS ▸ uhh swearing, drinking (but legally), mentions of infidelity, there was supposed to be so much more but it just turned into a fluff piece sooo..., y/n is indecisive and jeno is stupid, they're a match made in heaven 🫶🏽, jeno is the loverboy of the century towards the end, they make out and a few allusions to sex but no graphics, is it just me or is that header really blurry

SUMMARY ▸ a boy who has never taken a relationship seriously. a girl who is seriously over relationships. when they end up finding each other, will they let their ideas of what a relationship should be like ruin their relationship before it even starts?

PLAYLIST ▸ ready for love - blackpink, lovin’ me - fifty fifty, siren - taeyeon, island - youha, hate that - key & taeyeon

WORD COUNT ▸ 19.5k words

AUTHOR’S NOTE ▸ oh hey it's that one fic i've been writing since july! which reminds me - if that ending looks familiar, it's because technically, this was supposed to come out right after that timestamp did oops.

as always, feedback, comments, etc. GREATLY encourage writers! if you felt any sort of way (in a good or bad way!) about this fic, pls leave feedback!

far too easy. a couple of lingering stares. a coincidental request on social media. a few well-placed messages. one date later and...done. he was in. hook, line, and sinker.

it was almost getting predictable. at first, lee jeno just wanted to have a little fun. it was never anything serious - and it definitely wasn't always about sex. truly. as distrustful as men had made themselves out to be within the past few thousands of years, jeno truly wasn't thinking with his dick when he got into relationships.

it was just about having fun. he just wanted to get to know people, do sohing romantic just for the experience, and maybe, get to know their body if the relationship felt so inclined.

there was never any delusion about what a relationship with jeno was like. it was two months, if you lasted that long, and every second of it made you feel alive like you never had before. but the honeymoon stage would pass and jeno would lose interest and soon, there would be a heartbroken girl left behind, even though she knew exactly what she was getting herself into.

and it wasn't as though they could really get mad at him. he was a sweetheart through and through and he would continue to say hi if they ever saw each other around and he had definitely saved a couple exes from some ugly encounters. jeno never meant to hurt anyone; it just happened soimes because he was such a good guy.

at least, that’s what you understood of your best friend. from his nights of drunken confessions and the few encounters you’d had with his ‘girlfriends’, you had surmised that jeno lee was just meant to be a serial casual dater.

you, quite frankly, were on the opposite end of the spectrum. after a few too many boyfriends who had turned out to be grade a douchebags, you had effectively sworn off men.

dating was just far too hard. the 'did he notice me?' stage where you dress up a little prettier than normal. and then the internal panic when they request you on instagram. the casual talking stage where you've already accidentally planned out the wedding. the date where you choose to move past all of the blatant red flags you see. and then the relationship, when the red flags become red banners the size of antarctica because goddamnit, how did you miss the fact that this man was a literal freudian case study.

so whenever jeno would introduce his newest girlfriend or go on about his many adventures (including the details about the not-so-family-friendly aspects), you couldn't help but feel a little pang of jealousy because where the hell was jeno finding such amazing relationships? and why the hell isn't he taking them seriously?

you're sure you couldn't even count the number of sweet girls you knew would've been perfect to take home to his mother you had been introduced to before they were gone the next week.

"and that's why i think you're an insufferable brat," you grumble, pointing a stick of celery at him threateningly. jeno snorts slightly, redirecting your celery to the hummus sitting next to where you were perched on his kitchen counter.

"you've been saying that for as long as we've been friends," he says, pouring a spoonful of soy sauce into the rice for the fried rice he was preparing for dinner.

"three years too many," you say, squinting your eyes at him suspiciously. "how have we actually stayed friends for three years when you're so...wishy-washy?"

jeno's roommate, na jaemin, rubs his eyes as he stumbles into the kitchen, saluting you sarcastically as he reaches into the fridge to grab an entire bowl of strawberries.

"what a burn, y/n. wishy-washy. yeah, i'll bet that really did a number on him, didn't it, jeno my boy?" jaemin snorts, pouting when he quite nearly drops the bowl of strawberries on his foot.

he also very nearly escapes decapitation by celery stick, ducking from your brutal aim.

"at least i don't have a mommy kink," you snide, salvaging what was left of your celery snack.

jaemin jabs a strawberry in your general direction with a look of indignant betrayal on his face.

"i thought we agreed to never speak of what was revealed during balkan night," jaemin hissed. "you promised, y/n!"

"i was crossing my fingers," you shrug, placating your best friend with an olive branch of a silly smile when he swears vengence by strawberry assault a second time.

"whatever," jaemin grumbles as he slinks back to the darkness of his room. jeno just shakes his head fondly, tossing in the vegetables the two of you had just chopped up into the fried rice.

"why do you always feel the need to rag on him like that?" jeno says, mixing the vegetables into the rice.

"why do you always feel the need to avoid taking a relationship seriously?" you counter, hopping down from your perch to throw out the now empty hummus container.

"you know, anyone hearing this conversation right now would think that you were the one not taking relationships not seriously instead of me," he says calmly, taking a spoonful of rice. he blows on it before reaching out to you, letting you taste-test the fried rice. you hum, sifting through the ingredients in the fridge as you analyze what the missing ingredient was. your eyes land on a small plastic container with finely chopped garlic inside, the realization clicking in your head.

"just because i'm a little youthful and you have the personality of a grandpa doesn't mean that you have to be the one who takes relationships too seriously," you say, sprinkling the garlic into the fried rice. jeno hands you the wooden spatula and lets you take over the cooking process as he finds three bowls for the three of you.

"whatever helps you sleep at night," jeno says with a soft chuckle.

"speaking of relationships though, i'm not going to be leeching off of you for dinner tonight," you say casually, offering a spoonful to jeno this time to let him taste your shared creation.

he flashes you a happy eye smile, retreating into the hallway to call jaemin out of his room for lunch.

"date?" jeno says, a strange look in his eye as he hands you your spoon (you had a preference for only eating with the singular small spoon in the entire apartment for some reason) with a knowing smile.

"somewhat? it's a double date but i'm only going for jimin because she really really likes the guy and she's afraid she's going to fuck it up if it's just the two of them," you explain, giving him a thumbs up for the successful food collaboration.

"do you know who it's with?" jaemin pipes up, seemingly refreshed after consuming an inhumane amount of strawberries.

you furrow your eyebrows, trying to recollect the name of the guy jimin mentioned that jaehyun was bringing before shaking your head.

"i think his name was jayeon? yeonju? juyeon? i don't know, i don't really remember. all i know is that jaehyun better be head over fucking heels for jimin by the end of the night," you say in between bites.

"juyeon? lee juyeon?" jaemin says suddenly, his spoon clattering as he drops it in his bowl. jeno and jaemin exchange a look that you don't miss and you definitely don't like.

"am i missing sohing here? do you guys know him?" you ask, the worry lines on your forehead having become near permanent. jeno shrugs, pushing his food around in an uncharacteristically hesitant manner.

"i mean i just heard that he was a bit of a heartbreaker when he was in college but i don't really think that it was that big of a deal," jaemin says finally. you roll your eyes, puffing out your chest sarcastically.

"i'm a big girl guys, don't worry. i can handle myself," you say, patting jeno's shoulder comfortingly as you move to wash your bowl. "and besides, i'm not actually going there to find the love of my life; i'm just going there to support jimin."

"just be careful, y/n." jeno gives you a quick little side-hug before disappearing into the living room to turn on some tv. you turn to jaemin but your question dies on your tongue when you see that jaemin is already staring at you with an unreadable expression.

"what's up with him?" you ask, when jaemin sighs, getting up to wash his dishes.

"jeno's worried for you," he says. you huff, watching jaemin put his washed bowl into the dishwasher.

"i get that, dipshit. what i don't get is why!" you exclaim, wincing when you realize that you're much louder than you had intended.

"because juyeon's just like jeno."

it's all jaemin says but it's all he needs to say because now, you finally understand.

+++

"now remember, i'm only coming with you for you, okay? if you ever want to just be with jaehyun by yourself, let me know and i'll be more than happy to head on my way out," you whisper to jimin as you flash a bright smile at jaehyun, who approaches the both of you with a dimpled smile as he tucks his car keys into his pocket.

"y/n! it's so good to see you after so long," jaehyun says, pulling you in for a friendly side hug.

"i know," you say, squeezing quickly before letting go. "can you believe it's already been a month since renjun's party?"

jaehyun furrows his eyebrows, shuffling so that he was standing next to jimin. "no, really? has it already been a month?"

he doesn't wait for you to answer, turning to jimin almost immediately. "it's been a month since i met you? why does it feel like i've known you my entire life?"

it takes all you have to turn to the side before fake gagging, unable to help the cringe that runs through your body from the cheesiness, jimin fighting back a giggle, but you can see that her cheeks are bright red.

"jae, for your sake and the beautiful ladies', i'm gonna have to pretend like you never said that," a deep voice says from behind you. the man steps into the light and you're sure that your eyes are about to fall out of their socket.

juyeon is one of the most attractive men you've ever seen. long, long legs that lead up to broad shoulders, beautiful eyes and lips that would make kylie jenner jealous. his dark hair is slicked back and he holds himself with a humble, quiet confidence that makes you ready to fall to your knees instantly. he turns to you and his cool demeanor is instantly broken when he smiles, his face glowing in the faint lights of the restaurant.

"hi, i'm juyeon," he says, sticking his hand out for you to shake. you stare at it for a moment before taking it.

"y/n. it's nice to meet you," you say dreamily, before coming to your senses and retracting your hand. you were here for jimin and jimin only. juyeon and his beautiful face would have to stay in the friend zone - especially if what jaemin had warned you about was true.

but just because you couldn't purchase doesn't mean you couldn't window shop.

"y/n," juyeon drawls, letting your name roll off of his tongue. "a pretty name for a pretty girl."

jimin can barely stifle a giggle at your dazed expression, elbowing you in the rib cage. you shake your head slightly, composing yourself once more. how in hell were you supposed to confine this man to the friend zone if everything he said threatened your very sanity?

"well, they say that you should never keep a pretty woman waiting," you say with coy smile, gesturing towards the restaurant. "shall we head inside?"

juyeon mock-bows while jaehyun opens the door and says, "ladies first."

you blow juyeon a kiss with a teasing smile, linking arms with jimin and sauntering into the restaurant. juvenile? perhaps. but where was the fun in being adult all the time?

the four of you make your way to where there's a receptionist standing behind a booth, jaehyun stating his name for the reservation.

"right this way, ladies and gentlemen," the receptionist says, gathering a handful of menus and leading you to your table.

"so jaehyun tells me you are a business major," juyeon says, falling in step beside you. you hum, shaking your head slightly.

"i was a business major; i double majored in finance and economics, but i graduated two months ago," you explain, thanking the waiter as you take your seat at the table. juyeon takes the seat next to you and jimin takes the seat on the other side so that you were sat directly across from jaehyun.

you're about to turn to jimin and say something only to find her enraptured by some fascinating conversation that her and jaehyun seemed to be having, turning back with a knowing smile.

"i'm sorry, i was under the impression that you were still in school since it's only march," juyeon says, handing you one of the menus the waiter had left on the table.

"i graduated early because of the overlap between my majors. i was required to keep up my grades for my scholarship anyway so i was able to build up credits fairly quickly," you explain, trying to ignore the spark of electricity that you feel when juyeon's fingers linger on yours.

"oh, so you were quite the academic," he says, running a hand through his hair. you determinedly stare at the menu, forcing down the hot flash that runs through your body when juyeon catches you watching.

"you could say so," you nod, scanning the menu. "how about you? what did you major in when you were in school?"

"i was your direct senior," juyeon begins, smiling when he sees the confusion on your face. "i was a finance major in college."

"no way! that's so interesting. where do you work now?" you ask once you put down the menu to meet his eyes. maybe jaemin and jeno were just being overprotective? it wouldn't be the first time they steered you away from heartbreak but juyeon seemed like such a sweet and genuine guy.

because juyeon's just like jeno.

that statement is enough to bring you back to your senses as you focus on what juyeon is saying, jimin and jaehyun still debating the difference between computer engineering and computer science (their respective majors) and which one was better.

nerds.

"i was at amazon up until last summer but i recently switched to a new company. it's a pretty small company but they specialize in cleaning the ocean of plastic and recycling the plastic for 3D printing. it's very niche but i didn't want to just be another finance bro that just worked for the sake of money, you know? i wanted to work with a good consciousness."

maybe curving juyeon from claiming a place in your already fragile heart would be a little more difficult than you expected. kind, environmentally aware and a chose ethical work? juyeon was already better than approximately 90% of your exes.

"how about you? have you started working yet? the market is pretty brutal for freshly graduated f&e people, from what my friends tell me." you nod, internally composing yourself and steeling yourself a little bit more to keep from falling into juyeon's charms.

just like jeno. the reminder is harsh, but it works like magic as you feel the butterflies in your stomach beginning to dissapate.

"it certainly is a lot more competitive than i think a lot of people anticipated. thankfully, i was able to connect to a sponsor during one of the scholarship banquets and was offered a position for right after school," you explained and juyeon's eyes turn from mild and observing to full of respect as he nods, almost approvingly.

"which company?" he asks, taking a sip of his water.

"i actually am working in the finance department at patagonia..."

+++

the night progresses almost too smoothly. once the food had come out, jaehyun and jimin finally seemed to come out of the bubble they were in and the conversation flowed so well, it was almost as though the four of you had known each other for years.

it was clear that jaehyun and juyeon were close, having met each other at work and instantly clicking. the easy back and forth between them allowed you and jimin relax a little more, allowing the conversation to turn to less formal subjects.

you find out that juyeon has a dog, much to your dismay.

"y/n loves dogs!" jimin exclaims, and you can feel your heart's walls crack a little further. there were many things you could handle - a cute boy with a dog? that was a little out of the realm of control.

"really? oh you'd love ray then - he's a big dog but he's got a lot of love. sort of a gentle giant," juyeon says, his eyes twinkling as he pulls out his phone to show you his wallpaper. it's a picture of him and ray curled up next to each other, sleeping in bed, both of them in the same exact position as they snored away.

"i swear, him and ray are the same soul in two different bodies. i've seen this guy have full on conversations with his dog. which would be weird but it kinda just works for them somehow. i kinda think that ray genuinely does understand juyeon," jaehyun snorts, nodding at juyeon's wallpaper. "that was when ray was still a puppy and he would copy every single thing that juyeon did."

juyeon shrugs, smiling as he tucks his phone back into his pocket. "not much has changed there, if i'm being honest."

you're about to say something about meeting ray when your phone rings abruptly, rudely interrupting the conversation. you frown as you flip your phone open, looking at the contact profile on the screen. jeno?

"hello?" you say as you answer the phone, pointing to the restroom as you excuse yourself from the table. from the corner of your eye, you can see the waiter coming with the bill for your table and you vaguely register the fact that only two cards are being put on the table (jaehyun's and juyeon's) as you make your way somewhere a little more private.

"hellooo? y/nnnn-ie? you stilllll at your, huh, date?" jeno slurs into your phone and you hear someone in the background, presumably jaemin, trying to convince jeno to stop himself from saying or doing something stupid.

"yes, jeno, i'm still at my date. that you interrupted, by the way," you say with a frustrated sigh. you check your watch and realize that it's only 9:30 PM and jeno does not sound like he's been taking it easy on the alcohol. "why are you drinking jen?"

"whattttt, so now i'm a shitty lover and i can't, heh, drink?" jeno grumbles into the phone and it's clear from the sudden silence in the background that jaemin has completely giving up on wrestling jeno's phone out of his hand. you had firsthand experience with drunk jeno - he turned into the hulk.

"jen, if you called me in the middle of my date to go off the rails about how you're a lonely fucker, i'm going to kill you," you hiss, smiling at the lady who comes into the restroom as you weren't threatening your best friend with murder.

"I'M NOT A LONELY FUCKER!"

oh, so this part jeno could say without hiccuping or slurring his words. fantastic. you sigh, switching your phone to the other ear as you wash your hands, getting ready to leave the restroom. there's a pregnant pause where no one says anything but you can hear the top gun theme song in the background so you know jeno's on the line.

"if - if i change, will you not go out with juyeon?" jeno mutters finally, just as you're leaving the restroom. "if i finally start getting serious about relationships, will you not go out with him? will you come home?"

you pause at that. jeno's always been the protective type. for all of his own playboy (even if technically he wasn't trying to be a playboy) charm, jeno genuinely wasn't very happy when you dated people. he wouldn't be rude to them and he certainly would never force you to break up with them but every time he would run into them, regardless of how long you had dated them, he always had something to say.

he looks like he jerks off to weird porn. definitely something about shampoo, a hot girl, and way too much viagra.

he has a small dick.

he makes his girlfriends lose weight even though he has a beer belly.

i'm not even gonna lie to you - i just hate the fact that he's balding.

most of the reasons that jeno gave you were kinda stupid. but ultimately, he was usually right about which people to avoid and even if he said it was because they were ugly and balding, it was usually because he knew that they weren't kind people on the inside.

it was because you just didn't have a great self-image, jeno used to say. if you saw yourself the way the rest of us - the way i see you, you'd never even give some of these assholes a chance, y/n. think of it as playboy experience about how to find the people actually worth your time.

but he had never said anything like this before. for all of the hazy comments and strange strength jeno developed when he was drunk, he had never said anything like this to you before. mostly because jaemin was really good at protecting his roommate from making stupid decisions but it was clear that even jaemin couldn't stop this.

"jen, you sound crazy right now," you say, rubbing your forehead. you step out of the restroom to see juyeon waiting at the table alone, as jimin and jaehyun seemingly already left together. "i don't really know what you're trying to say and quite frankly, i have no clue why you're acting like this. ask jaemin to make sure you're drinking a lot more water and we'll talk about this in the morning, alright?"

jeno doesn't say anything but from the shuffling in the background, you realize that jaemin has finally rose from his slump and was signaling something to jeno. good. maybe jaemin would be able to understand why the fuck jeno was acting like this.

there's an exchange of words, mostly jaemin berating jeno to hand over the phone as you hear a loud thump in the background before jaemin is speaking.

"hey, y/n it's me," jaemin says. it's clear that he's been drinking too but jaemin isn't too much of a drinker so he still sounds pretty levelheaded as he speaks.

"what's up with jeno, jaemin? why is he acting like that?" you ask, making your way over to the table slowly. you realize that juyeon is holding onto your coat and suddenly, you're not really sure about what to do. you don't know what it is about the simple fact that juyeon is holding your coat but the entire thing seems a little domestic. like the two of you actually were on a date.

"y/n, i'm gonna be so honest with you, i think it's best if you have some distance from jeno for a while. i think he's just getting in his head about stuff he shouldn't be and really, i think the only way he's gonna get over it or figure out how to talk to you about it if he has some distance."

how perfect. you sigh, running your hand through your hair as you smile at juyeon, who helps you put your coat over your shoulders, the scent of his cologne filling up your lungs. you decide that if it was distance that jeno wanted, it was distance jeno was going to get. quite frankly, this wasn't the first time jeno had randomly pulled away from you, even if it was the first time he had finally come close to clueing you into why.

it was clear that jeno didn't like you dating people - especially not juyeon. maybe even to the extent of jeno changing his own playboy ways to convince you otherwise of interacting with juyeon.

you had considered the fact that jeno might be interested in you romantically or that maybe he was jealous for your affections. but every time you thought that, jeno would come back from his faraway space with a new girl and a genuine twinkle in his eye and suddenly, everything was back to normal.

jeno simply was an overprotective person, you decided. and he would do whatever he thought was right to make sure that the people around him didn't get hurt.

it really did check out, honestly.

jeno was equally overprotective of everyone in his life because getting that close to him in the first place was a feat within itself. once you made it past that original barrier, however, he would be willing to give his life if he thought it would help even the slightest.

but...even so. this was weird.

either way, juyeon was opening the passenger door to his car and you were aimlessly climbing into it so any and all thoughts about jeno would have to wait until you made it down this slippery slope first. the last thing you needed in the morning was the honest to god gripping panic of doing the walk of shame.

juyeon doesn't seem like the type to expect a lady to put out because he bought her dinner but you can never be too careful. he seems to notice your apprehension because he asks you for your address upfront, raising three fingers in an oath.

"i promise to conduct no funny business and i will take you home safe and sound, y/n," he says solemnly, and the way his eyes sparkle in the light of the moon is enough to make your resolve melt a little bit as you laugh softly.

"alright juyeon. since you promised no funny business," you quip lightly, entering your address on the navigation screen next to the steering wheel.

juyeon squints at your address, which is fifteen minutes away, before looking at you strangely. "are you sure this is the right address? my building is right next door! i would've seen you at some point, and trust me, i'd never forget a face like yours."

"uh, yeah, this is my address. i'm usually never home though, since i'm always either with jimin or my friends jaemin and jeno," you say, watching as juyeon sets the car in reverse to pull out of the parking spot. his arm lifts, as though he were going to put it behind the headrest of your seat to do the classic flirting move to reverse. he sets it back down when he sees you staring at the screen (which had a rearview camera feed on it), realizing that it would be dumb to try and make a move in such a cliché way.

"jeno? jeno lee?" juyeon asks as you guys pull out of the parking spot. you glance at him sideways, wondering if he were going to offer the same cautionary tale that jaemin and jeno had presented to you.

"yeah. he's one of my best friends. do you know him?" you ask, already presuming the answer.

juyeon is silent, as though he's weighing options in his mind. should he be honest with you? should he preserve your feelings?

"i know of him. i don't know him all that well," juyeon says finally, and you know that juyeon has decided to take the third option. neutrality. and while you're tempted on asking him to expand, you really don't know him well enough to do that.

so you just leave the topic aside and wait for him to start a different conversation.

he does soon enough, but you know that his heart isn't in it anymore. you engage in polite smalltalk until he pulls up to your apartment complex. you thank him for driving you and are about to step out of the car when juyeon suddenly touches your wrist gently, afraid to make rude or rough gestures.

you pause, half out of the car as you turn to him with a quizzical smile.

"i had a good time getting to know you today, y/n. and i know that it was just an excuse for those two to go on a date without making it weird but i really did have a good time getting to know you. i hope that i didn't make a bad impression at the end." his eyes are shining under the dim lighting of the few rooms that are still lit up in your apartment complex.

you smile at him gently, shaking your head to assure him. "you didn't make a bad impression. i had a good time getting to know you too."

you're ready to step out of the car once more when juyeon's fingers on your wrist wrap around them, this time a little bit more firm on claiming your attention.

"i - i want to see you again. i've honestly never connected this well with someone before. would you be open to that?" juyeon asks. you pause for a moment before giving in. how could you say no to him when he was looking at you with such big, brown eyes with so much hope hidden in them?

but even as you give juyeon your number, you can practically hear the bright red warning signs in your mind - and for some reason, jeno was the one screaming every single one of those signs.

"good night y/n," juyeon says, his smile every inch as heartbreakingly charming as the moment you knew he'd be bad for you.

you offer a tight, cautious smile in return. "good night juyeon."

+++

for someone who was fiercely overprotective of his friends, jeno had a strange tendency of self-sabotaging his relationships with them. not all of them - mostly just you. he didn't know what it was about you but somehow, he always just seemed to be saying the wrong things at the wrong time.

jaemin seems to think that it's because jeno has feelings for you (which he most definitely does not) (at all) (for real).

it wasn't as though jeno didn't like when you went on dates. in fact, he liked to think that he was rather supportive. it was just that you had a tendency to pick out all of the shittiest men in seoul to date and quite frankly, jeno hated it.

and you knew that. you'd been dealing with jeno's strange tendencies for three years now. he knew that you knew that he'd call you by next week and everything would be back to normal. that's usually how it went when you went on a particularly serious date on any level. strange set of coincidences that jeno only seemed to fuck up the worst right before or after a date you were raving about.

huh.

"i'm telling you jeno, you have got to tell her the way you feel about her," jaemin says, tossing a water bottle at jeno. they're sitting on the floor in front of the tv, watching money heist halfheartedly. terrible show to be their 'let's talk about our feelings' show but jaemin and jeno never could have a conversation like that without some level of violent scheming occurring in the background.

"i don't feel any way about y/n, jaemin. honestly, it's getting really fucking annoying that you keep saying that i do," jeno says, digging his chopsticks into his chinese takeout food. jaemin rolls his eyes, sitting down next to jeno with his own box of takeout.

"i swear to god. why did you call her then? why did you call her on her date last night?" jaemin asks. jeno shrugs, setting his food down before sighing.

"i don't know, okay? i just...you know what happened with juyeon. i just can't imagine her going through something like that," jeno says softly. jaemin looks at him before clearing his throat, forcing jeno to look at him square in the eyes.

"look, i know that you and juyeon don't have the greatest past but you have got to let her find her person. who knows! maybe juyeon's changed in the last three years. you literally don't know him anymore. and besides, this isn't about juyeon and you know it. you did this when she got with daniel, and then sunghoon, and then even doyoung." jaemin shakes his head, trying to get jeno to understand his own feelings. "you're blind to it but every time she actually feels good about someone, you somehow need to take a break from her. why?"

jeno doesn't actually have the answer to that question. why, indeed, is the question of the night.

later that night, when jaemin has turned in (or rather, announced that he was going to sleep, only to sit in bed and occupy their shared netflix account for hours), jeno pulls out his phone and searches up three words.

we need space.

he searches in his messages and cringes when he sees the number of outgoing texts that have space (as in the number of times he's broken up with someone over text) in them. he filters all of the other people out except for you and it pisses him off that jaemin is right.

may 2020. the first time jeno had asked you for some space, when you'd asked daniel to be your boyfriend.

august 2021. the second time you guys had taken some space, when you'd gone on your first date with sunghoon.

september 2022. the third time that you had had to take a break from each other. when jeno had introduced you to doyoung with his own hands.

realistically, jeno knew that jaemin was right. and with the evidence staring at him so incriminatingly, there was no way to refute the accusations.

but as much as jeno had dated around, he still didn't know what or who he was looking for. sure he was attracted to you as a person and your, uh, physicality - but that didn't mean that you were the one for him. and if jeno were to pursue something with you that made him realize that you truly weren't what he was looking for after all, not only would he be losing you as a partner but he'd be losing you as a best friend too.

so he continues in the toxic cycle of taking a break from you every time he feels as though his feelings are getting too high in his chest for him to contain them and never giving you or jaemin an explanation of why.

jeno knew it was wrong. he knew that his life would be so much easier if he just came clean and you fell one way or another on the scale of 'already dated' and 'haven't dated yet' like most of the girls on campus. but it was different with you.

it'd always been different with you.

so jeno rolls over, and goes to bed, dreaming of you and juyeon holding hands on your first date alone. he's never had such a restless night of sleep in his life.

+++

you know that you're being a bad friend to jimin when she's pouting at you swirling your straw in your macchiato instead of listening to her rambles.

"come on, y/n. it's been three days. you know that jeno gets like this - it's not like this is new right?" jimin says, covering your hand with both of hers, blinking at you curiously.

you smile and shake your head. "yeah. i'm sorry. this is supposed to be about you and i'm just getting in my head about this shit."

jimin tuts, eyebrows furrowing in mock anger. "that's not what i mean and you know it. i'll talk about jaehyun whether you're listening or not and you and i both know that. i just - i guess i'm not sure why you're always so hung up over jeno doing this when you know that he's gonna do it."

"you're right. it's not new. and i'm sorry that it keeps coming up when i really hate that he does this but i just wish he would talk to me instead of shutting me out every time that something like this happens. it's just him and jaemin cooped up and talking to each other for a week before they go back to being normal. and i get it. they're guys. they need a break and they need to do guy things and take a break from girls or whatever the fuck straight boys do. but this is getting out of hand and ridiculous."

but you catch yourself, shaking your head once more as you focus on jimin. "thank you for letting me get that out of my system. now tell me what you were saying about jaehyun. i feel like i've lost my best friend to some random guy for the past three days!"

jimin eyes you for a moment longer (and you know that she's not going to let this go) but decides to take mercy on you.

"well, jaehyun and i have been doing really well, honestly! we've seen each other every single day for the last three days - which isn't that hard considering that we've been having sex all day in every square inch of his apartment." jimin sees the scandalized look on your face before laughing. "don't worry, he lives alone and we've actually been going on non-sexual dates too. we connect in more ways than one if you get what i mean."

you slap jimin's arm incredulously, looking around the cute little café that you were sitting in to make sure that no one was listening. no one was, of course, given that it was 11:30 am on a monday but that was besides the point.

"oh my god. so are you guys going to make it official or what?" you ask, leaning forward on your steepled fingers. jimin shrugs, leaning back in her chair languidly.

"i don't know. i mean, i really like our chemistry and i like where this is going but i'm not going to label it. i'm definitely not going to be the one to pop the 'what are we' question - that's gotta be him," jimin says. "even though i am so incredibly head over heels for him. so i would like to be his girlfriend. for realsies."

she adds on the last part almost as an afterthought when she sees your unbelieving face.

"i mean it! i really want to be more than just a situationship but i really can't be the one to initiate that. i'm tired of always having to express interest in others. i attract; i don't chase," jimin says with a catty smile and you can't help but grin at that.

maybe jeno was really onto something. girl time was amazing. maybe that's why jeno needed some space from you.

"i agree. and you know what, i don't want to knock it but that honestly doesn't seem all that strange, considering that your location has consistently been showing that you're at jaehyun's place for the past 72 hours," you say, laughing at her mischievously when she returns the favor with a slap to your arm.

"i don't know. yeah. anyway. speaking of jaehyun, or not really him, but his friend - not the point! jaehyun mentioned that you gave juyeon your number? and that you've been kinda talking?" jimin says, and now it's your turn to blush.

"no - i mean, yes. i did give him my number but it's honestly not like that. he seems great and all but jeno and jaemin seemed really spooked when i mentioned him. i trust them when it comes to boys. especially with my shitty taste in them," you say thoughtfully and jimin can't help but agree with that.

she checks her phone and groans, starting to shuffle her things together as she prepares to leave. "this has been so good but i have to get to class and you know how much of a pain in the ass professor joo is."

you also start to gather your belongings, slurping down the leftovers of your macchiato. "yeah. i think that my early lunch break is coming to an end anyway. i've got a meeting at 6 pm but we're still on for dinner and drinks this friday, right?"

jimin nods distractedly as she checks her phone to see if jaehyun had texted her. he hadn't. in the past four hours. she clicks her phone shut and looks at you with a determined look in her eyes.

"yes. for sure. you and i have a date this friday and i don't want you to cancel, you hear me? and do not let those investors keep my baby from me like they did last time," jimin says, wagging her pointer finger at you threateningly. you roll your eyes, pressing a kiss to her cheek as the two of you make your way out of the café.

"i hear you. no more investors past 7 pm on a friday," you say, raising your hands in surrender when jimin squints her eyes at you. she side hugs you before checking the time once more (therefore realizing that professor joo wasn't above calling her out in the middle of class) and scurrying off to snu, a block down from the café you were previously in.

you sigh, shaking your head fondly as you turn in the opposite direction to head to work.

+++

turns out, friday seems to be a very popular night. not only do you have back to back meetings from 4 pm to 7 pm, but juyeon and jimin have texted you multiple times to confirm or (try) to make plans for friday night.

and honestly you didn't really want to go out. in between the radio silence between you, jeno, jaemin (who only really communicated in really stupid tiktoks back and forth), juyeon's suave maneuvering you into agreeing to a raincheck to saturday for the date, and jimin lamenting the fact that jaehyun hadn't brought up the 'what are we' conversation, there was so much going on.

all you needed were your friends, chinese takeout, and a little bit of jane the virgin. or other soapy dramas to take your mind off of everything.

but you had promised jimin and you'd be damned if you were going to bail on your friend when she was already not feeling well.

and besides, you refused to be a corporate slave who canceled on her friends because she was married to her job. that's not why you had chosen this job. and that's definitely why you had decided to reject pre-med as a sophomore in college.

so you find yourself taking shots with jimin in her kitchen and...jaehyun and juyeon.

when you had walked into jimin's apartment with nachos and shooters of pink whitney to pregame, you really weren't expecting to be face to face with juyeon - or jaehyun, honestly, given that jimin had been so heartbroken over the fact that jaehyun hadn't initiated the conversation yet.

not to mention the fact that she had made sure that the two of you were going out in the first place because of the whole jaehyun fiasco. so when you come face to face with the last person on the planet who should be in jimin's apartment, you're more than a little confused.

"oh, hey y/n. long time no see," jaehyun says with an easy smile, dimples showing that he had no clue that you knew that your best friend was waiting on a kind of serious conversation with him. you manage a tight smile before pulling shooters out of your purse, putting all four of them down on the counter in front of you.

"yeah. i thought it'd be a little longer though. jimin, i thought we were having a girls night?" you ask, eyes flashing at her when you turn out of view from jaehyun and juyeon. jimin just shrugs helplessly as juyeon steps in.

"don't blame her. i was the one who asked if we could tag along for the night. i promise we won't cause any trouble," juyeon says, and you turn to look at him, only to see him looking straight at jaehyun. his eyes dart between jaehyun and jimin before finally landing on you and you take the hint.

"oh. no worries. yeah, no worries at all, actually. hey, you know what i actually wanted to confirm something about tomorrow's plans with you if i could steal you for a couple seconds?" you say, leaving no room for denial as you wrap your arm in his and walk the both of you to the balcony, closing the door behind you.

"thank you for understanding - jaehyun wants to talk to jimin today about making things official but he's been so nervous about it that he's been putting it off. i figured that it would be better for me to come with him to make sure he doesn't chicken out. and catch you guys before you leave so that he doesn't sit and ferment in his feelings any longer," juyeon explains slowly, sure to refrain from turning around to see how things were going inside.

you lean over the metal bars of the balcony, the cold sinking into your skin in a refreshing way, the april air finally warming up enough to go out without needing a literal winter jacket.

"ahh. good idea. don't tell her i told you this but she was worried that he really wasn't into her," you say. juyeon snorts, a sound that's almost unbecoming from a man so handsome.

"isn't into her? he's head over heels for her. i don't think it's taken him more than thirty minutes to get into a relationship with someone if he wanted to. the fact that he took over a week to figure out his feelings means that he's serious. more serious than i've ever seen him." juyeon seems thoughtful as he trails off, letting his words sit on his tongue in a way that almost feels like he can truly feel the weight of the words.

"hm. or is just unsure of how he feels," you say, and juyeon looks at you strangely, turning so that he was leaning on the railing, his gaze fixated on you.

"are you really that cynical about men?" he asks chidingly, and you shrug.

"yeah. i mean. i don't know. i'm best friends with two of them so i know first hand how fucked up men can be. trust me, i pray to god every day for more patience before i fuck jeno or jaemin up for good," you say, and you can feel juyeon's presence grow cold at the mention of your best friends.

when you look at him though, he has nothing but warmth in his eyes and he smiles at you. "i will admit that there are a lot of messed up things that guys have done but it's not fair to categorize all men due to the faults of a few."

"uh-huh. and when men turn into heartbreakers after getting fucked over by one girl...it's okay?" you say, raising an eyebrow and you can feel juyeon trying to physically retract his statement.

"no. no. it's definitely not okay to hurt other people because you've been hurt. but give us some credit, okay? some of us are trying our best," juyeon says, and you watch as his eyes fall to your lips before dragging them upwards again.

"some of us are just trying to find our other half."

you're silent for a moment, and the moment is all you need to push off of the railings and turn to juyeon with a sad smile. "look juyeon, you're a great guy and i hate to nip things in the bud - especially with someone i get along so well with. but my friends are the most important people in my life. so i don't know what happened between you, jeno, or jaemin but i know that if it really came down to it, they take precedence."

juyeon nods, like he'd been expecting you to say as much. how, you don't understand, given that your reasoning had come out of pretty much left field. and for no real reason too. but men are predictable, easy to read, and all it takes is one moment to understand their intentions.

"yeah. i know. i figured you'd pick them. not that i'm trying to guilt you for that or that i expect you to pick me or anything but i still tried my best, you know," juyeon says casually, giving you a thinly suppressed heartbroken smile. you melt slightly as you turn to him, giving him a half shrug.

"i'm sorry. i'm sure your other half would be so lucky to have you," you say gently. you look at your phone, where jimin has texted you saying that she's going to have to bail on girls night as her and jaehyun had decided to stay in for the night. juyeon seemingly gets a similar text because when you look back inside to the apartment, jaehyun is holding hands with jimin, who uses her free hand to wave sheepishly at you as they recede backwards where the bedroom was.

"i guess we've overstayed our welcome," juyeon says with a laugh, opening the balcony door as the two of you make your way back inside to grab any personal belongings and leave before you witnessed something that would end up scarring you forever.

you eye the shooters and then exchange a look with juyeon.

“i know we’re not - whatever but honestly, i think that you’re good company and this kind of night doesn’t deserve go wasted,” you say, grabbing the shooters and juyeon’s hand and dragging him out of jimin’s apartment when you hear the very telltale sign of a bedroom door shutting down the hall.

juyeon takes one look at the shooters in your hand and the glint in your eyes before taking the two of the little bottles you offer to him.

“i can’t believe i’m doing this right now,” juyeon mutters under his breath, but his smile is lighthearted.

“what, grown men can’t drink pink whitney?” you ask, throwing a shooter back and immediately regretting the fact that you don’t have chasers with you. you may not be an amateur on the night scene but alcohol still always needed a chaser.

“no,” juyeon says, knocking back both of them a little too smoothly. “i meant taking shots with the girl who rejected me in front of her best friend’s apartment where her best friend and my best friend are fucking.”

you look at him, searching for any sense of genuine discontentedness but the way that juyeon’s eyes curve into teasing crescents convince you otherwise.

it would be so easy to choose him. so incredibly easy. but jeno’s face flashes through your mind and you find yourself taking a step back, shaking your head when juyeon looks at you questioningly.

“to the club!”

+++

there are two things that you learn about juyeon by the time you’re another two shots deep: a) he is an absolute gentleman - not just to you, but to the other people around the two of you as well. b) he is a very flirtatious drunk.

in fact, he manages the very big, very linebacker looking bouncer to let him into the club even though his name wasn’t on the list with nothing but a charming smile and an absolute inability to keep from flirting with everything and anything in sight.

which is funny to watch, especially from the other side of the bouncer, because every time juyeon says something particularly risqué, you can see the bouncer’s ears go bright red before he finally relents and lets juyeon in.

but it’s somehow less funny when he’s using those lines on you. it somehow makes your head dizzy and it makes you forget why you turned him down in the first place. you’re half-convinced that this had been juyeon’s plan all along. to turn on the charm to the max so that when you’re under the lights (that honestly might invoke epilepsy; why the fuck were they flying around the place like that), you forget all about jeno.

it’s a bad decision, you repeat to yourself as you watch juyeon make his way through the crowd to where you’re standing in an isolated, somewhat calmer corner. jeno and jaemin warned you against him for a reason. protect your peace, y/n.

and even while you repeat that to yourself over and over again, when juyeon’s hand holds yours precariously as he pulls you into the growing mess of bodies, you find it harder and harder to convince yourself that that was the truth. god, he looks good.

his hair has fallen messily across his forehead, contrasting the way it had been carefully gelled back before. he’s rolled up the sleeves of his button up to reveal his forearms, and you feel no matter than a man as your eyes trail the depths that planes of his chest promise from where they peek out of his half unbuttoned shirt.

you’re vaguely aware that there are various people waiting for you to either make a move or to push him away once and for all. it felt like every single person in the club was fixated upon the two of you - do you want him or not? because you’re holding up the fucking line. for you and your friend.

and so you take the plunge.

you move his hand from where it was innocently resting on your wrist and place it on the small of your back, smiling when juyeon takes the hint and draws you closer to him so that your chest is pressed against his.

“hey beautiful,” juyeon breathes as he looks down at you, almost in disbelief. “what are you doing here?”

you know, even tipsy, that he’s looking for a real answer. and you don’t want to play him - you don’t want to add to the list of heartbreak.

“i’m looking for someone to keep me company tonight,” you say and look up at him through your lashes, a coy smile playing on your lips when juyeon’s breath falters as you do so. “just for the night though. you know anyone who might interested?”

juyeon pulls you impossibly closer and you register the copious amounts of men (for you) and women (for him) that are turning away from the two of you, more than a little disappointed.

“yeah, i might know someone.” 

and with that, he spins you so that your back is pressed against his front, his arms caging you in protectively when he sees that a man is looking at you like he genuinely wants to eat you up.

you can feel your self-control slipping further and further away from you as the two of you just let the music fill you up, forgetting about your inhibitions as long as you had this music and him.

it’s too perfect though, and you realize as much when you make eye contact with jeno fucking lee across the club. right before he dips his head to whisper in some girl’s ear.

jaemin is right next to him, his arm laying casually on another girl and you can see the sheer panic in his eyes when he sees you, and then the confusion when he realizes just who you’re pressed up against. you watch as he leans over to whisper (yell; you’re sure that no one can whisper in an establishment threatening to break the sound barrier) something in jeno’s ear but he’s firmly shut down when jeno waves him off.

you scoff at that, turning around the pair of you around so that juyeon’s back was to the two idiots that you call your friends, now facing the dj booth.

the song switches to a much more upbeat song that you don’t recognize and you take it as your cue to push any and all thoughts of your friends out of your mind. you choose to give no apologies for the way that you spend your time - especially if your friends chose to give you no explanation for their behavior.

if they didn’t need to explain themselves, neither do you.

and it works for a while. for a while, all you can think of is the warmth that fills your body. from the alcohol, the heat of juyeon’s body pressed against yours, or even the excitement of the atmosphere; all if it is just so intoxicating.

you forget all about the fact act jeno and jaemin are just a few feet away, actively avoiding you (and doing a poor job of doing so) until juyeon spins you around, looking deep into your eyes in a way that makes you feel, heat rising to your cheeks as you watch his lips move.

“i know that you don’t want - honestly, whatever it is that you don’t want - but jeno and jaemin are here and you haven’t pushed me off of you. so i’m going to shoot my shot for one last time, y/n. and if you reject me this time, i think that we should go our separate ways,” juyeon says, his voice soft and gentle and yet somehow, you can hear every word he says with perfect clarity. 

you honestly don’t know what to say. juyeon had caught you in a bad moment with jeno and jaemin. more specifically, jeno. you didn’t want that to cloud your judgement though. you had known juyeon for a total of maybe a week. you had known jeno and jaemin for years and for those years, their opinions on the men in your life had very rarely been wrong. 

and yet, the boy that they had warned you against was pressed up against you and those two were on the other side of the club, arms wrapped around girls you knew they would forget about by the morning.

you sigh, stepping back from juyeon, the sheer ridiculousness of the situation making you sober up more than you want to. you hear the beat drop to ‘kiss me better’ by rihanna in the background building up and it seems like everything in the universe is just pushing you to give juyeon a chance.

but juyeon understand what you mean when you step away from him and he gives you one last, longing look before smiling, gently tugging you forward so that the two of you can make your way to a less crowded area.

“you wanna go home?” juyeon asks. you know that he’s asking for his own sake, almost as though he was asking for permission to get with someone else to nurse him through his rejection if you wouldn’t. but he’s a gentleman and he wouldn’t leave you for the wolves and so he asks you if you want to go home instead.

“yeah. i want to go home.”

juyeon nods, already pulling out his phone. “let me call you an uber. and y/n? i’m not upset. i’m just glad that i know i did everything i could. jeno’s a lucky guy for you to care this much about what he says and thinks.”

you want to disagree with him. he’s my friend. of course his opinions matter. sorry. it’s not personal. i actually liked spending time with you.

but even as these thoughts battle in your mind, you find yourself unable to say any of the words out loud. 

jimin was your friend but that stopped you very rarely from doing whatever you wanted to do in the end. jaemin would often yell at you for your terrible affinity for working yourself to the bone and you brushed his concern to the side every time. but it was different with jeno. it had always been different with jeno.

you’re too drunk to think about the implications of any of that though so you just smile once again, leaning up to press a chaste kiss to juyeon’s cheek.

“you’re so good, juyeon. regardless of what anyone says.”

and with that, you step into the uber that has reached the club in record time and head home.

+++

you’re not surprised by the text you get from jimin in the morning. or the one from jaemin. in fact, there are only two texts that surprise you when you manage to finally look at your phone with clear enough eyes.

jiminy cricket: OMG i’m so sorry abt last night love!! heard you went out w juyeon tho ;) we need to debrief fr

jaejaeminna: sorry i didn’t get a chance to say hi before you left

juyeon lee: did you get home safe?

ur mom (jeno): can we talk?

you respond to jimin with a quick for sure, girlie! before stepping into the shower, electing to ignore the rest of the messages in your phone. your roommate, jessica, a girl that you barely interacted with, given that she was usually at her boyfriend’s place or you were at jeno’s or jimin’s had kindly left extra pancakes that she had clearly made before she dashed out of the house.

you munch on them slowly, sending her a message of profound gratitude as you try to digest the events of last night (as well as the delicious pancakes), making sure to tousle your hair every so often to get it to dry faster.

first, jimin and jaehyun had clearly made things somewhat official (or at least were on the same page) which meant that you probably wouldn’t have to try and help jimin decipher what that entire situation was. a win, really. second, you and juyeon had gone clubbing together and had shared more than one or two intimate moments. third, you shot him down once and for all. fourth, he still called you an uber and made sure you made it home safe. fifth, you saw jeno and jaemin at the club and neither of them said anything to you.

this was officially the longest that you had gone without speaking to jeno - or even jaemin. 

even the stupid tiktok’s had faded away to nothingness by the end of last week from jaemin, which meant that something was so incredibly wrong, it wasn’t even funny.

also, jeno never said can we talk. 

it was usually a much more casual wanna get chinese? or even a bring your stupid ass over here cause jaemin misses you. that was more his speed in his form of apology or trying to make it clear to you that the two of you were back to normal now. he’d never acknowledge the two or three days of radio silence, electing to just pretend that they never happened in the first place.

so going from not talking at all to suddenly such a loaded question was new and kind of surreal for you. not to mention that jaemin’s last text to you was also indicative that something was seriously off between the three of you. the text before that had been a tiktok of a man sitting in a car yelling, “it’s the way you act!” and now it was that he didn’t say hi at the club.

you sigh, debating all of your options carefully. 

you were obviously going to have to talk to jeno about the situation at some point. and honestly, you were going to have to have a serious conversation about the fact that he would do this every so often because it’s getting way too much for you to handle. it wasn’t as though you were doing something wrong - jaemin would call you out on your behavior, even if jeno didn’t. 

you were left to decipher what exactly it was that had jeno in such a pissy mood and you would have to try and figure out what it is on your own because he’s a grown man that doesn’t know what communication meant. for someone who always warned you against the toxicity of men, he was doing a pretty great job of showing you exactly why to avoid them. 

pushing all thoughts of jeno and everything else to the side, you decide to take the day as a self-care day for yourself. lord knows that with everything you had going on, self-care was the one thing you desperately needed. of many things, really, but taking a walk and soul food was going to have to do.

you’re just putting on a face mask (one of the korean ones that you had had to sell your left foot to pay the shipping for) when your doorbell rings and you hate the way that you already know who’s at the door even before you step to the entryway, where the monitor is to see who is buzzing for you.

you’re greeted by jeno’s face, alone, looking worse for the wear as he ruffles his hair, shifting from foot to foot as he waits for you to either let him in or at least press the intercom to speak with him. you’re trying to make a decision and you know that decision, as trivial as it seems, would be what would set up your friendship with him in the future.

were you really going to give him another chance? even as he continued to mess up this hard?

you don’t say anything in the intercom but the faint buzzing noise that echoes in the monitor is response enough as jeno opens the door that has opened once you pressed the button, effectively solidifying your decision.

he was jeno. your jeno. you couldn’t just not listen to what he had to say.

the time that jeno takes to make it to the fourth floor where your apartment was seemed to have stretched on for eternity. you weren’t sure the last time that jeno had been in here (last weekend) but suddenly everything in the apartment was just too messy.

you panic and rush to clean everything in sight before you pause awkwardly. this is just jeno. the same boy who had come over and thrown up on your birthday after drinking too much at your party. the same boy who would be sitting in his room screaming into his headset as he played video games, having no regard for you and jaemin spending quality quiet time together. 

and he was also the boy who asked for space when you needed him the most.

so you put down your weapon of choice (a swiffer mop) and wait for the eventual knock at the door that finally comes about a half second later. you take a deep breath before opening the door, coming face to face with your ‘best friend’ of the past three years. 

the little monitor had done the damage little justice. the eyeballs under jeno’s eyes were deep and purple, with his cheekbones protruding a little more than you remember them to, and his gaze deep and sorrowful. 

but somehow, you could look past all of that because your gaze is caught by something else - the purple and very telling hickey on his neck. he’s clearly made an attempt to cover it up with what you assume is whatever foundation you might have left at their place on the nights that you’re too lazy to come home before work. the attempt isn’t all that successful, given that your foundation is about three hundred shades too dark for his skin (which is as pale as a ghost around this time of year) but you appreciate the effort.

not really.

jeno looks uncharacteristically shy as he stands in the living room, having switched out his shoes for his slippers that he bought specifically for your apartment once him and jaemin started coming over more often. they usually fought over ‘jeno’s’ slippers (they had peaches on them while ‘jaemin’s’ had ducks) but jaemin usually conceded to jeno.

usually, he’d be sprawled out on the sofa with little more than a half-hearted ‘hey’ and bags of chinese takeout on the kitchen counter but you see none of that now. now, he looked like a lost puppy, shuffling awkwardly to stand next to the couch.

it would almost be funny if it weren’t for the fact that the two of you haven’t spoken in a week. or the hickey.

“has it ever occurred to you that we might act like more than friends?” 

the question is sudden, breaking your nostalgia and bringing your train of thought to a screeching halt.

“excuse me?” your voice is calmer than you thought it would be in your head as you spin on your heel to look at jeno in the eye. he licks his lips, a nervous habit that he’d picked up from you, but his eyes don’t shift from yours, decidedly steady. he’s thought this for a while, you realize belatedly. it was just a question of how long and what that really meant.

“i mean you leave your foundation at my place and i buy slippers for yours. i can’t stand olives but when we get pizza, i get olives anyway so that you can pick them off of my slices and eat them. you don’t know your left from right but you still drive forty-five minutes down and back to the bakery to get iced lemon poundcake every time i’m upset.

“i can’t stand it when you meet a decent guy for once in your life and i go off the radar but we - i can’t spend more than a few days away from you. so, i’m always showing up at your apartment with chinese food when the last thing i want to do is hear about you raving about your new date who has a job at amazon and wears real rolex watches while i’m still eating instant ramen and trying to get a grip on life.

“the worst part is that i think i’ve always known. even last night, i was falling into my old pattern of using people to get over you, y/n. in between trying to figure out why i couldn’t click with anyone else besides you and trying to figure out why i feel so empty every time i feel like you’re slipping away from me, i think i figured it out. sure, i hate juyeon because of who he is and what he’s done in the past but i hate him even more because he used to be just like me. and now he’s changed so much and become such a good person. the fact that he’s the bigger, better, older, stronger version of me with his life together freaks me out so much because what if you replace me with him? and then i lose the one person i think i’ve ever properly fallen for and one of my best friends all in one go? and it’s all so selfish but when i have ever tried to hide myself from you, y/n?”

your mind is spinning. jeno is heaving by the end of his rambling. you can’t seem to find your grip on reality. everything is just wrong. it’s all wrong. everything is wrong. what?

jeno lee. playboy extraordinaire. mr. couldn’t be tied down. the boy who came home with a new broken heart in his jar of hearts that he hid deep inside his mind so he wouldn’t have to think of the unintentional consequences of having an unavailable pool of love.

and here he was, standing next to the couch in the living room, looking at you with so much anger, confusion, and sheer love in his eyes that you’re almost upset with yourself that you hadn’t seen it sooner. had he always looked at you like that?

you don’t know what to say though. you can’t even tell if he’s still talking, by the way that the blood is rushing in your head like an unforgiving tsunami has broken loose. you can’t hear anything, much too preoccupied with your own thoughts to even think of listening to his. 

you vaguely register the fact that you and jeno are somehow sitting on opposite ends of the couch, a good entire seat away from each other. that was good, at least. you’re sure that your legs would’ve given out on you at some point if you had remained standing.

“why do you hate juyeon so much?”

the question doesn’t seem to faze him as much as you wished it would. what was it with men and not being stunned by the most random questions or thoughts you can come up with? it somewhat frustrated you that you couldn’t stun them with the same shock factor that they seemed to utilize on you.

jeno sighs, raking a hand through his messy hair as he struggles to come up with the right words to say. or honestly, any non-stupid words.

“juyeon was actually one of the reasons why i came to snu in the first place. he was kind of like my mentor - a guy that i looked up to a lot in high school. he was one of my older friend’s roommate so when i came to check out snu, he toured me around and showed me his entire lifestyle. i was a senior in high school back then and he was just a sophomore but i swear, i’d never clicked with someone that fast before.

“he’s always been super smart and incredibly charming. and back when i met him, as a stupid senior in high school, i thought that everything that he had was what i wanted. he had a new girl at his apartment any time he wanted and always seemed like he had the entire college wrapped around his finger.” jeno gets up, looking frustrated as he starts pacing back and forth between the walls of the living room of the apartment.

“long story short, i caught him making out with my girlfriend at the time over the summer between high school and college. and it all came crashing down. in hindsight, maybe i shouldn’t have hated him nearly as much as i did but the fact that i couldn’t see that he had no qualms of getting with anyone who wanted to get with him hurt me. everything i had idolized came crashing down when i saw the two of them.” 

jeno stops pacing, looking down at his hands, rough and raw from the biting winds outside. “it just - it just hurt y/n. and it made it so incredibly easy to just not believe in love anymore. and then i met you and you came into college looking for the one and it was just so hard not to believe in love. when you said you were going out with juyeon, it took me back to the darkest parts of my past mentally. ridiculous? weak? yeah. i know. but i couldn’t help it.”

“it’s not weak or ridiculous, jeno,” you say gently, finding your voice once more. “i’m just hurt that you didn’t tell me before. i mean, i thought i was your best friend!”

jeno laughs drily, a grating sound that tugs at your heart strings. “but he’s gone clean, y/n. he’s everything that i couldn’t be and so much more. he’s near perfect. i couldn’t stop you from finding ‘the one’ that you’ve been dreaming about since i’ve known you. even if that meant that i finally had to let the past go. even if it meant that i had to give up on being able to love you.”

you can’t help the tears that spring to your eyes. “jeno…”

jeno shakes his head, looking at you with watery eyes, dragging his red hands across them roughly. “stop. i don’t need pity. i just…i just wanted clarity. have you always thought of me as a friend? was i making up everything in my head? did - did i imagine that we could’ve had something this whole time?”

you’re at a loss for words. jeno wasn’t wrong. you’d gone to the ends of the earth to make jeno happy. any time he was upset, you’d drop everything to go get that goddamn lemon cake. you couldn’t go more than a week without him. even if the entire world went to shit, you’d always thought that you and jeno would go down together, fighting side by side. if it really came down to choosing between your friends, some part of you knew that you’d always choose jeno before jaemin or jimin.

and some part of you wonders if you’d always had that much affection for him.

“i don’t know,” you say honestly. jeno’s face falls, and an awkward silence falls between the two of you, with his feet pointed to the door and muscles tensed to move. you know that if you don’t come up with the words to say something that’ll convince him to stay, you’ll have given him no reason to. you know he’s going to leave.

no matter what, you cannot lose jeno, you realize. he’s the one part of your life that cannot leave. he’s the person that buys slippers for your house. he’s the boy who can’t stand when he has to compete for your attention. he’s the man who’s shoulder you cry on when your heart suffers even the smallest scratch. 

he’s your jeno.

“i don’t know,” you begin, rushing to continue when you see jeno’s crestfallen expression. “but it’s all so sudden, jeno. you’ve been thinking about your feelings for a long while. i’ve honestly never considered the possibility of - of us being more than friends. of being together. maybe i’ve had feelings for you this whole time without knowing. maybe my ‘one’ has been you this whole time. maybe we’re better off as friends! i don’t know anything.”

jeno’s breath catches as he realizes what the hidden implication in your words is.

“but i’m willing to find out if you are.”

+++

after the enlightening conversation that you’d had with jeno that morning, you’d made plans with him to go on a proper date on wednesday, a day that you had nothing but boring meetings and jeno only had two classes. the two of you had decided to first go on the date and then try to figure out how you felt about each other from there. 

you’d also taken it upon yourself to curve juyeon once and for all. he was a great guy and you were sure that he’d be a great person to whoever he’s meant to be with but after reminding him that you were distinctly uninterested (and apologizing if you’d insinuated that you wanted to see him as an anything after that night), you’d deleted his number and all thoughts of him from your mind.

jaemin had been equally easy to make up with. you understood - after all, jaemin was jeno’s friend first and foremost. even if he didn’t necessarily agree with jeno and his tendencies, being his friend first meant that he had to prioritize jeno and his feelings. he was relieved to hear that jeno had finally grown the balls (verbatim) to confess the painstaking secret that he had been holding onto for the past three years.

“three years? he’s liked me since he met me? and you never said anything, jaemin?” you say incredulously, thanking the barista with a quick smile before grabbing your coffee, rushing to beat the morning sidewalk traffic as you walk to office.

jaemin’s face on your screen is mostly covered by his covers - a sign that he’s either skipping a class (ancient world history) or avoiding some work that he has to do. it was both, but he would concede neither to you.

“it wasn’t my place to say anything,” jaemin says finally, and you finally look at him properly through the little facetime box, watching him drag his hand over his face. he looks as though he’s aged about ten years in the time that you haven’t seen him - which was only a few days ago, technically. 

“and besides, you saw us at the club. did it look like jeno was exercising any type of common sense? clearly not. he wasn’t ready to listen to the truth, no matter who was delivering it. so there was no point in trying to make him to his senses,” jaemin continues, wrapping his blanket around himself a little tighter. “it didn’t help that his coping mechanism thus far has been to just run away from his issues, forget they exist, and then use a distraction to pretend that he was never affected by it in the first place.”

you sigh. this much was obvious to you as well. the day that jeno had come over, that had been one of the first things that you had confronted him about. he had presented a similar explanation then as jaemin was now but even if he didn’t say anything, you knew that was the truth.

“that reminds me - jimin texted me this morning asking if you were okay. have you talked to her since friday night?” jaemin asks and you groan. in all of this mess, you had completely neglected to debrief jimin and fill her in on everything that was happening.

“oh shit, i completely forgot to call her,” you say, swiping into the company building, smiling as you pass a familiar face. “i’ll talk to her tonight.”

“yeah. she seemed kinda worried. apparently juyeon told jaehyun that you two had cut it off for good and told him about you seeing jeno and i at the club. i guess jaehyun went and told jimin,” he says sullenly. you roll your eyes at his dramatics.

“just because you’re the only one getting no action doesn’t mean that you have to be jealous of jimin,” you say.

“no - what? no! it’s not that. i’m single by choice, thank you very much. i could have a hundred girls lining up for me if i wanted,” he says, clearly miffed. you stifle a laugh; it was so easy to rile men up. “but it’s like a violation of bro code. jaehyun knows that jeno doesn’t fuck with juyeon and he also knows that jimin is one of your best friends. like what did he think? that jimin wouldn’t tell jeno and i or that she wouldn’t talk to you about it?”

you blink, completely lost. “i swear to god, i think guys have more complex interpersonal links than girls do. i followed like maybe 20% of what you said.”

jaemin sticks his tongue out at you childishly. “whatever. don’t you have a job to do?”

“don’t you have a class that you’re paying thousands of dollars to take to go to?”

“touché.”

with that, jaemin ends the call but even as you finally sit down in your little glass office, you know that he’s absolutely not going to go to that class. it didn’t help that you’d taken the class last semester and had handed him your notes. at this point, he basically only went to take the tests - after studying your notes for maybe 10 minutes right before.

you’re about to call jaemin again to make sure that he actually gets up to go to class when there’s a knock on the glass of your office.

“y/n? someone’s ordered breakfast for you,” haerin, an underpaid and quite frankly undervalued intern at your office, says. she’s holding a little pastry box and a straw without any coffee. “the person who dropped it off said that he figured you’d already have coffee but you probably forgot the straw.”

you don’t even need to hear the name of your mystery courier boy because you already know who it is.

jeno.

+++

“he brought you breakfast? to your office?” jimin asks incredulously. you had called her soon after haerin had handed you the breakfast (with your favorite pastry inside the box). you seriously needed to hear a girl’s perspective on all of this, even if it was coming from the most romantic person you knew.

“yeah. i mean he’s done it before - like during my first couple of weeks of working, remember how stressed i was? he bought me lunch and dropped it off at the office, back when i was just an intern running around and didn’t have time to go and get it myself.” you blink, looking at jimin worriedly. “that’s not weird, is it?”

jimin ponders for a moment before shaking her head. “i mean you guys were best friends. i’d do it for you. but i don’t know. i feel like guys and girls who are just friends are more like siblings and i feel like girls who are really close are basically like a married couple.”

“why do you and jaemin always say weird shit that confuses me?”

“no - it’s like…like with a truly platonic set of girl and guy friends, they’re always doing sibling-like things. for example, i think i’ve seen you nearly give jaemin a black eye for taking a bite out of your pizza. but if i wanted a bite of your pizza, you’d probably honestly give me the whole slice. i don’t know, but it’s a dynamic that i’ve seen with all of my female friends compared to my guy friends. but you and jeno have never been like that.”

“i have most definitely tried to fight jeno over pizza. i’m sure i’ve fought him over much less, to be honest,” you say and jimin shrugs.

“i’m not here to make you feel one way or another about him. your feelings are yours to figure out. but as an outsider looking in, even if you were to fight him about something stupid like that, it was because that’s how you guys talked to each other. it’s not like you’re actually going to rip that pizza away from him. in the end, if he really wanted it, you’d concede to him. you don’t really do that for siblings. it’s charged in a different way.

“i’d give up my life for my older sister. but if she even looks at me the wrong way, i’m ready to pull out her hair. or my younger brother? he genuinely gets pleasure out of making me have to redo my entire skincare routine because he switched around all of the labels. would he send me breakfast to my office just because? fuck no. would he give me his kidney in a heartbeat? hell yeah.”

jimin looks down before looking up at you once more. “and even if none of that was true, you don’t look at jeno like you look at jaemin.”

this startles you out of your own attempts of running parallels between what jimin was describing and how you and jaemin were or how you and jeno were.

“what do you mean? how do i look at jeno?” you say, your voice coming out shockingly soft and confused.

“you know how you were kicking yourself about not realizing how jeno looks at you? yeah. that’s how i feel looking at you looking at jeno. i didn’t want to say anything to you about it. honestly, mostly because i hated seeing you get down every time he would just disappear from your life. i don’t know that as your friend, i should be encouraging you at all. but he makes you more happy than i’ve seen anyone else make you,” jimin says. “and that’s reason enough for me to be happy for you. to tell you what you don’t realize yourself. even when you dated other people, you always looked at them differently than you looked at jeno.”

“how do i look at jeno, jimin.” it’s not a question and both you and jimin know that you know the answer to what you’re truly asking.

“you look at him like you’re finally ready to love. like you’re realizing again that maybe jeno was the one you’d been waiting for every time.”

+++

your first date with jeno had been a full course of a dumpster fire with a side of natural disaster.

after your (jimin induced) realization that maybe you’d actually had feelings for jeno longer you’d thought, you find yourself going through the day as if you were on autopilot. jeno sends you breakfast on tuesday and wednesday morning as well, although he doesn’t mention a word of it when the two of you are texting.

at least nothing had changed there, thus far. he still sent you those stupid reaction memes that he found on pinterest and never failed to make fun of your typos in the group chat with you, jaemin, jeno, and now jimin. 

you hadn’t seen him since friday night but by the time wednesday rolls around, you wish that you had a little bit more time. you’re still reeling from your newfound enlightenment and some childish, hidden romantic side of you wants to bask in the uncertainty and the almost juvenile way that your heart beats a little faster whenever you think of the date tonight.

the two of you had decided that you were going to try and approach it as a truly romantic date, rather than the quick food runs that you were used to with him. which meant you were going to have to clean up and put on a dress - a sight that you’re sure jeno was truly not used to seeing after so long of you lounging around his apartment in sweats all day.

since this was the first proper date you were going on (you insisted that the date with juyeon didn’t count, since you had only gone with the intention of being a good friend to jimin.) in a good while, you’d called in the big guns for reinforcement. the only reinforcements you had, but that was besides the point.

“i still don’t get why you’re curling your hair. it looks so pretty naturally,” jimin laments, setting down the section of hair that she was working as she moves onto the next.

“i know. it’s kinda silly but i wanna feel cute - like i wanna look feminine and feel cute when i see jeno. it’s stupid and i swear it goes against everything feminism has taught me but i just want to feel and look like my inner girly-girl has been begging me to,” you explain, pouting when you catch jimin laughing through the reflection of the vanity mirror where you were sitting.

“baby, that’s not silly at all. and it doesn’t go against feminism to want to dress up and look cute! reminder: feminism is about empowering other women and helping everyone have the freedom to choose what they want for themselves. whether that’s dressing up cute or being a stay-at-home mom or being a working woman or some combination of all of the above and then some,” jimin says and then there’s a wicked glint in her eyes. “it’s also very feminist to get men to do your bidding, i think. and hey, if you have to put on a little black dress to do that, then i’m all for it.”

“you sound absolutely ridiculous,” you scoff, but a little smile tugs at the corner of your lips anyway. 

“speaking of little black dresses, you’re wearing a matching set underneath, right?” jimin teases. you swat at her with your free hand that wasn’t applying glitter to your inner eye. “i’m holding a hot iron, you psycho!”

“jimin! i’m not going to have sex on the first date. not that i’m above it but jeno is different,” you say and jimin unfortunately catches the underlying longing tone in your words.

“oh he’s different, is he? girl, where having you been hiding all these feelings for so long?” she says and you find yourself not being able to come up with a rebuttal. honestly, you didn’t know how either of you had been so blind to your feelings for each other. and suddenly, a cold rush of fear runs down your spine.

you twist in your chair, ignoring jimin’s protest that she was almost done with your hair. “wait. you don’t think that this is a mistake, right? like what if he thinks that he has feelings for me but it’s been the chase this whole time. or what if we just don’t click like we think we will? what if i lose my friend and the person that i think i’ve liked for longer than i’d like to admit in one go.”

jimin’s expression turns serious at that. “y/n, you’ve only had a week to figure out your feelings. it’s okay if you want to raincheck and then go on the date when you’re more sure of how you feel, if that’s what you want.”

“that’s not what i want. i think that i actually have liked him for longer than i think. it’s just been so hard to realize that because he’s always been with someone and i’ve always been waiting for the one. it just scares me to think that maybe the one that i’ve been looking for is someone who actually doesn’t think that i’m the one, you know? i don’t know if i could live with losing him.” you blink furiously, willing yourself to not let a single tear fall and ruin all of your hard work for the past couple of hours.

“trust me, y/n, if you’re sure about your feelings and if he really is the one, then everything will work out. have a little faith in the universe.” no sooner does jimin say this, the buzzer rings and you and jimin look at each other in panic.

“it’s still 5:50! he said he was coming at 6:00!” you exclaim and jimin rushes to finish your hair. “you have to distract him! i still have to put my dress on!”

“oh my good lord, i forgot about that. okay, you focus on getting ready, i’m running!” jimin says, cursing when she trips over the cord to the curling iron as she’s running to open the door for jeno.

you shimmy out of your pajamas in hurried movements as you hear jimin say that jeno could come up but that the elevator was broken so he’d have to come up by stairs.

“there’s no sign that says the elevator is broken though,” you hear jeno say as you’re caught in one of the legs of your pajamas, shaking it off wildly as jimin tries to come up with a random explanation on why exactly the elevator had no sign.

“yeah, it actually just broke. like right now. like it was so recent that they didn’t have a chance to put a sign up yet. in fact, i bet that we’re in a space-time pocket and time just moves faster for you and slower for people inside. maybe this building is narnia or something,” jimin says. the room is silent for a moment before you hear the sound of the elevator dinging and you wince, your movements no doubt mirrored by jimin.

you can already see jeno’s amused smirk as jimin says that the elevators must’ve been repaired by the aliens in the space-time pocket. but they were living in a speed that was faster than human senses.

you’d seriously have to buy her a drink when this date was over, you think to yourself as you struggle to zip up the back of the dress. you don’t think that you’ve heard jimin pull out that much utter bullshit in one breath before.

you have heard jaemin say something similar before though, so it made sense that jeno was neither fazed nor taking her seriously. not that anyone could take that seriously, anyway. 

you’ve finally managed to contort your body in the right position to zip up the dress when you hear the door open and jeno saying something to jimin.

“i know i’m early. and i know she’s definitely not ready. but i found these earrings in my apartment and i figured that she’d want to wear these. if i know her at all, she’s wearing black and she always says that she loves to wear these earrings with her black outfits.”

you open the door just slightly for jimin to slip into your bedroom and deposit the earrings in your hands. 

“how do i look?” you whisper, waiting for jimin’s reaction with bated breath.

jimin smiles at you and wraps you up in a tight hug, careful not to wrinkle the silky fabric of your dress. 

“like a dream.”

that works for you and you take a deep breath before opening to door to see jeno. it’s just jeno, you remind yourself. and although it’s not just jeno because you don’t know if he’s ever been just jeno to you, the words serve as a good reminder.

he’s jeno. your jeno. not someone to be afraid of. someone who’s seen every side of you and still wants to see more sides.

you walk into the living room, where jeno is sitting on the couch, scrolling through his phone (tiktok, as you can tell by sounds of football highlights). there’s a bouquet of flowers, gardenias, laying across his lap and he’s clearly cleaned himself well. he’s wearing a black button down and rolled up the sleeves to reveal the tattoo that he’d gotten halfway through freshman year.

it’s a tattoo of jeno’s favorite quote from his favorite movie, chappie. you are made for good.

he introduced you to the movie early into your friendship, and had been thrilled when he realized that you liked as much as he did. in fact, the same quote that he had gotten tattooed on his forearm was the one that you had custom-made for your phone case. huh.

how long had you and jeno been doing things like this? since the very beginning, you balk.

“you look beautiful.” jeno’s voice is low, softer than you remember and your instinct is to counter him and say that you always look beautiful but he looks a little too sweet under the light of skylights for you to find it in yourself to do so. 

“thank you.” you lean closer, eyes crinkling into a smile when you recognize the cologne that jeno was wearing. “is that the cologne i got you in sophomore year?”

jeno nods and smiles with you. “jaemin said that my normal one was too…fuckboy.”

“the sauvage one? hell yeah, it is. i think that most girls have a trauma response to that cologne at this point,” you say, and suddenly everything is so simple again. it’s your jeno, after all.

“it’s a good thing i listened to jaemin, then.”

you cock your head and you’re vaguely sure that he means more than just his cologne choices.

“yeah, i guess it was.”

+++

pretty much everything from there went completely wrong. for one, jeno’s car (which was infamous for coming up with the most random issues at the worst times) had decided to blare with just about every warning known to man almost as soon as the two of you sit in the car. 

by the time that jaemin arrives to where the two of you had pulled over to take the car to the car dealership, jimin offering her car instead, the two of you were already about thirty minutes late to your reservation. 

it had taken a lot of persuasion on jeno’s end to convince the restaurant to let the two of you sit and eat anyway, although you were past half an hour late for your reservation. as if that weren’t enough, the restaurant refused to accommodate for your dietary restrictions (even though they promised that they did on their website!), causing you to only be able to order an overpriced caesar salad with maybe three vegetables and too much vinegar.

then, as you were leaving, you found out that the valet had parked pretty much on the other side of the country. and it was pouring rain. to the extent that your phone had gone off about three times with warnings that there was a flood watch in seoul.

which meant that jeno had had to book it to run to get the car and pull it up to the front of the restaurant, where you were waiting, shivering even with jeno’s jacket around your shoulders. and due to the layout of the restaurant’s front, you were forced to run in the run in the rain anyway to dive into the passenger seat of jimin’s car. 

and yet, even with all of this, you couldn’t help but laugh. the date was perfect. every time something occurred, jeno handled it with ease, allowing you to just turn off your brain and let him take care of everything for you. he would always turn to you with a silly smile and another story of how the two of you always seemed to find yourselves in the most unbelievable situations.

through all of this, you finally understand what you had been thinking that you wanted this whole time in your wait for the one. not someone who made sure that everything was perfect and that the date was always planned out to the t.

no, it was someone who made you feel like you were having a good time, even when everything was going to shit. 

you look at jeno, recounting some story about how jaemin and him had snuck into a wedding once to eat food after days of cooking instant ramen in their dorm in freshman year, laughing so hard that you could barely hear the pelting rain outside. and seeing him smile like that, feeling yourself smile like that, just because you knew that he was smiling, your heart finally felt at ease.

definitely not a platonic type of love, you decide.

“hey, you okay?” jeno asks, eyes trained on the road in front of him as he navigates to your apartment. “you seem kind of checked out.”

you smile, shaking your head. “yeah. i’m all good. i was…i was just thinking about how stupid i’d been to think that i’d been looking everywhere but right in front of me for ‘the one’ when i didn’t even know what i wanted.”

“yeah? what do you want?” jeno says, his grip on the steering wheel growing tighter as he waits nervously for your answer. you look at him and jeno has to fight himself to keep looking at the road when he wants nothing but to look at you and commit this vision of you to memory.

your glinting earrings and your twinkling eyes under the seoul night sky. your drenched dress and jeno’s jacket across your lap. your wet hair that still somehow looked sexy as you flipped it over your shoulder. your soft smile and seeing you finally look at him the way that he’d been looking at you this whole time. he wants to capture it all within his mind and never forget the way you were looking at him now.

“i want someone to make me feel like that even the stupidest situations were easy to overcome when i’m with them,” you say softly. 

jeno pauses at that, heart beating a little too fast to be good for him. a smile tugs at his lips, no matter how stoic he tries to look. “oh? does this mean you think this date was a success?”

“i think this date was an utter flop,” you say drily and jeno rolls his eyes at that. “but i think my date was pretty great. i’m not going to lie, i’m still a little hungry though.”

“i still can’t believe that they gave you a bowl of lettuce and charged like $30 for that,” jeno says, shaking his fist dramatically. “i’m going to write a scathing yelp review.”

“i mean i didn’t have to pay so that yelp review’s all yours,” you say before turning to him with a sly smirk. “aren’t you going to ask what i’m hungry for though?”

“what do you mean? what are you hungry for?” he asks, turning onto your street. 

“ramen. wanna eat ramen and go?”

jeno has to use all of his self-will to keep from hydroplaning as he pulls into your apartment complex. “y/n. you want me to eat ramen and go?”

“yeah. i meant that literally though. you wanna eat ramen and then maybe ramen?” you ask, batting your eyelashes innocently at him as he parks jimin’s car in your designated parking spot.

“uh, isn’t jimin at your place?” jeno asks, feeling his heart skip a beat when you shake your head no. 

“jaehyun’s apartment is like two complexes down so she just walked over. why? you don’t want to eat ramen with me?” you say, faking a sullen pout. jeno rushes to correct himself, resting his hand on your thigh gently.

“look, y/n, i think that you’re incredibly attractive and i really like you. but that’s - that’s my issue. i like you so much that i don’t want to make you feel like i was trying to get in your pants and then do something that you or i regret. and i know that you’re probably just saying that to get a rise out of me but hear me when i say that i want to take things slow. for your sake, not mine.

“i’ve been thinking about my feelings for so long and i’ve been thinking about how in love with you i am for longer than you might think. to me, sex would kinda just be the next step in taking our relationship to the next level. but i know you. you’ve really only been thinking about this about us for the past week or so. i don’t want to make you feel like you’re obligated to like me if we sleep together. i know that sex isn’t just sex for girls; or maybe it is but isn’t for you, no matter how much you tell me otherwise. and i honestly don’t know where i’m going with any of this but y/n, my feelings for you are true.

“i want to take things slow because if we take that next step, i want it to be when you’re sure. when you’re sure of how you feel for me. maybe i’m not the one for you, y/n. and as much it kills me to say that, it’s a very real possibility. you deserve someone who’d bring down the moon and gift it to you if that’s what you wanted. and i know that i would do that for you. but i need you to believe that too. wholeheartedly. i’ll wait for you for as long as you need. you’re my person, y/n. i’ve waited three years - granted, three very controversial years - for you. i’ll wait three more if that’s what you need.”

you’d said the ramen thing very jokingly, only half-serious about your proposition. but hearing jeno now, you’re happy that you had. you’re not sure that jeno would’ve told you how felt about you and just how deep his feelings ran for you if you hadn’t. he was right, of course. he knew you better than anyone else, after all.

so you kiss him on the cheek good night and open the passenger side door.

you’re about to close the door behind you, ready to bid him goodbye for the night when you lean down to say something to him.

“thank you for waiting for me, jeno.”

+++

turns out, romantic jeno is just like just friends jeno. mostly because you don’t think that you’ve ever truly been just friends. he’s quiet, teases you at any given moment, and listens to you recount even the most boring stories about work.

you went on a couple more dates with all of the formalities before slowly growing more casual with each other once more. neither of you had brought up the topic of physical touch after that night but lately, it was getting harder and harder to find places on jeno’s face to kiss besides his lips.

not to mention that you’d caught jeno’s lingering gaze on your lips (among other things) more and more often. so, just like everything else in your relationship, your first kiss was completely unexpected.

jeno had come over with chinese takeout, since the two of you (honestly, you had made the decision and jeno was just along for the ride) had decided to start the indiana jones franchise together. 

you didn’t know what it was. the tousled hair? the way his arm was casually tugging you into to his side, covering your entire side as you cuddled closer into him? the way he was only a breath away from you? the look in eyes when he tears his eyes away from to look at you with the sweetest gaze?

everything. all of the above. you lean up to peck him swiftly on the lips. 

jeno freezes, eyes going round as his entire face turns bright red. it was hard to think that just two months ago, jeno had been walking around with a girl on either side of him at a frat party, the promise of a good night hidden in his smile when he looks like a deer caught in headlights at the slightest sign of physical touch.

“did - did you just kiss me?” he stutters, and you shrug playfully, looking back the movie in front of you. he shifts you so that you’re facing him, unable to look away as he turns to face you.

“i thought we’re taking it slow?” he asks and you smile coyly.

“a month and a half of dating wasn’t enough to convince you that i actually like you the way that you like me, jeno?”

that’s all jeno needs to hear because no sooner do you say this does jeno dip his head to press his lips to yours, gentle and undemanding. he’s soft and careful, almost as if he were afraid that you were going to disappear if he chased after you too hard.

but you’d been waiting long enough and this was jeno so you pull away from him, a horde of butterflies settling in your stomach when he chases after your lips, eyes still closed, as if he couldn’t bear to part from them.

“jeno, i’m going to do something and you have got to tell me if you want me to stop, okay?” you whisper against his lips softly and jeno nods, opening his eyes so that you can see the look of absolute love and trust in them.

you get up and hook your leg over both of his so that you were effectively sitting on his lap, poised dangerously so that you could part from him at the slightest sign of discomfort. it never comes, though because as soon as you do this, jeno pulls you in closer so that his chest was pressed flush against yours.

“are you sure?” he says, confirming for the last time as you see the last strings of his resolve snap.

“god, jeno, i love you. now please just kiss me.”

his lips are pressed against yours the second the words leave your mouth, a little rougher and more insistent than last time. his arms are wrapped around your back and waist, eyes closed and you lose yourself in the feeling of being so close to him.

needless to say, that night had been a long night.

+++

“i look like an idiot,” your boyfriend complains, checking himself out in the mirror of your vanity anyway. you giggle, pressing a kiss to his temple so that you don’t mess up his make-up, carefully dodging the stray glare that he offers you.

“you look beautiful, jeno. and besides, this is for a good cause, remember?” you remind him as you make sure that your costume looks good as well.

“i don’t remember what me dressing up as a spandex wearing animated character has to do with changing the world, but alright,” jeno grumbles, shifting uncomfortably as his ‘uniform’ seems to cling to all the wrong places.

“you say that now but you and i both know that the moment you see those kids at the hospital, you’re a sucker. tell me you aren’t going to practice your mr. incredible in the car,” you say cheekily, and jeno is unable to refute that. ever since you and him have been dating, you have often dragged him to events such as these.

at first, they were rather simple things, almost as if you were testing the waters with jeno. for example, when the two of you went on a date to a zoo in the beginning of your relationship, you casually mentioned that many zoos that didn’t treat their animals with love and respect.

then, soon after, you asked him to sign a ‘take down unethical zoo practices!’ petition. and then from there, jeno found himself at a protest to rally for the rights of beluga whales. 

not that jeno had anything against whales (he actually came to be quite passionate about the mistreatment of them the more he went to these events), but the fact that you took the world’s issues to be your issues was simultaneously your biggest character flaw and strength.

and he loved you all the more for it.

“you know who you are?” jeno says, swiveling around in the chair to mean mug you. “you’re woo young woo from that one kdrama. and i’m that poor unsuspecting boyfriend who wants to spend time with his girlfriend but ends up at a whale protest anyway. that’s what cute girls like you and her do; you get our attention, make us fall in love, and then ba-bam! you use us as a bodyguard and backpack carrier at protests and rallies!”

you roll your eyes, leaning down so that you were now eye level with jeno, the both of you lovingly aware that the banter between the two of you was not a symbol of actual annoyance but rather, mutual appreciation. you, for having so much empathy. jeno, for being so patient.

your heart swells when jeno looks at you with such loving eyes, trust and admiration swimming behind his façade of annoyance. you lean forward, pressing your lips to his, involuntarily smiling when you feel jeno’s lips curve upwards as well.

he hums softly, pulling you close so that you’re practically sitting on his lap. gentle and strong. a little callous, but only so that the butterflies in your stomach seem to be rebelling against the confines of your stomach, as if they too want to be showered in the love of your kindhearted and wonderful boyfriend.

you want to melt into his embrace, as you usually do whenever you’re near jeno, but your phone buzzes and you sigh, pulling away from your boyfriend reluctantly.

“that’s jaemin. he’s asking, and i quote, ‘what the fuck are you guys doing i’ll whoop your ass if you don’t come soon i hate this fucking gru costume and the kids keep asking where you are’. you think we should get going maybe?” you say, raising your eyebrows at the series (of rather graphic) of emojis that depict you and jeno conveniently being pushed off a cliff.

jeno snorts at his best friend’s antics, his touch lingering on your waist as he leaves to go start the car. he waits for you to finish responding (with a threatening message of your own) before extending his arm without even looking, waiting for the comforting weight of you clinging to his arm as the two of you leave your shared home, walking into the buttery evening.

it truly couldn’t get much better than this.

[inuyashaluver]

Can you make an alexia Putellas one please x

friendly affection? - alexia putellas

alexia putellas x reader

description: in which your childhood friend is extremely affectionate with you, you can’t help but wonder, is it friendly, or does it have a double meaning?

warnings: mutual pining, just idiots in love, spanish is in bold italics - i’m not butchering languages, i refuse!

a/n: hiiii, hope you enjoy, thank you for the request! xx also the photo of her - died

⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆

you have been best friends with alexia ever since the spanish youth teams. meeting when she was 12 and you 11. you and alexia had gone through everything together, the both of you best friends through thick and thin.

everything had always been strictly platonic, though you did feel some sort of romantic feelings towards her, only strengthening as you got older and closer. if only you knew alexia had feelings for you since the first time she saw you. both of you would do anything for her and her, you. you knew each other like the back of your hands, how did you not realise the both of you liked each other?

as you both got older, for the first time ever, you separated. her going to levante when you went to barcelona, you both kept in contact and visited each other frequently, the time separated making you both realise just how much you cared about each other and just how much you needed the other.

both of you had established quite a reputation, alexia in the midfield and you as a winger. both of you were so proud of each other. alexia called you one day, saying that she had exciting news.

“amor (love), i’m coming to barca” you went silent on the line. “amor? (love)” she kept calling your name until she heard little sounds of crying through the other side of the phone. “osito (little bear)” she coos, you cry more at the nickname, something that stuck from your childhood when you tackled a girl for hurting alexia, alexia claimed you were like a bear.

“i’m so happy, ale” you sniff, alexia choking up herself, both of you were so excited to finally play together again.

“me too, osito (little bear), i’ve signed the contract already, i’m just looking for a house right now” she could tell you were fidgeting through the phone,

“hey, ale?”

“yes, amor?”

“why don’t you move in with me? i have a spare bedroom” she giggles,

“i’d love nothing more” you could tell she was smiling through her words, you both continued the call just catching up and planning the upcoming arrival of your best friend.

—

and so, a month later, you were at the airport waiting for her, flowers in hand and a bright smile on your face. finally, a short while later, you spot the blonde looking at you with a bright smile. you both slowly walk towards each other and meet in the middle with a tight embrace. she holds onto your waist and lifts you in the air for a second before placing you back down. she pulls away from you, keeping her arms around you but distancing you at arm's length.

“mi amor (my love), look at you!” she smiles brightly, looking at you up and down, “so beautiful” you go bright red, avoiding eye contact with her. “you’re beautiful ale, here muñeca (doll)” you hold the flowers out to her and she grins brightly, ruffling your hair lightly, she links her arms with yours and tells you she’s ready to go home - your new shared home.

—

you give her a general tour, showing her all the rooms before coming to hers, already furnished and directly across from yours. you let her settle in, going to sit on the couch and watching a random movie while scrolling on your phone. about an hour later, alexia strolls in the room, now in comfortable clothes. “stand up please” she instructs sternly, you look up at her confused but oblige, moving to stand up while looking at her mischievous expression.

she walks up to you, lightly squeezing your bicep as she moves past you, lying flat on the couch and smiling up at you. she outstretches her hand and with the other pats her chest, gesturing for you to lie on top of her. you giggle at her actions, grabbing her hand and gently slotting yourself into her embrace. as soon as you lay on top of her, she runs her hand through your hair and the other rests on your back.

you place your chin on her chest, looking up at her and humming at the intimacy. you frequently embraced each other like this, always thinking of it platonically but yearning for any underlying romance, both of you were truly so clueless.

she looks down at you and smiles, “i really missed you osito (little bear)” you smile back, placing your hand on the side of her waist, she slightly shivers when your finger grazes the exposed skin of her stomach where her top had ridden up.

“i’ve missed you so much”, both of you end up falling asleep, completely enjoying each other’s presence.

—

a week later, it was alexia’s first day at barca, you drive (she’s not happy about this) to the training facility, as soon as you gather all your stuff and get out of the car, alexia holds your hand, something you both frequently did while walking in crowded areas or when you were nervous. (hopeless the pair of you!)

you introduced her to everyone, she knew the majority of everyone, from the youth teams as well as through you when she came to visit. everyone was so excited to have la reina (the queen) in barca. you were having a team talk before training began, she moved to stand behind you, wrapping her arms around your middle and bringing you to her chest, resting her head on the side of yours, lightly swaying you both. a few of the girls gave you curious looks, many of them whispering to each other about whether you two were dating or not.

the entire time during training, you and alexia were glued to each other, pairing up for drills, stretching, running and things just got worse during the gym. alexia asked if you could spot her on the bench press and you agreed instantly, she didn’t even need you to spot, fully able to support the weight on her own, she wanted to give you a show. her arms and shoulders flexing as she lifted the weight up, you went slightly pink watching her, she smirked up at you. she knew what she was doing, and this is how alexia realised that maybe her best friend had the same intentions.

—

as time goes on, both of you are the same. ‘platonic’. however, the more time you spent with alexia, the more you fell for her, unaware that she felt exactly the same. you were both infatuated with each other but scared of ruining the relationship and potentially losing each other. so both of you chose to suffer.

alexia and your reputation on the pitch only got higher and higher. alexia scored goals left, right and centre. you giving her so many assists and scoring your own occasionally. you were known for creating opportunities for everyone in the team, but you just knew alexia so well, you couldn’t help but try to make her proud and get her a goal. no matter if you gave her the assist, she would come and find you first, always hoisting you up on her waist and squeezing your thighs while you cup her face and say “congratulations” and kiss her forehead.

when she looks into your eyes, she’ll always say “my girl” and each time, you can’t help but squeeze her waist with your thighs to show your appreciation. whenever you get a goal however, she’ll run over to you and pull you into a tight hug, placing tiny pecks on whatever exposed skin available. (how were you both so clueless)

—

one day, you were half asleep in your bed until you hear a melodious knock on the other side of your door, “amor? (love) can i come in?” she whisper shouts, like the knock wouldn’t have woken you up if you were asleep.

“ale, come in” she smiles seeing you bundled up in one of your (her) hoodies, you were peering at her from the top of the covers, only your eyes visible to her. she lets out an exhale from her nose and walks over to you, sitting on the end of your bed and looking straight at you while she grabs your leg over your thick blankets.

“do you mind if i sleep with you tonight? i’m cold” she smiles sheepishly at you, you instantly nod and tap the space next to you but she shakes her head, you quirk your eyebrow at her.

“bebé (baby) that’s my side” she nudges her head towards where you were and you let out a groan of frustration. rolling your body over to the other side of the bed and wincing, “ale” you stretch out, “this side is cold!” you whine, she laughs at you and quickly gets under the covers, immediately grabbing your waist and pulling you close to her, facing each other with shy smiles.

you had shared a bed before but never cuddled. this was new, and both of you loved it.

you place a hand on her back, resting it there to keep her close to you, her warmth permeating through your body. she looks down at you, slotting a hand through your hair and finally resting it on your cheek, rubbing the skin there. she looked at you with so much adoration, you couldn’t handle it anymore. you slightly sit up, balancing on one of your elbows and looking down at her, her hand dropping in the process to rest on your upper arm.

she looks at you confused, thinking you were about to kick her out until you lean down and place a short, sweet kiss on her lips. you pull away quickly, she didn’t kiss you back. you rip yourself out of her embrace and separate yourself from her, still close but distant.

“ale- i’m so sorry” you shake your head at her, hands covering your face. she grabs your hands from your face, both of you completely red.

“you’re so mean to me” you look at her with wide eyes, “i wanted to kiss you first, why would you do that to me?” she whines, smile still evident on her face.

“what-?”

“that was my plan, i was literally about to kiss you and you did it first!” she argues, you couldn’t believe this,

“how was i supposed to know?” you exclaim,

“don’t you see how i look at you, i also touch you all the time”

“i thought you were being friendly!” she laughs loudly at this and your eyes widen

“bebé (baby), do you see me touching anyone else like that?” suddenly you’re thinking about how alexia interacts with everyone, finding yourself stupid for not realising it sooner.

“i feel so stupid-” she stops you immediately, “stop it, first of all, you’re not stupid, bebé (baby), i should have said something sooner” you shake your head to argue but she holds her finger up to her lips, silencing you.

“sorry, i can’t have this, mi amor (my love), no, come here” she sits against the headboard of your bed, tapping her lap and looking at you eagerly. you hesitantly move from your place, moving to straddle her thighs but not putting any of your weight on your legs. she frowns at you and puts her hands on your hips, pressing you into the upper part of her thighs and smiling at you.

“much better bebé (baby)” she mocks, “now, let me kiss you and pretend i did it first” she looks into your eyes for any reluctance but your grin gives her the green light. she leans forward and places her mouth on yours, at first the kiss is slow. your lips moving together harmoniously as she cups your face in one hand and the other on your waist, you keep your hands resting on her neck.

the kiss was perfect, both of you pouring out years of pent up deprivation and affection. without breaking the kiss, she drops her hand from your face and places both hands on your hips, pulling you closer and pressing you into her slightly. she gently grazes her teeth on your bottom lip and you gasp, she takes this as an entry and includes her tongue in the kiss, you reciprocating quickly, grabbing the back of her neck to deepen it. you put both of your hands on her shoulder, struggling to breathe, you reluctantly pull away. you pant while looking at her, resting your forehead on hers. she runs her hands up and down the sides of your waist while you both catch your breath, letting out small giggles in the process - not believing this was actually happening.

you take your forehead off hers and look at her, placing a gentle kiss on her lips again, placing two more on her cheeks, one on her nose and finally one on her forehead, your favourite place to kiss her, well…now demoted to second.

she smiles brightly when you pull away, “now who kissed first, hermosa (beautiful)?”

“me, amor (love)” you reply cheekily and yelp as she playfully pinches the side of your waist, moving to squish both of your cheeks together to form a pout, placing a small kiss there. she shakes her head at you, “try again” she smirks and places her hands on your thighs, running her hands up and down them , “alexia putellas kissed me first” she gives you a quick peck again, “my smart girl”.

you don’t move from your position, she kept pulling you close to her and claiming she was cold, knowing both of you were completely warm now. you cup her face with one of your hands,

“what are we ale?”

“i don’t know about you but you’ve been my girl since 12” she boops your nose with her finger, smiling as you lightly scrunch it up,

“i’ve always been yours, ale”

“i’ve always been yours, mi amor (my love)”

you both sleep well that night, cuddling and mutually having the best sleep of your lives. everyone at training was confused by you this time, not alexia. you couldn’t keep your hands off her, always needing to be touching her in some way. you two were shamelessly flirting with each other and touching each other. alexia was loving all the affection you were giving her. learning just how much of an effect you had on her.

for instance, if you wanted something from her, all you needed to do was run your hand up and down her arm, looking up at her with a smile and calling her ‘capitana (captain)’. she was done for. and with you…well, all she needed to do was be herself and you would do anything for her. maybe a little more when she would lean down to your ear to speak sweet nothings when you were grumpy.

everyone’s dating suspicious were proven when you assist alexia in a goal, as usual, hoisting you up on her waist and looking up at you, “my girl” this time, however, you place a sweet kiss on her lips, everyone cheering loudly for their favourite dynamic duo. “my girl” you say back, hugging her tightly before continuing the game.

⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆ ★ ⋆

just pretend it’s you, mwah! ily jenni

liked by ona.batlle and 44,232 others

alexiaputellas: 7 years of you pissing me off, still love you @/yourname

view all comments

yourname: hmm i still kissed you first, i love you

↳ alexiaputellas: see this is you pissing me off, can’t believe i proposed to you

↳ yourname: you’re stuck with me mami

↳ alexiaputellas: oh?

claudiaapina: parents!

marialeonn16: you guys are cute but ingrid and me are cuter

↳ alexiaputellas: whatever helps you sleep at night!

[nebulablakemurphy]

Moves & Countermoves (Part 24)

Part 23

Summary: No one ever wins the games, even fourteen years later, Y/N is still playing.

“Lean your head back, so I can rinse.” Y/N instructs Katniss, gently.

It’s been two weeks back in twelve. The Abernathy family, Katniss, Cashmere and Johanna. Peeta had to stay behind, not quite ready to be exposed to all the potential triggers of home.

Cashmere and Madge had no problem cozying up in the Abernathy home. However Katniss keeps to her own house in Victor’s Village and Johanna has agreed to stay in the house gifted to Y/N after her win. Finnick and Annie will visit too, of course. After the baby.

The girl on fire sits in the tub, knees pulled up to her chest, with both arms around them, as her former mentor washes her hair. Katniss can’t bring herself to do much these days. Rotting away on the couch, after Prim… But Y/N is nothing if not stubborn and loves Katniss more than her own mother ever could.

When Y/N is finished, she leaves Katniss to dry off. “I’ll bring you something to eat.”

Katniss blinks at her, nodding. She does not speak.

Y/N returns to her own home, bustling with life. Nothing here is still. The victor dances past her oldest daughter, twirling about the living room to music. Moving carefully behind the house of cards that Everest and Cashmere are building on the dining table and into the kitchen.

Haymitch follows her there, Daisy in his arms. He hardly puts her down. “How is she?” Katniss.

Y/N sucks in a breath. “You should go see her, Haymitch. Maybe she’ll talk to you.”

“What makes you think she’ll talk to me?”

“Because you understand each other.” Y/N says, “I love her, she knows I do. But it’s not the same. She needs you.”

“And if you’re wrong?” Haymitch frowns, “if it sets her off? Makes it worse?”

“The last thing Katniss needs right now, is to feel like another person has abandoned her.” Like her mother. Like Gale. “Especially you. You don’t have to say anything, just be there.” Y/N wrings her hands, anxiously. “Please.”

Haymitch shakes his head, bouncing between feet, when Daisy begins to fuss. “The things I do for you.”

Y/N half smiles, “gimme the baby.”

At this he hesitates. It is hard enough being in a separate room from his children. Or not to holler in protest, each time Y/N moves out of his sight.

“Haymitch?” Y/N rests a hand against his back.

It’s not you, it’s me. “Here.” He forces a smile, passing off their child.

“Haymitch, what’s wrong?” Y/N wonders, adjusting the infant in her arms.

“Nothing.” He clears his throat, “it’s nothing.”

“But-”

“I love you.” Haymitch tells his wife, pecking a kiss to her lips, “nothing’s wrong.”

Y/N pulls back, slightly, studying him. “I love you too.”

He pats her cheek, in parting. Hurrying out the door, before Y/N can get a word in.

“You guys are disgusting.” Johanna remarks, leaning heavily against the refrigerator.

Y/N murmurs. “Yeah.”

“I’m out of eggs.” Johanna adds, to explain her presence.

“We have plenty. Help yourself.” Y/N waves toward the fridge.

“There’s something wrong with him.”

“I know.”

“What are you gonna do about it? You’re Mrs. Fix It. That’s why we’re all here. So you can fix us.” Johanna scoffs, “you can’t even fix yourself.”

“I can,” Y/N cuts her off. “I will.”

“You think I haven’t noticed there’s a room you can’t even go in?” Johanna continues.

“It’s not what you think.”

“I think you’re afraid of old hunks of metal that used to record you getting your rocks off.” Johanna crosses both arms over her chest. “They can’t hurt you.”

“They can hurt me.” Y/N purses her lips, “they did.”

“You should get rid of them.” Johanna suggests.

“I can’t.” I just can’t.

“My head doctor would call it ‘exposure therapy.’”

“Will you help me?”

Johanna huffs a laugh. “What are friends for?”

————————————————————————

That night, after the children are fast asleep, Y/N tosses and turns in bed.

“Just say it.” Haymitch snaps.

“It’s nothing.” Y/N whispers, “I’m sorry.” She turns away from Haymitch, nuzzling her back against his chest, until he has no choice but to wrap his arms around her.

“Angel,” Haymitch pauses, trying to find the right words. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Done what?”

“Been free.” Haymitch confesses, “not since the games, never as an adult. Never as a husband or a father; and I am terrified that at any moment, all of this is going to be taken away from me.”

Y/N squeezes his hand, a bit tighter. “Sometimes I think that too.” We’ve been playing the game too long. “Do you think we’ll get used to it? Being free?”

Haymitch sighs, pressing his lips to her shoulder. “I hope so, angel.”

This is new. Haymitch having hope. “Me too.”

————————————————————————

Nights bleed into days. Days into weeks.

Daisy naps contently, in the sling against Y/N’s chest, while she tidies the kitchen.

Everest and Haymitch have set out to pluck weeds from the pathway between houses of Victor’s Village.

Arista is playing in the backyard.

The birds chirp.

The sun shines.

Then Arista screams. “Mommy!”

Y/N abandons the pan she is washing, into the sink, water still running, as she races toward the sound of her daughter’s voice. “Arista!”

“Mommy! Daddy! Hurry!”

Haymitch and Everest rush toward her cry. “Arista!”

Y/N finds her first, at the far edge of their yard, hunched over a mass of white feathers. “Arista? Are you ok?”

“He came back.” Arista tells her mother, with overjoyed tears in her eyes. “Louie came back.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Y/N chokes down the panic that has risen in her throat. “That’s wonderful.”

Everest comes to a stop beside his mother, panting as he takes in the scene before him. “She’s ok?”

“Yeah,” Y/N reaches a hand over, to ruffle his hair. “We’re all ok now.”

Haymitch joins them last, out of breath, face flushed. “Is everything-”

Y/N turns to him, with a grin. “Louie came home.”

“It’s just the goose.” Haymitch can’t help but laugh. “Just the god damn goose.”

————————————————————————

That night, at dinner, with Madge, Cashmere, Johanna and even Katniss, the phone rings. The sound of it still jarring, after being without a form of easy communication between districts for so long.

Maybe it’s Annie and Finnick.

Maybe there is news in the Capitol.

Maybe Effie.

“I’ll get it.” Johanna volunteers.

Y/N holds up a hand, not wanting to speak with a mouthful of food.

“Or not.”

“I’ve got it.” Y/N excuses herself from the table, into the hallway. Lifting the phone from the receiver to her ear; heart pounding. “Hello.”

“Y/N, it’s me.”

Her free hand comes up to her heart, attempting to quiet the ache. “Peeta, hi. How are you?”

“Better, I’m good.”

“That’s good, honey.” Y/N blinks back tears. “That’s so good to hear.”

“Dr. Aurelius says I’m free to leave the hospital, as long as I keep up with sessions over the phone.” He sounds nervous, like the other shoe is about to drop.

Maybe he’s staying with Effie in the Capitol.

“The train leaves tomorrow morning.”

“Can I- I’ll come get you from the train station?”

“Yes.” Peeta says, immediately. “That would be great.”

“Ok,” Y/N breathes, “that’s perfect. I’ll see you soon.”

“See you soon.”

Series Taglist: @praline357 @flowercrowns-goodvibes @justheretoparty420 @avocadotoastwithegg @treehouse-mouse @emo-markie @spilled-mi1k @magical-spit @greaser9902 @jessicamellarky @yourebuckingkiddingme @smuha2004 @sendhelplease @ninimackbrews @wittiestrain184 @r1dd1kulus @erenluvr69 @helpimhyperfixating @jackierose902109 @jellybear455 @dreammgc @dadbodfanatic-x @ftdtcmlovr @inky-sun @ms-brek-ker @undercover55655 @mischiefmanaged21 @avoxrising @koiphisch @drwho-ess @daisydaisybilly @misfits1a @nj01 @eruannaaa-blog @thatkindofgurl @solikeapparently @innercreationflower @nicksolemnlyswears @a-sweet-little-fangirl @champomiel @kate654 @maladptivedreamer @rainbow12346 @gabwitch99-blog @theseerbetweenus @qvnthesia @prettybiching @izziebreeziel @anneliese500 @scoliobean @mariechristine00 @hoslunix @frstlght @winter-jensen

[livingformintyoongi]

Echoes of Love | Kim Taehyung

Resume: You and Taehyung had a passing relationship four years ago, a relationship that felt like a hurricane; fleeting, sweeping, destructive. You had left a mark on him, one that, even as the years passed, was still present, and, no matter what he did, it seemed unwilling to go away.

Warnings: It has quite a bit of angst, Taehyung at one point acts like an idiot, time shifts between the present and four years earlier, most of the shot is focused on Tae's point of view.

WC: 13.7 k (Still being edited, so it may increase)

Taglist: @thunderg @minjianhyung @queenv1997 @yoongtism @lizzymizzy-blogg @superbbananananana @drpepperobsessed @themwordsblog @taekritimin123 @bluecloudss @yooglefics

Dividers: @thecutestgrotto

Taehyung stared fixedly at the sculpture in front of him, from the shape of its eyes to the soft curve of its lips. It was just like you, so much so that he could almost imagine the sparkle in your eyes and the sound of your laugh. He clenched his jaw as flashes of the days he had spent by your side returned to his memory—those times when you stayed up late kissing until your lips ached, or those afternoons when you went for walks on the beach to get some fresh air. It was unfair, it was painful, and perhaps the worst part was that it was his fault.

He set aside his chisel, never taking his eyes off the perfectly polished face of the one he was sure was the love of his life. He wasn’t going to gain anything by recalling the past, by getting stuck in the “what ifs” that had tormented him these past few years, he knew that. But then, why? Why was it so hard to stop thinking about you? About your voice, your touch, the way you loved so selflessly and intensely, simply... you.

"Taehyung, the exhibition is about to start. Are you ready?" Jiwon asked, crossing her arms as she leaned her shoulder against the doorframe. Her navy blue suit and the firm tie of her hair contrasted completely with the casual image she usually projected. He couldn’t help but feel a little relief as he realized his best friend took her work seriously, that maybe he wasn’t as alone as he thought, as alone as he felt inside.

"I think so..." he murmured, untangling the linen apron with clumsy movements before walking to her side. "What about you? Are you ready?"

"Already ready for more than an hour," she muttered quietly, too distracted by the sculpture behind him to really answer as she should. "It’s her, right? The woman you’ve been crying over for... I don’t know, three years?" She walked closer to the sculpture, studying its features. The delicate way in which Taehyung had captured her essence, as though he had poured his heart and soul into polishing every tiny detail of her. He had probably succeeded because even she, someone who was a zero at anything unrelated to science—and emotions in general—could feel a pressure in her chest looking at your face. "She’s beautiful... I understand why it hurts so much to have lost her." She shoved her hands in her pockets and turned to him.

"It was four years, Jiwon, and no, it’s not just ‘beautiful’, she is—" He protested, clenching his fists at his sides, his gaze fixed on your face—or rather, on the portrait of it. "She’s much more than a pretty face. You never knew her, you never did, so don’t talk about her like that."

Jiwon raised an eyebrow, a mocking smile crossing her face. "Oh, seems like I struck a nerve. Did you remember something interesting?"

Taehyung swallowed the lump in his throat. He didn’t like talking about you; actually, he hated when others talked about you, at least when they hadn’t had the chance to get to know you the way he had. When he had presented his exhibition with the 38 pieces he had created with you as his muse. Just like him, everyone was captivated by your beauty. It was weeks of the newspapers asking him about you, his new muse, talking about you as though they knew who you were, investigating tirelessly to find you. He hated it. With the bad taste left by Jiwon’s comment, he took a silk veil to cover the sculpture with as much care as possible, convincing himself that, in some way, covering your face would protect you from prying eyes. But he hadn’t counted on the fact that through the silk veil, the silhouette of your face still stared at him, as if reminding him that some wounds couldn’t be hidden by the finest fabric. Perhaps he didn’t miss company so much, at least not Jiwon’s.

"Let’s get out of here, please," he murmured, leaving the studio as quickly as his feet would allow him. The pain in his chest grew more unbearable, the nausea soon followed, and the discomfort was hard to ignore. He didn’t know how much longer he could endure it like this, but it definitely wouldn’t be much longer.

While Taehyung hurried out, Jiwon remained in the doorway, staring fixedly at the statue now covered by the veil. Unlike what Taehyung thought, she had known her—perhaps even longer than she could confess to her friend. She took the door handle, giving the space one last look. She stopped for a few seconds, clearing her mind. The uncertainty and guilt that had haunted her for the past four years were becoming harder to bear. She kept telling herself she was doing this for his sake, or at least that’s what she kept telling herself. She clenched her jaw as she closed the door, as if doing so could choke the memories that threatened to suffocate her too, trying to leave that bitter love behind with the hundreds of portraits, photographs, and sculptures Taehyung had refused to display.

Masterlist.

[wpdarlingpan]

Ken really does give off Worshipper!Yandere vibes. He’s the type that would think you are literally flawless, the most wonderful and beautiful thing to ever exist and all he wants is for you to look at him

Ken x Fem.Reader

I wanted to expand on Ken so here is a short o little blurb

Warning: spoilers, fast-paced

Ken used to only have a good day of sterotypical Barbie smiled at him or even acknowledged him. That was until almost turning Barbieland into Kendom and taking over her Dreamhouse.

She of course told him to go find himself, make something of him that wasn’t associated with a girlfriend.

He really did try. For a whole 2 days.

That was until he saw Y/N Barbie.

She had been walking past him down the street when he saw her. It was as if a ethereal beauty dropped down from the sky. Well, some Barbie’s did drop from the sky, After all who needs stairs in Barbieland.

Y/N Barbie had a slight distase for the blonde Ken. After all he did brainwash all of her friends into something demeaning. But a part of her realizes he didn’t want to hurt them, he just want to be recognized. He was hurt and when someone’s hurt their actions sometimes aren’t led by logic.

“Hi Ken”

Ken stared at Y/N for a moment, frozen. He snapped out of it and quickly turned on his ‘charm’.

“H-Hi Y/N!” He smiled brightly at her as the girl in question gave him a polite smile and was about to continue on her way before he lightly grabbed her wrist.

“What are you up to today?”

“I was just going to go shopping. I want some new clothes for the party tonight.”

Ken immediately saw the opportunity.

“Can I keep you company?”

Y/N Barbie was hesitant. She heard the whole ‘you aren’t your girlfriend speech’ and she didn’t thing it was possible for someone to move on within two days. But a part of her was battling her, begging her to say yes. After all, Y/N never had a Ken.

“Um… Sure Ken!”

And that was the day everything changed between them two.

Ken followed her around the store. If she even admired it long enough he would grab it and hold it for her. By the end of the trip he had quite a few clothes in his arms but he wasn’t even tired. Only asking if you wanted anything else.

Then you two went out for food.

He took you to the fanciest restaurant in Barbieland. One that the Barbies and Kens would go to on dates which was quite obvious to Y/N but she couldn’t bring herself to mention it.

Then the two of you thought it would be a wonderful idea to go run along the beach. Of course Ken was all for it. He was of course a professional Beacher. The other Barbies, Kens, and even Allen so you guys together and were curious. All with the same thought

“Well that’s new.”

They didn’t mind all too much. Although Allen was slightly concerned. You are the closest person to him and he was worried Ken wouldn’t treat you the best. Of course they are friends, after all Allen is ‘Kens buddy and all his clothes fit him’ but it was a natural platonic instinct to be cautious

Next you shared a ice cream cone and even played a game of Volleyball. It was the perfect day, which was expected in Barbieland. Even when the world had changes it still found a way to be perfect for its inhabitants.

As the shining sun went down Ken finally drove you back to your own dreamhouse for you to get ready.

He had opened your door for you, grabbing your hand to lead you out, and walked you to the door. But he didn’t want to push it for once so he was about to leave. He couldn’t risk losing you like Stereotypical Barbie. Even though he was a lot more nervous for you than he ever was with her.

This time, Ken wrist was the one whose was grabbed.

“Would you like to come in?”

Ken could only stare in shock. Barbie never let him in. Y/N did.

“Yes.”

That was the single word that solidified Kens love, forever. Y/N was his and luckily, they don’t die. So it truly is forever.