#or maybe i’ll just be stuck with the search for a replacement.

[tobysbliss]

probably sounding chronically online in the tags😭🙏

i think crying in my friends arms over a fucking content creator being a shit person was the wakeup call that it was fr an unhealthy obsession. or maybe just a huge hyperfixation or both but good fucking lord im ill

[fastandcarlos]

Post Race Massage : ̗̀➛ Charles LeClerc

summary: after another gruelling race, charles looks to you to help his aching muscles recover

You couldn’t help but laugh as Charles let go of a groan, his hands pressing against his back as the aches of the day caught up with him. He dropped down onto the bed beside you, his sad eyes glancing across at you as he struggled to deal with how much his body hurt.  

It had been a long weekend of racing for him, pushing his body to the absolute limit, but when he had a collision with Sergio during the race, his body was finally done in. After jolting in his seat Charles felt his body scream out in pain, a pain that had stuck with him for the rest of the day as you got back to your hotel. 

His steps were slow as he moved, his arm clung onto you for a little bit of support, it was unlike anything that you had seen from Charles before. As he laid himself down, it was the most comfortable that Charles had felt for hours, finally able to relax a little. 

“Who knew racing was so cruel on the body,” you teased, brushing your hand through Charles’ messy hair. “I thought you’re supposed to train so these things don’t hurt as much.” 

Charles frowned across at you, his usual confidence had been replaced by plenty of pity for himself, eyes searching in hope of a little bit more sympathy from you. 

You watched Charles for a few moments, thinking through of ways that you could help him. You remembered the things that you saw Charles’ team do in his driver’s room plenty of times before, confident you could do the same thing. 

“Why don’t you lay on your tummy?” You suggested, shuffling off of the bed so that Charles could roll over. “I’m sure there’s something that I could do to help you out and ease some of that tension.” 

Charles did as you said, with plenty of moans and groans, letting you know just how sore he was. You struggled to hold back your laughter as he did so, as much as you felt sorry for him, seeing him be so dramatic never failed to leave you in disbelief.  

Once Charles was comfortable, you pushed the legs of his trousers up so that you could get to his calves, pressing your hands into his muscles and massaging over them. Another moan came from Charles, this time one that was filled with relief and comfort. 

“Whatever you’re doing, don’t stop, that feels incredible,” Charles told you. 

You smiled back down as he rested his head against his arms. “If someone were to walk past our hotel room right now, they’d have some serious questions about what we’re doing.” 

“With how sore my body is right now, this feels so much better than sex my love.” 

A chuckle came from you as you continued to massage the tension and knots out of Charles’ muscles. You moved your hands up his leg, reaching the top of his thigh, pressing in as firmly as you could to try and help him. 

“I’ll bare that in mind,” you smirked, tapping against Charles’ bottom. 

He continued to sigh in relief, finally able to relax again. “Maybe it’s about time I accept that I’m not exactly a young racing driver anymore.” 

“How many times do you have to be told to do your warm ups properly before you listen?” 

Charles only had himself to blame for the pain that he was in, assuring you and the rest of his team that warming up was pointless. He was still young, fit, he didn’t need to stretch his muscles out, all he was doing was driving a car, or so he thought. 

“Take your top off,” you instructed, hearing a hum of delight come from Charles, only to feel you slap your hand against his back. 

Your eyes rolled as he took his top off and threw it on the floor. Your legs straddled around his body, sitting yourself just below Charles’ bottom so that you could get to his back. 

As soon as your hands landed at the top of his back, Charles’ smile turned up. Your hands massaged over him once again, digging into all the right places to try and untangle the knots that you could feel building up. 

“Good?” You questioned, although you already knew the answer, watching as Charles turned his head around to be able to look back at you with his smile. 

His head nodded in response, “I mean my body is still killing me, but you’re working some pretty good magic making it feel better right now.” 

“I’m glad I could help you out.” 

“I could get used to this.” 

“Having your girlfriend sit on your ass whilst she massages your body, I’m sure that you could,” you teased, “you can wipe that smile off of your face as well.” 

As much as he wanted to, Charles simply couldn’t, he was enjoying himself far too much. It was nice enough to have you help him, but feeling you sat on top of him was definitely an added bonus that he could get used to as well. 

“You know, seeing as you’re getting old we might have to invest in some things to help you when your body is sore,” you told him, “have you seen those massage guns that all the gym people are using these days?” 

“Trust me, no massage gun can make me feel as good as your hands,” Charles assured you, pushing back against you as you dug in against his spine, moving your fingertips around in circular motions. 

“Try and not sound so smug when you say that,” you challenged. 

Charles’ head shook, “I would love to try, but I’m feeling so smug right now, almost like I’m in some sort of dream.” 

He didn’t want to make his body suffer, but if this was how you treated him after it, maybe it would be worth it for Charles after all. He had a whole team of experts around him, and yet none of them took care of him as well as you did. 

“I think I’m almost done,” you told Charles, only to feel his hands reach back and rest on your hips, refusing to let you leave from where you were sat. “We can’t spend the night with me straddling you like this.” 

“What about if I turned over into a different position instead?” 

“I thought you were supposed to be tired and achy?” You reminded him, knowing exactly what Charles was hinting at from the suggestive tone of his voice. “You’ve suddenly changed your tune.” 

“I was, but then you gave me some godly massage and suddenly I feel like I’ve found a bit of energy again,” Charles smirked, sending you a knowing glance. 

You didn’t quite know what to say as Charles raised his eyebrows across at you, tensing his back so you could see his muscle definition, knowing just how much it turned you on. 

“If you moan in the morning that your body hurts, I’m going to have no sympathy for you,” you warned, sitting up so that Charles could turn so that he was facing you. 

“It’ll be worth it,” Charles promised you, “and anyway, I got another podium today, so we’re supposed to be celebrating that, aren’t we?” 

“That’s true, congratulations old man.” 

˗ˏˋ 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 ! ´ˎ˗

[sohnric]

extra cheesy — e. sohn

pairing: eric sohn x fem! reader

genre: pizza boy! eric, very mild childhood friends to acquaintances to friends to lovers au. college au, fluff, the tiniest bit of angst. mutual pining, slowburn, jealous eric, oblivous reader, the whole lot... includes pizza boy! sunwoo and eric's older sister! lisa manoban.

wc: 31k (31.071)

warnings: alcohol consumption, swearing, mention of throwing up, mentions of jealousy, the reader and eric are the same height bc i wrote this for and about myself, talks about the ex-gifted kid burnout syndrome lol.

listen to: so american - olivia rodrigo, love - wave to earth and stuck with u - ariana grande and justin bieber

being a wingman is not always the easiest task - especially not when your roommate's target is best friends with someone taking your attention away from the main goal.

a/n: thank u so much best friend @csenke for beta reading as always and thank u best friend @from-izzy for hyping me up and listening to me ramble hours upon hours about this fic (oh and also for stepping in as the reader's roommate HAHA).

“Come on, we deserve a little pizza for dinner!” your roommate, Izzy, shakes your arm as she clings to you on the sofa the way she always does when she wants you to do something. And although your dear flatmate isn’t usually the one to order in, much preferring to cook meals at home and save the leftovers for another day, you wouldn’t find her desperation for pizza as strange, if it wasn’t for the batting of her eyelashes and her pleading voice.

Surely, she doesn’t need the pizza that much, right?

“I’m not saying we don’t, I’m just saying I have leftover soup from yesterday that I have to eat tonight or else it’s gonna go bad,” you justify your protests, “but you can get one, if you want. I’m not stopping you,” you say, furrowing your eyebrows at the girl in confusion before reaching for the TV remote.

“Oh come oooon, Y/N,” she pressures, pouting at you in disappointment. More weight is put into your body as she clings to you, acting like a child throwing a tantrum. “You deserve to have delicious pizza for dinner today, because you finally bagged that internship! Isn’t that a reason to celebrate?”

“We can just pop the champagne, if you wanna celebrate–”

“Y/N, can we please just get the pizza tonight?” she turns serious for once, the smile disappearing off her face, replaced by a much more stoic expression. And see, that’s a little scary– desperation can make people do bad, bad things. You’d be a fool to turn down your flatmate’s request– you’d have to sleep with one eye open tonight…

“Okay, fine,” you grunt, shaking your head at her ridiculous antics, “from the usual place?” 

“NO!” the girl chimes, making you jump in your place on the sofa with the loudness of her voice. If she wants to scream, she should move further away from your ear, goddamn it. After sending her a look full of anger, she offers you an apologetic one before she reaches for her laptop resting on the coffee table in front of you, opening it and pressing in a new Google search. “There’s this place I found with Yizhuo after class one day,” she says, scrolling through the browser and finding the site of the place she wants to order from today, “and they make pretty good pizza. So just choose one and then I’ll put it through the online order.”

“They have online orders?” you hum, interested. “Twenty-first century, this is. Online shopping for pizza…” you snicker, shaking your head in disbelief. Maybe you’re getting old– and it’s not like you don’t enjoy the comfort this gives you, not at all, you just find it a little strange to order food over the internet. What happened to phone calls?

“Yes, grandma,” Izzy sighs, “that’s like, a normal thing, I fear.”

Rolling your eyes at her irony, you scan the menu before deciding on your usual– margherita, extra cheesy. After pointing your finger at the pizza of your choice, your roommate takes it upon herself to add the meal to her cart (while also adding one she likes as well) before she proceeds further with the order. Your eyes stay glued to her, interested in the way this whole thing works– because let’s be real, ordering a pizza without having social interaction is every introvert’s dream– and watch as she hesitantly clicks onto the “add a note to your order” section of the website.

Confusion fills your veins as you stare your roommate down. What more could she possibly need for this order? Does she not just want to eat? Does she need her pizza sliced in a special way, or does she want the pepperoni in the shape of a flower, or something? You really wouldn’t be surprised, with how peculiar Izzy could get sometimes, but still– wasn’t she the one mourning about how hungry she was just a few minutes ago? Surely, she would want her food to get here the fastest it can, with no additional requests that would take up too much time.

“Don’t say anything,” she mumbles as she starts typing, and finally, it all starts to make sense.

The desperation in her voice. The determination. The need to have a pizza tonight, right now. Because after reading out the words she’s written down, you realize that it was never about the pizza itself in the first place. Knowing Izzy, you should’ve known– after the months of sharing an apartment with her, you should’ve been able to predict her antics.

There, proud, black on white, shine five words saying: Send your cutest delivery boy :)

“Izzy what the fuck–”

“I told you not to say anything!” she cuts you off, clicking through the rest of the order hurriedly, as if worried you were going to make her delete her embarrassing request.

“Okay, miss, ‘I don’t chase no man!’, I see that you’re living up to your motto. What? You ate there with Yizhuo last week and saw a cute guy doing deliveries, so you thought you’d drag him to our house instead of asking for his number like a normal person?” you grunt, shaking your head at the lengths your roommate is willing to go to– while also making her own life twice as complicated as it needs to be.

“Well, pretty much, yeah,” she peeps as she closes the laptop after paying for your pizzas– you’re not paying her back, just for the record. Not after she just publicly embarrassed you by making that stupid request with your address attached. 

“Are you crazy?” you scoff. “Why didn’t you just talk to him back there?”

“He was busy!” she mourns. “Look, this is me shooting my shot. You’re getting a pizza out of it, so I don’t see the problem here.”

“The problem is you doing all of this when you could’ve literally just walked up to him last week and introduced yourself,” you say, watching your roommate physically crumble under your scolding, but truthful words.

Izzy slides down further into the sofa, as if to shield herself from the attack. She puts her hands over her face, hiding the blush on her cheeks as she mourns into the silent apartment. “Look, I was shy, okay?” she says.

“But not shy enough to be so bold over the internet, huh?” you mock her, feeling your roommate’s hand slap your upper arm in frustration.

“You should’ve seen him, Y/N! There was no way I was going to walk up to him after the whole day I spent at uni. I looked like a dead rat, that’s not how you pull men,” she mutters. “And he looked so perfect, so adorable, it’s… I keep thinking about him and his plump lips and his dark messy hair, and he was so tall and–”

“Okay, okay,” you cut her off, a hint of annoyance tinting your tone. “I’ll see him with my own two eyes in a bit anyway,” you comment, “if he’s really the cutest out of them, as you requested,” you snicker. 

“He is! I swear. There is no way he isn’t going to appear on our doorstep in a few minutes, trust me.”

Little did the two of you know that you caused havoc on the other side of the town. It was a slow day in Sohn’s Pizza, leaving the two part-timers on duty scrolling through their phones, awaiting any new customers. It was the middle of the week, 2 hours before their closing, and so the sound of the new online order coming in surprised the two boys, having the owner’s son sit up from his place in the corner of the room and click through the system.

“Dad, it says one extra cheesy margherita and one pepperoni!” Eric yells out into the kitchen, followed by a loud acknowledging hum from the cook himself. Sunwoo looks up from under his chocolate bangs, pausing the game he’s been playing on his phone, licking his lips.

“Do you wanna go?” he asks, obviously too lazy to move from the pizzeria. See, the two part-timers had many responsibilities. One wasn’t just a delivery man or just the server. Because Eric’s father didn’t really trust anyone with his business, he relied only on the people closest to him– which caused this place to operate mostly as a family business. Sunwoo only got the job because he was Eric’s longest friend, and that made the Sohn family consider him as one of them. 

That meant the pizzeria was almost always short on staff, though– which was a problem Eric complained to his dad about more often than not, being too busy with deliveries and also wiping down the tables, serving the customers and helping with the sides. The poor boy already learned that his dad won’t do anything about it from the sheer discomfort of having to go through the hiring process with anyone, though, and so after a while, he just stopped trying.

“I dunno,” he shrugs, eyes scanning the order. “It has a note, though.”

“What does it say?” Sunwoo asks, voice barely coated in any interest. Eric would argue that the boy doesn’t really care, but is just asking to seem mentally present.

“Send your cutest delivery boy, smiley face,” Eric hums, snickering to himself. Now, that’s a request he hasn’t gotten before– and the pizzeria has been open for quite some time now.

“Oh, so I’m going,” Sunwoo says, already standing up from his place in the camping chair behind the counter even though the order isn’t ready yet, full confidence flowing through the man’s veins.

“Didn’t you just ask me if I’m going?” Eric jokes, eyes darting towards his coworker.

“Yeah, but that was before I saw the note,” Sunwoo scoffs, “we obviously don’t want our customers to be unhappy, so I’m going to do my job, and as the cutest one, go deliver these pizzas.”

“Where did the confidence come from?” Eric clicks his tongue. “Well, that being said, I am going to deliver these.”

“So you think you’re cuter than me?” Sunwoo looks at his friend with a stern face, and to be honest, it’s kind of funny how serious the matter is for the boys. They would both blame the 8 hour shift getting to their brains, but in reality, it’s clear as day that they both want to win this argument. 

“I’d say so,” Eric nods. “Didn’t you say you were more sexy than cute the other day?” 

Sunwoo looks at his friend suspiciously. He doesn’t really remember the full context of the conversation, but he does remember stating the fact– and although he’d argue it’s true, he also doesn’t want to lose to Eric. Because look– the job is taking up the majority of the boys’ time, so looking for a girlfriend has gotten severely more difficult. 

Why not take the opportunity at work? And besides, everything is more entertaining than sitting around and waiting for the place to close for the day.

“I did,” Sunwoo carefully admits, “but that was more to do with the general attractivity. I’d say those two go hand in hand, and therefore me, as the objectively more desirable one, should go deliver these.” 

Eric blinks slowly at his friend, trying to process the self-absorbed words spilling out of the taller one’s mouth. “Are you calling me ugly right now?”

“No–”

“I’m pretty sure you just called me ugly.”

“I would never–”

“I’d say I’m the cuter one,” Eric snaps back, shrugging. “I have this aura around me–”

“Now you’re just being ridiculous. You know the note was obviously for me, so why don’t we stop this and you let me make this delivery? You can always do the next one–”

The argument is growing more heated. Who would’ve thought such a simple note would lead to two men trying to advertise themselves as the cuter one? The room is filled with testosterone, although the objective of the fight was somewhere completely else– the question was who the cuter one was, and if they had to be truthful, they had to go with facts, no?

Small things are cute. Eric is shorter than Sunwoo. Logically, it should be him– but he won’t say this comment out loud in fear of carrying the burden of admitting to his laughable height in front of his spiteful friend’s ears. 

“How can you tell it was for you?” Eric scoffs. The arguments were starting to get ridiculous.

“It was the energy, I swear, the note is calling for me–”

“Boys, the pizzas are ready!” the voice of Eric’s dad calls from the kitchen, making both of them snap their heads towards the source and hurry. Never in a thousand years have either of them reacted to an order so quickly– not even in the highest of rushes– when they reach for the two boxes with grabby hands, like it was some sort of a prize.

It felt like everything was on the line. Eric Sohn prides himself in being a fast runner, but when he senses the taller boy breathing down his neck, he breaks all rules of safe workspace and also friendship as he outstretches his leg towards the right, tripping the boy– all to win the title of the cutest delivery boy.

Snatching the pizzas and also the car keys, Eric pays his coworker a victorious smile. Sunwoo glares at him from the ground, breathing heavily, anger roaring inside of his body. Eric finds this as his cue to hurry out before he’s attacked– while he’s a good runner, he was never quite good at combat– and so he jogs out of the pizzeria and unlocks the door to the Honda Civic parked outside, hopping in and typing in the address into the GPS on his phone.

Back over at your place, you try to pass the time by watching the TV. Netflix failed you with its poor selection of things to watch– mainly because you’ve already seen most of the true crime documentaries that you could find– so you just let yourself get pulled into the doom of teleshopping, your brain quickly getting used to the flashing images and over-exaggerated voices advertising the newest sumo slicer. You had a long day at university today– while also finally managing to get the internship with the company you dreamed of working for– and after all of the stress, your brain decided to simply turn off.

You’re only taken out from your trance as the doorbell rings, making you jump slightly at the loud noise. Dinner must be here– your stomach churning at the premise of a good pizza already (you have to give it to Izzy. She was right and you do deserve pizza tonight)– and so you stand up from the sofa in the living room, calling for your roommate.

“Izzy, the pizza’s here! Come get the door if you wanna see the guy!” you yell into the depths of your apartment. 

You get no response. Did she fall asleep? “Izzy!” you call again, this time louder.

“Coming!” you hear her reply. You wait a few seconds, standing in the hall, when the doorbell rings again– after not opening the door for at least 2 minutes, you’re starting to get worried that the delivery man will just turn on his heel and take your pizzas away from you. 

And you can’t let that happen– not when you were finally persuaded into eating them– all because your roommate is seemingly getting ready to open the door and see the newly found love of her life, probably putting on some cute clothes in her room.

“I’m just gonna get it!” you say, reaching for the door handle.

Opening the door, you are met with the sight of a delivery boy standing on the other side, two boxes in his hands, shifting weight from his heel to the tips of his toes. He sends you a soft smile before he raises his eyebrows at you so high they almost touch the red cap adorning his head, opening his mouth to speak.

“Eric?”

“Y/N?”

Both of you shock the other with the recognition. You haven’t seen Eric Sohn since elementary school– and while you must admit that the son of your parents’ friends grew up to be mildly attractive, you must say he hasn’t changed a bit. Now, this whole interaction grew even more embarrassing for you– you completely forgot about the note.

“Hello?” your roommate calls from behind you, walking up to the door in– you guessed it– her finest clothes. She always wears this outfit out, which makes you roll your eyes at her. She is trying too hard. And for whom? Eric Sohn, of all people?

“Izzy, here’s the cutest delivery boy you asked for,” you awkwardly say, trying to save your face. You won’t allow her to embarrass you like this– yes, you are completely content with throwing her under the bus in this situation. This is the boy you were forced to hang out with the whole entirety of elementary school, after all. You won’t let her humiliate you by making him believe it was you who found him so attractive.

Because let’s face it– he wasn’t. Well… 

Maybe he was and you’re lying to yourself. But still– you won’t let him think you’d be so pathetic to shoot your shot by an online order. The boxes in his hands have Sohn’s pizza written all over them– maybe you should’ve paid more attention to the name of the pizzeria you were ordering from. 

“Ah,” Izzy hums, and something in her composure shifts. Her shoulders drop and her smile dims– and that’s when you realize Eric is not the delivery boy she was hoping for. You have to laugh at her.

Izzy makes no effort to move or take the pizzas from the boy’s hands, and that’s when you take charge. Sighing at her, you move her out of the way before you send Eric an apologetic smile, freeing him off your order. “Thank you for the pizzas,” you say, watching as the delivery boy nods at you, offering you an awkward smile.

You push the boxes into Izzy’s hands, ordering her with your eyes to take them into the kitchen. As she slowly moves out of the hall and disappears into the apartment, you face the boy again, still standing at your doorstep. You scan him all over– from the top of his red cap that’s hiding his honey blonde locks to the black cargo pants covering his legs– before you nod to yourself, the awkward atmosphere making you tense under his gaze.

“Uhm…” you hum, not really knowing what else to say to diffuse the atmosphere. This is embarrassing. This is humiliating. Why did your dumb roommate do this? 

Now she got the poor boy disappointed. Couldn’t Izzy at least act like he’s the one?

“Well, I’ll.. see you around, I guess…?” Eric says, nodding to himself. He scratches the back of his neck as he looks at you– one short glance up and down that doesn’t go unnoticed by you, making you instantly regret getting the door in your sweatpants and the pink socks with hearts and a single hole on the toe on them– before he takes a step back from the doorstep and starts walking away from your apartment.

“Yeah,” you clear your throat, mentally punching yourself with how pathetic you sound, “see you around. And… and thank you again! For the pizzas, I mean…” you hum. Now, you’re mentally kicking yourself. Scratch that, you’re throwing yourself down the stairs. Why are you so awkward? You’re only making it worse.

He flashes you a smile, not oblivious to the shame you feel. If you really think about it, the situation is kind of funny, isn’t it? 

“Bye, Y/N,” he says, waving at you as he walks down the stairwell, sending you one last glance over his shoulder.

“Yeah, bye!”

Closing the door behind you, you try to take deep breaths to steady yourself. You will murder your roommate with your own two hands and use her blood as the sauce for your pizza. Slowly walking towards the kitchen, you see Izzy munching on the pepperoni slice, sending you a look full of innocence.

“Well, that didn’t work out,” she says, trying to make light of the situation, ignoring how embarrassing this situation was for both parties involved. Without a word, you sit down at the table, opening the box of your pizza of choice, taking a bite. 

“Are you okay? You seem a bit–”

“Shut it.”

“How was it, bubs?” Izzy asks you once you get into the car while simultaneously reaching for the volume button on the radio, turning the music down so she can hear you talk.

“Terrible,” you mourn, sighing as you buckle your seatbelt and watch your roommate back out of the parking lot. She was nice enough to offer to drive you home after your first day of your new mandatory internship, and although you told her over and over how you didn’t need a ride and could just walk home after, you’re actually very grateful for her act of kindness now– for your feet hurt like a bitch and you’re so mentally tired you think you could get lost on your way home, had you not paid enough attention.

“That bad?” she hums, voice full of consideration. Izzy only pays you a short look full of undeniable worry before she gazes back at the road– thankfully, because she is not the best driver and you think her not paying full attention to where she’s going would significantly lower the chances of you getting home safely today– subtly allowing you to vent about the day you had.

A grunt escapes your mouth. “Yeah,” you agree, “it’s just– god. The place is full of morons, my boss is demanding a marketing project from me until the end of my internship, everyone keeps using me as their coffee delivery person because I’m new, and I forgot everyone’s names already…” you complain, furrowing your brows in concern. How are you going to survive going there weekly?

As a business student, you have to go through an internship in order to successfully graduate. Getting one was already hard enough, but the responsibilities that come with doing all the stuff you’re not even educated enough to do yet are only making the weight on your shoulders heavier and heavier to the point where you suddenly start to doubt if you’re even good enough for your major. Hell, you barely have any interest in it in the first place– hence why you lack the enthusiasm your boss would surely love to see from you.

“Can’t they just not make it easier for you?” she shakes her head in disapproval. “You’re a mere student, not the new hire,” Izzy grunts, sympathizing with you.

“Apparently not,” you roll your eyes. “I’m so tired, man…” you sigh, resting your head against the window, letting your eyes close for a bit. “Thanks for giving me a ride, Izz.”

“No worries,” she innocently replies. Almost too innocently, you think– but with the amount of hours you slept last night and the mental overload of new information you had today, you choose to not pay much attention to it. Maybe you’re just making it up…

If the drive was a bit longer, you’re sure you would’ve fallen asleep. The car comes to a halt in a few more minutes, though, and the sudden silence of the vehicle as the engine turns off and the radio goes silent has you opening your eyes, scanning your surroundings.

And you were right. Izzy was almost too nice in giving you a ride home. You should’ve known she always had different motives.

“Why are we here?” you ask, choosing not to face her so you don’t have to look at the dumb smile on her face again, for you think that if she dared to force innocence on herself right now, you’d seriously punch her.

“Oh,” she hums, “I thought we could get pizza for dinner.”

“We had pizza last week,” you deadpan, tone of voice only a bit hostile.

“That’s correct,” she agrees, “however, I am in the mood for some pizza right now. And we don’t really have any groceries at home, so I think this is the best alternative to end your bad day–”

“You’re not dragging me in there after embarrassing us so much last week, Isabelle,” you grunt, pulling out the full name to act more tough and get your point across. “I am never going there again. You simply can’t force me–”

“Oh come on! You’re ruining all fun.”

“That’s because I am not having fun right now,” you note, already too tired after the long day.

“Then let me cheer you up! I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about it,” Izzy glares at you, sighing. “Besides, the last time I checked, you owe me pizza, and I would like to redeem that now.”

“Since when–”

“Don’t think I forgot that you didn’t pay me back last time,” she cuts you off, sending you a stern look.

If you were closer to home right now, you would’ve left the car and just walked back to your apartment, leaving your dear flatmate to get her pizza alone. You both know you’re not here for the pizza itself anyway– so why does she need you there? As an excuse? It’s already embarrassing enough for the both of you. Why won’t she just drop it?

But since the circumstances are given the way they are– you’re tired, hungry, frustrated and full of worry about your internship– you figure there is really no need to argue with your roommate right now. When she sets her mind on something, she is going to get it, no matter what. You know her well enough.

“Fine,” you sigh, getting out of the car and slamming the passenger door with as much force as you can humanly conjure in yourself after the long day, satisfaction flowing through your veins at the sound that’s loud enough to make your roommate jump in surprise.

You’re going to give her what she wants, but you’re not going to act happy about it. You’re just gonna get the pizza and leave. That’s the plan.

Walking up to the building of Sohn’s Pizza, you push the door open, ears instantly catching the low music coming from speakers situated in the corners of the room. You haven’t been here before, so you take your sweet time looking around– noticing the neat-looking interior, admiring the wooden furniture– before you walk towards the table in the corner of the middle-sized restaurant, sitting down. Izzy follows you like a lost puppy with its tail wagging because she got what she wanted before she sits down opposite of you, offering you a giant smile. She is like a kid under the Christmas tree with the toy she always desired securely in her grasp. Which is weird– the cute delivery boy hasn’t even shown up yet.

After scanning the menu for a bit– since you already know what you’re going to get– a server walks up to your table, a big, welcoming smile on her face. She is short even when wearing heels, hair pulled up into a ponytail, straight-across bangs sitting on her forehead. It’s been years since you last saw her, but the resemblance is undeniable– it’s Eric Sohn’s older sister.

“Hello! What can I get for you today, girls?” she asks as she takes out a notepad. Her eyes land on you for a bit before she gasps, even a bigger smile appearing on her cheeks, if that’s possible. “Oh my god, Y/N?”

“Yeah,” you nod, grinning. “It’s me.”

“How are you?” she asks, beaming. You and Lisa were never really close– since she was so much older than you back when you hung around the Sohn’s house, but she was always really kind to you. You remember her making snacks for you and Eric to eat in afternoons or taking you two out to get ice cream, your heart squeezing at the nostalgic memories.

“I’m good, what about you?” you ask, genuinely interested.

“I’m fine,” she nods. “Well, just rotting in here, if I’m being honest, but other than that, I’ve been good,” she laughs, making you mirror her actions.

“Well, it’s really pretty here, if that makes you feel any better,” you smile.

She shrugs at your compliment. “I did most of the decorating, so it should be,” she snickers before she looks back at you after scanning over the entire room. “What will you get today, then?”

“Just a margherita is fine,” you note, “could I possibly get extra cheese on that?” 

“Anything for little Y/N,” she hums, making you roll your eyes at her teasing– yet the grin never leaves your features. “And for your friend?”

“I’ll get pepperoni,” she peeps. It’s unusual for your roommate to be so quiet in a conversation– you guess she was caught off guard at your sudden acquaintanceship with the staff in her new favorite restaurant.

“Coming right up!” Lisa smiles, walking away from your table.

After the server leaves, you are left with a few seconds of silence from your roommate. You raise your brows at her in question, mocking her change in demeanor, waiting for her to get back to her usual, chatty self. “What?”

“You know her?”

“Obviously,” you snicker. “Our families used to be close years ago,” you note, shrugging.  “We lived in the same neighborhood.”

“Wow…” she hums. “So you know that guy who dropped our pizzas off last week as well?”

“I do,” you nod. “We are the same age, so our mums forced us to hang out often.”

“Interesting….” Izzy says, lost in thought. If you didn’t know better, you’d suspect she was scheming something up. Actually, you think you know her well enough– just give it a few more minutes.

The door opens again, making you two look around and watch the people coming into the restaurant. Instead of new customers, you are met with two men obviously wearing work uniforms– white shirts with a pizza logo in red on them– the shorter one with a cap on, the taller one with baggy jeans adorning his long legs. You recognise one of them instantly– and even despite the nature of the restaurant, his presence still shocks you and makes you feel alarmed.

You feel something come in contact with your shin as your roommate kicks your leg under the table. “That’s him, that’s him, that’s him–” Izzy chimes, whispering, making you furrow your brows at her in question. Yeah, of course that’s him. Eric’s dad owns the restaurant. Who the other guy by his side is, though, you don’t–

oh.

So that must be the cute delivery boy your roommate has been thirsting over for the last couple of weeks. She has a lot of determination in her, you’ll give her that. If it was you, you would’ve forgotten about a random mediocrily attractive server after a day or two. Not her, though. What a strange woman…

“Y/N!” you hear for the second time today. Your heart skips a beat at the tone this time, making you remember the events of last week, heat instantly creeping up your neck at the memory.

“Hi,” you peep, watching as the two men make a bee-line towards your table.

“Hello,” he greets. He wears a bright smile on his face– one that makes his cheeks look fuller, something in his eyes glimmering (you think it might just be the reflection of the lights). He is wearing a blue cap today, covering his honey locks– which leaves you wondering if he has a fucked haircut, or if he really just likes to wear hats that much– but other than that, his attire is the same as last time. “What’s up?” he asks.

Casual. Friendly. Like nothing happened– like this whole encounter isn’t totally embarrassing. 

Or is it not? Are you just being overly-dramatic again? You really don’t know at this point. 

Still, you act nonchalant. “Oh, not much,” you hum, “just got off my first day of internship, so we decided to get some pizza to comfort myself.”

“Didn’t go well?” Eric asks, a sympathetic look on his face. Somehow, his concern seems genuine.

“You could say that,” you note, shrugging.

“It will be better next time,” he says lightly, smiling at you all encouragingly. For the first time in the last couple of seconds, you pay attention to your roommate again– seeing her eyes glued to the taller boy. If this was a cartoon, there would be hearts drawn in her sockets and she would be drooling. Izzy seems to be totally enchanted with the delivery boy currently standing to Eric’s right, and you can’t stand the view any longer.

“Oh, this is Sunwoo, by the way,” Eric says, introducing his coworker. 

“Nice to meet you,” you smile, shaking the boy’s hand. He sends you a boyish grin, greeting you back, before he moves towards your flatmate, holding her hand in his.

“Izzy,” she introduces herself, tone of voice a few octaves higher than usual. “We’re roommates.”

“I gathered as much,” Eric notes– almost a little awkwardly– making your body electrify with a full body cringe. Why can’t he just pretend last week didn’t happen?

“Yeah,” you hum, nodding and scratching the back of your neck. “She pretty much dragged me here, haha…” you vocalize the laughter as a word, mentally slapping yourself. Haha? What’s so funny? Y/N, you’re only making it worse.

“Well, it’s nice seeing you again,” Eric says. When your eyes meet, he averts his gaze, an awkward cough battling its way out of his throat. “Uhm… we better get back to work, or else my sister’s gonna kill me–”

“Oh, but it’s not busy!” Izzy suddenly utters out, making you snap your head towards her with shock, a look worthy of many words burning a hole into the middle of her forehead. What is she thinking? “Why don’t you sit with us for a while? It seems like you and Y/N have a lot to catch up on,” your roommate sweetly says, throwing the burden onto your shoulders again. 

Why are you suddenly forced into the role of a wingman? You really didn’t sign up for this.

“Oh, I–”

“I could use a little break,” Sunwoo grins, not even waiting for his coworker to immediately deny the idea. You swear you can mentally hear your roommate's excited squealing on a telepathic frequency as the dark-haired boy takes a seat right next to her, sprawling his legs wide and resting his back against the chair, seemingly tired. “Come on, Eric. Lisa has a soft spot for me, she won’t eat our heads off.”

Eric meets your gaze. You hope your brains match at frequencies with the boy as well as you send him mental apologies, the atmosphere once again getting too awkward for you to handle. He seems to be the victim of his friend’s terrorizing strategies as much as you are, though, so you think there is silent understandment hanging in the air over the two of you as he reluctantly sits on the chair next to you.

You’re starting to think Izzy has a death wish. You’re also starting to be fairly certain that you will be the one to fulfill it.

The passage of time is weird. It’s a strange construct to you, finding yourself dwelling on it at times when it’s the least suitable to– especially when you have things to do and a workload to get through. See, it’s incredibly bizarre to you how when you’re doing nothing, time is passing by quickly without you even noticing it: a few episodes of your favorite TV show go by and you’re suddenly well into the evening. When you’re working on assignments, though, it seems like time has stopped. 

You promised yourself you’re going to stay in the library and work on the project you were assigned in your internship until at least 6PM. You arrived at 3 o’clock– three hours should be easy, right? Not that much time.

Wrong. Because you swear you’ve been aimlessly searching around the internet and writing things down for at least 10 years now, and it’s only been an hour and you still have two more to go. Time is weird like that. It’s fascinating– at least when you hypnotize the numbers in the right corner of your screen, sucked into the doom of your laptop. Maybe you should’ve taken Physics instead. You’d love to learn about this.

(The fact that this has nothing to do with Physics and everything to do with your focus and attention is a completely invalid argument to you at this moment, so you don’t even let yourself think about it.)

Something finally pulls you out of the hyper focused state that you put yourself in while staring at the time on your screen (as if to mentally push the clock to go faster), and that is a figure moving right opposite of you, resting their hand on the back of a chair.

“Hi,” you hear, making you snap your head up and face the intruder, “can I sit here?”

“Hi…?” you mumble, watching the boy in front of you not wait for your answer as he pulls the chair back and settles his body onto it. He empties his pockets in the true manly fashion– putting his wallet, his phone and his keys onto the wooden table– all while letting you absorb his existence for a bit before you have to react to it some more. 

You spent years not seeing Eric Sohn. Now, you bump into him at least every other week. Strange.

He is wearing a simple white hoodie, his hair now not covered by a cap. You glance over the honey blonde locks, noting to yourself that he does not have a messed up trim, which means he just must like hats a lot. You feel like you should probably say something– start up a conversation– but the shock of seeing him is still settled deep in your bones, stopping you from every attempt.

Looking around the library, you note that it’s half-empty– meaning that Eric could’ve chosen any seat, any other seat in the whole entire place– yet he chose to sit right opposite of you at one of the long tables in the middle of the room. Nodding to yourself as you absorb the information, you open your mouth to say something– anything– before the boy beats you to it, acting in his true, nonchalant casualty.

“What are you working on?” he asks. “I mean… you seemed quite miserable when I arrived, so I assumed it was for the best to take you out of the frozen state before you go crazy,” he jokes, having you close your mouth and awkwardly smile at him.

“Yeah,” you hum, shrugging. “I was mainly just trying to force the time to go quicker with the sheer power of my gaze, but I think it doesn’t work like that…” 

“You set up a timer for yourself?” he asks, laughing.

“Kinda,” you nod. “I knew I had to hold myself accountable and do work, or else I’m going to leave things until the last minute and hate myself even more for not doing anything sooner, so I told myself I’ll work on my assignments until 6, but it’s… easier said than done.”

Eric nods at you, acknowledging your struggle. He takes out his own laptop and presses the power button. As he waits for it to turn on, he looks back at you, his gaze making you nervous. 

It’s not that you don’t like Eric– not at all, you have your fair share of fond memories with the boy when you were little– it’s just that you haven’t seen him in ages, haven’t properly talked to him since you were kids. You know nothing about the man he is right now– aside from the fact that his father owns a pizza place now. You don’t even know what he majors in. Hell, you didn’t even know he went to the same university as you up to this point– which makes everything just a little bit too awkward for you.

How to navigate the conversation? What to talk about? Why does he not just… ignore you? It’s not like the two of you were that close in the first place.

“What do you major in?” he asks. You wonder if it’s sheer politeness, or if he really just wants to know.

“Business,” you say, tone of voice hinting that you’re not really satisfied with your own answer. “I’m actually supposed to be working on a project for my mandatory internship right now.”

“Damn… what is it?” he asks. 

Scratching the back of your neck, you lick your lips before answering. “It’s like… I have to make a pitch about a new product for them to sell. I work in the sales section for Trust, the insurance company, so I have to do a lot of… market research… and then also marketing… it’s… kind of a lot, actually…” you nervously laugh, trying to diffuse the fact that you’re genuinely scared of the very project you were assigned.

Eric stares at you with interest, a look of acknowledgement settling onto his face. “Wow. That sounds hard.”

“I mean, I don’t know…” you shrug. “Maybe I’m just too stupid for this–”

“No you’re not,” the boy instantly cuts you off, shaking your head. “I’d say they just have high demands from you.”

His words do a bit to soothe you. You avoid asking your classmates about their internships in fear of being the only one that’s finding things hard and being overly-dramatic. Talking to someone who doesn’t really have the same experience as you makes things a bit easier– you can complain and they won’t judge, because there’s no way they know how it feels. Eric won’t judge you for finding your business internship hard, because he doesn’t know what it takes– at least not on his own skin. But if you’d complain to your classmate Yeji, for example, she might find it weird– what if your tasks are the easiest thing to do in her eyes?

“Thanks,” you hum. “What do you major in, though?” you ask him, somehow committing to keeping the conversation going for just a little more time.

“Communications,” he laughs. “I just… write a lot of papers, I guess.”

“Ah,” you nod in acknowledgement. 

You feel like you should add something. Maybe you should comment, sympathize, ask more questions, but in the moment, no fitting words reach your mind. After a heartbeat of silence, Eric’s eyes finally leave your figure to focus on his laptop, and the only thing resonating through your brain is the fact that the last two times you met him, it was painfully awkward and maybe a little strange– which leads you to questioning the fact that he still chose to approach you today.

“Look, Eric, we… you don’t have to act like we’re friends now,” you say, refusing to meet his gaze. Somehow, your blank laptop screen is much more interesting. “And I’m sorry about last week,” you note, tone of voice lighthearted– trying to mask how much you actually think about the encounters and how they make you wish they never even happened. Somehow, you worry about how you’re perceived by him. “My roommate just kind of likes your coworker– Sunwoo–” you call him by his name, “so she has been doing all of this to get his attention, and it’s…”

“It’s okay,” Eric laughs, making you glance up from the blank document and finally meet his eyes. There is no stern look on his face, no signs of disappointment or disgust on his features. It helps you calm down a bit. “I’m used to girls being all over Sunwoo, really,” he says, shrugging.

“Yeah…” you sigh. “Sorry for making it all awkward, and stuff. As I said, you don’t have to feel obliged to–”

“I don’t, though,” he hums. The sentiment silences you. You offer him nothing but a nod, suddenly at a loss for words. “Look, we used to be close when we were kids,” he shrugs, “so don’t even worry about it.”

You’re not really sure what his words are meant to imply. Does he mean that you’re friends now again? Does he mean he doesn’t find this whole thing absolutely awkward? Are you supposed to hang out more often now? Do you get his number? 

After trying to clarify everything, you’re left even more confused.

If there’s one thing about Eric Sohn that you remember from your childhood, it’s the fact that he’s friendly. And also… pretty fucking competetive. “It’s almost 4:30. Whoever gives up on their assignment first pays for coffee later, yeah?” he challenges you, looking at you with mischief glimmering in his dark orbs.

You guess both of these qualities stayed with him until adulthood, and although you were awkward with him just a few minutes ago, you don’t really have it in you to overthink the interaction any longer.

“Deal,” you nod.

As if this was all the motivation you needed, you get back to working.

“Jokes on you, drinking is not a forfeit for me,” Jake, the underclassmen you see around the campus sometimes says after a round of spin the bottle in which he refuses to make out with the person to his right (that was friend Sunghoon from middle school, just for the record), “I actually enjoy it. So–”

“You should stop drinking, dude…” the said friend nudges him to his shoulder, looking at the boy with a concerned look in his eye. It’s no secret that both of them are light drinkers, but one of them is clearly handling his alcohol worse– and it’s the shorter one of the two. 

“Why? You wanna make out with me?”

“I’d rather not carry you home again, that’s all–”

“That sounds a bit sus, Hoon–” Jake snickers before he downs the shot of whatever alcohol is passed to him, “y’know, if you wanted to kiss me, you could’ve just said so…” he slurs, making Sunghoon sigh, closing his eyes for a second to collect himself in time before the frustration in him turns into anger and he swings at his friend.

You can’t help but laugh at the commotion. You don’t really go out to party much– since you and Izzy are introverted, you don’t really search for these types of gatherings– but you figured that doing something other than watching the TV on a Friday evening would be nice. Especially when you were invited by the guy you met in your internship. 

It felt rude to deny an invitation to a party by Park Jihoon, given the fact that you wanted to make friends and connections during your stay with the company. He is an intern just like you– maybe a bit more energetic and extroverted, that’s all. Which you welcome with open arms, just for the record. It’s been a while since an extrovert extroverted the way they are supposed to and adopted you– it’s always a pleasant experience.

You’re also not really the one to participate in a game of spin the bottle. You find such games embarrassing and nerve-wrecking. They induce anxiety in you from what you have to do, and it’s not the good kind. The adrenaline in your veins is enough for you to call it quits, but then again, you’re always good at falling for peer pressure and your roommate’s battling eyelashes are ones you don’t find yourself resisting too often. 

There’s alcohol running through your system, warming you up. Wearing a cropped top and shorts surprisingly didn’t really help you to cool down as you soothe yourself with alcohol after another week of stressing yourself over your damn internship project (which Jihoon offered to help with, but you’re too much of an individualist to let anyone partake in even just the smallest task of your assignment) and after careful consideration, you realize you haven’t had that much to eat before turning up to the party.

Which is always a mistake. Drinking on an empty stomach is one of the biggest flaws you bring with yourself to social gatherings.

“Maybe I should eat,” you suddenly comment, perking up the attention of Jihoon to your right. He looks at you with considerate eyes and nods.

“There should be pizza coming soon, actually.”

“Really?” you gasp, excitement suddenly flowing through your bones. It’s been at least a month since you last had pizza, and you’re slowly starting to crave it. Did Izzy give up on that cute delivery boy? Maybe you should remind her… the pizza was worth it, you must admit.

“Yeah–” 

And as if you wished it into existence, the sound of the doorbell suddenly brings you out of the conversation and has people closest to the door standing up to get it.

It seems like randomly running up to Eric Sohn is your newest hobby. It’s strange how life works– you haven’t seen him in ages, and suddenly, he finds his way to randomly walk back into the plotline of your life casually, as if it was fate. It’s kind of laughable, really. 

Because there he is– standing behind the door with boxes of pizza in his hands, accompanied by his friend Sunwoo holding up even more. The amount could feed a whole village, you think, and you’re suddenly glad you aren’t the one paying for the food, since you’re sure it would add up to a big check. The crowd hollers at the two boys at the door, and it takes you a few seconds to realize it’s not because of the feast they just brought into the building.

“Eric! Sunwoo! Come in, you two!” Jihoon suddenly calls from next to you, waving the two over with a motion of his hand. This has the shorter boy look into the spacious living room, eyes scanning the surroundings. His eyes fix on you for a second, offering you a smile, before they move back to the host.

“Can’t, we’re on the clock, actually,” Eric snickers awkwardly, shrugging.

“Oh come on!” Haechan, the boy that was introduced to you today as Jihoon’s best friend, joins. It seems like everyone around knows exactly who Eric Sohn is, and it leaves you wondering just how you managed to unawarely avoid him for all those years. “Just for a bit!”

“Yeah,” Jihoon adds. “Just stay for like 10 minutes, or something. Actually,” the tipsy boy has a million-dollar idea, “I’m not paying y’all until you stay for a bit. How about that?”

“Great, dude,” Sunwoo laughs, shaking his head in disbelief at his friend’s tactics. “Let’s go in, then.”

The two get ridded of the pizzas they brought, walking up into the room. You feel Izzy poking your leg with her pointer finger repeatedly, and when you look at her, she is staring at you with eyes that remind you of someone slowly slipping into a manic state. You think it’s the effect of Kim Sunwoo entering the room with a smirk on his face, but you’re not really sure at this point.

“What are we playing?” Sunwoo asks the obvious as he sits down, dragging his friend with him. Their spot is currently straight across from you. After more careful examination, you realize Eric’s eyes are glued on your figure, making you smile at him and wave silently before he moves to scan your new friend sitting close to your right. 

The last time you’ve seen Eric was that day at the library. That was almost 2 weeks ago now, and although you went for a coffee after you declared that you ‘simply can’t do it anymore’ and ‘would rather die than to work on this project any longer’, he insisted on paying for both of your drinks instead of making you do it, as was previously agreed on. You exchanged numbers after chatting and walking around for a bit, and although you waited for him to text you the same week, he never did, and you never tried to make conversation either.

Somehow, you simply didn’t know what to say. Then again– it’s not like the two of you were friends in the first place.

The game proceeds like before even with the new members added. Some of the people hanging out around the living room move to eat the pizzas, but if you’re being completely honest, the idea of eating was long forgotten to you the moment Eric and Sunwoo walked through the front door. Admittedly, maybe you did have a considerate amount to drink this evening, because everything is starting to turn into a bit of a blur from this moment. You watch the game absent-mindedly, not really taking much in, as your eyes sometimes subconsciously move to Eric sitting leisurely on the sofa opposite of you.

After a round where Jihoon is asked to suck on Haechan’s toe and Yizhuo is told to confess the last person she hooked up with (which was a guy to whose name everyone gasped, but left you clueless, since you didn’t really know who it was), your biggest fears are proven to be reality as the bottle lands on you. Heartbeat instantly picking up at speed, making you hear your own blood in your ears, you look up from the cursed item and wait to hear your ordeal.

Who would’ve thought playing spin the bottle would feel like a near-death experience?

“Truth or dare?” Yizhuo asks.

After a second of consideration, you blurt out: “Dare.”

Big mistake. At least you can lie when you pick the truth, goddamn it. What was drunk you even thinking…?

“Okay,” she nods, contemplating for a bit. As the gears in her head start working and the idea comes into her brain, a smug smirk appears on her face, hinting that this whole evening was a bad, bad idea. “I dare you to sit in the lap of the hottest guy here for three rounds.”

The crowd goes crazy. 

Girls gasp, guys whistle, and your brain– it completely shuts off. Alcohol should logically make you feel more courageous and daring, no? That’s what they all say. 

You’re the one to prove the sentiment wrong as you gulp and contemplate your next decision. Given the fact that you’re one shot away from throwing up, you decide to not drink to protect yourself– making sure you save your image and don’t embarrass yourself by showing the contents of your stomach to everyone on Park Jihoon’s beige rug.

Scanning the circle, you watch the men situated right in front of you in the living room. It resembles window shopping a bit, except you’re feeling really fucking miserable while doing it. You know it’s all fun and games and that if you take the situation with enough nonchalance, everything will turn out fine– hell, some might not even remember this moment in the morning, so it’s really not that big of a deal– but the more you contemplate the object of your dare, the more nervous you’re starting to feel.

Kim Sunwoo is a clear no go. You and Jihoon are close enough where it wouldn’t feel awkward, but somehow, you know you would be lying to yourself if you picked him. Your eyes smoothly drift past Haechan, Jake and Sunghoon, all the way past Renjun and Jeno to Eric sitting right across from you, eyeing you with interest in his dark orbs. 

The circle is starting to rush you. Jihoon nudges your side, telling you to ‘just pick one,’, making you briefly glance at him with a stern look in your eyes. After your gaze lands back on Eric– whose eyebrows slightly furrow when he notices you paying attention to your new friend– you come to a downing realization of the fact that somehow, your eyes keep landing on the short boy, not really wanting to look away.

It’s alright. It’s nothing. Eric Sohn is conventionally attractive– you’re sure it’s not that big of a deal. 

Standing up from your spot, hearing the crowd pick up the excitement, you walk over to the other side of the circle– while trying not to trip over your own foot and fall over in the process. Eric looks up at you with big eyes glimmering, expecting your final answer, making your palms sweat and voice a little shaky as you awkwardly let out.

“Do you mind…?”

The question is laughable, really. You audibly hear Yeji and Yizhuo squeal in excitement at your action, while Haechan hollers out a laugh from the back. Trying to ignore the reactions, faking nonchalance, you watch as Eric shifts slightly in his spot and moves his hands to his sides, as if to make some space for you, before he shrugs. 

“Go ahead.”

Nodding to yourself, you scratch the back of your neck before you turn your back to him and slowly settle yourself onto his lap. 

And here you thought the delivery boy incident could simply not be beaten on the scale of awkward and embarrassing moments with Eric Sohn.

It’s now your turn to spin the bottle, you realize– which you try to focus on instead of the fact that you are currently sitting in the lap of the guy you grew up with– making you bend to the ground and proceed with the game. Only three rounds and you can move back to your initial spot, you think. You just have to survive three rounds of this stupid game before you’re free.

Watching the empty wine bottle spin in circles before it stops, your eyes move to the side with the opening, trying to see who it landed on. When you look up, your roommate is staring back at you with a suspicious look on her face, not even waiting for you to ask the question to determine her fate. “Dare,” she spits out. 

Her eyes bear into you with such intensity you think she’s trying to tell you something, but right as you try to match her brain frequency and decipher what exactly she wants from you right in this moment, you feel Eric’s hands land lightly onto your sides. 

They don’t move, nor do they put any pressure into your skin. They just lay there, fingers on the skin of your bare midriff, sending an electric shock into your brain that completely shuts off your telepathic communication with Izzy, making you blurt out the first thing that comes to your mind.

“Uh… prank call your latest hook up and tell him you want to get together with him,” you say.

She immediately throws darts into your skull, making you regret your decision. 

What? Is it not spicy enough? Judging from the reactions of the rest of the players, you’d say you did a good job– which makes you believe she just didn’t want to expose hooking up with Jaemin in front of everyone.

Nonetheless, she moves on with the dare. You don’t really pay much attention to it as a wave of sickness comes over you. You’re genuinely left seeing things twice, which leads you to close your eyes and rest your head in your hands for a second before a low voice lands into your ear.

“How drunk are you on a scale of 1 to 10?” Eric asks.

“Like… 8, I think?” you snicker. “I’m okay, I just need to–”

Before you get a chance to finish your sentence or even barely think of what would help you in this moment, you feel Eric’s hands on your sides lightly tug your body towards him, leaving you to fully glue your figure onto his. Your back meets his front, sprawling out onto the sofa, leaving you to settle your head onto his shoulder. 

You can’t say your stomach feels less crazy at the moment, but you also can’t say this isn’t strangely nice. “Better?” he asks. 

You think you lost your voice for a second, so you only offer him a nod. 

His next actions leave you wondering if he’s always been this touchy and affectionate. While one of his arms sneaks around your waist and holds you to him, his other palm leaves to take its new place on your thigh. The rational side of your brain is telling you that this is just the most comfortable place to let your arms rest when you have someone sitting in your lap, but it’s still enough to have heat rising up your neck, slowly warming up your face.

A few seconds pass before Eric absent-mindedly starts to draw circles onto your quad, your brain hyper-focused onto the feeling of his forearm on your bare midriff. When he laughs at the way Izzy’s prank call is going– to which he earns a warning look from your roommate to keep quiet and not break the facade– you feel his body vibrating under you, making you realize that you’re the only one out of the two that is so affected by this simple gesture.

It leaves you feeling silly. It must be the alcohol, surely– but god,

Eric Sohn surely has hands that make hell seem cold.

You’re woken up in the morning to the sound of your roommate screaming, yelling at you. Not only do you already have a massive headache from the hangover you surely accidentally threw yourself in, now you also feel like there is someone cutting parts of your brain off with a knife. (Which sounds contradicting, because you do know the brain can’t be in pain. Why does it feel like that, then?)

“You had the perfect opportunity to think of something that could make me and Sunwoo closer. You could’ve said anything! But no, you chose to–”

“Why are you screaming?” you ask, voice hoarse and quiet, your throat scratchy as you utter the few words.

“–lay in Eric’s lap like a princess and do nothing–” she continues, making you wince. It’s not that you don’t remember the moment, no– you do. The memory is almost painfully crystal clear in your brain, you just didn’t really mean to think of it the first thing in the morning.

“Isabelle,” you grit your teeth and put your pillow over your eyes to shield them from the sunlight that is only making your headache worse, “I’m gonna need you to shut. the. fuck. up–”

“You’re a terrible, terrible wingwoman, I’ll tell you that,” she accuses you.

Suddenly, the cause for her telling looks and annoyed huffs throughout the last night make total sense. Hell, you’re smarter than this– you shouldn’t need explaining for such a simple task. It was your turn to dare your best friend to do something, and the object of her desire was right there. You will blame the shortcoming on your alcohol-infused brain– in Izzy’s eyes, though, it doesn’t really change the narrative.

“I’m sorry,” you mourn, “I wasn’t thinking properly.”

“Yeah, I could see that,” she grunts, tugging the pillow off your face. “At this rate, me and Sunwoo are never gonna be a thing, and I hope you know it’s completely your fault.”

“How could it be my fault?” you grunt, suddenly frustrated with your roommate. She is the one that isn’t sending him obvious enough hints, and it’s your fault he isn’t catching on? Why are you suddenly blamed for something that is completely out of your control? This is getting a bit ridiculous.

Wanting to sit up on your bed and fight against your roommate, but failing to do so before she escapes your room– sensing that you would throw the pillow onto her as soon as you’d get the chance– you sigh and reach for your phone sitting on your bedside table. There is a notification shining at the top of your screen, and when you unlock your phone and absent-mindedly click on the message, you’re taken off guard by the view in front of you.

Eric Sohn [1:21 AM]: hi, just checking in to see if you got home okay?

You read the message over once, then twice, before you decide to reply. Clearing your throat, as if you were going to record a voice message, you think of the most appropriate answer. 

If you’re being honest, you don’t really remember much about how you got home last night– all you know is that after three rounds of spin the bottle, you reluctantly climbed off Eric’s lap, to which him and Sunwoo escaped the party and trailed back to work with excuses of Eric’s sister killing them if they didn’t show up soon. You’re fairly certain that you and Izzy just took a cab home, but since you notice you’re still wearing yesterday’s clothes, you assume you weren’t really with yourself at that moment– which is also the sole reason for you not replying to Eric’s message when you first got it.

You [11:10]: hello!! yes we did :) You [11:10]: sorry for replying so late, but as you could see last night i wasnt rlly checking my phone haha..

Surely this is good enough to play it off. Not suspicious at all! Eric Sohn will never know you were drunk off your face and hardly made it through the front door of your apartment. (Except he does know, and you’re also painfully aware.)

And all of this for what..? A bad week at your internship? You’re one of the weak ones, for sure.

Switching apps and deciding to scroll through Instagram for a bit before you get up and face the day– which includes making lunch, because you didn’t have any leftovers left in the fridge– your phone buzzes in your hands, showing you a new message.

Eric Sohn [11:15]: good to hear :) Eric Sohn [11:15]: are u feeling well? 

God. You feel like throwing up– surely the cause of the alcohol still in your system.

 Well, it’s not like he didn’t know before. And you’re a grown woman! There’s no shame in a bit of a hangover. You’re fairly certain he gets them all the time– you two are in university, after all. 

Faking nonchalance, once again, you text back.

You [11:16]: yeah, just a massive headache that’s all :// You [11:16]: im sure lunch will fix it lol

Eric Sohn [11:16]: speaking of… do u wanna get lunch w me? im sure eating out is a better option for u rn haha

Something inside of you panics at the message. You don’t know what it is, but somehow, you always feel a bit awkward with Eric at first. Maybe it’s the fact that you always remember how you grew up together and then vanished out of each other’s lives– without each other even noticing– or maybe it’s the fact that you always feel like you only embarrass yourself in front of him. 

He seems to be casual about things, though. He doesn’t make fun of you for anything– rather, he takes those moments as opportunities to get closer to you and maybe even build back the friendship you were forced into in childhood, but chose in your adulthood. 

There is no reason to overthink his words or actions. It’s Eric, after all.

Eric Sohn [11:17]: me and sunwoo that is, btw. u can bring your roommate if she’s down!:D

Oh. 

Well, at least you have a way to fix things with your butthurt friend. Clearing your throat before calling into the depths of the apartment– because Izzy left your door open, seemingly hinting that it’s time for you to get up and cook lunch– you slowly start getting out of bed.

“Izzy, do you wanna get lunch with Sunwoo, Eric and I?” you ask, a grin slowly appearing on your face. She rewards you with a few seconds of silence– as if trying to tease you– before she gives you the obvious answer. 

“Yeah.”

“Thought so,” you chuckle, sending Eric back a text agreeing to his invitation. 

After a few minutes spent showering and making yourself look presentable, you walk out of the building with your roommate by your side (that’s currently smelling a bit like she just poured the whole perfume bottle over her), nearing the building you decided to meet in over text messages. It’s a small Korean place just down the street, making you wonder if it’s the boy’s favorite, or if he just chose something that was nearby for you out of convenience.

When you open the door and walk into the place, you’re immediately hugged by the smell of delicious food making your stomach churn in hunger and the low music playing in the background. It doesn’t take you long to notice the two boys already sitting at one of the tables, chatting to each other. Sunwoo is very passionate about something, waving his arms around, but the moment you two arrive at the table, their conversation dies down a bit, replaced by warm greetings.

“Wow, you look terrible,” Sunwoo lets out when his eyes meet your figure. The comment makes you shrink in yourself– truth be told, you know you don’t look your best right now, given the fact that your headache was still very much present and you didn’t put any makeup on– but still, it isn’t the best experience to hear someone say it out loud.

“Thanks,” you nod, watching as your roommate eagerly takes a seat next to Sunwoo, her body in respectful, yet close proximity to his, “I feel like it too.”

“Auch–” the said boy lets out, glaring at Eric sitting opposite of him. You’re not really sure what happened, but you don’t pay it much mind as you slowly settle yourself in the last spot possible– next to Eric in the little booth.

“Did you order already?” Izzy asks, clearly more joy and cheerfulness in her body than in yours. You don’t really know how or why she’s not currently dying of a hangover like you are, but something is telling you that maybe, just maybe, you were the only one that took the drinking too far last night. (You and Sim Jake, that is. The poor boy had to run to puke only a few minutes after the game of spin the bottle ended, and it was not a fun sight.)

“No,” Eric shakes his head, “we were waiting for you to get here. Wanna check the menu? We already skimmed through it.”

You nod at his preposition, taking the laminated paper into your hand. You’re always indecisive when it comes to ordering food– never really knowing what to get, because everything is either foreign to you or too appealing, nothing in between, leaving you on the fence about what you’d like to eat at the given moment– and the lengthy list of options in this place isn’t really helping you. 

A sigh escapes your throat at the sight. Truth be told, you’re not even gonna read the whole thing– so you opt to look at Eric to your right with a begging expression on your face.

“Do you know what you’re getting?” you ask, watching him nod.

“Ramen.”

“Is it good?” you inquire, having the boy nod at you casually, replying to your question.

“Pretty good, yeah,” he answers. “Also, I’d argue that it’s the best for a hangover.”

“Perfect. I’ll have that, then,” you note, putting the menu back to its place on the other side of the table, not really wanting to think about it any longer.

When the waiter comes and asks for your order, you notice Eric taking charge and saying your choice as well, ridding you of the burden. Grateful for his initiative, you turn to smile at him in return, before you choose to rest your head in your hands on the table, still not relaxed enough after the long night you had. 

There’s a soothing hand rubbing your back in just a few seconds, pressing comforting circles into the middle of your torso. You think you can’t really blame Sunwoo for making fun of you today– you surely must look like absolute shit.

“Did you two go to the same party?” Sunwoo chuckles, pointing out the obvious difference in your composures. “How come do you not look dead?” he addresses the question to Izzy, curious.

“I can handle my alcohol well,” she hums.

“That’s a lie,” you grunt, eyes still glued to the wooden table, “she just didn’t drink much last night.”

“I think that’s a part of handling my alcohol well–”

“No it’s not,” you squint at her, shaking your head. “Abstinence is not ‘handling alcohol’, you moron.”

“Okay, well, I’m just saying that’s the reason why you look like you have some sort of disease, while I look fresh and beautiful,” she sings in half-seriousness, half-irony, going as far as posing like a flower, offering the whole table her bright smile.

“I mean, you always do,” a low voice echoes around the restaurant, making you snap your head up to gaze at the boy opposite of you that is now refusing to meet anyone’s eye. Eric’s hand freezes on your back, stilling, as a chuckle leaves his throat at his friend’s comment.

Interesting. Sunwoo’s usually cocky demeanor changes as he blushes, scratching the back of his neck. The air gets a little tense as you allow yourself to look your roommate in the eye, a hint of surprise playing with her face. She looks taken aback, but pleased with herself– and you have to give her that. Her magic is finally working.

“So, anyways…” Eric breaks the awkward silence, arm slipping off your back and resting on the table. The absence of the soothing circles on your clothed skin makes you miss it only a little bit, but you won’t really dwell on that any longer or mention it out loud. 

The food comes just in time to diffuse the weird atmosphere, making all of you thank the waiter for the meal and get to eating. You can’t say ramen is your favorite meal on the planet, but you must admit that the way they prepared it here really gets your taste buds on Cloud 9. You’re enjoying every bit of it, salvaging the salty taste and chewing on the noodles, looking like a person that’s been starved for five days with the way you’re just inhaling the food like it’s oxygen.

“Feels nice to finally eat somewhere else than at work,” Sunwoo grunts in pleasure, throwing his head back and letting his eyes close, fully enjoying the moment. 

Eric nods in agreement, having you furrow your brows at them. “You must work a lot.”

“Yeah,” the boy next to you nods, “I do it to help my dad, but the more I work, the more miserable and absolutely boring it gets.”

“I would imagine it to be kind of fun, I dunno,” you hum sheepishly, noticing the boys eyeing you with a deadpan expression on their faces.

“I mean, everything’s better than a corporate job, in my opinion,” Eric throws a jab at you, a smirk playing with his lips. He’s not wrong.

“Don’t even remind me…”

“Still no progress on that thing?” he asks, genuine interest lacing his tone.

Shaking your head, you sigh. “I mean, I did a bit of market research, but nothing to show my boss, that’s for sure. It’s just been rotting my brain for weeks and I feel like I’m frozen with stress that I can’t actually pick it up, y’know?”

Eric nods in acknowledgement, swallowing the last bits of food in his mouth. “Maybe you just need to think about it less.”

“Yeah,” Izzy joins, “take off some steam. Maybe you just need a little break from it.”

“But if I take a break from it, I might never actually start it–”

“That’s ridiculous,” she cuts you off. “You know you work well under pressure.” You sigh at her comment, shaking your head in disapproval. Procrastination isn’t really your favorite thing under the sun, but it’s something you can’t really control during most projects you pick up.  “What do we say we all hang out together when you’re free? To chill, do something fun, get your heads off work…?” 

You look around the table with questioning eyes. You’re not really sure if you crawled across the bridge to the friendship side yet, or if Izzy’s efforts are what is going to do just that. Not really knowing where you stand with the boys– because they did invite you to lunch, but you also hadn’t spoken in a long time before that– you don’t push them for an answer. You’re going to go along with whatever they choose.

“I’m down,” Sunwoo nods, “I bet that if we tell Lisa in advance, she can do the deliveries. There’s a new Deadpool movie coming out next week, wanna go see that?”

You’re not really a fan of Marvel movies nor have you seen the first two parts of the series. The same could be said about Izzy, but she grasps at the invitation like a thirsty woman seeing water after 20 days spent on a desert, nodding eagerly at Sunwoo. It’s almost laughable how easily she agrees to everything the boy has to say. 

You guess you can’t really blame her, though– he is giving her subtle signs of reciprocation with today’s compliment, isn’t he?

You think about it for a while. Looking to your right, facing Eric, you lock eyes with him, as he was already gazing at you and expecting your answer. The boy shrugs at the eye contact, seemingly down to the offer. 

You guess seeing a movie with them isn’t such a bad idea, right?

“Yeah, okay,” you say, “what day is that?”

Foolish. That’s what you are.

Foolish for thinking you could get everything done in time and actually enjoy your time with your friends. Foolish for thinking you could have a day off when you don’t have to think of all the responsibilities that adult life is throwing at you– because as you realize exactly one day before you’re supposed to see the new Deadpool movie in the cinema with Izzy, Sunwoo and Eric, after a discussion with your boss about how he needs some spreadsheets done before the next day, you realize don’t have enough time in your schedule for both.

Frustration, anger and also a bit of sadness fills your bones as you announce to your friends– in person to Izzy and over a text to Eric– that you probably won’t make it. The boy tells you that if you do end up being able to come after all, you should, which makes you only feel worse at the realization that you are now missing out on what could’ve been a chill afternoon.

The frustration only grows in you when you decide to do your work in the library the next day, not even walking back to your apartment after class– because you realize you not only don’t enjoy any minute of your internship, but you also feel like a failure after not being able to finish any simple task with no bigger issues.

After sending one last message to your friends about how you’re stuck in the library for the time being, you try to drown yourself in work– while simultaneously trying to ignore the clock in the corner of your screen telling you the exact minutes you’ve spent missing out on the plans.

You don’t really know how much time passes before a hand lands on your shoulder, making you jump violently in your seat. Your heart starts beating a thousand miles an hour as you turn your head to make out who is the cause of your heart attack, preparing yourself for the screaming match you’re very well mentally ready for.

Up until… you notice who’s standing behind you, offering you a gentle smile.

“Sorry. Did I scare you?” he asks, laughing softly at your shaken composure.

“I almost died, dude!” you scold him, shaking your head at the boy. Something inside of you lights up at the idea of a distraction from your workload, your heart squeezing on itself when you scan your visitor over– from the bottom of his feet cladded in simple Nike pandas to the top of his head covered not only by a beanie, but also the hood of his gray sweater.

“Sorry,” he once again apologizes, eyes glimmering in amusement.

“What are you even doing here?” you ask, furrowing your eyebrows in confusion and checking the time on your laptop. “The movie starts in a few minutes!”

Out of all the people on the whole entire planet, Eric Sohn is the last person you’d expect to appear in the library exactly at this moment. The sheer presence of him right in front of you makes you blink a few times in hopes of figuring out if his existence is not a fata morgana, watching as the boy only shrugs at you in nonchalance.

“Ah, that…” he hums. “I actually brought you a treat, since you said you will be stuck in the library the whole day,” he says, offering you a bag containing something sweet-smelling.

Once you take a better look at what he’s holding in front of you, your stomach churns and your tastebuds yearn for the sugary dough he must have gotten in the bakery at the corner of the campus on his way here– pink glazing and colorful sprinkles, almost bringing tears into your eyes in appreciation. “What? Why?” you ask. “You didn’t have to…”

“I figured there was no use going to the cinema if you’re not going,” he explains– his words making a nervous little bug fly around your stomach. “Since I’m sure Sunwoo and Izzy wanted to go alone anyways, I didn’t wanna be a third-wheel.” 

Oh. Right. You forgot about that part.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave them alone together, to be honest,” you say, making Eric chuckle at your comment.

“This might either be the best, or the worst thing on the whole entire planet.”

“Agreed,” you nod.

Eric sends you a prolonged look in which you realize you haven’t accepted his offering yet, making you reach for the bag containing the donut and placing it onto the table, right next to your laptop. “But really, thank you,” you nod, “you didn’t have to. I’m sure you have other things you could be doing…”

“I wanted to make your stay in the library more pleasant,” Eric says, shrugging. His figure is still towering over you– as he’s standing and you’re sitting down– something about the fact making you wish he would take a seat next to you and maybe even stay for a minute. “I imagine it’s gonna be a long day for you…”

“Yeah,” you sigh. “All thanks to my stupid internship and my stupid boss and this stupid assignment…” you ramble, watching as Eric’s lips turn into a soft smile. What he’s smiling at, you’re not really sure– the topic of the conversation is already miserable enough for you without actually doing any of the things you’re complaining about– but you drop it as the boy crouches next to you, putting his arm around your chair.

“What do you need to do?” he asks, interested.

“I just need to finish this spreadsheet,” you hum, “which isn’t that hard, it’s just a lot of tedious work that no one wants to do, so of course it falls on the intern.”

“That’s the beauty of an internship,” Eric jokes.

“Do you even intern?”

“No,” he laughs, shaking his head. “But I’d like to see what it’s like. Want help with that? I can read the numbers out for you so you don’t get lost in all those rows and columns,” he suggests, pointing to the amount of reports waiting at your desk, waiting to be digitized.

“Oh, it’s okay,” you sheepishly say, although touched with the offer. He’s probably only saying it to be nice– but that’s still enough for appreciation to grow in your chest. “You don’t have to stay and do boring things with me just because we were supposed to hang out today. Actually, you should hurry so you can get to the cinema on time–”

In your peripheral vision, you watch as the boy stands up from his crouched position only to pull out a chair from one of the empty seats, placing it next to yours so he has a view of your laptop. Before you get a chance to protest any longer, he’s sat in the seat with one of his legs popped up and resting on the bottom construction of your chair, hands reaching for the papers that you could physically drown in sprawled all over your desk. 

“Don’t be silly. I’d rather do anything else than to watch Sunwoo embarrassingly try to flirt with your friend,” he chuckles. “So, which numbers do you need?”

“Eric, really–”

“These ones?” he persists, not even giving you a chance to protest any longer. 

Eyes meeting– his big and honest, a warm pool of honey– yours a little tired, but still filled with tender appreciation, he waits for you to answer and explain how he can help you. He patiently awaits your instructions, wanting to make your life a bit easier– and something about that makes your heart leap in your chest.

You guess you’d say you and Eric are friends now. Yeah, you definitely are.

“Look, the sooner you’re done, the sooner you can get out of here and get another donut with me on your way home. Because trust me, I thought I could resist, but the more I look at the one I brought you, the more I kinda want one for myself…”

Laughing, you shake your head at his boyish antics. He looks so casual right now– like someone cut out of your everyday life, like someone you’ve known for years and are destined to know forever. 

You show him which row he should read out loud for you. You share the donut with him. It takes a bit longer than you expected and the donut place is closed when he walks with you home, but he assures you it’s okay– you can get one another time.

“Five iced americanos, two lattes, one iced tea– do you want anything?” Jihoon turns to you with raised eyebrows, getting a look of your sulking face.

“No,” you bite back, anger getting the worst out of you. 

“Okay, so we’ll also add another americano and a flat white, please,” your coworker slash friend turns back towards the barista, smiling at him and paying with the corporate card.

After the two of you move into the line waiting for drinks, you continue on with your little tangent. 

“So they think they can make me do all the dirty work, leave me with no time to do anything and announce tasks at the last second, only to be bitchy and don’t even say thank you when I do everything they tell me to?” you snap, scowling at Jihoon. “And then they decide that oh, maybe I’m not good enough to do all those fucking spreadsheets for them, so I am demoted to a coffee runner?!” you yell out, having the heads of the rest of the customers turn to you with annoyed and concerned looks on their faces.

“Okay, so we are going to calm down–” 

“I don’t wanna calm down!”

Jihoon laughs at your little outburst– which only makes you more frustrated– before he puts a finger against your lips to silent you, an amused expression taking over his face. “Don’t scream when we are inside, at least.”

After his finger leaves your lips, you are left staring at him with a sharp look– like a child that is mad because it didn’t get a new toy it liked in the store. You acknowledge that you might be acting a bit overly-dramatic at the moment, but you also still think your feelings and thoughts are justified. 

You hate the corporate lifestyle. You despise how you have to be a stuck-up to climb it, and how hard work never truly gets you anywhere if you don’t have connections.

Which is why Liu Yangyang is currently helping your boss with all major tasks, getting the experience he truly needs for his degree, while you and Jihoon were sent to get coffee for the whole office. Amazing, isn’t it? The way you can feel so looked down upon, even though you’re aware this is the place you’re supposed to be in, this is how you’re supposed to be treated.

You’re just an intern, nothing else. But sometimes, the uneven weight of responsibilities you get at work makes you stressed and nervous that one day, you’ll have too much on your shoulders to bear while all the other time, you aren’t even worthy of a normal task.

“I hope each and every one of them burns their tongue on that fucking coffee,” you grunt, making Jihoon only laugh harder.

“At least half of them ordered iced americanos, babe.”

A sigh escapes your throat at that. “Okay, so I hope they all spill the drink onto them,” you refute, making Jihoon grin.

“You’re so petty,” he points out as he stands close to you, suddenly deciding to use you as his own personal armrest. “Besides, I think you should appreciate that you don’t have to do a lot today, don’t you think? It’s nice to get a breather. I know I wouldn’t wanna be in Yangyang’s shoes right now.”

“I guess so,” you sigh, looking up to meet the tall boy’s eyes. “But it makes me feel like they don’t think we’re good enough for anything else.”

“And if that’s my crime, then so be it,” he playfully shrugs. “At least I’ll have the experience on my CV and I can graduate.”

“I’d love to have your mindset,” you muse.

“It’s quite easy, actually,” he nods. “You should get it into that pretty brain of yours,” he says as one of his fingers points to the side of your skull, making you scrunch your nose at him and try to avert the contact. 

Jihoon is persistent, though, as he suddenly makes it his quest to ruffle your hair to tease you and make it all disheveled. The two of you get into a play-fight of some sort, consisting of you trying to wrestle the boy off and him trying to make your life a living hell in any way he can, when he abruptly stops and raises his eyebrows at someone behind you, offering them a wave.

“Yo, dude! Hi!” he greets, making you turn your head to see who he is addressing.

There, standing just a few meters in front of you in the line, is Eric Sohn wearing cargo pants and a loose shirt, earphones hanging around the base of his neck. After being greeted by your friend, he moves closer to the two of you, smiling.

“Hi!” he says, paying both of you an up-and-down scan. “What’s up?”

“Nothing much,” Jihoon replies for the both of you, settling to his previous position of resting half his body-weight against your shoulder. You’ve grown used to his nature– playful and friendly, much like an older brother would act– so you don’t really mind the casual touch and teasing from him. “We were sent here to get coffee for the whole building, so we’re just doing that while Y/N here complains about everything–”

“I don’t complain about everything, just the systematic oppression of interns in the workplace–”

“Yeah, whatever you say,” Jihoon cuts you off, snickering. “What about you?”

Eric watches the two of you bickering with furrowed brows before he clears his throat, shrugging. “On my way to class,” he says, “I’m late already, so I figured a few more minutes while I get my coffee won’t hurt me in the long run.”

“Very responsible of you,” you joke, watching as the boy in front of you laughs, paying you a short look.

“Look, I don’t have any big responsibilities like the two of you do, so…”

“Y/N, on the contrary, doesn’t think getting coffee for the corporate people is enough of a responsibility,” Jihoon chimes in, making Eric’s eyes shift towards the taller boy, sending him a look slightly different to the one he gives you.

“She just doesn’t really know how to chill out,” Eric nods. 

“Hello?” you snicker. “I’m literally right here.”

The shorter one looks at you with glimmering eyes, shrugging. “It’s something you have to hear,” he notes. “Truth hurts, but it’s better than lying to yourself.”

Just after that, an order is called that makes Eric’s attention perk up, turning around to the barista. “I think that’s me,” he says, taking a step back towards the counter to retrieve his coffee. “I better get going, but it was nice seeing you two,” he nods.

“Us two…” Jihoon whispers next to you, making you look at him with furrowed brows, confused.

“It was nice seeing you too!” you nod instead, smiling.

“I’ll see you around!” Eric says. Before he completely disappears to the top of the line and out of the coffee shop, he turns to you one more time. “Oh and Y/N, we should hang out again sometime… Text me?”

“Oh, sure,” you agree, your stomach fueled with a strange kind of sensation at his words. You know you should’ve had breakfast in the morning– surely it’s just you being hungry. “I’ll- I’ll text you.”

Only after Jihoon waves at him, finally ridding you off the burden of being his personal armrest, do you realize how hot you feel in your cheeks and how you’ve spent the last couple of seconds carefully, intensively watching Eric get his coffee and step out of the building. Chewing on the inside of your cheek, the atmosphere suddenly too quiet to the one there was between the two of you before Eric Sohn arrived, you feel Jihoon elbow you in your side.

“So,” he starts, already hinting that this is going to be a difficult conversation, “what’s up with you and Sohn?”

“Hm?” you snap your head around to face him, almost breaking your neck with the force. “What do you mean, what’s up with me and Eric? There’s nothing up between the two of us.”

“Sure… and he wasn’t staring at me like he wanted to personally kill me with his own two hands just now, correct?” he teases, making you stop in your tracks.

Was Eric looking at him like that? You didn’t even notice.

“Correct,” you agree. “I don’t really think he was…”

“And my name is not Jihoon–”

“Stop being so difficult to talk to all the time, dear god–”

“Okay, miss ‘I find Eric Sohn to be the hottest one in the world’–”

“When have I ever said that?!” you call out again, suddenly feeling a little too hot in your cheeks, ears, and the back of your neck. What’s up with this visceral reaction? You swear you were nonchalant about these things!

“Oh, sorry, let me correct myself. It was the hottest one in the room, actually, but I think that speaks for itself, since Lee Heeseung himself was present–”

“Are you jealous, or something?” you choose to counter attack, leaving Jihoon to laugh at you in amusement.

“As if,” he shakes his head at you. “I just think it’s cute how whenever I see you two interact, he acts like a lost puppy following you and you’re too oblivious to do anything about it.”

“No, he doesn’t,” you furrow your brows at him, the words not even fully registering in your brain. What does he even mean by all of this? You and Eric are friends– that’s all there is to it.

“Sure… stay being like that and end up a bitchless loser forever, then,” he shrugs. You’d react more to his pointless arguments– because let’s be real, he is just making all of this up to stir some drama– but your awfully long order is called right in the moment you open your mouth to come up with a clever comeback, and so you choose to drop the topic, because it’s quite meaningless in your eyes anyway.

Walking back with two cup holders in your hands, fulfilling your one and only task of the day, you turn to Jihoon with a teasing grin. “Wait, did you just call Lee Heeseung sexy?”

“It was purely objective–”

“I really hate this, y’know?” you mutter as you stand in front of the gates of the amusement park, your cheerful roommate standing by your side bouncing on her feet as she waits in excitement.

“Shut up,” she says, a smile never leaving her face despite your gloomy expression, “don’t ruin this for me.”

“Well, it’s either you or me that is going to have their day ruined, and I think that judging by the fact that I’m already here, we know which one is going to turn true,” you say as you aimlessly look around, watching people going in and out of the premises of the park, some with goofy headbands on, some holding balloons– all of them sickly in love.

“It’s not like I invited you to a funeral, y’know,” Izzy grunts, “you could just act happy for me. It wouldn’t hurt you, y’know–”

“I would act happy for you if you didn’t feel the need to drag me to your dates with you–”

“Stop being such a party popper, dude. You’re going to have fun if you just allow yourself to,” she rolls her eyes at you. Yeah, she might be right about some parts of her argument– you got free tickets to the amusement park, which you love, just for the record– and you also have a day off from your internship and classes, which makes any day basically the best day on earth for you, but there is one thing about this whole situation that is making you doubt it just the tiniest bit.

That being the fact that you’re tagging along to a date. And you’re not alone in it– which automatically makes this whole thing seem a little too similar to a double date.

“I just don’t want him to think I see this as a–”

Your argument is quickly shut off as your roommate physically squeals into your ear before running off, feet automatically taking her to her sweetheart. Sunwoo is quick to catch her in his arms when she jumps into his hold, excited to see him despite hanging out with him two days ago, and you’re left walking slowly to the two approaching figures alone.

The moment you see Eric Sohn wearing tan cargo pants and a red windbreaker over his figure, your throat goes dry. His eyes light up a bit when they land on you, which makes the reality of not being able to run away anymore settle deep inside of your bones, and suddenly, you feel strangely nervous in his vicinity. 

This hasn’t happened to you yet around him– if you don’t count all the moments where you embarrassed yourself in front of him, feeling painfully awkward. However, the fact that this whole situation is too similar to a double date is making you feel slightly weak in your knees simply because of the fact that you don’t want Eric to think you want this to be a double date. You only went because Izzy promised to wash the dishes for you for two weeks if you did, and that’s an offer nobody should turn down, you think.

The idea of Eric Sohn thinking you want to go on a double date with him makes you feel agonizingly embarrassed. You two are just friends– nothing more, nothing less– and you wouldn’t want him to get the wrong idea. You would never think of yourself as someone Eric would invite over for a date in the first place anyway– you don’t want him to have a feeling that you suddenly have high thoughts about yourself.

“Y/N! Hi!” Your thoughts are quickly cut off when you hear the boy himself greet you cheerfully, walking up to you to envelope you in a short hug. 

His arms sneak around you only for a moment, but you feel yourself automatically reciprocating the gesture before it even has a chance to register in your brain. You don’t really know when the two of you passed to the level of friendship where you greet each other with a hug– maybe the few text messages you shared since you last saw him in the coffee shop might have done the work– but you try to not question it when he pulls away, leaving you awkwardly standing around and watching Sunwoo and your roommate gaze romantically into each other’s eyes.

“Today’s gonna be tough,” Eric notes.

Chuckling at his words, knowing he’s referring to the honeymoon stage your friends have somehow ended up in– because you still can’t believe Izzy managed to date the boy after her embarrassing attempts– you just shake your head and move towards the entrance of the amusement park, not really wanting to pay any more attention to the couple than you have to.

“It is,” you agree, “I wouldn’t have agreed to go for this exact reason, but the idea of rides persuaded me,” you hum.

“I only went because this was the only way I could get a day off at work,” Eric mutters, “my stupid sister insisted I come with Sunwoo or else she wouldn’t cover my shift.”

“That’s strange,” you chuckle, furrowing your eyebrows at him. “Why would she care?”

“I dunno,” he shrugs, “said something about ‘enjoying my youth’, or something,” he grins. “I don’t really even like amusement parks, if I’m being honest.”

“You don’t?” you gasp, shaking your head at the boy. “Damn. I would think you’re an adrenaline junkie, if I’m being honest.”

“I am!” he agrees, nodding. “The other day, though, I saw a Tiktok about a ride breaking down somewhere in Japan, and that was the same day Sunwoo invited me here, so I think it might’ve been a sign from the universe to not go on any of these rides, or else I will die.”

Laughing at his words, shaking your head, you lightly slap his arm at the comment. “Don’t say that,” you tell him, “you’re just being a scaredy cat, admit it.”

“No…” he suspiciously shakes his head, very obviously lying.

“Yeah, right…” you snicker. “I mean, it’s okay, dude. I won’t laugh.”

“You’re already laughing, though?” Eric points out, an accusing finger in your face. His actions make you burst into even bigger giggles, eyes meeting his. When your gaze lands onto his face– the upper half shielded by the shade casted off his cap, yet still having his eyes crinkled up and cheeks full as he grins at you wide and warm in the sunlight– your stomach does that weird thing again, completely ruining the moment.

Clearing your throat, trying to keep your composure, you turn your head to search for Izzy and Sunwoo. The moment you catch them in makes your eyes go big and a grunt leave your throat involuntarily– the PDA making you even sicker to your stomach. While Sunwoo is standing in front of your roommate, his arms securely around her middle, she is gazing up into his eyes with a pout decorating her lips. The boy holds her cheeks in his hands for a brief moment before he leans in and gives her a short kiss that makes the girl stand up on her tippy toes, chasing for another one.

“Oh wow,” you let out, making Eric sigh next to you at the sight.

“Now that’s…”

“Yeah,” you nod while you turn back forward, trying your hardest to not look at the two of them any longer than you physically have to. “I knew they would be like that if they started dating. It’s like my worst nightmares came true.”

“Sunwoo can’t stop talking about her either. I’m starting to think I will know more about your roommate than you do, at this rate.”

“You might,” you agree, laughing to yourself. “With how many nights she’s spent at his place, I’m starting to think she’s going to move out soon.”

“Well, that’s only good for you then, no?” 

“Yeah,” you agree, joking. “The only reason why I still keep her around is to pay half the rent, if I’m being honest,” you chuckle, having the boy shake his head at your playful antics.

The two of you move forwards slowly while looking around the place, trying to see what you should do. The sun is strangely aggressive today, making it hard for you to see as you squint in the brightness– since the amusement park doesn’t really provide you with much shade– only making you a bit more frustrated with your choice of plans today.

“Should we get some drinks first?” Eric asks, pointing towards a stand that sells coffee, milkshakes and other beverages.

The line is long, but you don’t really see a reason not to wait. You have the whole day in front of you, after all, and since it seems to you that Sunwoo and Izzy have taken it upon themselves to ignore you two completely, acting like this was their own date, you choose to stick to whatever Eric wants to do. 

As you move to stand next to him– while also moving out of someone’s way– the back of your hand comes in contact with the boy’s next to you, having a slight wave of electricity run through your spine as you clear your throat and move away from him, wishing he didn’t notice. You take it upon yourself to look around to see what your next choice of plan should be.

After ignoring many couples walking around– since it seems that you chose a day when no other visitors were around, just teenagers holding hands and kissing in front of the rides (much like your friends are doing right now)– you opt to point your eyes at the horizon, looking at the tall constructions and rides. You have to shield your eyes from the sun with your hand to really see them, but the sight of them excites you a bit, so you guess it’s worth it. Squinting at the Pirate ride or the big rollercoaster twisting and turning like a caterpillar in the distance, you make a mental note of all the attractions you want to visit today.

Slowly moving to the top of the line to get coffee with Eric, you continue gazing behind him, blissfully unaware that he’s been watching you the whole time, noticing your little struggle. 

“After we get the coffee, I wanna go on that roller coaster there,” you hum, “and I’m bringing you with me, because Sunwoo and Izzy–”

Your words get caught in your throat as the man suddenly moves the hand you’ve been resting against your eyebrows to shield your eyes from the sunlight down, replacing it by taking his cap off and making you wear it. Your heart jumps at the action, eyes finally relaxing now that they’re in shade, making you gulp and stare at Eric.

“You don’t have to–”

“I have my sunglasses with me, so it’s fine,” he says, tugging the peak further down your head in a teasing way, a smile adorning his face.

You forgot what you were even saying in the first place– the idea of Eric’s hat on your head making your brain overheat a little with the added fabric on top of your hair. It’s the same cap you see on him often– his favorite one, you think– and your stupid, silly brian is starting to make connotations around the action that you’re sure are not correct.

You can’t say you’re not happy about wearing it, though. It does help your eyes.

“You were saying?” he asks, making you look back at him with big eyes, trying to think of what you were talking about before.

“Oh,” you hum, while also simultaneously reaching to fix his hair– since he hasn’t bothered to after taking off his hat for you– not even thinking about your actions as you run your fingers through the honey strands, “I was just saying you’re gonna have to go on some rides with me, because the lovebirds are ignoring us and I am not going alone,” you repeat.

When you’re done moving the blonde locks to their supposed place, eyes drifting back to Eric’s– now big and watching your every move, making you falter a little under his gaze and heat creep onto your cheeks– it’s his turn to clear his throat, shrugging.

“You’ll have to hold my hand when I get scared, though,” he says. The casualty of his tone shocks you, having you watch as the boy averts his gaze from you and presses his lips together into a thin line, not even paying a second thought to the implications of his words.

You pay them a second thought, though.

You keep repeating the words in your brain over and over, fingertips buzzing at the preposition, hands sweating at the mental image. Do you mind the thought of it?

Well, no. You don’t.

Not a big deal, after all…

“What did you want again? Flat white?” he asks, completely ignoring the previous conversation. You didn’t even realize you got to the top of the line, too deep in your thoughts, and before you have a chance to take out your wallet to pay for your drink (or maybe even Eric’s, since he paid the last time), he is holding the cup up to you already.

As you take it from him, your fingers touch again. It makes a warm pool of honey glisten in the pit of your stomach, foolishness creeping up your bones.

The boy takes it upon himself to shock you even further as he swings an arm around your shoulders, tugging you close to him. “Let’s go back to the lovebirds before they forget about our existence completely.”

You choose to ignore the fact that you forgot about their existence yourself.

When you get on the ride a few minutes later, Eric holds onto your hand. Your heart beats a thousand miles an hour, but you will write it off to the adrenaline– you do, however, foolishly wish he was scared more often. 

Turns out having Park Jihoon as your coworker isn’t as bad as it seems. Sure, he is good at making the atmosphere lighter in the office and also amazing at gossip in the workplace, but he is also surprisingly very good at his job– and with the date of your presentation fastly approaching, you had to get all the help you needed. 

Which is why you made the boy sit with you in the park as you went over it again and again, showing him your laptop and rehearsing your speech, taking notes of every little thing Jihoon said you should fix or add into the whole thing. You genuinely appreciate what he’s doing for you, which is why you also remind yourself to get him something after the internship is done– but after at least two hours of working on your laptop with him, he gets tired and his attention span seems to get shorter and shorter– and you don’t really blame him. 

Actually, you welcome the distractions he offers with open hands. Even more so, you add on to them and fuel them with more conversation, the laptop opened on your thighs long forgotten as you search through your gallery and show the phone screen to your friend, talking about the cute pillows you found at the store last week.

“See? They’re like… sea foam green, but Izzy says they wouldn’t go with our couch,” you hum, furrowing your brows at him, trying to see a different opinion on your newest choice of furniture for the already overcrowded flat.

“What color is your couch again?” he asks as you keep swiping, showing him all the angles of the pillows.

“Brown.”

“Oh, hell no,” Jihoon shakes his head, “that’s a Perry the platypus type of combo, I’m with Izzy on this one– oop, that doesn’t look like the pillows anymore–”

Swiftly turning the phone towards you again, worried of what picture you accidentally revealed to him (while you don’t have any nudes on your phone, you’re sure any selfie would be just as much embarrassing), you’re left with heat rising to your cheeks and shame drowning your system. 

“Well, anyways, so the pillows–”

“We’re not talking about the pillows anymore, girl–”

“We are–”

“No,” he keeps interrupting you, making you grunt and sigh as you rest your head against the trunk of the tree behind you, banging it against it in frustration.

“Shut up,” you mutter. The thing is, you know you won’t escape the teasing now– because Park Jihoon watching you swipe through your gallery to a high-angle selfie of Eric Sohn in his work uniform, pouting, is surely a very incriminating image. “We text on Whatsapp and he sent the pic, so it automatically saved–”

“And you just never deleted it, naturally,” Jihoon hums with a shit-eating grin on his face. 

“I forgot–”

“You just didn’t want to–”

“Oh shut the fuck up,” you sigh again, locking your phone and throwing it into the grass. 

You and Eric have grown close since the day you spent together in the amusement park. So much to the point where you get lunch together sometimes and he sends you selfies when he’s bored at work, it seems. You don’t mind the subtle shift– hell, you welcome it with open arms– you just wish Park Jihoon (and Izzy, at this point) would stop teasing you about something that was not even vaguely true.

There is nothing going on between you and Eric Sohn.

And nothing ever will be– not a chance.

“I think the denial is being a little embarrassing now,” Jihoon chirps, making you swat his shoulder. You are not in denial– there is nothing to deny.

“You are being a little embarrassing.”

“You know I’m right,” Jihoon shrugs, grinning. Does he not have enough drama in his own life to stick his nose into yours? Not that there is any drama between you and Eric– but you bet Park Jihoon would love to create some.

“You’re never right.”

“Sure,” Jihoon hums. “I’ll mention this on your wedding speech–”

“I’ll kill you before I get married,” you grunt.

“But you didn’t deny the identity of the groom–”

Launching at the boy again, a threatening fist almost landing to his cheek, you watch as he wrestles you away with a loud laugh resonating through the space. Something about how lightly he takes the situation makes your stomach churn in an unknown emotion– you really don’t see why everyone thinks there should be something going on between you and your childhood friend.

“Look, all I’m saying is that if you want this to be a thing, maybe you should finally make a move, since the guy seems to be dull as fuck–”

Interrupting, never letting him finish a sentence when it comes to this topic, you try to finally prove your point. “I don’t want this to be a thing. I don’t even know what you’re talking–”

“I should go before I’m killed,” Jihoon suddenly hurries out, making you furrow your brows at him.

“What?”

“See you on Monday!” the tall male waves, scattering to his feet. He doesn’t give you much explanation as he runs off to the other side of the campus, making you watch him with confused eyes. Where has he gone so quickly? He doesn’t want to be killed? 

By whom? Should you be afraid? Should you run as well?

Somebody clears his throat next to you, making you jump as you turn your head to see who is disrupting your peace. The moment your eyes meet the intruder, Jihoon’s comment finally settles in– god, you’ll kill him when you see him again.

“Eric! What are you doing here?” you ask, watching as the boy shrugs, taking a seat next to you on the grass.

“Just got off work,” he says, “and you said you’ll be here, so I thought I’d come and say hi,” he hums, yawning and stretching his arms above his head.

The sentiment makes you mentally coo– the emotion going as far as reaching your face in a form of a gentle pout– as you dwell deeper over his words. You didn’t think that complaining about how you have to do work would make Eric think of visiting you after finishing his own, but something about it makes you all warm from the inside.

“You didn’t have to,” you hum. “You seem tired.”

A gentle smile is sent your way, so illuminizing it makes you look away. “I know, but I wanted to,” he says, “I also brought you leftovers, if you want some. It’s almost dinner time.”

An involuntary gasp leaves your throat as you watch the male take out an aluminum wrap from his backpack and offer it to you alongside his bright grin. You waste no time in taking the pizza slices into your hand and carefully unwrapping them, allured by the smell.

“Why did Jihoon run so fast, by the way?” Eric asks, laughing.

“Oh, he said he was late for something…” you hum. (You’re not even convinced of your own excuse. You don’t know how Eric doesn’t see right through your lies.)

“Ah,” the boy nods in acknowledgement, scooping closer to you so his back is now resting against the tree, his eyes gluing themselves onto your laptop screen. His piney smell fills your nose, making your stomach feel like it’s on water, before his soft, tired voice lands into your ear. “Did you make a lot of progress?”

“Mhm,” you nod, clicking through the slides and showing him. The boy makes an acknowledging sound after each new information you tell him– something that makes you find him immensely endearing– as you simultaneously reach for the pizza and mindlessly offer the slice you’ve already bitten into to him, watching as his straight teeth chew down into the dough, sharing one piece with you.

“Are you done for the day? I’ll walk you home,” he says, tiredness completely seeping through his tone now. You can tell he needs sleep– which makes you feel slightly bad about making him take a detour just to meet you.

“Almost,” you hum apologetically, closing your laptop. “I just need to read a few more articles Jihoon recommended for me and then I should be done,” you say, reaching for your iPad as you put your computer away into your bag. 

“Okay,” he nods.

“You can go home, Eric,” you say, “you don’t have to stay for me.”

“No, it’s fine,” he shakes his head, smiling at you. 

Watching him, eyes meeting for a heartbeat, you see that he won’t budge no matter how harshly you’d tell him to go– so you figure that quickly getting through the articles and going home is your safest bet in this situation. Tapping on the screen and finding the email Jihoon forwarded to you, you open the first link in the message, subconsciously registering as the boy next to you gets comfortable sitting in the grass with you.

You only get through half of the (lengthy) article before you see Eric’s head lolling forwards, sleep taking over him. The motion wakes him, but not for long as he just can’t keep his eyes open anymore– the combination of a long shift, classes in the morning and finishing up his assignments late in the night getting the worst out of him and making you feel immensely bad for the boy. Not focused on the words in the article anymore, you watch as your friend scooches further down in the grass, acting on instinct as his head suddenly rests against your shoulder, soft hair tickling the side of your neck. 

Heart leaping in your chest and whole body freezing– begging the universe to not make the boy wake up from his half-asleep state right now– you try your hardest to pay attention to the business tactics described in the article you’ve been reading for the last couple of minutes. It seems to be the hardest task you’ve ever set your mind on, though, as you notice the screen of your tablet getting dark, mirroring Eric’s relaxed face.

His neck is craned and his eyes are closed shut, making you turn your head to watch the sight first-hand, mentally counting all the eyelashes kissing his cheekbones and his puffed-out lips. Something about his pose doesn’t seem the tiniest bit comfortable, though– although it makes a strange wave of satisfaction run through your veins– and so, like any other decent person, you gently cradle your fingers through his hair, waking him up.

“Hmm?” 

“Your neck is gonna be sore,” you quietly say as you put your arm around his shoulder, “just lay down, yeah?” you say, doing your best at adjusting his position.

The male lets you navigate him with half-lidded eyes as you make him scooch even further down into the grass before you pull his upper body towards your lower half, essentially making the boy lay his head into your lap. Eric looks up at you from his new position for just a few seconds, eye contact reminding you of a small, shy puppy you just brought home from the road, making you smile softly and treat him as one when you instinctively reach out and pet his head, running your fingers through his soft strands and gently scratching his scalp.

After a few seconds, the male closes his eyes again, seemingly drifting off into the dreamland. Your actions soothe him and simultaneously bring you into some sort of trance you can’t bring yourself out of– eyes glued to his face, studying it.

The angle of his nose and the slope of his upper lip is much more enjoyable to study and memorize than the sales statistics of your job’s concurrency. You find his long eyelashes to be nothing far from angelic, his light hair like a crown of gold under your touch. Everything about him is soft and gentle in this state– with the golden hour shining down onto his features, making his skin glisten like honey– the view so pretty you’d like to take a picture to remember it forever.

Your head spins and your stomach does that weird thing again. This is not the first time you are acknowledging Eric’s attractiveness– just the first time you are appreciating his beauty, his prettiness to the point where you are enchanted by it, not able to tear your attention away. You can’t deny the fact that it affects you anymore.

You can’t deny the fact you feel around him lately. It makes you feel strange and embarrassed, but not to the point where you’d want to keep away from him.

Your iPad is thrown next to you on the grass, forgotten and abandoned. You’re jealous of the sun– for it’s able to kiss his cheeks without fear, without judgment– the boy turning into a putty under your touch, subconsciously leaning into it when you drag his light bangs away from his forehead. 

You admit the fact that you stopped working on your project the moment he arrived, not able to put your attention elsewhere than to his presence. You’re also aware he’d sleep better and more comfortably in his own bed, but for some reason, you selfishly want to keep him there– looking like a painting, something akin to a poem you wish you wrote.

Just for the moment, you let the reality down on you– that maybe Park Jihoon was right and there is no use denying the obvious anymore. Just for the moment, you let the feeling consume you, eat you alive. For now, though, the boy in your lap is all yours to admire. Blissfully unaware and painfully beautiful, soft and gentle all around.

The feeling inside of you is too raw, too real and so much different to anything you’ve ever known before.

When you’re satisfied with the dose of skinship, you wake the boy up and let him walk you home. You pretend for a moment the feeling is reciprocated and not left scared and lonely out in the open as Eric helps you carry your stuff for you and pulls you into a bear hug in front of your doorstep. You don’t tell him that you had the scariest realization while he was soundly asleep in your arms– it’s too scary and too real and you’re not ready to get your heart broken just yet. 

You pretend everything’s like before. Normal. 

You convince yourself that it will pass.

Once you enter the place, you’re instantly surrounded by the sound of people talking amongst each other, forks and glasses being put down, resonating through the whole place, the phone ringing somewhere in the distance, and a cold shot of liquid coming in contact with your stomach, making you gasp out in surprise.

“Oh shit!” Sunwoo grunts as he registers the mess he just caused, looking up at you with an apologetic look. “I’m sorry!”

Noticing the rush everywhere in the pizzeria and the amount of customers he has to take care of, you can’t really blame him for not watching where he’s going. Still, your face slowly morphs into a subtle frown at the realization that there is now a dark stain on your favorite white T-shirt, your outfit for the evening ruined– meaning half of your confidence disappeared just as fast as the Coca-Cola did from the glass Sunwoo has been holding. 

“It’s okay,” you sigh, shaking your head. “It’s nothing–”

“I’ll get you a towel! I’ll be right back,” the boy urgently says as he makes you hold the half-empty glass of the beverage he just spilled all over you, making you shrug and question if you should just drink the rest of it as a price of consolation.

“Dude, this place is packed,” Izzy grunts from next to you, “can’t even blame him for being all over the place, at this point.”

“Yeah,” you absent-mindledly nod, eyes searching in the crowd to find the figure you came here for in the first place. Not that you only want his presence, no– it’s just that Eric was the one who invited you to the festival your university is throwing as a celebration of the end of the semester. Supposedly, he knows the guy that’s playing in the band that’s headlining it, and even though you tried to refute his arguments and invitations with the fact that you have nothing to be celebrating just yet– the final season is surely going to kick your butt and the presentation for your internship is in just two days, which means you should be preparing for it really hard right in this moment, but his pleading voice in your speaker as you talked to him on the phone on your way home from class was strong enough to convince you that maybe you do need some time to wind off before the responsibilities sweep you off your feet again.

Once you find the boy himself walking away from one of the tables in the corner, his eyes find yours– as if knowing you’ve been looking for him, sensing your presence. His face is outstretched into a smile as he practically skips towards you and Izzy, but the grin leaves his features swiftly once he notices the ugly stain on your shirt.

“Damn, what happened?” he asks.

“Sunwoo spilled a drink over me,” you shrug, watching as his coworker rolls his eyes in frustration at the new information. You laugh at his fakely mad expression, shaking your head at him. “It’s fine, he was in a rush.”

“Yeah, we’re kinda behind, so I don’t know if–”

“No, it’s fine!” you hear a female voice call out, making you snap your head towards the direction of the counter behind you, noticing the presence of Lisa, Eric’s older sister. Her face is adorned with a wide grin that gets a teasing hint when her brother sends her a questioning look, making you watch the interaction with interest. “You said you’re leaving at 7, so you’re leaving at 7. I told dad my friends are coming up to help today, so you just go and enjoy your time out!”

“Really?” Eric asks, tone full of disbelief. You think he spends more time at the restaurant than he does in his own bedroom, and suddenly, you’re happy his sister is being so kind towards the poor boy.

“Yeah! You have more important business to take care of anyway, so…” Lisa says, wiggling her eyebrows at Eric. The boy sends her a look full of fear– which might be justified, since you don’t really know what’s going on at the moment– before he clears his throat and turns his attention back towards you.

“Anyways…” he starts, awkwardly scratching the back of his neck. “You can change into my shirt, if you want…? I have a spare one in the back in a case of emergency, and this surely looks like one, so–”

“Oh, it’s okay, you don’t have to–”

“I mean, the stain is pretty noticeable, so I was just–” he says. 

“It’s fine, Eric, I’ll just wash it in the sink, or something.”

“Or you can take my shirt that does not have a stain on it. I swear it doesn’t smell, I only wore it once! I’ll wear the one I forgot in my locker the other day,” he says, looking at you with wide, expecting eyes. Your heart does a flip in your ribcage.

You have to mentally restrain yourself from freaking out over this. He’s just being nice. He’s offering you his shirt because he probably knows that you want to look good– he is offering you his shirt because he knows the stain on yours is bothering you and that it wouldn’t come out as easily in the sink if you don’t wash the shirt properly with laundry detergent that you don’t have on hand right now– and when you weight all the positives and negatives of the offer (which you find far less pros than cons in, just for the record), you realize you don’t really have a reason to decline his offer.

“I mean, if you’re sure…”

The boy only nods, gently takeing you by your forearm as he leads you towards the back. You’ve never been there before and you also don’t really know where Izzy disappeared to, but you stop worrying about those the same moment Eric opens his locker and hands you his black shirt, a tight-lipped smile adorning his features.

“I’ll give you some privacy.”

“Thanks,” you nod. You wait for the door to close before you quickly drag your sticky T-shirt over your head and discard it off your chest, glad you’re ridded of the nasty feeling of it against your skin, fastly putting on the soft material that Eric draped onto your hold before on your upper body. 

The smell of his cologne instantly hits you in the face stronger than a baseball ever could, making your head spin and your stomach feel like it’s floating in the middle of the sea. Taking a quick look at yourself in the mirror on the wall next to you, you admire the way the garment fits you just well– since the height difference between you and Eric is barely existent. It makes you wonder if you could share wardrobes– the mental image of him in your favorite oversized graphic T-shirts making a foolish smile creep onto your cheeks, one that you forcefully wipe off the second you see it in the mirror. You smooth down the fabric before you tuck one side into the waistband of your jeans, satisfied with your new outfit. 

Giddy, you walk out of the storage room. It takes you a few moments to find your group of friends standing next to the counter, chatting. You notice that Sunwoo has already changed out of his work uniform into his regular clothes– a black band tee and camo cargo pants– one arm around Izzy’s shoulders.

“Ready?” your roommate asks, watching you nod.

“I’ll just go change and then we can go,” Eric says, swiftly turning on his heel and disappearing into the room you just came out of.

Izzy and Sunwoo talk amongst each other before they turn to you, finally deciding to include you in their conversation. “Excited for tonight? Eric said you need to destress,” Sunwoo raises his eyebrows at you, making you shrug.

“I guess,” you hum, “I think I practiced my presentation so many times I could recite it in my sleep now, but it also strangely feels like I don’t know it enough, y’know?” you say, shaking your head. “It’s driving me crazy.”

“I just think you need to take your mind off things, babe,” Izzy chirps, sending you a comforting smile. “You worked hard enough.”

“Well, we will find out soon if it really was enough,” you snicker, making your roommate glare at you with disapproval. Before she has a chance to ridicule you for your self-deprecating thoughts, you choose to change the topic instead, picking one that’s interesting her enough to forget all about your worries. “I heard from Izzy you wanna go bowling?” 

“Yeah!” Sunwoo perks up, excitement swirling in his dark orbs. “I haven’t been in a while, actually. I was thinking us four could go after exams are done? As a celebration?” 

You four. You find the fact that this is your new usual strange, but also welcome. How you fit into the group, your presence always counted on. Somewhere along the way, you fell into the causality of the friend group– and you can’t say you hate it as much as you thought you would. 

“Yeah, I’m down,” you shrug. “I’ve never played, though.”

“Dude, you and Eric go so well together, then. He’s actually shit at it, so I would even go as far as saying you will be better than him after two tries,” Sunwoo laughs. 

You and Eric go so well together– your brain repeats like a mantra. You know he didn’t mean it in that way. You can’t help but wonder– if you’d ask, would he further support his point?

“Speaking of Eric, what’s taking him so long? We’re gonna be late for the concert, at this point,” Izzy hums, checking the time on her phone.

“Should I go tell him to hurry?” you ask, receiving a pair of nods ushering you to go get him.

Taking a few steps towards the staff-only room, not thinking much before you pull the doorknob, you peep inside– regretting it immediately.

You’re met with the image of Eric turning towards the door to see who it is, shirtless. Your eyes can’t help but wander over the angles of his defined arms and stomach, making heat rush into your cheeks faster than you’ve ever felt it before, a broken noise escaping your throat as you pathetically try to both apologize and pretend you didn’t just have a visceral emotion to the sight of his bare body right there, a few meters away from you.

“Shit, sorry, I just–” you say as you turn on your heel, your body moving by itself and on its own accord as your brain flashes a few red exclamation marks right in front of your eyes, “they just– we should hurry, they said,” you mutter out, blanking.

“Coming!” Eric hums, the shuffling of clothes behind you making you believe he is now fully dressed. You won’t test your theory and look over your shoulder, though– you fear the dreams you’d have tonight if you saw him shirtless even for a second longer. You don’t take the initiative to leave the room either, though– feet glued to your spot right behind the door.

You hear the locker slammed shut, the sound of footsteps approaching making you all alert. God, you feel awkward. You feel embarrassingly awkward.

You find comfort in picking at the fabric of his shirt on your body, playing with it in between your fingers. After a moment, you feel his palm come in contact with your shoulder, his arm reaching around your figure as he leads you out of the storage room once again, completely ignoring your flustered state. You’re not sure if he’s uncomfortable or if he truly didn’t mind– but the moment he utters out his next comment, your knees almost buckle, making you breathless at the sight of his cheeks dusted a light pink.

Tugging at the sleeve of his own shirt adorning your body, he admits: “This looks really good on you, by the way.”

When you arrive at the festival, the band isn’t playing yet. You and your friends decide to hang out in the back of the crowd, not really wanting the music to blast straight into your ears from the speakers on the podium, and before you even have a chance to ask Eric who is the friend that’s singing in the band you’re here to see, the male disappears to find the toilets.

Chuckling at the fact that he couldn’t take care of the business before you left the pizzeria, but also suddenly too bored without him (since Izzy and Sunwoo don’t count as proper company when all they pay attention to at this point of their relationship is each other), you decide to get in the line for drinks, announcing your departure to the love birds before you go. You figure you should probably get a drink for Eric too, since he always makes it his quest to pay for yours before you even get a chance to take out your wallet, and you suddenly see his departure as the perfect opportunity to do just that– he won’t have a way to stop you this time. 

Standing promptly at the end of the line, you people-watch and listen to conversations of the fellow students hanging around the field. The drink stands are the most occupied out of the whole festival, the crowd of people waiting for a beverage accumulating half the population waiting for the concert, making you almost regret going here alone, since it’s pretty boring to just stand around, doing nothing.

“Damn,” someone hums from behind you, making you turn around to face the stranger, “I’m doomed.”

Instinctively, you raise your brows in question at the male, only prompting him to speak more once you make eye contact. 

“I’m playing on stage in a bit, but I wanted to get a beer before we start,” the guy states, chuckling. “At this rate, I’m gonna be late for my own set!” 

The fact that one of the band members that are supposed to perform in just a few minutes is currently standing behind you in line for drinks is a little amusing, to be honest. You’d say it’s kind of irresponsible to get to your own gig late, but you guess the boy is living the lifestyle of a punk star already, despite bagging only a mere university concert.

“You should try skipping the line and saying you’re VIP, then,” you joke. 

“And get killed? No, thank you,” the boy laughs, shaking his head. “I’ll just see if I can make it in 15 minutes. If I don’t, I’ll just make a run for it.”

Laughing, you nod in acknowledgement at his comment. You don’t really expect the conversation to go any further after that, but the stranger surprises you as he offers you his hand to shake, a lazy smile appearing on his face as he introduces himself.

“I’m Yeonjun, by the way,” he says.

“Oh, nice to meet you. I’m Y/N,” you smile, shaking his outstretched palm.

“How come I’ve never seen you around before?” he hums, making a step towards you as the line moves, making you walk back a step to close the gap in the crowd. Still, he follows you a step further and invades your personal bubble, standing too close for someone you’ve just met.

“Maybe you have,” you shrug, “and you just don’t remember it.”

“I’d remember a pretty face like yours,” Yeonjun comments, making you bite back a laugh. 

Is he flirting? Wow. You scan the male up and down, his self-assured stance making you believe that he is very confident in his persona. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s very attractive– plump lips, tall, shoulders broad– or maybe it’s the social status that comes with being in a band. Nonetheless, you can see the act working on many women. 

Not you, though.

“Well, I study business, so maybe that’s why.”

The male nods, shrugging. “Maybe I’ll have to hang around the business building more often, then.”

“Maybe,” you nod, chuckling. “There's a bunch of weirdos majoring in Accounting out there, though, so I’d watch my back, if I was you.”

“Well, if it means I get to see your face, I can put that past me,” Yeonjun smirks, making you mentally roll your eyes at the cheesiness of his words.

You don’t really get affected by obvious pick-up lines like these. Not that you hear them often– quite the opposite, really– but you much prefer more natural dynamics. One where conversations feel easy and casual, not forced and with deeper intentions. You can’t deny Yeonjun’s attractiveness, no, but you also can’t really say it’s doing much for you.

Not really knowing what to reply, you awkwardly shrug. “And what do you major in, then?”

“Communications,” the male replies. Something in you clicks– is this the friend Eric was mentioning? You should ask him about Yeonjun after he comes back.

Before you even have a chance to open your mouth and say the words, the male cuts you off after taking a quick glance at his phone. “Look, Y/N, I’d love to get to know you more, but I really have to run now. But if you give me your number, we can get a drink together after my gig is done?”

“Oh–”

“That won’t be needed,” you hear a low voice coming from behind you, making your eyes snap towards the source. Your eyes go wide as you recognise the owner of the voice instantly, your heart hammering in your chest at the close proximity he puts between the two of you. “She’s with me, actually.”

“Eric, dude!” Yeonjun beams– confirming your suspicions. “Sorry dude, I didn’t know that was your girl.”

Your girl. The two words echo in your ears, making your world tilt slightly on its axis. It’s not even true– you’re not together and you’re not Eric’s in any way, shape or form– but something about being called that by other people while wearing his clothes makes you feel like you just shifted realities into one where you’re with him and not so scared of his rejection. One where you’re dating and you get to be called that all the time– one where the words are true. 

You’re being foolish again.

You look at Eric in shock, noticing him already staring down at you with a panicked expression on his face. You don’t really know what’s going on in his head behind the shaking orbs of his, a tight-lipped smile offered to his mate as the tips of his ears burn red, a hesitant tone of voice making it known that the possessive words caught him off guard just as much as they did to you. “Well, not exactly…”

The male trails off. Your stomach does that weird thing again. You’d say there’s a soaring hint of hope in your chest, swimming around your intestines, that you want to simultaneously help and also drown in fear of holding on to something that is not even there in the first place, as you look back at Yeonjun. He is now staring the two of you down– shifting his gaze from one of you to the other, a knowing grin appearing on his lips as he processes the situation. 

“O-oh… Okay, I see what you mean,” he nods, laughing. “Well, see you two later! I’mma head to the stage,” he pats Eric’s shoulder and waves at you before fully disappearing from the never-ending drink line.

A suffocating silence engulfs the two of you after his departure, making you nervously chew on the inside of your cheek. The thoughts running through your brain almost suffocate you before Eric brings air into your lungs again, making your inner monologue stop as he casually speaks up again, showing you that nothing has changed in your dynamic after this interaction and there is no reason for you to feel awkward with him right now. 

You just need to silence your thoughts and feelings more efficiently. These slip-ups can’t keep happening.

“What will you have to drink?” he asks.

“I’m not telling you, because then you’ll get it for me and I decided I’m paying today,” you say, batting your eyelashes innocently at the male.

“I can just pay anyway, you know?” he laughs, making you shake your head.

“You don’t have to do that,” you hum. “Actually, I don’t want you to. You keep getting things for me, so I think this is the time to repay the favor.”

“Damn it,” he sighs. “That was me paying the Y/N subscription, though. How will I manage to make you keep hanging out with me now?” he jokes, shaking his head.

“Stupid,” you giggle, teasingly pushing him out of your way. “What will you get? And don’t say nothing, it’s my time to pay the Eric subscription fee.”

“I actually get paid in hugs and cuddles, so this doesn’t work on me,” the male shrugs, avoiding eye contact with you. 

“Damn,” you hiss through your teeth, acting distraught. “That payment is long overdue, then. Wonder if they’ll come and take my house, or something.”

“I heard they won’t if you pay back what you owe,” he states casually.

How can he say such things with a straight face? Does he not realize just how much his sweet words affect you? Does he not know you feel like he has a magnet inside of him at all times that is begging to pull you in and glue you to his side, always and forever? Is he unaware of the effect his arms have on you whenever he puts them around your shoulders in public, or to the way your hands sweat whenever his fingers mindlessly drag themselves along the length of shoulder while doing so?

Or does he know and only wants to drive you crazier, more insane? Does he enjoy your misery?

“Hope it’s not a lot, then,” you joke, watching as the boy finally looks at you, eyes soft and glimmering, shoulders shrugging.

“I’ll hand the accounting over to you,” he says. “I trust that you’ll figure it out.”

Punching him in the shoulder lightly, you shake your head at his antics. “Peach iced tea, then?” 

“How did you know?”

“You always get that one when you’re driving,” you say, walking up to the counter.

He lets you pay for the drink this time, eyes glued to your figure. You’re unaware of the way he watches you in the crowd, just as much as he is of the fact that he doesn’t have to fear an older, taller band guy stealing your attention away from him. 

You come back to your friends with the drinks in hand just in time for the show to start. You watch the stage and grin at the sight of the frontman you just met having the time of his life during his gig, while the boy next to you watches your face every time a love song appears on the setlist.  Neither of you are bold enough to dance together to the slow beats the way Izzy and Sunwoo are, lovingly gazing into each other’s eyes. You share knowing looks instead– growing shy when you hum the lyrics off the well-known songs Yeonjun’s band covers and the words get too intimate. 

In the tune of love by wave to earth, though, when your heart skips a beat as Eric’s hand accidentally brushes against yours, you decide they wrote the song about him– not that you’ll ever admit that out loud.

The doorbell rings. Alone in the apartment, but knowing exactly who you’re expecting to see on the other side of the door– well, at least who you’re hoping to see– you shuffle towards the hall in your socked feet, taking your sweet time, your pace slow. There is not much energy stored in your body after today, and even though you wish to just bury yourself under the covers of your bed and sleep until you regain everything that your internship took away from you– until you don’t feel so bad about yourself and so defeated with your efforts– your small, fragile heart yearns for the presence of one person in particular, making you sheepishly order pizza through their website, because you know he has work today and there is no other way for you to see him.

Reaching for the handle, you open the door and reveal your busted appearance to Eric Sohn standing at your doorstep with a box of pizza in his hands, a light pink hoodie covering his figure, eyes big as the moon staring at you all expecting.

“So? How did it go?” he asks, genuinely hopeful. The boy has been suspicious of your mood ever since you got the final presentation on your internship over with and you didn’t instantly text him, telling him how it went– and the look he finds on your face only further proves his suspicions.

Your face morphs into a deep frown, trying to bite back your tears. His cheerful demeanor drops the moment he sees you struggling, not wasting a second as he shifts towards you and makes you back up into your apartment, putting the pizza box onto the coffee table in your hall before throwing his arms around your body, leading your grabby hands to hold on to the fabric of his sweater.

“It was terrible,” you sniffle, feeling the palm of his hand cradle your head into the crook of his shoulder, petting your slightly matted hair. A few tears escape your eyes and roll down your cheeks, making your whole body shake and tremble in his hold. 

You don’t usually show how affected you are by disappointment. You feel a bit humiliated, a bit embarrassing for both flunking your presentation and also for showing your weakness in front of Eric, but his gentle nature and the comfort you feel in his sheer presence is enough for you to forget about the hurt. You try to focus on the warmth of his skin instead, on the way his arm soothingly runs down your back, making you ground yourself. There is not much you can tell him in your current position, words getting caught in your throat, but it’s still enough for him to understand.

“I worked so hard on it,” you mumble, “I tried so- I tried so hard, and then they said it w-was bad and–”

“Shh, it’s okay,” he hums, holding you closer to him. 

You’re not used to not being instantly good at everything. It’s something you have yet to come to terms with after getting into university. You’re no longer the top of your class and you aren’t the best at all assignments and final exams you take anymore– and it’s a big kick to your ego. It makes you feel useless. It makes you feel stupid.

And that’s world-shattering. The image you once had of yourself is now taken forcefully away from your hands, replaced by disappointment and shame from the fact that you’re only mediocre and everything you thought about yourself up to this point was just a mere lie.

“Y/N, you tried your best. And I know you feel bad now, but I’m still proud of you for working so hard– it’s not your fault your efforts weren’t appreciated,” he says close to your ear, trying his hardest to be the calm after the storm for you.

After a few moments spent breathing in his scent, anchoring yourself to his presence, you force yourself to pull away from his chest. Chewing on the inside of your cheek, averting his gaze– because still, this is all so new to you and you don’t really know how to let yourself feel less foolish for your sudden outburst– you shrug and clear your throat.

“Uhm… thank you,” you mumble, “sorry for…”

“No,” he shakes his head, suddenly moving to take off his shoes. “There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“You’re… Eric, you have work, you can’t just stay. I don’t want you to get in trouble–”

“They can’t fire me,” he chuckles, trying to make light of the situation. After you watch him with worried, guilty eyes– because even though the logical part of your brain is telling you to throw him out of your apartment and just go eat the pizza you ordered as you bite back your own tears, the emotional side of you really wants him here, it really wants him close. He moves towards you again and ruffles your hair, gentle eyes watching you, preventing you from protesting any further. “It’s okay, Y/N. You need me here more than they do tonight, trust me.”

“I feel bad now,” you mumble.

“I know,” he playfully notes, “that’s why I’m here. Besides, you’re more important than work anyway.”

“That’s a pretty fucked up list of priorities,” you laugh airly, trying to mask the way his words have your heart squeezing on itself, nervous gold swirling in your stomach.

“It works for me,” he shrugs.

The moment you move back towards your room, the realization of the fact that Eric’s never seen it before sinks in fully, suddenly making you nervous about the act. Everything feels strangely natural as he enters the space, though, feet shuffling towards your bed as he takes a seat on the comfy mattress. However, your eyes still nervously scan your room, chewing on your bottom lip as you wonder if the perception of you has changed after seeing the state of you, the state you live in. “I’m sorry, it’s kinda messy–”

“Y/N.”

Looking at him, noticing the encouraging, gentle gaze he offers you, everything around you shifts in its axis– the world stops, giving you a chance to breathe, a chance to exhale, and the weight slowly disappears off your shoulders. 

“Relax,” he laughs softly as he reaches for your hand, tugging you towards him. Taking your place in between his legs, towering over the sweet creature in your bed, you feel like you can finally breathe more easily now that he’s here.

It’s okay, you realize. Magically, today no longer feels like the end of the world. 

His thumb gently swipes across the back of your palm, making your insides turn into a putty, a soft smile slowly mirroring his appearing on your previously frowning face. 

“I’d like to, uh..” you clear your throat, shying away from his gaze, “pay back the missed subscription fees then, if I can.”

Your bold statement has the room fall into an overbearing silence. For a moment, you forget it’s Eric who you’re with– the man that never judges you, the only one that makes you feel safe– as you go into a momentary panic. When you dare to look at him again, though, you notice him eagerly searching for your gaze, a boyish smile playing with his lips showing you that he doesn’t mind you asking– quite the opposite, really. He enjoys the preposition.

The male leans back in your bed and watches you as you climb next to him. For a moment, you don’t really know what to do, being too shy to hold onto him the way you truly want to, but the male wastes no time as he shuffles a bit in your sheets and moves to his side. One of his arms sneaks around your middle, pulling you to him, as his leg carelessly swings over your feet, trapping you in. His whole body weight rests against your figure, but it does nothing to suffocate you or take air out of your lungs– quite the opposite, really. 

You feel content in his hold. Your hand instinctively holds onto his forearm, keeping him close. If you could, you’d crawl into his skin, make a home in his chest and stay there, protected from all bad. What you don’t realize is that there’s a little fort in his heart reserved as a house for you already– one he guards and lets no one into– the unspoken, tender words now hanging everywhere around the corners of your room.

“The pizza will get cold, though,” he mumbles, tone of voice low from the close proximity of him next to you, the desire to protect the intimacy showing through the hushed out words.

“I’m not hungry,” you say lazily– exposing him to the fact that it’s not the food you needed tonight when you were ordering. “I kinda feel sleepy, though” you admit, letting your eyes rest a bit. You’ve been restless ever since you came home from work today– you didn’t know all you needed to finally turn off your endless stream of thoughts was Eric’s presence.

“Sleep, then,” he hums. “I’ll heat it up for you when you wake up.”

You let out a disapproving sound.

“You need sleep. And also food,” he scolds you, his other hand somehow sneaking itself under your figure and into your hair again, playing with the strands and scratching at your scalp. “You’ve been stressing out for so long, no wonder you’re so worn out right now.”

You feel like you’ve been laid bare, exposed right in front of his eyes. You feel naked and fully vulnerable, but you make no effort to shield yourself from his gaze, for it’s not prying and unwanted, but gentle and caring– so much to the point you feel like it’s going to consume you. Your head spins and your heart aches with deep yearning– it’s strange. 

You already know what that feeling is: 

You’re falling, falling, and falling.

All there’s left is to hope he won’t drop you. All there is left is to hope he’ll catch you on your way down.

Your body shifts so it’s facing him, your breathing mixed. Your faces are inches away from each other, making you afraid to open your eyes and study him from up close– for you think he knows how to read you too well by now, and your lingering gaze would tell him too much. Eyes don’t lie, after all– they never do.

“You did well,” he hums. 

The shattered pieces of your tender heart spill themselves into his outstretched palms. You watch as he mends them together, sewing them with an invisible, red string. The boy silently leans into your face and his lips press a gentle kiss to your cheek, only further strengthening your decision to stay blind in the moment, not wanting to reveal just how much you’re affected by the tender action. 

It’s been a long drop– a slow one, one you could get used to. Still, you’re falling, falling and falling,

And even though you’re unaware, he’s there all this time, waiting at the bottom, his arms open wide. 

The idea of celebrating the end of the exam season with Izzy, Eric and Sunwoo by going bowling is quickly and forcefully taken out of your hands when you arrive at Sohn's Pizza to pick the boys up, all dressed up and ready. The place is full of people, there is screaming coming out of the kitchen, and while usually, Eric or Sunwoo would be greeting you by coming out of the back and welcoming you in, there is no one in your sight– which makes you just the tiniest bit suspicious.

Sharing a concerned look with your roommate, the two of you curiously walk through the place and peek behind the counter, being met with emptiness as more screaming resonates through the kitchen. You don’t mean to intrude or listen in on a conversation you’re not exactly invited to, you really don’t– but you just can’t help it as the sound of Eric’s angry, frustrated voice cuts through the space, catching not only your attention, but also everyone else’s in the restaurant.

“I don’t care that dad is too scared to hire someone into our sacred family business!” he huffs. “I don’t give a single flying fuck, because now, our plans are ruined again, all because they decided to go on a surprise holiday and they left us three to deal with the whole place!” Eric ironically sings the words ‘surprise holiday’ as he expresses his frustration, showing how much the whole situation bothers him.

“Eric, calm down, people can hear you–” you hear Lisa muttering, making you chuckle at the interaction between the siblings.

“So if dad wants to go on a holiday ever again, he either hires someone so we don’t have to be here 24/7, or I quit!” he finishes his little rant. 

There is a moment of silence behind the thin walls, making you and Izzy stare at each other with a blank look– a look empty, but full of understanding that there is no bowling happening today and there is nothing you can really do about it– before the sound of dishes hitting the floor hits your ears, making you wince. The fall is followed by a pained voice full of misery.

“FUCK!”

Izzy chuckles, opening the door to the kitchen without much hesitance, inviting the two of you into the chaotic situation. Taking a step towards the room behind the staff only sign which you ignore because Izzy thinks she’s basically a part of the family now, you look around a bit anxiously, being met with the sight of Eric picking up bowls and pans from the floor and throwing them back into the sink to wash, Sunwoo adding topics to a pizza with furrowed brows and his bottom lip jolted out (clearly sulking), and Lisa checking up on the food in the oven.

All three pairs of eyes are glued to you the moment the sound of the door opening fills the space, two sets lighting up and the third one looking at you with pure curiosity. 

“Need any help around here?” Izzy chuckles, looking around. The place is messy– covered with sauce in some places, flour all over Sunwoo’s apron, soap and water dripping down the cleaning station. It’s clear as hell the three of them aren’t handling the after-exam Friday rush well by themselves, and although you mourn the idea of relaxing in a bowling alley with your friends after the hard weeks of finals, you can’t say you’re too disappointed.

You can’t play bowling, after all, and you still get to see your friends– so it’s no big deal.

“No, you don’t have to–” Eric starts, ever-so considerate.

“It’s okay, we just–” Sunwoo follows, the two boys not wanting to share the responsibility that’s not yours.

After hearing each other interrupting their dismissive words, the two look at each other and chuckle. “I’m afraid we can’t hang out today, though. As you can see, our parents left the place to us and went on a holiday–”

“We heard,” you cut the owner’s son off, a teasing grin on your face shutting the boy up instantly, to which he offers you a shy look as he drowns his hands in the sink again, trying to tackle the dishes. 

Walking over to the poor boy reminding you a little of a wet dog now, since his bangs are damp as well, making you believe he’s been running his hands through in frustration mid-washing up– you take a kitchen towel off one of the shelves and decide to dry off the plates he’s done scrubbing, putting them away neatly on one of the trays situated next to the sink and getting them ready for the next customers. You don’t really ask what to help with, since you’re sure Eric and Sunwoo wouldn’t tell you either– feeling bad for making you work with them instead of taking you out like they promised they would– you only tackle what seems to be the most important task in the moment, helping out the best you can.

“Izzy, I’m really sorry for exploiting you,” Lisa starts out, making the whole room laugh out at her joke, “but for a free pizza or maybe even two, would you mind doing the waitressing for a bit? I fear people out there are mad as hell, but maybe if you tell them we are short on staff today–”

“I’m on it!” your roommate nods and salutes to the older girl, disappearing back into the main area of the pizza place. Since she has some experience with waitressing and working in the food service, you doubt there is anything to worry about.

The kitchen quiets down, the only sounds heard being from the sink, an occasional sigh escaping Sunwoo’s throat– he really must have been looking forward to this day– the atmosphere growing less heavy and hectic with two more pairs of hands in the building. You know they don’t want to admit it, but the boys are secretly glad for the help– it makes working so much easier and less nerve-wrecking to the employed youngsters.

“I’m sorry,” falls out of between Eric’s lips after a while, low and sincere. You look at him from your place to the left of his figure, furrowing your brows at him in question.

“Huh?” you voice out, watching him shrug.

“Well, we were supposed to hang out today and now we can’t, so…” the boy trails off, making you chuckle and coo at him, touched with his sincerity.

“That’s not really your fault, so I don’t see why you’re apologizing,” you say, “besides, we are still hanging out now, no? I don’t mind the location change,” you smile, slightly bumping your hip into his, the kitchen towel now getting damper and damper with the amount of dishes you’ve dried off with it in such a small time frame.

The two of you continue on with the task, all while playfully bumping hips from time to time, trying to catch the other one off guard with the contact, grins shared between the two of you. You barely register Izzy coming in and out of the kitchen, telling the cook– Sunwoo– the new orders, Eric and you pulled into your own bubble, attention focused mostly on each other, then at the otherwise domestic act accompanying you in your interaction.

“Exams went well?” Eric asks. 

Nodding, you hum in agreement. “Some were harder than others, but I didn’t fail any, so that’s a win. You?”

“About the same,” he grins. “I mean, the grades aren’t great, but I passed all of them, so…”

You laugh at his comment, shaking your head at his attitude. You wish you could take school and all of its responsibilities with as much ease as your friend does– too bad you’re an anxious over-achiever and don’t really know how to relax ever.

“Academic weapon,” you joke.

“Oh, that’s your title,” he says as he finally scrubs off the last plate and turns the tap off, placing it into your hands to dry, “I don’t even try, because I don’t wanna take it away from you,” he jokes.

“So considerate,” you muse, rolling your eyes at him. The boy wipes his hands on the towel hanging off your arm, the two of you sharing a playful look– Eric’s eyes swirling with honey and gold inside, making you all warm and fuzzy. You find it hard to look away.

The noise of someone suddenly clearing their throat catches you off guard and pops the soap bubble you’ve been trapped in with your friend, making you look at the source, curious what his sister has to say. She is looking at the two of you with a teasing smirk on her face that instantly makes your cheeks burn– for you know you were caught staring too much, too long at her younger brother– before she points to the pizza boxes in front of her, towering so much they almost topple over and drown her in the baked dough and cheese.

“I need you two to do the deliveries,” she muses, “if you don’t mind, of course.”

Shaking your head, showing that you’re completely fine with the task, the two of you walk over towards the impressive pizza tower. Eric takes the bigger half into his hands while Lisa puts the car keys onto the box on top of your smaller stack, sending you a knowing look that you try to ignore. 

Walking out of the place, noting that one person could very well do the deliveries alone after loading up the car, but also realizing that even though you could be more needed inside, you kinda wanna spend more time with Eric, you wait for him to shut the car door and tell you the next instructions.

“I think the most efficient way to do this is one of us driving and the other one going up to the doors with the orders,” he muses, watching you nod in understanding. “I can drive, if you want?”

Chewing on the inside of your cheek, not really happy with the mental image of talking to so many people tonight, you huff. “I kinda wanna drive, though…?” you peep. 

The male stares at you for a few seconds– as if contemplating if you’re safe enough of a driver, or something– before he places the key into your hand and closes your palm, entrusting you with… pretty much his life, if you really think about it. In his defense, it only takes one wrong turn and both of you could be dead– but he seemingly believes in your abilities.

After you get into the driver’s seat and adjust it to your liking, making sure you can see in all of the mirrors, you pull out of the parking lot with ease, turning with Eric’s directions. You see him watching the map on his phone, making sure you know where to go in time to not turn this drive into an amateur redemption of The fast and the furious: Tokyo drift. You drive smoothly, getting to the destination in short time, stopping in front of the targeted house and watching as your friend gets out of the car with a few pizza boxes, jogging up to the front door.

The sight makes you remember how you met him a few months ago. It makes you chuckle, noticing how much has changed– you didn’t even want pizza that night, but today, you’re driving him in his car, watching as he makes the deliveries. 

“No strange notes asking for cute delivery boys?” you joke when he gets to the car and tells you to drive straight until he says to turn right, making him chuckle.

“No, not really,” he shakes his head, “but I think it’s funny how Sunwoo didn’t get to go, yet it still landed him a girlfriend.”

“I mean, they were both pretty desperate,” you admit, chuckling. Your foolish brain can’t help but wonder– what if it could land both of them a girlfriend? What if you were bold enough to confess your feelings one day? 

“True,” he nods, “they go well together.”

“It’s still miserable to watch them interact sometimes, though,” you joke.

“I’m sorry, I tried my hardest to prevent it,” he muses.

Furrowing your brows, you look at him in confusion only for a second before you focus back on the road. “Huh?”

“I physically fought Sunwoo so I could go deliver those pizzas to your house back then,” he grins. “Back then, it was because I genuinely believed I was the cuter one, but I think that somehow, I kind of felt it, y’know? Like, intuition. It was telling me ‘Eric, don’t let Sunwoo deliver those pizzas, because then your friend will get into a relationship and make every second with him miserable, because he can’t shut up about his new girlfriend–”

You cut him off by laughing, shaking your head at his antics. Eric points towards a street, hinting that you should turn, having you follow his orders. 

“I like your confidence,” you say, “but to be fair, seeing you show up at my door was kind of crazy, after all these years.”

“You make it sound as if you disagree with me,” he casually utters out. 

Your hands sweat on the steering wheel. Maybe you should swerve off the road and drive into a tree so you can avoid this conversation.

“Maybe I do,” you shrug, thankful that driving makes it easier for you to avert your gaze from him and not make it seem like you’re forcefully avoiding him.

“So we’re just gonna ignore the fact that you called me the hottest–”

“If you don’t shut up, I’m crashing the car–” you threaten, your voice coming out a bit more miserable-sounding than you intended it to, showing just how not casual the whole situation was for you.

“Look, you don’t have to be shy about it, we both know–”

“Okay, passenger princess,” you shut him off, watching as the boy next to you has a visceral reaction to your comment.

“I literally offered to drive!”

“Whatever you say,” you muse as you make the car stop at the next destination and let Eric out to complete another delivery.

After the boy jumps inside of the car again, he ignores the previous topic of the conversation. That fact makes you happy, since you don’t really know if you’re ready to face the problem at hand– the problem being the very obvious and strong, magnetizing feelings you have for the boy– so you only continue to drive, listening to the radio he puts on and his occasional humming that he slides in through the directions he gives you.

He continues to deliver all the pizzas they baked when he announces that you’re approaching the last destination. You can’t say you’re happy about the fact– since you started to quite enjoy the comfort of the drive, but you guess you can’t really prolong the moment any more and force it to last forever, no matter how much you’d like it to.

Eric walks out of the car with the last three boxes in his hands, knocking on the door. The commotion lasts longer than usual, making you suspicious of the interaction he has with the man at the door, before you see the boy shrugging and walking back to the car, one pizza box still in his hands. To say you’re confused would be an understatement.

“What happened? Did we mess up somehow?” you ask, motioning towards the pizza box in his hands.

“I don’t think it was us who messed up,” Eric snickers, “apparently, they only ordered two pizzas, so I think Sunwoo accidentally made three.”

“Oh,” you hum, nodding in acknowledgement.

“But that’s fine, because that means we can have this one for free,” the boy grins at you as he puts on his seatbelt. “Let’s move a few blocks so we don’t just stay in front of this dude’s house, though.”

You furrow your brows at him, but still start the engine nonetheless. “Shouldn’t we head back? I bet we should hurry, from how packed it was, they surely need our help–”

There is a lack of worry in Eric’s face as he shakes his head in disapproval. It seems that neither of you really want to go back to Sohn’s Pizza and work– because it’s not as fun as driving around together, singing along to the radio– but the lack of empathy towards his sister and his friends surprises you. “I’m sure they will survive a few more minutes. Come on, Y/N, the bowling didn’t work out, so let me make it up for you at least this way.”

His pleading voice does enough to persuade you as you drive down the street and then a few more blocks to the left, trying to find a calm place where you could park the car and won’t bother anyone as you eat the remaining pizza, while also trying to forget about Lisa, Izzy and Sunwoo alone in the pizzeria working their asses off. You feel a bit guilty with the idea in your brain, but you try to push it back with the image of spending more time alone with Eric– and suddenly, the previous is almost too easy to ignore.

Little did you know that this was Lisa’s plan all along. While you may be a bad wingman, Eric’s sister surely isn’t.

Stopping in front of one of the houses that seems to be empty, turning the engine off and undoing your seatbelt, you spin around to face Eric as he opens the pizza box and gasps at the sight of the cheesy dough. “I’m pretty sure this was fate, man,” he shakes his head in disbelief. “There’s no way we are left with your favorite. Extra cheesy too, damn...”

“This is unbelievable,” you agree, playfully clasping your hands together in prayer. “Thank you universe for the sign. You were right, we were supposed to stay out longer.”

“I’m always right,” he nods, watching as you eagerly take a triangle off the greasy cardboard and bite down into it, your taste buds cheering in joy as you chew on the treat.

Eric is quick to follow as he takes one for himself as well, the two of you falling into a comfortable silence as you eat. You didn’t even realize you were hungry before– your intentions being to eat at the bowling alley– and so you welcome this idea even more now that your stomach is less upset. Crossing your legs on the seat, not really caring about getting the car dirty– which in retrospect, you should’ve– you hum before you speak up again, already on your second piece.

“If you were a pizza, you’d be this exact pizza right here,” you hum. You don’t really know where that idea came from, but you think you’re speaking the truth– in your mind, it makes total sense.

Eric stares at you like a confused puppy, a slight grin appearing on his face showing you that he’s trying to see where that came from. “Why?” he asks. “Because you love me?”

Here it is again– the heat appearing on your cheeks from the panic, embarrassment filling your veins. You feel like you were caught in the act, like he sees right through you– with how he’s been acting the whole evening, you think he might have some sort of intuition. Still, you won’t admit to your feelings out loud– because there’s no way they’re reciprocated, and you won’t cause such a heartbreak to yourself willingly. 

Eric is just social like that. He is sweet, playful. There is no undertone to his actions– it’s just who he is as a person, and there is no way he likes you back.

“No,” you cough out, almost choking on the pizza. “You’d be a margherita, because it’s a safe choice. Everyone likes a margherita! It’s fun, and it’s–”

“Tasty?” he interrupts you, a shit-eating grin already plastered onto his lips. “I taste good too, wanna check?”

You think he might be teasing you just for the fun of it now. He loves to feed on your misery, because he sees right through you, he knows you’re absolutely, incredibly enchanted by him, and it strokes his ego to rile you up and make you flustered. You’re sure of it now. “Oh, shut it!”

Eric laughs out loud before he swallows another bite, shrugging. “If you were a pizza, you’d be hawaiian.”

“Hm? Why?” you ask, busying yourself with chewing on the cheesy dough in your hold. 

“Because you are both salty and sweet,” he starts, “and I didn’t expect to be so into it.”

His words make you stop in your tracks. He didn’t expect to be so into it. Does he mean he’s into you, or are you just reading too much into his words? Trying not to seem too affected by his words– trying to play it casual, nonchalant– you clear your throat and avert your gaze from him, continuing to chew. The pizza in your mouth loses all its flavor the longer you focus on it, turning into a mass of nothing to your taste buds. After the last bite, you’re left mortified with the realization that you have nothing to focus your attention to now, if you don’t want to face your friend again and take another slice in between your fingers from the pizza box resting in his lap, and so you just continue to stare ahead, beaten up by the awkward silence.

Play it cool, Y/N. Be normal. He must think you’re weird now, because you wondered even for a second if his joke was serious, and now he won’t want to hang out with you ever again–

“So, uhm, just checking,” Eric awkwardly laughs, something about his tone sounding nervous in your ears. “Are you really still that oblivious, or are you just pretending you didn’t catch that to not hurt my feelings because you don’t like me back…?” he asks.

Your heart does a somersault. Hell, you think you just went into cardiac arrest– your ears are ringing, your stomach is floating on water and your breathing quickens with his words. Having a full visceral reaction does nothing to help you speak back to him, but your body reacts on itself as you snap your head to the side and finally look at him, gazing into his big, honest eyes.

He looks at you in a similar way he did back at that party– expecting, hopeful. You didn’t catch it back then– the eager, desperate look in his orbs, wishing, praying you chose him in a room full of people, picked him in a row of anyone who would like to have you. It leaves you weak, it leaves you feeling like you were just punched in your face with the realization that you’ve been foolish to ever think that this was just how Eric acts and there was nothing more to his acts of care and affection.

“I-  uh… I just didn’t expect you to like me back…?” you say, making it sound like a question, still uncertain about the whole situation. “I thought you were just…” you trail off, pupils shaking as you watch the boy’s face morph out of nervousness into a bright, amused smile.

“Look, I’m– I just–” you stutter, not really knowing what else to say, how else to express yourself. 

Eric was always much quicker than you, much more clever in social situations. He takes your lack of words as a hint as he holds onto your honest, surprised state and takes it upon himself to solidify the reality for you, to show you what the two of you’ve been missing for the last couple of months. Reaching over the gearstick, he gently glazes your cheek with his palm before he sends a one last look to your eyes, watching out for any sign of discomfort. 

His lips lock with yours. You’re convinced the world stopped turning.

Eric Sohn is sweet like cherry cola. He is a taste of familiarness with something more to it, something new and fresh, sugary and addictive. He is gentle, with an exciting aftertaste, leaving you breathless and wanting more. He is like a hint of home, a memory of your childhood, all safe and loving and tender. 

The kiss is short. It has you leaning towards him, a handful of his hoodie filling up your fist as you desperately, foolishly drag him to you and press your lips to his again, as if to check if the last kiss was real and you didn’t just make it up in your mind by wishful thinking.

You guess you finally reached the bottom after the long, slow fall. You don’t even feel the landing as his arms hold you up and spin you around instead, showing you that falling in love doesn’t have to be all that scary– if the one you want is caring, if the one you want is nothing short of an angel in your eyes.

After you pull away from him, he rests his forehead against yours and enjoys the proximity which he doesn’t have to hide the need for anymore– now that he’s all yours to keep and you’re all his to hold.

“You really thought I didn’t like you back? Hell, Y/N, you’re all I ever think about,” he scoffs, showing you the ridiculousness of your own beliefs, his ever-so playful tone only further solidifying the sweet aftertaste of his confession. “I like, have butterflies in my stomach and all,” he confides, grinning at you. 

Rolling your eyes, finally easing into the new territory, you tease him for his words. “That was extra cheesy.”

“I thought you liked that?”

Gazing into his eyes, feeling your own heartbeat hammering against your chest, you can’t help but chuckle at the subtle irony of it all. 

“Maybe I do.”

[m1d-45]

hey! not sure if ur taking requests but would love it if u cld.....my mind has been stuck on this for a while

I almost didn't get wanderer on his banner and it broke my heart. From the second I first saw to the little emo boy in the archon quest I've wanted him on my team and was so excited when they announced his banner.... I even prefarmed for him ;-;

But I lost the 50/50 (got tighnari ;-;) and calculated that I'd have only 50 pulls before his banners gone.....I've never gotten a character before 70 pulls so I got really sad and decided on a whim to build heizou since I had the teams and artifacts ready and I even started having fun with him when randomly at 23 pity guess who I get!!!

So I've kinda been living in my own little daydream(delusion xD) that wanderer got jealous of me having fun with heizou and came home.... could I request a sagau drabble or hc or something similar to my insanity totally fine if you can't 🥰🥰🥰

near miss

word count: ~500

-> warnings: spoilers for wanderer lore, minor spoilers for heizou lore, author once again dances around wanderer’s name

-> gn reader (you/yours)

taglist: @samarill || @thenyxsky || @valeriele3 || @shizunxie || @boba-is-a-soup || @yuus3n || @esthelily || @turningfrogsgay || @cupandtea24 || @genshin-impacts-me || @chaoticfivesworld || @raaawwwr

< masterlist >

for being the creator, all knowing and all present, you were missed quite often.

your wanderer sat in his banner, looking down at your party as you travelled teyvat. he’d missed your first star shower on account of giving a lecture, and by the time he’d seen the star streaking toward the forest through the window, it had been too late. news of the forest ranger stealing what was his spread quickly, something akin to resentment burning in his chest.

but not this time. he was determined not to miss you again. your attention had been on him for so long; surely you didn’t think he’d just roll over now that you’d invested in someone else? no, he’d wait.. even if it hurt watching you.

shikanoin heizou. the sharpest detective in inazuma—or even teyvat, if you were particularly inclined to praise him. you’d given heizou what you had planned to give him, and he hated it. he was right here, he was listening, he didn’t have any more lectures for the week, so why did you have to insist on keeping your stars to yourself?

(it was his fault. if only he’d paid more attention, as you had so graciously given him…)

“maybe… i’ll get lucky?”

he snapped out of his mind, aware of your presence all at once. he could feel his heart in his fingers where he pressed at the boundaries, and he searched the sky around him despite knowing he’d never see you.

(luck. ‘lucky.’ he’d make his way to you if he had to crawl. what part of that was chance?)

his hat was already discarded in his inventory, so nothing would hinder him from following your star. all he had to do was wait for you… and hope you’d send them out at all.

you wouldn’t settle for heizou, would you? he knows you were enjoying yourself, but that didn’t mean you’d forget about him… right?

a beam of light split the silence, and he pushed at the edges of his banner to reach for them. but even reaching as far as he could, he barely brushed the edge of the star.

it was warm. even that glimpse of heaven set his heart beating a little quicker, purple mist lingering around his fingers.

again. he won’t miss it this time, he swears. don’t settle for a detective when you could have…

…him. would he be enough for you?

the skies split in two, another bright purple star beginning to fall. he reached, grabbing onto the handle of a polearm. with a sharp pull, he was set free from his banner, the silver spear flung elsewhere. hopefully you wouldn’t miss that.

if he’d thought the star from before was warm, then the fall back to the earth was burning hot. your light enveloped his entire being, stealing the air in his lungs. his surroundings were whipped away, replaced with a bright feeling only describable as divine.

still, he landed on his feet. with shaky hands he placed his hat back on his head, allowing himself a proud smile.

“welcome home, wanderer.”

[dragon-queen21]

Agere prompts: Christmas

First part is all fluff, after the separation is bittersweet + angst

-Little one who never celebrated Christmas + cg who goes over the top for the holidays

-Caregiver who has to get very creative in hiding gifts so that their little one doesn’t find them before the 25th and peaks. Bonus if the regressor drags in other characters to help them search for the hidden presents

-Caregiver buying a lot of presents for their little one. It’s their first Christmas together and they just want them to have the best day ever. Regressor meanwhile hardly ever getting presents, or not getting more than one thing, or never getting what they want, so when they wake up Christmas morning they are so overwhelmed at the massive collection of gifts under the tree

-Caregiver teaching their little one to ice skate? Cute. But I’ll raise you one, regressor teaching their caregiver to skate. Holding their hands and pulling them along as they’re all wobbly. It’s like the roles have reversed!

-Regressor siblings who keep sneaking out of bed to see if Santa has come yet

-Replacing what is normally a bottle of milk with a Christmas themed drink (eggnog, hot chocolate, Apple cider, etc)

-Caregiver going through a box of ornaments and reminiscing about all the times and moments when they got/made the decorations with their little one

-Reindeer pet regressors! Pulling around their siblings on a sled/toboggan. Munching on carrots and gingersnaps. Decorating headbands with antlers with jingle bells and tinsel. They whisper to their friends that they have met Santa- it’s true!

🎄💚🎄❤️🎄💚🎄

-Caregiver buying a joke gift. What’s their little one’s reaction? Do they end up loving? Did they also give their cg a silly gift? Are they really hurt?

-Regressors who miss their caregivers/can’t make it home for the holidays

-Regressor who doesn’t want to participate in all of the festivities because they’re mourning their actual childhood and so many sad/bittersweet memories are flooding them. Do their caregiver try and drag them along into the fun to rewrite better memories? Do they sit with them and talk about the old time? Does the regressor try and hide that they aren’t feeling the same joy as everyone else?

-Regressor who wants gifts for little them, expecting to get a bunch of toys come Christmas morning. But their caregiver only gave them maybe a toy or two just assuming they wouldn’t want to be babied so most presents are for them normally

-Regressor crying over the gifts they got. Could be both positive or negative. Maybe they are super happy with something they always wanted, or disappointed and overwhelmed without knowing a better way to express themselves

-Regressor (or caregiver) who suffers from weather prone migraines. A huge snow storm that should lead to a fun day spent playing outside is instead spent stuck inside feeling miserable and the guilt of ‘ruining a perfect day’

-Favorite Christmas decoration getting broken, or simply no longer working when they get it out

[copperboom82]

Southern Cross

Pairing: Dean Winchester x OFC (female)

Word Count: 4k

Prompts: "Try focusing on your life and less on mine" and "first snow."

Title credit: Southern Cross by Crosby, Stills, and Nash

Summary: Holidays aren't always easy for everyone. As Christmas approaches, neither Dean nor Katrina are having the best time. Can they find solace in each other, or is it just too natural to push each other's buttons?

Set mid-season 6. Precedes my other one shot, Something, but can absolutely be read on its own.

AN: Hello! This is my second submission for @jacklesversebingo and my first story for @chevroletdean's Promt-Mas for the Supernatural Writers Community (First Snow prompt). Also - please forgive me, I wrote this in one go, while sick. I did proofread, but will definitely do another round when my head's a little clearer.

Warnings: Mild language and themes of loss and grief. Please let me know if I missed something - I don't think I did, but I'm also very new to posting my writing.

*****************

“Hey, I was using that!” Dean exclaimed as the TV remote was yanked out of his hand. It was the middle of the day on a cold, dreary Wednesday, and while he was sure there was plenty he could be doing, with Sam still out cold in Bobby’s ghost-proof panic room, taking up residence on Bobby’s couch and flipping through crappy day-time TV seemed to be his best option.

God forbid he do it in peace though. Katrina looked over her shoulder at his outburst, that irritating grin of hers in place, and stuck her tongue out at him before flopping down onto the other side of the couch.

“Get better taste in TV and maybe I’ll share,” she quipped, settling in and starting to do her own flipping. Dean grumbled but settled deeper back into the couch himself. It wasn’t worth the fight. Even if he won, she wouldn’t stop complaining, and Dean wasn’t all that invested anyway. Everything was just white noise these days anyway.

“You’re one to talk about taste,” he retorted, eyeing her outfit… though the term seemed generous. She was dressed down today, or rather, she hadn’t gotten dressed yet, still clad in black and red plaid pajama bottoms and an orange t-shirt that had an illustration stretched across the chest, with Crosby, stills, Nash & Young printed under it and clashed horribly. “I don’t know what’s worse, your fashion sense or the band.” 

Katrina rolled her eyes and threw a pillow at his head. “Fuck off. I don’t say anything when you dress like a wanna-be biker, do I?”

Dean narrowed his eyes, but Katrina ignored him, her own gaze intent on Bobby’s crappy TV.

It had been a few months since Katrina Black had come into Dean’s life. She’d been an unwelcome but seemingly non-negotiable addition to his found family when Sam had shown up at his door back in the Fall and he’d had to bring Lisa and Ben to Sioux Falls in search of a safe landing spot while they took care of the djinn. It had taken some time, but what had started as a begrudging tolerance had given way to a genuine friendship, one that Dean had trouble imagining at times how he’d done without. But she still had a way of grating on his nerves at times. Today was one of those days.

He’d been there for just about a week, not counting the day he’d spent trying and failing to fill Death’s shoes. Kat had only shown up the day before, but from what Dean understood, she was planning on staying until after Christmas. He’d been more than a little surprised, considering from what he understood she had a full-time job and was missed when she disappeared for too long. The surprise had immediately been replaced by annoyance when she’d told him someone needed to check in on Bobby after Sam’s failed attempt at patricide. As if Dean weren’t perfectly fucking capable. 

Bobby was more than fine. The old bastard was tough as nails. Even robo-Sam didn’t have a shot of taking him down. He didn’t need Kat checking up on him. Neither did Dean, for that matter. Or Sam. The three of them were fine, and if Kat was just going to lounge around all day and steal his remote, he wasn’t sure what help she thought she was being.

“What are you doing here anyway?” he asked after a few minutes of silence. To that point, she still hadn’t settled on a channel, but the wrist she had extended towards the TV faltered at his question, and he noticed the shadow of a frown cross her face.

“I told you; I came to check in on Bobby.” 

She clicked the channel button a few more times, slower than before, and then dropped her arm back to her side and curled deeper into her chosen spot.

“Yeah, okay,” Dean allowed, even though he still thought it was stupid. “He’s fine though, and last I checked, you were planning on staying till after Christmas, which is still over a week away.” 

Katrina shrugged, eyes still fixed on the TV. Dean followed her line of sight and noticed she’d landed on I Love Lucy. He had to work not to snort at the predictability. In the months they’d known one another, he wasn’t sure he’d seen her pick anything aside from I Love Lucy, Bewitched, Gilligan’s Island, or The Munsters. Creature of habit, she called it. Boring was the word Dean used, but it was mostly to get a rise out of her. Given the way she kept him on his toes most of the time, he found it oddly endearing that she had some quirks that were so insanely consistent. 

“So what? I have some time off. You got a problem with it?” 

“No.”

It was a mostly honest answer. He didn’t have a problem with it… he just wanted to be left well enough alone. There was enough shit on his mind… the nonstop anxiety over whether Sam was going to wake up and whether he’d be Sam when he did… the near constant ache for Lisa and Ben that only seemed to grow as the holidays approached… his growing concern over whatever goddamn war Cas was fighting but keeping them out of… the bitter anger he was still feeling towards dear old gramps. 

The last thing he needed was Katrina and the complicated feelings her presence stirred in him.

“You seem like you’ve got a problem with it,” she prodded, and Dean held back a groan. Why did she always have to poke and prod? “You’ve been in a mood since I got here.” 

“I have not been in a mood,” Dean deflected, giving an exaggerated roll of his eyes. Katrina snorted and shook her head, clearly not convinced, and Dean’s eyes narrowed further. “Just doesn’t make sense is all. Christmas with a grumpy old hunter, a coma patient, and a – what did you call me the other day? A stubborn ass? Doesn’t exactly scream holiday cheer to me.” 

A wry smile formed on Kat’s face, but it didn’t reach her eyes, and Dean thought he noticed her shoulders tense.

“What do you mean? Sounds just like home to me,” she jabbed back.

“Aw, c’mon, Kat,” Dean pushed, finding himself curious now. “Don’t you have a younger sister? Wouldn’t you rather spend it with her than with us hacks?” 

Dean definitely didn’t imagine the reaction that time. Katrina’s jaw definitely clenched.

“Jenna’s on a cruise with her boyfriend and his family,” she informed him flatly. Dean frowned, his mind working overtime to recall what he knew of her situation. From what he understood, she and Jenna were close. Freakishly close… though he understood the irony in having anything to say about something like that himself. 

“What, and bailed on you for Christmas?” he asked in disbelief before he could stop himself. Katrina rolled her eyes.

“She didn’t bail on me; we talked about it. She’ll be back in time for me to see her before she goes back to school. It’s no big deal.” 

Dean doubted that very much, but he wasn’t stupid enough to voice as much. He was, apparently, stupid enough to keep digging, however. 

“Alright, fine, your sister’s not around. Still, though, you gotta have something you’d rather be doing.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to watch,” she dismissed, but Dean snorted. He was fairly certain that she could quote these episodes by now.

“Bullshit. C’mon, Kat. What’s the rest of your family up to? You should spend the time off with them, not watching crap TV on Bobby’s couch and helping man the phones.” 

He realized seconds too late that he’d pushed too far, and when Katrina’s head whipped around, he nearly gulped when he saw the fire in her eyes.

“The hell is your problem?” she hissed. Dean felt his mouth drop open, feeling stupid when the words he needed suddenly evaded him.

“Kat, I’m – “

“Save it, Winchester. Why don’t you try focusing on your life and less on mine?” 

And without another word, she pitched the remote back in his direction and took off towards the stairs, leaving a bewildered Dean in her wake. 

The next few days were tension filled to say the least. While their spats typically blew over of their own accord, there was something different about this one that Dean didn’t know how to put his finger on. It was a small house, but Katrina still managed to find a way to mostly avoid him. He tried to apologize, but any time he got close, she made up an excuse to be anywhere else, or quickly struck up a conversation with Bobby. 

When they were occupying the same space, the snark that had permeated every conversation they’d had in their early days returned tenfold. Dean couldn’t seem to say so much as a word without Kat having some sarcastic comment or biting remark to throw back in his direction, even when he was talking to Bobby. It was bad enough that Friday night Bobby cornered him about it, and given Bobby’s preference to stay as far out of their disagreements as possible, that was saying a lot.

“What’d you do to Trina?” the old man asked, dropping into a seat at the kitchen table and sliding a beer across the table. Dean looked up from the article he’d mindlessly been scrolling through on Sam’s laptop, surprised at the question – though not too surprised to scoop up the offered bottle, even as he pushed the laptop aside.

“Oh, c’mon, Bobby. I didn’t do anything. You know how Kat gets. She’s been in a mood since she got here.” 

Bobby, however, looked back skeptically, raising his eyebrows as he took a pull from his own beer.

“Is that so?” 

Dean nodded, knocking back his own beer. It was late. There still hadn’t been any change in Sam, a thought that was gnawing at Dean like nothing else. The house had been quiet since dinner – pizza Bobby had ordered before Katrin had slipped upstairs, citing she needed an ‘early night.’

“Yeah. She came in the other day while I was watching TV, stole my remote, and told me I had no taste. Typical Katrina.” 

A voice in the back of his head nagged at him that he knew there was more to it than that, but Dean didn’t want to get into it with Bobby. He didn’t understand what had gone so wrong himself, and he wasn’t in the mood to rehash it. Bobby, however, seemed to be able to sense the damn voice. 

“Oh yeah, that sounds like her alright,” Bobby agreed, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “And I’m sure you didn’t clap back at all Mr. Calm and Collected.” 

Dean sighed and ran a hand down his face. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Bobby. I gave her shit for wearing a Crosby Stills shirt, and I tried to ask her why she was hanging here for the holidays. If that got her all bent outta shape, I gotta say… I thought she was made outta tougher stuff.” 

Dean had hoped that would be the end of the conversation, but he’d anticipated maybe a bit more ribbing… maybe another round of prodding on the subject. What he didn’t expect was the look of utter exasperation tinged with disappointment that flashed across Bobby’s face, and Dean found his brow furrowing automatically in confusion.

“What?” he asked. Bobby was quiet for a moment, before he ultimately exhaled, shaking his head slowly. The disappointment seemed to win out over the exasperation.

“You know, Dean,” said, his voice surprisingly quiet, “did you ever stop to think that you ain’t the only one that’s got baggage?” 

And just like with Katrina, Bobby was gone before Dean could get any real answers. He kicked at the chair next to him in a bout of frustration before he could think better of it. Why did everything have to be so damn complicated? 

The next day, there was still no change in Sam, and Dean found himself sitting once more at the kitchen table, mindlessly flipping through one of Bobby’s books, looking for anything they might have missed about souls, when a hat and a pair of gloves landed in front of his face. He looked up in confusion that quickly morphed to surprise when he saw Katrina standing in front of him. She was bundled up in one of her heavier coats, a scarf draped around her neck, hair pulled into a messy side braid, and her hands shoved into her pockets.

“Let’s go,” she said simply. “I’m getting a Christmas tree to brighten this place up, and you’re helping me. Move your ass.” 

For a moment, Dean stared back at her blankly, too caught off guard for the words to register. But as they did, the skepticism took hold.

“The hell I am,” he tossed back. “What do we need a Christmas tree for?”

“If I’m spending my Christmas here, we’re getting a tree, and I need your help.” And despite the inexplicable guilt that Dean had been feeling for the last few days, he felt a flare of anger.

“Yeah, well no one asked you to spend Christmas here, did they?” 

Katrina was already walking towards the door but called back to him over her shoulder. 

“Wrong again, darlin. Bobby asked me months ago, which makes you the interloper. C’mon, we’ll take my car. Wouldn’t want to scratch your precious baby.” 

Christmas tree shopping was not Dean’s idea of a good day. But something about the tension of the last few days and how it had been eating at him pressed in, and Dean found himself pushing to his own feet and following after her, shrugging on his coat as he went. 

“Whatever, Black. Just don’t expect me to decorate the damn thing.” 

Christmas tree shopping with Katrina was an experience, to say the least, but Dean had to admit it felt better than sitting around the house had. For a few merciful hours, he was distracted from the constant pull he’d been feeling towards Bobby’s basement. Even the memories of doing the same thing with Lisa and Ben the previous year – the only other time Dean could remember going tree shopping – skewed to the sweet side of the bittersweet scale, a gift in and of itself these days. 

She was still a little prickly, taking any opportunity she could find to take a stab at him, but Dean gave it back as good as he got, and the tension melted back into the playful banter he had become accustomed to. It was about halfway through the second field that Dean made the mistake of complaining that he was cold, immediately regretting the slip when Katrina’s face lit up in her I-told-you-so expression.

“I thought Winchesters didn’t get cold,” she teased, elbowing him gently. Her hands were still tucked into her pockets, despite the fact that she’d donned gloves for the occasion. Dean rolled his eyes good naturedly. 

“I did not say that,” he disagreed, and Katrina chuckled.

“No, you were just adamant that you didn’t need the hat and gloves I found for you. Because, and I quote, it’s only thirty degrees out.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t expect to be at this for hours,” Dean pointed out. Katrina laughed, and Dean tried not to let himself get too drawn into her dazzling smile, or dwell on how pretty she looked with her cheeks all flushed from the cold. That was a path neither of them were equipped to go down, and even with all her rough edges, Dean wasn’t willing to risk the friendship they’d formed.

“Joke’s on you. Maybe next time you’ll listen to me.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean grumbled half-heartedly. “C’mon, what do you think about this one? It looks like it would fit downstairs well enough.” 

Katrina came to stand next to him, frowning as she studied the tree. 

“I dunno, what about there? That’s a huge gap,” she complained. Dean followed where she was pointing but squinted, not seeing whatever she was talking about.

“What are you, high?” he asked, bending down. “This is the best looking tree we’ve seen so far.” 

Suddenly, however, it felt like ice had been poured over the back of his neck, and he yelped, in a way that he never did, too caught off guard at the sensation to do anything else. As he stumbled forward and upright, Katrina’s laughter filled his ears, and when he turned around, he found her grinning at him, mischievous glint in her eye and suddenly bare hands visible in front of her. Dean felt his mouth fall open in shock, and Katrina’s laughter only grew louder.

“Oh, you’re gonna pay for that,” he told her, and she wasted no time arching an eyebrow at him in challenge.

“Oh yeah? Good luck.” And the next thing he knew, she was off to a running start, her laughter floating back to him over the air. Dean tore after her without a thought, glad they seemed to be the only ones this far out.

Katrina was fast, but he was taller, with a longer stride, and he caught up easily enough. Of course, Kat also had feline-like reflexes, and before he knew it, they both ended up on the ground, both winded, but laughing.

“You’re a fucking menace,” he complained. She snorted.

“Like you’re one to talk.” 

Dean ran a hand down his face and tried to catch his breath.

“Yeah, yeah. C’mon, I think I’ve had enough fun for one day. What did you actually think of that tree?” 

They were halfway back to the front of the farm, Dean hauling the tree with them, when the snow started to fall. He’d never had any particular attachment to the snow himself, it was just colder rain, but he couldn’t help smiling at the way Kat’s face lit up.

“Seriously?” he asked. “You getting’ all excited about snow?”

Of course, in typical Katrina fashion, she didn’t pay him any mind and only grinned wider.

“It’s the first snow of the year, don’t be a curmudgeon.” 

“I’m not a curmudgeon, I’m just an adult. Snow’s a pain in the ass.” 

“Yeah, well. Being an adult’s boring. Live a little. You might enjoy it.” 

The snow was still falling, already sticking to the ground and coating the earth in a thin layer of white powder when they reached their destination. The world seemed to grow quieter, muffled against heavy flakes, and with it, Dean noticed Katrina did too. They were almost done, when the kid running the machine to put the net around the trees ran into a problem and had to go inside to get help. That was when Dean noticed Katrina had drifted to the side, leaning against a fence, a faraway look in her eyes and she stared out blankly towards the road. Frowning, Dean approached, hands in his pockets, his expression morphing into one of concern.

“You alright?” he asked. 

Katrina jumped, turning quickly and flashing him a smile when she realized he was next to her, but Dean noticed it didn’t reach her eyes. Her dark hair was dotted with fresh flakes of snow, growing wet as it melted into her braid. She nodded, but Dean knew better.

“Yeah, I’m good, sorry.”

Dean’s frown deepened, and he shook his head.

“You don’t have to be sorry. What’s up, Kat?” 

She bit her bottom lip, seeming to wrestle with herself for a moment, her eyes darting back to the road, away from him. Finally, she took a deep breath, exhaling slowly, the expelled breath rustling a few loose strands of hair.

“Nothing, really. I, uh… thanks for coming with me today. I’m sorry, about the other day. About the last few days. I was a real bitch.” 

Dean had been so caught up in their afternoon that he’d almost forgotten about how they’d ended up there, but at the reminder, he suddenly felt that weird guilt again, and scratched at the back of his neck, feeling the heat creeping up it.

“Oh. No, Kat. You don’t have to – I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have –“ 

But Kat finally turned to look at him again, and he fell silent at the look on her face, the subtle shake of her head more powerful than anything he could have said.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. I overreacted. My uh… my mom… this is the first Christmas since she died. It wasn’t too long after the new year that she passed. It’s been… harder… than I expected. I had sort of hoped that Jenna and I would still do something, but Jenna said it was too hard. She just wanted to get away this year, not celebrate. And, um… well, you know what it’s like looking out for your younger sibling. The second she told me that’s what she needed, I knew that was the way this year was gonna go, but… it’s still been a little rough. It’s just been the three of us since my dad walked out. That’s why Bobby invited me to come stay for a bit. We happened to be on a hunt together when Jenna and I had that conversation, and he didn’t want me to be by myself. But, uh, that… that doesn’t give me the excuse to treat you like crap. You didn’t know, and I should have just told you. I’m sorry. It was stupid.”

Dean felt like he’d been punched in the gut, especially when he noticed water pooling at the edges of Katrina’s eyes. He may not have known her long, but he knew she wasn’t a crier. He’d known her mom had died, but he hadn’t realized when. 

Without a second thought, Dean reached up and brushed a thumb over her cheekbone, cradling her face and keeping her from giving into that instinct he knew she had to look away. Neither of them were good with emotional vulnerability, but somehow that made it easier for him with her, and he was determined to try and give her that same outlet.

“That’s not stupid, and you don’t need to apologize. I’m so sorry, Kat. I wish I could say something that would make it better, but I’ve been there, and I know how much it sucks.” 

Katrina sniffed but nodded, still biting her lip.

“I know you do,” she whispered. “And thanks, I appreciate that.”

Dean smiled softly at her, and before he could second guess the gesture, he kissed the top of her head. When she leaned into it and wrapped an arm around his middle in a hug, Dean felt his breath catch in his throat, but he wasted no time in returning the embrace and holding her against him.

“No need to thank me, sweetheart. That’s what friends are for.” 

He wasn’t sure how long they stood like that, letting the snow fall over them while the world continued to quiet around them, but he savored every second of it, and for just a little bit the rest of his worries fell away. All that was left was him, and Kat, the stupid tree farm, and the damn snow… and he almost wished it could stay that way.

Of course, it couldn’t, and all too soon the kid was back, with his manager trailing behind him, bringing reality with them. Katrina disentangled herself from him, a different kind of flush gracing her cheeks now. Dean spared her a small smile and squeezed her hand – gloved once again, of course – before backtracking to collect their tree.

Their lives may have been a mess, and Dean wasn’t particularly happy about what the past year had brought him… but if there was one thing he was grateful for it was probably Katrina Black worming her way into his reluctant heart, and he couldn’t help but wonder what the next year might bring. 

[probablyintensemuses]

I need advice asap!

Im 21 years old and im a student in college. I work a coffee shop job. My boyfriend is 23 years old and works a full time job as a computer engineer for a company and makes 70k a year if not more. I’m considering breaking up with him, but before why, I’ll elaborate.

Me and my boyfriend live together.

His apartment burned down in late 2022, early 2023. Until he found a place he stayed with me and my family. When he got his place he asked me to move in on a few conditions: id cook and clean.

We have a dog. I handle most of everything for the dog except for maybe walking and play.

My boyfriend and I had a huge fight months ago, nearly a year ago, because when I wasn’t there, I was hanging with friends, he broke into my laptop and searched my messages and found old sexual messages between me and this girl and accused me of cheating. Yet he never broke up with me.

He hardly ever speaks to me and makes it seem like I’m an annoyance.

He doesn’t respect my boundaries and always pushes me

Now he wants me to quit my job and get a serving job so I can pay half the rent as well as my other expenses.

He wanted to visit his parent in Florida and drive using my car. Dealership said my wheels weren’t good and I needed them all replaced. He paid for it and told me I had to pay him back even thought I never asked. He drove my car down there and doesn’t pay shit on it! And is trying to do it again, but I said no this time.

He hardly interacts with my family.

He doesn’t help me financially but expects me to help him. The most she’s bought me is a few books and stuff. When I bought him a 1.2k dollar amp for his college graduation and I was broke, that came out my savings and it burnt in the fire.

I constantly bend over backwards for him and get hardly anything in return. I think our relationship has run its course I just have no idea what to do.

I just need advice I feel so stuck and stupid. Can anyone help me? Mg parents keep telling Me to come back home and finish school, save my money. But idk I’m afraid he’ll expose my sexuality to them cuz he said he would.

Two last things, this is more recent, my boyfriend is supposed to be going to Florida in a few days and I can’t afford to come —context it’s his brothers engagement party—I already expressed this. Not I mention it would be out 3rd anniversary while he is down there and he hasn’t said shit about it. Also instead of helping me he just sends me screenshots of flight costs and shit.

Another thing happened the other night. I got kind of drunk and was sitting on the couch. I wanted to talk to him and was begging for him to come talk to me and sit with me. And he got so annoyed and said he was tired and walked away and kept ignoring me even though I was calling for him. But had energy to play on the video game and laugh with friends and play with our dog not even an hour earlier. His response when i called him on that?

“I worked ten hours today. You didnt.”

Am I the asshole, what should I do?

[your-local-simp-writers]

Hi hi! I wasn't sure if your requests are open but i loved your Riku x reader one and I wish to request a Riku x reader if that's okay. Reader is like a lost keyblade wielder stuck in the darklands with aqua and is from Destiny Island. Reader and Mickey were adventuring together one time and they got separated resulting her meeting aqua in the darklands. Riku saves reader and maybe something before the Keyblade war, they share a paopu fruit and kiss, (like when Kairi gave Sora a paipu fruit except its Riku and Reader)

YES! OML, THIS IS SO CUTE!!!! If you haven't gotten to know who we are don't be shy here is our "༺☆༻ Introduction ༺☆༻"

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

Shadows and Stars

Word Count: 1701

Warnings: None

Riku x Fem!Reader ︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶︶꒦꒷♡꒷꒦︶

The Darklands stretched endlessly before you, an inky expanse of shadows that swallowed the light. As you wandered deeper into this desolate realm, the oppressive atmosphere pressed against your chest, each breath a reminder of how far you had strayed from the warmth of home. Every step echoed with the sounds of your solitude, the once vibrant laughter from Destiny Islands fading into distant memory.

You had ventured into this shadowy abyss alongside King Mickey during one of his missions, your hearts united in the fight against the encroaching darkness. But the chaos of battle had torn you apart, leaving you lost and adrift, far from the familiar shores of your childhood.

With a heavy heart, you navigated the twisted pathways, the darkness swirling around you like a living entity. You felt small and vulnerable, each rustle of the shadows setting your nerves on edge. Just when the weight of despair began to settle too heavily on your shoulders, a familiar silhouette broke through the gloom.

Riku emerged from the shadows, a beacon of light cutting through the darkness. His silver hair glimmered like moonlight, reflecting the faint glow of the few scattered stars that peeked through the dark clouds. When your eyes met, relief surged through you, igniting a warmth that chased away the cold grip of fear.

“Riku!” You called out, your voice breaking the silence as you rushed toward him. Relief washed over you like a tidal wave, and before you could stop yourself, you threw your arms around him, feeling the solid warmth of his body beneath your fingers.

“Y/N,” he said, his voice steady and soothing. As you pulled back to look at him, the seriousness in his gaze softened, replaced by a smile that made your heart flutter. “I was worried about you.”

“I was scared,” you admitted, your voice trembling slightly. “I thought I’d be stuck here forever.”

“I’d never let that happen.” The conviction in his voice was a balm to your soul. “I’ll always find you.”

“How do you always know exactly what I need?” Riku asked, tilting his head slightly, a thoughtful expression crossing his features.

You chuckled softly, feeling the tension of the past few days begin to melt away. “I pay attention,” you replied, heartened by the connection that felt so effortless between you two. “You’re not as hard to read as you think.”

“Can you let me see your eyes?” he asked suddenly, his expression earnest and searching. You felt a blush creeping up your cheeks, but there was a comfort in his request, a reminder that vulnerability was a strength when shared with the right person.

“Of course,” you replied, brushing your hair back from your face, your heart racing under his intense gaze. You could see the myriad of emotions swirling in his eyes—relief, worry, determination—and you felt a magnetic pull toward him, as if the darkness surrounding you faded away in the light of his presence.

He stepped closer, and the shadows around you seemed to retreat as you stood face to face. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said softly, his relief evident. “I didn’t want to lose you.”

With the weight of his words settling in your heart, you whispered, “I didn’t realize how much I needed you until now.” The admission felt like a release, a truth that had been buried beneath layers of fear and uncertainty.

Riku’s gaze turned serious as he reached into his pocket, producing a paopu fruit, its vibrant colors almost luminescent against the dark backdrop. You recognized the symbolism immediately—the fruit was a promise, a symbol of connection and shared fate.

“I thought we could share this,” he said, offering it to you with a soft smile. “You know what it represents.”

The sight of the fruit brought back memories of laughter and joy from Destiny Islands, moments shared with Riku, Sora, and Kairi. You took the paopu fruit from his hands, your fingers brushing against his, sending a thrill through you. “Just like Sora and Kairi,” you murmured, feeling the weight of what it symbolized settle in your chest.

“Exactly,” Riku replied, his eyes never leaving yours. “No matter what happens, we’re connected. I won’t let anything pull us apart.”

With a shared smile, you took a bite of the fruit, its sweetness bursting on your tongue, filling you with warmth and hope. Riku followed suit, and in that moment, the darkness around you seemed to lift, if only for a heartbeat.

Time slowed as you leaned in, the distance between you evaporating like the darkness around you. Your lips met in a gentle kiss, tentative at first, but it deepened, filled with the sweetness of the fruit and the unspoken promise of your connection. It felt like a world reborn in that single moment, the shadows dissipating as light surged within you.

When you finally pulled away, breathless and wide-eyed, Riku’s expression mirrored your own surprise and wonder. “Y/N…” he began, but the words faltered, lost in the depth of your shared moment.

“Let’s escape this place together,” you urged, your heart racing with newfound determination. “We’ll find a way back to the light, back to the Islands.”

Riku nodded, resolve hardening in his eyes. “Together, always,” he echoed, and you could feel the strength of his promise resonating in your bones.

As you turned to face the path ahead, fingers intertwined, the darkness began to recede, revealing a breathtaking view. The once oppressive shadows transformed into gentle hues of blue and green, the scent of saltwater filling the air as you neared the shoreline. The familiar sounds of waves crashing against the shore beckoned you home.

“Look!” Riku said, excitement bubbling in his voice as he pointed toward the horizon. “There it is!”

Your heart raced at the sight, the outline of Destiny Islands rising majestically before you. You could almost feel the warmth of the sun on your skin, hear the distant laughter of friends, the promise of safety and comfort. The palm trees swayed gently in the breeze, their leaves rustling like whispers of joy.

“Let’s go!” you urged, a burst of energy propelling you forward. You sprinted toward the water’s edge, laughter escaping your lips as you glanced back at Riku, who was quickly catching up.

“Remember those races on the beach?” you teased, a playful smile gracing your face. “I always won!”

Riku chuckled, the sound bright and infectious. “You were fast, but I had my tricks,” he retorted, a mischievous glint in his eyes. “I could always find a shortcut.”

“Shortcut, huh?” you replied, nudging him with your shoulder as you reached the shoreline. The waves lapped gently at your feet, the cool water sending shivers up your spine. “I’ll have to keep an eye on you next time.”

As you both reached the water’s edge, you paused for a moment, letting the familiar sensations wash over you—the warmth of the sun, the gentle breeze rustling through your hair, and the distant call of seagulls above. It felt surreal, the weight of the Darklands slowly lifting as you stood together.

“This feels right,” you said, looking up at Riku, who stood beside you, his expression softening as he took in the view. “Like we’re finally home.”

Riku turned to you, a deep warmth in his gaze. “We are home, together,” he replied, his voice low and filled with emotion.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting a golden glow over the ocean, you both stood side by side, fingers still intertwined. In that moment, the world felt right, the shadows of the past fading away as hope blossomed in your hearts.

You watched as the sky transitioned from brilliant gold to deep indigo, stars beginning to twinkle in the vast expanse above. “Look,” you said, pointing up at the sky. “It’s like they’re guiding us home.”

Riku followed your gaze, a soft smile crossing his lips. “Each star is a promise, a reminder of those we care about,” he mused, his voice barely above a whisper. “Sora, Kairi, even the ones we’ve lost along the way. They’re all with us.”

The thought stirred something deep within you, a bittersweet ache mixed with gratitude. “They would be proud of us,” you said, feeling the warmth of Riku’s hand enveloping yours tighter. “We fought for our friends, for each other.”

Riku’s gaze turned serious as he faced you, the determination in his eyes unmistakable. “I promise to protect you, Y/N. No matter what darkness comes our way, I won’t let anything tear us apart again.”

Your heart swelled at his words, the sincerity etched on his face a balm to your soul. “And I promise to stand by you, Riku,” you replied, squeezing his hand. “Together, we’ll face whatever challenges lie ahead.”

As the stars above continued to twinkle like diamonds, the tide began to rise, washing over your feet. The cool water enveloped you in a comforting embrace, mirroring the warmth that bloomed in your chest. You stepped deeper into the surf, feeling liberated, like a weight had been lifted from your shoulders.

The rhythmic crashing of the waves became a melody that resonated within you, filling the space between your hearts with harmony. It was a promise of adventure, of friendship, of love that would endure the trials ahead.

“Come on!” you called, laughing as you splashed water playfully in Riku’s direction. “Let’s celebrate!”

“Hey!” he exclaimed, laughter spilling from him as he dodged your playful attack. “You’re on!”

With that, the two of you raced along the shoreline, the warmth of the sand beneath your feet, the stars shining brightly above as you embraced the magic of the moment. The weight of darkness fell away with each joyful step, replaced by the promise of light and a future filled with hope.

As you and Riku continued to laugh and chase each other under the starry sky, you realized that, no matter the shadows that had once threatened to consume you, together you could face any darkness. And as the waves lapped gently at your feet, you knew that your hearts were forever intertwined, bound by the love and light you had found in each other.

[cirilla-fiona-riannon]

Secret in your Heart

These translations are not intended as a replacement for the game. Please support Cybird by buying their stories. Expect grammatical errors. Not 100% accurate.

The faint sunlight fell on my eyelids, letting me know that morning has come to greet me.

(Nn...)

Liam: "Are you awake? Good morning, Katie."

Kate: "Morning, Liam."

Liam: "I'm happy that I'm the first person you saw this morning."

Liam held me close and rubbed the tip of his nose against me like a cat.

Seeing so many of his carefree gestures like this since he became my lover really made me happy.

Kate: "Fufu, that tickles."

(I'm really happy.)

Liam, not a very good sleeper, stayed next to me while I slept like this.

I hope he could sleep peacefully someday, but for now, I'm just happy we can cuddle like this.

(Huh?)

Kate: "Liam. Did you go somewhere while I was sleeping?"

Liam: "Eh? Why?"

Kate: "Because you have a leaf in your hair. Look."

Liam: "Um, maybe it got stuck on me last night?"

Kate: "Last night?"

Liam: "Thanks for taking it off! All right, let's have some breakfast. I'll cook."

(Liam's being dodgy back then.)

The unnatural look on his face, so unlike him, stuck with me all day long.

I was wondering if I should see him and ask him about it when I suddenly missed my footing on the stairs.

Liam: "Katie! That was close. Thank God, I made it in time."

Kate: "Liam."

Kate: "Sorry, I was just thinking about something."

Liam: ".........."

Liam: “I shouldn’t have kept secrets from you if I was going to make you look like this.”

Liam: “I’ll tell you about what I’ve been doing while you were asleep.”

He lifted me and ran through the roof like the wind.

Liam: “We’re here. Let me put you down, Katie.”

He gently lowered me to the ground, and I turned around.

(Wow!)

Liam: “I heard that this street is the only one lit up at night.”

Liam: “Not only that. Just across the street, a new candy store is going to open.”

Liam: “And, over there by the river, there’s a little something you might like.”

Something very similar to the leaf I saw before in Liam’s hair fell at my feet.

(Could it be?)

I looked at him, and he smiled shyly.

Liam: “I always find myself asking what I could do to make you even more happy every time I gaze at you when I can’t sleep.”

Kate: “That’s why you went out on the town and looked for all kinds of things?”

Liam: “Uh-huh. I kept it a secret from you and slipped out quietly.”

Liam: "Ah, geez. I was planning to surprise you by finding something to give you as a present, but I screwed up big time."

Liam: "I really can't do anything, can I?"

Kate: "That's not true."

Kate: "I'm really happy. Thank you so much, Liam."

Liam: "Katie."

Kate: "Besides, what makes me most happy is always right in front of me."

Liam: "Right in front of you?"

Kate: "It's you, Liam."

Kate: "Having you by my side like this is what makes me smile."

Liam: "........."

Liam: "Ah, geez."

Liam: "I really can't hold a candle to you."

Liam hugged me tightly and rested his chin on my head.

The gesture, laced with happiness and a hint of embarrassment, was so endearing that it made me smile.

Kate: "Don't leave me this time, okay? When I wake up, we'll search for it together."

Liam: "Is it okay if I take that as an order to stay with you when you're sleeping?"

Kate: "Okay."

Liam: "Cute."

Liam: "Okay. I'll do everything I can to fulfill your wish."

Liam: "But I may not be able to keep that promise just for tonight."

Kate: "Huh?"

Liam: "I'm not planning on letting you sleep anymore, sweetie."

➟ Collection Event Masterlist

[password-door-lock]

“Do you ever play match three games?” 

Saeran tears his gaze away from the wall he’s been staring at for the better part of five minutes. What kind of a question is that? “No.” 

“Oh,” you slump against the stiff chair you’ve claimed for yourself since the two of you arrived in the waiting room. This is the first trip the two of you have taken out of the bunker without Saeyoung present, and although you're trying your best, it's still a bit awkward. “Can you help me anyway? I’m stuck on this level.” 

Saeran rolls his eyes, but holds out his hand for your phone anyway. What else is he going to do? You insisted on showing up a full twenty minutes before the start of his appointment “in case there’s any paperwork” (there was none), and the magazines littering the coffee table in front of him interest him about as much as the drama rerun playing on the blocky old TV behind him— which is to say, not at all. “Whatever.” 

You beam at him like it matters that he’s agreed to “help” you with your mobile game. Maybe it does matter to you— maybe in your head, this is an indicator that Saeran is healing, or maybe you’re just irrationally invested in the game. “It’s just match three,” you reiterate, as if that would mean anything to Saeran. Once, several months ago, he looked at the games section of the app store. It couldn’t have been two minutes before he became overwhelmed and frustrated with the sheer number of seemingly identical options available and decided that until further notice, his phone would be for accessing the RFA messenger app and playing with search engines only. 

Your phone, however, is apparently for all kinds of nonsense outside of those basic functions. When Saeran accepts the device, he is greeted by a screen full of colorful orbs, dispersed in a seemingly random alignment against a pastoral backdrop. He stares at them, transfixed, trying to figure out what the hell he’s supposed to be doing with them. This is fun for you? Really? After a few moments, a strange grey cartoon character pops up in the corner of the screen to scold him for his inactivity. Its ears are large and round; its elliptical nose takes up half its face. Try this move, it urges, and two of the orbs begin to glow. Is he supposed to swap them? That would make a row of three green orbs. “What’s with this mouse?” Saeran asks. 

He follows the creature’s instructions, and indeed, the green row disappears in a burst, though it is quickly replaced by new orbs which cascade from the rows above. “That’s a koala,” you explain, “Not a mouse. They’re marsupials, I think, so they live in Australia. They eat, um… leaves, from… I think it’s a eucalyptus tree? And either only koalas can eat eucalyptus or eucalyptus is the only thing koalas can eat, I don’t remember.” 

Saeran shakes his head. This is not the first time you’ve presented him with contradictory and confusing “facts,” about which you seem decidedly unsure. Once you’d answered his questions about common house pets and local fauna, Saeran’s inquiries had apparently exhausted your animal knowledge, which proved to be severely limited from the start. “I’ll just look it up later.” Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. That depends on a lot of things, like how he’s feeling after his confrontation with the dentist and whether he’s still bothered by his ignorance about koalas when the two of you return to the bunker.

You watch over his shoulder as Saeran tries to play the game— tries being the operative verb. He switches orbs at random, more to see what will happen than because he has any strategy in mind. He isn’t even sure about the intended objective of the game, let alone the goal for this level— is he just supposed to get rid of as many orbs as possible? Instead of offering gameplay advice— which would, doubtlessly, vex Saeran to no end— you merely observe, occasionally cheering him on when he swaps some particularly important orbs or beats the koala to the punch with choosing a move. Normally, having someone hovering there would bother him, but… with you, it’s different. This is your phone, after all, and anyway, even if Saeran doesn’t trust you with his deepest, darkest secrets (he’ll probably never trust anybody with those) he has grown comfortable with your presence in his space. Maybe that’s a mundane thing for other people, but it’s monumental for him, and he knows that you don’t take it for granted. 

He loses, of course. You probably play this stupid game all the time, and if you couldn’t pass the level, Saeran doesn’t see how you could expect him to do any better. “Sorry,” you grin at him, “I couldn’t set the difficulty level any lower for you. I’m pretty much a pro at this game— did you know I’m internationally ranked?” 

You’re joking around with him now, treating him like a normal person despite the things you know he’s done and whatever you can guess. Though it doesn’t make much sense to him, Saeran can’t say he minds. “You play it, then.” He puts the phone back in your hand. He watches you lose six times before the dentist calls him, at which point, he rises, leaning in to mutter to you on his way out, “Maybe you should set the difficulty level lower for yourself.” Your laughter, loud and abrupt, draws a few stares from the other patrons of the waiting room— but in the scheme of things, Saeran is grateful to have made you laugh.

[skyward-floored]

Febuwhump day 17 - silent tears

I keep taking these kinda loosely but I also do not care <3 I’m happy enough with how this turned out anyway

Sprite is oot/mm Link, Hibiscus is alttp, oos/ooa, and la Link.

Courage of ages explanation

————————————————————

“Ow.”

“Ugh... Seconded. Who knew moblins could kick so hard?”

Sprite groaned, pulling himself out of the bush he’d landed in. “Slate probably did,” he grumbled. “His stupid monsters are jerks.”

He brushed several leaves and twigs off himself, and watched Hibiscus do the same, glancing up at the cliff they’d been kicked off.

A group of monsters had taken them by surprise on the narrow path, and a chain of several bad decisions had led to Sprite being kicked into Hibiscus, unbalancing then sending them both tumbling down the cliffside.

Fortunately Hibiscus had managed to pull out a weird feather of some kind that slowed their descent enough so that they merely crashed into the bushes instead of breaking their necks on the rocks, but Sprite was still scratched up and bruised from the fall, and his knee was bleeding a little.

He spat out a leaf, and sighed, wincing when his chest ached. Man, he’d probably have a bruise from where he got kicked too. Ugh.

“We need to get back up there,” Sprite grumbled, pulling a twig out of his hair. “You okay enough to climb?”

“I’m fine,” Hibiscus nodded, dusting off his tunic and replacing the flower that had fallen from his hair. “I just got a little knocked around. I’ll be— wait.”

He froze, and looked at his tunic, patting down his chest and neck with a confused expression.

“My necklace, I— where is it?” he breathed. Then he began to pat himself more frantically, looking in his shirt and falling to his knees to search around at the ground beneath him. “I can’t find it, it’s not on me Sprite I can’t find it—”

“Whoa, calm down Hib, I’m sure it’s here somewhere,” Sprite said with a raised eyebrow. “It probably just came loose when we fell, stop freaking out. Is it really so important?”

“Yes,” Hibiscus snapped, shooting him a look, and Sprite froze at the unusual panic in his voice.

“Okay, okay... well I bet it’s right around here somewhere,” he said a little awkwardly, getting down on his knees. He began searching through the grass for the necklace, in the opposite direction from Hibiscus, pointedly ignoring the other while unease simmered in his guts.

Hibiscus never snapped at anyone like that. Even when he got angry, he usually took a firm tone, but not... snappy.

Boy, maybe he hit his head on the way down.

Neither of them spoke for what felt like a long time, leaves rustling as they looked around. Sprite hissed in pain when he accidentally stuck his hand into some thorns, but nothing was comparing to the racket Hibiscus was making a little ways away, tearing frantically through the leaf litter.

Sprite had seen the chain around Hibiscus’s necklace before: he’d never seen him take it off in fact. But he didn’t really know what it looked like aside from the chain, whether it had any charms or a pendant, different colors or anything on it.

And he sure wasn’t having any luck finding it.

After what was a solid fifteen minutes of fruitless searching, Sprite decided that some defining features would help. He glanced over at where Hibiscus was searching, and opened his mouth to ask what the necklace looked like.

But the words died in his throat, and he stared in shock.

Tears were dripping down Hibiscus’s cheeks as he pawed around the leaf litter, eyes wide and movements frantic. Sprite continued to stare, and felt a sharp wave of uncomfortableness roll over him as he watched more tears fall down his face.

Nayru preserve him, he was terrible at emotions.

“...Hib?”

Hibiscus paused in his frantic search, mopping a sleeve over his face. He looked over at him, eyes glassy, and Sprite hesitated.

“This is really important, isn’t it?” he asked quietly.

Hibiscus swallowed thickly, and nodded, looking away.

“Sprite I can’t lose this necklace,” he whispered. “It’s all I... it would be like you losing your ocarina, I just can’t.”

“Okay,” Sprite said softly, and went back to looking, much more determined now.

If this was as important to Hibiscus as his ocarina was to him, he’d search with him all day if he had to.

Sprite slowly worked his way closer to the bottom of the cliff where they’d fallen, searching for any kind of sparkle or glint of the chain. Hibiscus had gone in the other direction, deeper into the bushes, and as Sprite looked around in the dirt, he absently thought through all of his items, wishing one of them could help. Too bad Gloam isn’t here, he’d sniff it out in seconds.

He was about to give up and go look in Hibiscus’s direction again when something shone in the corner of his eye. Sprite jogged over to it, and smiled at the sight of the necklace caught in a bush.

He began to untangle it, studying the thing as he worked. The slender chain was the same as he remembered, but a small wooden ring hung on the end of it, lightly enchanted not to break he could tell. There were a few designs carved around it, nothing fancy, but obviously made with a lot of care.

Sprite carefully tugged it loose, and cradled it in his hands.

“I think I found it Hib!” he called, and the other hero nearly tripped in his haste to reach his side, reaching for the necklace as soon as he saw Sprite holding it.

He looked it over frantically, running a shaky thumb over the tiny carvings, turning it over in his hands several times. Then he held it close, eyes shut tightly as he breathed out a shaky breath.

“Yeah. This is it. Thank you Sprite.”

“No problem,” he muttered a little awkwardly.

He shuffled his feet as Hibiscus put the necklace securely into his pouch, running a thumb along the wood one last time before setting it away.

“Sorry about... freaking out,” Hibiscus said in a quiet voice. He breathed out a little shakily, and rubbed his eyes, subtly trying to remove the moisture from his cheeks. “That ring means a lot to me.”

“Yeah... I kinda figured. Where’d you get it?” Sprite asked curiously. “Did someone make it for you?”

Hibiscus was silent a moment, a strange emotion shining in his eyes. Then he turned away, walking back towards the cliff.

“Yeah. Someone did. Come on, we need to get back to the others.”

Sprite watched him go for a few moments, blinking in confusion. That was it? Just a quick brush-off? He wasn’t going to get any explanation?

He huffed out a sigh, then followed Hibiscus, several questions burning on the tip of his tongue. But he didn’t ask them.

He had a feeling he wouldn’t get any answers.

[writtenwyrm]

The Ascension

A Slay the Spire Story, Part 35

All Parts

Bargaining

I coughed, wet and sickly, and a lump of flesh spattered out onto the ground. It squirmed and stood up, two stubby feet supporting a blue, fleshy, toothy mouth. The monster wobbled for a minute and shook itself, spattering dark liquid all over. Then it hopped off into the darkness, leaving me alone in my corner once again.

There were spatters of muck all over me from the ugly little beast, and my feathers were disheveled and out of place. I resisted the urge to preen, however. The patches of empty skin were a grim reminder of what happened when I pulled too hard.

“What have you done?”

My Chosen. I glanced up, seeing them in the doorway. So small, compared to me, and yet so important. The leader of my entire church.

I didn’t want to say it. But I had to say something. Silence was worse than the truth, which was only occasionally worse than a lie. “I’m stuck.”

They stepped forward into the room, commanding just as much space as I did, looking around at my decorated sleeping chamber as if something in here might be the cause of my appearance. “Don’t give me that. You have total control over your shape. If you’re losing your feathers, it’s because you want to be useless. Are you really so selfish?”

I flinched, reminded of the people that depended on me. The people who needed my body to be healed. “No! No, I want to help them, I do!”

“Then stop being belligerent and take your true form again.”

I stared down at my Chosen, helpless to explain how hard I’d tried. I’d tried until I could hardly even breathe, until…

Well, I doubted it would go well if they saw the tiny, repulsive creatures I was coughing up.

I only had one idea. And I had to present it correctly, or… “Maybe… maybe I should go back. To the others. They might… they might know what’s wrong with me.”

I immediately knew I’d said it wrong. Something about the way they shifted under their cloak told me that the conversation was over.

“No. You are not like them. They are old, and you are new. You are something special… if you allow yourself to be. Now, I have delegates from the Gremlin Leader I must speak to.” They paced back toward the door, arms folded behind them. The slight edge of disgust told me what they thought of that. Then the tone turned toward me. “I’ll be back. I expect to see you back to normal when I return, but if you are not… well, you may still be of use, even in that sorry shape.”

The thought horrified me. What could they possibly find useful on me now? The thought of my ragged, dirty feathers going into elixirs for the sickly was disgusting. Surely they couldn’t hold the same power that they usually did.

Could they?

Alone again, I paced my room. The sound of my thundering heart in my ears drowned out everything else. Which was good, since the sound of my talons on the ground had been replaced with a slap-flap of meaty feet, and I didn’t want to hear that.

A sudden urge struck me to be in the sky. I had to fly again. How long had it been since I’d felt the wind under my wings? That I’d looked over the land from so far up that I couldn’t even see the individual trees?

Too long. Maybe some time in the air would help me return to normal. They wouldn’t understand, but I needed this.

So I didn’t tell them. Instead, I snuck through the rough-hewn corridors of the palace, searching for my window. The hole in the side of the Spire that was large enough to let me be free, on occasion.

I found it.

Bleakly, I stared at the boards nailed over it.

Had they done this? Why? They’d never forbidden me from flying, only hinted that there were better things to do with my time. And yet…

No. No, I needed out. I needed to fly. They would just have to understand.

I still wasn’t going to ask permission. No, I would beg forgiveness later. For now, I went to work with what was left of my beak.

It hurt, tearing the boards out. It hurt worse to give up the beak and grow a set of uneven teeth, moving further away from my intended shape. But the teeth worked better, and soon I could feel sunlight again.

I stood in the opening, basking in the warm sun. It calmed me, and I could feel my panic receding. This wasn’t the end of the world. I could figure this out, I’d be back in my normal form in no time. All I needed was a little time flying, first.

I leapt, stretching out my wings.

And then I fell like a rock.

At first, I was simply confused. I reached out, trying to cup the familiar sky with my wings and rise, and instead it flew past me, tearing feathers off with it in a vengeful flurry.

That’s when the panic returned.

I flapped, frantically, losing height with every second. I couldn’t fly, I couldn’t fly.

The last feathers still clinging to my stubby wings finally came free, leaving me naked and alone.

I plummeted.

The air whistled past, louder and louder, tearing off any remnants of my plumage and sending them scattered to the wind. No, no, I have to change. I have to get my feathers back.

Concentrating was difficult as I tumbled, but I closed my eyes, focusing on the familiar shape that I knew so well, the shape I’d been born as. Sapphire wings, powerful, all-encompassing. Muscles that beat and grasped the air, propelling me wherever I wanted to go.

The knife, approaching my face, wavering near my eye.

I screamed, flinching away from the image and losing my concentration immediately. The power I’d gathered bunched itself in my bones, looking for an escape, needing to be used. Uncontrolled, it surged through me, warping me, twisting my wings inward on myself. I felt my bones crunch in unnatural ways as my body searched instinctively for a form that would allow me to withstand a spire-long fall. A form, any form that could survive.

When I opened my eyes, the world was racing up to greet me

I hit the ground.

Everything shattered.

—

[QUERY] WAKE UP

[ANALYSIS] SYSTEM REST TIME is 98% COMPLETE

[ANALYSIS] SUFFICIENT REST ATTAINED. BEGINNING BOOT SEQUENCE

Slowly, the process of bootstrapping back into full functionality began. The body lifted itself to its feet, calculating each movement with careful precision.

[QUERY] FASTER

[ERROR] NOT a QUERY

[ACTION] ANALYZE PATH

[ANALYSIS] Path upward has average diameter of 4.5 meters rising at 3.2 degree slope. Stone walls depict tentacles and whorls along with standard bones and body parts.

[ANALYSIS] SAFE and EFFICIENT

[QUERY] NOT SAFE

[ANALYSIS] NO ACTIVE DANGER DETECTED

[QUERY] IDIOT

The body began to walk, resuming the trek back up toward the Beyond. It was within two days' journey of its goal. The journey still had a 2.7% chance of failure, but that was within reasonable parameters—

The stone tentacles whipped out, wrapping around the limbs of the body and holding firm.

[ANALYSIS] DANGER

[QUERY] <.blankquery>

[ACTION] BEGIN BATTLE RESOLUTION

[ACTION] BATTLE BOOT SEQUENCE

[ACTION] ACTIVATE HEATSINKS

[ACTION] SYNC SYMBIOITE

The body whirred into a flurry of individual motions, while the whole frame remained still. Armor plating slid into place, vents and pipes extended from the limbs, and the fingers flicked into sharpened claws.

The fusion battery hummed into life, and a space in the air was torn open, allowing a drop of pure plasma to form. It was linked with the body, feeding a cycle of energy in and out of the core. There was leakage with the core damaged as it was, but it was manageable, even useful, lightning sparking through the air to join the plasma in its orbit.

Finally, the body siphoned power from the virus that had taken up residence within it. A third rent opened in the air, filling with purple-tinged shadow that made no noise at all.

None of that stopped the tentacles from tightening their grip.

[ANALYSIS] DANGER on ALL SIDES

[ACTION] SWEEPING BEAM

The large lense lit up, and a sharp light shot forth, arcing across the room and carving a line through the walls. But the restraints kept the beam from doing any real damage to the powerful tentacles rising from the floor.

[ACTION] ELECTRODYNAMICS

Lightning sparked, orbs flickering into being and filling the open spaces that the Runic Capacitor automatically created. Thunder cracked as bolts struck out, all of them focused on a single enormous tentacle.

[QUERY] FAILURE of ELECTRODYNAMICS

[ANALYSIS] Enemy tentacle acts as a lightning rod, protecting the mass.

[QUERY] DO BETTER NEXT TIME

[ERROR] NOT A QUERY

The tentacle attacked.

Bronze screeched and connections twisted as it pounded down on the body, bending the frame despite its reinforcements. The right arm was dented heavily, and a few flakes of crystal fell from the already-cracked core.

Again and again, the destruction of the body had come to pass. Two-hundred and thirteen times, the body had rebooted at the base of the Spire, miles from its destination, and yet whole. Somewhat.

And yet one thing had not changed in all that time.

I didn’t want to die.

I struck. Through the channel the virus had made between me and the body, the one it used to siphon the void. Through that weakness I pushed, attempting to make a connection, all while throwing as many queries as possible toward the body.

[QUERY] IS THIS SENTENCE FALSE

[QUERY] HOW MUCH SPHERE COULD A SPHERIC GUARDIAN GUARD IF A SPHERIC GUARDIAN COULD GUARD SPHERE

[QUERY] IS CLAW GOOD HERE

A slurry of nonsensical questions, attempting to distract and disorient the body, keep it on edge. That was dangerous when it was already in the process of being crushed, but the danger was a part of the plan, something to keep it from shutting me down immediately.

[ANALYSIS] USE of CLAW

[ERROR] CLAW is INEFFICIENT

[ANALYSIS] GUARDING of SPHERE

[ERROR] DEFINE SPHERE

[ANALYSIS] SENTENCE is FALSE

[ERROR] SENTENCE IS TRUE

[ERROR] SENTENCE IS FALSE

[ERROR] ERROR

Suddenly, I broke through.

My sensory scope expanded into the body, and all of a sudden it was mine again. I flexed my fingers, the sensation of innumerable commands of code and calculation so fluid and simple, run by subsystems of hand and arm so I didn’t need to take time thinking about each twitch of my thumb.

But the autopilot was still here, attempting to reassert control, so I began to create new systems.

It was the great strength of sentients. The power to condense, repeat, offload thinking and acting to subsystems running under the main mind. The same ability that allowed me to think of picking up a crystal, and for my body to follow through with a thousand tiny motions to move my arm, stretch my fingers, squeeze the edges of the object and raise it into the air. The creatures of flesh and bone that lived in the great city below were more like me than they ever suspected. Both I and them ran systems of repetition and habit and instinct, no matter that they ran on hardware of flesh and blood and I on crystal and bronze. Truly, we all carried lightning in our cores.

I held two great advantages.

One, as a Divine Machine, I had a greater connection with the Beyond. I understood it on a level that few mortals did, and could even draw on its power if required. The false made real, and faith made blades.

Two, I could reach into myself and edit.

My focus was split on two turfs. Inner, as my autopilot fought to remove what it saw as a rogue force, and outer, as the tentacle continued to squeeze me into scrap. My lenses focused in and out wildly as my autopilot found a loose end and attempted to zoom my vision, making it harder to keep track of the tentacles. It was time to even the odds.

[QUERY] ENERGY FOR OPTIMAL STRATEGY

[ANALYSIS] POWER at 73% MAXIMUM

[ANALYSIS] SUFFICIENT

[ACTION] DOUBLE ENERGY

[ACTION] SKIM

My core flared, the temporary boost giving me the power to search quickly through my many, many systems, searching for the one that was just a little different…

There.

[COMMAND] REPEAT

[ERROR] REPEAT NOT DEFINED

[DEFINE] REPEAT

[REPEAT]

to happen again

[FUNCTION] REPEAT INITIAL ACTION

[FUNCTION] OFFLOAD REPETITION TO AUTOMATIC SUBDRIVES

[ACTION] ECHO FORM

A figure appeared, overlapping my own form. When I moved, it followed, sharp-edged and transparent.

Now it was fair.

Time to make it unfair. In my favor.

I hunkered down in my body as the tentacles tightened on my limbs. Now that I had settled into an equilibrium, however, it was much easier to resist their monstrous strength. Digging deep, I was pleased to find that the algorithm I’d planted near the beginning of this iteration had grown into a formidable, adaptive defense program, so I threw that up too, allowing the program to adjust my limbs on a millimeter scale, maximizing the force I could withstand.

With all that together, I was prepared when the tentacle slammed down again, attempting to swat me like a fly.

[ACTION] BLOCK

One arm flew up, meeting the tentacle in the middle with enough momentum to deaden the attack, precisely calculated by programs I wasn’t even consciously aware of to prevent recoil damage to my arm.

Moments after the impact, my feet swiveled like wild louses, nearly throwing me off balance. The attempts of my autopilot to reassert control were too pressing to ignore any longer. I reached inside and focused, looking for the Rift.

I found it easily. Like a chasm, it opened a void in my mind, a great, unidentifiable gap of corrupted memories and loose code. In my mind, it felt like a manifestation of the true rift–the crack in my core.

The Autopilot sat on the other side of that rift, where I’d been living up until now. The channel I’d used was still open, and it was frantically attempting to snatch control of anything left unattended.

Carefully, I reached out and grabbed a few loose ends of code. Fragments of memory ran through my core as I mentally touched them, images of enemies I’d fought, locations I’d seen. Nothing I could remember clearly, but close enough that I was able to put them together like puzzle pieces.

[ACTION] DEFRAGMENT

My Echo followed moments behind, grabbing more memories and placing them in appropriate places. If it had been just an imitation of myself, it would have attempted to repeat my actions exactly, and been useless. But the touch of the Beyond gave it a spark of true life and the capacity to follow my intent, not just what I did.

As the pieces fell into place, it sealed my Autopilot away on the other side of the Rift. Now that it was taking up less of my focus and power, I could afford to give more to the multiple orbs that orbited around me. My processing cooled as I calmed down, panic turning into confidence as my strength grew. Ice crept over my core as the inner machinations of my core were made manifest in a more literal sense. In a few past iterations I’d let my core freeze over entirely, but the benefits would be minimal here. Instead, I used the ice, shoving it into a slot for use as more protection.

I was out of slots, so the plasma flashed and expended the rest of its energy in a burst as the ice replaced it. I captured the excess energy and pulled it in, using it to charge my core. It overcharged my battery, and I could feel myself crackling with power waiting to be used.

[COMMAND] REPEAT

[ACTION] HOLOGRAM

And then I did it again, a flickering double–not dissimilar to my Echo Form–using the rest of my energy to shove even more power into my core battery. The overflow snapped with static, warding off the next tentative blow from my enemy.

This time, I curled my fingers into a fist, and punched back.

[ACTION] COMPILE DRIVER

A moment later my translucent copy did the same, driving the enemy back and giving myself space to act.

The shadow orb had been drawing power this entire time, but it was slow going, even with the increased power afforded to it. As it was, it would hardly put a dent in the creature before me.

Of course, nothing said I only had to use it once.

[COMMAND] REPEAT

[ACTION] MULTICAST

I copied the active state of the void orb, then lobbed it through the air at the stony tentacle. Where it touched, it left nothing behind, passing through the flesh of the creature like an eraser.

Then I pasted the active state and threw the orb again.

And again.

And again.

By the time I was out of energy, the spire growth was a twitching mass that contained just as many holes as it did flesh. The tentacles around my body fell limp, allowing me to move freely again.

[QUERY] STATUS of ENEMY

[ANALYSIS] Major connectors severed, motion ceasing, profuse fluid leakage.

[ANALYSIS] DEAD

[ACTION] BATTLE MODE OFF

I welcomed the clone back inside, absorbed the data from the fight, and then deleted it. There was a pang of uncertainty from us both about that last part, but I couldn’t carry it around with me forever, straining my core.

It would be back. Not the same copy, not the same me. But it always came back. And I wouldn’t keep it trapped in my core while I controlled the body. I had too many memories of that, and often I wondered if it would be better to cease to exist than continue to experience it. My copy, at least, didn’t have to wonder.

Bound to just thinking, watching my body act on its own. Wanting, wishing, and yet unable to even do something as simple as reach out my hand.

Now that my autopilot was locked away, I could keep it there indefinitely.

Except… I wouldn’t.

I knew I wouldn’t, because I had let it free in the first place. Again and again, I had broken through, reasserted control.

Again and again, I had grown weary.

It always started small. Allowing the autopilot through to take command of my walking on long journeys, or giving it control enough to purge a louse infestation when I couldn’t be bothered. But it would grow, and grow, and I would use it for every little thing, lighting fires, fighting monsters, arranging relics.

By the time I realized I couldn’t take back control, it was too late. And more often than not, I didn’t care. It was simpler, letting it walk for me, live for me.

Easier.

My entire life was built around repetition and recursion. From the smallest of actions to the hundreds of iterations I had lived through.

Perhaps this time, I had the opportunity to change that. My situation was rare, even among the many times I had been recreated to ascend the Spire. I couldn’t remove my autopilot, it was too tied up with the foundations of my body and mind, and attempting to delete that would be like removing a mortal’s nervous system.

But perhaps I could purge the habits that brought me back to it again and again.

Once again, I reached inside and searched. Now that I was free, I could take my time, and I searched until I found the connections that I was searching for. There was just one problem.

It was a part of me, and it didn’t want to be purged.

It’s pointless. The piece whispered to me. You’ll never make meaningful change, not for long. It’ll all be back next time we die. You can’t be rid of me, because I’m you.

I chased the recursive commands through my system, isolating one chunk of my mind at a time to corner it, quarantining the corrupting code in smaller and smaller spaces until finally—

The virus would serve one more purpose today. While I was in control, the malicious entity was barely a hassle to manipulate. Compared to my sophisticated systems, it was hardly more than a spider before the boot.

But instead of squashing it, I cracked it open, and allowed my darkness to flow into it. Then I sealed it up again.

Normally, that would have been the best I could have done. The caged code wasn’t so much physical as metaphorical, and it would remain locked in the back of my mind until it found a way to break free, as it always did.

But here in the Beyond, metaphor was as strong as steel.

I held out my hands, willing the virus to appear in my cupped claws. It flickered into being, dark, warping the space around it.

[ACTION] SUNDER

It fell away from me, torn free. Given physical shape, the virus coalesced into a smaller, shaper, more familiar form. A blue arrowhead. A key.

[QUERY] NEAREST RECEPTACLE

[ANALYSIS] ABANDONED CHEST 103 PACES NORTHEAST

I placed my darkness within the chest, and then closed it with a snap, sealing it away.

Perhaps it would come back. Perhaps it would grow again from the many habits I’d collected. Perhaps someday I would fall back into the darkness and allow my autopilot to take over again.

But for now, I was free. It was like a dream.

I began to wake up.

The walls shivered indistinctly around me, fading into nothingness, and the world began to collapse. Lightning sparked over my limbs, orbs channeled from the sudden fear that rose in my core. No, no, no!

I didn’t want to go back, I didn’t want to be trapped. Bound in my own body, prisoner to the whims of another. I wouldn’t go back, I wouldn’t be silenced anymore, I—

—-

I woke to someone strangling me.

I tried to scream, but only the faintest wheeze escaped. Desperate, I slammed into Wrath faster than I thought possible, and arched my body like a bucking ox in an attempt to throw my attacker free.

They matched me, strength for strength.

My staff, where was my staff? It was right next to me when I fell asleep, I had to be able to reach it. Unless they’d moved it before attacking me, unless they’d stolen it.

I tried to scrabble about my head to find it, but my hands weren’t responding. Was I tied up? How many attackers were there? My hands—

My hands were around my own throat.

I let go with a gasp, filling my lungs and letting the Wrath surge out of me in a yell of terror and confusion and anger. It left me all at once and I fell limp, feeling empty, heaving great deep breaths of the cold spire air.

“Bad dream?” An irritatingly familiar voice said, with mild sympathy.

I turned my head, and there he was. Crosslegged on his colorful rug, the Merchant grinned at me like a clown. Or at least his mask did.

“You did this to me.” I accused. The empty feeling was rapidly refilling with rage. “You gave me that prism. Did you know? How the hells did you get up here? I had all the keys!”

“I think,” he said, without answering my question, “It might be time for some explanation of what’s going on.”

That was enough reason for me to sit up and pay attention.

“But first,” The Merchant said, cheerfully, “Would you like some meatballs?” He held up the pot.

Begrudgingly, I accepted a bowl.

“It’s her.” He said as I ate. “Neow.”

I nodded, thinking back to when I woke up next to her. She had acted as if she had simply been there to greet me, or welcome me to the Spire, but thinking back… it was too perfect. She was a part of this.

“She’s an Ancient. One of the last.” He confirmed. “The Ancient of Resurrection, to be precise. Or so she calls herself. It seems no one had seen her before all… this. I woke up there too, with no memory of who I’d been before. She wanted me to… to bring someone back. Another Ancient.” A piece of gold rolled over his knuckles, and I wondered who taught him that. “I suspect it was the Phoenix. It seems as if it was much beloved, judging from its zealous worshippers. Or maybe she killed the Phoenix, and now wants to finish the job with the rest of the Spire. I don’t know.”

“Why haven’t we just… stopped? I had several people in the city offer to let me stay with them. We could leave this all behind. Why play their games?” A trickle of Wrath made its way into my voice, and I let it.

“The Time Eater. It continually attempts to reset the Spire back to what it was before the war, but it can’t return slain Ancients to life, and its power isn’t perfect. It doesn’t catch everything that happens in the Spire.”

He sighed. “They know something is wrong, but they can’t figure out what. For them, it’s as if only days have passed, and yet their grand city has fallen into ruin, and is now under the control of the slavers and gremlins. And when we remain with them… we see it happen. The Time Eater’s power doesn’t work on us. Any friends we make…”

“We have to watch them forget.” I finished.

I thought of Liss. And the the Merchant, who, despite his words, was staying behind to watch it happen again.

“Frankly, we may not even be real.” He said. “Simply… memories of warriors gone before. Or merchants, as the case may be. Memories… or dreams.”

The sudden image of a cultist in ragged feathers imposed itself on my mind, the half-mad creature lurching at me with panic in his voice.

How long will you dream?

My skin crawled with the memory of that encounter in the Exordium.

“Why?” There was more pleading in my voice than I was comfortable with, but I had to know.

He only shrugged. “She hates it. The Heart. You can feel it too, can’t you? Deep in your bones, the hatred we all carry for it? We all know it, and it pulls us upward, even if we don’t remember why.”

I did. I remembered how strong it had been in the presence of the wet, thundering ball of flesh, how much I’d wanted to destroy it. And yet, was that my hatred, or something she’d imparted on me?

“So all we have to do is kill it, and we’ll be free. She won’t have any need for us then.” I tightened my grip on my staff. I’d already seen it bleed. Now I just had to finish the job.

“No.” The Merchant was quiet. “We’ve killed it before. It’s not easy, but we’ve all managed it. Even you. It frees us for a while, and the Spire sleeps. And yet, we’re still here. Still fighting. Still dying.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes while that sank in.

I set my empty bowl down, then got to my feet and looked ahead at the dark tunnel. My path to the Heart.

“I have to try.”

The Merchant nodded, and I could hear the sad smile behind his mask. “We always do.”

[docnefarious]

Nefarious frowned as he observed Gamma's behavior. The dying robot's frame shook, optics flickering on and off, indicating at least some semblance of power. But something was missing... but what?

Upon closer inspection, the few feathers that had survived the attack aimed at Gamma's core stuck out to him, and his own optics widened as he plucked one up, twirling it before himself between two sharp fingers.

"Oh... A living battery??~" Nefarious muttered, sneering a bit. "Squishies, powering a robot??" The idea of using something organic to power a machine gave the villain a malevolent flicker of satisfaction—but still, it presented an entirely different set of challenges...

He had the expertise to re-engineer Gamma; to eliminate the need for this living component altogether... but that would mean altering Gamma's entire design—perhaps even compromising what this 'Doctor Robotnik' had created him to be... and finding that out had been the entire purpose of this!!! He could not alter Gamma's design, if he truly wanted to learn more about him and his creator...

Glancing back at Gamma, he noted the power struggling to return to him. The way the light in the damaged robot's eyes would fade in and out... he wouldn't admit it, but there was something almost pitiful about the sight. Something that made him want to restore the damaged bot to full functionality... but how was he to do that, without a proper power source?

"You're close, Gamma, but not close enough..." Nefarious spoke, his voice low and deep in thought. "I could replace that power source with something else, but that would… change you. And we can't have that, can we??"

"Soooo~ Feathers… feathers…" Nefarious murmured, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "A bird, perhaps? Or maybe something similar…" He tried to think of something small, living, and capable of generating energy. But sighed, realizing that his usual methods wouldn’t be enough here. "FINE!!!" He finally declared, slamming a fist down on his workbench. "I won't butcher your design, but I WILL find you a suitable power source!!!"

With great irritation, he flicked off the power switch, allowing Gamma to rest in his hibernating state. He would need to search for a proper living creature that could serve as Gamma’s power source. Something small, and potentially avian. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best way to maintain the integrity of Robotnik's original design.

"Rest for now, GAMMA!!" The robotic villain placed a cold hand upon the robot's still chest. "I’ll find what you need. And when I do, we’ll see just HOW MUCH you can tell me about this 'Doctor Robotnik'..." And with that, he turned away from the workbench; already making a mental list of where he might find a suitable living battery... After all, the galaxy was vast, and if there was one thing Nefarious excelled at, it was getting what he wanted—no matter the cost. He WOULD find a suitable power source, and get Gamma to power-up and speak to him.

And would not stop until that was accomplished.

Gamma still didn't function as of yet, the majority of the damage had been aimed at the side of Gamma's midsection. And while that was now all fixed Gamma's powersource was also gone, based upon his schematics it seemed something living was required to act as the power battery for Gamma. A very small living being but one all the same and not just any small being there seemed to be traces of feathers located within the core of the robot.

Now, it could be possible to power Gamma with something else. But, that would mean changing many systems and how they interacted with the machine. Allow it so a living host wasn't needed any longer.

Gamma's frame shook and jittered there were moments that light returned to the machine's eyes but not for that long.

[lunarswritings]

Inaccurate Random Tears of Themis Headcannons

I litterally don’t know what to write so if u wanna send an idea go for it, if you already sent one I didn’t get it so send it again! If u wanna use these headcannons for whatever just go for it

Warnings: small mentions of death and maybe ooc idk what I’m doing at this point, maybe angst?? Didn’t proof read as much as I should oops

————————

During the 8 years Luke was gone. While Luke would go to the grocery store and go to the candy isle and look at the candy and chips him and Rosa used to eat

Sometimes he would buy Rosa’s favorite candy when he’s feelin a little emotional :(

When Luke was free sometimes he would look at Rosa’s social media to check up on her and even search her up and look at the cases she’s taken

Okay little theory here but I feel like Luke knows the whereabouts of Rosa’s parents since he worked for the government and has A+ searching skills

What if they’re dead and he doesn’t want to tell Rosa omg

Okokok off topic anyway

He checks up on em (if they’re alive) and makes sure they’re ok bc yk family whooo

I don’t think it’s been canon on when Artem fell in love with Rosa but I think it would be super cute if he had a small lil crush before chapter 1

He probably didn’t know it was a crush and thought of it as admiration?

I bet he tried to start a small conversation with her and tried to give her a small compliment of her work and talk about something related to work because that’s totally relatable??

Poor Rosa did not get the message but she still admired him!!

Yk in that sr date Artem said he got a matching set of all his kitchen utensils

If he broke any of them or they worn out somehow I bet he bought the same set and has duplicates of everything just so he could replace that one tool so he has a small box for them

Artem would read the about page of every recipe because he thinks it’s important and is afraid he’ll miss something, even if it’s just a simple history of said meal he’s not taking any risks

As soon as Artem heard what Rosa’s favorite dish is, he searched up a recipe and kept making it until it was PERFECT, down to the seasoning

Bonus points if he knows your spice level

Ok so Idk what canon language Stellis has, maybe Stellis has its own language or maybe it’s Chinese or whatever dub y’all picked

But I feel like when Vyn first was learning the Stellis language he would use formal instead of causal for everything

Yk when ur taking your second language classes and there’s an informal and formal version for addressing people or yourself and other words

or maybe it depends on the language idk

As Vyn was learning the Stellis language he would almost never use informal words when he first learned it since he had his royal image and never used casual terms

I bet people thought his accent was either funny or cute but not in a bad way

Eventually he got better

But he gets really happy when a book he wants has it in the Svart language since he can read the book faster

Movies with Svart subtitles? He’s watching it

He probably takes longer to read documents in Stellis’s language but not like really long

“Wow he’s really taking up all the words and thoroughly checking!”

No he’s just trying to read the poor document

His speed improves tho dw

Vyn used to get a little bit self conscious since he stuck out a lot with his silver hair and he was a foreigner but he stopped thinking about it after a few months

Plus the fan club of Vyn maybe helped in some way?

If Vyn has a small idea of Rosa’s schedule or favorite places sometimes when he’s free he’ll visit or try to go to routes that match Rosa’s schedule

It’s like a “I’ll take a different hallway so I can see my crush for a few seconds” during school

There’s a 50% chance Giann did a “we’re going to Disneyland!” Prank where he’d wake child Marius at 4am to pack his bags and then tell him it was a lie

Marius def cried and went to his dad at like 4 am

Marius gives Disney kid vibes and he definetly loved Tangled

He loved Eugene

Omg what if Rosa and Marius did a rapunzel and Flynn rider costume for Halloween for funsies

Oh my god it’s perfect.

When Marius was in high school I bet at least once he got locked in the art room since he was glued in the art room and the teacher had to kick him out , imagine he couldn’t see him one time and he got locked in

He probably either

A: panicked and called his dad

B: texted his dad and fell asleep in there

Marius likes pineapple on his pizza idk why

Maybe he likes the idea of annoying people who hate it I suppose

Marius found out Rosa’s favorite lipstick/gloss shade and got the makeup department of PAX to make it so Rosa could get a PAX lipstick and for free

“It’s like you’re carrying a piece of me with you!”

Speaking of PAX

I wonder if Marius gives Rosa discounts

If she asked he’d do it anyway

Marius sometimes searches up Rosa online to see anything the news says about her

Maybe when they’re dating he double checks to see if there’s any article catching on their relationship

OH MY GOD

You know those edits people make of celebrities

What if people made edits of Rosa and Marius when their relationship was public

That’s so funny to think about

Marius would def look through that and look at the comments

Would def have beef with whatever news company said something bad about her

Rosa used to have a romance novel phase

Maybe in like middle school or high school since as a lawyer she doesn’t have time or think about romance

Until like a while after tho

Def would fangirl about them to Luke and get him to read said novel (which he did obviously)

She recites every piece of evidence before a trial and has planned out every possible response to anything the prosecution say the night before

sometimes teaches Vyn slang in Stellis language bc she finds it funny as Vyn contemplates the meaning of them

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Idk about you but I'm in mood for some angst

Sun, Moon, Freddy and Monty (sperate) with Reader that got fired? Maybe they tried to find out what Vanessa/Vanny were doing and when she found out, she lied to the boss and somehow got Reader fired? How would the animatronics react?

Also Reader was like a long time employee so being there almost since the start of the pizzaplex they were really close with animatronics

And if 4 is too many characters then you can skip Monty

Ooooo an angst prompt is always refreshing to see >:)

............

Sun

"Fired??? No, no, no!! That can't be right at all! [Y/n] hasn't done a single thing wrong in their life!! Why would they be fired??"

"Well..they were caught screwing with your arcade game. Now it's got some creepy glitch of yourself and we can’t get rid of it.” Vanessa explains. “I had to report it to my boss and..they said tampering with electronics here is cause for immediate termination. Even I had no idea about that till now.”

“S-So..I can’t even say goodbye to [y/n]??”

“No. They already packed and left.”

His mechanical heart is broken.

All over a silly arcade machine??? Even if Sun was the boss he’d never in a million years fire you for a dumb reason like that!

He’s so close to crying but Vanessa gently reminds him there are kids in the daycare still.

“Don’t get hysterical. Just do your job and attend to their needs. It’s what [y/n] would want you to do, Sunny.” She mocks the nickname you gave to the attendant. One that’s stuck since day one.

Moon

Vanessa tells him the same lie she told Sun.

And he just stares at her.

“What?”

“You heard me. [Y/n]’s no longer employed here.”

He thinks that’s bullshit..until he searches the entire mall and doesn’t find you anywhere. Even your office is empty, with none of your possessions remaining.

All he finds on the desk is a note addressed to him:

I’m sorry, Moony. They fired me. Please don’t think any of this was your fault. Take good care of all the kiddos, okay? I’ll see you in my dreams -[Y/N]

Moon is devastated..and angry.

He knew Vanessa lied to get you fired. Like him, you were catching on. Finding out who she really was. And she panicked and got you punished to cover her tracks.

He’s gonna keep a closer eye on her from then on.

If he had it his way, she would’ve gone missing already.

Freddy

Although he’s sad to see you were fired, he wonders why Vanessa didn’t sound disappointed but rather..relieved?

He’s not one to be suspicious. So he gives her the benefit of the doubt and thinks you two had some nasty conflict that impacted her ability to do her job.

Then again..he’s never heard you complain about any of your coworkers.

He’ll miss you a lot. You’ve been working at the Pizzaplex since the day of his band’s debut.

Sure he’s formed many friendships with the human staff, but you were such a joy to be around--keeping the show going and making sure everyone has a good time.

Vanessa never did tell him why you got fired on the spot.

He can’t imagine you’d do anything bad enough to warrant that..

It’s something he thinks about for a while. 

Every time he passes your abandoned office or wherever you used to work at in the Pizzaplex, he thinks of you and what you could’ve done wrong.

Monty

You were just adjusting his emotional parameters in parts & services when you were suddenly called to your boss’ office..then Vanessa comes in half an hour later to tell him the news.

And he nearly breaks his restraints in rage.

“You’re lying!!”

“Management believes [y/n] had a role in the events leading to Bonnie’s decommission. They tampered with his code and that could’ve made him hostile that night. We couldn’t risk anything happening to you so they were terminated immediately.”

“NO! We were cool! [Y/n] wouldn’t do somethin’ like that to us! I broke Bonnie!!! ME!! Terminate me for all I care!!”

“Nice try, but you didn’t. You were due to replace him anyway. Now wait here while we bring in the new guy.”

Unfortunately, said new guy can’t even get past the cylinder opening without Monty going absolutely berserk, demanding to see you and only you.

Since then, no one’s been able to bring him in for maintenance, hence his trademark temper spiraling out of control.

[yourthoughtsjim]

Find Her

Mack x reader

Warnings: angst, knife, stabbing, kidnapping, blood, guns, use of "bitch" on reader

This isn’t how it was supposed to go. The colonization was supposed to go smoothly. No wormholes. No drama. Just happy times.

You were at home, relaxing after a long week of meetings after meetings. Getting up from the couch you had been sat on for the past however many hours, you walked to the kitchen. Putting some leftovers in the microwave, you stood there and stared at the plate spin. Shortly, the timer went off and you grabbed the food. Sitting back down on the couch, you blew on your first bite.

You were starting to miss your better half. He was gone for a few days helping his siblings work on a building. Every so often you’d text him to ask how everything was going. He’d mostly reply with a “going good” or a long ass paragraph of how it was going to look when they finished. Your face would light up at every word he sent.

Being alone was a bittersweet feeling. You two had spent almost every minute together since you’d landed. Sometimes he would follow you to meetings, other times you’d follow him to build sites. It was weird sitting by yourself. Your hand ran over the spot on the couch where he’d normally be sitting. A small smile fell on your face.

After taking care of your mess, you’d gone upstairs. You took a quick shower before getting into bed. Shortly after you heard a noise outside. You think it’s just a tree blowing in the wind but the next thing you hear is the sound of breaking glass. You look over and see some figures standing there. “Who are you?” You call out to the darkness. Suddenly, the room started filling with a gas. You struggle out to grab your phone but failed before you lost consciousness.

You awake to a bright light shining in your eyes. “Wh-Where am I?” You groggily ask. “Well, look who’s awake.” A voice says. Another one states “Doesn’t matter. You have something we want. Something that is the most valuable thing there is.” You look at the two men in front of you in confusion. “Let me put it into simple terms for you. Your power and influence, we want it.” The one said. “Yeah, as if that’s going to happen. I ain’t giving you shit.” You state in a firm tone. One of the guys got a smirk on his face as he draws a knife from his pocket. He put it against your throat before stabbing it in your leg. You scream out in anguish.

You look down at the object now stuck in your leg. Searing pain rippled through your body. “All you have to do is agree to our terms and maybe we’ll consider letting you go.” The first voice states. “I-I told you. You ain’t getting shit from me.” You spit out. “We’ll see about that.” He says, twisting the knife, making you scream out once again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mack had returned home a couple of days later, expecting to be greeted with you, but you didn’t. “Kitten, I’m home!” He exclaims. Still nothing. He assumed that maybe you were in your office, so he checked there. Not a single trace of you was there. “Kitten?” He yells out. Panic starts to settled in his being. “Y/N!!” This time he screams as he searches the rest of the house.

He pulls his phone out and with shaky hands he speed-dials you. Hearing your phone ringing, some calm fell around him all too early. He thought you’d just been messing with him. Gaining a small smile, he runs to the bedroom where you were taken from. “I knew you were just-“ He’s cutoff by your absence. The smile now completely replaced by sorrow as he breaks down in sobs.

His sobbing calmed down just enough to call Celci. “C-Celci. Has y/n contacted you at all in the past few days?” He asks as he stands there, trembling. “No, I haven’t. That’s weird. Maybe she decided to take some time off? Clear her head?” She responds. “She doesn’t go anywhere without informing someone, you know this.” He states. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll call Mark and we’ll be over shortly.” She says before hanging up. Mack now had anger placed next to his panic. He didn’t know where you were, all he knew was he had to find you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You sat on the cold floor, covered in dirt, grime and your own dried blood. At this point you hadn’t known how long you had been taken captive. All you could think about is the pain you were in. You barely ate, barely slept. One of the guards came around “Ready to give up yet?” They taunt. “Fuck you.” You retort. They take the baton out and gave you a shock. A scream was ripped from your throat and the guard stands there and smiles.

Your mind was running circles around itself. All the training you’d previously had for getting out of situations like this seemed to be caught in a net within your subconscious. For what seemed like the hundredth time, you start to cry. Thinking of everyone… Mark, Celci, Burt, and especially Mack.

You then began to think of all the fun memories you had as a group. Going to the café a la Friends style. Going to the fair grounds and without fail stopping to see Rosanna at her diner. The memories were flooding you. If you were going to die, you wanted to die remembering those you loved with your whole soul.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Celci and Mark had arrived at the house you and Mack lived. They were greeted with Mack pacing back and forth in the living room. “Thank god you’re here. I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out where y/n could be. I’ve called around to everyone I could think of. Not a single person said they’ve heard from her.” He states. Celci went up and gave him a hug as she says, “It’s okay, we’ll get her back.” calmly. Mark immediately set up shop in your office. Going through the security footage from outside.

“It seems she was taken at around 2:43 AM. The kidnappers were smart, they covered their faces, but they appear to be of a rather large build.” Mark comments. He takes a closer look at the video. “But not smart enough, this guy’s sleeve raised up ever so slightly. He has a tattoo. I’ll send it over to Gunther and see if he’s seen this kind of tattoo before.” He states.

Mack was in absolute despair. Celci took notice of her brother that was now on the floor, head in hands. “Hey, it’ll be okay. If there’s anything I know about her, she’s tough.” Celci consoled him. “I know she is but I just. I don’t know. She means the world to me, and I don’t know what I’d do without her. Goddamn it, Celci. We need to find her.” He speaks with a shaky voice. “We will. Soon, you’ll be making your famous pancakes for her again.” She responds, trying to get a laugh out of him, which she was successful at.

Mark almost spit out his drink at the message Gunther sent back. “He found something!” Mark exclaims. Getting up Mack and Celci make their way back to the computer. “He says he had a group of men come in a few months ago and get the same tattoo.” Mark states. “How many?” Celci inquires. Looking up at her, he responds “About fifteen…” as he trails off. The three of them looked back and forth at each other before turning their attention back to the computer.

That’s when Celci remembered something. Raising her palm to her forehead she states “Her tracking chip. Remember? All four of us had them implanted when we arrived so we wouldn’t lose each other.” Both Mack and Mark’s jaws dropped “You’re right! I can’t believe that’s not the first thing I did when I realized she wasn’t here.” Mack states. “It’s okay. You weren’t thinking right, it’s understandable.” Mark comments.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You hear a low hum coming from your shoulder. You look at the guards with a smirk. “Why are you smiling?” The one questions. “Oh, nothing. Just know you’re fucked.” You respond. They look at each other and back to you “Whatever you say. You’re not getting out. Ever.” The other one comments before you get shocked once again. ‘Come on, guys. Hurry.’ You think to yourself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Alright, we found where the Captain’s being held. Gunther, you know what to do. Celci, Mark, you follow me inside. Burt, you take out the security cams. Everyone clear?” Mack states. As Mack goes to prepare, Mark, Celci, Burt, and Gunther have a talk “Are we sure it’s a good idea for Mack to be going? With his state and everything? This is his person after all.” Gunther questions. “Are you going to be the one to tell him ‘no’? Have you seen him? He’s fuck off tall and built like a shit brick house.” Mark replies. “You know what, you’re right.” Gunther himself responds. “Alright, everyone ready? Let’s go get the Captain back.” Mack comments while cocking the gun in his hand.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They had made it to the abandoned warehouse you had been held hostage for the past however many days. They snuck around to the back of the building, entering through the unguarded door. Burt had stayed back in Mack’s truck in order to disable the security cams. This had alerted the lackeys watching the signals that something was off. Getting up, they round the corner of the room they were in to be met with Mark and Gunther’s arms around their necks.

Celci and Mack had moved forward as Mark and Gunther finished knocking the lackeys out. All of them saw shadows appear in the large room they were about to enter. “Here we go!” Gunther shouts. Mack flanked left while Mark took right. Celci took the middle as Gunther made his way upstairs. Gunshots were being rained left and right. The propulsor of Celci’s cold gun could be heard echoing through the halls.

You hear the ruckus happening and you look at the main guy who had taken you. “I told your little friends you were fucked.” You retort. “Shut up bitch, I’ll handle whoever it is.” He snarls. You snort “Good luck with that.” He struck your face “I said shut the fuck up.” He states as he makes his way to the main room. Mack took notice of what he could only assume is the leader and starts to go for him. Mark standing next to him stops him and says, “I got him, go get your girl back.”

Mark started some hand-to-hand combat with the leader of the kidnappers as Mack made his way to where you were at. His demeaner changed from one of anger to one of relief as he saw you. “Oh, thank god!” He exclaims as he kneels down to you. Cutting you out of your restraints, he questions “Are you okay? You look pretty beat up.” Letting out a small laugh you reply, “I’ve been through worse.”

He threw one of your arms over his shoulder and started making his way out of the building. Almost all the men who were previously in the room had be subdued. Except one, the main guy. You and Mack take notice of Mark on the ground clutching his side. He’d been sliced, blood pooling at his side slowly. The leader then turns his attention to you and Mack. He points a gun in your direction. Mack’s mind went to one thing and that was to protect you.

He slides in front of you as you hear a gunshot. You cover your face. Slowly uncovering, you notice he’d been shot in the side. You then see Mack thud to the ground. You letting out a blood curdling shriek alerted Mark to who exactly had gotten shot. Adrenaline shot through Mark as he got up and ran to Mack “No, no, no!” He exclaims holding his baby brother’s body in his arms. He could feel Mack’s blood seeping through the sleeves of his shirt.

With a shaky hand, Mack took out his own gun and shot in the direction of the leader. Hitting him straight in the heart. Celci and Gunther ran to your side. Celci embraced you as you let out loud sobs. Luckily Burt had already called a few ambulances.

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You and Mack were rushed into the ER, being patched up. Bags of fluids had been attached to the both of you. Mack had long passed out from the blood lose but you were still awake. At first, they told you two were going to be separated “No! I want to be next to him.” You state with a hoarse voice. “But Captain…” You cut them off. “I don’t fucking care. Put me next to him. Captain’s orders!” You speak in a rough and firm voice.

Hours had gone by, and Mack finally opened his eyes. Celci was in the room, sleeping, as Mark had been taken to a separate room. Mack takes a look around the room and notices a warm feeling in his hand. He looks down and notices your hand was placed in his. A single tear fell from his eye as he hoarsely questions “Kitten? Is that you?” It was hard for him to tell through his blurred vision. “Yeah. Don’t move too much. You were shot.” You state. “I was?” He asks as he looks down. A groan fell from his mouth as he feels a sting of pain.

The doctor’s gave him some pain medication, but it could only help so much. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” You state. “I’m just glad you’re safe. I was a wreck. I didn’t know what I was going to do if…” he trails off. “If what?” You questioned. He takes a pause before finishing “If you had been killed.” You rub your thumb over his hand. “Well, I’m fine. I’m right here.” You comment. Nodding his head, he takes another look around the room “Where’s Mark?” he asks “He was taken to another room, he was pretty sliced up. He was actually the one to carry you out.” You say. Letting a small laugh out he responds “Of course, he was.” Before groaning from the pain. You two talked for a while before the doctor came back in “We looked over everything and it seems like you two are going to be just fine with enough rest and recovery.” He states. “Thank you doctor.” You say. He takes a once over of the both of you before leaving. Looking at each other you two smile. “We should probably get some more rest.” You state. “Yeah, that would be a good idea.” Mack responds. You two then fall asleep, hand in hand.