#physically?? still tired. BUT MY MIND IS WIRED RN

[stcries]

it's barely 8:30am but my brain is like this already.

[bubbyleh]

A Series of Shockingly Close Calls (ch.1)

oh no I fan fic’d a fan fic. I got thinking about soft monster au Boomer moments and it made my brain go bbbbrrrrr so then this happened. I’m woozy as hell because nobody told me that the antacids they were putting me on would make me not able to absorb my thyroid meds so I’m both very hypo, very potsy (cus hypo makes my p.o.t.s. worse) and in withdrawal so there’s no blood in my brain and I’m wacked out which makes me get suuuuuper purple with my prose so sorry for all the “forthright"s and "moreovers”. I’m just a little creature I cannot help this. Written in one sitting and probably a lot of typos and I’m sorry if I accidenally used ‘he’ for bubs in there somewhere I was having trouble with that. Once again, I’m p deep in withdrawal rn so bear with me. Anyway let me know if this is acceptable to put on ao3 as a gift fic to your fic. (yes I do plan on their being more than one chapter. no I make no promises due to aforementioned medical issues)

crocs here! sorry to put this in the middle of your submission, but i thought it’d get lost at the end. this is amazing! fanfic of a fanfic? i love this so much and i’m going to cherish it forever, thank you!

you can post this to ao3, i would be so happy if you did! i hope you feel better soon, i know health problems can be sucks. and don’t worry if you called bubby “he”, i write them using he/they pronouns (i just default to “they” for simplicity). 

also, i hope you don’t mind that i put a read more in! ________

Three months.

  Three months into Harold Coomer’s acquaintanceship with his eccentric and eclectic(in both taste and physical composition) companion was the first time the homunculus had begun to feel, as they’d put it, ‘drained’. 

  Bubby had explained to an enraptured Coomer,on more than one occasion, the nature of their state of reanimation, far different from Coomer’s own. They were a man-made construct of flesh, artfully pieced together from pieces of different corpses, stitched into a singular being and imbued with life by the great and terrible force of the heavens, in the form of lightning. 

  Coomer said it reminded him of Prometheus, sculpting mankind from clay.

  Bubby said it reminded them of a penny dreadful.

They existed in a state between life and death, though not quite undeath, either. Certainly each composite part of them, corpses as they had been, could be considered undead, but Bubby themself was a new creation that came into life for the first time upon the metal slab of their creators laboratory, never having ‘died’ and therefore not being themselves brought back from the dead, but nevertheless composed of reanimated parts.  

  They were sustained not by blood coursing through veins, but rather electricity, which was honestly a boon for Coomer. He was still fairly young, by vampire standards, anyway, and his self control could be…spotty at times, and it was nice to have a companion that he could sit beside and feel no desire to tear their throat out and drain them of their life juices. They could subsist without food or drink if they needed to, as well, which was also helpful, as it was often not possible for either of them to venture into civilization to obtain rations of any kind.

However, there were downsides to Bubby’s condition, as well, which began to make themselves apparent those three months in.

  Bubby’s escape from the lab of their creation was as unplanned as it was unorthodox. The whole thing had apparently been pure chaos from beginning to end, and Bubby didn’t seem to enjoy talking about it very much. Certainly an angry mob was involved, at least some pitchforks and torches, and a massive inferno of less than fully explained origin(‘Fire good,’ Bubby had said with a shrug), the last of which providing a convenient distraction for Bubby to make their escape into the nearby woods, but they hadn’t exactly had ample time to plan or provision their flight. They couldn’t take any of the tools or resources their creator had with them when they fled. They had no idea what they would need, nor any idea of what to expect when they were away from that lab for any extended period of time

  Three months after their escape, it began to become apparent.  

  Coomer noticed long before Bubby said anything, and, in fact, had to more or less force a confession out of them about it. 

  Bubby just began to…slow, the way one does when they’ve gone too long without proper sleep. They began to stumble more often, to take longer to think of words, and such. The difference was very slight, only so drastic as someone who had woken up an hour or so before they’d have liked to that morning, and generally only became noticeable when Bubby was themself tired, but sleep never seemed to completely chase away that fatigue and Coomer worried. 

  He especially worried when Bubby practically panicked at Coomer’s slight inquiry into the subject, insisting far too forcefully that nothing was wrong and changing the subject. Coomer was eventually able to wrestle(both metaphorically and literally) an answer from them.

  Energy of any kind, is finite, and that included the energy that maintained Bubby’s state of ‘half life’. Without supplementing it, it would eventually run out. Bubby’s creator had a huge contraption of wire and steel that Bubby would be attached to via the bolts on their neck. When lightning struck the lightning rod atop the laboratory roof, it would travel down those wires into the bolts and, by extension, Bubby, ‘recharging’ them, as Bubby put it. 

  “Why on Earth didn’t you tell me?” Coomer demanded.

  “Because I didn’t…Because it’s none of your business!” Bubby snapped. “I don’t go snooping into how you get your ‘fix’! When you disappear into a town for the night, I don’t pry into your sudden improvement in pallor. I don’t ask you about the screams!”

  Coomer flinched. It was a low blow and he was immediately inclined to take the bait, but the look in their eyes gave him pause. It was a fearful glint like a trapped animal, lashing out in fear, not anger. 

  He huffed out a small, unnecessary breath and crossed his arms.

  “What is this really about?” he asked, voice calm, but stern. “Why didn’t you…,” his voice wavered, ever so slightly, “Why didn’t you trust me?” 

  The anger in Bubby’s face drained in an instant, falling instead into a look of pain and remorse.

  “No, it’s not like that!” they insisted. “I just…I didn’t…I didn’t want you to think I couldn’t…I didn’t want you to…”

  “To what?”

  Bubby sighed, deflating. They averted their eyes, not meeting Coomer’s gaze. 

  “I didn’t want you to leave me behind,” they admitted at last, voice barely above a whisper. “There’s never been anything else like me before. I don’t know exactly how I work or how to keep myself working. I was afraid if you realized that, if you thought I couldn’t take care of myself, you’d…decide I was too much trouble.”

  Coomer burst out laughing.

  Any meekness to Bubby’s expression vanished in an instant and their bolts sparked with indignation. 

  “Why is it every time I bare my soul to you you laugh?!” they spat.

  Coomer wiped a tear from his eye. 

  “Forgive me, Bubby,” he said. “It just strikes me as so completely preposterous I can’t help but laugh!”

  “That I don’t even know how I can exist?” Bubby snarled. “That I don’t have any idea how this…hodge podge of flesh I call a body can even hold itself together? That I could just stop working one day and have no idea why? You find that ‘preposterous’?” they again cast their eyes to the ground, a mixture of shame and rage on their face.

  Coomer’s expression softened and he stepped towards Bubby to lay a hand gently on their cheek and guide their face up to meet his gaze.

  “That you could think there was anything that would make me want to not be with you,” he said.

  Bubby’s eyes went wide and his bolts sparked again, but with a softer sort of ‘hum’ of energy, rather than the earlier harsh zapping. 

  “You are one of a kind, Bubby,” he went on. “I’ve never even heard of something like you. I didn’t think something like you could even exist. It’s fascinating! You’re fascinating.”

  Bubby’s mouth opened and closed like they wanted to speak, but couldn’t find any words.

  “It’s easy, as an immortal, even one so relatively young as myself, to feel as though the world begins to stagnate.” Coomer continued. “That someday one will reach the point at which existence can yield nothing else but that with which one is already too well acquainted. But you…You’re something entirely new. Something unprecedented. There’s so much to learn from you. About you. I want to… understand you.”

  Coomer dropped his hand from Bubby’s face to their shoulder, this time being the one to avert his gaze.

  “Moreover, I want to…I want to see you experience this world, as new to you as you are to it,” he said. Had he not been long dead, a flush would have probably risen to his cheek. “There’s so much you haven’t seen, haven’t done. I want you to see them, to do them. And moreso, I want to show them to you, give them to you. The way your eyes light up at things I’ve lived in fear someday would hold for me only monotony and makes me feel as though I could never again find them mundane…I want to see that. I want…I want to never stop seeing it.”

  He braved a glance back up at Bubby, who was agape with shock. 

  “Nothing so trivial as a lack of energy could possibly deter me,” he said, voice resolute. “Even if I have to build a tower of steel and wire myself, there’s nothing that would make me leave you. For as long as…as long as you’ll have me.”

  Bubby’s hand clasped onto Coomer’s still resting on their shoulder, holding on like they expected him to disappear if their grip wavered. 

  “Forever!” they said, instantly, then seemed to panic at their own forthrightness. “I mean, for as…for as long as you’ll have me.” 

  Their bolts were crackling with electricity now, sending off small, glowing motes and arcs of energy. 

  Coomer smiled and reached out with his other hand to touch Bubby’s cheek again.

  Many years later, when Coomer would become fully educated on the idea of a ‘circuit’ and the ramifications of completing one by placing one’s hands on either side of what was essentially an openly sparking power source, the resulting occurrence would be an interesting and enlightening memory.

  As it stood in the moment, the resulting electrocution simply caused him to be rendered briefly unconscious and his hair to not lie flat for a week. 

[jesangel1503]

30 Day Challenge:

Day 1 Topic-

About feelings

Let’s talk about facts:

Many of us have an uncomfortable relationship with our feelings. We might stuff down our sadness or sweep away our anger. We might even have trouble identifying what we’re feeling in the first place. We’re socialized to mask our feelings. We learn that we must cover up our emotions “in order to behave appropriately, professionally, and to avoid conflict and navigate relationships.”

We worry if our emotions are wrong, bad or even crazy. We fear being rejected or perceived as needy or foolish and sometimes believe to be weak if we feel sad or scared, so we avoid these emotions. Or we may ignore other emotions, believing they shouldn’t be feeling that way. While feelings may be tricky and we may view them with unease or even suspicion, they’re actually important and valuable. So it is just important that we know we are attuned to our feelings. It’s exciting to discuss about this, and I might say this Day 1 task got me really puzzled about feelings and emotions. What are the difference?

The Difference between Feelings and Emotions

Emotions vs. Feelings

In English, these two words are commonly used interchangeably. Actually, from a scientific standpoint, emotions and feelings are completely different. An emotion is a hard-wired, physical, universal human response to change of some sort. Emotions are instinctive, arising from the limbic system of the brain, developed and genetically programmed over many generations of human evolution. Psychologists do not agree on the number of human emotions, but basic examples include anger, fear, surprise, disgust, happiness and sadness.

In contrast to emotions, which are measurable physical responses, feelings are individual mental processes that cannot be measured. Emotions actually precede feelings, our personal mental reactions to an emotion. Feelings are generated by thoughts and images that we have paired with a specific emotion over time. Emotions are usually short-term and fleeting, while the feelings they provoke may last and grow over a lifetime.

Source: Talktoteach.com

Emotions are measurable physical response and feelings are individual mental processes that cannot be measured

Have you watched Disney’s inside out movie? The main characters are the emotions in a little girls brain and the storyline focuses on how to recover joy after a traumatic experience.

The movie feels really good, and different. It flies on the wings of an almost too-real message — that sadness is an inevitable and necessary part of life.

It’s a good movie to watch with kids and parents, showing how important emotions are and the need to be validated and undertood as part of a child’s development.

The more you are aware of your emotions, the more they help you know yourself and understand the people around you. Noticing and talking about feelings is a healthy way to express them. It keeps difficult feelings from building up. Here is a feelingswheel for you.

Questions about feelings:

Are you a sensitive person? Are you more emotional or less emotional than other people? What makes you think so?

Tbh, I am quite a sensitive person. I think I easily feel all those certain feelings especially when I come across a sad state. I mean, who is not? Come on. Especially when I was young and immature. I am so much unstable when it comes to handling them. It was only now that I am soon 30, I have come up with ways to handle them in a graceful manner. Emotions and feelings are all useful in order for us to better express ourselves and conform ourselves well in the society’s norms and traditions. In some people, handling difficult situations ending in negative emotions is not easy for them, and that may lead to break down and eventually lead to depression. And it’s them that needs social and emotional assistance the most. But for myself, I think I am fine. It just gets better everyday and with age, so I think. What about you?

Can you control your emotions well? How?

Lately, I figured out how to handle them with ease. I’ve dealt with these emotions and savored them like I am tasting them bit by bit. And then I learned to linger to a particular emotion for a time, until I am over it. But I don’t let each emotion affect my day to day, i.e my job and my relationships. If a sad news came, to be specific, a break up of some sort, feelings of reject and self pity comes along. Well what I’m going to do is feel sad about it for some time, and then just be sad until i am not sad anymore. Then after that, I accept that there are things beyond my control so it’s basically not my fault why I’m being rejected. It’s always the mindset that saves our ass in times like these. When we think, “Yeah okay I get it. But my life is great. I can still be able to meet and know other people and it will be fine” And repeat that thought until you’re finally okay. I mean it’s ok to feel sad about it, but to feel sad about it for a long time is your choice already. So it’s up to you on how you want your life to go on. Though sometimes, hormones usually gets mixed with it in some situations, and then I tend to breakdown. It’s so hard to be a girl you know. But I am working on making it better lately, handling these emotions well plus the hormones is a must asap.

Are you generally a positive person or a negative person?

After the things I’ve been through, I realized that I need to choose to be positive ALL the time. Even in negative situations, there should always be a positive thing in a day, may it be a simple smile or giggle of the neighbor’s baby or the warmth of your blanket that hugs you after a long tiring and sad day. You see, if we start appreciating things around us, instead of looking at what’s lacking, then there could be one or more positive things in our lives to notice from. So yes, always choose and think positive, in a way, the universe conspires along with it too! Hopefully!

Do you find it easy to explain your feelings to another person? If not, why is it difficult?

I don’t know but I am really bad at it. I am always afraid what people may perceive and if they comprehend the message well enough that they actually GET me and my point. And so often, I get misunderstood. It scares me before to think what others may think of what I convey to them. But RN I am determined not too care so much about it. I mean, well, I am responsible of what i say not for what they understand. So i’ll eventually get tired explaining myself if they believe what they think their minds say. So if you have a technique, feel free to share. 🙌🏻

What makes you feel very good?

I feel very good when my needs are met. See Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. And I realized it’s not love from a partner that completes you. It’s the love for yourself. And knowing it actually makes me feel really good.

What makes you feel sad?

There are many things. I get sad when people die. And things that comes to an end. But I’ve learned to treat sadness with respect. I mean, it is important, an emotional mechanism that is built on our DNA for human survival and adaptation.

If you're feeling down, how can you make yourself feel better?

I do a lot actually. I feed myself, buy some clothes, or sing my heart out. But I don’t sleep. Many people tend to go on a hibernation when they are sad. But I don’t. As i’ve said before, I treat sadness with respect so I try to overcome it not escape from it. But among the things that I do to make myself better, praying is the one that works best for me. It’s my complete therapy to full recovery. Talking to God everything that makes me sad helps a lot. You should try it.

What is the saddest movie, song, or story that you know?

It was Titanic for me, as the saddest ever. I mean, losing someone you love to death is quite tragic. But what’s more sad is when two people who love each other but cannot be together. I mean it’s a torture. Seeing each other with a different partner is never a pleasant sight. Trust me, it hurts to the bones.

Do people know how you feel by looking at your face? Are you good at hiding your emotions?

This is an exciting topic to talk about. Many people assume they could really know how I feel just by looking at my face. Well yeah, sometimes when I am really happy, I can be obviously happy and also when I am sad. Most of all, is when I like somebody. All the emotions I am feeling can be read on my face. Like yeah, how can you hide turning red when your crush approached you? Like how? So embarrassing hahaha. But anyways, what i am good at, is when I dislike a person. You will never know unless I tell you i don’t but that will not happen sadly. I am not frank, I was raised to not hurt people by being so frank and always choose to speak in a nicer way. And if not, I must resort to avoiding people in the end.

What is the best way to deal with feelings of anger?

When i get angry, I get realllllllly angry. But I have managed controlling my anger in a way that saves my relationships with friends and family. It’s always best to choose a low tone of voice, no matter the argument is about. Shouting, as i often tend to do and i’m avoiding, is not the best way to address anger. Relationships are more important than short time emotions like anger.

Have you been in love? What is it like to be in love?

Yes I have. There are many kinds of it. And almost all of the states of love below, I have already experienced it. You come across each of the states, and all have different feeling to it. And explaining them is hard, cause love is immeasurable. That is, for me.

Which is more powerful between feelings of love and feelings of hate?

I’m gonna end this blog by answering this question. Throughout the years I have been juggling with both feelings and I must say, the feeling of love is more powerful cause it makes us go on and look forward to life. Well, it’s upon one’s preference still. Cause for me, I will always choose to love instead of hate. These 2 are both powerful because hate feelings, are the feelings that weighs us down, and makes us regret and think back. Therefore pulling us in a state of negativity flow in our life where everything is just heavy, a burden, a baggage and a prison that imprisons and rusts us deep down inside. If you let yourself get eaten by your anger and hatred, it can really affect you to your core. Feelings and emotions are natural mechanisms that helps us thrive and adapt to certain situations. If only we know how to handle them properly, then we’re going to be okay.

[jungnoir]

eye for an eye;

im changkyun | "This has been a shitty week and you just grabbed the last box of my favorite comfort food from the shelf, do you really want to fight me rn?" rival!au. | 2.1k words. | fluff. a little bit of suggestive language in this because rival au’s are my kink (and so is changkyun). requested.

a/n: this rival au takes place in a slightly different universe than truce. the origins are the same, but the ending never happened! you won’t need to read it to understand this, though. I also want to sincerely apologize to anon for taking so long to write this ;-;

“No, no, I’m not kidding. I’ve never bombed an exam harder than I bombed this one, Suhyun. I’m pretty sure my professor is going to hang my results up on the board in class just to show everyone they couldn’t possibly miss as many questions as I did. She might even give a prize to anyone who can manage that. I might be officially hailed as the worst student in the history of this campus-” “Yes, yes. We’re both having a shitty day. Do you see the chocolate-covered popcorn or not?”

You narrow your eyes as you stand in the aisle of your campus’ convenience store. It’s been three minutes since you’d entered said aisle your roommate swore her preferred snack was in, and it had been one minute since you’d promptly concluded that her snack did not exist. Any other day, you would’ve told her to find it herself and made it back to your room with your own comfort food in hand, but she was having a decidedly terrible time of the month and you weren’t that much of an asshole. You were a little bit, but not that much.

“I don’t see it, Suhyun. I even asked the clerk and he said he’s never heard of it. Are you sure they sell it here?” You ask into the speaker, eyes raking shelf after shelf once more in case you might have missed it.

“Yes! I literally got some yesterday!” “Should I be concerned how you consumed an entire box of chocolate covered popcorn in such a short amount of time? Surely your insides should be tearing themselves apart trying to digest all that.” “It already is tearing itself apart trying to ready me for babies I won’t even be having. Get the popcorn!”

You yank your phone from your ear and wince, nose crinkling in distaste at her shrill tone. Obviously, she was pretty upset at your incompetence (or the store’s complete lack of her snack, but she’d argue for the former).

“Is there anything else you’d like? Just in case I can’t find what you want?” You offer an ultimatum, knowing full well you would not find her popcorn and it was better to go back to her with some form of appeasement rather than empty-handed.

She breathes an angry sigh and stays silent for a bit before she starts speaking again, much more exhausted, “I’ll take hot cheetos.” And then she hangs up.

You make a mocking face at your phone despite her inability to see you just because you can, and even though you weren’t undergoing her level of physical torment at the moment, you were still pretty tired and dejected. All you wanted was to get your comfort food and disappear under your blankets for the rest of the rainy weekend ahead of you.

You stuff your phone into your pocket and make your way toward the chips aisle, the promise of being home soon blaring in your mind as you retrieve her chips and start your search for your instant noodles. You can already imagine the hot dish in your hands, warming your body after an hour and a half in a cold, small classroom with nothing to focus on but time ticking away.

As you make your way toward your dinner, you notice a lithe body is making its way in your direction, upper body shrouded in a black hoodie with the hood pulled over their face and making them anonymous to you. You think nothing of it, even though their walk is awfully hurried and they’re clutching a concerning amount of ice packs in their one hand.

Your attention is grabbed when you realize that they’re heading in your direction, more directly in front of you, and there is no way you can reach your noodles if they’re in the way. You hope they move soon cause you’d really rather not collide with someone when your day is already terrible enough.

Suddenly they stop, and you let out an internal sigh of relief, up until they reach toward the shelf and grab something. Your something. Your noodles.

You look back to where they grabbed them from, and your heart drops when you realize that that was the last one.

Before you can stop yourself, you call out, “Wait, that’s the last one!”

The person raises their head, and while you can’t see their eyes, you catch a glimpse of a busted lip. You could only hope whoever it was got that busted lip from a bad fall and not something dangerous you were about to involve yourself in.

The person is silent for all of five seconds, “Fuck... what are you doing here?”

You blank on what to say, just as the person raises their head fully and you realize with a start that you know this person. You know them really well, even as scars and a black eye mar their face and make you choke on a snippy comeback. It’s Im Changkyun, your declared nemesis since the first day you met in Calculus. And he looks he terrible.

“What happened to you?” You whisper, walking closer even as he stumbles trying to get away from you. He stops when you do, your eyebrows furrowed in concern. He’s never seen that expression on your face in relation to him before.

He tucks his chin a little closer to his chest, “Nothing. Nothing happened.”

“Bull. Your face is all beat up!” Your frown is hard and you pursue him once more, only this time he doesn’t move quite as far to get away. “Who did that to you?”

You can’t say it’s hard to see Changkyun has more enemies than just you, but even you would never physically attack him. You’d dreamt of it of course, but never thought to actually follow through with it. He was annoying but he wasn’t worth the physical exertion in your mind.

Changkyun looks so much different than his usual smirking, arrogant self. Instead of winking at you and teasing you for even caring, he looks insistent on disappearing into the ground below you both. You’d never seen Changkyun so sheepish before. It didn’t feel right.

“Does it matter? I need to ice this black eye before it gets worse.” He hisses, and holds the noodles close to his side, reminding you he’d just stolen your dinner... but suddenly it doesn’t seem quite as important anymore.

Instead of commenting on it, you motion to the ice packs, “Is that all you got? What about your lip? It could get infected.”

He licks his lip when you mention it, “I don’t have the money for that.”

“Painkillers? Surely that hurts like a bitch.” “Nope.” “Bandaids, at least? Gauze even? I’m sure you fought back-” “There were too many for me to fight... back...” His answer comes so quick that he doesn’t realize what he’s said until he’s said it, and then he is backing away from you with mortification in his eyes. “...I said too much.”

You can’t imagine who he has encountered, and he looks far too nervous just telling you which makes you nervous in turn. “Changkyun, wait,” you grab his arm before he can escape. He doesn’t stop you, “...I don’t know who you pissed off to get your ass kicked like this, but... at least let me take care of that lip. Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Changkyun looks torn. Surely, the last person he’d expect to take care of him after getting his ass kicked would be his rival of all people. But you were right; he was hurt, and he needed to tend to his wounds if he wanted to be fully fit to get those guys back later on.

Plus... your hold was soft and comforting. It reminded him a lot of how his mother would hold him.

“...Nowhere else is as bad as my face. They kind of wanted to make a point.”

Your hand drops down to hold his, and you guide him toward the medicine aisle.

Changkyun curls away from you when you apply the alcohol dipped cotton ball to his lip, grunting and gripping your shirt to keep from digging his fingernails into his palm.

“Stop flinching,” you huff, seizing his dark hair in your other hand and holding his face upward toward you, “you’re making it take longer than it should.” “It hurts.” “Then don’t get your ass kicked anymore... dummy.”

Your weak, muttered insult makes him laugh and therefore throws you off from cleaning his wound once more. In retaliation, you yank his head back a bit and he releases a guttural growl at the pain, making your cheeks warm against your will. “From that sound alone, I’d come to the conclusion that you’re a masochist.”

He resists the urge to smirk, even though he’d really like to see you yank his hair again... to annoy you, of course. “Oh yeah. It really rocks my socks when I get punched in the face.”

You snort, “Had you told me that when I first met you, I might’ve did you a favor.”

He watches you work and manages to stay still, and he notices you were right; you finish cleaning his lip and applying the ointment to it in no time when he’s being obedient. Once you’ve finished with his lip, you look over the rest of him and force his hand to his eye, the ice pack clutched between his cleaned and treated fingers. “Hold it there, please.”

The store clerk had decided he didn’t care if you took care of Changkyun’s wounds in the corner of the store, so Changkyun sits with you between his legs and watches the few late-night lurkers walking past the store window. He tries not to focus on your proximity but this is probably the closest you’ve ever been to each other, and yeah, he didn’t like you very much, but you were objectively very beautiful and... flustering to be this close to. To make matters somewhat better, you seem to be completely clueless of how his fingers play with the hem of your tee shirt blaring your school’s logo across the chest. It feels nice under his fingertips, and for an absurd moment, he imagines how it’d feel taking it off you.

Ugh, that punch must’ve rearranged the wires in his brain or something.

“Okay, you’re good facially. I’d advise being gentle on yourself as for everywhere else on your body. Get your roommate to apply something to the bruises everywhere else and report the guys that beat you up to the school police.” He nods absently at your words, “I mean it Im Changkyun.”

His nose wrinkles at your use of his full name, “I said I will.”

You finally release his hair and even go as far as to comb the crushed strands back down on his head, fingernails scraping his scalp and Changkyun can taste the ointment on his tongue when he bites his lip to keep from making another obscene noise in reaction but damn does that feel good after all the pain he’s gone through today. “Good,” you reply, smiling, “I better head back to my dorm so I can accept my own ass-kicking from my internally compromised roommate.”

Changkyun chuckles lightly, “Wouldn’t want that.”

You move back from Changkyun but find resistance, and you notice before he does why that is. His hand is still clutched in your shirt, skin red from the sheer hold he has. Quietly, you place your own hand over his to remove it. You don’t.

Changkyun locks eyes with you for an alarming amount of time, the apples of his cheeks turning rose the longer your skin stays in contact with his. It’s been a while since he’s felt a soft, caring touch and he can’t say he doesn’t like it. He’ll indulge in it, even if it is you and even if on any other day you’d be at each other’s throats.

Surprisingly though, he’s the first to move when someone enters the store and the bell above it dings to alert the other customers. Your hand hovers awkwardly before you take it back and grab your bag of purchased items, sliding the medicine and noodles his way. “I’ll see you around. Hopefully healed and in a better condition for our witty debates.”

He smiles and then winces when he remembers his busted lip, which only makes you giggle.

Before you leave though, you turn to Changkyun and shoot him a playful glare, “Don’t go getting pummeled by anyone else again. That’s my job.”

Changkyun drops his good eye down in a wink, “I’m all yours, jerk.” “Ass.” You reply for old times’ sake, and then disappear into the night.

Come that following Monday, your mutual friends find Changkyun looks at you a little softer now.