#psychologically beating the shit out of him
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Pengu Finale Liveblog ahhhhhh
Julian just absolutely brain blasting this old woman
Oh Rex is close enough to call her doll and make her breakfast he is not beating the deadbeat daddy allegation
OH NO DOES SHE KNOW OH MY GOD SHE KNOWS
NEVERMIND I WAS SO WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING SHE HAS KNOWN ALL ALONG
holy shit holy shit holy shit
okay so they did find the bodies eventually holy fuck hooooooly fuck
oh my god rex literally teaching francis how to manipulate oz and use him oh my god ohhhhh my god this is so much more of a betrayal than if francis had just hated him for what he'd done
she knew all along she knew all along and she used him and she
she
oz was right ahahahahah every relationship in his life is fuckign transactional because he KILLED THE ONLY TWO BOYS WHO TRULY LOVED HIM, AND KILLED HIS MOTHER'S LOVE WITH THEM
dude he has to kill his mother now
this is a psychological nuke the likes of which i think sofia could not possibly have ever imagined.
Francis's FACE oh my god.
Julian baby boy maybe Sofia should stand out of sight to not break immersion
God this is absolutely not how hypnotism works is it
IT'LL BE EASIER NOW YOU LITTLE PSYCHO
"I see you in ways other people don't" while she is ACTIVELY USING HIM
dude. dude. I just. It's always the same with Oz, isn't it. Sofia, Eve, his mom. He's the biggest bullshitter in Gotham, and he's so full of it he doesn't have a clue how to sniff it out
God they are both so horrific to each other. Just his horrible cycle of selfishness and toxicity what a twisted family they are
HELLO VIC I MISSED YOU
Oh rip lmao I guess the gangs know the bliss is all gone
Vic baby he's saying all the same stuff oz does, only he believes it, so he can't bullshit people to his side
Oh hey that dude on the other side of the walkie talkie lived!!
Man Oz and Sofia haven't been face to face since ep 4 hahahaha
BERTO MENTION. she hasn't used that name in a hot second
Oh my god Sofia literally using that bird nest metaphor ahahahh whoever that anon was in my inbox you are a genius
Man. Sofia literally just laying out all their horrible family drama in the worlds worst family therapy oh my god
Dude I've been saying for weeks now that Sofia's superpower is to completely shatter people with the truth and. ohhhhhh my god ohhhhhh my god ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Wait. Is Sofia going to give that cigar cutter in her cleavage to Francis to use on Oz. I think she should give it to her.
Uh. Nevermind
Wow Sofia really is leaning into this evil therapy thing what the fuck. girl.
God i desperately want her to be the girl-jonkler running the aslume at the end of this show please please please
Also Sofia, I think it was the left. I mean I'm sure she knows just so she can do the other one next, but. man. she is fuckin sadistic. im love....
Julian so enthusiastic about all of this hahaahah
I love Sofia like, almost framing this to them or possibly herself as a gift she is giving to Francis. Is this cope? Is this something she sincerely believes? Or is she just being cruel?
I ALREADY FUCKIN KNOW
It's my finger you spineless prick hahahaahha but that doesn't matter to him because its your love he wants it's your adoration your pride and what actually happens to you? Doesn't fucking matter.
I NEVER STOPPED HATING YOU
Sofia's face right then like. damn dude. god i love her
She had enough love for all of them and he soured every last drop of it. For them, for him, for the world.
Sofia really does know the value of just letting a drama play out.
Francis saying Sofia is right this ep, Sofia saying Francis was right last ep, damn.
Oz really is... the only character in this show chronically incapable of learning
Damn mama cobb strong enough to smash a bottle. I don't think even i could do that.
Oh my god no wonder she said "they look at me like i'm not even theirs" because in her mind, she let their murderer go free
also is oz gonna hulk out that she's showing love to an imaginary jack and benny when oz has just seen her hate?
Oh is she just dying right now
Julian doing the get down mr president
MR DETECTIVE YOU DIPSHIT
Sofia baby you did great okay you already hurt Oz please just go to italy with your boy toy
Wow is he not getting this fucking stab looked at
EW EW EW EW
Yeah sure sure. Sofia stabbed you. Sure. Sure.
Oh noooo. Vic... baby.... he is such a believer in Oz's stupid self serving bullshit. He is so good. And pure. And he speaks from the heart and. And Oz acts like this is something Vic rehearsed
And they laugh about it but Vic doesn't understand. He doesn't understand that Oz isn't giving him advice on how to most effectively show people the fire you hold in your heart—he's teaching him the art of smoke and mirrors. how to con and grift and bullshit until even you don't know what's true and real
Christ. Vic is so fucking dead
She'd never look at me again unless i get this done.
Oz knowing now that this love is transactional. And fine. He'll make that transaction, he'll take down sofia and then maybe his mom will pretend again that she doesn't hate him, doesn't want him dead
it's not going to work, of course. it can't because this show is about him becoming the penguin. and it can't, because even that transaction was always a lie Francis told herself
I don't think she could ever have loved Oz even if he'd gotten her into a penthouse at age 20. I think she lied to herself to survive living with him, because what was the alternative? Losing all three of her boys?
AHAHAHAHAHAH SOFIA LITERALLY PICKING UP OZ'S GOLD SUMMIT MEMBERS i have to say. I did not anticipate this at ALL
damn girlie really is just gonna dip to go to italy or wherever
sofia really is just setting up the funniest game of capture the flag imaginable while cramming like seven olives in her mouth
i dont' say this often. i desire her carnally.
The gun in the glove compartment surely that will not come back later
Oz originally checking his image in the reflection of the car vs asking Vic now, treating this kid as his reflection
Damn. Is Link really going to fall for Oz's shit again after that truck of cigs thing? Or is this just a ploy to get Oz into the right place for Sofia to pick him up?
Actually maybe that's what loses Vic, that Link betrayed him, and Oz expected it. Idk we shall see
Penguin planning to run for mayor in a couple movies?
Oh Oz is totally gonna send sofia to arkham ahahaha poor baby
Oh my god I thought Sofia was gonna claim credit for Sal's death, not that Oz would give it up himself
I cannot tell you guys how fucking tempting it is to skip right to the end of this episode to see if i'm right you guys
Wow Oz really eyeing that Mayor's office
Is he going to kill Bella and frame Sofia. Is he gonna kill bella and THAT is what turns Vic on him.
oh my god LINK
HAHAHAH I WAS SO RIGHT SHE IS BURNING DOWN FALCONE MANOR
oh god that's the watch Sofia gave him for his birthday FUCK YOU CARMINE
Sofia really is gonna fucking screw over EVERYONE hahaha THREE CIGS BABY
oh god she is so hot i love her you self actualize through arson baybeeeeeeee
that shot of her throwing the cig like a dart is so much oh my god
babygirl i love you
you deserve the world
but yeah she is going into the cold according to the needle drop. definitely going back to arkham
... what's in the trunk. i don't think it's normal luggage. is it more bombs
there is still 20 mins left. i am afraid
This is clearly a trap for someone i just don't know who. Where is vic
I'm so afraid this is the last we get to see of Sofia.
She knows. She always has such a nose for bullshit lmao. Also fuck you Link you gotta know Oz is gonna stab you in the back.
I do think it's promising that Julian has not been seen all day tho. What is he doing.
I love this. I love that Oz and Sofia finally get this one moment to be truly honest with each other.
Well. At the very least, Oz gets to be honest with Sofia. idk that he knows how to be honest with himself anymore.
Why does this look like a chemical factory. I know it's not happening but it'd be so funny for Sofia to become the joker right now.
just dunk her in the goop
Man. Is he actually going to shoot her. Police pls come and save my girl. Cannot believe that's what I'm begging for now.
oh my god
yeah i called it but. Man. This is so painful to watch. also i think my julian prayers are not going to be answered it did not look like Sofia had planned any of this
okay i'm normal about sofia being arrested now.
Okay. I'm normal.
I'm back to not being normal francis and vic and oz all in one place this is all gonna blow up emotionally
Is francis in a coma. is she totally brain dead oh my god.
oh man she really is never going to say she loves him hahaha
she let jack and benny's murderer go and it never got her anything
is he gonna kill her now.
TELL ME YOU'RE PROUD OF ME oz you fuckin
he's so fucking delusional jesus putting her hand on his head
dude. is Vic actually gonna live through this episode
holy fuck
did not call that in the least
well. i was right about the pyrrhic victory for Oz
"All kinds of things" shut the fuck up.
God. I cannot believe Vic is living through this show. Admittedly as the kind of guy that his parents would have been ashamed of, but.
Wait. No no
don't
don't do it
no nondfonfodnfodnfodfn
please dont
pelase dont
oz don't you dare
nONONNNONONONONONONONONONONONO
PLEASE DOJNT DO IT NOW PLEAE
NO NO HE IS THEO NLY ONE WHO HAS SEEN THE WEAKNESS AND HUMAN IN YOU
OZ YOU
OZ
NO
WITH YOUR HANDS???? WITH YOUR FUCKIGN HANDS???? I THOUGHT HE WOUDL PULL A GUN AT LEAST YOU FUCKING
ODSOFANDFONSODNOSDAGNOGNIOAGDSASGJDISGNAGLNFGOSANFOSDO
SANO
NON NO NONONONO
VIC
vic. vic. vic barely lived a month longer than his family
all that good heart and he just. enabled a monster to rise to power. to make gotham worse
HE'S MUGGING HIM
YOU PIECE OF SHIT YOU PIECE OF FUCKING SHIT YOU BASTARD YOU
i
i
and the water takes him too.
JULIAN
oH MY GOD I WAS RIGHT AHHAAHHAHAHA
JULIAN
I WAS RIGHT ABOUT SOFIA GETTING MARRIAGE PROPOSALS HAHAHAHAHAH
SELINA KYLE???????? HELLO??????????????
bro.... oh my god..... this is....
I'm so happy.........
sofia smiling... sofia finding a new family member....
nvm i am so glad my original theories were wrong this is way better than anything i could have hoped for
oh my god
ohhhhh my god he actually is keeping his mom in a vegetative state.... exactly what she begged him not to do.......
she knows.... she knows... some part of her is aware in there ahahahahah
you should have let Rex kill him all those years ago
oh my god EVE???? EVE GIRL GET OUT BEFORE HE KILLS YOU TOO
oh no please tell me he never learned what happened with sofia and eve
hes literally just calling her ma. fuck me. mayeb that means eve is safe for now
NOT THE BATSIGNAL
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GOD IM LIKE. SHAKING YOU AS MY ONE (1) MUTUAL WHO WATCHES TLOVM LIKE. OHH MY FUCKIN GOODDDDDDDDDDD........... <- doesnt know all the horrors of chroma conclave knows like half of them <- is very scared
IM SO SCARED IM SO SCARED I DON'T KNOW WHERE THIS SEASON WILL END OFF ON BUT I DO KNOW THAT VAX IS GOING TO SEE THE HORRORS. AND PERCY IS GOING TO GET WHIPLASH. AND VEX MIGHT HAVE A LIFETIME. OR TWO.
#asks#hyperfocusing on fenthras knowing Knowing that vex is indirectly confessing her feelings to percy while also knowing vax is like#psychologically beating the shit out of him
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following on from this. not to always bring marc into everything (sorry marc) but if assen 2015 had happened against jorge, valentino would have very likely pulled something similar again imo. rather than what he actually did, which is approach marc almost immediately for a nice normal friendly handshake and backing off during the podium celebrations. should be noted that during laguna seca '08, valentino was very much committed to yapping at casey on the podium with the world's biggest smuggest grin on his face
partly that disparity is because jorge not marc was the direct title rival, partly it's because valentino was treating marc with kid gloves right until the second that he wasn't, which marc was seemingly entirely oblivious to. if anyone other than marc had said what he said in that presser, had then continued on with similar rhetoric during sachsenring, valentino would quite likely have gone nuclear. he's done it over less than that. his fondness for marc made him continue to exhibit uncharacteristic restraint... except that fondness unfortunately is what left valentino feeling so very betrayed when (to his eyes) marc could not leave well enough alone
#it's so delightfully tragic isn't it. a lot of 2015 played out the way it did because valentino genuinely wasn't looking for beef#but then felt backed into a corner and decided he had no other option than to blow this shit up#if casey says 'what I think is that we won the race' valentino would've torn him a new one then and there like...#if sete had called assen his best race of the season valentino would've reached for the chalk and incense even sooner#though fwiw I do think the relationship was basically doomed from that point. something would have happened sooner or later#2015 is so funny conceptually because there was already something *off* about it most of the way through. you have the familiar beats#but they shouldn't be HAPPENING with marc. they should be happening with the actual title rival - who vale never properly fought all season#assen 2015 should've been laguna should've been catalunya hell it should've been assen 2004 but it couldn't be#valentino kept accidentally inflicting the psychological blows on the wrong guy because jorge just refused to end up in a straight fight#assen SHOULD have been a pivotal race. but of course it couldn't be because what psychological blow was jorge lorenzo being dealt?#btw the unwillingness to beef doesn't just extend to marc. valentino makes a concerted effort to be uncharacteristically friendly to jorge#still think he would've rubbed assen in his face but. overall! he was trying! which again. very ironic#funhouse mirror ass season i love it dearly#//#brr brr#slowly dipping my toes into dropping 2015 hot takes on tumblr dot com... for so long these have been between me god and my google doc#i love jorge i think he's been involved in a lot of iconic battles i think it's funny not a single one of them happened in 2015#minus kinda phillip island but even there it did feel like the other three were Doing More than him#also just a different vibe to a proper one-on-one. a WEIRD title run where the third man that whole year walks away with the trophy#idol tag
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literally every season of ds9 the writers were coming up with wacky hijinks and political intrigues and then suddenly went ‘oh wait we have to put miles o’brien through his regularly scheduled dose of Unimaginable Horrors now’
#a couple of episodes ago this guy was chuckling as he gave ferengis copies of the communist manifesto#now he’s been through HORRIFIC TRAUMA in MIND PRISON#and everyone is just like ‘aw but you’ll be ok pls just fix the ship for us 🥺’#like 90% of his appearances so far this season have been him and Julian doing fun background holosuit adventures and then they’re like ‘no’#‘time to explore psychological torture of a random Irish guy in space’#AND THIS HAPPENS EVERY SEASON#he just wants to fix his ship love his wife and play wwii roleplay with his boyfriend#let him be!!!#let him live!!!#is TNG like this??#so they just pause the enterprises adventures occasionally to just beat the everlasting emotional shit out of o’brien#stop bullying my boy!!#ds9#bee talks ds9#miles o'brien
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Statistically Speaking...
part of the svt TA collab
kim mingyu x reader
word count: 21k
contains: TA! mingyu, fluff, smut [minors DNI], angst, statistics, ur honour they're stupid for one another, descriptions of stress exhaustion and burnout, academic burden, disagreements, mingyu is smart as hell, shitting on bad professors, smut but its a surprise [gyu gets his soul sucked while he's reciting statistical models I mean what]
words of conviction from @highvern: Kim Mingyu, total asshole , 1-800-HOT N DUMB , THEYRE IN LOVE MINGYU SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU LOSER , sick fucking freak , i know when you wrote this you put your head in your hands , OHHHM YW GOD
synopsis: In all your years of academic endurance, you’ve never failed. A 100% success rate, despite you cutting it close at times. However, the line graph that is your life starts tanking somewhere around the time you began taking this hellsent Statistics in Psychological Research class. With a professor that wouldn’t know his ass from his head, and an overworked, overenthusiastic, and overcaptivating TA, it couldn't possibly get any worse than this. However, statistically speaking,…it could.
[a/n]: this fic is set in the same universe as @highvern's wonu fic endpoint [read here!!!], some insight for wonu's pov is included here as is some of Mingyu's pov in cam's fic if you'd like to see more about what happens in the gaps!!
I want to start by thanking everyone who chose to be part of this collab fic and for being the reason cam and I were able to open up @camandemstudios in the first place. everyone's been so kind and cooperative and I still cant believe we managed to convince such amazing writers to join us on this collab journey 🥹 I love u guys
Thanking my wife camothy @highvern for brainstorming with me since day one and for betaing for me. @seokgyuu and @miabebe for also looking over the doc and reassuring me. I'm for sure forgetting someone and I'm really sorry about that, know that I appreciate you just as much 🤍
on that note, I hope you guys enjoy this fic, im HELLA nervous for some reason so plsplspls remember to reblog and send me feedback on how you liked it, I will love you forever <333
masterlist
Monday
A normal person would’ve cried. Perhaps even sued the entire institution for all it was worth. Burn down the world, if it came to it.
But as you stare at the tiny 37/100 on your screen, you feel…nothing.
You could’ve said you saw it coming, which you did, but something about blaming someone else for an exam you took was beginning to feel a little manipulative.
Clicking off the student portal, you huff loudly, five in the morning too early for you to begin breaking down over a grade that was completely unreflective of what you were taught.
Or maybe it was, because as you count one, two, three hours till your dreaded Statistics in Psychological Research class, you can only hope you’ll hold back from spitting in your professor’s coffee. But alas, you can only shut your laptop harder than necessary for what it costs and push the grade out of your mind.
You were tired enough to sleep for a couple more hours, and you take it as an opportunity to spite the entire course by giving just as many fucks as your professor did.
Which was little to none.
That was a lie—on your part anyway. Because you continue to show up, and probably will until you can put this course and all of its trauma behind you. Even now as you feel the inclining beat of your pulse sitting in the white lecture hall, you know this is all but you versus the universe.
Dr. Cho might as well have wheeled himself into the room on a skateboard with the way he struts into the room.
He’s wearing a denim jacket with the sleeves cut off and jeans of a matching finish that do not fit him properly. There’s pins in every last colour on this earth, littering the front of his jacket with sayings that toe the silver controversial lining. There was one that said Vote for John F. Kennedy, another plain black one with I Eat Kids, and of course, the blaring Cunt written in cursive, pink sparkly letters.
This man that’s pushing into his 60s stands before his slightly wilted class in his crocs, hands on his hips as he heaves a long breath.
“I have to say, not the turn out I was expecting on that last report.”
He’s talking about the report you coincidentally failed, the same one you were pushed into with little to no direction and a deadline tighter than any you’ve had to bully yourself through.
“All I can say is to read through the feedback I’ve given and try a little harder next time.” His voice is somewhere bordering comical exasperation. Feedback that consisted of sparing ‘?’’s and ‘no’’s with zero further explanation. He could say more, but you’ve learned that he simply chooses to not.
Besides the man that drones in the front of the room, there’s another person in the other corner of the lecture hall. He’s hunched over a giant pile of papers, sifting through each and every one with a pen in his other hand.
The TA doing a mundane task is somehow more interesting than whatever seminars of disappointment your professor was giving. He’s crossing something out on every single leaf of paper that he flicks through, and you vaguely wonder if those were today’s worksheets.
“...and post hoc tests last week, we can start on Bayesian today. Mingyu will be handing out the tutorial papers.”
The poor TA looks like he thought he’d have more time, snapping his head up to look at the professor with an expression of pure incredulousness. He staggers for a moment before he’s flicking past the pages even faster somehow, striking out what seems like the same instruction in the giant pile of papers meant for an entire lecture hall. There’s a rustle as about a hundred laptops are being pulled out and booted up, waiting for the worksheets to land on the desks.
You hear the familiar warble of papers being passed out and you watch as the TA pulls chunks of sheets out of the giant stack in his arms to slam down onto the front tables.
“Pass it down, please… pass it down, please…”
There’s a voice that calls from one of the front seats, “What formula is the sheet talking about?”
Mingyu looks startled as he snaps back to look at the blaring empty whiteboard. In the midst of passing papers, you watch him sprint to the rolling whiteboards, pulling one of the giant flats of white over to the other side, the mechanism slamming into place with a louder than comfortable slam. It reveals another whiteboard underneath with the detestably long formula already written (and the one you’d have to figure out yourself).
The professor remains with his chin in his hands behind his laptop, unphased.
By the time you’ve registered the foreign symbols on the board, one of the tutorial papers has made it into your hands.
Sure enough, there’s a quick line across one of the steps with a thick black marker.
Blinking hard, you attempt to pull yourself into the zone, staring at the white sheet with words that are barely stringing themselves together. Nothing out of the ordinary, especially as you lift your head to find hunched shoulders and furrowed brows all around.
There’s one person that’s zipping back and forth, just like there always is.
You watch as Mingyu hunches over certain laptops and whispers in rapid explanation before moving on to the next, a looming sense of dizziness that trails behind him as he shoots up the stairs to the back rows to help someone else.
There’s a brief consideration to raise your own hand to ask for help, but one look at his disoriented gaze and the amount of hands that shoot up by the second, you guess it wasn’t going to help.
Back you go, hunched over the same wretched paper as everyone else, and praying for some divine revelation.
Tuesday
Divine revelation did not come to you, but the good sense to make use of office hours did.
So here you are, a printed copy of your supposedly horrid assignment and a pack of multicolour pens in your tote, and determination in your stride, you make your way to the department building.
You’ve double, triple, quadruple checked the times to ensure you don’t dip in at the wrong moment, swiping open your phone to re-check the room number yet again.
Standing outside the door, you knock with mustered confidence, waiting for something akin to an affirmative from the other side of the door.
Nothing.
You knock again.
Silence.
You glance around the empty hall before grasping onto the cool brass handle of the door, wrenching it open just a peep. Poking your head in, you find the room…empty.
The chairs and tables that usually buzz with discussing students lay barren as you step into the room. Moving to look at the front of the room, you inhale sharply as you realise the professor’s desk has been occupied this entire time.
Except he’s asleep.
No, that’s not the professor.
Moving closer, you watch the way his back rises and falls ever so slowly, head resting on his arm as his hand hangs limp off the table. Whipping your head around with more attention this time, you attempt to find an explanation written on the walls. But there’s none, even in the papers that litter the table he rests his head on.
You don’t need to see his face to know it’s the TA. But as you stand in the empty room, clutching the straps of your tote, you aren’t quite sure what to do.
Another glance around the table and you realise his laptop remains on, the screen yet to sleep. Before the obvious issue of a blatant invasion of privacy can befall you, you take a step forward to take a peek.
It’s his schedule, a million colours blaring on the screen in a colour coded regard with barely any white spaces. It doesn’t take long to find his time slot for right now, red with importance.
Glancing down, the man remains fast asleep, pen still in hand as it inks a faint line on the page. You look around the room for the nth time, taking constant glances back at his laptop that tells you he’s actively missing something right now. Clearing your throat, you hunch over a tad bit.
“Um, excuse me.” He hardly moves. So you try a little louder, hunching over his sleeping form even further. “Excuse me.”
You could’ve sworn you heard a snore.
Out of instinct, you bring a hand forward to his shoulder, shaking ever so slightly as you call for him again. “Excuse me!”
There’s a sharp inhale and he shoots up quicker than you can back away, ensuring you get an entire back’s worth of force as he bumps into you, hard.
“Wh–ow!” The noise is collective, yelps and thuds as you both back away from each other.
“W–what’re you doing here?” he asks, hair still ruffled and eyes barely open as he stands at the table. There’s a bright yellow sticky note on his right cheek, ink scribbled on in something you can’t decipher.
“Um, it’s office—”
His eyes land on the same screen you were peering into just before and it looks like his life flashes before his eyes, widening at the sight as he slams around the table looking for something.
“I have to go,” he announces, gripping onto an unstrapped watch as he registers the time, his other hand shoving his laptop and a few papers into a dark messenger bag.
“Wait, isn’t it still office hours?” you call out as he whizzes past you.
He’s swinging his bag over his shoulder and half tripping to the door as he calls out, “Wednesdays and Thursdays.”
“But—”
“It’s on the portal.”
“No it’s not.”
“Yes it—” he pauses as he exhales loudly, closing his eyes and bringing a hand to rub across his tired face. “I’ll double check. But it’s Wednesdays and Thursdays from now on. You can wait till I get back if you really want help.”
“How—”
A loud slam! of the door.
“—long…”
You’re left draped in silence yet again, the echoes of the slammed door ringing in your startled ears. It all happened too fast for you to process, blinking rapidly as you registered that you were now alone in the room.
He said he’d be back, but left you with no indication as to when. By the looks of his god awful schedule, it looked like he had something else to attend to right after whatever it was he buggered off to right now.
Fingers clenched into a fist, you consider your options. You could wait, sit on one of the desks and try to get some work done until he gets back.
The universe gives you your answer as the door opens with a loud creak in the empty lecture hall. It’s another professor who looks quite startled to find an overenthusiastic student already present for class.
She stares before craning to look at the room number outside the door, “Am I in the right room?”
“Uh, yes! I was just leaving,” you buffer out, moving to shuffle out immediately.
You’re halfway out the door when you hear another call of an “Excuse me!”
“Are these your papers?” The professor’s full arms are up as she gestures to the still littered table.
The No is ready on your lips. Until it isn’t.
Later on, you’d consider how you left that room with an armful of papers that did not belong to you. How you’d ducked under the table to ensure you’d gotten everything, down to the leather strap watch with the cracked clock face.
But as you stare at the stack of files and sheets that lay on your desk at home, you only know of the decent act that you’d committed.
And nothing of the hourglass you’d just turned over.
Wednesday
In your Sent box are three emails sent on three separate days, all asking the same recurring question, all responding with the same recurring reply.
I wanted to confirm the days and times for office hours. I’m aware it’s on the portal but I’d like to reconfirm.
Regards, YN
Dear YN,
Wednesdays and Thursdays. 4 to 6 PM.
Kim Mingyu, T.A.
So there you were on a Wednesday afternoon, 3:59 PM sharp, outside the lecture hall where office hours have always been. With the same tote hung on your shoulders, with the same printed assignment and pack of multicolour pens, and a separated stack of files and folders, you wrench the door open with bated breath.
The blended murmur of the usual hustle and bustle of the appointment reassures you first, the sight of scattered students of familiar faces reassures you second. And most of all, a conscious TA that sits at the professor’s desk, speaking to another student over a laptop screen.
The man does nothing to acknowledge your arrival, continuing above the babble of students that occupy the chairs and the discussion. It isn’t too full, but considerably busy nonetheless despite how early you’ve swooped in.
There’s a brief consideration whether this was in the TA’s job description at all, craning your neck to take a full sweep of the room to find a sparing glimpse of the man who should be here. The professor and his loud fashion choices are nowhere to be found.
The sigh you let out is heavy and full of an emotion you cannot possibly begin to unpack, taking a seat on one of the unoccupied chairs to slump against. Shoulders sagging, you feel every fibre of your being screaming against your better judgement to pull out some work and to be productive while you wait. Reading over your failed assignment for the nth time, the same one that seemed to be some sick form of rage bait.
You pull a couple things out so as to not look awkward sitting and staring into nothing on an empty desk, uncapping your pen and pulling up your sleeves like there was business to be done. Which there was, but none of which you wished to entertain.
People watching, you realise, is a lot easier when most of the room is preoccupied with whatever it is they’re doing, too busy to notice your blank stares.
The faces are familiar, none of which are people you’ve interacted with before but classmates nonetheless. The room is full of shaking legs, spinning pens and hunched backs, not an un-scrunched brow in sight. There’s a particular gaggle of girls somewhere around the front, their tables suggesting a work environment but between the whispers, giggles and glances to the front of the room, you assume there’s one thing in common the both of you weren’t doing.
Speaking of the front of the room, your matched glance finds you face to face with the student at the main table in the middle of pushing himself off his seat. Your reaction is immediate, hand coming over to slam against the flat of your bag to find the lost straps, moving out of your seat as you keep your eyes on the front of the room.
Bad luck must be a lover, because you realise quickly that somebody’s already beat you to it. Before you even noticed the first’s intentions to. The student stands beside the chair ready to keep it warm as the previous occupant leaves.
Slamming back down on your own seat, you realise very quickly that trying to get an audience with this TA was going to be harder than you anticipated. There’s multiple other sounds of frustration around the room, and you doubt the slowly increasing pool of students was going to help anyone’s time management.
Realising you needed to be a little more tactical if you didn’t want to sit here for the next month and half, you find an empty spot near the gaggle of girls you’d noticed before. It was right up front, just enough for you to hear when the conversation would begin to conclude at the main table.
Once again, the TA doesn’t seem to notice any of the hustle and bustle of the room as his mouth continues to move rapidly, eyes on the question as he invests himself in his explanation.
It was unfortunate that the only remaining seat was right next to the louder than necessary group, but you take it as a blessing anyway. It’s then that the one right next to you turns to stage-whisper to you.
“Are you here to see him?”
You don’t expect a conversation, ears straining to eavesdrop on the other conversation in front of you to find your cue. You snap to look at her in surprise. “Pardon?”
“Are you here to see him? Mingyu?”
“Uh—” Wasn’t everybody? “Yeah, I had a couple things I wanted to clear out.”
The revelation makes her shoulders drop as she lets out a loud sigh, “God, I can never get anything this professor says. I've been here nearly every week trying to figure it all out.”
“Yeah he’s a bit…unorthodox.”
“He’s unorthodox too.” She looks over to the main table towards the TA, chin in her hands as she gazes. “A face like that is rare.”
It wasn’t that she was wrong, it didn’t take more than a glance to convince yourself that Mingyu was possibly one of the more attractive people you’d meet in your lifetime. But the appeal lasted for all of five minutes for you, flitting away when you noticed that he dragged along a very…overwrought… suggestion wherever he went.
It was clear he was stressed seemingly all year round, nearly just as relaxed as your professor seemed to be.
But Mingyu was attractive. And you realise how much of a fool you’d sound if you admitted to anything other than such.
“It is. His willpower’s somehow even rarer,” you add. “Don’t know how he does it.”
“God, tell me about it. Forget getting his number, trying to have more than a three sentence exchange with him without some statistical nonsense involved is near impossible.” Her face has fallen, a tight little frown on her face as she irritates herself with some other memory.
Taking a glance down at her notes, you find the printed sheet littered with glitter gel pen ink lining the edges, doodles of stars and hearts and small anime characters next to p values and z scores.
There’s a distinct sound of a chair screeching, and it’s like a large GAME OVER sign is hanging above your head.
You jerk in your seat, like you could jump over the table and land in the emptying seat with some god-given stroke of luck, like the person already standing next to the chair wouldn’t hold a lifelong grudge against the insane girl with an unnatural acclimation to statistics.
Although, nothing was more unnatural than the way this TA seemed to know more than the professor. Or you were just really behind.
Alas, you don’t tumble over the table or kick back your chair, merely making a forceful motion in your seat, palms itching terribly as you watch the girl with her open laptop balanced in her arms move to take a seat.
You were preoccupied, hence you do not notice that the TA has also noticed you.
Suddenly, the girl looks startled as she’s told to wait.
“She’s been waiting nearly a week, I really hope you don’t mind,” you hear him say, voice strained as you turn to look at him. His hands are outstretched to motion towards you a few feet across from him.
For whatever reason, you had no thought that he might’ve remembered you. Something about his half asleep state when he’d spoken to you, perhaps he might’ve thought he dreamt it. Or he’d just forgotten it altogether.
The girl glances at you, and her shoulders sag a little as she nods in formality.
“Thank you.”
It comes out of both of you, snapping to look at each other hardly a moment as you go back to smiling at the retreating student.
“You can come right after her,” he reassures, his own upturned mouth tired and fading.
Never have you felt more awkward trying to come around the elongated student tables.
You pause at first, staring at the table in front of you like it was worth trying to climb over or even crawl under it to get to the desk. Another moment of eye contact as he stares at your unmoving form with a blank look, and the heat pools your skin.
Staggering for a moment, you end up moving past your chair and walking the way round anyway, the screeching of the chairs only nurturing the existing budding humiliation for no apparent reason.
It only gets worse when you sit across from him finally, backside barely touching the plastic before realising you’d forgotten your bag in your seat.
Mid smile in a timid greeting when you make a sound resembling something of an “Oh!” as you spring back up immediately. It’s easier to reach for your bag over the table you were sitting on, reaching across to grab it off your vacated seat.
The girl you were sitting next to just before makes a motion like she’s trying to help and you have to remind yourself to smile at her as you retreat.
Mingyu has the very beginnings of an amused expression on his face once you’ve finally made yourself comfortable across from him, clearing your throat just for something to do.
“Right. How can I help you?”
Pulling out your printed assignment, you bring out the sheets of stapled paper to the centre of the table, writing facing him.
One look at the sparse format of the cover page, he blows a full mouth of air at the sight of recognition. Without you having to say a thing, he flicks to the very last page, finding the rubric printed on a separate page.
“It’s a 37,” you inform him like he couldn’t see the bold 37/100 in the bottom Total cell.
“Do you think you deserved a better grade?” he asks. It would have sounded direct, an accusation even. But he asks with an intonation of genuinity, like he actually wanted to know.
It stumps you regardless.
“Well…I know I can do better, at least,” you decide to answer.
“You’re here, which means you’re at least willing to try. That’s a start,” he murmurs. His eyes are laser focused on the sheet beneath him, holding it open as his eyes move faster across the page than you can keep up with. Somehow talking to you while taking in the words on the paper.
“I remember marking this,” he says, looking up to address you. “Your concepts are nearly there, but your structure and presentation was off.”
“You marked them?”
He raises his brow, “I hope that wasn’t an accusation. I need to stick to the rubric.”
“I thought the professor marked the lab reports.”
“He’s…supposed to.” There’s a forced reservedness in his voice. “I mark them and he puts in his comments if he has any. But I’m not sure you’d fare any better than this if it was him behind that pen either.”
Every question that floated in memorisation, from the form and structure, to the nitty gritties of the data presentation, all evaporate as you realise you’re at a loss for words.
Even more embarrassingly, you feel tears prick the back of your eyes. You don’t have an explanation, but it’s somehow easier to feel helpless in front of the man that’s meant to help you. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”
“That’s alright,” he says as reassurance, though it sounds awfully rehearsed. Like he has to say it everyday. “We’ll work through it.”
He lets out a big sigh, adjusting in his chair and running a hand through his hair. The motion has you noticing the dishevelled nature of the mop on his head, un-uniformed and sticking out at certain places, yet still somehow cohesive with his look. His shoulders are straight and taut, fingers working as they fiddle and flick the pen in his hand.
Despite it all, his shirt is ruffled and creased, unbuttoned at the first couple steps. The buttons are misaligned, one side of his collar higher on his neck than the other. It takes an effort to not reach over and fix it for him.
“Lab reports can be quite tricky if you aren’t sure what you’re doing. Did you refer to the tutorial?”
You mean the one that did nothing to help? “Yes.”
“You got those bits right, format and whatnot. But—”
“It was a lump of writing about subheadings and word counts,” you say plainly.
Mingyu lips are in a tight line. “Well, yes, but it helps—”
“I know the results are supposed to go in the results section. I don’t need a PDF to tell me that,” you cut him off. Your voice is reserved, and you hope it comes off as a point across and not a complaint. Although it was a complaint. “I want to know why the entire section was ruled off as incorrect when we were never properly taught how to write it in the first place.”
“Dr. Cho—”
“Is no help.”
“I understand—”
“He can’t even mark his own papers. I’m quite sure that’s not in your job description. It’s supposed to be him here. Not you.”
It’s silent. There was nothing in your voice that suggested you wished to pick a fight, on the contrary, quite calm and matter of fact. Mingyu’s fingernails are going white as his grip on his pen and paper grow stronger.
“And yet, we continue to show up. Because we do what we must.” He raises his head in control, a small smile on his face, eyebrows unnaturally raised. “And, better that I’m here rather than no one at all. I can help you too.”
Help, he did.
Mingyu had made it quite clear his time with you was limited, but by the end of the near 25 minute session, nearly every inch of your printed assignment was covered in a rainbow of notes and corrections, additional papers and post-it notes pasted on the back as you remain careful to not lose them as you slip the stack in your bag.
You only remember when you spot the segregated file of papers in your bag.
“I almost forgot,” you say, slipping the files and tidbits out and in front of him.
“Where did you find this?” he asks sharply, eyes widening as sees the familiar blue.
“You left them at the desk of the lecture hall last week,” you say, before quickly adding, “There was a class right after you left. I took them off the professor’s hands before they got lost. Thought it might be important.”
“I’ve been looking all over for these,” he says as he goes through the pages and files. Random sticky tabs and highlighted regions across the pages. The leather strap watch with the broken clock face remains on top, and he picks it up. He looks up to you with wide, sparkling eyes and a smile that feels genuine. “Thank you.”
You flush for some reason, “O–of course, couldn’t just leave them there.”
Pausing, you wonder if you should make the next comment, the words tumbling out before you can make a decision. “Maybe don’t run out of rooms still half asleep.”
By the grace of God, he laughs, “No, you’re right. I should be careful.”
It isn’t till you’re pushing yourself out of your chair that he continues. “You can come in at 3:30 tomorrow.”
“Pardon?”
He’s stood up as well. “I have a free thirty minutes before office hours formally start. I can help you out a little more without the crowd.”
Feet planted on the ground, there’s not much you can do but stare. “Um, sure. I can come in a little early.”
He nods casually, “Thanks again for the papers. And the watch.”
You smile, “No problem.”
Thursday
True to your punctual nature, you make yourself known at exactly 3:29 PM.
Mingyu is at the desk, conscious and on the phone, eyes closed as he rests his face on his fist.
“I don’t know if I can make time for that—no, I understand, sir,”
Another pause as the noise from his speakers fill his ears, his rubbing over his face a little harsher than you doubt he’s entirely comfortable with.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
His phone hits the table with a heartbreaking thud, both hands covering his face as he presses the heels of his hands to his eyes.
“Light on your feet or something? I can never tell when you come in,” he startles when he notices you.
Sheepish smile on your face, you move to sit down. “Sorry.”
You know it’s invasive, and you also know you might be asking him to break some unknown university code of conduct, but curiosity takes charge as you ask a casual question. “Important call?”
“Uh, yeah, um, just work stuff,” he states, shaking his head swiftly like he’s trying to shake the thought out of his mind.
There’s a pause while you're slipping your papers and laptop out of your bag, during which he seems to have decided to divulge a little more.
“It was Dr. Cho. More stuff for me to do,” he says. “As always.”
“Does he do anything other than show up to class?” you ask through a snort.
“Of course he does. He cusses out every article he doesn’t agree with, is anything but objective and…the occasional relay of blatant misinformation.”
For the record, you’d never really heard Mingyu speak at all for the months he’d been TA-ing for the semester. It was small whispers of choice words in a vague voice, the distant murmur as he exchanged with the professor too far for you to hear.
The voice of the seemingly quiet and diligent TA was never known to you, not until yesterday as he explained statistical models and the flaws of your data presentation.
Passionately too. Incredulous for a discipline so dry and unapproachable.
That being said, something about the grit in his voice as he positively sneered through his teeth, badmouthing his professor—it was something you couldn’t quite believe he was capable of.
“I’m sorry you have to put up with him.”
Once again, by whatever stone of tolerance the universe bestowed in his heart, you watch him sigh and smile, “Anything for that recommendation. And the pay too, I suppose. Besides, he’s done a lot for the area, can’t discredit him entirely.”
With your eyebrows raised, he seems to catch your expression. He pants out a laugh, and your stomach lurches as you watch it reach his eyes, teeth on display, a lurch in his chest; a true laugh.
Raising his hands in surrender, he responds, “I’m stuck.”
There’s nothing you can do to stop the smile that reaches your own face, turning your laptop screen towards him with the JASP software display. “I am too. Help.”
Help, he does.
Monday
Mingyu ended up giving you an entire hour on that Thursday.
The thirty minutes before office hours began soared by like they were nothing, and you were ready to take your leave the minute students began to scatter in as the clock hit a swift four. Except he kept going, another 30 minutes in deep concentration as he retaught you nearly everything from scratch.
Perhaps his proven determination to ensure you don’t tragically fail is what prompted you to do this, standing at the till of your regular coffee shop as you ask, “Make that two, please.”
It might also be important to mention the 7:30 AM on the dial on a bright Monday morning as you walked into your slightly less dreaded Statistics in Psychological Research class, knowing there would only be one other person insane enough to get to the lecture hall this early.
Something isn’t right.
Mingyu is in a position all too familiar to you and everyone else who shares this class, hunched over something or the other in deep focus. The sun pours in through the lifted blinds, the lights of the class turned off as natural light does more than enough of the job.
It also shows you a blaring hot pink post-it note on his face, all too familiar to a previous interaction you’ve had with him.
He notices you before you need to announce yourself, brows separating as he recognises you in the doorway. “‘Morning!”
“...Morning.”
“You’re early,” he comments, straightening his back with a hand behind him for support as you approach.
“Figured we both needed this,” you hand him a tray with his cup of coffee, eyes still trained on his lower cheek with the paper stuck to it. “It’s a latte with no sugar, but I added a couple packets on the side anyway. Just in case.”
“O–oh, thank you. And you’re right I did need this.”
Now that you’re closer, the scrawled writing on the post-it note is clearer.
To Do:
Call mom
Shoot myself
“You, um—” It’s alarmingly difficult for you to say it, despite the words being so simple. Hey! You got a lil’ something on your face.
But all you do is dumbly point to your own cheek, eyes trained on the loud piece of paper that tells more than he might like the world to know.
There’s a loud slap of his hand on his own cheek as he crumples the paper in his hands, bringing it forward to see. “For fuck’s sake.”
“It’s okay! I wanna…shoot myself too sometimes.”
What the fuck?
“I mean!” you correct louder than you anticipated, before covering with a laugh. “It’s okay, it happens. Good thing I caught it before someone else did.”
It’s all the more petrifying when your voice echoes across the blatantly empty lecture hall, reverberating like it was a punishment for you and your horrid lack of volume control. Meeting his eyes feels like a sin right now, so you keep them downcast and pray he doesn’t try to sabotage your education.
“Good thing it was just you. Yeah.”
Just you.
“Anyways, I think I’m done with prepping for class. Do you wanna squeeze in twenty minutes of ANOVA?”
“Have you seen the time?”
“Not a morning person?”
“Nope!”
“And yet it’s 7:40 on a Monday morning and you’re absurdly early.” His brows are raised as he pulls around the professor's chair to bring it to you.
“Do you want the coffee or not?” you ask, watching as he drags another chair for himself.
The both of you sit away from the professors table, coffees in hand as you watch Mingyu run a hand through his hair.
He gives you a crooked grin,“I apologise.”
“To be fair,” he continues. “I’m not much of a morning person either.”
You narrow your eyes the slightest bit as Mingyu takes a sip of his unsweetened coffee, “I’m starting to think no money’s worth this job.”
Mingyu snorts, coffee suspended in his full cheeks. He swallows with much difficulty before answering, “You’re right. Not sure why I’m still here either. I could get an offer from another professor.”
“And that isn’t happening because…?”
Elbows on his knees, Mingyu swirls his capless coffee cup, the beige liquid moving in a growing tornado. “I like Dr. Cho.”
“You—”
“I know,” he laughs loud, a deep, echoing sound that shakes in your ears. “I know. I sound like a lunatic.”
“I don’t know about lunacy, but insanity can have its reasons.”
“Another would argue that insanity was the very absence of reason.”
“Don’t get smart with me.”
“Excuse me for doing my job.”
He takes another sip of his coffee, and you ask again, “No, but really. I can’t imagine this man having too many redeeming qualities as an educator.”
Mingyu lifts his chin as he presses his lips together. “When I was in my first year, there was this other class I had where we had to write a lab report for the first time.”
“PSYCH101?”
“That’s the one. I’d never written one before, but I liked statistics enough to do a little more digging than what the assignment called for. I ended up finding one of Dr. Cho’s studies, read the entire thing, word for word. I was up all night reading nearly everything he’d published, some of ‘em before any of us were even born.”
“Oh. So you’re a fan.”
“Everyone tells you to never meet your idols,” he snickers. “He’s done amazing things, but I guess he pays for it with his flawed personality.”
“I’m sorry it had to be you,” you half joke.
Mingyu looks at you sheepishly, “That might also be my own fault.”
“Don’t tell me you offered.”
“I might as well have. All my assignments referenced his work the most. I was always talking to him about upcoming research after class, and it was like he was a different person. Forget differing opinions, some of what he was saying was just…plain incorrect. He welcomed the argument though, and I couldn’t—can’t—stand listening to someone spew nonsense when I know it’s not true. He was always emailing me extra resources which…I’m pretty sure he isn’t supposed to do. Only reason I did so well in his class was because I taught myself.”
He sighs a loud sigh, straightening his back, “I guess he liked me more than I thought, because next thing I know I’m getting a call over the summer telling me I have a job.”
“Did he…have a TA when you were in his class?”
“Four.”
“Four?!”
“Two at a time. All of ‘em quit at some point. Said they didn’t want the recommendation or the pay.”
“Would he…not give you a recommendation anyway? You said he liked you.”
Mingyu shakes his head solemnly, “He’s a tough cookie, everyone in the field knows that. If you’ve impressed him, you’ve impressed everyone.”
You take a moment to really absorb everything you’ve just learned. “That’s a sucky position you’re in.”
“Tell me about it. But it’s okay. Three—three and a half more months to go? This isn’t even the worst of it, I’m just dreading study week when I’m gonna have to handle all the crying.”
You wince as he mentions something even remotely close to exam season, still barely at a stage where you can accept you’d be alright with this class.
“I know you’re not nearly as qualified or experienced as him, but I think you could take over his class.”
“Ever heard of barriers to entry? I’d be ruined if I wanted a career in this.”
You roll your eyes playfully, “All I’m saying is I’ve learned more from you in barely a couple hours combined than the last two months I’ve spent cursing this very lecture hall.”
If you weren’t lying to yourself, you could’ve sworn you saw a blush creep up his face, and paired with his shy laugh and hand at the back of his neck, you can’t help but bite back your own smile.
“If I can help you then it’s worth losing myself.”
Your heart is in your fucking throat.
“I’m glad when students tell me that,” he continues, utterly oblivious to the landslide happening in your digestive tract. “Makes me feel like I’m doing something right.”
“You’re—” you swallow thickly because you sound like a toad. “You’re doing more than just something right. You’re saving us therapy and an extra semester.”
He laughs at that, and you wish he’d let you breathe.
“Feels like I’m doing something wrong sometimes,” he huffs. “My friend’s a TA too and he’s got himself a girlfriend on top of everything else he’s got going on.”
He goes on, “Do you know how many times I need to ask people to quit twirling their hair? To look at the page and not my face? Asking for my number, I have an email for a reason, for fuck’s sake—”
Mingyu is cut off because you’re laughing, hand to mouth as your shoulders shake through your sniggering. “W–what?”
“I’m sorry,” you hiccup. “It’s just…It sounds like you don’t know what you look like.”
“What’s wrong with how I look?” he frowns.
“Nothing!” you exclaim. “But that’s the problem isn’t it.”
Mingyu doesn’t seem to buy it, even through your coaxing as you attempt to explain to him that he is, in fact, desirable.
“Can’t possibly be enough to distract people,” he huffs in earnest, still hung up on the students he can’t get through to.
“Majority of the class would beg to differ.”
There’s a pause as he registers what you imply.
After a few moments, he drops his head, opening his mouth, “Would… you also—”
There’s a loud creak of the door as you hear the immediate noises of shuffling feet and chattering mouths, as low and tired as they sounded. Turning back to look at Mingyu, he’s already jumped out of his seat, wrist to face as he checks the time on the same leather strap watch you returned.
“That’s our cue,” you breathe, pushing your chair back behind the professor’s desk as you manoeuvre around Mingyu who’s suddenly frantic.
Of course you realise there’s people other than just the two of you in the room, heightened in seats that are designed to ensure they can absorb every detail that goes on right where you stand in the front of the room.
But you feel the soft of Mingyu’s shirt over his wrist as you give him a gentle squeeze despite it all, barely enough pressure. Half your index finger brushes the skin of his hand, just enough to register how cold your fingertips are and how warm his body is.
“Relax,” you whisper. “You’ll be better off without all the panic.”
You don’t see his face as you brush past him and up to your seat, looking up to see him disappear somewhere in the corner hunched over another stack of papers. The next time you see Mingyu’s face is when the professor arrives and has begun his regularly scheduled tomfoolery, and realise all the age that can accumulate in the span of five minutes.
Thursday
Midterm season is nothing you’ve ever really had to worry about.
Something about the halfway point did make it obvious that the clock was ticking, but danger was far enough away to prevent the ultimate breakdowns reserved for the peak seasons.
Except this class isn’t ordinary, and it’s all you’re able to worry about all semester. And as Dr. Cho in his Thrasher vest announces the date for the in class midterm, the glass once half empty, suddenly looks very half full.
“I’m not ready.”
“You’re more ready than anyone else in class.”
“How do you know that?”
Mingyu stares at you blankly, “If I don’t know that, then who else does?”
You have tears in your eyes, which is embarrassing enough since this is the second time you’ve teared up in front of him, but also because you’re in a library following Mingyu around like a lost duck because he insists on putting the books he borrowed back onto the shelves himself after registering the return.
“But I don’t feel like I’m ready,” you whine, turning the corner as he searches for the last spot to place his final book.
“You’ll realise just how ready you are when all those hieroglyphs on the page start to make sense to you,” he grunts the last bit out as he reaches on his tippy toes to shove the book back up.
Dusting his hands off, he adjusts his shirt before turning to you, “You only feel that way because I’ve been giving you harder problems to work on. You’re past the level you need to be at right now. Trust me, you’re more than prepared.”
“But—”
“Listen,” he waves to the librarian as you both leave the library, your eyes still glistening as you fiddle with your sleeves. “It’s only the midterm—”
“Only the—”
“If this goes wrong, I’m just gonna have to work you harder for the real thing. Even though I know it won’t go wrong because I said so.”
You fall into silence as he walks you towards the coffee shop across the courtyard.
“I’m assuming…” you start.
“Hm?” he looks over to you.
“I’m assuming you can’t hint at what’s on the paper.”
Mingyu barks out a laugh of disbelief, “You assume correct. I’m not going through hell with this job just to lose it because of a paper leak.”
“But it’s just the midterm,” you mumble, not even close to remotely audible.
“What did you say?” Mingyu smirks.
“Nothing,” you huff.
“You know, I’m a little offended you don’t trust me.”
“Who said I didn’t.”
“Well then, stop being such a worrywart.”
There must be something written on your face, because as you pass Mingyu standing at the door he keeps open for you, entering into the coffee shop with fallen shoulders, he seems to change his mind.
He brings you a coffee, sits you down, and gives you something else you need. “I made the paper. Every question. And I taught you. Every concept. So I definitely know you’re gonna be fine.”
In that moment, with the large glass walls of the warm coffee shop, the afternoon sun comfortably resting on every last object of the room, you don’t see it illuminate anything other than the man before you.
Perhaps you're being dramatic at the revelation, but you don’t take anything into account as you note Mingyu’s eyes and how they sparkle like they were gifted from the centre of a flaming volcano, brown and polished more than any jewel or stone you’d ever seen. Reaching out to touch him, you know you’d feel nothing but smooth stone, the indentations only possible by a being beyond what you could comprehend.
He’d given you more than just reassurance, and at times, his timing makes it feel like he was sent from the heavens itself, just for you.
You sniffle.
His hands brush over yours as he hands you a napkin, and even more so, cover your own as he takes your freezing fingertips into his own palm, the contact burning you like hot coal.
You know he’s real. And you don’t know why quite just yet, but that reassurance is enough to give you calm.
Monday
You were alright, but it seems that Mingyu seemed to disintegrate right after he was done reassuring you to the moon and Saturn and Jupiter and back.
It’s midterm day, and as always on every Monday morning, you enter the empty lecture hall with two warm coffees in your hand, ready for whatever shitshow you’d have to perform for today.
It seems Mingyu must defect from at least one regular string of behaviour to remain as Mingyu, who on this occasion, stands before you in a baby blue polo sweater.
Except you only know that because you can see the unique collar, but it might also be important that his back is turned towards you.
“Morning, champ,” he gruffs, nothing encouraging about his voice in the slightest.
Your breath hitches when you finally see his face, eyes sunken in and face pale. His lips are chapped and peeling, eyes half closed.��
“Why’re you looking at me like that, why has everyone been looking at me like that?” he huffs in one long, rapid question.
“Um, I mean,” you stare at his shirt that’s backwards. And inside out. “I can’t tell if that’s a choice or a mistake.”
Looking down at his front, he looks back up, “What?”
“Your collar is…not at your collar, Mingyu. And your shirt’s inside out.”
Hand at his nape, he reaches his fingers down and finds the unmistakable starched planes of his collar, eyes closing at the realisation. He’s immediately pulling his arms out of the shirt with his eyes still closed like it’d all disappear if he keeps them like that.
“Wait!” you exclaim before he strips entirely, scrambling to put your coffees down to push him out of the room towards the restrooms. “Do you wanna strip for the CCTVs?”
You only hear him sigh as he moves out and into the hall, doors closed behind him.
You’ve nearly forgotten about the midterm at this point, your concern now growing in a completely different direction. By the time Mingyu returns, he’s blabbing about wondering why everyone he ran into since he left home was giving him the strangest looks, and then something about you always swooping in to save him before the real bout of disaster strikes.
It’s hard for you to listen to him when you’re more worried about him passing out, his face doing him no favours to reassure you that he wasn’t a breathing corpse.
“Mingyu…did you sleep at all?”
“Hm?” His eyes are glazed over and unfocused.
“Sleep? Rest?”
“Oh,” he frowns. “Not really. I had emails coming in all night.”
“And you were replying?”
“It's the midterm today,” he responds flatly, like it should’ve been enough explanation.
You almost don’t believe him. “Doesn’t mean you stay up to answer something that should’ve been cleared out beforehand!”
“Couldn’t just leave them to fend for themselves,” he dramatises.
“Yes, you could!” Your voice comes out louder than you expected, eyes wide as you realise what he’s doing to himself. “You barely look human and it’s only the midterm.”
“What’re you trying to say?”
“I don’t know if this job is really worth as much as you think it is.”
Mingyu’s jaw is clenched, fists tight as he releases them to grip paper weight on the desk, knuckles white. “I can’t get anywhere if I don’t—”
“Mingyu, please. This isn’t good for you.”
He says your name. Declarative, almost like a warning. “If you think this job isn’t worth it then you just don’t know.”
“Mingyu—”
“No, you don’t, because I’ve seen how good of a job I’ve been doing.”
“You have, you’ve been amazing but—”
Mingyu’s own voice is raised, a hard impenetrable floor to the words he spills. “Then what’s the problem?”
“Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? You look like a corpse!”
And then he’s getting out of his chair with so much force it almost knocks it backwards, “Why on earth do you care so much? So what if I look like a corpse, if I‘m doing my job?”
It might’ve been better if he knocked the chair right into you, your breath dissipating in your chest like it never existed. His face is morphed in an expression of exasperation your anxieties fear the most, every line on his face committed to irritation and anger.
Why on earth do you care so much?
Right. Why do you?
“Are you asking me that?”
“What?”
“Are you asking me why I care?”
Mingyu only sighs, shoulders dropping and eyes closed. Like so many times before, you watch run a hand through his hair, except this time he yanks on the strands harder than ever before.
His eyes are bloodshot.
“I have to get the exam pack.”
Marching out the door in front of your own eyes, you’re left with a feeling that’s right in the back of your throat, curling and whirling into something you wish you could hack and gag out. Gripping the corner of the professor’s desk, you feel the peeling wood cut into your skin.
There’s a draft, the delayed slam of the door has only hit its wind now, a delayed reaction. It’s like it registers in your mind as you feel strands of your hair shift, the clarity that comes with it.
Delusive. Chimeric. Cruel.
Everything you’d subjected upon yourself. A whimsical fantasy between pages of logic and numbers, a story that simply didn’t fit where the laws wouldn’t allow it.
The null hypothesis of your most elaborate nightmares.
Monday
Your favourite commonplace box, where your mother once placed all her most prized jewels, had a finicky latch.
It wasn’t broken, simply worn in from years of opening and closing. It took a few tries to get it shut. Simply pressing down with pressure didn’t work; you had to open it again, press down on the individual elements of the latch and then try again.
You were never satisfied until you heard the distinct click of the latch fixing itself, the box closed and ready for you to hook your lock through.
Earlier on in your undergraduate career, you remember a professor talking about the effects of external factors on the mind, how they can sometimes cause it to ‘shut down’ when overwhelmed or stressed.
It’s happened to you on many a occasion; like when you stayed up too late on a school night to watch a documentary about the Stanford prison experiment, or when you’d neglect food or water on busier days, or when you’d stop paying attention in class because you were too preoccupied thinking about Taco Tuesday.
Regardless, you’d found a way to recognise when your brain would fall into some strange kahoots with daydreams, or whatever was bothering you, and learned ways to give yourself a reset.
Pressuring and forcing the attention wouldn’t work, just like how the latch wouldn’t fit when you’d do the same with your beloved old box. So you’d take a walk, drink something cold, spray yourself with a garden hose, or even take a nap altogether. Opening yourself up, so the latch can finally click.
On the morning of your midterm, when you’d ensured your brain was in optimal condition for the exam you knew would be one of the worse ones you’ll have to take, you were sure the only external force that could ruin your vibe was from God himself.
Having been so preoccupied with your mind and its functions, you’d seemed to have forgotten where your heart had wandered off to.
Somebody else might consider it a minor disagreement; an anxious squabble if you will. But your breakfast in your throat was enough reason to deem what happened that morning much more than that. At least for you.
“Pass it on, please…pass it on, please.”
The sound of his voice is tectonic. Rattling in your head like a superior force had slammed into your skull like a padded hammer to a gong.
You hated it. You hated everything. You hated yourself. And as the midterm paper reaches you with your pen in your clawed fingers, the first three questions already making perfect sense, you realise you hated Kim Mingyu the most.
That was a lie. You were lying to yourself, yet again.
Because it was quite the opposite. You couldn’t hate him.
As you drift past every question of conditional experiments and screenshots of data and tables on a software, you hardly remember what you circle and what you don’t. Hardly remember what words you picked for the short answers and labels. You hardly remember taking the steps down from your seat to the front of the room, where the professor sat scrolling through his Skateboarders [!MEN ONLY!] facebook group, placing your paper down and leaving the classroom.
Throughout your years of living, you’d learned what you needed to get your brain out of its clouded muffle, to refocus when you needed it.
Everything. You tried everything.
But on that day, when it mattered most, your latch never clicked.
It’s Wednesday.
You order lunch from the Italian place a few streets down. Ravioli; it’s safe and you know you’ll like it.
Savouring it is easy in front of another true crime show. You pull a lone soft drink from your fridge, one that your friend left weeks ago. It tastes just as bad as the last time you tasted it from someone else’s cup, but you drink it anyway, the empty can now in your trash.
It’s 3:30 PM, and you sit at your desk. It’s strange. It feels like you’re missing something, which in ways, you are. But as you pull your laptop from your nightstand instead of out of your bag, you slow your movements.
The papers are the same. But you read them anyway.
Parameter estimation: Make inferences on characteristics of the population, including distributions of the variables and the effect of one variable over another.
It’s accursed the way the universe won’t let you live.
There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue, estimation cannot be perfect.
Estimation cannot be perfect.
[_]
It’s Thursday
Class. Eat. Drink. Work.
Hypothesis testing: Determine whether null hypothesis is rejected or not after data observation.
There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue, no null hypothesis in bayesian approach!!
[_]
It’s Friday
Eat. Drink. Work.
Latent means to have meaning but is yet to be manifested. The greek letters are placeholder values for values yet unknown.
There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue; values that you will find out
[_]
It’s Saturday
Eat. Drink. Work.
P(A|B) = [P(B|A)P(A)
——————
P(B)
There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue;
it gets less complicated
promise :/
[_]
It’s Sunday.
Eat. Drink. Work.
The page is blurry. Your eyes hurt.
There’s a scribble in the corner in a dark blue;
you’ve got this!!! < 3
You give up.
It’s Monday.
8:14 AM.
You barely glance at the front of the room; swift turn to the left and right up the steps. Dr. Cho’s outfit almost goes unnoticed by you, tamer than most. Bright Barbie pink with large polka dots, untucked into too tight white jeans. His crocs are sparkly, at least that’s what the twinkle from up here looks like.
He’s insulting another author, the man’s ProQuest journal article open for the world to see like a mediaeval scandal.
There’s another person next to the whiteboards, back to the wall, hands clasped in front of him. His hair is messy, shooting lasers into the carpet as he rocks the slightest bit, listening to the professor rip this author to shreds.
An hour later, you’re staring into the JASP software like it was written in a different language.
Glancing next to you, the boy in the spongebob hoodie is playing sharkboy and lavagirl by himself. On your other side, the girl has the same thing as you open on her laptop, her pen occupied with drawing about a hundred tiny gojos on a bright pink sticky note.
Bright pink sticky note.
You snap your gaze back to your screen quickly after that.
9:58 AM. You start packing up, shoving everything into your bag.
Dr. Cho doesn’t even notice you slip out of the room, hardly a minute to the end of the lecture.
In the hallway, you take your first real breath in two hours.
It’s Tuesday.
You’ve come down with something, head heavy as you feel yourself burn up. Skipping class is easy when you sleep through your alarm and every phone call from a friend asking where you are.
They drop by, armed with medicine and soup. You almost feel better.
It’s silent after they leave, and you realise in that moment how much you hate it.
Opening your laptop for the first time in over 24 hours, you turn on a random podcast to play in the background, needing something to fill the air before you lose it entirely.
The screen lands right where you left on the incredulous data presentation, unsolved tutorial paper crumpled between the screen and keyboard like a wilted leaf.
Hot, scalding tears sting your eyeballs when you realise there was nowhere to turn to.
It’s Wednesday.
After a long day of doing nothing, still sick from whatever plagued your body, you go to bed earlier than usual.
It’s Thursday.
Walking out of class, your mind is empty. You’re still sniffling, still achey, but better than you were. The shawl wrapped around you is warm, and your hood covers the cold tips of your ears.
This other class makes you feel better about yourself, especially when the content is digestible and so is the professor. The TA feels like a mere accessory in the room, something you’ve learned to appreciate.
With your gaze lowered, you only see midriffs as you walk out the classroom into the busy hallway.
It happens in an instant, the flash of a clenched hand as the owner walks by in quick stride. An unmistakable leather strap watch with a broken clock face on the wrist.
You freeze like you’ve been caught.
The hard bump of someone coming out the room behind you is welcomed, the annoyed “Hey!” knocking you back to earth before you could even exit the dimension.
You’re off centre. But it’s fine.
It’s Monday.
“Midterm results are out Tuesday morning. If you have any questions I’ll be sitting at office hours on Wednesday and Thursday, four to six in the evening. Or you could send me an email, either’s fine.”
Dr. Cho isn’t here. Something you only found out when the pitt sank in your stomach as Mingyu cleared his throat at the full hour.
You want to leave, not caring about how strange it’d look if you did. Not caring about how he would definitely notice if you did. You want him to shut up, to stop talking, for anything to halt the way his voice infiltrates your entire being, talking about things you don’t understand but more familiar than anything else.
Mingyu’s voice is hoarse, and you loathe the way you can tell the difference.
It’s Tuesday.
Midterm Results for Statistics in Psychological Research.
— 92/100
It’s Wednesday.
4:10 PM. It’s almost too much for you. Almost.
The screech of the door is loud, the slam of the handle’s rebound even more so. The room doesn’t so much as glance at you at the door, the half full seats preoccupied with more important things.
The front desk perks up immediately, eyes shooting towards the door for the nth time that day, like he was expecting someone that never seemed to show up.
It’s ironic, you think, how Mingyu never seemed to notice you walk into the room for the many months you’ve walked in just for him. And now, as you walk in fists clenched and jaw set, eyes wild and burning, he’s breaking away from a student to look at the door before you even come into view.
“Did you feel bad?” you spit.
“What?” he whispers. He seems to come around, glancing back before continuing, “Can we talk? Please.”
“Answer the question, Mingyu,” you snap. You don’t care there’s a confused student sitting right across from the both of you, his slot interrupted by your barge. “Did you feel so bad you had to give me something I didn’t earn?”
He’s stood up now, half confused. “Is this about the midterm—”
“I did not get a ninety two, I know I didn’t,” you grit. “Whatever happened before that stupid paper made sure I wouldn’t.”
Mingyu says your name and the sound makes you want to vomit. “What makes you think I’d do something like that?”
“I don’t know, maybe because I fucked up because of you?” you announce, louder than before.
The world disappeared, your tunnel vision pointed at Mingyu’s face that wears an expression you cannot even begin to read. The unbecoming tears in your eyes are of a type of unadulterated rage you’ve felt only a few times before. Your heart is going about a million miles a breath, everything else only triggering an added bout of infuriated tremble in the forefront of your emotions. Nothing makes sense.
Mingyu pushes back his chair in silence, stalking over to a large cupboard in the corner of the room. He shuffles around for a minute before returning.
There’s a packet being thrust into your fists when he reaches you. He does not meet your eyes.
A bright red 92/100 marks the front page.
“Here. It was all you, if you can’t believe me.”
It’s a careful mark, unmistakable lines and curves of the nine and the two.
Reality is slow to sink in, but for some reason it’s only making you angrier. The paper curls under the pressure of your fingertips. You don’t open the packet. You refuse to flick through the pages.
Because you know you’ve lost.
It’s Thursday. And it’s full of regret.
There’s a sickness in you, from that dreaded day, something beyond what affects your body temperature and your energy. It’s in your mind, flooding the nerves that swim through every crevice and cave of your brain, a physical venom that does the opposite of kill but also the opposite of letting you live.
There’s a feeling in you, that even if you were to open your mouth, unhinge your jaw, try to scream as loud as your throat would allow, there would be no sound. Something like a horrible dream, that you need to screw your eyes tight shut to fall out of. Except you aren’t waking up from this one.
In a coffee shop, where Mingyu held your hand in a reassurance you now bleed for, you were sure he was real. Real like some deiform image; too good to be true.
In your bed, dry tears on your face, midterm packet sifted through that showed you absolutely everything that you did right, thanks to him. He feels too real. Real like a cloud of obsidian that follows you everywhere, like the sad that’s been sleeping with you every night.
If there was a way to hate someone more than a human limit, you’ve crossed it with the resentment you’ve now fostered for yourself.
Barging into office hours like that, accusing him on a basis of nothing but your own dangerously stewed thoughts. If there was a hope of salvaged parts, you took a hammer to it in disregard; tearing it to ribbons that lay at your feet.
It’s Friday.
At least it was. It bled into Saturday before you realised the 3:23 AM on the dial.
Two weeks of no help and you already feel lightyears behind. The hour is getting to you, and you feel the frustration pool into tears, that turn into full fledged sobs. You’re crying over Bayesian inference and it’s somehow more pressing than any other emotion you’ve ever felt.
Impossible numbers on your data sheets taunt you, not a single reference to if it was a button you clicked wrong or if you were playing a fool’s game altogether.
Ding! You pick up your phone, the weight of it is enough gravity to pull you back to earth.
[Mingyu]: switch to bF10
[Mingyu]: you’ve been pulling numbers from bF01
It’s immediate the way your eyes dart towards your lit screen, clicking off tables to get to the drop down menu you need. And there on the left, two tiny buttons, one clicked on bF01.
With shaking fingers, you move your cursor to hover over the tiny bF10, anticipating. You click. It takes a moment for the numbers to change, but they do. The nominal values turn into something you can actually work with.
Something akin to a tut leaves you, hidden in the breath of another sob. It’s stupid, unreasonable, absurd. Your fingers hover over your phone, shaking as tears drop onto the screen, faster than before.
Do you not miss me?
Do you not want me around?
Talk to me
I miss you
Please talk to me
“I couldn’t—can’t—stand listening to someone spew nonsense when I know it’s not true.”
Mingyu is a product of his personality. You can only imagine he’s helped because he saw you struggling in class, heard from someone else, or perhaps, he just knew the very thing you’d make blunders out of.
The reasons come to you, that Mingyu is a product of his personality. Then why does it hurt? Why does it feel like the knife’s twisted a full 360, that despite the way you accused him of the thing that would strip him of everything he’s bruised himself for, he helps you. The very thing that caused this rift in the first place.
There’s a reason for that, and it is again, that Mingyu is a product of his personality.
It’s Saturday.
Perhaps you relied on your olfactory senses to remain calm, because you always knew you could count on a coffee shop to forever and always smell the same.
The universe seems to want to ruin that for you too.
“Latte, please,” you voice. “Iced.”
“We have a one plus one for the week! Would you like to receive another latte?” The lady taking your order looks no older than 17, a pep in her voice.
“Um, no thank you. Just one, please.”
She looks taken aback, a reasonable reaction to anyone turning down a free drink. But you couldn’t bring yourself to walk home with two cups in hand.
You’re plucking a napkin from the pickup counter when you hear his name.
“...that he manipulated her grade because they were hooking up.”
“He has time to hook up?”
“I remember hearing about that! She barged in during office hours and asked why he fixed her grade or something.”
“A ninety two? In that class? Oh, they were definitely fooling around with each other.”
“Whatever, at least we know he’ll entertain you if he likes you enough. I’m just glad those two are over so I can swoop in.”
There’s an eruption of giggles. You press your head down further.
“Unless he flirts in variables.”
“All is forgiven when you’re born with a face like that.”
Another explosion of giddy laughter, through which your drink is slid across the counter towards you, like it was waiting for you to hear the damning evidence before you could leave. You grab it anyway, grip tighter than usual.
Turning around, your eyes search, finding a group of people that sit in smiles and in various states of trust-falls.
There she is, the girl you sat with on the first day you attended office hours, the one with the glitter gel pen doodles on her notes and her blatant fawns over the TA you slipped under just as easily.
She locks eyes with you and her face falls, eyes widening the slightest bit in recognition.
Pressing your lips into a smile, you hope it doesn’t look as menacing as you feel. You don’t wait for a response before you walk out the large glass doors.
It’s Sunday.
It seems every sip of water you’ve taken during the week has been used up in all the tears you’ve seemed to be shedding. By the bucketload.
Alas, even blurry and puffy eyed, you pour over statistical formulas anyway, running on no energy and all antagonism. It’s another tutorial sheet left incomplete, a single question taking a pour that lasts in at least an hour of struggle.
Reading the same question for the nth time, your palms press into your temples as you stare lasers into the paper, like the revelation would come to you if you stared it down hard enough. It doesn’t make sense, the commands you’ve toggled on and off identical to the instructions on the page.
Hence the question begs why the data was coming out like someone pressed the ultimate on a number generator.
With a heat of unreasonable embarrassment, you find yourself checking your selection in one of the drop down menus, switching to bF01 and back just to see the difference. It does nothing to help, and you can’t help but feel a little relieved it wasn’t that particular snag.
The library is as silent as it could possibly be on a Sunday morning, near empty as you occupy the mostly vacant seats. The librarian is having her own day off, as you could swear she’s playing computer games behind the counter instead of actual work.
The only noise in the room is your own breathing, and that seems to be enough to mess with your concentration. You’re going cross eyed staring at the page for so long, the words doubling and disappearing before going back to normal.
Bayesian inference…z scores…null hypothesis…
Wait.
It’s like you can see it in front of your eyes right now, the scribble of someone else’s dark blue on your notes.
no null hypothesis in bayesian approach
Bayesian approaches don’t use null hypotheses. And z scores are in…
“Oh my god, this is a t test,” you whisper to yourself in disbelief. Immediately, you’re scrambling to shake your laptop out of its sleep, switching over to a t test to redo everything, following the instructions on the same data set.
And there it was…a clear 0.067 under the p value.
In a moment of questioning, you laugh out a breathy sound, the absurdity of it all becoming too real. T tests were the first thing you learned, the foundation to all your statistical knowledge. Coming so far, and it took you days to realise the instructions under a Bayesian approach were for a different realm entirely.
It was stupid of you. But in this difficult aftermath you can’t help but feel victorious. Laughing to yourself quietly in this empty library.
When the initial adrenaline fades and you’ve double, triple checked to ensure you were right, you can only stare at the tiny mail button in your shortcuts on the screen. It was clearly an error, one that was given out to nearly a hundred students.
The first step was clicking, your inbox coming to life as you drift towards the big blue button with the readily available NEW MAIL. So you click.
There’s an attached file in the email you draft.
The tutorial paper has titled t test instructions as a Bayesian approach. Just wanted to point it out and ask if I could receive a corrected version.
Regards, YN
It’s almost like you’re trying to remember how it feels like when you type an experimental m in the To bar. His name pops up immediately, email address typed out in full, full name clear on top as a regular contact.
You don’t need a suggestion to remember, his email came easier to you than your own.
But you don’t email him, backspacing till it’s empty once again.
Dr. Cho’s email sits in that place instead, a first for you.
SEND.
You don’t expect him to reply on a Sunday, in fact, you aren’t sure if he’s going to respond at all. You’ve already shut your laptop, half out of your seat in an attempt to pack up. You’re forced to consider.
Would it be terrible to go back and cc him as well?
A spiteful part of you might find joy in correcting him for a change. The rational part of you wants to actually finish the tutorial before tomorrow’s class when you’d have to tackle another beast for the rest of the week.
Sitting back down, you move without thinking. Your mind is still cooking up possibilities as you swing your screen open once again, still weighing as you click back into your inbox.
There’s a new email in your sent box after you’re done, a copy of the one you sent your professor, the same attachment and the same question; word for word. The only difference, a more familiar name in the address bar.
Before you can chicken out, you slam your laptop shut for the actual last time, shoving everything into your bag before the speeding thoughts can infiltrate your mind's barrier. You’re out the door before you know it, ready to be done with this.
You’re afraid if you put a hand to your stomach it’d be met with kicks and punches, especially with the way you feel the aggressive cartwheels slashing away at your insides. The butterflies are making it to the end of your food pipe, and you briefly wonder if you need to break into a sprint to make it to a safe throwing up zone. Your entire being jolts as you feel a buzz in your hands, a loud click that signifies a new email in your inbox.
Right there, in the middle of the sidewalk, you stop.
The grip you have on your phone is unyielding, your fingers beginning to hurt from the pressure. There’s no way to tell if you’re shaking or not, but you bring your phone to your face anyway. The screen flips on, a lone notification on the screen.
RE: Tutorial Error from Kim Mingyu
It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes since you sent that email, the library still in sight from where you stand. At the same time, it’s almost funny you expected any different from him.
The kicks and punches in your stomach halt, the cartwheels have calmed, the butterflies have fallen asleep. The grip on your phone has loosened, and it’s like every nerve in your body went from on fire to serenity in a whiplash inducing shift.
Clicking on the notification, the email opens.
Noted. I have another tutorial sheet for you if you want it. I’ll be in the room where office hours are held for the rest of the morning.
Kim Mingyu, T.A.
There was no way he didn’t have a softcopy he could send you in less than a minute, and you’re sure he knew you’d realise that too. You should scoff, be upset, roll your eyes.
But instead, you find your feet making a 180, turning around to go right back to where you came from. You walk, eyes still half trained on the email, reading and rereading as you walk back onto campus, towards the building you’d once considered a second home.
You walk, and walk and walk, in through the doors, up the stairs and then another set of them, you take a left and look up. The hallway is empty, the door on the right coming into view as you slow your steps significantly.
Closer and closer, you realise the light surrounding it is brighter than usual. The door is open, and you can see the empty rows of tables and chairs, set neatly against one another. It’s strange, you’ve never seen it wide open before.
Walking even closer, you can see the beginnings of the professor’s desk come into view, and it only takes you one more step forward.
Standing in the doorway now, you find yourself in the direct path of the sun that pours in through the open windows. It’s warm, but just enough to combat the cooling weather.
The desk up front is occupied, as it always is.
Mingyu is only in a t-shirt and trousers, glasses perched on his nose as he scrawls away on the paper in front of him. His laptop is turned on, screen facing the door where you stand, his inbox open and available even on the weekend.
It wasn’t that you were waiting for him to notice, but you found yourself inadvertently taking your time looking at him. Every other situation, you’d done your absolute best to avoid your eyes grazing over him at all costs, hardly drifting over his form before flitting away. You never did it on purpose, but it was more like you were unconsciously protecting yourself.
Like looking at him would only make the ache in your heart worse.
If that was the case, you would’ve been right. There’s a tug in your chest, and in that moment, it all comes flooding in like a gate destroyed.
Mingyu looks up and sees you in the doorway, standing immobile. He sets his pen down, taking his glasses off. There’s the smallest hint of a smile on his face as he greets you, “‘Morning.”
You take it as your cue to move forward, stepping foot into the patch of sun slowly. “‘Morning.”
You reach the desk, standing in front of him, the only thing blocking you being the littered table with files, papers and stationary; the trench between you both.
It’s so silent it tears at your insides, gripping the strap of your bag to have something to do.
“I, uh, double checked when I saw the email. You were right, nobody noticed in class either.” There’s an airiness in his voice, like he might be struggling just as much as you are right now.
He clears his throat when you don’t respond, looking back down at his workspace like he was looking for something. He finds a paper from some stack, handing it over to you.
“Thanks,” you hoarse. It’s the same tutorial you had, except the instructions had been crossed out, replaced by a list of handwritten instructions instead, detailed in their annotation. You recognise it, because of course you’d recognise his handwriting.
“I didn’t have time to print one out right now. I’ll probably send a corrected copy to everyone tonight,” he explains.
“That’s alright.” You look up, lips pressed together, eyebrows forced into a regular position on your face. Nodding, you thank him once again. “Thanks again. I’ll…get going.”
Every fibre in your body screams at you to turn back around, hollering profanities at your inability to deal with this. You’re already halfway to the door though, and your pride’s already deemed it too late.
Please stop me, please stop me, please stop me, please just say something and stop me—
There it is. Your name, from his mouth, in his beautiful voice.
Turning back around is the easiest thing you’ve ever done.
Mingyu has stood up from his seat, out from behind the desk. He looks like he wasn’t expecting you to turn back. “Can we talk?”
And then he’s pulling out the chair he was sitting on, presenting it like a piece offering. If you heard correctly, you could’ve sworn you heard his voice break the slightest bit when he pressed, “Please?”
So there you were, in a position all too familiar as you sit across from the man that’s haunted you for the past weeks, trying to keep your chest from falling in.
“I guess I should start with an apology,” he’s fidgeting with his own fingers. “I don’t need to give you excuses about stress or exhaustion because…”
He closes his eyes, trying to find the words. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you. You were only trying to help and I was too preoccupied with myself to notice. I’m sorry I spoke to you like that when you didn’t deserve it.”
For about the millionth time, you realise you’re tearing up again. He continues. “And then…right before the midterm too. You were right, I did feel horrible. But I swear that grade was all you, I didn’t touch those numbers.”
He really didn’t, because the papers he had thrust into your hands on that fateful day in this very room proved that you earned that mark. You wince regardless.
“I thought I could apologise before the exam started but I couldn’t find you, and then you were gone right after. I didn’t text or call because I was sure I’d fucked it all up.”
“I’m sorry too. For barging in in front of everyone and basically accusing you. I wasn’t thinking straight.” You look up from your lap, wet lashes and all. “I really hope you didn’t get into any trouble.”
“I–no, I didn’t.”
“Are you sure? Because—”
“I promise I didn’t.” He locked eyes with you when he said that, hoping you’d believe him. You nod slowly.
“It wasn’t even that bad, what you said,” you sniffled.
He scoffs at that, “I’d beg to differ.”
“I would’ve gotten over it,” you continue, bracing yourself to admit to something you’ve had trouble admitting to yourself. “I should’ve gotten over it. I don’t know why it hurt so much, why watching you walk out felt so horrible. But I haven’t been acting like normal ever since, and I’m sorry for stretching this whole fiasco out into something that didn’t need to turn into…this!”
“You were hurt because I hurt you.”
“People have said worse things to me. And you were practically a zombie, I should’ve just left it for another time. It was a little bit my fault too. But…yeah.”
There’s a silence as you try to remind yourself to breathe. You speak up again. “I just want us to go back to normal. I’ve missed you. Alot.”
“Me too. The go back to normal bit. And the…missed you bit.”
Mingyu’s half smiling when you look up, biting your lip hard as you try to keep a smile of your own at bay. “I’d thought if I gave up and admitted I was struggling that day, that’d be admitting defeat. That you’d think I…couldn’t do it.”
Why on earth do you care so much? It rings in your ears.
You sound light when you say it though, knowing now it wasn’t what he meant.“Since when are we on caring terms?”
Mingyu cringes. "We are. I am, at least, if you aren't anymore, which is fine. I care about you. A lot."
It’s hard to not let out a laugh. He looks half constipated as he tries to navigate his words.
“Oh well I’d hope you’d care, since you’re my TA and all.”
“Not in a TA way.”
“Tutor way.”
“Um.”
“Friend way? A human way?”
“No.”
You both know you’re being obtuse on purpose, and you aren’t sure why. Maybe you just like to watch him squirm.
“You know what?” he rasps.
“What?”
Your answer comes in the form of Mingyu lurching to grab the legs of your chair, pulling the wheels to crash into him where he sits. You’re not expecting it, the clashing legs causing you to swerve forward, hands on Mingyu’s lap.
And then his hand is on the back of your neck, and his lips placed on your own.
You’re stiff as a board, brain computing the fact that Mingyu is kissing you in a classroom.
It’s short, hardly a few moments before he pulls away. “Does that clear things up?”
There’s nothing you can do but blink at him, the reality of it all settles in. “Hm.”
He laughs at your half dazed state. It’s a purely instinctual part of you that speaks after this. “Maybe one more time. To make sure.”
Mingyu doesn’t even wait to laugh again as he wastes no time, putting his mouth on yours properly this time. There’s more of a drive in you this time, moving your mouth against his and he keeps your head close.
The ecstasy is slow but sure to build in your stomach. Mingyu is kissing you. Mingyu is sitting with you and kissing you so good you’re already half faint.
His mouth tastes like coffee and remnants of berry, a combination you can’t believe you could enjoy this much. Licking into his mouth, you let your tongue drag over his, like the tactile would convince you this wasn’t some too vivid fever dream.
He pulls away for a moment, but hardly so as his lips remain pressed onto yours.
“For the record,” he pants. “I love that you care. And I hope you’ll keep caring. Because I don’t think I can handle it if you walk away after this.”
Mouth back on his own, you decide there’s only one way to convince him you weren’t going anywhere without dragging him with you.
MINGYU'S APARTMENT IS CLEANER than you expected. You aren’t sure what you were expecting, perhaps more mad scientist than anything else. But the most you find is a mug and plate in the sink, and a moderately crowded study desk, which is to be expected.
Mingyu decided to abandon his work for the day to spend it with you, to which you contest that it was Sunday anyway. His response is making you change into something comfortable of his so you could laze on his couch.
Like you would run away if he didn’t, Mingyu keeps his arms around you in a tight hold, fingers curling around your shoulders as you lay on top of him. Your head rests directly over his heart, his cheek and lips taking turns to occupy the top of your head.
You fill him in on everything, and realise the most eventful weeks you’ve spent were actually quite uneventful in hindsight. He feels up your cheek and forehead when you tell him you got sick at one point, to which you have to reassure him it was either something going around or stress that you subjected on yourself.
“I went to a frat party,” Mingyu mumbles into your forehead. “For Halloween.”
The information has you shifting to look up at him in bewilderment, “You went to a frat party?”
He snorts, “Dressed up for it too.”
“Oh my god,” you voice in mild horror. “Do I wanna know?”
“Wonwoo and I matched,” he hums as he pulls out his phone, scrolling his gallery to look for pictures. “I was Mario, he was Luigi.”
“How adorable.”
He only gives you a look and shoves the phone in your face. By some grace of god they aren’t wearing moustaches, but the distinct red and green outfits are enough to give you enough recognition.
“Thing 1 and Thing 2 were also possible contenders,” he informs.
“That might’ve been a little better.”
“What’s wrong with Mario?” he asks sharply.
“Nothing. But I do hope you weren’t sporting an Italian accent throughout that.”
“I was,” he pushes. “A horrible one too.”
You give him the satisfaction of an eye roll.
“You could’ve gone as Peach. We could’ve matched.”
“I don’t know if I’d wanna wear any available Peach costumes during Halloween time.” You crinkle your nose as you think of all the racy costumes that unearth every October.
“Maybe in private,” he says with an insufferable smile on his face.
Placing your hands flat on his chest, you rest your chin and look up at him. “I’m not sure I want to interrupt whatever you two have going on.”
“Who?”
“You and Wonwoo, you’re practically married.”
Mingyu laughs out loud, and you can feel the rumble in his chest against your hands, his body moving against your own that’s stuck to him. “Not with whatever he has going on with his girl.”
“Oh right,” you frown in remembrance. “What happened to not understanding how he does it?”
“Hm?”
“He’s a TA too. Probably just as busy as you. You said you didn’t know how he could juggle a relationship and his job at the same time.”
His eyes spark in remembrance, pausing for a moment. “I may owe him an apology.”
“Do you?”
Mingyu frowns, “Actually no I don’t. I don’t think he and his lady are doing too well right now. He’s been insufferable lately.”
“Is it because of the TA-ing?”
“I never know with those two,” he sighs.
There’s silence once again, in the midst of which Mingyu leans over to kiss you a few times, soft and lingering. Like he’s trying to familiarise himself with the shape of your mouth, the tactile feeling of kissing you.
“Do you…know about us?” There’s hesitancy in the way you ask. But you can’t help but ask anyway.
Mingyu thinks for a moment, and it has your heart beating out of your chest. “I know that I want us to be concrete. That I wanna work around whatever life throws at us. You can decide what to call it, but I know I’m in it for the long run.”
“I’m glad you’re smarter than your husband,” you smile.
He only rolls his eyes, “He’s only good at one kind of chemistry.”
“D’you think they’ll be okay?”
“Oh yeah,” he assures. “They’re just going through a…rough patch.”
“Like we did?”
“If you’re asking me, I’d say they’re being a little more stupid about it.”
The snort that leaves you is unanimous with his own. He continues, “They’ll be okay though.”
“I hope so. I’d like to go on double dates with my boyfriend’s husband’s girlfriend.” You start giggling in the middle of your sentence, too ridiculous even for you to voice.
“This is getting weird,” Mingyu breathes.
You only hum against his mouth, “Do I have to take your husband's blessing before we can move forward?”
“For fuck’s sake.”
You’re both laughing again, a sound that comes from your stomachs, true and uncontrollable. For a moment, you can’t help but be conscious of how light you feel, how happy you feel with his scent infiltrating your nostrils, his presence known where his fingertips touch you.
“I did the sticky note thing again too,” Mingyu says into the silence, and there’s nothing you can do to stop the fit of giggles that erupt all over again.
“Said something worse this time,” he continues as you laugh into his chest. “Accept that you’ll die alone or some other shit like that.”
There’s comfort in this moment. In your giggles and in your tears, in his voice and in his affection. His lips are another sanctuary you’ve found, and perhaps even another way to make your dreaded latch click.
Nose nuzzled in his cheek, the feeling of his skin so soft against yours, fingers at his chin where a slight stubble grows, you relax in ways you cannot comprehend.
MINGYU'S LIPS BECOME A feeling you’ve grown dangerously accustomed to.
It isn’t that he has them on you too much, regardless of what an outsider might suggest; to you they simply aren’t on you enough.
The following Monday went as usual, for you anyway. You weren’t avoiding Mingyu this time, and you were grateful for it. It was two hours of following him with your eyes as he darted around the room. You could hardly constitute it as not paying attention when Dr. Cho was preoccupied with explaining every reason he hates JASP over SPSS, but also ultimately, hates them both.
You don’t even notice his loud outfit (overalls and a neon green sweater underneath), happy to watch Mingyu flit about and whisper incoherent explanations to students.
The tutorial paper is barely looked at by you, because you know your boyfriend will be happy to help you out later at his place.
You’re barely through the door that night when he gets a hold of you, tight grip across your waist as you’re catapulted into his arms, door slammed shut behind you.
Bag still on your shoulders and your shoes still on, Mingyu’s slammed his mouth onto yours before you can take a proper breath. You stumble, squealing through the kiss as you realise you aren’t escaping the iron grip he’s got on your face.
Somehow between it all, you manage to slip your bag off to let it drop to the floor of his doorway, shoes kicked off one after the other as he leads you inside, littering the way.
“You aren’t actually paying attention in class anyway,” he breathes against your mouth before kissing you again. “So why don’t you sit in the back where you don’t distract me.”
“Who says I’m not paying attention.” You open your as your back lands on the couch, looking at him as he looms overhead.
“You’re paying attention to me.”
“It was in my job description when I signed up for the girlfriend position.”
He’s all over you now, hands at your sides, mouth underneath your earlobes as he husks, “Was letting me take you in front of the entire class also a clause? Because if this goes on I might have to take up on that.”
If you didn’t know any better you would’ve assumed he’d been possessed, everything about his behaviour screaming the opposite of the well behaved, restrained man you’ve been accustomed to. The fact that he’s whispering directly into your ears isn’t helping either, a conspicuous shiver dragging across your spine.
It lands with precision, right at your core. You’re too hot to tell, but there isn’t a doubt you’ve begun to pool.
There’s a ding in the background.
He’s suckling underneath your ear, his hands roaming in ways that would smear your reputation altogether.
Another ding.
He’s reached your mouth once again, groping your right breast lightly. Like he’s testing the waters.
Ding.
Mingyu makes a noise of annoyance, the other hand trailing underneath your shirt.
His ringtone blares throughout the room, whoever the caller was having reached wit’s end.
“Gyu…” you whisper.
“Ignore it,” he growls. The ringing has stopped.
He ducks underneath to kiss at your stomach, lifting your shirt oh so slowly. He goes higher, and higher and higher, leaving a trail of kisses at the skin, taking deep breaths as he drags his mouth over your torso.
His phone begins to ring again.
Your head is spinning, your senses overcome. If you weren’t sure before, the air of wetness between your legs is definitely obvious now.
He brings a hand to your centre, pushing inwards at your jean clad core. You exhale sharply yet shakily.
The ringing stops.
Mingyu makes a gumbled sound that you can’t quite make out, too preoccupied with the way your shirt is now up past your bra, at which Mingyu has taken to leaving open mouthed kisses to your cleavage.
There’s a ding.
“Mingyu, I really think—”
His phone begins to ring again.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he curses, rearing his head like an interrupted animal, wet mouthed and bleary eyed. He looks at his buzzing phone on the floor in an accusatory glare, like he wants to chuck it out the window and go right back to burrowing into your chest.
“You should answer.”
He looks irritated as he takes his phone in his hands, and you find a flash of Dr. Cho’s name on the screen. “It’s eleven O’clock.”
“It might be important.”
“The last time he did this he asked where his peacock feather pen was,” he grunts as he silences his phone.
You laugh, running a soothing hand through Mingyu’s hair, a tiny attempt to calm him down. Pulling your shirt down, you attempt to sit up.
Mingyu makes a noise of denial, attempting to stick his face into your now clothed chest, knocking you back down, “Nooooo, I’m gonna ignore him.”
“He’s not going to leave you alone,” you sing quietly, running your nails across his scalp lightly, holding his head to your chest. You place your cheek on his head, playing with his ear.
As if to prove your point, Mingyu’s phone begins to ring again, and he groans at the prospect.
“Go on.”
He swipes to answer it. A loud sigh and then a tired, “Hello?”
His volume is bumped up enough for you to make out what’s being said on the other line. “Where have you been?”
“It’s nearly eleven, sir. I was in bed.”
“My flash drive won’t open up on my computer.”
You have to stifle a snort.
“Is it…plugged in?”
“Of course it is, I’m not an idiot.”
“Is it showing up on your files?”
“Disk…is not…formatted.”
“Erm, it might be corrupted.”
“How did that happen?”
“Did you download something off the internet onto it?”
“Hardly matters, I need the attendance sheet on it!”
Your fingers are massaging Mingyu’s temples as you feel him tense on top of you.
“Your attendance sheet is on the teacher’s portal,” Mingyu grits before adding, “sir.”
“...I have other things on there too.”
Mingyu exhales ever so quietly and you tighten your hold on him a smidge. “This sounds like something tech support could help with.”
“Why can’t you help?” he asks sharply.
“I…I don’t know how, sir.”
There’s a noise of indignation from the other end, and you can’t help but keep from laughing.
Mingyu sighs into the phone, this time doing nothing to hide it. “I’ll take it to tech support for you tomorrow. And I’ll send you a direct link for the attendance sheet for Monday and Tuesday’s classes.”
The line beeps shut. Mingyu brings the phone for you both to see the professor’s hung up as soon as the words left Mingyu’s mouth.
“Wow,” you whisper into the silence, the weight of Mingyu’s head heavier on your chest. “Not even a thank you.”
“Absent father behaviour,” Mingyu grumbles as he moves his face to burrow into your shirt.
It’s a bad joke, but you laugh anyway.
“Will I be an asshole if I say I’m not in the mood anymore?” he murmurs.
“Absolutely not. Everything sucked right back in the minute I heard his voice on the line.”
“Gross,” he comments, but he’s laughing too.
“Should we call it a night?” he asks, rearing his head.
Nodding, you rise with him. By the time you’ve reached the bedroom, you’ve already begun taking off your accessories, fiddling with your bracelet as you voice.
“I need a shower.”
Mingyu throws you a towel and a t-shirt, which you catch and move towards the bathroom. Halfway through the door, you sneak a look at him fiddling with his belt.
“Do you wanna come in too?”
Mingyu looks at you peering through the door frame. You’ve never seen anyone leap across the room as quickly as in that moment.
THE FOLLOWING DAYS WERE just as eventful as that phone call, Mingyu running around as the midterm low passed and the line creeped up towards finals season.
Perhaps it was better that you stopped attending office hours, because the room seems to become increasingly packed as the days progressed.
You only ever saw Mingyu in the wee hours of the night at his place, where he begged you to camp out till the end of the semester so he “doesn’t move to insanity”. It might even be better for you, going about your day as usual, without the usual added distraction of a partner.
Coming home to him was easier, where he could clear up your doubts while in ratty pyjamas and starfished across the bed, where you could find solace in Mingyu’s chest without prying eyes when the information became like filling an already stuffed junk drawer.
It was a Friday night, you’re alone at Mingyu’s place sitting cross legged on the floor. The table in front of you is pouring over the final question of this week’s tutorial paper, everything seemingly whizzing right past the top of your head.
Despite that, as Mingyu stumbles inside past eleven, you know you shouldn’t ask him for a thing.
Tired was a look on Mingyu you’d gotten quite used to, so you’ve learned to not comment and simply let him fall into the couch cushions with all his weight.
His face is parallel to yours as he closes his eyes with a light groan in greeting. Moving forward, you kiss the flutter of his eyelids softly, down to the apple of his cheeks, the tip of his nose, the corner of his mouth.
Your fingers run through his tangled and distressed hair as he mumbles against your mouth. “Did you finish the tutorial paper?”
You huff in mild annoyance, that despite his state he still thinks about work. “Not yet. One last question and I’m done.”
He hums and waits a moment before reopening his eyes. With a loud groan he’s pushing himself off the couch, sliding off of it to sit with you on the uncomfortable floor. “Alright, let’s get this over with.”
“I can figure it out myself, Gyu.”
“You would’ve been done by now if you could,” he answers. It’s annoying that he says it but he’s also right.
Mingyu holds the paper a mere inch from his eyes, the sight almost comical if he also didn’t look an inch from passing out.
He mumbles the question as he reads, “It’s nothing, just worded weird. Toggle this off and move this to mixed factors and you’re done.”
The toggles are done for you, and Mingyu takes the liberty crossing he question off with a pen he finds on the table.
“Did you get everything else?” he asks in earnest.
“Hm? I think so.”
“Good.” And then he’s throwing his head back to rest it on the couch cushions behind him, breathing slowly.
He’s in a navy sweater, collar of his undershirt peeking through the top. Your gaze leads up further, to the exposed area of his throat—clean, tan and naked. You realise this might not be a good time, but it’s only natural your mind cooks up other ways to translate your helplessness as you watch your boyfriend push himself to the brink. Release is never a bad idea.
Besides, it’s a Friday night. No reason to not.
“Gyu,” you shuffle closer.
Lolling his head to look over at you, he answers in a small voice, “Yeah?”
You put on the guiltiest face you can muster, complete with darting eyes and fidgeting fingers. “D’you think…d’you think you can go over post hoc tests again?”
“Post hoc?” He furrowed his eyebrows. You bite the inside of your cheek, having blurted the first plausible model you could think of to ask him. It’s an older bit of the syllabus, something you should already be well versed in.
Not that you care what he thinks right now, he’d figure out why you were asking anyway.
“Post hoc, um,” he rubs a hand over his face as if to jog his memory.
Shifting forward, you plaster you front onto his side. He thinks nothing of it.
“Analysis tool after you’ve already run the data,” he begins.
Placing your chin on his shoulder, you let your nose nuzzle against his cheek. Trailing up, your lips find the shell of his ear.
“Results have to be…they have to be…” He falters when your hand reaches his front, running across the expanse of his clothes stomach, nails digging ever so slightly as you reach his abdomen. You continue to place open mouthed kisses at the space of neck you can reach.
“Hm? Has to be what?”
“Statistically significant,” he breathes when your palms reach the tops of his thighs. “To run a post hoc test.”
His trousers are less barrier inducing than regular jeans, something you’re both grateful for as you begin to palm his clothed bulge. “Results of what, baby?”
“For the love of—”
“Go on,” you whisper in his ear. “Please.”
One flick and his trousers are unbutton, pulling them aside as the zipper pulls open. You're pushing down his boxers when he answers you. “ANOVA.”
“What’s that again?”
“You little shit.”
You move your mouth forward to kiss him.
“Analysis of variance.”
You hum against the column of his throat at that, his half hard member in your hands. Light touches, that’s all they are, running the pads of your fingers across the pulsing length, coaxing him into full length.
“What’s it for though? We already got our results.” Bending forward, you stick your tongue to kitten lick at his tip. Mingyu hisses, hips shifting. Your tongue swirls around the tip, pushing into the skin on the head where he’s most sensitive.
“Ugh, fuck, for um,” he falters as you begin to suck at his head, tongue running over each hollow of your cheeks.
“For…for…” His chest is moving up and down in quick breathes, every sound from his mouth coming from a deep rumble in his stomach.
Letting go of his cock, you continue to pump him with your hand as you gaze up at him from your position. “For? Keep talking, baby.”
“For…To identify groups,” he grunts out. He lets out a louder moan when you place your mouth back on him, going past his tip and taking as much as you can of him into your mouth. “Identify…the differences, shit, hmph.”
He takes a loud breath before speeding through it again, “Identify which groups actually differ, oh my god.”
The bit of him that you can’t fit on your mouth is being pumped by your hands, fingers pushing into him like you were trying to indent them on the base of his cock. A glance upwards and you find his head thrown back, hands coming to tangle in your hair. His thumb caresses the side of your cheek.
“How many groups?” you ask, before diving back in.
“Three,” he chokes out. “Three or more, oh I’m gonna cum, fuck don’t stop, holy shit.”
Both of his hands are at your head, guiding you as you suck him harder, faster, more tongue digging into his slit. You hum against his dick on purpose, making sure it’s coarse enough to get the reaction you want.
You succeed, because immediately after you hear Mingyu rip out the loudest moan you’ve ever heard, his grip on your strands harder than ever. He cums into your mouth, hips stuttering as you place your entire weight on him to keep him in place.
You let some of it dribble out your mouth and back over his softening dick like a hot coating, sucking him through shooting spurts of cum that land on your tongue.
When you emerge from underneath, Mingyu looks like he got the soul sucked out of him; eyes closed, stuttered breaths raking through his entire body, a light sheen of the beginnings of sweat that glisten in the low light of the room.
Reaching for the tissue box and water bottle on the table, you soak the napkins and bring them to clean him up. He whines when the cold tissues touch him where he’s most sensitive right now, you want to kiss him but account for the cum that is actively stuck to the walls of your mouth.
You leave for a few minutes, much to Mingyu’s hoarse protests. He’s almost on all fours, hands on the floors as you promise to be back. By the time you’ve hauled his tired ass into bed, you’re just as ready to knock out as the half asleep man beside you.
Mingyu’s face is plastered into your neck, arms and legs thrown over your form as he hugs you close to him.
“I might love you,” he says into the darkness. A secret, just for you and the walls to hear.
You hide the way your heart absolutely leaps, conceal the way your hands tighten around his form into an affectionate caress, hold your breath to prevent the inevitable hitch.
I might love you too.
You hide that as well. For now.
Smiling into the skin of his temples, you sigh.
“Feel free.”
[Mingyu]: class ended early
[Mingyu]: be there in 5
[You]: ???
[You]: wdym ended early
[You]: kim did u end class early to come home
Your response comes in the form of the front door lock jiggling loudly. You’d stayed the night at his place, knowing you didn’t have anything to do but study by yourself. Sickly as you were, you doubt you could sit through two hours of even more statistics.
He’d left you in bed with a kiss, needing to be extra early since Dr. Cho decided to dump the last crucial few weeks leading up to finals season entirely on his TA. As much as there was on Mingyu’s already overflowing plate now, you couldn’t deny the elated feeling of your attendance being taken care of regardless of whether you show up to class or not.
A very real violation, but no one truly notes one skipped student in the midst of hundreds. Besides, the bag under Mingyu’s pretty eyes might be enough for anyone to have mercy and let the supposed mistake slide.
As Mingyu walks into the room, shoes flying and back dumped on the floor, he finds you still half clothed with leftover sleep in your eyes, standing in the middle of the living space like you were lost.
He drops his things to come and drown you in his arms, loud kisses all over your face as you talk. “You’re getting too comfortable with this job.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“Can’t possibly expect me to teach a bunch of half asleep idiots when my woman is all alone at home, sickly and cold without me.”
You grumble wordlessly as you feel him check your temperature with the back of his hand. “How’s the congestion?”
“Bad,” you respond nasally. “I can’t find my Afrin.”
“It’s on the bedside table, baby.”
“No, it’s not.”
Still wrapped in his hold, Mingyu begins to take steps forward that lead towards the bed, pushing you to walk backwards.
“I’m not awake enough to navigate,” you sniff.
“I’ve got you,” he lowtones, pushing backwards slowly.
The back of your knees hit the bed and you let yourself fall back into the unmade sheets. You crawl back under the covers as Mingyu navigates between used tissues, water bottles and pills on the bedside table. But no sign of your nasal spray.
You have to breathe through your mouth and you hate it, but you send a remark his way anyway. “Told you.”
Mingyu bends down and emerges with a familiar red capped bottle. He stares at you while you stare at it, choosing to simply snatch it from his presenting hands and be done with it.
“Good thing I came back early, hm?”
“Shut up.”
He leaps over your form to claim the spot in bed right next to you, still fully clothed as he burrows under the covers next to you.
There’s nothing flattering about the way you stick the nozzle up your nostrils and sniff hard, but the gleam in your boyfriend’s eyes might as well suggest you were trying to get him to look at you like that.
“Are you gonna keep doing this till finals?” you ask throatily, shifting under the covers.
“Teaching during class time is just extended office hours, I’m gonna go insane if I keep going like this. Probably just today. Or…once more if I feel it.”
“Didn’t you say you were gonna extend office hours to Fridays too?”
Mingyu moulded himself against you, giving warmth to your shivering body even under thick blankets.
It seems throughout the course of your relationship, your time with Mingyu is either spent laying down or in the process of doing so. Not that you mind, you’ve found that remaining horizontal was what worked best for someone like Mingyu who seemed to want to fuse with your very being whenever you were together.
“Ugh, not this week. Do not have the patience.”
“I’m proud of you,” you say, eyes closed, already on the highway to dreamland.
“Thank you, I do think I’ve been very brave.” Even while slipping into dreamland, you find the good sense to find his nipple through his sweater and give it a hard pinch. He jerks away in a yelp, clutching his chest.
“What’s that for?!”
You ignore him and simply run your hand over the area you just attacked. “You’ve gotten better at knowing when to slow down. I’m proud of you.”
You’re too far gone to make out what he answers you with, but with the hot breath against your already warm forehead, you decide it's more than enough for you.
MINGYU DOES IT FOR the fourth time, but this time round he’s smart enough to not tell you.
It’s the Friday before finals week officially begins, and you remain in your own place for once to crack down on the last bits of syllabus you want to go over, away from your extremely distracting boyfriend.
There’s a text when you check your phone after a couple hours of hyperfocus, and you narrow your eyes at the notification.
It’s Wonwoo’s (actual) girlfriend, and she’s sent you nothing but a picture of both of your men on Wonwoo’s living room floor, thoroughly occupied with the floored expanse of sheets, pillows and cushions.
It’s a pillow fort.
Your boyfriend is building a pillow fort in his not-husband’s living room mere days before the final exam for the most dreaded course of the semester. All while he’s actively meant to be available for office hours.
You want to laugh. The man that stayed up multiple nights to answer stupid questions in emails, is now less than concerned about the pandemonium that is probably ensuing in the department building. It isn’t that you’re upset, because this was what you wanted from him. To learn to take a break when it was needed. But you would also prefer he’d time them a little better.
Inevitably, you text him, but not before sending an encouraging text to your girlfriend-in-law for putting up with the both of them all by herself.
[You]: where are you
[Mingyu]: where im meant to be?
[You]: office hours?
[Mingyu]: mhm
[You]: are u and ur husband conducting them under a pillow fort in his house
You imagine him sending Wonwoo’s girlfriend a betrayed look. Perhaps even throw a frilled throw pillow in her unassuming direction.
[Mingyu]: DONT KILL ME
You let him suffer in your silence, clicking your phone off and leaving it somewhere you won’t be tempted to look.
Besides, it wasn’t long before there was an incessant banging at your door that you ended up needing to get up to open. He looks so timid, the face of an innocent perpetrator that waltzes into your space.
“I’m sorry,” he begins, following you to your desk like a lost duckling.
“Whatever for?”
“For lying.”
You snort as you sift through tutorial sheets, “Might wanna take that up to the poor hopeless student that thought you were their last hope.”
Mingyu’s head sinks to your shoulder where you sit at your desk. “God.”
“Him too.”
In another few moments, his arms have come around to cage you into your desk where you’re sat, hands placed on the table as he towers over the top of your head, mouth to crown.
“Rumour has it,” he starts.
You make a face. “Now you’ve joined in on gossip? Maybe I have steered you wrong.”
He ignores you valiantly as his mouth drops lower, down to the beginnings of the tips of your ears. You can smell him. He smells good.
“That a textbook recitation is all it takes to get you all bothered down there.”
Lifting your head from its craned position over your papers, you stare straight ahead. Blank and unassuming.
“Take a hike, Kim.”
“...Sorry.”
NO MATTER HOW FAKE annoyed you were at your boyfriend, you cannot possibly credit anyone else for how smooth your finals had gone.
Not a single tear, hack or whine. Your meals were on time, your sleep schedule the healthiest it’s been for months. You even managed a movie night break in the midst of it all. A record for you.
The very first thing you do after walking out of the exam hall, stretching and sighing, you find Mingyu waiting with nervous eyes.
“Well?” he asks, eyes wide and lips pulled into his teeth.
You merely grab for his hand and pull him out of the crowded hall and past a few familiar turns.
“For the record I didn’t want some of the questions on there,” he yaps as he follows behind your stalks. “Hard ones weren’t mine. I promise I’m not a sadist.”
Then, in an un-CCTV’d corner, marked by the broken, empty vending machine, you round up on him. In seconds you’ve pulled him down to meet your lips in an eager, full kiss.
In the moments your lips remain intact, you can feel all the horrid statistical knowledge you’d gathered over the months slip out the cracks and crevices, relieving you.
Mingyu is careful to let you pull away first, eyes sticky to open when you do. There’s a smile on your face. “It went great.”
A strong tug against your waist and you’re suddenly pressed into Mingyu’s all too familiar hold, so everloving tight you can hardly breathe. His lips are smacking and pressing into your skin, all over your face, neck and hands. Anywhere he could possibly reach.
There wasn’t much he could do standing in a huddled corner at nine in the morning on a Tuesday, where anyone could pass by and question what in the high school was going on. But there was more than enough Mingyu could do behind closed doors.
In true Mingyu fashion, he’s begun to grope in every way you love the minute the lock clicks shut of his apartment, every fibre of both of your beings giddy and jumpy, giggles erupting from your tired mouths. You haven’t been touched in ages, always too tired to do anything even when you would find the time.
It isn’t remotely strange that you're wet from only a few kisses and hot breaths against your neck. Although Mingyu’s hands haven’t been modest either, already reaching your clothed cunt as you fall into bed.
He says it was your reward, for doing so good, his illustrious mouth suctioned onto your naked core, moving and grinding in ways you can more than just appreciate.
His tongue is nothing below made for you, like he knows exactly when to flick his tongue, graze his teeth and all but suck the daylights out of you. It’s marvellous, even more so as you realise he won’t stop. One, two, three mind blowing orgasms later, your legs still shake around his head as you cry out for him to stop.
Not that he was going to listen, as he did not the last fifteen times you tried, simply pushing a finger into your abused hole to chuck you into yet another climax. You’re sobbing, trembling, sweating; but also half hearted in your attempts to stop him.
By the time he’s relented, you’re sure you won’t feel a thing down there for at least a week. If Mingyu will even let you go untouched for that long.
But as you’re finally able to catch your long lost breath in bed, and Mingyu has curled up right beside you, like he always does, you let the finality of it all sink in. You were done. And so was he. And you could now begin to experience a Mingyu that wasn’t exhausted, stressed or tired. Even now, the long indented layers of fatigue begin to melt away, revealing a less strained man.
Mingyu was beautiful either way.
“Are you okay?” he asks you, his fingers tracing your features.
The pads of his fingers glide across your eyelids, down the slope of your nose, tracing the outline of your lips. You kiss his fingers as they reach you there, hand coming up to hold his wrists. You kiss the tips of his fingers, down to the palm of his hand. Eyes closed, you keep your lips there.
“More than okay,” you mumble.
“Good. Thought I lost you there.”
Stretching unceremoniously, you drape yourself over his naked form, head on his shoulder. “You’re not losing me. Not after being the sole reason I pass this devil’s module.”
“Is that all it takes? Make sure you don’t fail?”
“And give head like that.” It’s a half joke. “But also be Kim Mingyu comma TA.”
He mimics you between a breathy laugh, “Comma TA. Not anymore, I guess.”
“How happy are you?”
“Still have to grade the last set of papers. But I got what I wanted.”
“The recommendation? You deserve it.”
“That, and not having to be in Dr. Cho’s presence every other day. And you.”
You kiss his shoulder. “Look at you. All grown up with your big boy grad school on the horizon.”
“Not just yet.”
“You’ll get there too. If you can power through this hellsent semester, you can power through anything grad school applications throw.”
Mingyu shifts where he lays, taking a turn to lie on his side to face you. The afternoon sun peeks from behind his form, his outline made of pure gold. His breath is in your face as he talks, and there’s comfort in the air it penetrates.
“I only powered through this because of you. I hope you know that.” He’s smiling.
“Girlfriend duties,” you quote solemnly.
“I mean it. I knew I was walking into disaster with how this stupid job was going, all that work was just a distraction. I didn’t wanna believe this was a bad idea. And then you walked in.”
You cup his face and pout, “Oh, my damsel in distress.”
“Hm, my knight in shining armour,” he giggles. “Galloped in and saved me from myself.”
“You saved me too. From the world and its horrible creations.”
“I’ll start talking in formulas if this keeps up.”
You can only grumble in mild annoyance.
“I’m glad I asked you to come in early that day,” he says.
“I’m glad I was a good samaritan and gathered all your stuff that day.” You grin.
Mingyu leans in and kisses you. It’s soft, slow, and drips of the romance he’s trying to bring into the conversation. His lips are bliss, the feeling of him is bliss.
It’s almost scary how easily you’ve been able to give yourself to him. How quickly he’s placed himself in every nook and cranny of your heart. With his tired eyes and stronger than himself smile, the hand he extended in ways beyond you could ever explain to him. It’s terrifying when you realise what remains on the tip of your tongue, ready and bursting.
But it’s true, and you can only pray it remains that way. Because in that moment, naked and tangled between Mingyu’s limbs, his heart in your ears, your hands on his being, you just know.
“I think I might love you too.”
#svthub#camandemstudios#mingyu fluff#mingyu angst#mingyu smut#mingyu fic#mingyu scenarios#mingyu imagines#mingyu x reader#mingyu#seventeen fluff#seventeen angst#seventeen smut#seventeen fic#seventeen scenarios#seventeen imagines#seventeen x reader#seventeen#svt fluff#svt angst#svt smut#svt x reader#svt#em.writes#seventeen fic recs#mingyu fic recs
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i want to talk about this idea the fandom has that curly didn't do anything to help anya. the fact of the matter is, curly didn't do anything to help anya on screen.
when we first join the conversation, anya's already told curly about the assault and is just updating him on her pregnancy status. we're never privy to what that first conversation looked like, what anya said or how curly responded or what decisions were made about it. but given that anya confided in him twice more about the situation (that she was pregnant and later that she had told jimmy), i have to assume his response to the initial assault disclosure was sufficient enough in her eyes that she knew she could continue confiding in him.
this exchange reads to me like "what to do about the assault" has been an on-going conversation between them, but curly has limited options to help her. but if he could figure out something to do, he'd do it.
let's look at the options available:
report it to HR. i don't think this option is very viable for a few reasons:
first, pony express doesn't seem to care about its employees. there aren't locks on their bedroom doors, there's only enough food and oxygen to get them from port to port with no emergency allotment, there are more crew than cryopods, they're not allowed to sleep for more than 5 hours a night, etc. i don't think they would have done anything to support her even if they had reported it.
HR may even blame anya for the assault, they may say that it happened because of something she did or did not do. it's her responsibility to take, not theirs.
second:
(thank you to @mudstoneabyss for pointing this one out to me)
curly needs this money because he's considering changing careers, which is likely to result in a pay cut or some amount of time job-hunting without income. swansea has a family back home he needs to provide for. it's daisuke's first year on the job and what a piss-poor welcome a pay cut would be, and he's an intern so the pay cut may be all or most of his salary. jimmy is living in poverty. anya has no savings.
it's entirely possible anya asked curly not to file an HR complaint not only because it would make her financial situation worse, but because she doesn't want to ask him, swansea, and daisuke to literally pay for jimmy's actions.
third:
even if curly did file an HR report he may have been told to do nothing. it's a long trip and they need all hands on deck to make the delivery on time! productivity over employee welfare. it's his job to keep the peace but keep jimmy working.
given how much stress curly's shown to be under, it can be assumed being captain is an extremely taxing job with a lot of both assigned duties and off-book duties. it may not actually be feasible to run the ship without a co-pilot.
maybe all he could do was talk to him.
2. go to the police. are there even police in space? i have to assume so because the alternative poses way too many questions. so there's space police. curly and anya call them and they come to the tulpar and dock on the ship and do an investigation and what happens to that limited food and air supply? the late delivery fee?
i'm a psychologist and my first psychology job was working as a crisis counselor for my county. my primary job was to sit with rape survivors as they had their rape kits done and support them as they made their reports to the police. this may not be true everywhere or across the board or in this dystopia but in my experience the police won't take a rape case seriously, or will have limited options to prosecute, or maybe won't even take the case at all without a rape kit.
so curly and anya call the police. they're going to have to file with HR too, to let the company know what's going on. and now anya has to pay for an HR complaint, a late delivery, and a rape kit.
is she going to get this paycheck at all?
3. curly acts on his own accord. this is the one that makes the least amount of sense to me, personally.
if curly just beats the shit out of jimmy then what? now jimmy's mad and embarrassed and takes it out on anya. we're going to confront him and risk making her suffering worse?
curly can't lock jimmy in his quarters for the duration of the trip not only because, as i said, maybe having a co-pilot is necessary for the ship to operate, but there are not locks on the doors.
curly can't lock him in the cargo hold because a) pony express would probably be beyond pissed off about that and who knows if the crew's pay would get docked or curly would get fired or if dragonbreath would sue them all for property damage and contamination. b) how do we get food and water to him? let him go to the bathroom? we open the doors and he busts out and who knows how violent he'll be then.
curly isn't going to kill him because a) that's one of his oldest friends, and i don't care what he's done or how angry curly is or how badly he wants to help anya, i really don't think it's realistic to think he'd be able to separate the anger from the love enough to end his life. b) it's cold-blooded, premeditated murder. it'd be one thing if curly caught jimmy in the act and killed him in defense of anya, he could maybe get away with that. but after the event is over? curly's going to jail for that, possibly for the rest of his life. if you worked at the post office and a coworker told you your best friend since childhood raped her are you clocking out and going to his house and killing him? it's not reasonable. i'm also just really floored how often i've seen this option brought up on the "prison reform abolish the police no matter how bad you are you still deserve human rights" website.
i also don't think it's reasonable, realistic, or kind to ask curly to act on his own accord without consulting anya. for curly to go against her wishes or act without her consent, that's further taking agency away from her. that's another man deciding what happens in her life. even if curly wanted to beat jimmy up or lock him away or kill him, maybe anya asked him not to.
so i ask, what was curly supposed to do? what did he and anya explore as options? what did anya ask him to do? we don't know and we'll never know. and that was intentional on wrong organ's part.
i don't say any of this to discount or discredit conversations or explorations or analyses about the role The Boys Club, toxic masculinity, and bro culture play into the plot, themes, narrative, or personal take-away players have. i fully 100% agree with, support, and endorse those narrative because despite everything i just said above, it's also true that curly is partially responsible.
it's true that he was irresponsible and an enabler for helping jimmy cheat on his psych exam, but there's no evidence at all that he's a conspirator to sexual assault and abuse, that he was going to cover for jimmy in a court of law. all he said was they would figure it out, and that could mean a whole lot of things.
i think curly has some percentage of the blame for what happened on the tulpar, i just don't think that percentage is as large of a number as a lot of people seem to believe. i'm not asking that we forgive or apologize or absolve curly, what i am asking is that we try to look at the situation with more nuance and empathy and good faith.
i don't think curly was a bad man or a bro who was ignoring anya and covering for jimmy's actions. but i also don't think he did enough to help her. he was never good at seeing the small details amongst the larger picture. he couldn't see jimmy for the dead pixel he was.
i think curly was sleep deprived, possibly under-fed, definitely overworked, and juggling too many balls with not enough options. i think he made the wrong choice, but i think he thought it was the lesser of the evils.
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⋆♱⋆YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW
WARNINGS: Yandere Behaviors, Drugging, Abuse in form of ‘Training’, Breaking bones.
PAIRINGS: Yandere Hashiras & Yandere Uppermoons x Reader
You’re a fanfic writer who always enjoyed writing deranged yandere bullshit, and a sadistic one at that — you’re always making sure to make your mc’s suffer just because it’s satisfying, and they were never spared from the torturous path you laid out for them.
Little did you know that your grisly storytelling would come back to haunt you, for you ended up getting isekai’d on one of your fanfics, because for some reasons, life decided to be an ass, and the the grim reaper’s scythe whisked you away to the realm of one of your fanfics — and the sensation of being isekai’d into your own creation was disorienting, to say the least.
After all, the very same fanfic that you got reincarnated into was the most disturbing of them all — your yandere kimetsu no yaiba fanfic.
The atrocious acts you've inflicted upon your protagonist are beyond twisted, like seriously fucked up. You didn't just stop at giving them a shitty backstory and psychological trauma — oh no, you cranked it up a notch by tossing in a goddamn harem of yandere nutjobs. These thirsty-as-hell psychos were so off their rockers that they veered straight into bonkers territory, their obsession reaching levels that would make even a deranged serial killer blush.
They were downright bat-shit crazy over the MC, like, borderline certifiable. It was as if the MC was their holy grail, their reason for living.
Not the cute and endearing kind of devotion either; we’re talking hardcore, stalker-level obsession.
The only one who were somewhat less psycho yandereish was Mitsuri... but then there was Obanai, who was a walking danger zone on steroids...
Every damn piece of that twisted fanfic you cooked up is a total shitshow.
Kyojuro went batshit crazy over the MC because they stood up for him against his dickhead of a father. Shinobu turned into a psycho stalker because she couldn't wipe her own ass without the MC's help, resorting to schemes like trying to paralyze and drug them just to keep them on a leash.
Tengen who thought that he could charm the pants off the MC until he got a taste of competition and spiraled into a possessive man..
And then there’s Sanemi who’s the most cray cray of them all... He practically broke the mc’s bones and beat them up into a pulp, all because he couldn't handle his jealous rage and tried to pass it off as some sick form of ‘training’
And the demons? They’re more worst than the hashiras.
And the worst part of it all?
You were now the reincarnation of the MC.
©𝐍𝐲𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐚𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐡 || 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓
𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬, 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝.♡
𝐀/𝐍: this is just the outline but i think that i’ll publish this one on my wattpad soon after i finished doll smitten, still debating on whether i should make this one a female or male tho^^ +++ this one’s gonna be a harem.
#⌞𓏲 ๋࣭ ࣪ ˖ 夜𝐚𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐡 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐬📝 ⌝#kny x you#kny sanemi#kny x reader#kny#demon slayer#kny smut#demon slayer smut#giyuu x reader#uzui x reader#demon slayer x reader#kokushibo x reader#douma x reader#akaza x reader#rengoku x reader#mitsuri x reader#obanai x reader#shinobu x reader#gyomei x reader
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Outing myself as the gigantic legends loving dork that I am but look how cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute
This. Is. Gorgeous.
#star wars legends#mara jade#luke skywalker#ben skywalker#star wars#let luke have all his torrid love affairs with assassins and ghosts and possessed dead bodies and lovecraftian nightmares goddamnit#he loved so purely that it destroyed 20+ years of psychological torture/conditioning#yes mara had some issues shall we say but overall can't we forgive her especially after the whole depressed moofmilking hermit luke thing#she'd have slapped the shit out of him the moment he was like i should go live alone at a fish monestery#she also probably would have slaughtered kylo ren let's be real#darth caedus got her but jacen solo would have also beat the brakes off kylo ren so#i mean most of legends would have really he was not very good at his bullshit job#anyways i digress GIVE ME THE LEGENDS
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🍼 ⊹ᡣ𐭩₊⋆ ─── rafe thinks academic!reader wants a baby
Rafe was absolutely certain that you were trying to subtly hint at wanting to have a baby with him. At the first comment, he assumed you were ovulating because you always did get a little bit of baby fever when you were, but then, you just kept showering him with random facts about the development of infants and toddlers to the point that he started to believe you were dropping hints.
Rafe wasn't someone who liked to play games. He preferred to be told things straight up, no beating around the bush, but being with you, he'd noticed that you had a habit of trying to subtly slide what you wanted into conversation, so you didn't have to directly ask. Almost like you were trying to make him think it was his idea, not yours—apparently, those psychology classes were really paying off.
It had gotten to the point where he had confided in Topper and Kelce, asking them if that's how it sounded to them—bad idea, Topper and Kelce are the last people to go to for relationship advice—to which they both agreed that it definitely sounded as though you were trying to suggest Rafe should get you pregnant.
The idea was completely out of the blue. You both were still so young, and you were still in school trying to get your degree in psychology. You two had only been dating for a couple of months and had never discussed marriage or engagement because it all felt so new to both of you. After all, Rafe was still reforming from his playboy ways and party lifestyle, and you hadn't been in many relationships prior to being with him.
He had originally decided to try his best to ignore your little comments, hoping you would eventually drop the subject altogether. Rafe had never really thought about kids, and he definitely didn't think he was dad material, his fear of turning out like his own father overshadowing the desire deep down to have a child—one he often pushed aside and tried to ignore.
But, you hadn't given up. If anything, it seemed like your mentions of children became more and more frequent—whether that was true or he just believed it was because he was hard-core stressing about it remained unclear. Eventually, Rafe decided he had to address it and make sure you knew that he wasn't planning on having kids with you antime soon, even if it seemed a little harsh to say considering how enthusiastic you seemed.
"Did you know after about a year, the pace at which children learn words accelerates rapidly, and by eighteen months, the average child is learning a new word every day?" You tore your gaze away from your phone screen to look over at him, a bright, proud smile on your face. You were sat in the passenger seat of his truck after he picked you up from your classes, intending to bring you back to Tannyhill, so you two could hang out.
"Okay, you've really gotta cut that shit out," Rafe said, a lot harsher than he intended to. He had already had a bad day, and he just wanted to relax with his girlfriend, not try to decode you and your baby talk. He was tired of dancing around the issue, and his stress only brought that out, making him snap at you.
Your brows furrowed, smile faltering at his words. He had never spoken to you like that before, and you couldn't for the life of you figure out why a little fact of all things had elicited such a reaction. He usually loved hearing all about your little facts, constantly telling you how sexy your intellect was to him. "What?" You simply asked, too hurt and confused to vocalize why his outburst seemed so completely out of the blue.
"Listen I," he took a deep breath, his grip on the steering wheel tightening for a moment before he relaxed again. "I don't want to have a baby with you," he said bluntly. Noticing how cruel that may have sounded, he decided to add an: "Atleast... not right now, alright?"
Your face was a mask of pure confusion. You weren't so much hurt anymore as utterly lost. Where did the topic of you two having children come from? "Rafe, what are you talking about?" You asked, not understanding where he could have possibly got the idea that you wanted to have a baby with him.
He glanced over at you, his own features morphing into an expression that mirrored yours. "All the baby facts and shit. I thought," he paused, wondering if he had read the situation all wrong, but that didn't make sense. It had been pretty fucking apparent to him, Topper, and Kelce that you were dropping baby hints. "I thought you were... yknow trying to tell me something."
You processed the new information for a moment before bursting into laughter to which Rafe glanced rapidly between you and the road, his brows only furrowing farther as he watched you laugh as if he'd said the most hilarious thing conceivable. "Oh, baby," you said softly, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder when your fit of hysterics finally died down. "No, I definitely was not hinting at anything. I am so swamped with school and work that I barely have time for you, let alone a child."
"What?" Rafe asked, relief flooding through him at your confirmation that you weren't trying to subconsciously trick him into wanting a baby with you through your little psychology tricks. Simultaneously, he felt extremely dumbfounded as to your motivations. "Then why have you been talking about kids so much recently?" He quirked an eyebrow, pulling into the driveway of his family's estate.
"Because we're covering the development and learning unit in my psych course, which obviously focuses a lot on the earlier stages of life aka infancy and childhood," you explained, watching realization dawn on him like a light bulb turning on in a dark, empty room. "I didn't think I had to spell that out for you since i'm always hitting you with random facts from class."
Rafe parked the car and unbuckled his seatbelt so he could turn to face you. "Okay, so just to be crystal clear, you weren't trying to use fuckin'...i dont know- subliminal messaging and weird psychobabble voodoo to like, make me want to get you pregnant?"
You laughed, unbuckling your own seatbelt, so you could face him too. "No, you idiot. You're so ridiculous," you grinned, leaning over to give him a peck on the lips. "I promise you I don't want children right now, and if that ever changes, I will talk to you about it and not use subliminal messaging or weird psychobabble voodo."
"Okay, good," he nodded, opening his car door. "Topper and Kelce swore that you were trying to play some kind of mind game."
"Why would you listen to Topper and Kelce of all people?" You asked, following suit in getting out of the car, your brows furrowing as he mentioned the two people who have yet to hold a stable, healthy relationship for any period of time. "They're the world's biggest idiots."
"Yeah, you're right," he grinned, walking over to you and slinging his arm around your shoulder as you two walked to the front door. "I'm sorry for snapping at you," he murmured. pressing a kiss to your temple.
"It's okay," you reassured him, sliding your hand onto his back and rubbing soft, soothing circles. "Just promise you'll talk to me next time instead of letting it build up and fester until you get to the point where you feel like snapping."
"I promise," he vowed, ushering you into the house. "Now let me show you—my beautiful, intelligent, and amazing girlfriend—how sorry I really am," he gave your ass a little tap, making his intentions clear as he steered you toward the staircase, your giggles echoing through the empty house.
tags .ᐟ @starkeysprincess / @cometmultiverse / @iheartjjmaybnk / @all4l0vee / @kissesfrmriri / @xoxohoneymoongirl / @bradshawed / @fallbhind
#🎀#𖦹 ׂ 𓈒 📖 sol writes .ᐟ#rafe cameron#rafe cameron x reader#boyfriend!rafe#boyfriend!rafe x academic!reader#rafe cameron x academic!reader#rafe cameron blurb#rafe cameron fluff#fluff#rafe cameron x you#rafe cameron x fem!reader#rafe cameron x female reader#outer banks#outer banks fluff#outer banks blurb#obx#obx fluff#obx blurb
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Jazz, Bruce, and Harley are in med school together. Jazz and Harley are going for psychology, while Bruce was going for medical. The trio were fast friends and kept in touch even after Bruce dropped out.
Years later, Harley is with the Joker, Bruce is Batman, and Jazz is a successful psychologist. The trio still keep in touch, but neither Harley nor Jazz has made the Batman connection.
They have monthly dinner dates to talk shit about everyone. The Joker tried to interrupt them once, and Jazz nearly beat him to death. Joker doesn’t interrupt anymore. Bruce and Harley count this as their favorite memory and lovingly bring it up all the time.
Harley and Jazz both love their nephews. Dick, of course, is Jazz’s favorite, while Jason was Harley’s. By the time the rest of the Batkids came, Jazz had her own private practice studio and had employed Harley as a criminal psychologist. Poison Ivy kept the office looking green with beautiful plants that were only carnivorous if the Joker showed up.
Bruce wants to tell them about being Batman, since it had been well over a decade he’d been operating now. Little did Bruce know that Harley and Jazz had made the connection around year five and were waiting on Bruce to tell them.
It had become a running joke. Jazz and Harley got Bruce all of the Batman merch, and would follow Batman around, snapping pictures (which may or may not have been Tim’s idea) and would get them framed. Bruce’s favorite picture was one Harley took of him, Nightwing, and Superman after a case they’d solved. The sun in the background made them look badass.
#dp x dc au#dp x dc writing prompt#dp x dc#dp x dc fanfic#dp x dc prompt#dp dc crossover#danny phantom crossover#dp x dc crossover#danny phantom#dp crossover#dpxdc prompts#dpxdc#dcxdp
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Alright folks. Here it is, my theory of what Ragnarok actually represents. It is very messy and I'm not sure I'm going to be able to actually convey my understanding clearly like I try with most things, because genuinely this is shit I would write a doctorate-level thesis on.
But we're going to try anyway.
So. After doing a lot to try to replicate animistic thinking, as well as taking a VERY deep read of the Norse myths, my theory is that Ragnarok is specifically allegory for societal collapse—the "end of the world" imagery and such is meant to convey what this feels like.
Recall what Odin says in Grimnismal. It goes something like this, since I can't be arsed to find the exact quote:
Huginn and Muninn fly over the world every day; while I fear Huginn ("thought") may not return, I fear Muninn's ("memory's") absence most.
When a society collapses, so does it's memory. It loses its technology, its methodologies, its paradigms, and everything it has learned about the world up to that point. Gone. Entire chapters of history erased.
What causes societal collapse is not always a conquering force, but is oftentimes the result of circumstances that a society orchestrates for itself. Think Rome.
People who have gone through societal collapse will probably develop an invested interest in figuring out how to prevent it entirely, so they don't have to start society all over again.
It's one thing to preserve the memory of "things collapsed and here's why" using a story. But it's another thing to do what apparently the Norse people did, which is cultivate a methodology for cognitively hardening their own society against collapse, using stories as a way to do it.
Like...I'm not kidding when I say they legitimately knew how the human mind works, and then built an entire system of stories and narratives that intentionally support the mind's freedom, cultivation, and agency. I can only convey a fraction of how this works in this post because the rest requires a deep-dive into behavioral psychology and neurological development.
All the tales leading to Ragnarok demonstrate various instances where the gods choose to follow their own agendas at the expense of the real people and forces in the world. All of these little things contribute to the magnitude of the event that is Ragnarok.
The tales represent these transgressions using allegories rather than literal events. This is because these stories were designed for children, who don't process information through a prefrontal cortex like we do as adults. They don't have them yet. But this gives kids an intuitive understanding for how circumstances of collapse feel, so they can recognize them in all their forms.
Loki is an allegory for the mischief we feel as children, and for the behaviors we demonstrate before we get to the age where we start valuing cooperation. In the myths, every time Loki causes mischief in ways that creates problems, the gods get mad at him and threaten Loki's life until he fixes his mess. Loki eventually becomes vindictive, kills Baldr in a jealous fit, and then is punished by being bound and buried beneath the ground, only to fight against the gods in Ragnarok.
The surface-level takeaway is a lesson in parenting: If we punish kids for their mischief, they're going to become vindictive adults, and these adults are going to have it out for the rest of society because they've been disenfranchised.
But it doesn't just end here. Consider how we punish ourselves for our own sense of mischief, beating ourselves up for having "problematic" thoughts and trying to bind and bury those thoughts in the depths of our mind.
These thoughts come from a place our mind known as the limbic system, which is focused on avoiding pain and seeking pleasure, and—most importantly—does not understand the world or make decisions using logic and reason, but in terms of what feels enjoyable and what doesn't.
We tend to call this system our inner child.
When we punish our inner child, that child starts doing exactly what Loki does and resorts to malicious and petty tricks. We can hold this behavior at bay until something causes us to "snap" (like Jörmungandr's tail does) and out comes the malice of the disenfranchised inner child, which creates a terrible cascade of social consequences for us.
Now, if we were to listen to these stories as kids, we would naturally be very upset whenever Loki was threatened of punished, because we think out of the limbic system at that age and Loki is meant to represent us—specifically, the state of being a kid. We would see what comes to pass, with Loki being imprisoned and fighting the gods against Ragnarok, and it would become clear to us that there's consequences for punishing mischief AND also causing too much of it.
Now I don't know about you, but I was very motivated by a sense of justice as a kid. Hearing Loki's arc would have inspired me to learn how to be friends with my sense of mischief while also learning to use it in ways that were cooperative and social, because this would have been how I could right the wrong I felt was done to Loki. It would also mean my own limbic system will not fight against me in the future, but be a modality of thought I can always access. (This is the beauty of the way the Norse myths are crafted; they are designed to instill knowledge of the world using mechanisms that reinforce one's own sense of agency and competency, so rather than being told the moral of this tale, it sets me up to run right into the conclusion it wants me to draw, but in a way that makes me feel smart and therefore inspires me to value it.)
The binding of Fenrir serves a similar allegory. When we become explosively angry in the way that Fenrir represents, it consumes our wisemind the same way Fenrir consumes Odin during Ragnarok. But this only happens if we bind Fenrir/our anger. By demonizing this nature of ours simply for existing, it will not only refuse to listen to us, but also turn against us. Remember that Fenrir was willing to socialize and cooperate with the gods before his betrayal.
(Honestly, I believe this is why ulfheiðnar existed the way they did. Even though the animalistic rage of ulfheiðnar was too terrible for domestic society, it was not demonized, but instead given a social function. People would learn to understand and partner with their own sense of rage, and I'm guessing this is also how they were able to keep their sense of reason and priorities straight even while going berserk from psychoactives.)
These two examples serve to illustrate how societal collapse stems from binding or punishing our own natures. But also fearing our own nature as mortals factors into it.
For example, Naglfar. This is a ship constructed of dead people's fingernails, and its completion is part of what signals the beginning of Ragnarok. But as the story goes, we can delay Naglfar's construction by trimming the nails of the dead before we bury them.
Naglfar represents "neglect for the dead," and this is significant because the act of no longer viewing the dead as people is sort of like the canary in the coal mine for no longer view each other as people...and no longer seeing people as people is what defines Ragnarok.
A society is at peace when its people have no fear of death, and having no fear of death comes only by incorporating death as a normal and familiar part of life, just like we do with birth. Our relationship with death is a litmus test for our relationship with our own humanity—if we fear the dead and cannot see them as human beings, then we are always going to fear a part of our own humanity, and be at war with it. The simple act of keeping the nails of the dead well-groomed because it stalls Naglfar's construction was a way to remind people why such a simple act was profoundly important.
And these are just the things that I can think of off the top of my head that are the most obvious examples. There are—and I shit you not—multitudes of these things laced within the Norse myths.
(I haven't even gotten to the part about how the Norse creation myth uses what the womb feels like to characterize it. Telling this story to very little children helps them establish a sense of familiarity, belonging, and secure attachment with the entire world from the get-go. If they learn the world is everything they've already experienced, then their bodies will never be afraid of it, because nothing about it will feel unknown or unknowable. Like, how fucking dope can you get.)
So here's where we get to the really dense irony of all this: Why we don't pick up on all these nuances as Westerners and have so far missed this entirely.
It is for two reasons.
The first is because our society values the things that the Norse people identified as contributing to societal collapse—namely, the act of conquering/competing against other forces and conquering/competing against our own natures. The transgressions of the Aesir are not things we register as problematic because to us they're normal.
The second is that we don't think animistically. The way we are taught to convey, interpret, and transmit information is designed PURELY by and for the prefrontal cortex, with neglect to everything else (if you ever wonder why Americans look weird in how we behave, this is why). But because we only prioritize communicating this way, we're missing out on all the context added within the Norse myths. These myths function the same way Old Norse kennings did, in that they are designed to speak to ALL areas of the brain at once and in tandem, but if we only engage with it using one part of the brain, we're only going to get a small piece of the picture and the rest is going to look weird.
(Little experiment for you: Try to logic something out in your mind or think through a complex problem without using words or sentences to do it. Use any other kind of thought-process besides language. I promise you that not only is this possible, but it yields a completely different kind of experience and conclusion than you might otherwise reach.)
Honestly, I don't even think Snorri himself fully understood what he was looking at when he was recording the Norse myths. I think he was just writing them down according to how they were told, word-for-word. But his cluelessness is our good fortune now, because he not only preserved the cultural stories, but also what I consider an entire cognitive technology.
And every time I look at it, I can't help but think about the generations of people who sat around the fire in the dead of winter, weaving, crafting, and figuring out better ways to fortify their society, raise kids so they became fine and truly fearless people, and conserve information. This is, as far as I'm concerned, real magic.
They knew some shit.
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BUT SERIOUSLYYYYYYYYYY.
Like i straight up think he would be unhinged af if someone messed with his s/o. He seems like the type to need to be stopped as we saw with sakura and that was just when his friends were insulted. I dont think he seeks for people to bring calm to him but personally i think he seeks responsibility and accountability. His thing is all about being mature and he cant handle ill placed immaturity or denying reality as it is. If anything - suo is a realist.
to the anon about suo - he reads to me like he has a lot of underlying rage and anger issues brewing under the surface. he keeps it very down pat, but genuinely he seems like he plays with his food to watch it squirm and suffer a little bit. he's controlled about it now, but i wouldn't be surprised if when he was younger, he had a lot of anger management problems. Or even if he was just hyper protective and heavily relies on respect to be given. Most people he has snapped on lacked basic respect and didn't know their own place or prided themselves too heavily on their ability without having apropriate skill to back it up.
OK IM LIFTING RN BUT I WANTED EVERYONE TO READ THIS
#cries i wanna write this now#the mental image of him beating the shit out of someone unhinged because they disrespect you??? yah i wanna write thay#i also have a kaji angst bc i hc him very very specifically#i love character analysis#i study psychology and neuro so i can more appropriately analyze the blorbos
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Ive never seen a dom reader x stu marcher before PLEASE BIMBO I NEED IT
Sucking him off, riding him, edging him, face riding him, mommy kink, idc FEED ME—
-VoxisDaddy
warnings — mommy kink, dom reader, sub stu
summary — Sub!Stu Matcher headcanons/drabble
𓈒ㅤׂ 𝜗𝜚 Stu as a sub would be so clingy, all over you, begging to be punished.
𓈒ㅤׂ 𝜗𝜚 He wants you to beat the shit out of him. Oblige, and he’ll be all over you.
𓈒ㅤׂ 𝜗𝜚 Unlike Billy, there’s not even any deep seated psychological reason for this, he’s just a freak, and he wants you to fuck the hell out of him.
𓈒ㅤׂ 𝜗𝜚 Suck him off until he’s begging for mercy, which he will. But then he’ll go back on his word, and beg you to keep going. “C’mon, more! I can take it, mommy I swear!”
𓈒ㅤׂ 𝜗𝜚 He gets a sick kick out of being tortured by you, so don’t let him cum for hours. Make his dick pink and runny with pain because he’s needed to cum for just that long.
𓈒ㅤׂ 𝜗𝜚 Ride his face while he’s tied up so he can’t even touch himself. Is his face wet from your cum or his tears? Neither of you know.
𓈒ㅤׂ 𝜗𝜚 He’s be so whiny about what he wanted, as if he deserves it. “Mommy, I know I was bad — But I can make it up to you,” He’d offer.
𓈒ㅤׂ 𝜗𝜚 But he deserves to be punished, which is lucky for him, because he wants to be. Badly.
a/n — I’ll go back to Inside job/Gravity falls in november. But now everyone should send me Bill Loomis and Tate langdon requests… yknow if we really wanna talk bout having a mommy kink..
#stu matcher x you#stu matcher x reader#scream x reader#scream x you#scream x yn#ghostface x reader#ghostface x you#dom reader#sub!character#subby boys#x reader#inbox open
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I’m going to preface this post by saying I don’t give a flying fuck about the hate I’m going to receive for the opinion I will be sharing and I won’t bother replying to any comments attacking me for it.
I fucking LOVE that Aemond killed Luke and I wish it wasn’t accidental. I wish Luke’s death was full on intentional, lol.
As a victim of bullying, I’ve been in situations where I have had to fend off 20+ kids as a kid myself. I’ve been verbally, physically, emotionally and psychologically assaulted as a child by other children, simply because I wanted, strived for and had good grades in school, actions that did not affect any of my classmates in the slightest. Therefore, I absolutely sympathise with Aemond, whose lack of dragon and later on his acquisition of one hurt no one (dragons belong to no one, you snooze you lose), yet he still got ridiculed and attacked for it. Yes, Aegon was also a bully and I hate him for it, but ultimately he grows out of it and supports his family, unlike the Strong bastards who remain bullies and assaulters. Oh, and Aemond tried to hit Jace with a rock because he attacked him first. Accusing him for standing up for himself is victim blaming. People who defend the Strong boys are bullies and that’s final.
No, I don’t give a rat’s ass that his attackers were children. Aemond was a child, too, and they ganked him 4v1. It’s crazy how some of y’all support physically attacking someone because you don’t agree with them. It was satisfying to see him kick their teeth in. Aemond and Luke are only 2 years apart, even if the actors’ appearances suggest otherwise. Your age does not excuse you being a fucking piece of shit. Children and teenagers appear on the news daily as rapists, killers, assaulters and all kind of criminals. That’s the reason juvie exists. Children should face the consequences of their actions.
“Are you excusing child murder?” if it is by the hand of the child they unapologetically disabled, fuck yeah. Besides, at the end of the day, Aemond dies, too, so you could say justice is served.
Still, I would have given the Strong boy the benefit of the doubt if it weren’t for this scene:
Lucerys is laughing at Aemond.
He is looking him in the eye and he is laughing at him. It’s been 6 fucking years. Lucerys is 17 (confirmed by the writers) and he feels no remorse for what he did. He was not punished for his action, so he has learned nothing.
He feels safe to mock Aemond, in the comfort and safety of his grandfather’s house, where his guard and stepdad can stop Aemond, whom he cannot beat on his own, from bashing his head against the wall. He feels safe to attack Aemond when he calls him Strong, knowing that other people will finish the fight he started but can’t win.
But what happens when no one is around to protect him from the consequences of his own actions? He shits himself. His face falls, he stumbles backwards and does not object to Aemond calling him Strong.
Not laughing now, huh, you little shit stain?
#hotd#hotd critical#pro team green#anti targ stans#anti team black#team green#team black#lucerys targaryen#prince lucerys#lucerys strong#lucerys velaryon#anti lucerys velaryon#pro aemond targaryen#aemond targaryen#prince aemond#anti rhaenyra targaryen#rhaenyra targaryen#pro alicent hightower#alicent hightower#anti daemon targaryen#anti targ restoration#anti targaryen#anti bullying#asoiaf#asoif/got#house targaryen#house hightower
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Punk Percy moments
Getting kicked out of 6 schools by age 12 because he refused to stop being a bully beater
Telling the gods to fix how they run their shit with his whole chest no hesitation as soon as he thought to and them listening due to a mix of fearing and respecting him
The leadup to it being his bully beating manifesting/escalating in him fighting against an entire pantheon as a system for four years straight and continuing to afterwards too
Gifting Nico a The Ramones shirt
Insulting his classmates in Som for being 'a bunch of rich white boys' and carrying on his anti-capitalist mentality from the start and the franchise as a whole,including refusing to ask Poseidon for or accept riches
Confirmed to be psychologically immune to selling out in one of the Tkc crossover short stories as a god tried to use their powers to brainwash him but they had so little in common with an emphasis on want for positions of authority/OP abilities Percy was able to defeat him
Participating in Rachel's charity events and protests during their time at Goode High
Instantly riding for Hazel harder than anyone and nurturing her as an older brother figure and pseudo-dad as he does Nico
Disliking Annabeth flirting with him as she uses white girl tactics so he found her attempts gross and completely flew over his head as he couldn't comprehend how all That could be expressing romantic attraction
'The sea does not like to be restrained'Translation:Percy is an anarchist
Going on a quest to prove himself as completely unlike cis men to an arcaic group of young abused by the patriarchy girls and succeeding because he IS completely unlike cis men(read:transfem gender fuckery)
Sympathizing with victims of the system fullforce and in general(instant forgiveness and understanding towards Silena for being groomed to the bad side/eagerly speeding to save Chris from the Labyrinth/gentle treatment towards Ethan even as they fought and worrying over him at time with Luke)
Unstoppable brutality when it comes to fighting
His sense of humor as a whole
His Rbf is implied to reflect his anti-societal mentality
Not caring about his image in favor of being his authentic self no matter what happens or how much he hates himself at the moment as he always does
Compared in a contrasting way to Luke,who's fash trash yet constantly talks down to by him for not being as radical as him despite Percy knowing a lot more about and doing a lot more to do what's good for the people than he does(which is to say:Nothing except self-justfied violence against them and lying about doing good things for them only to never followup on them,as irl white men in authority pretty much are always like)and for not having it as bad as him despite Luke growing up sheltered in a fantasy land where everybody worshipped him while Percy grew up hurt nonstop in the real world and also taking Percy's rightfully earned title of 'The Gods' Martyr' for himself even in death like the attention seeking manchild he was when the gods barely did anything to him compared to Percy and tons of other demigods
Instantly clocking the gods as bad in Tlt thanks to his own past experiences with authority figures
#percy jackson#punk!percy#perseo jackson#black percy#latino percy#autistic percy jackson#transfem percy jackson#bigender percy jackson#team parent percy jackson#nico di angelo#rachel elizabeth dare#hazel levesque#anti percabeth#anti annabeth chase#anti luke castellan#black nico di angelo#hazel levesque defense squad#nigerian rachel dare#pjo#hoo#tods#rr crit#pastel punk tag#💌#summerposting#the hunters of artemis#silena beauregard#chris rodriguez#ethan nakamura
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Wings AU ; requested by @justwannabecat!
“Are you sure it looks good?” Duke asks for the sixth time in an hour.
Tim sighs and says, yet again, “It looks fine. Just give it to him! If he doesn’t love it, I’ll beat him up for you.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“I could! But you’re right, I wouldn’t. I would just psychologically torment him until he broke.”
“Don’t do that, please. I’d like to actually have a chance with him, even if he hates this.”
“He won’t,” Tim says. He actually stops typing to give Duke a severe look. “Go and give it to him. If you don’t go now, he’s going to think you bailed.”
Duke glances at the time, then jumps. “Shit! Thanks for your help, man!” He’s out of the door before Tim can say another word. He doesn’t bother with the front door, or even going down the hallway. Instead, he opens the nearest window and flings himself out of it, unfurling his tawny wings to catch the wind beneath them and ride them into the city proper.
He briefly considers stopping for a moment to change into his Signal outfit so he can fly above civilian jurisdiction, then decides that it’s far easier to just bend the light around him so he’s invisible. He wouldn’t want to be late meeting Danny, after all. Especially not for this.
He hadn’t been expecting Danny to be into traditional courting methods. Most people tend to go the more modern way of dating, but Danny had mentioned once or twice that he thought it was romantic. He had blushed, mumbling the words, but Duke heard them and went into researching courting methods to see which ones Danny might like best.
Sure, he could just ask Danny out on a date like he normally would if he liked someone, but if Danny wants to be courted, then Duke is going to court him!
It’s why he’s been planning this out carefully, gathering his primaries after his wings molted a few months ago so he could string them together into a thin wing covering.
Admittedly, this courting method isn’t super common, but the thought of giving Danny his feathers, making it look like their wings are one and the same, has kept Duke up some nights, wanting it so badly.
Besides, he thinks Danny will like it. Considering the state of his wings after the Accident…
Duke holds his handmade wing covers closer to his chest, flier lower as he leaves Bristol and enters Diamond District. The streets are busy, full of people. Most tend to stay on the ground, wings tucked close to their bodies, but there are plenty still flying above cars and buses that Duke has to carefully fly around.
It takes another twenty minutes to get to Robinson Park, where Duke drops down to the ground and takes a moment to make sure all his feathers are straight and neatly displayed. Then he walks into the park, heading towards their usual meeting place.
For once, it’s a nice, sunny day in Gotham. Everyone’s taking advantage of it. The park is full of couples and families, walking around slowly, and kids dart through the air, still unable to go very high with their wings not yet fully grown in. It’s nice to hear the laughter and general chatter of people wandering the park.
Duke doesn’t spend too long walking the paved paths through the park. He steps off of it near the second water fountain on the path, then heads into the trees, passing two moms on a picnic with their three kids rolling around the grass nearby.
Tucked away in this corner of the park is a small clearing surrounded by thin trees. The tile is dirty and cracked, no one maintaining it at all with it hidden away.
He sees Danny’s wings first, with long feathers that trail onto the ground, a black that shines dark blue in the light. He follows the lines of his wings back to his body, where Danny sits on a bench, leaning his weight back against his hands as he lifts his head up into the sunlight, basking in the warmth.
He really is so pretty. He insists that he isn’t, but Duke regularly spends time with the Wayne family, all who have modeled before, so he’s got a better idea than most about what pretty looks like, and Danny fits the bill.
“Hey,” Duke calls out softly, watching as Danny slowly blinks his eyes open and turns to give him a warm smile.
“Hey! I’m free for the rest of the day, which means we have so much time to complain about things today.”
“I didn’t keep you waiting, did I?”
“Nope,” Danny says. “I wouldn’t mind waiting, though. I like hanging out with you.”
Heart pounding in his chest, Duke walks forward. He doesn’t know if there’s something specific he has to say when presenting his gift, if there’s a courting tradition involved that he didn’t learn about. He’s terrified Danny’s going to reject it. He’s praying that Danny accepts it.
“Are you okay?” Danny asks, standing to get a better look at him. “You seem tense…” He trails off as he catches sight of what Duke holds in his hands, breath stuttering.
“I’m fine. I, um.” Duke steps into the clearing, entering the sunlight, and holds out his wing covers. “I made them for you. You mentioned before that you thought courting traditions were romantic… I don’t know if you like wing covers, but I thought you’d look good in my feathers… Only if you want it though!”
He’s trying so hard not to cringe away in embarrassment. He’s flirted with Danny before, half jokes and half serious, always playful. Duke was smooth then, delighting in how flustered it made Danny before he hit back with his own flirting. Now he’s a hesitant, stuttering fool, tripping over his words and struggling to find the perfect things to say. Maybe he should have thought up a speech, or something. Memorized a few lines to speak his intentions with this courting gift. Done literally any prep for giving the gift instead of focusing only on making it.
Danny doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move either. He just stares, wide-eyed at the wing covers in Duke’s hands.
That’s a bad sign, isn’t it.
His hands lower just a touch, and he quietly prompts, “Danny?”
Just as he’s about to pull back, step away and try to fix things, messily attempt to salvage their friendship because clearly Danny doesn’t want to be courted by Duke, Danny’s hands snap out whip-fast and latch onto his wrists.
“This is… for me?” he whispers, awed.
“Yeah. Yeah, it’s for you.”
“And you’re courting me? Like, for real?”
“Yeah, definitely courting you for real. Do you accept?”
Danny throws himself into Duke’s arms, careful not to crush the wing covers between them. “In what world would I say no?” he laughs, bright with joy. He pulls back a second later, not giving Duke time to hug him back, and turns around, carefully stretching his wings out. “Put them on for me?”
“Of course.”
He starts by smoothing out some of Danny’s feathers. He doesn’t get to do this often; Danny hates having his wings on display for anyone, with how they spasm occasionally, and have empty patches where feathers will never grow in again. The Accident, all that electricity coursing through him, it permanently damaged his wings. There is no healing to be done.
His wings are lacking too many flight feathers and primaries for him to fly. He’s stuck on the ground now, unable to use his wings for more than a minute. Old burns are still visible closer to his spine.
Danny prefers hiding his wings away. He hates thinking about the Accident, hates how it’s taken his wings from him, how it’s changed him completely.
But Duke loves his wings. He loves the softness of Danny’s lower feathers, how they shine in the light, how they always puff up when it gets windy. He’s only gotten to preen them twice before, and he treasures those memories more dearly than anything else.
This easily outshines both those moments.
He gently combs his fingers through Danny’s feathers, straightening them out, then lays the first wing cover over his right wing. His own brown feathers drape over the top of Danny’s wings, hiding the featherless patches from view. He does the same to the other wing, then adjust both until they lay perfectly on Danny’s wings.
As soon as he lifts his hands away from Danny’s wings, Danny is spinning around with a grin, flaring his wings out.
“How do I look?”
“Perfect,” Duke answers. He was right; Danny looks good in his feathers.
He watches, fond and amused, as Danny spins, keeping his wings flared, admiring his new look. “I’m never taking these off,” he says. “I love them so much. I can’t really make one for you, though…”
“You don’t need to.”
“I can’t just accept this and not give you something in return!”
“Well… There is one thing you could give me. Something I’ve been wanting for a long time.”
“What is it?” Danny asks, leaning towards Duke. He’s eager, ready to please, so delighted to be courted.
Duke smiles. “A kiss.”
“Done.”
He doesn’t have time to react before Danny is pouncing on him, hands fisting the collar of his shirt as he tilts his head up and kisses Duke. He pulls back before Duke can kiss back, blushing and unbearably cute.
And all Duke manages to say is, “Cool.”
He’s so good at this.
Danny rightfully laughs at him, then grabs his hand and pulls him down to the bench. “Come on, I promised to complain about my teachers today and I intend to deliver. And maybe later, I could take you out on a date? If you want.”
“Danny, of course I want to go on a date with you. I’m courting you! I thought I made my feelings clear!”
“I’m just making sure!” Danny shouts over him, and Duke can’t resist the urge to pull him closer and pepper kisses along his cheek. “Okay, okay, I got it. You’ve made your feelings clear. I’m going to date you so hard.”
“You better. It’s about time you put some work into our relationship.”
“Excuse you?!” Danny gasps in mock outrage, and they start bickering lightheartedly as they always do.
Even with their feelings come to light, even with a courtship started and a date promised, it doesn’t feel like anything between them has changed.
It’s just them. Just as it always has been.
Duke couldn’t be happier.
#ghostlights#dc x dp#dp x dc#dcxdp#dpxdc#dc x dp fic#prompt fill#my writing#this was going to be longer bc i got into worldbuilding but then it got TOO long so i scrapped all that to focus on duke and danny#first time writing wing fic.... the amount of thought i put into how this world works had my head spinning#like this one: most people sleep in hamocks or have beds that are off the ground so they can stretch their wings out#regular beds like ours exist but mostly for kids/senior citizens/people with damaged wings who cant fly#like danny. so he has a normal bed and duke has a hammock which means the cuddling situation is Difficult#usually it ends with danny on his back and duke on his chest or danny completely wrapped up in dukes wings#just picture that. youre welcome :)
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