#sigh. I should get the sowing out instead at least

[abluescarfonwaston]

Man's sudden mad dash of writing power shattered against the rocks by the fact he has work in the morning thusly must go to bed at a reasonable hour.

[daydaydayrk420]

Comfort after nightmares

Bucky Barnes X male reader

⚠️ nightmares, cock warming, male reader, sad Bucky, bottom Bucky, angst, partly smut⚠️

🚨 Minors and girls do not interact 🚨

______________________________________________________________

желаниe (Longing)

It's the same thing.

pжавый (Rusted)

Every night.

Печь (Furnace)

It's the same dream.

семнадцать (Seventeen )

Same hour.

Доброкачественные (Benign)

The same dream.

Девять (Nine)

The same screams.

Возвращение домой (Homecoming)

Same cries.

Один (One)

The same nightmare.

грузовой вагон (Freight car)

A brick wall bursts into pieces as a silver metal arm punches through it. People start screaming and running while the sound of heavy boots stomping echoes through the room. The winter soldier walks through the wall and aims his gun. The victim's face is blurry... Unknown. Or maybe his mind can't decide which face it should choose from the amount of options to put on. They beg as they crawl on the floor... Their voice echoes... it sounds as if it was a mix of multiple pleas from different people in one body. The gun fires. Why. Why did it fire? His finger wasn't even on the trigger. The bullet flies in slow motion. He tries to scream. But the muzzle felt like it was sowed into his flesh. He drops the gun and tries to pry the mask off. It hurts. He screams but it comes out as a quiet whimper. He tries to run instead. But his legs are not responding.

The bullet hit.

Bucky gasps and wakes up in a cold sweat. He's breathing heavily as he looks around disoriented. He's sleeping on the floor next to the bed as usual. The bed never felt inviting. He grabs his head and takes deep shaky breaths. He can't calm down. He looks up towards the bed. It's empty. Y/n must be in his office.

He sighs as he stands up with shaky legs. He's wearing only his underwear. He lets out a shaky breath once his bare feet feel the coldness of the hallway floor. He wraps his arms around himself and walks down the dark hall towards the home office.

The door isn't properly closed so he doesn't bother to knock. He looks in and sees y/n on his work computer. Y/n is clearly unaware of Bucky's presence. Bucky makes his way in. His footsteps are ghost-like quiet after years of training. Bucky lets out a shaky breath as the nightmare decides to repeat before his eyes again. That catches y/n's attention and he turns his chair to look toward Bucky. "Buck?"

Bucky walks into y/n's already open arms. He sits in his lap and sniffles. Y/n doesn't question anything already knowing what's happening and simply rubs Bucky's back soothingly. Bucky buries his face in his neck and closes his eyes enjoying his lover's touch. Y/n turns his chair again and faces his computer while he holds Bucky in his lap.

He caresses his back for a bit before he frees one hand and uses it to continue working on his computer. Bucky is on the verge of falling asleep again but something's missing.

"y/n...?" Bucky whispered. "Yes, darling?" Y/m hums and looks at his lover. "Can...Can I cockwarm you...?" He whispered with his face in y/n's neck. Y/n chuckles and caresses Bucky's hair. "If it'll help you sleep."

Bucky wastes no time and removes his boxers. "Buck you should put on at least a shirt. It's cold tonight." Y/n said as he caressed his boyfriend's cheek. Bucky huffs and looks around hoping to find anything to wear because he's too lazy and tired to return to the bedroom.

Y/n chuckles and removes his sweater. "Here." Bucky nods and takes it. The sweater droops off his shoulder and has longer sleeves than his arms. He looks adorable. Y/n grabs a bottle of lube and hands it to Bucky. "Prep yourself darlin'. I have to work." He said and caressed Bucky's thighs before he returned to writing on his computer.

Bucky whimpers and rolls his sleeves so the sweater doesn't get dirty. He lubes up his vibranium fingers and reaches behind himself. He traces his puffy hole and shivers at the touch of his cold metal.

He doesn't need to be stretched. Not really. He's still a bit open from the fun he and y/n had. Yet he knows y/n won't let him go on unless he's prepped so he's not in pain. Bucky pushes his first finger in with ease. The second one slides in smoothly too but the third takes a little more pressure. He whimpers and rests his head on y/n's shoulder.

"Take it slow Bucky. We have all night." Y/n said and rubbed Bucky's back. Bucky whines in protests wanting to have you inside him already but he knows better than to disobey. He pulls his third finger back and just uses his two fingers. He slowly moves them in and out and spreads them apart. "Good boy." Y/n praised. Bucky whines and fucks himself onto his fingers.

After a bit of fingering the third finger finally slides in with ease. Bucky works his fingers in faster eager to get the real thing already. "I'm ready." He whimpers and looks at y/n. He looks so adorable. Cheeks flushed with three fingers deep in his hole. The large sweater doesn't help. Y/n savors the view before he lifts Bucky up a bit so he can pull his dick out of his pants.

Bucky is already holding the lube again. putting some in his hand and as soon as y/n's dick is out he grabs it and strokes it to lube it up. Y/n groans at the eager touch before he chuckles and kisses Bucky's cheek and jaw. Once Bucky is satisfied with his work he lifts himself up onto his knees and lines up his boyfriend's soft dick with his hungry ass. He lets out a long whine as he sinks down. Y/n groans and fights the urge to fuck up into him and take him against the desk.

"That's it Bucky. Take all you need." Y/n murmured and caressed Bucky's back. Bucky whimpered and rested his head on his lovers shoulder and closed his eyes. He shifts a bit to get more comfortable. Y/n groans and grips Bucky's hips and buries his face in his neck. But he fights back. This is about and for Bucky. Bucky eventually found his spot and relaxed. Y/N takes some time to collect himself before he goes back to work. he slides his chair closer to the desk and leans back. He lazily writes with one hand while his second hand caresses Bucky's lower back in soothing circles. Within ten minutes Bucky has fallen into a peaceful slumber.

[ephie-om]

Starting to realize how much I like writing chaotic MC ':)

Day 24: RAD

“The halls of the royal academy have seen thousands of demons’ footsteps over the centuries. Discoveries have been made in these rooms which revolutionized magic as we know it. And not just magic; the sciences of biology, persuasion, and chemistry all have a home here.” You nod along to Barbatos’ explanation as he guides you through the labyrinthian academy grounds. The vaulted ceilings make you dizzy if you look up for too long, and you try to focus on keeping pace with Barbatos’ efficient strides. “You will be taking a set of introductory courses specifically selected for a non-demon student. Your professors have all been notified of your status as an exchange student with a one-year tenure and will adjust their lesson plans accordingly. You will have one-on-one training with certain professors before the year properly begins to provide you with a foundation of basic Devildom subjects that you will use throughout your time here.” Your eyes have already started to glaze over.

As far as you were concerned, you were pulled from your boring human life by the most powerful demons in existence. You live with the Avatars of the seven deadly sins, who you’re quickly learning can be bribed to do your chores. You’re going to do everything you can to make the absolute most out of this year, and school is looking like the last thing on your list right now. You try to pay attention to Barbatos again, but he’s started talking about the demons whose paintings line the front entrance and you find yourself not caring at all.

Your staunch indifference to your studies serves to make you yet another thorn in Lucifer’s side. You aren’t directly opposed to the idea of paying attention to your classes, you just end up finding more interesting things. Like an incantation to make Mammon speak without his accent for an hour, or the myriad of ways to make something explode into sparkly magical smoke . You’re sure you get disapproving looks from your centuries-old professors, but you’re too busy trying out new things to notice them. You’ve singlehandedly caused at least two classrooms to temporarily close for repairs (the third one could arguably also be Satan’s fault). Your textbooks have to be replaced almost on a weekly basis due to water damage, fire damage, lava damage, mastication, vanishing, or transmutation.

To the chagrin of everyone else, the problem only worsens when Solomon officially takes you on as his apprentice. Now you have the tools of a wizard to sow chaos on academy time instead of just your pact magic. On your first day, he lets you choose which basic spells to learn first, and without blinking, you choose every single one that sounds like fun. He chuckles knowingly, but you take solace in the fact that at least one person here finds you predictable.

As it turns out, Solomon’s lessons are much more engaging than those at RAD. Maybe it has something to do with the connection you two have as humans, or maybe you just learn better when your teacher is just as insane as you. You start to learn all the principles you’ve been unknowingly applying to your little experiments in class, and you revel in the way Solomon’s eyes shine when you finish a sentence for him. You’ve actually learned quite a lot from your class activities.

The following weeks, your destruction is a little more controlled. You think you catch one or two of your professors letting out a sigh of relief as you catch a runaway spell for the first time instead of sitting back and watching it go. You and Mammon are still inseparable in class, but now you understand why you get the results you do. He laughs under his breath when you mutter to yourself just like Solomon, eyes trained on a deep purple flower in your potions class. You look back and forth between the petals and the chalkboard at the front of the room, frown deepening.

The board says that the ingredient should dampen the water-summoning effect from the other reagents to create a controlled stream, but you swear you remember that it acts as an enhancer. You open your mouth to ask the professor if he’s sure he copied down the instructions, but the glare he shoots you makes you close it again. You shrug indifferently, excited to see the result either way. Sure enough, as the crushed petals hit the bubbling mixture, a rush of water shoots straight up from the murky liquid, and demons around the room cry out as their uniforms are instantly drenched. The force of the flow threatens to rip off the ceiling, and your professor can barely shout instructions over the sheer noise of the thing. You laugh to yourself even as you slog out of the room, spilling water over the floor in the hallway.

You recount the story dramatically over dinner that night, with Mammon adding in colorful details you must have missed. Satan laments how a professor, of all demons, could have made such a simple mistake. Lucifer listens silently, but you notice the glint of blue in his eyes as you speak. You text Solomon to fill him in on anything he hadn’t already heard, and he sends you several smiley stickers in a row. Bit by bit, the demons at RAD start to take you a little more seriously. Ever so slowly, you actually start to complete your homework, and the RAD you knew begins to change.

Not physically, of course. It’s still suffocating and stuffy and old. The imposing portraits of important Devildom figures in education still stare down at you from their massive frames in the lobby, following you with their dark eyes. You still get scolded for doodling sigils of your own creation instead of drawing out your arithmancy matrices. Barbatos still stalks you from behind random columns (no you can’t actually prove that, but some part of you can feel his beady eyes on you).

But you start to understand what the vision for this academy is. Like it or not, you’ve learned a lot in your time here, and its resources are indispensable to your work. You may not do serious wizard things like Solomon, but you’re definitely doing something that wizards do, which is doing magic for the hell of it. You surprise your housemates with fun little spells. You’ve learned one to reinforce Beel’s lunchbox at the seams, preserving it from the demon who gets a bit too distracted to find the zipper on the first try. You still blast off the occasional fireball to not let anyone’s nerves get too settled, but you’re finally starting to feel like RAD could be a place for you too.

[stellarhistoria]

unprompted / / @gamenu. / / nicole & kairos.

"My travels?" he straightens himself out for a moment, back cracking slightly as he slumps forward again, his newly found large wolven size for a monster form making him seem much bigger, when he still feels so small. "I wouldn't know where t'begin, Nic'. But I'll start with a fairytale, that ain't all that fair."

"A long time ago, there was a pair of princes. These princes were named Starlight and Moonlight. Starlight dreamed of a future where the people they bled for, trained for, worked so long to put dreams into the clouds for. Moonlight dreamed of a future where everyone could live in peace, away from fighting, away from the spirits that haunted their hearts, away from the noise of clashing blades."

he sighs, fidgeting with his claws absentmindedly. it's difficult to remember 'this fairytale', but at the same time it felt almost relieving to talk about something that hurt for a change, instead of relaxing all the time like he knows he probably should. ( and so, he continues, with a sharp inhale ── )

"And so, Moonlight and Starlight came up with a plan. They would give their dreams to the people they loved so dearly. They would sacrifice everything for it, even if it meant sacrificing their lives in the process. Starlight did not come up with this plan by himself, however. No, Starlight was GIVEN this plan, by a cruel man... we'll call him End. See, End was not your average do no good do all harm type of man; his end goals spanned more than a few months, years, or decades. He would wait eternity, if it meant getting what he wanted. And it did not matter who he used, betrayed, and broke in the process."

a weary smile crosses his expression, "End held no regard for life, as all life ends eventually, so all he was doing was speeding up the process. What harm would it be to sacrifice a few willing princes in the process of getting what he, and thus everyone else, wanted? Alas, this is not the way the story was written. This is not the way it was meant to go. But End, End was a selfish man, once filled with an icy envy and a malicious indifference towards the world before his untimely end. At least, his first End."

he has to stop for a moment, shoulders shaking with bitten back tears and screams that it wasn't fair, he was just a child - THEY WERE JUST KIDS! but the past is past, and the past is prologue.

"... End, manipulated the kingdom and its people, its king and its queen, into believing he was in the right, and as a result, End managed to find a way to sow seeds of discord through the royal courts. He managed to do all of his work unintended, unsupervised, untested. And when someone noticed, it was far too late. The pieces were set, and End already knew every move. By the time they realized who had poisoned the two princes, the game had finally met... its End."

he sighs.

"But, legend has it that you can still feel the presence of the two princes in the night sky. When the light of the moon does not keep you safe, the light of the stars will guide you home."

[citrusfield]

each word that leaves daniel’s mouth feels like a punch to the stomach and she’s not sure which part is worse — the obvious hurt that they’ve both been stuck with or how reluctant he is to believe her efforts. it causes a flicker of something strange in her chest that resembles frustration, but it doesn’t manifest itself quite the way it should. there’s no energy for yelling; instead, she merely feels like she’s about to crumble. “yes,” she says as sharply as she can, though the sheer anguish in her eyes takes a lot of the sting out of it. of course he doesn’t think it’s true. why would he? “i am turning myself inside out trying to get better. i’m doing everything i can every minute of the day — i haven’t spoken to my mother in weeks, i’ve been trying new meds that are supposed to stop me from being so fucked in the head — and that doesn’t mean that i’m always successful, or that i think it erases everything i’ve done in the past, but i am trying.” it doesn’t change a thing, not really, but they need him to know. losing him, whether it was intentional or not, was the worst type of call to action possible, but at the very least, it prompted them to finally take the necessary steps to work on themselves; to cut out the negative influence that’s been poisoning her for most of her life, to no longer suffer through the constant hopelessness alone. the thought of visiting a professional for help used to almost paralyse them with fear and it took experiencing the worst loss of her life to realise that’s exactly why they need it. “i was. i might’ve been terrible at showing it, but don’t think for a second that you didn’t make me happy because that couldn’t be further from the truth.” being with danny was one of the very few times in their life that they remember not feeling lonely or desolate. they haven’t felt that way again since they parted. “i just… i didn’t want to ruin you. i was scared; of how much you loved me and how much i loved you. i was scared that i would mess everything up the way i always do or that in a few years, you would realise i wasn’t what you wanted — and yes, i know that was stupid, i don’t need you to argue. i know i was wrong.” they sigh, that heavy weight upon their chest squeezing their lungs a little tighter. “you told me to stop assuming what you think or what you feel, so please don’t do it to me either. i wanted everything with you. i wanted to marry you, and have children with you, and whatever else life threw at us, but i wasn’t strong enough to stop the fear. i let it win instead of fighting for what i wanted. that isn’t your fault.” they allowed their mother and the terror she sowed to crawl so deep into their brain that it was impossible to rinse out. they made themselves miserable yet again for someone who took pleasure in controlling others, in pulling their strings whichever way she pleased. it’s time to cut them loose for good. the small display of affection as danny kisses the top of her head is what finally breaks the dam and she doesn’t bother to wipe away the tears that fall. it would only be a waste of time when there’s plenty more where that came from. “i will… i will, i’ll stay.” being pulled into his arms, lottie hides her face in his chest and holds onto him as if he could disappear at any second. the warmth is familiar, comforting, and it only makes them sniffle more, squeezing their eyes shut and paying no mind to where they are or who might see them. there must be plenty of tearful exchanges outside a hospital on a daily basis. “i’m sorry, danny. i’m so sorry for everything.” they’ll apologise every day if they have to. “i love you more than anything.”

Danny noticed the way Lottie had flinched upon hearing his words, and he immediately regretted raising his voice at her. He knew that he could never understand what she had been through, considering that his relationship with his own mother had been the complete opposite of what they had had with their mother. He could never understand, nor could he try to. But if he had been given the chance, Danny was damn sure that he would have tried to do everything in his power to undo every single thing that their mother had done to them. God knows that he had tried, but he had failed miserably. "I know, Lottie. I know it's not easy. You did spend your whole life being told something that wasn't true, and you believed it. But what about the rest of your life? What about the life that you still have left to live? The life that you haven't even lived yet?" He asked, his eyes glazing over with tears. He blinked them away, looking away from her for a moment as he shook his head. "Are you though, Lottie? Are you really trying to get better? God... why don't you get it? I know that you've been dealing with it for almost three decades, and I never expected for any of it to be undone so quickly, believe me. But I was willing... I was willing to spend the next four decades, I was willing to spend the rest of my life trying to undo it. I was willing to spend every minute of everyday, forever... telling you how much I loved you, showing you that you deserved the world. I believed that if I could say it for long enough... that eventually, you would come to believe what I was saying. But you never gave me that chance, did you?" Danny could feel his heart breaking all over again as he uttered those words, because he knew the truth that Lottie did not. He knew the whole truth, his truth. He had known since the day he had told Lottie that he loved them. He had known that he wanted to spend the rest of his life loving them the same way he had done the first time he had realized it. He had known, believed, prepared, but it had all been in vain, as he still carried his mother's ring in his wallet, tucked into the back of a leather trifold, along with a faded photograph of their first Christmas together. "I only ever wanted you to be happy." His voice was soft, though it had cracked slightly as the tears finally rolled down his cheeks. "I thought you would be happy with me. I was going to make sure of it. It wasn't care, or compassion, Lottie. I was in it for life. I was..." Had they not been able to see it, the kind of commitment that he had been willing to make? "Did you know? At least, tell me that you knew. Tell me that you ran because you were terrified, and not because you couldn't see it. I was in love with you, Lottie. I was going to spend the rest of my life with you, but that's not what you wanted. That's what hurt me the most, the fact that my love hadn't been enough to make you take a chance. But I'll live with it." He sniffled, pulling them closer as they weeped. Danny leaned over to plant a soft kiss on the top of their head, sighing before he sniffled, wiping his own tears away with one hand while the other still remained on their cheek. "Don't. Don't apologize for being terrified. If there's anyone who needs to apologize, it would be me. I know I was out of line." He admitted, blinking away the remainder of his tears. "I love you, Lottie. I could never stop. I could never stop loving you, and I don't know if I ever could." The words had slipped through his lips with such ease, though the smile that crept upon his lips remained in place. "Then stay. Stay with me forever. I'll never let you go this time." He whispered, pulling them into a rather tight embrace. "Only if you'll let me. Let me show you. I love you so much, Lottie."

[scriptaed]

cherry blossom avenue.

❀ genre: angst/fluff; arranged marriage!au; f2l!au;

❀ pairing: jin x reader; 

❀ length: 23.0k;

❀ synopsis: college would’ve been unbearable if it weren’t for your wallowing sessions with your best friend jin over a shared “forever alone” woe, so it really was only a matter of time until the two of you sealed a shoddy promise to betroth the other at the age of 27. perhaps it was only a silly joke to you then, but you should’ve known better nonetheless; because when a wedding invitation arrives five years later down the road with his name signed next to another’s, feelings that were once buried begin to blossom once again.

“Don’t be a homewrecker.”

What was supposed to be a light-hearted tease over your fleeting glimpses in his direction bears much more weight than even reality should have; and unbeknownst to her, even if your friend’s commentary strikes a fear in you, a fear that has some creature eating away at you and a horrifying drop in the twisted pain of your chest, the daunting knowledge of a potential truth behind her words pale in comparison to the anguish brought upon by a familiar face of the past. 

Because even as you stand far and hidden behind the crowd of overly dressed classmates and unacquainted businessmen all painted by a silhouette of dimmed black, you manage to observe him through the few albeit sure opportunities; for when the passersby chatter, cross, and weave through the lavish ballroom floor at the perfect time, place, and space for you to peep through the pinholes seemingly formed by pure happenstance or a cruel wish casted upon by fate, the clock returns to a buried state of mind.  

It’s a state of mind seven years stale, mistakenly manifested and deliberately buried. It’s a transition in mindsets when fondness sours into a longing for something that could never be, for his reciprocation of affections means much less than its origins. It’s a heavy moment when you’re finally sure he would never come to speak the language of your enamored being. It’s that fractured frame in time when everyone freezes in their tracks but a reverberating pain transcends the laws of the universe, almost as if on a personal quest to oust you; and even if you vehemently down yourself with another magical shot of liquor, nothing can quite ease the internal war stirring within.

One hand grasping a glass of red wine worth much more than a month of your salary and one arm crossed under the bosom draped over by your only presentable black satin slip dress, you’re almost numb to the turmoil that is irony. How cruel is it that even after seven years of having believed you had moved on, nothing has really changed after all? Your heart still melts in the wake of his dorky grin, your chest still winces over the buried buds of a coveted love, and your blood still runs intoxicated by the presumption that this phase of infatuation would pass with time. 

Your friendship, your feelings, your shared promise, a youth that no one had paid witness to except for you, him, and that cherry blossom tree down that street, nothing has really changed. In fact, you feel as though you could still march across this room and nonchalantly probe at your best friend’s cheek with the ultimate goal of eliciting a shriek from your best friend. 

And yet, the circumstances that have brought you back to him in this very room must have been the one cruel exception. 

“A ‘homewrecker?’” you feign a light-hearted chuckle, swirling your drink and taking another sip as you peek at the distorted glass-image of the man and the woman beside him. “And why would you say something as horrifying as that?”

“Didn’t you say you and, what’s his name,” Alex pauses before nearly gasping, “ah, Seokjin! Didn’t you say you two used to be best friends in college? You might have been his best friend but she’s his fiance now, Y/N! Plus, she’s got a baby in her, too.” 

She might have been joking, and it really should have been if you had been truthful about your feelings for said best friend, but maybe this is the price you’re paying for so dutifully holding onto your dignity; so, instead, the deep undercut of her remark instigates a stirring irritation within you. Raising a questioning brow at your friend is all you can muster without spilling your secret as well as your brewing storm. 

“Oh, so you actually do remember what I say when you’re only a minute from blacking out?” 

“Hey,” your friend recognizes the anger seeping through your body language, stifling a giggle as she tries to bump your elbow and stumbles over her heels, “it was a joke, okay? I’m just looking out for my friend!”

“Right, what is there to even look out for?” 

“Well,” she points a finger at the direction you had just been staring off into a minute prior and leans in to whisper, “you’ve been staring at the newly engaged man for much longer than the woman beside him, if that says anything—”

“—uhuh, as if, hey!” you almost yelp as you help her stand upright once again. A scoff of disbelief escapes your lips over the sight of your friend letting herself go. Grabbing her glass and swiftly placing it onto the tray of the many passing waiters, you squish her cheeks and give her a light pat or two. “The only person you need to worry about is yourself. Why are you even wearing those ungodly stilettos when you can’t even wear kitten heels without whining all day at work?”

“Hey,” Alex pouts, bending one knee and jutting her hips to show off those torturous pink devices on her feet. “I told you about my ex from high school, don’t you remember?”

“So it’s okay if you’re trying to impress an ex from high school, but I’m not even allowed to glance at my old best friend?” you quip, pressing your lips into a thin line as you take another gander at your friend up and down. “And what does excessive drinking even have anything to do with it?” 

She flashes you a mischievous grin, “for confidence.”

“I can’t with you,” the roll of your eyes must have agreed, “and what about the classmate friend who actually invited you to her engagement party?”

“Oh,” Alex glances at the woman beside Jin and shrugs, “she’s alright. She’s that typical good girl. Too smart, too kind, too good at everything that you really want to hate her but have no reason to do so. I’m sorry, Y/N, but your best friend is devilishly handsome and I’m not surprised she’s marrying someone of her league.” 

“Pfft, why are you apologizing to me?” you scoff, ushering her to the washroom and shaking your head along with the stream of confusing emotions that hit you like a truck. “Go wake yourself up before she or, gasp, worse yet, your ex spots you.” 

“Oh my God, you’re right,” she gasps, shuffling in her skintight red bodycon dress and whirling around once more to call out before finally disappearing, “let me know if any boy comes looking for me!” 

“Uhuh, yeah, sure,” you shoo her away, taking another sip from your glass and muttering under your breath, “...how am I supposed to recognize your high school classmates?”

Now that your friend is gone and you’re left all alone to your thoughts, you go against your own advice and down another glass of liquor. 

You may have been his best friend but she is his fiance. 

Well, if Alex is a good judge of character, then at least a good man like your best friend has found an equally respectful woman. It might have hurt to hear her words, but Alex isn’t exactly wrong. At the very least, you could sigh in relief having known you’re genuinely happy for your best friend’s future. 

It’s just that the truth hurts sometimes. 

Relief isn’t an excuse for lingering onto a soon-to-be-married man, regardless of when these emotions came about. 

People are chattering all around you, strangers and former acquaintances are bustling about, familiar college classmates are greeting the bride-to-be’s high school classmates, and yet here you are: aloof and isolated even in a room of hundreds, fixated and more distant than you have ever been to the boy you had once cherished as the closest anyone could get to knowing the real you. 

No one would know but Jin. 

The real you.

The you who could not have moved on because she couldn’t recognize her own feelings until seven years down the road with a wedding invitation in hand, seven years after the buds had been sowed, seven years too late. 

The one who stands pathetically here in the corner of a room, secretly hoping for him to approach her but also wishing for the night to pass unnoticed just like she had wished for her buried affections to pass.  

So you shuffle in place awkwardly, pondering whether you should’ve caved into Alex’s pleas and attended this posh get-together, debating whether you should dip once your friend realizes her high school ex just isn’t worth it, sipping the remainder of opulent liquor and taking one last peek at the boy, when, your heart strikes loudly against your chest…

...because his eyes catch yours, a pair amongst hundreds, one invitee amidst an endless swarm of crowds, almost as if on a planned rendezvous, a secret unbeknownst to everyone in the room but the two of you.

Eyes widening in shock, the drums of your chest hammer against you, each strike pumping a nearly painful high that fuels your fight or flight mode. The debate between confronting your longtime friend and fleeing said friend did not even cross your mind at the start of the predicament. Quickly whirling around, head down and hands gripped to your drink, your feet move on its own. 

A familiar series of clicks echo against the polished marble tiles. You don’t even have to turn around to recognize those homecoming footsteps, those awe-inspiring confident strides as he makes his way across the room. If this were you from seven years ago, you would have welcomed him with open arms and he would have claimed you were just acting sweet to bargain for some fresh pastry, but the unfamiliarity of a stranger you have yet to reconcile with has you in an unexplainable panic. 

After all, it’s hard to explain why exactly his persistent pursuit after you, after seven years of distance, both emotional and physical, frustrates you to no ends. 

Your hands form fists, your feet storm down the halls, and your mind could repeat nothing but the words you had excused as “just a light-hearted joke.” 

You may have been his best friend but she is his fiance. 

Don’t be a homewrecker.

A baby in her.

A baby.

His fiance. 

A homewrecker.

The accusations echo and echo, as though screaming at you in the endless cave that is your mind, until the party fades, the crowd disappears, and the ear-piercing classical music wanes against the walls of your temporary solace, the bathroom. Finally, entrapped in a world of black—black tiles, wine colored walls, and dark red roses perched on top of what seems to be a black granite sink—you’re left alone to your thoughts. 

Alex wouldn’t understand a seven-year-long regret because she doesn’t know the real history between you and Jin. In fact, no one invited to this engagement party nor does anyone in this whole mansion know of the soon-to-be groom’s past. 

It isn’t as simple as people might make it out to be on the surface, because no one but you, Jin, and the street down your block had paid witness to a shoddy, spontaneous promise that should have never been made. 

Turning on the faucet and splashing a fresh handful of cold water onto your face, your eyes eventually wander from the stream of water that flows down the drain up along the glass bowl of a sink and into the mirror to meet the sullen eyes of a girl, seven years older with a stain of regret that spans much longer that a mere seven years. 

❀ ❀ ❀

“Waaah,” the boy exclaims as you watch your own reflection narrow its eyes at the image beside you. The spectacle persists to angle his chin every which way until he’s finally satisfied with the protrusion of his jawline; and as the boy resumes his daily activity of marveling at himself in awe, you have to wonder once again, for the hundredth time by now, just how you two had possibly become best friends. “Looking good, Jin. Looking real good.”

“Ugh,” you roll your eyes and feign nausea, “narcissist.” 

Jin pauses in the midst of his inspection, allowing his phone to settle into his lap and turning to glance at you with his head as high—well, almost as high—as his ego. “When you look as good as this,” he gestures at himself and your eyes follow his crafty fingers up and down, “don’t even try to tell me you wouldn’t be all up in yourself.”

You blink your eyes blankly and start with the most accusatory tone you could muster, “excuse you, Kim Seokjin, but are you saying that I don’t look good?” 

“You’re insisting that yourself, not me! It’s not my fault you can’t appreciate your God-given looks,” Jin raises his hands mercifully and you almost miss his latter, back-handed compliment when you become entranced by those double-jointed fingers of his. “Plus, I said ‘when you look as good as this.’”

“Psh, yeah,” you mumble, “and yet here you are, still as forever alone as ever.”

“Hey,” he snaps, narrowing his eyes at you even as he raises his phone to take yet another selfie, “and what does that say about you?”

“...and that’s exactly why,” you chirp as you hastily smush your cheek against his and throw a peace sign just as he snaps a photo, “we’re gonna be forever alone together!” 

“Hey, why’re you ruining my selfie—” he pauses in the middle of his camera roll “—oh, we actually look good.”

Glimpsing at one of many candid photos of you and him, a helpless smile spreads across your lips. A warm breeze blows and you can practically smell the impending spring that breathes life into the pink buds hovering on the cherry tree above you. The sun’s embrace against your bare legs that lie beside your best friend’s on the red and white checkered picnic is a perfect compliment to the equally bright phenomena that are his high-pitched giggles; and like the many days you’ve spent the past year, the only thing that could possibly elevate this moment of serenity would be a bite of his weekly pastry batches.  

Speaking as you chow down on the carbs, you quip, “you mean you look good?” 

“That, too, but I meant us, together—” he articulates, cutting himself off abruptly when he snaps his head to find you digging into one of his many bread “—hey, who said you could start testing without me?!” 

“Too many selfies, too slow, too hungry,” you lean your head back to plop the remainder of the custard-filled bread into your mouth, “shmorry Jin, but dish ish delicious.”

Just as you lean forward and take another large bite out of the batch, Jin catches right up to you, snatching the remainder and plopping it right into his now-stuffed cheeks instead. Lips falling agape at the disappearance of your bite-size donut, you gawk at your best friend whomst chomps happily away with your piece in his mouth. 

You can still recall the heat of your cheeks after the first time he had ever proclaimed something that was yours as his—in fact, it wasn’t much long ago when Jin had nearly regurgitated a mouthful of mocha frappuccino after discovering you had sneaked in a sip or two prior—but now? Sharing commodities has become such second nature to you two that sometimes you wish he could return to his germophobic days just so you can hog all the food…

...and maybe to relive whatever magical flutters that had befallen you on that very first day.

“Of coursh ish delicious!” he manages to exclaim incoherently. “Kim Sheokjin baked it afta all!” 

“Yeah,” you take a long moment to gulp and make room for more food, “I think I prefer the ones with custard—”

“—so it’s a perfect batch just like m—”

“—almost perfect.”

You could see yourself wink through the prideful glint in his eyes quickly plummet into a glare that has you laughing at the downfall of his indestructible ego. His playful glare through the corner of his narrowed eyes silently commences yet another one of your daily staring challenges. Maybe that’s why the two of you made such a perfect pair amongst the thousands of classmates at school. After all, how would Jin ever find someone as tolerant of his incessant dad jokes and perpetual ego as you are? And how would you ever find someone who would bake you goods and cook you lunch and, not to mention, spout such peculiar humor? 

All of your classmates had dubbed the two of you as the perfect comedy duo—the dumb and the dumber, the silly and the sillier—that, apparently, is the essence of a match made in heaven, albeit probably meant to be more platonically than romantically. 

Both too stubborn to lose, even in a meaningless game of a staring contest, not even the heat of the sun rays that has you two nearly sweating bullets could deter the match. Eventually, seconds turn into minutes and minutes turn into a frenzy frozen moment in time as you start to fall into the sudden abyss you found yourself in that is the warmth pool of his eyes. 

Perhaps it’s the angle at which the rays strike theatrically on the apples of his cheeks, illuminating his dewy skin and enhancing the chocolate hues of his orbs hidden underneath the matching brown locks of his all whilst his eyes happen to be staring right back at you. You’ve never quite felt this way before—heart palpitating, throat constricting, and mind panicking—but for the first time ever, you’re hesitant in allowing your best friend to peer through the windows to your soul. 

This isn’t good. What would he do if he were to discover your frenzy? Would he tease you to no ends? 

Worse yet, would he falsely assume that you’re hardcore crushing on him…?

“Oh God,” you blurt out, breaking eye contact to avert your head to the side across the street. Your lips begin to mumble whatever comes first to mind, “uh, wow, look at that couple. Ugh, PDA—” your eyes flicker to find Jin raising a brow just before your eyes avert once again and he follows your line of sight “—am I right?” 

“Oh c’mon! Just admit it,” Jin chides. “You’re only using this to disguise the fact that you were just about to blink, weren’t you?” 

“I was not about to blink,” you insist but your shifty gaze tells the both of you otherwise, even if the true lack of confidence is unbeknownst to Jin. “You suck at staring contests. How many times have I won before? I was just distracted, okay?”

“Oh yeah?” Jin crosses his arms. “Distracted by what, then? Huuuh? By my devastatingly good looks?”

“No!” you exclaim almost too adamantly that you have to add in a nervous laugh at the end, which only has Jin staring at you in utter disbelief. Feigning an apologetic pressed smile, you gesture your hands in the direction of the couple supposedly hidden behind a fence but clearly exposed to those on a hill, otherwise known as you two. “I meant them—”

“—ew!”

The both of you exclaim in unison, selflessly covering the tarnished eyes of the other and ducking away from the moment of intimacy that you two had just intruded on. 

“Aw, cmon! Even after graduation, too?” Jin remarks, mouth gaping and hands falling from your shielded eyes only to be thrown to his side in bewilderment. “Does everyone really have to remind us just how lonely we are even on our last day?” 

“You mean how lonely we are and how lonely we will be for the rest of our lives?”

“For the rest of our lives?” Jin quirks a brow at you before shaking his head and shrugging. “Dang, that wasn’t exactly my plan, because the world will be forced to acknowledge my looks sooner or later, but I mean, in your case…”

“What?!” you gasp in disbelief, slapping his arm hard enough for him to wince. “What do you mean ‘in your case?’ I bet you haven’t even kissed someone yet!” 

Jin snarls at you as he pulls his arm back and retorts, “yeah? And I bet you haven’t either!” 

“Actually, I have, with Joon at that party last year,” you say smugly, crossing your arms with a chin held high, “and you just admitted you haven’t had your first kiss yet.”

“Psh, yeah, I haven’t, and?" the boy holds his head high akin to a child arguing with his body and not with his words. “Because I prefer to save it for something meaningful unlike someone here.” 

“Hey, are you insinuating that it wasn’t meaningful?”

“You’ve always told me how much you hated parties!” he throws his hands up. “Plus, you don’t even like Joon! You said his breath stinks!” 

“Well—” you pause but no words come to you except for a loud grunt “—ugh, fine. You’re right.”

“Of course I’m right,” he turns away, leaning into his right hand with an elbow propped against his crisscrossed lap. “I’m Kim Seokjin, after all.” 

Following suit, you mumble into your propped hand, “I guess that’s why we’re friends in the first place. Together and, yet, still forever alone.”

“Hey, I said I don’t plan on being forever alone.”

“Right, right,” you brush him off, “tell me that when you actually get a girlfriend—actually, tell me that when you find someone to marry who doesn’t run for their life just one month into your relationship.” 

“‘Marry?!’” he gawks at your demand. “I haven’t even had my first kiss yet and you’re talking about marriage?!”

“What?” you turn to face him, cheek resting in hand. “Didn’t you say the world would soon recognize your charms?”

“Hmph, well,” he says with a jutted lower lip, “definitely sooner than you.”

“Really?” you gape at his bold proclamation despite clearly being the one with the upperhand. “You really think you’re gonna get married before me?” 

Your best friend doesn’t even bother glancing at you before answering, “bet.”

“Okay, if you win, then I’ll eat the crust to your breads whenever you want. I’ll even throw in a bonus for you and spare your wife from having to see fetus photos of you in college,” you can only snicker at the lightbulb that goes off in his widened eyes. “And if I win, then you’ll have to eat my crust and delete all the ugly photos you have of me on your phone.”

“Sorry, can’t do. That would take me an eterni—”

“—shut up.” 

“Okay, fine, bet,” he cackles, straightening his back and stretching his arms out before him, “and what if neither of us ever get married?”

“Hm,” you purse your lips, “good point. Should we set a time cap to our bet? Ideally, if I want to have a stable job and income by 25, have children by 30, enjoy two or three years of marriage without kids, then…”

“Why do you have to have children by 30?” Jin frowns. “Why set all these unrealistic standards on yourself?” 

Putting a finger to hush his lips, you almost find yourself distracted by the plush warmth against your skin. Quickly, you answer, “long story short: parents.”

“Ah,” he utters even as your fingers are pressed to his lips, “ditto.” 

“Let’s set the cap to 27,” you propose. “If neither of us get married by the age of 27, then we’ll just call off the bet. But damn—” the two of you simultaneously lean your chins into your palms “—that means we’re really gonna be a disappointment to our parents forever, huh?” 

A loud, heavy sigh escapes the both of you; and while you stay pouting into your hands, staring into the fresh green grass on the downside of the hill off in the distance, Jin props his hands back against the blanket and cranes his neck back to look off into the distant sky. You hadn’t noticed it until now, but for a devilishly dashing guy like Jin—broad shoulders, facial features that could only be gifted, and a prominent Adam’s apple, especially with his head rolled to the back like this—you have to admit his lonely status must have been much more of a choice to Jin than it is for you; because even for someone like you, his best friend who gets to stare at his profile for as long you desire in all its glory, you have yet to become desensitized to his dazzling visuals that is anything but normal.

As much as you hate to admit it, even now, with a clear blue sky, an array of warm pastry aroma, and a field of freshly cut grass, you can’t help but become enamored by the person before you. 

And when another sigh befalls his lips and the two of you have settled into a comfortable silence and a breeze passes by the both of you, rustling a dozen or so of the hovering cherry petals to grace the surrounding air, he speaks. 

“Let’s get married if we’re still single by then.” 

“...huh?”

“I said,” only his eyes move to peer down at you effortlessly, “if we both lose the bet, then let’s get married.”

Your eyes pop and you can only utter the few words that reach you, “to each other?” 

“No, to food,” he says sarcastically, grabbing a piece of his bread and stuffing your face with it when you continue to stare at him and he shuffles awkwardly in place. Looking away, he mumbles, “of course to each other, who else, dummy?”

“Uh….huh,” you blankly nod your head as a series of laughs are stifled by the bread. “Okay, and you’re being serious?”

He doesn’t look at you when he answers, “uhuh.”

“Pffft, and you’re saying you would keep that promise? That you would even remember this moment? We’re just gonna marry? Like that? And you’re assuming I’m just going to agree?”

“Hey,” he turns to frown at you, “why wouldn’t you agree? I’m offering you a once in a lifetime opportunity!”

Munching down on the bread, you continue to play along in amusement, “really? And what exactly are you offering me? You know I have high standards, right? I’m not just going to accept any proposal.”

“I know. That’s why you’re still single…” the boy deadpans, even as you glare at his remark, “...but, that’ll all change when you witness my proposal! Hear me out. First, I’ll cook every meal for you for the entire day.”

“You almost already do that except for breakfast.”

“Okay, but I’ll hone my skills by then. It’ll be even better than any restaurant we’ve ever been to.”

You raise a brow, “so you think food is the way to my heart?”  

“No offence, but yes, that’s why we’re friends,” he quips before continuing, “second, I’ll bring flowers to you at work. Everyone at your job will be burning with jealousy!”

“Because of your public display of affection, which we both clearly disdain?” 

“No, because they would wonder how you have such a handsome boyfriend like me!” he wags his finger. “Plus, who doesn’t like a little PDA when they’re about to be proposed to?” 

“Okay, fair enough, but those are two promises you’re making for the proposal. A marriage is a lifelong commitment. Why would I want to marry you just for food and flowers?”

“Hmmm, even for someone like you, I’m surprised you have so many requirements,” Jin hums, tapping his finger on his chin. “How about this, I’ll make three more promises for our marriage.”

“Quit saying ‘our marriage,’ I keep shuddering at the thought of it,” you remark as you rub your arms. 

“Third promise, I won’t break your achey breaky heart,” he deliberately emphasizes each word in a fruitful attempt to send shivers down your spine. “Fourth promise, I’ll remember all of my promises.”

“Okay… and fifth?”

“I’ll keep all of my promises! And I’ll do it all right here at this spot. Our spot.”

“What? That’s dumb,” you giggle. “Just keep it at four, then.”

“No,” he grabs the bagel in your hands and fills his mouth without a second of hesitation, “ish eashier to wememba fibe promishesh.”

“Right, right, right,” you nod, pressing your lips in a vain attempt to muffle your chuckles. “And what promises would you want me to make?”

“You?” he quirks a brow before shaking his head. “Nothing. You’re fine. I like you just the way you are.”

Huh. Has Jin always been this nice? Because you don’t quite recall ever feeling the heat of an oncoming blush of your cheeks or the bashful flutters that come with your best friend’s witty remarks. Maybe the topic of marriage has thrown you off today or maybe it’s the aftermath of a high having just graduated college and being thrusted into adulthood, but the stretched smile that adorns your lips is an undeniable fact that your confidence and spontaneity has reached its pinnacle.

Grinning, you lean across Jin’s lap to grab and unlock his phone to access the camera, “okay, wanna take a photo to commemorate this moment?”

“Gee, if you want a photo of me that bad, you could just ask me to send you a selfie, y’know—what the,” Jin starts to cackle when you raise the phone into the air and suddenly press your cheeks against his without warning. With a side-finger gun to frame his cheeks and chin, your best friend readies his pose as you wear a mischievous smile. “Hurry up and take the picture already, Y/N. My time is money.” 

“Hey Jin,” you call out to him with your eyes still fixated to the phone screen, as does his. 

The boy almost drags his words, “now what?”

“You’ve never had a girl kiss you on the cheeks before either, right?”

“What—”

—click.

“There,” you chirp jubilantly, grinning at the stunned look on his face, his eyes popping and his lips just slightly parted but failing to utter a single word as his hand grazes the spot on his cheeks where your lips had just touched, “now you have zero excuses to forget our promise!”

❀ ❀ ❀

That must have been the last time you had met up with Jin in person. Shortly after graduation, the two of you had parted ways as many are forced to do in order to embark on their lives as full-fledged adults. Being born with a silver spoon in his mouth, Jin had been lucky enough to receive a job offer straight out of college with the help of family connections; although, even without his family name, you whole-heartedly believe he still would have managed on his own based off of his unparalleled work ethic that you had the chance to witness firsts-handedly. 

On the other hand, your parents had advised you to stay home, which happened to mean you would be stuck in the same town of your college, until you finally landed a decent job where you had met Alex and established a new life. Unfortunately, like life always does, all that busywork meant sacrificing contact with your best friend somewhere along the way.

“Hey, Y/N! Wait!”

“Ah, shit,” you mutter under your breath as you stop in the midst of your tracks down the black-marbled hallway, gritting your teeth and composing yourself just as you’ve done countless times around your less than friendly colleagues. Taking a deep breath in and out, you put on a pleased smile and whirl around to find the face of a familiar boy in your most recent reveries. “Ahh, hey, Jin... It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Ah,” the man, who seems to have grown at least or three inches since you had last seen him, scratches the back of his head. “I didn’t expect to see you here tonight… how have you been?”

This is awkward. So painfully awkward. 

“Me? Oh, I’ve been alright. Life. Adulting. You know the drill,” you press a thin smile. “Actually, I’m surprised to be seeing you here tonight. I still remember us whining all throughout college over being forever alone, and yet here we are… at your engagement party… life can be funny, huh?” 

“Y—” he stutters, scratching the back of his neck “—yeah… it can be.” 

“So,” you chirp in a fruitless attempt to lift the suffocating atmosphere, “the wedding is coming up pretty soon! Feeling good or is someone getting cold feet?” 

He shakes his head weakly, “I wear socks to sleep.” 

“Wh—” you pause for a quick second, blinking blankly at his soft chuckle and following suit shortly after “—why do your jokes sound like you’re 22 again?” 

The man shrugs with a helpless smile hinted in the corners of his lips; and when it happens—you don’t know how or when the silence had whisked you away into a past time—you find him gazing at you with that fondness of a sole friend who endlessly shared and fought informidable woes with you. Perhaps you’re a hopeless romantic frozen between the fork of two roads that have long closed, for you swear you can see your own reflection through his warm brown eyes and you surmise the only possible answer to the question that lingers in your mind. 

He must see the same friend in you, that girl he would only call friend.

“You’ve been preparing your whole life for this, or, actually, maybe I should say we’ve been preparing,” you smile to stifle the lurching ache in your chest, “I guess I’m the only fool waiting for her turn now.” 

A weep cracks the laugh you force out of your knotted throat. Immediately, you turn your head to avoid his watchful gaze and tuck a lock of hair behind an ear whilst discretely ridding any traces of waterworks welling in your vision. You think you must have gotten away with the feigned laugh and turn, a routine you had mastered at your previous work, but the gradual dissolution of the curve on his lips settles into an unreadable flatline more resembling a frown than anything; because even after all these years, he can still read you like an open book. 

So, if he could see through your every facade even now, then why does he not remember? You know you shouldn’t hold it against him, such a silly promise built on a lonesome pair of naive hearts,  but you can’t help it when a single word paints your conscience. 

Why?

Why can’t he remember? 

Your shared promises, your birthday, your memories, and... you?

“Y/N,” Jin begins gently, hesitating in place once he takes a step forward and you flinch, “about the wedding date…”

He waits for you to reply, supposedly for ‘whenever you were ready’, as he always does during those fragile lows of yours. 

To avoid letting loose any more unneeded drama, you can only manage a hum, “mm?”

“I…” he pauses and sighs. “I know it’s your birthday.”

A hitch in your breath is audible. You clamp your lips tightly and nod, uttering lowly, “yeah.”

“I want you to know I didn’t decide the date, Y/N,” he says firmly, “my father did.” 

“And?” you quip suddenly, eyes darting to shoot a glower deadly enough for him to twitch in evident hurt. There, you went ahead and did it. As hard as you had spent the past months muting your rawest reaction to the envelope in your mailbox, all the pent up frustration and sheer sorrow for a lost future came whiplashing just as hard. “And you couldn’t tell your father to change the date? Maybe one day after? Or two?” 

“You know I would have asked if I could, Y/N,” he bites his tongue to state sternly, “but how would he understand? Change it for… for what—”  he laughs cruelly in the midst of his burst “—for the birthday of a best friend I lost contact with for five whole years?! That’s so… so dumb—” 

“—dumb…?”

The crack in your voice leads to a stagnant silence over what is clearly a no man’s land. Betrayal visibly paints across your face, the momentary display of having wronged his closest ally stains his own. 

“Sorry, I didn’t meant that...”

“‘...yeah, you’re right,” you scoff, “I’m dumb for waiting five whole damn years’ because you wouldn’t fucking text me or call me to ask how I was doing!”

“Me?” he asks in disbelief, gawking and pointing an accusatory finger. “You wouldn’t even pick up your phone! I called you for a month after I moved!” 

“I couldn’t pay for my phone, alright?! I was living with my parents and scrambling to find a job, any fucking low wage job, and I couldn’t sit all day in my room waiting for your calls because I’m not born with a silver spoon stuck in my ass!” 

At this point, the conversation had somehow contorted into an all out brawl of words, a challenge to see who could blame the other for the unsaid confessions lost in communication. The two of you staring down the other, chest heaving and jaws clenching and brows knitting, if it weren’t for your fortunate location tucked in the hallway hidden from the main room, you would not have allowed yourself to fall, lost somewhere in the depth of his eyes. 

“Why are you so upset?” a weak, hopeless laugh tumbles from his confused, pained expression. “Aren’t you supposed to be happy for me?” 

“I—” something gets caught in your throat and you have to choke it out “—I am. I am happy for you. I’m not upset, no…”

Jin reaches a hand out to your cheek when he notices your tears but immediately retracts his notion when you flinch backwards. The boy frowns in concern, “Y/N… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. How did I upset you?”

“Nothing,” you frantically shake your head that hangs low, using the back of your hands to smear every sign of contradiction on your face. “I just—” your breath shakes and an impending series of hiccups begins to kick in “—I’m silly. I should be happy for my best friend. I mean, I am happy. I’m just being dumb.” 

“What?” Jin carefully takes a step forward. “No you’re not—”

“—I’m dumb, okay, Jin?” you finally muster the courage to lift your sights to find his own confused ones. “It’s been five whole years and I’m embarrassed for taking a joke of a promise so seriously when my best friend doesn’t even remember making it!” 

The scrunch in his brows and lost resolution only reverberate the deafening ache in your chest. “The promises…? Y/N, I—”

“—it’s fine,” you blurt. Shaking your head and stumbling backwards, you look him straight in the eyes to say your last words before the fading knocks of your heels against the wood are all that he hears. “It's my fault for believing in a foolish fairytale anyways.”

❀ ❀ ❀

It’s almost like a fever dream when you recall just how confidently you had spat those spiteful words and furthermore dared to depart with that sheer satisfaction and the slightest aftertaste of alcohol residing on your tongue that night; but now that you’re awake, sober, and without the power of liquor, there’s nothing that can pull you out of your greatest nightmare most recently manifested into reality. 

“Why the hell did I do that? Why the hell did I do that? Why the hell did I do that?” 

The incessant grumbles tumble freely from your lips whilst you pace back and forth in the corner of the office. Typically, your colleagues would describe you as composed, reserved, and the level-headed half of an otherwise wild pair with Alex. This morning, however, they begin to question everything they’ve ever known about you as they watch through the corner of their averting eyes. 

“I knew I shouldn’t have left you alone!” Alex hisses under her breath along with the threatening glares she shoots at the audience. Considering how long you’ve been going at your mental breakdown, it doesn’t take very long for your shuffling footsteps and mumbling gibberish to transcend into yet another white noise in the office; and once the majority of the passersby settle on the new revelation of your hidden crazed nature, Alex hastily storms to your side as you begin banging your head against the wall. “Why would you throw a tantrum at your best friend’s engagement party?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying…” you pause momentarily to groan before proceeding to damage whatever is left of your seemingly deteriorating brain. “Why the hell did I do that? Why the hell did I do—”

“—not to mention, an ex best friend who never even knew about your unrequited feelings—”

—she comes to an abrupt stop when she finds the deadliest scowl in your dart-like eyes. No words are exchanged but the lethal consequences are clear enough to grant you her silence and the continuance of your destruction. 

“Why the hell did I do that, Alex?” you whimper, taking a break from your antics because, damn, your forehead is really starting to hurt. “Whyyyyyyy did you have to leave me alone? Maybe Jin wouldn’t have found me and I wouldn’t have had to confront him over something that shouldn’t even matter anymore! I-I barely even know him… it’s been five years and, suddenly, here I am, voila! At his engagement banquet, yelling in his face and getting mad over feelings that aren’t even his fault!” 

“I told you to go easy on the alcohol.”

“I told you to go easy on the alcohol,” you retort. Taking a deep breath, you let out a sigh along with the scowl plastered across your face. Your next words come out more as a helpless confession of fear than a rhetorical question to be answered. “Do you think he… hates me…?”

Alex observes you for a lingering second, perhaps contemplating between a merciful albeit exacerbating answer and a merciless albeit helpful answer. She speaks carefully, treading dangerous water, “well… would you like him to?”

“I don’t know,” you shut your eyes to heave yet another sigh because that weight in your chest refuses to leave you alone. An unapologetic swinging of the door and a series of loud, wide strided footsteps that follow have your brows furrowing and it takes everything in you and Alex, judging by the sudden shuffles you hear by your side, to finish the rare heart-to-heart conversation. “I think… I think if he hated me, maybe that would extinguish that part of me from the past. If he hated me, I would be able to get over it. Maybe I would hate him too, out of spite, but at least I would be able to get over—””

“—it…? Over what, Y/N?”

Over what? It takes you much longer than it should have for you to surmise the most probable answer to her question, an answer you were never willing to admit and an answer you aren’t quite sure you’re ready to admit even now. 

“You know what I’m implying, Alex,” you sigh, shutting your eyes even tighter when a rising heat marks your cheeks. “I want to get over—”

—but your words are cut short by a familiar voice that has your heart racing and striking an unprecedented strife in the mayhem that is your systemic state...

“You can’t possibly hate me, Y/N,” he proudly proclaims and you can practically hear him smiling, “no one ever hates Kim Seokjin.” 

...and when your eyes finally flutter open, you find the man, who had only seemed like a phenomenon of your feverish dream a second ago, standing before you and adorning that signature smile with raised cheek apples and crescent-like eyes that has yet to change under the influence of time and distance. 

“W-What are you doing here…?” you barely manage to utter. Eyes flickering around your surroundings, from Jin’s broad shoulders that shield nearly the entirety of a helpless albeit buoyant Alex, to your colleagues who fail to discreetly whisper over the lavishly suited mystery of a man, and finally back to the bouquet of pastel flowers wrapped with a bright pink bow. Brows furrowing, you struggle to organize your thoughts and even go so far as to check for the dent in your reddish forehead in a vain attempt to dispel the mind tricks. When the mirage before you fails to dissipate into thin air like sand, you slowly turn to face the wall again only to have your antics disrupted by his refreshingly cold hand on your burning forehead ; and when you turn, you find Jin’s mischievous smile growing wider by the second. “H-how do you know where I work…?”

“I’m your best friend, Y/N. Have you somehow forgotten after all that head banging?” Jin scoffs in disbelief, gawking with a chuckle. Suddenly, he leans in to grab your right hand firmly in his own, squeezing twice as he had always done and leading you toward the exit. “C’mon, let’s go recover those memories of yours, eh?” 

“Wait, wait,” you nearly stumble over your own feet at the pace he’s going, struggling to catch your breath when he bursts through the last door and a blast of freezing wind envelops the clash of the heat reverberating from your beating heart. “I have to go back! I still have work! And, and… and where in the world are you even taking me?” 

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, Y/N, so many dumb questions for someone who always topped my grades,” the boy holds the bouquet of flowers out toward you, refusing to continue until you reluctantly accept his gift with your left hand against your chest. Smiling at your reluctant acceptance, Jin turns his back on you and proceeds to march into the parking lot but his now warm hands intertwined with your now cold hands never loosens its grip. 

It’s been a long five years of waiting to finally relish in the hold of his familiarly slim, often teased albeit self-praised double-jointed hands, but, now that you’re finally living in it, you’re sure it was all worth it… even if the crashing flames at the end of this road is an inevitable, foreseeable future.

“Jin,” you frown as you stare at Jin’s opening of the car door and gesture of an invitation, reluctantly seating yourself in his sumptuous car. “I failed half of my exams... remember?”

The boy’s laughs can still be heard even through the closed door as he makes his way around the car front, all whilst swinging the keys in his forefinger. His cackling steps an abrupt many levels of decibels higher when the opposing door opens and he plops into the driver seat. “That never stopped you from boasting, did it?” 

Without the flare of your usual clever quips, you purse your lips in silence and subconsciously hug the bouquet closer to your chest to keep his space as unoccupied by your presence. The sudden turn of events has your head spinning and your heart racing enough for the thumps to be felt by your hands. 

How did he find out where you worked? Where was he even taking you and what was he planning to do with you? Why was he acting as if you had not angered him just two nights ago? 

You don’t think you’ll be getting the answer any time soon, particularly the latter question, but when your stomach growls loudly, eliciting a crackle of a laugh from Jin, the awkward tension in your muscles eases ever so slightly. 

“...s-sorry… I skipped breakfast.”

“I know,” he puts the car into neutral at the red light and turns to peer at you with a smug look that says he could still read you like an open book, “because you always skip breakfast. I hid some pastry in the bouquet.” 

“What?” you scrunch your nose but immediately dive your scavenging hands into the flowers; and sure enough, you find your favorite cream-filled bread of his warm in your hands and you can’t stifle the smile that spreads on your lips. “Why would you even do that?”

“Well, in case you suddenly got really jacked and physically refused to come with me, then at least you would have something to eat.”

“No,” you giggle, “I meant why would you hide the bread in the bouquet…”

His eyes brighten like a lightbulb, as if only now recalling the genius plan he had crafted himself, “oh, because then you can sneak a bite without having to leave your desk! It always worked with our backpacks, didn’t it?” 

Your sights fall to the bouquet and you can only reply with a sheepish grin, “right… it sure did.”

The engine purrs to life again when the light turns green and the remainder of the car ride is filled with the smooth drift of his ride and the ceaseless albeit completely welcomed humming from his lips. The old Jin never had enough of an incentive to drive, although his parents always suggested gifting him a brand new car and you had begged him to take the offer out of boredom and a never-ending desire to escape far away from university, but something about this moment in time has you feeling cozy, belonging, and at home. It’s almost like it was meant to be. 

But the silver ring shining around his finger under the angle of the sun is a dreadful reminder that it isn’t. 

So, as a slap to yourself back into reality, you fracture this perfect moment you would have once framed in that hopeless mind of yours, “so… how did you find out where I worked?”

“Ah,” his right hand casually slips onto the back of your headrest. “Still haven’t figured out, rank 292?”

“No, I haven’t, rank 295.” 

“First,” he raises a finger, “I asked some people through the grapevines and eventually your friend Alex gave out.”

Grumbling under your breath, you curse, “damn it, Alex.”

“And second,” he raises another finger before proclaiming firmly, “I’m proving you wrong.” 

“Proving me wrong?” you articulate with a scoff. “You’re going to prove me wrong? Right, keep dreaming.”

“I’m not going to prove you wrong, I am proving you wrong," he insists before shifting the car to neutral and leaning in toward you, gaze brimming with conviction locked with your own wary ones, as if ready to spill a secret sworn by the two of you and hidden from the rest of the universe. 

He's close enough for his minty breath to graze your burning cheeks, to breathe a vigorous life previously unknown by your dull five years. Heart pumping and lungs barely working, daring not to budge for being caught under the sway of his gravitational force, you can hardly catch him when he finally speaks.

"I haven't forgotten, Y/N,” he utters, “I'm a man of my word."

❀ ❀ ❀

Promise one. 

"I'll cook every meal for you for an entire day."

Promise two. 

"I'll bring flowers to you at work."

His unabashed, overly detailed tactic to ask for your hand in marriage still echoes from a time long past. Hopes for those promises were weakened by each passing second but unequivocally unassailed at birth. Eventually, smothered and disheartened, you had been forced to cut ties and confront the reality of broken promises and broken dreams. You had once somehow convinced yourself things would never return to the ways they once were, and, yet, here he is having returned by your side and here you are enraptured by the utter joy in his laughs after all this wavering time. 

It's like a dream come true; and if this indeed all just a nightmarish dream bound to death, you wish you never swore allyship to this alcohol, for now your only wish is for it to succumb you into a deep, long slumber. 

“I toooooooold you I don’t like paaaaasta!” you whine, the drag of your voice manifesting in white puffs in the still chilly spring air. The sudden transition between the warmth of his house to the frozen world outside has you spiraling into a series of trips and stumbles; and as always, your best friend Jin is the only one to hold you up, which is a good thing considering how you would’ve been tumbling into the death trap of a river beneath this bridge. “So whyyyy did you make me pastaaaaaaa? Whyyyyyyy?”

“What? Why’re you blaming me?” he retorts, obviously taking offence. “You always loved pasta! You ate it every single day at uni!” 

“I diiiiid love pasta,” you say through barely parted lips, “but it’s all just… just carbs, carbs, carbssss…” 

“Since when did you care about carbs?” Jin frowns, poking your cheeks that lean against his sturdy arms. “Should I call the police?” 

Your brows furrow and you lift your head to narrow your eyes at him, “what? Why?” 

And as soon as those words slip from your lips and he raises his finger-gun hands, you wish you hadn’t asked in the first place. 

“Because I think you’re an impasta,” his finger guns transform into jazz hands after you stare at him in dumbfounded silence, “...badumtsss….”

A series of empty blinks are exchanged, as if neither of you had just witnessed his most tragic dad joke to date; and so, you swiftly continue with a sigh, “I think… I think I started caring ever since heee mentioned I was getting fat.”

“I can’t believe you just ignored my unprecedented joke…” he grumbles to himself but lets out a little huff when he catches you from tipping over. Wordlessly, he hooks his arm with yours to keep you close to him. “And this ‘he’ you mention, who’s he?” 

“Heee.” 

“Who? Who’s ‘heeee’?” he spouts with pouty lips and a raised chin, flailings his body, and therefore yours, about every which way like a toddler. “Who’s this man I have to beat up, huh? He better square up!”

“I don’t think you could beat him up…” you mumble, eyes heavy but determined enough to reach his own flabbergasted ones. “It’s Jooooon, dummy, Kim-Nam-Joon, the boy I shared my first kiiiiss with…”

“Kim Namjoon?!” his eyes widen. “You think I wouldn’t be able to beat up that nerd?!”

You almost manage to push Jin away the foot of the bridge if it weren’t for his firm lock around you. “Have you seen his muscles?! He might not look like it with his books and all but he worked out all the time!”

“Yeah, well,” his lips sputter, “well, have you seen my muscles?!”

“No—” you freeze when you realize the sturdiness of his arm against your head is existing proof against your word, and maybe it’s because of his obvious flexing at this moment, but you could not believe just how built his arms had grown in the past five years, “—and I don’t want to.” 

“Hah! You just don’t want to admit that I’m right. C’mon, I’ll show you. You feel it, huh? You feel it?” he flexes persistently, twisting and turning to maximize his little showcase. “So? You think I can beat him up now?” 

“Well…” your voice trails off, mind clearly preoccupied with sticking your cheeks to his arm like glue in a somewhat fruitful attempt to hide the flush in your face. “You don’t really need to beat him up…”

“What?” he almost yells. “Why not? He called you fat!”

“Well, he…” your shoulders rise with each confession, “he said one of my dresses looked tight on me…”

“And?”

“...and he wasn’t exactly wrong…”

“So?”

“...so he didn’t actually say anything offhandedly…”

“What? You should’ve told me earlier!” Jin exclaims, arms thrown high into the air and consequently pushing your helpless self onto the hillside grass beside the run of the river. Lips gaping and eyes popping, you watch him in full offense as he mumbles to himself before resuming his stroll down the hill. “And here I am getting worked up over nothing… can’t believe I thought I could play hero for once…”

“Hey, Jin, what do you mean by that?” you call out to him. “Wait! I said wait for me, Jin!”

When your rhetorical questions are answered with silence, you hasten to your feet in order to catch up with those damn wide strides of his. Damn it, how did he make it halfway down the hill already? Each of your exclamations are unsurprisingly disobeyed by the boy who just throws his head back over his shoulder with that cheeky grin of his as he quickened his pace. Following suit, your strides turn into a jog and your jogs turn into a full out sprint until the both of you are full on running the 100 meters dash, one chasing and one fleeing, wind blowing refreshingly into your heated face and into your tangled locks and inflated lungs that relish in the breath of life. 

In the midst of all the chaotic bliss of an epiphany, you find yourself screaming and laughing at the top of your lungs...

“Hey! Jin! I swear I”m gonna kick your ass!”

...and it’s at this moment in time that you realize having forgotten what it means to be a fool who lived and not to live to be a fool. 

At some point in time, after having caught up to the knucklehead and giving a piece of your mind, the two of you settle down along the concrete ledge beside the river after a jittery, welcomed high. The sunset that followed was a pleasant surprise that had you two reminiscing over the countless mornings and evenings you had spent watching the sun rise and set together whilst churning throughout tireless exam nights. Pink, golden streaks now hidden behind a thick coating of midnight blue embellished by magical glitters all throughout, tonight’s stargazing becomes a first for the two of you. 

As much as you hoped you could numb yourself from the inevitable aftereffects of this death wish of a dreamy day, you can’t help but smile, thankful to have been completely sober to engrave this night into memory. 

“So...” Jin’s utter is the first to break the silence. He turns his head to give you a playful look of eyes that beams with wary curiosity, “...you started dating Namjoon after I left?”

“Mm… maybe,” you hum, “why? Got a problem with that?”

“What? Psh, what? Why would I have a problem with that?” he snorts. “The only problem I would have is the fact that you never asked me for permission.”

Your eyes widen, almost threateningly, “are you saying I need permission from a man to date another man? Not to mention a man who abandoned me without warning!” 

“Okay, first of all, it’s not my fault you cancelled your phone plan! I called and called, I tried everything I could even though I was deadbeat tired every day. It’s not my fault I thought you hated my guts! So please just understand that I didn’t abandon you, alright?” he spills in an endless stream akin to a water faucet left on the highest setting, clearly a performance either practiced in private or incited by years of pent up pressure. You can practically see the steam shooting out of his fiery red ears and the accompanying whistle manifesting into words; and by the time his chest is heaving, his lungs are panting and very dramatically so, and his eyes flicker nervously between you and the passing water, you can’t help but snicker. Unsurprisingly, your lack of empathy elicits an unamused look on his face. “Hey, hey, what’re you laughing at, huh?” 

“Me? Oh, nothing,” your hands move into your laps and you bat your eyes innocently, “it’s just that I can’t believe you’re blaming me, a helpless, poor girl with absolutely no connections, for cancelling her phone plan as a last resort to make ends meet.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he warns with an accusatory finger, “don’t you dare think I’ll fall for that eye blinking and whatever cute act you’re playing up again!” 

“Why?” you pout, almost cringing at your own antics. “Am I not cute?”

“No, you’re hurting my eyes. Plus, if anyone’s cute here,” he declares adamantly before puffing his cheeks and poking one with his forefinger, “it’s me.”

The both of you stare at the other for a stagnant few seconds, one completely dedicated to his performance and the other utterly flabbergasted by what plays out before her. 

The only word you manage to crank out is a, “uh…”

“What do you think?” he raises another finger to poke his other cheek. “I practiced just for you.” 

“Um… you’re 27 now, Jin.”

“So?” he tilts his head in the other direction. “Still 22 and young at heart.”

“Yeah? Then I’m still 22 and still equally disgusted by aegyo—” just as he parts his lips to provide another rebuttal, you quickly add in “—by your aegyo.” 

And just like that, the man drops his boyish character just as quickly as he had stepped into it. He mumbles, dropping his hands and shooting an equivocate look at you, “okay, tough crowd. Sorry, ma’am.”

It shouldn’t have been that hilarious nor should your response been so delayed, but it only takes a split second of his surrender for a thunderous cackle to slip from your lips. Throwing your head back and peering at the dangling stars above, you allow yourself a moment to close your eyes and take a deep breath of the incoming wind. The fresh petrichor of spring and the earthiness of mowed grass whisks themselves into the cold, clean breeze from the vast body of water. Thin locks of hair grazes across your cheeks, swaying in the wind as does your spirit. Years are lifted from your shoulders and all that is left is the heaviness that remains in your chest; nevertheless, you have never felt so free from the past. 

“Also,” he adds nonchalantly, cocking his head to look at you, “I wasn’t speaking from the position of a man. I was speaking as a best friend. As your best friend.” 

And just like that, sitting side by side and sharing a cool breeze, it’s almost as if all these moments of remorse, spilled tears, and unreleased frustration were made to build the climax to this grand finale: the night you can finally speak your truth. 

“It’s funny how things never change, huh?” you say when your eyes flutter open and you find Jin looking over with a fondness identical to the one you’ve spotted years before. “We can split for five years, thinking one hates the other’s guts, and reunite again as best friends… as if nothing had ever happened.”

Jin chuckles, hands grabbing to the ledge and head lolling back to join you but his eyes remain fixated on you, “I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not. Are we vampires and we just don’t know it?”

“Yeah, well, I’m not sure either… not sure about the good thing and not the vampire thing, that is,” your laugh settles into silence when you spot the reflected light inflicted by the ring around his finger, sitting on the ledge just an inch away from yours. Close enough to touch but far enough to confirm an unequivocal truth. Sighing, you turn your head to meet his intent gaze with a bittersweet upturn to your lips, “normally, I really despise the idea of change; but lately, when I think about how things might never change between us, how we’ll always banter as a pair of stupid best friends, I start wanting it more than ever.”

Is this the moment? Is it all really happening right now? Judging by the course of your blithe actions, if change is what you’re looking for, then change is what will surely ensue after tonight. Whether for the good or for the worse, you’ll take a reluctant guess of the latter. 

The man scrunches his brows before playing it off with a nervous laugh, “what do you mean things haven’t changed? You dated Namjoon, probably got it on a few times here or there—”

“—what—”

“—please don’t confirm,” he butts in with a raised hand, “and I have, too. Sure things have changed!”

“Ooh?” you raise a brow, genuinely shocked. “You finally got some experience under your belt? I’m impressed, Mr. Kim.”

“Hey,” he scolds, “what do you mean by ‘impressed?’” 

“Well, I should’ve known… figuring you’re about to be a married man and all…” you mumble, forcing a smile despite the sudden dip in your mood. Turning your head to stare off into the opposite end of the river where the black silhouette of skyscrapers lie, you curse yourself mentally. You really thought you could get away with the inevitable truth for the entire day? “You know, I can’t believe I almost forgot that you’re getting married in less than a week. Almost like how I couldn’t believe you almost forgot our promises.”

“I told you Kim Seokjin is a man of his words.”

“You sure about that? Promise one: cook for me for an entire day. Check. Promise two: gift me flowers at work. Check,” you turn around once again to look him firmly in the eyes and it’s almost as if the both of you know what’s about to come next. “What about the three other promises, Kim Seokjin?” 

“Y/N…” his voice trails off but his gaze never leaves yours, almost as if too afraid to be misconstrued as another betrayal. 

Quick-mindedly, you chime, “stop looking at me so seriously! I’m just joking! Promise three: you won’t break my heart. How could you after a wonderful day like this? Promise four: you won’t forget our promises. Clearly, you remember. And promise five: you’ll keep all your promises. Check.”

“Y/N,” he stifles every wince but you can tell by the way his feet have stopped kicking into the void. “I don’t think I’ve kept all those promises.” 

“Well,” you shrug, pressing your lips into a line tightly, “I only see checks in my book, Jin. You’re good to go—”

“—no, Y/N, you need to listen to me,” he says sternly; and when your mouth falls agape and your head slightly nods, his wary eyes searching for a steady sign in the windows to your soul, he continues calmly, “my marriage is actually an arranged marriage.”

“Your—” you blink blankly, jaw almost falling to the floor “—your, you, what?”

An arranged marriage. 

All this time, all this pain, all this heartbreak of wanting to do something about your feelings but remaining hopeless because of an unrequited love… turns out to be an active, fully conscious decision? Not a falling out of love, not a helpless affection for another woman, but a matchmaking handcrafted without the heavens?

“My,” he has to stop himself just as his breath hitches, “my father... arranged it. ” 

“What? Why? Is it because he prefers you with a well off family?” 

“What? No,” he shakes his head with a slight upcurve to his lips that you’ve never quite seen before. Watching him hook a hand to the nape of his neck, clearly avoiding your eyes, you have an inkling of something much worse than the presented news. “You know my father would never do that… it has nothing to do with money...”  

“But you left this town for money, didn’t you? For a better job, a better pay, a better life, and for the sake of your dignity as a dutiful son, are you telling me none of those were related to money?” 

His eye twitches by your name-calling, clearly pained once again despite knowing very well of your precedent dislike toward his silver spoon background and his nonnegotiable obedience. Each second of silence culminates a tension even more formidable than the last. Guilt intoxicates your boiling blood enough for you to bite your tongue and hold yourself back; because after accusing him of holding onto his dignity, you, yourself, could not forfeit that of your own either. 

Worse yet, you’re a complete hypocrite. 

“Why can’t you just tell him to call it off?” 

You never knew silence could be so deafening.

“So… so do you...” you begin hesitantly. Usually, with your eyes locked with his, a thousand words would have been exchanged with each passing second; but now, with gazes that wade through the tides of the unknown, for the first time ever, you don’t recognize the mystery before you. “Do you... love her?” 

His lips part slowly, but no time in the world would be enough for him to find the right words. To you, his silence is as clear as any possible answer. Something sinks in you, perhaps after acknowledging the implications behind his choice to leave your question unanswered, but your blood boils from the audacity of those apologetic eyes that, even now, never stray from yours… as if this minute of sincerity would be enough to mend the inevitable decade of scars. 

You begin slowly, failing to hide the shakiness of your deep breaths, “...then what about the baby?”

“What baby...?” his face contorts with a frown until, out of the blue, something flickers across his numerous expressions: confusion, remembrance, contemplation. His hesitation that ensues might have been fleeting but its infliction upon your shattered trust will surely remain. “Oh, that… that was just a rumor my aunt spread because of the sudden marriage.” 

“And,” you force yourself to breathe, scattering for something, anything to throw at him, “and you don’t think you could’ve told me sooner?”

The man scrunches his brows, “and that would’ve helped, how?” 

“‘How?’” you repeat, as if it was the dumbest question you had ever heard. Mirroring his expression, your eyes avert between him and the river as scoffs of utter disbelief escape you. “‘How?’ What do you mean ‘how?’”

“I mean exactly that!” his voice suddenly escalates to a level of frustration you’ve never quite heard from him before. “How would it have changed anything? Why would you need to know earlier?”

Gawking, you exasperate desperately, “you know why!” 

“No, I might be your best friend but don’t expect me to just read your mind!”

“It’s cause...” you swing your leg over the ledge to face the sidewalk with your back on Jin as soon as you could feel an incoming constriction at the back of your throat, a notorious sign shared just between the two of you that waterworks were about to appear. Breathing slowly and doing just about everything to keep your voice from shaking, and fruitlessly so, you mumble before standing to your feet, “...you know what? I don’t even know anymore. I’m sorry. Nevermind.”

Why did you ever think you would have a chance? 

Is this it? Is this really it? The end? 

The questions come crashing into you as you make your retreat, head hanging low and palms drying the inconvenient tears that mark your face. After all the confidence you had built up, after finally thinking—actually, believing—you could get over him tonight, how humiliating is it that you’re now running away from a reality that would eventually and inevitably engulf you? 

The worst part of it is, Jin, like the best friend and good man that he is, persists to chase after you. You don’t have to hear the quickened footsteps of his usual wide, well-paced strides to know he’s coming. You don’t have to hear the calls he makes on the top of his lungs for you to know he’s on his way. 

As someone who so helplessly fell in love with their best friend, you just know he would be there through thick and thin—whether you like it or not. 

“Y/N!” Jin hollers; and when he finally catches up to you, having to sprint and consequently inciting for you to surrender with an abrupt stop to your path, every bit of air is knocked from your lungs. Arms wrapping over your waist and enveloping you into a tight hug, you can feel his heart pounding against your back. 

To most, it should have been the perfect method to comfort a crying friend; so, damn it, why does it only make you cry harder? 

“What?” your voice cracks as you just barely manage to smear the following tears within the wrap of his bear hug. “Damn it, Jin, why can’t you leave me alone for once?”

Head resting on yours, his voice is muffled by your hair as he murmurs, “I can’t just leave my best friend crying like that. I shouldn’t have yelled. I’m sorry.” 

He embraces you. He embraces you not only physically through the silence but also through the emotional rollercoaster that comes with it. He, Kim Seokjin, your best friend, holds you through the ups and downs and the rights and the wrongs. He even holds you now, comforting you in the hurricane that you brewed without ever knowing and never caring that he had, in fact, not committed any wrongdoing. If anything, you must be in the wrong. 

And when you put it that way, how could you blame yourself for falling in love with him?

“Jin… I’m sorry, I tried everything to stop myself but,” your voice shakes but your courage prospers, “but I just, I just really, really love you.” 

A second passes. 

Now, two. 

Then, three. 

Something strikes against your chest when the surreality of the situation settles into reality. His silence could mean many things, but the tightening of his embrace could only mean one. Blood flushes your cheeks as you lament over his sensation of your fervent heartbeats. Secrets thrown out into the spring air, your heated cheeks are equally exposed to the passing, chilly zephyr. 

He knows you love him. At this moment, he can physically feel the proof of your love and there’s nothing he can do about it. 

“Sorry,” you manage to blurt under your breath, “I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget I said—”

—the remaining words dissipate into thin air when he places his hands firmly on your shoulder and whirls you around. Face just inches away from his, you barely catch wind of his declaration before the unthinkable occurs…

“Too late. I don’t want to.”

...and his lips meet yours. 

It’s everything you have ever imagined. Years of admiring those plush lips, wondering what it would be like to feel the warmth of those wonders pressed against yours, are finally coming to fruition… except they don’t. His hands fall from your shoulders to the small of your back, but your hands don’t intertwine behind the back of his neck like you imagined. Instead, they hover in midair, hesitant to embrace him in your arms. Why? With your eyes and his fluttered closed and an audible deep sigh that signals a desire finally satisfied from the both of you, reality still manages to twist a dream-come-true. 

Does he actually love you or does he only pity you?

Finally, and ever so suddenly, your hands firmly push against his chest to plant an arm’s distance from you and him.

“Sorry…” you pant, avoiding those intense eyes. “We… we can’t do this.” 

“What?” Jin raises a brow, taking a step forward as you take one back. “Why not?”

Wordlessly, you point at his ring finger.

“Oh,” he chuckles nervously, hand scratching the back of his neck. You can only watch his every move, your stare gradually becoming a glare. Rosy hues coloring his cheeks, he speaks sheepishly, “I forgot we’re in public.”

His nonchalance irks you to your core. There isn’t any other way to put it. Blithe and dense have always been your favorite traits of his, but now that he’s here? Planting buds he could never sustain and sending mixed signals despite knowing of your feelings in an unfitting circumstance were never things you knew Jin for.  

“I-I don’t get it, Jin,” you shake your head. “I don’t think we should see each other any more. In any context. Not even after the wedding.” 

With his hands buried into his pockets and shoulders high enough to hide his reddened ears, he glances up at you, alert. “What? Why? What don’t you get?”

“It’s ��cause... I just don’t get… this. I don’t get us,” you articulate, struggling to find the right words. “Why are you so… nonchalant about this? Why are you kissing me? Is it out of pity? Is it because I said I liked you—”

“—Y/N,” he says lowly like the drop of his previously cheerful mien, “you know I would never do something like that.” 

“Then why?! Why are you doing this to me? Do you love her or not?” you pause for a second to stifle the crack in your voice but, alas, all is in vain. “...and do you even… love me?”

He frowns, the tension in his body evident by the knitting of his brows as he struggles, “I… Y/N...”

“So you can’t admit that you love her and you can’t even lie to say you love me. So why the hell are you throwing away an entire marriage just to kiss me?” your scoff comes out more so like a plea. “You’re confusing me, Jin—”

“—that’s,” he abruptly pauses to stop himself from exploding, taking a deep breath before continuing, “that’s exactly why I can’t say it, Y/N! I don’t want to confuse you. I don’t want to disappoint my father. I-I don’t want to complicate matters more!”

“Then why the hell did you kiss me?!”

“I don’t know, okay?!” he throws his hands in the air. “I don’t know! It was a spur of the moment! I couldn’t stop myself from chasing after you and when I hugged you—I-I just wanted to, alright? I’m sorry.”

He’s... sorry. 

Sorry for kissing you, sorry for acting as if your feelings had been reciprocated, sorry for breaking all the promises he made and pretending like he was going to patch things up again tonight. Speaking your mind and hearing his words are all that you need to finally understand what you need to do. Your heart drops but you hold your head high because your final verdict is the right thing to do. Maybe this time you’ll finally be able to cease these useless feelings. What's the point in pursuing a hopeless love? 

The only one you would be hurting is yourself. 

This epiphany, in itself, is enough to drape an ephemeral clarity over your frenzic self; and just like a bandaid over a scar, you’re able to function, if only just temporarily.

“Hey, Jin?” you call out softly to the boy kicking at nothing on the bare sidewalk. It’s hard not to melt under the delicate glance he throws over his shoulder. “I’m not… mad. Well, I kind of am. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m sorry for everything that I said about your upbringing. I know how close you are to your family. I’m sure you’ve been under a lot of pressure…”

“No, Y/N,” he shakes his head, turning his body to face you with a low hanging head, “it’s my fault. Even considering all that, I still shouldn’t have done that or any of this. I… I’m sorry for confusing you.”

Forcing a composed smile, you persevere, “do you have your fiance’s number?”

Head lifting with a frown, he answers, “yeah, what kind of a fiance would I be if I didn’t? Why though?”

“Right,” you say to yourself under your breath, hearing his ‘fiance’ echo relentlessly in your head. “I just need it, okay? To… to sort out everything...”

And just when you wonder how insensitive could this boy get...

“What?” he chuckles. “Are you going to fight for me?”

...it gets worse.

Rolling your eyes, you give him a hard, well-deserved slap against the chest before snickering at his loud wince and declaring your one last confession of the night. 

“No, I could fight for us, but I won’t singlehandedly fight for you,” you then declare with a bitter smile, “I will, however, tell her how jealous I am.”

And that's your most irrefutable confession, one that has Jin stupefied for the future midnights to come.

❀ ❀ ❀

Morning arrives much sooner than you had anticipated. White puffs mark the air whilst you wrap yet another layer of scarf around your neck. It seems as though the breeze from a night ago had intentionally danced around town, lingering and spectating on the resolution of your five year long love conundrum. Ironically enough, the two of you reunite at the very spot where everything had first started… except this time, everything will finally end.

The pain he had marked in you inflicted by the words he could not bring himself to say still stains your every waking second.

“You have to do this. You can do this,” you incessantly chant to yourself, pacing back and forth beside the most prominent cherry blossom tree in town. “You have to do this. You can do this—”

“—Y/N, is that you?”

What you presume to be Youngji’s voice perks your ears. Looking up, you spot her holding a phone in her hands as she flickers between you and her screen. A quizzical quirk of the brow plasters across your face as you wave at her and she jogs over to you as quickly as she could in that pink, wool poncho and those tan, fluffy boots. “Hey, Youngji, right?” 

“Yeah,” she says in between each pant of breath, “that’s me.” 

Her hands immediately find refuge on her knees whilst she bends over to catch her breath. Typically, you’re the very self-aware type, but there isn’t anything you could do to stop yourself from staring. The girl strikes you as… flamboyant. With her dark red pigtails, bright smile, and dainty attire, she’s everything you’ve always imagined a female version of Jin would be like. It’s hard not to wonder… maybe an arranged marriage really can be a match made in heaven, but you force yourself out of that rabbit hole before having another breakdown in front of an innocent stranger. 

The tang of jealousy, however, refuses to budge. 

“Sorry, for,” she pants, holding her hand up to show you her phone screen, “calling out to you like that.”

“No, it’s fine,” you squint at the sight of the screen displaying a candid photo of you, taken on this very street on that very day, as you stuffed one of his breads in your mouth. Drawn on your face is a mustache and a unibrow. “Did Jin do—”

“—Jin gave me a terrible reference photo.” 

Scoffing, you cross your arms, “damn it, Jin.”

Youngji crackles into a firework of uncontrollable laughter, rendering you stupefied. After a literal minute passes by, she finally manages to speak in between the bursts of giggles that follow, “you two—” giggle “—really are—” giggle “—close, huh?” And as a grand finale, she slaps her stomach with a loud sigh of relief that her laughs have come to an end. When she notices you staring at her bewilderedly, a light bulb flashes through her as she gasps and feigns a whimper, “o-oh! Ow! M-my baby!”

“You know you don’t have to pretend, right?” you can only let out a laugh of disbelief because you still can’t take in the mirror image your best friend. “Jin already told me about the fake pregnancy.” 

“Oh, in that case,” she smiles widely before giving her stomach one more big, satisfying slap, “see, you guys really are so close!” 

“I… I guess. I’m not sure if taking me out for one day after five years of radio silence really counts as close, though,” you then quickly add in with raised hands, “he only did so out of obligation, though! I swear it was nothing more!”

“Hmmm?” she hums, leaning in a curious ear with a cheshire-like smile. “Is it because of those promises he made?”

“...yeah, wait, he told you about those?” 

Of course he did, idiot, they’re engaged. 

“Well, something like that,” she shrugs, “so how much did he tell you?”

“About?” 

“About the wedding, silly!” 

“Uh, nothing much really. The pregnancy was a false rumor, the marriage was arranged by his father…”

“Father?” she inquires, watching you closely with those big, round eyeballs of hers. 

“Yes?” you hesitantly nod. “Father?” 

“Ah,” she nods, as if she finally catches drift of something, “I see.” 

“Oh yeah,” you add, “I also found out it’s on my birthday.”

“What?!” her eyes grow wider, if they even possibly can. “Jin never told me that! What the heck, man? A wedding? On his best friend’s birthday?!” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know right?” you nod passively before coming to an abrupt stop. “Wait, what? Why does it matter to you?”

“Of course it matters to me! You’re Jin’s best friend, aren’t you? You have no idea how much he talks about you back home. I know you so well that sometimes I feel like you might be my best friend,” she chimes before reaching out to cup your hands in hers. “Let’s celebrate properly with Jin after the wedding, okay?” 

“Um, sure…”

But you don’t exactly plan on unnecessarily sticking around his life for any longer than the wedding… except, seeing how close she must be with Jin in addition to her loose-lip impression, you decide not to tell her that. 

“So,” she drops her hands to the side, “what did you need to tell me?” 

Why did you call her to meet you here again? After witnessing her flamboyant entrance, it’s hard for you to keep yourself from derailing. 

“Oh, um,” you scratch the back of your head awkwardly, “I just wanted to meet my best friend’s fiance, that’s all.”

“Ahhh, I see.”

The woman pauses, nodding at you intently almost as if waiting for the real intentions to be revealed. Damn it, either you’re a literal open book or she reincarnated from the same soul as Jin’s. 

“So…” you purse your lips. “Are you okay with it? The arranged marriage, I mean?” 

“Well,” she shrugs, finally dropping the smile from her lips. “At first I hated the thought of it. I felt like I didn’t really have a choice, but… when I met Jin—” a smile is hinted in the corner of her lips and in the sparkle of her eyes “—I thought ‘I’m pretty lucky girl, aren’t I?’ I think the world must have finally taken pity on me.”

A soft, stifled laugh slips from you as your eyes fall to the ground and a bittersweet smile accompanies your lips, “yeah, you’re pretty lucky.” 

“Don’t get me wrong though,” your eyes immediately shoot up to find her raising defensive hands, “it wasn’t some sort of a love at first sight. He’s handsome, sure, but—”

“—a marriage is a lifelong commitment—”

“—exactly,” she sighs, “I didn’t really know him, but when I was forced to spend time with him… I thought if I had to get married, then he would be the best option. He’s not a bad guy.” 

“No,” you smile in your reverie, shaking your head, “he's not a bad guy at all; and when you really get to know him, his stupid dorky self, I think it’s impossible not to fall for him.” 

“Yeah?” 

“He’s mean when he jokes around but he’s actually very kind, he’s sensitive when you poke him where it hurts but he hides it deceptively well, he’ll apologize for being wrong when the both of you clearly know you’re in the wrong, he’ll cook and wear the hottest pink clothes he can find because ‘to hell with societal norms,’ he’ll tell you the dumbest dad jokes but I promise you’ll get used to them eventually, ” you let out a reminiscent laugh that comes out more like a sigh, “and, sometimes, very rarely, he’ll hurt you unintentionally, of course, but he’ll always go out of his way to make it up because that’s just… that’s Jin. That’s my best friend.” 

A breeze passes by to perfectly mark the end of your cadence. Branches rustle above you and freshly budded cherry blossom petals flutter their way toward the grass underneath the two of you only to be risen once again by a following zephyr. Having been there throughout his and your lives, it’s almost as if the long-standing tree is agreeing to attest to your words. 

“Wow,” Youngji finally says after witnessing your truthful albeit embarrassing spoken love letter, “I… I wouldn’t doubt any of it… but why are you telling me? Shouldn’t you be telling Jin?” 

“I’m telling you, because,” you emphasize, “because I'm jealous of your position but I can't do anything about it so I want you to take good care of Jin. I just… I need to know he’ll be in good hands. I want him to be loved like the way that he loves. You’ll do that, won’t you?”

Youngji just nods. It’s the most somber response you’ve ever seen from her. Almost like the joining of hands in marriage has finally become reality. 

“Do you…” you struggle to squeeze out of the knot in your throat, “do you love him…?” 

“Y/N—” she begins but suddenly lets go of whatever she must have had planned “—yes, yes I do.” 

“And… you’ll take care of him?” 

Youngji bobs her head lightly, “yes, I will.”

“Promise?” 

“...promise.”

“Okay, then I’m entrusting him to you, and,” you smile, leaning forward to shake her hands before heaving one last sigh, “and this time, please keep the promise.” 

❀ ❀ ❀

A curse sinks into the thickness of the sapphire dusk that quickly descends upon the hushed city. Keys tinkle to decorate the silence of tonight’s resting wind, a silence that would have been accompanied by an equally passive woman and an oblivious man whose hands persist to fumble to his guest’s dismay. 

Standing before a small willow, vintage-looking store tucked away in the corner of downtown, an inaudible breath ascends a cloud of white that momentarily shrouds the grand interior peeking from spotless windows that line the exterior. Golden warm studio lights illuminate the gorgeously exquisite ivory gowns from the trailing trains up to its waterfalls of dainty veils. Velvet suits and satin neckties accompany each headless mannequin, welcoming each passerby to imagine themselves in their wildest fairytales… your hand in his and his in yours as a fleeting moment becomes a sealed promise of a lifelong loyalty. 

Breath completely taken away, you, yourself, almost fall prey to your own far-fetched dreams. 

“I thought I said we shouldn’t meet up anymore,” your forced mutters drag you from your short-lived reveries, “why did you bring me here?”

“You said we shouldn’t meet up anymore, yet here you are,” Jin chirps before cheering to himself under his breath once the key finally clicks into place, “yes! Old man must have purposely given me these rusty old keys.”

Crossing your arms, you retort, “I came because you said your close friend from home would be here, too.”

Turning around to face you with his back to the door and a hand on the golden knob, he raises a quizzical brow, “and… are you not my close friend from home?” 

“I thought you meant the other—”

“—this is my home, Y/N,” he says firmly, looking straight at you, “and I want my best friend to see me in my wedding suit before anyone else.” 

“But why me…?”

“Because I only care about your opinion.”

He answered without hesitation, but in your head you figure he must have forgotten about Youngji, the true spotlight of the show.

Gritting your teeth, a staredown begins between the two of you; but the longer you face those unequivocal looks of determination in his eyes, the hotter your cheeks become in the middle of a contrastingly chilly night.  

“Alright, fine.” 

“Thanks,” he gives you a small, lopsided smile before pushing the door open with his back and ushering you in with a slight bow, “ladies first.”

Your eyes roll but not for very long when you step foot into the store and your mouth falls agape. The ceiling is much higher than you had perceived from outside, the sides are lined with grand, wooden staircases that lead to a second floor where hundreds upon hundreds of white dresses and black suits find purchase along the hangers, and the click of your heels against the marble tiles of the entrance floor echo into the extravagant expanse. 

The wooden insulation of the store proves infallible when the door closes behind Jin and the shrewd air leaves you to a much more bearable surrounding. Standing affixed to the entrance, you watch as Jin strides toward the carpeted floor where a taupe curtain hanging from the ceiling drapes over a raised platform sits across its partner platform in the opposite of the room. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so enraptured by something aside from me,” Jin chuckles as he begins stripping the suit off of a black, velvety mannequin before pointing at the mannequin standing beside the opposite platform, “oh, why don’t you try on some dresses while I’m at it?” 

“What?” you scoff, finally taking a step onto the carpet. “First off, I never stared at you like that before. Second, why the hell would I do that? It’s your wedding, not mine.” 

“I asked the store owner for permission and picked a dress for you to try on,” he continues, finally stopping in the midst of unbuttoning his white, collared shirt when he looks up to find the fear in your eyes. “Hey, haven’t you always wanted to try one of these?”

“Yeah,” you laugh in disbelief because he actually listened to your past rambles, “but never under these circumstances.”

“C’mon, you never know if you’ll ever have a chance like this again,” he gestures once more when he notices the start of your contemplation, “c’mon, go on!”

You really don’t want to. It’s that nagging feeling of something going completely wrong tonight if you were to succumb and let yourself go. After all, your worst fear is yourself. It doesn’t feel right and you begin to wonder if it’s alright for you to hold onto this moment you’ve always dreamed about: dolling up and swearing your vows side by side with Jin. 

If you were to live out your fairytale, just for tonight, would you finally be able to sleep dreamlessly at night? 

“...fine,” you groan and storm across the room, tossing your purse into the ruby sofas and stepping onto the platform. Turning around to face a gleeful Jin, you’re about to scowl at him until your eyes flicker between the cheeky grin on that youthful face and those sculpted abdomen of his elevated by the lighting above. Cheeks flushing red, you gulp at the unseen sight before clutching the curtain in your hands and swinging it closed with a mumble, “and at least have some decency and use the curtains, God damn it…”

The freezing touch of your hands doesn't hold a candle to the heat of your face. Trying to calm your racing heart, you curse to yourself at the way he merely cackles at you and, even worse, the way your heart intensifies in response. 

“Yes, ma’am!” 

“...shut up,” you say more to yourself and your deafening heart.

The gown standing before you, however, is no help to your case either, for when you glance over the dress, the long train that could awe an entire room, the complimenting silhouette that doesn’t scream too over-the-top but enough to fulfill the little girl within you, and the classic lace sleeves that you’ve gushed over whilst skimming through magazines, you realize Jin had always been attentive even when he was stuffing his face with bread or even when he was being petty over an argument and you tried to rectify with incessant small talk. 

It’s at this moment that you acknowledge the rabbit hole you had just willingly fallen into and the impossibility of its towering escape.

“So,” Jin calls out to you as the sound of rustling clothes fill the silent air, “what do you want for your birthday tomorrow?”

“My birthday? Oh, right,” you slam palm to your forehead, having dwelled over the marriage and consequently forgetting your own birthday. “Uh, nothing really. I haven’t really thought about it this year.” 

“Really? You? Y/N? Not planning her own birthday?” he gasps. “Who are you and what did you do to Y/N?”

“Oh, shut up. With age comes other problems to deal with...”

...problems like you.

“C’mon,” he chuckles. “You have to have something. You can’t tell me you’ve gotten every single thing checked off of that old ‘birthday gift ideas’ list you gave me.”

“I mean… I wouldn’t say I’m very far from it and it’s not like you were actually going to give me everything I asked for. Say, what did I even have on that list?” your eyes wander to the towering curtains that envelop you as your hands reach behind to the buttons on your back. “A bowl of your tofu soup, some pocket money, a matching sweater, a pair of earrings, a necklace, and a… ring.” The word slips from your lips and it floats in the stagnant air before you can even do anything about it. His silence rings in your ears, so you quickly add in, “but I don’t want materialistic stuff like that anymore.” 

“...oh, really?” 

“Nope,” you heave a heavy sigh and pat the poofy material of the skirt down, “I think I’ve come to realize that… I just want to be loved. I don’t need a dress or a necklace or a ring…  you wouldn’t understand, but I don’t just want to hear those words. I want to feel them. I want to be loved.” 

But only by him.

A lingering silence drifts long enough for you to start panicking until, finally, he answers, “no, I understand.” 

“...well,” you quickly chirp as you fumble with the lacey material of your dress, “enough about me, what do you want for your big day, hm?”

“Why would I need a present from you?” he remarks. You can hear him finishing his final touches and you can barely stop your heart from leaping out of your chest. “You’ve given me enough already.”

“You mean I’ve given you enough earfuls and tears,” you retort, clutching onto the curtains as you shut your eyes to muster every courage within you. “Isn’t there anything I can give you? Anything you want?”

Counting down to yourself, the curtains and drawn open in one, swift swing; and when your eyelids flutter open, you find him standing on the platform across from you, dressed in a classic black and white suit with the curtains clutched in his hands like a mirror image of you. He glances over you from head to toe, as you do to him, until the both of you settle in each other’s gazes for what seems like an eternity, willingly lost and ever-so-enraptured.

You almost forget this isn’t actually your wedding.

“This,” he answers with a soft smile, “this is enough.”  

“...stop it.”

JIn frowns, “stop what?”

“Stop… looking at me like that,” you articulate, hands covering your bashful grin. “It’s making me feel self-conscious.” 

“Hey, it’s not my fault I have such a good eye at picking clothes for you!” he says whilst pointing an accusatory finger. “I guess 22 year old Jin had a pretty good sense of fashion after all.” 

“You picked this five years ago…?” 

The man shrugs but his high chin says otherwise regarding his humility, “I told you Kim Seokjin is a prepared man of his word.” Eyes peering across to wink at you, he continues a bit more seriously, “I might not be able to fulfill all of our promises, but this is the closest I can to it.” 

“Jin… you’re…” you laugh in disbelief, bashfully avoiding his intent gaze, “...you’re so incredibly stupid that I can feel it from all the way here.” 

“Oh, yeah?” he grins mischievously and takes a step toward you and off the platform. “How about now?”

“Stop it, don’t spread your stupidity to me.”

He spreads his arms out wide whilst taking another few steps forward, “why not? Aren’t we supposed to be together through thick and thin?”

“No, not really,” you adamantly shake your head amidst a hysterical fit of giggles, “don’t come any closer.” 

“Oh, no,” he feigns worry. Another footstep. “I can’t stop myself.” He approaches even closer. “The stupidity is spreading!” 

With him just a footstep away, you cower behind the shield of your hands, “stop it, stop looking at me like that—”

—and just as you squeal, his arms wrap around you to pull you into a tight embrace.

Like two lost puzzle pieces, his hands fit perfectly in the small of your back and his chin rests comfortably in the crook of your neck. His hair grazes against your burning cheeks. His scent envelops you into a rosy haze. He could probably feel the beat of your chest against his, but you wouldn’t know when you’re preoccupied by the thuds of his own. You had never been aware of the lonesome emptiness you’ve felt all these years until now, under the warmth of his touch that completes your other half. 

You almost forget to breathe until he takes a deep breath and lets out a slow, dreary sigh. 

“You are so beautiful.” 

Under any other circumstances, you would have smacked him for lying. Perhaps it’s the stir of the starry skies or the impending occasion or even the look he made on his way to you with a gaze that oozed with absolute adoration, but something tells you he’s being his genuine self tonight… and that’s what you fear the most. 

“You shouldn’t be saying that, Jin,” you say, stroking his head buried in your shoulder, “and you shouldn’t be looking at any women but Youngji with those eyes.” 

Whether he’s quietly reflecting or stubbornly disagreeing, Jin remains silent. His breath entangles with yours, syncing with the wavelengths that you two have been running for an ongoing seven years and, perhaps, beyond. 

He frustrates you to your wits’ end. There’s nothing he hasn’t made you question. At times, when you’re tossing and turning in bed and hoping for a way out of that cavern of a mind, you wish time could skip to a year in which the voices no longer haunt you at night; and yet, when you’re here buried in his arms, you would do anything to freeze and relish this fragment in time. 

It isn’t right. You two aren’t right and you know it isn’t right… but how do you deny yourself of the cure to those deep scars when he, himself, wishes to be downed? 

It takes everything in you to finally drop your hands from his locks to his shoulder. Just as you’re about to deny the tempting elixir, Jin lifts his head along with his gaze that now meets yours, “Y/N, I have something I need to tell you.”

“...y-yeah?” 

The windows to his soul twinkle underneath the dim chandeliers above. Those starry dark brown eyes simply take your breath away.

“My dad,” his voice quivers like the water that wells in his eyes; and when you know he’s about to bawl, you pat his head ever-so-endearingly. Gulping, he finds the courage to continue, “he’s sick.” 

“Oh... oh, Jin,” you murmur, quickly wiping the few tears that drop onto his flush cheeks before bringing him into another tight embrace. “I’m sorry.” 

“I only moved—” and that’s what cracks his buoyant front into a full on bawl  “—I only moved to take care of him!”

“I understand.” 

He shakes his head, “I didn’t want to abandon you!” 

“No, Jin, I know,” your voice is buried underneath his whimpers, “I’m sorry for saying that. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” 

“I didn’t know things would turn out like this!” he cries, holding you even closer. “I didn’t know!” 

“It’s okay, Jin. Really, it’s okay. It’ll be okay.” 

“No, it won’t be okay,” his voice hitches in the midst of his hiccups, “my father is dying and now I’m walking down the aisle with a woman I don’t even love!” 

Your strokes come to a temporary stop because how could fate be so twisted? Who is it to decide whose time shall begin and whose time is up? You have to hold your breath along with the waterworks that sour your eyes. You can’t cry now. He needs your stability.

He needs you. 

“Did you…” you take a shaky breath, leaning back to watch him cover the messy state of his face, “did you tell your dad?”

“I-I couldn’t,” he stutters, voice muffled by his voice, “you know how long he’s been waiting for this.”

I know,” you ponder for a second before hesitating to continue, “...why didn’t you consider me?” 

“I—” his hiccup interrupts him as he roughly smears his tear-stained cheeks with his palms “—I thought you hated me. I didn’t think you would agree. I thought our promises were just a joke. But when you confessed that night, when you said you would fight for us—” his voice cracks again as he laughs at himself, eyes to the ground “—I thought damn, fuck, how did I mess up so hard? I should have fought for us. I’m so stupid—”

“—no you’re not—”

“—so fucking stupid!” 

His self-reprimanding curse echoes in the room. Each of his demeaning scorns inciting a fiery justice in you. 

“No,” you state, “you’re not stupid.” 

Without the dignity to face you, his hands clenched into fist and he continues with bangs shrouding his sorrowful eyes, “I’m sorry, Y/N. I hurt you—”

“—no, Jin, you did not—”

“—I messed us up—”

“—no, Jin, look at me, hey, look at me,” you place a finger under his chin to lift his spirits until those bloodshot eyes of his find refuge in yours. Smiling, you speak, “see? I’m okay. So what are you apologizing for?”  

“Aren’t you… mad?” 

“Mad? No, silly,” you laugh, wiping another tear. “Sad? Maybe.”

“See—”

“—sad because I wasn’t there by your side when you needed me… and maybe a bit sad that I won’t be the one holding you like this tomorrow,” you apologize with a soft smile over the latter jab that incites a wince from the boy. “Why didn’t you tell me about your father?” 

“I didn’t think it was that serious,” he hiccups, “and when I found out, I tried to call you but it didn’t go through.”

“Shit,” you curse under your breath, “I’m sorry.” 

“No,” he takes a deep breath to calm his high, “it’s not your fault.”

“And it’s not yours either,” you affirm, breaking out into a laugh when you take another look at his reddened eyes and dampened cheeks. “Look at you! Why are you looking like a mess on our wedding day, huh?! At least let us be ignorantly happy for one day!” 

“What…?” he frowns whilst hastily smearing every last evidence of his breakdown on his face. The result is an equally red, irritated skin across his cheeks. “What’re you talking about? Kim Seokjin never looks like a mess… hey, what’re you laughing at?!” 

“Look at your tie, idiot! What kind of a rich son are you if you can’t even tie it correctly? Come over here,” you say just as you grab the end of his necktie to pull him up onto the platform. With his necktie now at your eye-level, you begin to unravel whatever knot he had attempted. All the while, you can feel his gaze as he watches you do your thing, completely enamored. This time, it’s your turn to turn red. To distract yourself from the rising self-consciousness, you clear your throat, “call me whenever you’re going through a hard time, okay? I’ll give you my new number…”

The piece of fabric flails around into equally atrocious knots that Jin had previously created until you groan in frustration and disassemble everything. You had practiced this so many times while he was gone, foolishly believing it would come in handy the day he returned, but why does nothing ever work out the way you want it to? 

“I swear it worked last time I tried…”

Your best friend just watches silently, chuckling as you wrap the fabric around your own neck this time; and when he speaks, much steadier like the Jin you have always known, he looks you directly in the eye. “Youngji told me about your guys’ conversation.”

“Huh?” you pause as soon as your embarrassing declaration of love begins reciting itself in your head, but not even the resumed work of your hands could distract you from the ever-growing shade of red. “O-oh, that… what about it?” 

“I heard what you said about me.” 

“Yeah?” you hum nonchalantly, even though the trembling of your hands and the avoidance of your eyes from his give you away. “Well, did she tell you about all the complaints I made, too? About you being a stupid dork?”

“She did,” he utters before placing a finger below your chin to avert your attention to those dazzling works you desperately avoided, “but would you still be willing to marry this stupid dork?”  

“This isn’t even a real wedding,” you feign a frown under the spotlight of his intent gaze, “why are you asking me a question like that?”

“Sorry, I didn’t have the funds to hire a real priest.” 

“You don’t need to for a fake wedding.”

“I thought you said we should be ‘ignorantly happy for one day?’” 

The bantering just never stops, does it?

“Okay, well… to answer your question,” you mutter, eyes averting to the side, “under normal circumstances…”

“Under normal circumstances…” he repeats.

“Where you aren’t engaged…”

“Where I’m not engaged…”

“And your father approved of me…”

“And my father approved of you…”

“Then yes,” you say without hesitation, eyes returning to find a newfound comfort in his relieved gaze, “yes, I would marry you.” 

“And that’s why I love you,” Jin smiles, chuckling softly. “I’ll always want to marry you.”  

And just as a nearby clock tower strikes its church bells to signal the stroke of midnight, Jin grabs the end of your necktie and pulls you in to press his lips onto yours. The body of his warmth and the acceptance of an inevitable end to your paths serve as the last page of a book never to be read again; and yet, he holds himself close, refusing to let you go. 

But when the end nears and the magic of the bells resume time once again, the two of you pull away to catch your breaths. Forehead against yours, Jin gives you one last, fleeting kiss. 

“Happy birthday, Y/N.”

❀ ❀ ❀

Deja vu would be the perfect term to describe this feeling.  You can almost see yourself in the room of hundreds, stealing glances at the man from afar. It only takes one blink for you to relive the rollercoaster of jubilance and confessions and tears. In the split second of darkness, the past week flickers before you like a film reel: breaking down in the middle of the hallway right in front of Jin, staring bewilderedly at the large bouquet in the hand of a man at the office, confessing with tears that stain your face and sobs that conquer your voice, meeting the woman who had stolen your spot beside Jin, and holding him in your arms as he cries his heart out at the stroke of midnight. 

And just as quickly as the whirlwind of memories had taken you on a trek of time, your eyes flutter open to find yourself in another suffocating room of hundreds once again. 

Youngji [8:39 P.M.] Hey Y/N do you think you can visit me real quick? 

The glaring text on your phone screen glows in an otherwise dimly lit reception room. Thumb hovering over the screen, your mind goes blank. People pass by you, commotions and laughter fill every corner of the room, and you stand there frozen and affixed to the floor beside the table of food with a glass of red wine in your hands. 

“Hey, Y/N,” someone whispers into your ear and you immediately turn your phone off only to find Alex on her tiptoes, “what’s the matter?”

“Oh, um, nothing,” you respond under your breath, “it’s just that someone wants to talk to me.” 

“Well, you better hurry then,” she ushers you with a gripping hand on your left arm, “the ceremony is about to start anytime now.” 

“O-oh, okay,” you nod, allowing your footsteps to follow the momentum of her push. 

This isn’t exactly what you had planned, for the original plan involved your complete avoidance of the groom and bride, but it’s unsurprising that things never quite go your way. Nothing could quite topple you like last night’s revelation anyways. Taking a deep breath, you weave through the audience, wandering about the venue until you finally find yourself in front of a door with a “BRIDE WAITING ROOM” printed in gigantic black letters taped to it. 

Hesitantly, you knock, “hello? This is Y/N…? Youngji called for me—”

“—Y/N!” The wooden door swings wide open with a highly distressed Youngji hiding behind it. Before you can reply or even confirm the identity of the woman, her hands clutch yours and pull you into the room with a force unimaginable for a human of her size.  Practically lurching forward, a heap of air is knocked from your lungs just as the door slams closed. Coughs force their way through your throat, but Youngji wastes no time to rush to your side. “Y/N, this is an emergency! I need help!” 

“W—” you wheeze, peering up at her as you’re doubled over “—what in the world are you talking about?” 

“I don’t know,” her hands jitter as she paces back and forth, “I don’t know why I feel so… so nervous!”

“Hold on,” you frown, finally straightening your back, “that’s perfectly normal. It’s your wedding—”

“—please don’t say that word again,” she begins biting her freshly white-coated nails.

“What word? Normal? Wedding? Your—”

“—I can’t believe it’s my wedding…” she says repeatedly, hands flying to her head and disheveling her previously perfectly conditioned curls. She suddenly turns to face you, eyes wider than ever with a look that screams of an epiphany. “I-I don’t think I can go there. Y/N, I don’t think I can go out there!”

“What?!” you almost yell, flabbergasted. Recoiling from your outburst, you start much more softly this time. “Are you sure? I’m sure it’s just your nerves getting to you. You’ve been okay with it for at least a year, right?”

“Why?” her eyes widen to unprecedented diameters as she grabs your arm for support. “Is it because it’s too late? Do you think I should back out, Y/N?”

“What? No, no, no, calm down, follow me,” you shake your head, grasping her hand and guiding her to the chair in the center of the room where an entire photo shoot has been set up. Lowering yourself to a squat, you give her a squeeze as firm as the smile on your lips.  “Hey, you’ll be okay. It’s just the jitters. Everyone gets them. I’m sure Jin is freaking out in his room, too.”

“...okay,” she nods, pouting as her eyes lower to your hands that hold hers. Peering up at her from below, you can’t help but notice how beautiful she looks dolled up on this special occasion. From the extravagant poof of her princess gown to the gorgeous glow of the bride herself, you find yourself lost in a trance that burns with heart-panging jealousy. You almost miss her when she murmurs, “how are you so calm, Y/N?”

“Huh?” you raise a brow and laugh. “Why would I be nervous? I’m not the one getting married here.”  

“But… your best friend is getting married,” she shifts to get a clearer look of you but finds you with your eyes to the floor, “are you sure you’re okay with that?”

“Of… of course. I’m happy for him,” you say through barely parted lips and stand to your feet before making your way to the door. “It’s not exactly traditional, but do you want me to get Jin? Maybe he can calm you down—”

“—do you know why Jin agreed to this arrangement?” 

Freezing in your tracks, you throw a glance over your shoulder to meet her distraught gaze. 

“Why are you asking me that now?”

“Because,” she blurts, clearly without thinking as words fail to follow through, “because I want your blessing! I want you to be okay with it!” 

“Blessing...?” 

“Yes,” she nods. “I can live with marrying a man I don’t love because I know I’ll come around, but I don’t think I can live knowing I’ve broken your relationship with Jin.”

Your weight shifts from your left to your right but the force of burden weighs immeasurably heavier on your very being. There’s nothing that would have prepared you for her request. Preparation, however, proves unnecessary, for your mind runs on its own and the words come to you as if rehearsal is all it's ever done. 

“I don’t think I’m in the position to grant you permission. That’s your decision and Jin’s,” you say, “and if my blessing is what you’re asking for, then I can give you it as many times as it takes to convince you. But if you’re asking for me to be okay with it, then I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to give you that.” 

Those are your last parting words as you slump on the wall behind you and a heavy sigh is shared between the two women on opposite sides of the door. Head low like a woman unjustly ashamed for speaking her truth, you take a deep breath with those heavy shoulders that carry the weight of a woman who had essentially cursed the joining of two hands. Nevertheless, somehow, you persist to make your way through the halls just as the ceremony begins; but as the audience settles and the light dims, something tells you the guilt that intoxicates your blood would have a longer-lasting aftermath than you had first expected. 

“Hey,” Alex leans into you, whispering, “is it just me or does Jin seem really jittery?”

“...no,” you answer, making sure to keep yourself hushed amidst a room of seated spectators. From the second bench to the front, fortunately on the opposite side of where Jin’s parents sit in the front row, you get a clear view of Jin and Youngji in between the black silhouettes of a couple heads; but anyone in the room can tell the bright studio lights and elevated platform don’t help his constantly shuffling case. “I don’t think it’s just you.”

“I see… so both the groom and bride are getting cold feet, huh?” 

“Well,” you utter, quipping, “in Jin’s case, he’d probably just say he forgot to sleep with socks on.” 

Alex turns to you with sheer confusion across her furrowed brows, “huh?” 

But before Alex could inquire further, the priest clears his throat and begins the opening ceremony. The officiality of it all, a long-dreaded image of Jin standing by another woman’s side manifesting into reality, has you subconsciously sent into a frenzy. 

“Dear Beloved, we are gathered here today in the presence of these witnesses, to join Kim Seokjin and Heo Youngji in matrimony commended to be honorable among all…”

The clearing of his throat strikes once and hard against your chest. Each word that reverberates in the room echoes the vibrating pain in the blood pumped from a gaping wound. Your chest heaves and heaves and your lungs struggle to maintain composure, and while your breakdown may have gone unseen by the rest of the universe, you know for sure only two would catch sight of your state.

You and him. 

“...if there is any person who can show cause why they should not be joined together…”

The priest continues and the tension in the audience rises by the second of a stress-inducing prompt, but the moment Jin catches your eyes and the panic painted across it, his every attention remains on you. Guilt should’ve painted your expression now, having stolen the groom’s admiration from the rightful bride by his side, but all you can do is relish in a fleeting moment you deem the least this cruel world owed you. 

Maybe he feels the same way, because something catches in your throat like the hunch that has chills running down the nape of your neck. You don’t dare move an inch. You fear any movement would give you away, though you’re sure he already knew the second he met you halfway.

His eyes, those dazzling eyes that could single-handedly freeze any moment in time, they ask you for a permission only he could grant. 

“...let them speak now or forever hold their peace.” 

No one speaks but the thick air that engulfs every witness in the room is telling enough. Holding a shared, bated breath, everyone awaits and prays for the quick passing of this deafening silence. Your heart is pounding so hard you worry your passing out would be the one interruption to the ceremony, if not anything else. It takes everything in you to remain hidden, glued to the chair. You can hear every single movement in this room, the squeaking of a nearly retired bench, the rustling of clothes amidst a fidgeting audience, the anxious tapping of someone’s heels against the wooden floor, yet no one dares to speak now. 

The priest sighs a soft breath of relief. 

Everyone but you follows along. 

The priest clears his throat and pro—

“—I would like to speak.”

A loud gasp travels across the room. Every witness, including the priest himself, stares at the young man, wide-eyed. The knot in your throat inhibits you from following suit, but the hammer against your chest works harder than ever; because there he is, your best friend, standing boldly before the audience with a puffed chest and a tightened fist that brace for the repercussions. 

It all happens so suddenly, so swiftly. The strings that were left raveled now unraveled, the paths that were abandoned now explored, and the love of a lifetime whomst once bid you farewell now holds on with a determination that tells you they aren’t quite ready to let go, by happenstance or by conviction, everything falls into place. 

You had reprimanded yourself relentlessly for envisioning a moment like this and you truly believed this would be the worst case scenario, so why is it that only now, as your peering eyes are enamored by the sparkles in his, you find yourself smiling proudly and thinking to yourself… that’s your man. 

“Father, mother,” Jin turns to face his parents in the front row, declaring loudly and firmly, “I don’t want to marry someone I don’t love.” 

“What,” Alex shrills under her breath as she clutches your hands, “what is going on, Y/N?!”

Her voice doesn’t reach you and neither do her cold, nudging hands. The ongoing commotion around the room are like white noise in your background. You can’t even spare a second of your attention to the picturesque vision before you, the man who fights not for you but for the two of you.

Jin bows, head hanging low to his parents and the audience, “I’m sorry for saying this too late.” 

Everybody watches as his mother attempts to hold her husband in place. All is in vein, however, when one look of the baffled expression on her husband’s face conveys enough to everyone of the mayhem that is soon to ensue. He rips her grip apart from his arm and storms to his feet, pointing a finger at his apologetic son.

“W—” he struggles to find his breath “—what are you saying? You said you were okay with this just last week!”

“I did,” Jin affirms with his head still hanging low, “I thought I was okay with it until this week.” 

“How—”

“—honey…” the mother murmurs.

“No, changing your mind is one thing, but changing it at the very last second is another,” his father shakes his head, yanking his hand and stumbling on his feet before his distraught son could lend a helping hand. “Did I teach you to inconvenience others like this? Do you know how much trouble you’re causing Youngji and her family?”

“I do,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

His father grunts, “don’t you see, Seokjin? ‘Sorry’ can’t fix everything—”

“—actually, Mr. Kim, it’s not just Jin,” Youngji bounces to Jin’s side then pivots to bow to her parents who sit in the row before you, “I, too, don’t want to marry anyone until I really know them.” 

Physically, the spotlight remains affixed to the stage. Mentally, it feels as though everyone’s attention is gradually creeping its way toward you. It takes everything in you and the grip of Alex’s hands not to run from the prying eyes. 

“What?” their parents gasp. “Didn’t you say you were okay with it if it were Jin?”

“I did!” she insists, suddenly retracting. “I did, until…”

“I’m sorry,” Jin lifts his head to turn to Youngji’s parents before bowing once again, “this is all my fault.”

“No, no, you wouldn’t do this... tell me, son,” his father takes a step toward the stage, beckoning for an explanation, “tell me who did this to you?” 

Jin lifts his head, brow furrowing and lips thinning as he chooses to remain silent to his father’s question. Suddenly, it’s everyone’s duty to catch the perpetrator. The audience begins craning their neck every which way to skim over the possible candidates. Your heart sends threatening waves of pain that foreshadow the inevitable chaos you’re about to be dragged into. 

You can barely move from staring at the floor in between the groom and bride but you can spot the gradual direction of his mother’s eyes making its way toward you… and when they finally spot you, a lightbulb flashing across her eyes the second you make the lethal mistake of meeting her gaze for the first time in many years, it’s as though her son’s rebellion is the only thing that makes sense in this universe. 

Only naturally, his father catches onto his partner’s maternal instincts along with the rest of the crowd as their diverged attention converges, one head turning after another, to stare you down—some with awe plastered across their jealous front, some with ghastly colors than drain their face of blood. 

“Is that… you, Y/N?” his father’s voice echoes in the room. “Seokjin, don’t tell me…”

“No, father!” Jin jumps in, holding up a defensive pair of hands as he attempts to quell the fiery in his father’s temper. Wide-eyed and panicked, he glances between you and his father. “It isn’t her fault. I swear. I”ll explain—”

“—don’t tell me you’re going through all this trouble for a childish crush from five years ago?” 

A loud shriek began the chaos the second Jin’s father exploded, lurching forward with a vexing fist. Everyone in the front rows jump to their feet to hold him back, whereas people in the back rows stand to their tiptoes to get a better view of the climactic show, which includes a once-to-be-groom insisting his father punishes him and a once-to-be-bride slapping her ex-partner in the head for his submission. 

People are hysterically laughing, crying, screaming, yelling, fighting, but you sit there, frozen and petrified, until a hand shakes your entire being to your feet. 

“Y/N, Y/N, God damn it Y/N, earth to Y/N!” Alex raises her hand, just about to give you one hard slap to the cheek when you suddenly flinch awake. She then hastily pushes you toward the door in the corner of the room whilst everyone is too distracted to notice your discreet escape. She looks you directly in the eye, “you need to run before things get too crazy. I’ll handle things here for now.” 

“But Alex, I’m at fault here—”

“—yes, I mean, maybe,” she corrects herself with the shake of her head, “but you being here doesn’t help matters. I’ll help Jin and Youngji.”

“But—”

“—now go,” she starts your momentum with an encouraging push, “go!”

Nodding, you begin your long trek of the night. You run and you run and you run. Your mind runs blank but your feet run a mind of its own. You sprint down the dimly lit streets, you pay no mind to the traffic lights of endlessly empty streets, and your hair twirls in the wind that impedes your speed down the hills. Your surroundings become a blur as your arms swing desperately, your chest heaves incessantly, your eyes sting with tears, and your lips spill anguished sounds of incoherency until somehow, under the sway of the town’s cold spring air and your flux of emotions, you find yourself in a familiar street of your greatest dreams. 

Depleted of gas, your feet stumble into a trot that has your knee nearly buckling, which then turns into a jog that then drifts into an untroubled walk in which your lungs try to catch up and your mind is scrambling at a hundred miles per hour but you, yourself, have gone elsewhere. 

The luminescence of the full moon is blinding but all the more soothing as you navigate your way through this street you’ve walked one too many times before. For some reason, perhaps out of habit or a hope for something waiting at the end of the tunnel, you begin to count each passing light post. Seven fluorescent lights, you count, seven lights resembling the rays of moonlight until you finally reach your old acquaintance of many years at the corner of the street. 

Leaning your head back to stare at the familiar white text on a green sign post, you smile at the homely sight. 

CHERRY BLOSSOM AVE

A comforting breeze blows by you, the branches above you rustle in the wind, and the cherry petals from your old pal flutter into the air to envelop you in a solace you had long sought but failed to obtain. It’s like the calm after a storm. Not quite disconnected from the string that loops around your fourth finger to those of another man’s—no, you couldn’t unravel it after all this heartache—but at least away from the prying eyes that could tear you apart and away from the people who whispered gossip of matters they had none in. 

Hours seem to pass in the clouds that retire to reveal patches of new twinkling ornaments. You would have believed it if someone were to tell you all control of time lies within the blink of your eyes. The silence was calming initially; but the longer you stand here and the more the numbness begins to fade, the more you become aware of your lonesome circumstances. 

The silence is deafening. It knows your greatest fears and your innermost thoughts. You can’t handle it. You can’t bear the thought of being left alone to that voice in your head. 

You have to go. 

Where? 

You don’t know. You just know you have to go somewhere. You can envision all the places you can run to but all the roads lead you to one destination. Yes, anywhere would be fine, anywhere that leads you to him. 

“This marks the second time you’ve ever been so enraptured by something other than me.” 

Whirling around, seconds seem to become milliseconds and gravity becomes a law unbeknownst to earth, for you can’t believe the sight your eyes lay upon. There he is, standing by the tree just a few meters away with a loosened necktie and disheveled hair, almost as if a pitiful albeit wondrous mirage crafted by your shoddy prayers to the moon above. 

“Hey dummy,” he simply utters, taking a step or two toward you before poking your forehead, “what? Why’re you staring at me like I’m a ghost?” 

“What?” you manage to say under your breath. “I’m not staring…”

“I was just joking, you know?” he chuckles. “I wouldn’t be jealous over a street post. Psh, I’m not that dumb—”

“—why…” you frown when he quirks a brow, “why are you here? How are you here?”

“Oh no, she’s gone crazy,” Jin laughs at the stupefied look you give him. “At least an hour or two has passed since you left. Somehow, I managed to sit my father down and explain myself.” 

“And… what did he say?” your hands begin fidgeting. “He must hate me, doesn’t he…”

“I wouldn’t say ‘hate,’ per se… he’s perfectly okay with you. In fact, he likes you, really. He’s just mad at how things happened. After he calmed down, though, he understood where I was coming from.” 

Cautiously, you peek at those eyes that peer down at yours, “and your mother…?”

“She said she saw it coming from a mile away. Apparently she saw us arguing at the engagement party and knew right away,” Jin purses his lips. “Psh, yeah, as if I’m that easy to read.” 

Allowing yourself the smallest of laughs, you still can’t seem to rid yourself of that panging guilt. “And… what about Youngji?” 

Jin stares intently at your expression before cracking a smile and chuckling, ruffling your hair, “don’t go crying on me now, Y/N. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of everything.” 

“But I just,” your voice cracks, “I just hate myself for ruining everything for everyone—”

“—hey,” he cups his fingers underneath your chin to lift your gaze to his, “you did not ruin anything for anyone. I did this. I chose to fight for us.” 

Hesitantly, you nod and he smiles in response. 

“Youngji’s still explaining to her family right now. She told me to find you and Alex told me you would probably here.” 

Frowning, you mutter to yourself, “how did she know…?” 

“Well,” Jin drops his hand from your chin to raise them in the air, “we did promise to swear our wedding vows here, didn’t we?” 

“So what?” you deadpan. “You’re gonna marry me now after all this mess?” 

“I know you really want to marry me as soon as possible, but I think I’m gonna have to take a break from weddings for now.” 

Rolling your eyes, you mumble, “ditto.”

“But hey, I may have already broken the third promise,” one corner of his lips curve into an apologetic smile before he shrugs, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t marry you in the future! Plus, I may or may not have promised my father I would marry you in the near future to make up for it, so...” 

Scoffing, you gawk, “and who said I would marry you?” 

“Who wouldn’t marry me?!” 

The two of you stare at each other in silence, but the mirrored grin that stretches across your lips are undeniable. Soon enough, a loud fit of giggles and cackles fill the air. It happens all too quickly. The banters come to you like second nature, the conversation flows like a river through time, and somehow you find yourself lying beside him on the blazer he had laid out on the grassy hill and star-gazing for hours on end. 

It’s almost like you’ve seen this all before, just five years aged. 

“So,” Jin speaks, “how’s your birthday been?” 

“Oh, shut the hell up.” 

“What?” he cackles, getting up to lean on his arm whilst hovering you. “You know it’s not too late to tell me what you want for your birthday!” 

“I already told you,” you narrow your eyes at him, “I wasn’t joking when I said what I said.” 

Jin smiles, “in that case…”

He leans in to diminish the distance between his lips and yours. A lulling zephyr blows gently on the cherry petals as you close your eyes and you can picture the way they gracefully descend upon the two lovers below. Having witnessed the unforeseeable promises from start to finish, it’s almost as though an old accomplice was applauding a long-awaited finale. 

And when he finally pulls away, eyelids fluttering open just as yours do, he speaks, “happy birthday.” 

“What was that for?” you giggle. 

Jin’s mouth falls agape, “I’m giving you what you wanted for your birthday!”

“Well,” you purse your lips, “where’s my ring to confirm it then?”

“After all this time, do you really need a ring at this point to confirm my love for you?” Jin rolls his eyes. “You know I’ll always want to be by your side, married or not.” 

A fit of laughs escape you as your hand reaches up to squeeze his cheeks, “I know, I know. I’m just joking.”

“Well, good, cause I’m bankrupt at the moment,” Jin sighs, plopping back onto the grass beside you. A momentary silence passes before he turns his head to look at you, “just to make sure, you said you wanted love, right?” 

Turning to meet those sparkles in his gaze, you answer, “yeah?”

“You said you wanted to feel love, right?” 

Your grin grows wider by the second, “yeah?” 

“Well,” he says, “do you feel it?” 

“I do,” you answer. “What about you? Do you feel it?”

The vows hold a truth much closer to his heart this time around, and he smiles as he swears...

“I do, too.” 

[cleanlenins]

Ectober Day 9: Mask

When The Clown No Longer Laughed

Things have been going well for Arkham Asylum. There haven't been any breakouts in a while, a new team of Psychologists are starting to make a breakthrough with the residents, and Gotham is starting to heal.

But with the recent suicide of one Mr. Freeze, Batman decides to look into what is happening in Arkham Asylum. Dr. Penelope Spectra talks about the good she is doing for the inmates, and how they are finally being rehabilitated.

But Batman knew something was deeply wrong.

When the Clown no longer laughed.

AO3

Warnings: Suicide, Depression, Character Death

inspired by @lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks

“It’s really amazing. It seems like we are finally doing something right,” Commissioner Gordan’s voice echoed through the Batcave. Batman sat in his computer chair, hands clasped, as he frowned in thought. “We haven’t had anyone breakout in at least a month. Hell, we haven’t even had anyone try to break out. Most of the residents are even going to their therapy appointments with minimal fuss.”

“Most?” Batman asked. Gordon sighed.

“We can’t help everyone. Quinzel has been really vocal against some of the new therapists we hired a few months ago. She nearly fist fought one of them after Ivy had an appointment with her.”

“Who was the therapist?”

“Dr. Penelope Spectra,” Gordon responded. “Apparently, she wasn’t all that phased by it. Said she expected it, at least once. But she wouldn’t let it scare away from her work.”

Batman hummed in thought, before starting to pull up Dr. Spectra on the Bat Computer.

“Who are some of Dr. Spectra’s clients?” Batman asked.

“She honestly has taken on quite a caseload. She’s got Crane, Isley, Dent, Fries...and Joker,” Gordon said the last one quickly. Batman narrowed his eyes as he looked at his screen. The image of a smiling redhead, dressed to the nines. Her green eyes seemed to peer into his soul. Something about the color seemed familiar. 

“And she has made progress with them?” Batman asked.

“Most of them, yes. You know how Joker is.” Batman didn’t feel a need to respond to that.

“They should keep an eye on her. You know how the Joker can be,” Batman advised.

“Yeah, we don’t want another Quinzel, that’s for sure,” The Commissioner grumbled before ending the call. Batman looked at the image of the woman, and started digging. He didn’t get far before he was alerted to a hostage situation on the east side of Gotham. He rushed out, putting his thoughts behind him as he focused on the problem at hand. 

~~~

“He’s dead?” Batman asked, Red Robin shifted uncomfortably beside him as they both focused on Oracle.

“It hasn’t been announced, but yes,” Barbara said. She pulled up an image of the scene. It was gruesome, mostly because the victim was so familiar. The dangling body of Victor Fries. Shredded blanket plaited into a crude noose. “All signs point to suicide.”

“Which signs?” Red Robin asked.

“There is no security footage of anyone going in or out of the cell. His therapist, Dr. Spectra reported to the guards that he seemed depressed lately. And of course, he left a note,” Oracle projected the note onto the screen. “I already checked the handwriting, and it matches that of Victor Fries. He also seemed to be keeping a journal, as part of his treatment. And you can tell that he did seem to be spiraling for a while.”

Batman listened to Barbara rattle off more information from the scene as he read the note.

To Any It Concerns,

I have come to the realization that I am a failure. A failure of all that I have ever tried to do. I am a failure as a Husband, as I could do nothing to save the one I loved more than anything. I’m a failure of a man, as I could not face the consequences of my mistakes and instead chose to blame others. And I am a failure as a human being, as I chose to hurt and maim and sow the same grief that I used to rationalize my own actions. 

I know that none shall miss me, as all I have done was act as a plague on the human race. But know that, in these last moments, I am sorry.

-Victor Fries

Batman hid his sorrow. When he had heard of the changes at Arkham, he had hoped. Hoped that some of them could get the help they needed. Gordon’s words that they couldn’t save everyone rang in his ears, but still Batman mourned. Quietly, and unnoticed.

“I can’t believe this,” TIm said, running his fingers through his hair. “What did Dr. Spectra say?”

“She said she blamed herself. That as his therapist, she should have seen this coming,” Oracle said. She pulled up video footage of Dr. Spectra talking to the inspector. She wiped at her eyes with a tissue. Batman’s eyes narrowed, taking in her body language.

“It’s such a shock. I thought he was close to a breakthrough. We discussed some of the negative thoughts he had been journaling. I had hope for a full recovery,” The Therapist said, continuing to dab at completely dry eyes. 

“Well, she doesn’t seem all that upset,” Tim muttered. Batman nodded in agreement.

“I need to check this out myself,” Batman said.

“I’ll come to,” Red Robin said, and Batman nodded in agreement. Static briefly overtook the comm.

“I would like to come as well,” Nightwing said. 

“You don’t have to do that, Nightwing,” Batman grumbled, already strapping into the batmobile.

“I know. I just...I never would have seen Victor doing something like this. And I would like-”

“If you are emotionally compromised, you need to stay away from this,” Batman grumbled back. As if he wasn’t emotionally shaken as well.

“I’m not compromised, I just-”

“Let us handle this, Nightwing,” Red Robin said, not unkindly over the comm. A long pause.

“Fine,” Nightwing sighed. “Just-please keep me in the loop.”

“Of course,” Red Robin responded.

The rest of the drive to Arkham was silent. Batman and Red Robin jumped out of the Batmobile as soon as the door was open and walked into the secure facility. Security guards whispered as they passed.

The first thing Batman noticed was how quiet the place was. Red Robin seemed to be unnerved as well. Usually, the place was filled with riotous noise, insults and jeers thrown around. Angry swearing as Batman made his way through the facility. But there was none of that. The place felt dreary. Like a heavy blanket had settled over the place, muffling the loud personalities Arkham was known to house. Batman’s eyes narrowed under his cowl as he took in the slumping bodies and defeated expressions most of the inmates sported. Until he finally got to the cell of one Mr. Freeze.

The body had already been removed, as it should. The man deserved at least that much dignity. The room was a shock, however. It seemed cluttered and messy, where Fries was usually immaculate and tidy. Trash was spilling out of the trashcan, unemptied and untended. Bits of paper were ripped from one of the many books kept in the cell. Said books were not kept in their proper place, but instead laid around the cell haphazardly. The chair for the desk was still on its side on the floor, makeshift noose hanging from the ceiling.

The security guard that escorted them fidgeted uneasily outside the cell, giving them room to work. Red Robin started going through books, careful not to disturb anything that could be evidence. Batman analyzed the whole scene before him. 

There was very little to glean that Barbara had not already reported. It seemed very much like the many suicides Batman had witnessed over the years. No sign of foul play. It seemed to be cut and dry that Victor had finally just...had enough. Batman ignored the sense of regret that began to build in his chest.

“It really is a tragedy,” A voice broke Batman out of his musing. He hid his surprise well and turned to see Dr. Spectra in the flesh. Batman felt goosebumps as he looked into her eyes. He had not heard her approach at all. “He had come so far. I really should have been more attentive. I just didn’t realize he had been having such thoughts. It is such a waste.”

“A waste?” Batman asked. Dr. Spectra smiled at him.

“Yes. So much potential. Such a brilliant man, brought so low by his grief. He could have done so much in the world,” Dr. Spectra shook her head. “So much potential. You shouldn’t blame yourself, you know.”

“Why would I blame myself?” Batman stepped closer to the Doctor, who held her ground.

“Do you not? That is a very healthy attitude, then. I just assumed since you knew him for years that you might be feeling some guilt. Since you were never able to get through to him,” Dr. Spectra said nonchalantly. “I certainly feel bad, and I only knew him for a few months. I can only imagine how bad the people who have been trying to help him for years feel. But I suppose it really isn’t my place to tell you how you feel.”

Batman did not respond to such a statement. Truly, he did feel some guilt. He should have done more. He had tried to talk to Victor many times, but to no avail. But this was not his fault. He knew it was not his fault. Logically it was not his fault.

“If you never need anyone to talk to, I am available. No need to take off the mask and the cape. Sometimes it just helps to talk to someone,” Dr. Spectra said, putting a hand on the Bat’s shoulder. When did she get so close? Batman shook her off with a glare.

“Is there anything I should know about your other patients? Have any of them displayed any questionable behavior?” Batman said. Dr. Spectra crossed her arms.

“You are free to go and see them yourself. Honestly, I think they could use the company. All the people in Arkham are just so...miserable,” Dr. Spectra turned, and walked away. Batman watched her until he was out of sight.

“Red Robin,” Batman said. Tim was suddenly at his side. “See what you can find about the sessions with Dr. Spectra and Victor Fries.”

“Okay. What are you going to do?” Red Robin was already typing on his portable computer.

“I’m going to go see the Joker,” Batman walked away, the security guard jumping out of his way.

Batman didn’t need to know the way to where the Joker was kept. He was familiar with the long walk, through many security checks. The different locked doors that guard after guard swiped keycards to let him through. The Batman stayed silent, not having to communicate his intent.

Before long, Batman stood looking into the tempered glass that housed Gotham’s most notorious villain. The Joker sat there, scribbling on a paper with a black crayon. Amorphous blobs of black were doodled across multiple sheets of paper that littered the floor of the cell. The scribbling stopped when Batman made himself known.

“You’ve been quiet, Joker,” Batman said. The Joker said nothing, continuing his scribbling on the sheet in front of him. He did not turn to acknowledge Batman. Batman stepped closer to the glass, taking note of the black shapes on the pages. Each of them seemed to harbor a pair of glowing red eyes.

“Victor Fries is dead. Do you know anything about it?” Batman asked. Once more, the Clown stopped his scribbling, but did not look up.

“...no,” The joker responded.

“No,” Batman repeated. “Is that all you have to say?”

Batman watched the Joker nod, before continuing his scribbling even more frantic than before. Batman waited for the Joker to continue. To say anything. But the Joker completely ignored him. After a while, Batman turned to leave.

“...goodbye,” Batman paused as he heard the Joker speak no louder than a whisper. He turned back to see the criminal still scribbling, making no motions to continue the conversation. Batman left the area, mind working overtime. 

He knew something was very wrong. Since the Clown no longer laughed. 

[lady-of-the-lotus]

Drink, No Drink

xuexiao - M for violence - 4.9k - AO3!

In which Xiao Xingchen drunkely flirts with an oblivious Xue Yang ____________________________

They come by once a month on average, sometimes twice. Once, about eleven months after Xue Yang came to Yi City, three come at once, but that's a group and Xue Yang, always fair, counts them as one.

Still three times the fun to kill, of course.

The men step into the Coffin House courtyard at noon, just ten minutes after Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing had left to buy groceries.

Xue Yang is busy dumping fresh dirt into a raised bed. He and Xiao Xingchen have built raised beds throughout the courtyard to plant vegetables in. Xiao Xingchen had wanted flowers, but Xue Yang had vetoed the idea, flowers being useless, and the daozhang isn’t one to argue.

He looks up as the men step into the courtyard. “Who are you?”

The leader of the group, a tall, brutish-looking man with a cauliflower ear and broken nose, seems almost angry at the question. “Where is he?”

Xue Yang dusts his hands off. And here he thought he’d be bored until the daozhang returned. “Who is this ‘he’?”

“The blind cultivator in white! Xiao Xingchen! We know he lives here!”

Xue Yang taps his chin. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

The musclebound man on the right steps forward, seconds away from grabbing Xue Yang by the collar and losing a hand. “We were told there’s a blind cultivator living here!”

“Ohhh, I thought you meant the other blind cultivator in white. I lose track. What do you want from him?”

“To take a strip out of his hide!”

Xue Yang rolls his eyes. “Let me guess, you committed some crime once upon a time, and he got you in trouble for it, and now that he’s blind you want your revenge.”

“How did—”

“It’s all very original.” Xue Yang’s knife is in his hand. He tosses in the air, catching it deftly. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

The skinny little man on the left shrugs. “Not reall—”

He never finishes his sentence. A flash of silver blade, and Xue Yang’s knife is sprouting from his eye. Shrieking, he falls backwards into a vegetable bed, yanking the knife out of his face.

Xue Yang shakes his head. “Don’t you know not to pull a knife out of a wound? Trust me on that one, I should know. Look, now you’re bleeding all over the place.” He produces a second knife and turns to face the other two men, who stand gaping at him in slack-jawed shock. “How about you two? Up for some first aid practice?”

“You—you—”

“Got any weapons? Get them out. It’s more fun that way.”

Still looking confused, the leader draws his own knife out and stands there, blinking, while the other man drops to his knees beside his companion, who’s writhing in the dirt and shrieking like a wounded fox.

Xue Yang makes a face. “Can you shut him up? He’s going to give me a headache at this rate.”

“He—he—”

Xue Yang floats over and slices the man’s tongue out with a practiced twist of his blade, but the man continues to emit bone-chilling scream from deep inside his throat.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake—” Another twist of the blade, and the man falls silent. Permanently. “You’d think he’d never been stabbed in the eyeball before.”

“You killed him—”

“Like you were going to do to the daozhang?” Xue Yang flies back over near the leader. “And for what, arresting you? You clearly escaped whatever the charges are. Grow up and let it go.”

The leader’s hand tightens on his knife. “The magistrate beat me so badly I couldn’t get honest work again as a porter—”

“Your back, your arms, your legs, what was the problem?”

“My left leg was broken so badly it—”

Xue Yang jams his heel into the man’s left kneecap, shattering it. Howling, the man collapses, knife falling from his spasming fingers. “Like I want your life’s story?” He hauls the man up by his collar and flies him over to one of the raised beds, dumping him in the dirt. Dislocates the man’s shoulder, just to be safe, and nicks the side of the man’s throat so that he bleed out into the soil.

Best kind of fertilizer, or so he’d been given to believe.

Then he turns to the third man, who’s cowering on his knees, forehead pressed to the dirt. “How about you? Going to put up more of a fight, I hope? I mean, what were you three arrested for, anyway? Couldn’t have been anything requiring actual fighting skills. Tax fraud?”

“Forgive me—forgive me—I won’t harm Xiao Xingchen! I swear I’ll leave here, I’ll never speak of this—”

“A bit late for that, I’d think.” Xue Yang tilts his head down at him. He likes seeing the man grovel. Kowtow, really. A trembling heap of peasant clothes and greasy hair, not half as good as if it had been the daozhang or one of the self-righteous cultivators who’d dogged him half his life, but it still fills him with heady tingling pleasure. “You should never have come here.”

“It wasn’t my idea—I swear it wasn’t!”

“Great, a spineless lackey. Even better. Now, the question is how to kill you.” He crouches before the man, patting his trembling cheek with his knife while he thinks. “I usually go for something more creative, but we need to wrap this up before the daozhang gets home, and more than two beds needs fertilizing, so here we go.”

The man makes a feeble effort to resist, taking an easily-dodged swing at Xue Yang's jaw. A flick of his hand, and Xue Yang’s knife is suddenly plunged deep into the man’s throat. Grabbing him by the hair, he hauls the man into the neighboring vegetable bed and gives the knife an experimental jiggle, then wiggles it a bit farther up his throat. A delicate balance, this—he needs the man alive to pump out as much blood as possible, but can't resist playing with him a bit. Of course Xue Yang could always rip out his intestines and bury them in the dirt, but that would be messy, and Xue Yang hasn't time to clean up.

A sigh, and the man bleeding out from his eye socket expires.

Xue Yang hesitates, then removes his outer robes and flies the man over the back wall of the courtyard, dumping him in the forest outside the city.

The second man has died by the time he returns. Xue Yang flies him out, then the third man when he too dies.

He stands beneath the trees, eying his handiwork.

Not a bad day’s work.

If only the daozhang knew that Xue Yang, his worst enemy, had been saving his life for the past eleven months. Knew how deeply indebted he is to the delinquent from Kuizhou.

But the daozhang can’t know.

Not just yet.

He’d probably make me stop, Xue Yang thinks, no matter what the personal risk. He’d insist on arresting all these opportunistic degenerates and bringing them to justice, as if such a thing exists.

The idiot. Xue Yang finds himself smiling at the thought. The sanctimonious idiot, blind in more ways than one. For all Xue Yang knows, he might even hear the men out—“Oh, your leg was broken? The scoundrels!” and embark on a journey to track down the magistrate who’d wronged the criminal degenerates—

A vulture approaches, drawn by the scent of blood, startling Xue Yang out of his thoughts.

“Wait your turn,” he tells the bird. “It’s first come, first serve around here.” Chuckles to himself—too bad the daozhang is completely unsuited for the day’s activities. He knows Xiao Xingchen would have appreciated the afternoon’s humor—maybe even relished the irony of watching Xue Yang, the man who was going to one day kill the daozhang, protect him—

Well, perhaps not that. But he could have gotten a few laughs, at least.

Xue Yang cuts a lock of hair from each of the men, just as he has for the last thirteen criminals who’d come after Xiao Xingchen, removes their tongues, and flies back over the wall.

He can take care of the bodies later, if the vultures don’t handle them for him.

He places the tongues in jars he sets inside a coffin painted with preservation sigils. Then, grabbing a rake, he begins mixing the blood-soaked earth, evenly dividing it among the dozen raised beds that take up half the courtyard and patting the soil down in preparation for tomorrow’s sowing. He’s just finishing up when Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing return.

The first thing out of the daozhang’s mouth is, “What’s that smell?”

“What smell?”

“Smells like blood,” says A-Qing, who can always be counted on to say the wrong thing.

Xue Yang fights the urge to tell the daozhang the truth, see the look on his face. “I got bored without you, and went for a walk in the woods, and found a fierce corpse.”

Xiao Xingchen’s face softens at the words without you. Xue Yang is still at a loss to explain how readily Xiao Xingchen displays his feelings. Surely letting another person know that you value their companionship is a dangerous show of weakness?

Xue Yang has learned to reveal nothing that can be used against him in the future.

What Chengmei says to the daozhang is different. His esteem for the blind white fool is all an act, and there is no way a lie might harm him.

“I have the beds all ready for planting,” he tells Xiao Xingchen.

Xiao Xingchen moves towards him as A-Qing runs inside with the groceries. “Were you wounded?”

“By what, tripping and falling on the rake?”

“The blood smells fresh. Did the fierce corpse manage to hurt you? That’s unlike you, Chengmei.” He lays a hand on Xue Yang’s chest, eyebrows rising slightly at the feel of Xue Yang’s thin, silky inner robe beneath his hand instead of his textured outer robes. “I know you, Chengmei. You wouldn’t tell me you were hurt, even if you were.” Slowly, he runs his hands over Xue Yang’s chest, pats his arms, feels his waist.

Xue Yang swallows hard, freezing.

From the touching, he tells himself. Not from the display of concern. It’s hard not to tense up when touched, given how often past touch has been something bad.

Truly it means nothing, the daozhang’s concern. Xue Yang knows this. Has always known it.

What good is the compassion of a man who only cares because he doesn’t know the truth?

Xiao Xingchen rests his hand briefly on his hip, but seems unwilling to go any lower and check Xue Yang’s legs. “You’d tell me if you were hurt, right?”

Xue Yang’s heart is pounding. “….I wouldn’t lie to you…”

“I know you wouldn’t.” Seeming to realize how close they're standing, Xiao Xingchen moves away. “I’ll go help A-Qing make dinner. We'll keep the seeds from tonight’s vegetables, we can plant tomorrow…”

Xue Yang slips his outer robes back on but doesn’t head back into the house. He’s cursing himself for having lost his composure for even a second, especially in front of Xiao Xingchen, of all people.

It’s not like he noticed. You sounded normal, and he’s blind, for fuck’s sake.

The reddish gold sun has sunk beneath the courtyard walls when Xiao Xingchen comes out onto the porch. He looks blue in the twilight, slender and beautiful and somehow soft despite the boniness of his long slim body.

“Chengmei? Dinner’s ready.”

Hesitating, though he’s not sure why, Xue Yang heads inside. Xiao Xingchen hands out the bowls and chopsticks while A-Qing serves.

Xue Yang is silent during dinner, mechanically shoveling rice into his mouth.

Xiao Xingchen does most of the talking, as if sensing Xue Yang is in a strange mood. He talks about the past, places he’s seen, people he’s met. He’s a poor storyteller, with a laughable memory of details, but his tendency to ramble from one story to the next without finishing any of them is amusing in its own way, and A-Qing's interjections of her own more colorful experiences keep any heavy silence at bay.

After the meal, Xue Yang removes Xiao Xingchen’s horsetail whisk from where he keeps it on a shelf in the corner.

“Just combing it,” he says when A-Qing, who has even better hearing than the daozhang and an uncanny knack for getting in his way, asks him what the hell he thinks he’s doing. “It’s getting tangled.”

“Tangled. Right.”

Normally Xue Yang would bicker back, but he doesn’t have the energy tonight. He sits on the steps, the horsetail whisk in his lap, while A-Qing lies on a blanket, staring up at the dazzling carpet of stars as if she can see, and Xiao Xingchen polishes his sword beside him.

Xue Yang knots the locks of hair he’d taken from the three convicts into the flowing mane of the whisk, streaks of black staining the pure white.

A little ritual he’d developed after the first would-be murderer had come to Yi City. Watching the daozhang parade around with a murder trophy tucked under thin white arm was endlessly entertaining.

Now…

It’s still a good joke, Xue Yang tells himself. Still good fun to see the streaks of black against the white. But it’s become a symbol of something else, now, too.

Of what, Xue Yang isn’t entirely sure.

But of something.

The eggplant is starting to sprout when, five weeks later, another convict comes to the Coffin House searching for Xiao Xingchen.

Xiao Xingchen is inside the house making dinner with A-Qing. Xue Yang had just stepped outside to fetch more water when he sees a shadow detach itself from behind a coffin and slither across the courtyard, a flash of silver in its hand.

Jiangzai is out before Xue Yang can even think.

Footsteps.

Xue Yang flies across the courtyard and grabs the shadow by the throat. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“Xiao Xing—”

Xue Yang cuts his throat before the man can finish, flying him over the wall before so much as a drop of blood can splash onto the stones of the courtyard.

A shame to waste the fertilizer on the trees of the forest, but Xiao Xingchen is expecting him back any second now.

He’ll fetch the tongue later.

“Thank you, Chengmei,” Xiao Xingchen says when he returns, accepting the bucket of water. “Do you mind chopping the potatoes? The oil should be hot enough any minute now.”

“Fried potato? Not boiled? Do my ears deceive me?” His pulse is reverberating through his skull, so that’s very possible. The quickness of the kill had done nothing to diminish the euphoria that always accompanies it. If anything, it had heightened it, a half-hour’s torture compressed into an intense dose of power and pleasure and blood.

“I figured I would fry it, as a treat. It’s been a year since…well, it’s been a year since we all came to the Coffin House.” Xiao Xingchen turns to the stove, blushing slightly, as if almost ashamed to have kept track of the anniversary, as if he doesn’t think it's as important to Xue Yang as it is to him.

Xue Yang doesn’t speak. A-Qing is glancing at the floor, looking uncharacteristically solemn.

“I know it’s foolish—” Xiao Xingchen begins again, but Xue Yang shakes his head, forgetting for a moment that he can’t see him.

“It’s never foolish to fry potatoes,” he says emphatically. “That boiled stuff is for the dogs. Anything else?”

Xiao Xingchen smiles. “I bought nian gao at the market today.”

“Now you have my attention.” He slices the potatoes swiftly, hand shaking slightly. Lingering euphoria from his recent kill, most likely. “The sweet cake kind, right? Not that vegetable stuff.”

Xiao Xingchen affects chagrin. “Do you take me for an amateur?”

Xue Yang discovers that he’s grinning.

Still from the murder, no doubt. It’s been a while since he’d killed anything larger than the rats that sneak into the Coffin House.

It’s not that he needs to kill. Enjoys it, yes. Who wouldn’t enjoy holding complete and utter power over another human being? Being the most important thing in their world, if only for those final moments? The pleasant exercise of the fight, the witty banter, the desperation in the victim’s eyes as they bleed out?

But, if he’s being entirely honest, he hasn’t thought about it much these past few weeks.

A-Qing turns in early that night, having eaten too much fried food and nian gao, leaving Xiao Xingchen and Xue Yang alone on the porch. Xue Yang plays with the dead man’s hair in the horsetail whisk while Xiao Xingchen sits beside him, just a little too close, knee almost touching his, having misjudged the distance. It’s odd, how the daozhang can spin through the forest to sever a fierce corpse’s throat without disturbing a single leaf or blade of grass, but he’s rather clumsy around Xue Yang, stumbling into him at times, brushing his hand with his while handing him something, mistakenly letting his shoulder touch his as he passes.

“I have a surprise,” says Xiao Xingchen.

“We’re getting a puppy.”

“We can, if you want."

“Just joking.” Briefly, Xue Yang wonders what a dog would make of the corpses popping up around the Coffin House.

Well, it would be one way to dispose of the bodies, and save on buying dog food.

He grins to himself at the idea. It's a real shame he can’t share some of his best thoughts with Xiao Xingchen.

Who’s tilting his head at him expectantly. “Chengmei?”

“You’re buying us a new house. A-Qing found a husband. We have an invitation to Jinlintai.”

Xiao Xingchen smiles. “I feel quite inadequate, now. I bought some of this.” He draws two wine jars from his sleeve. “Or rather, traded some protection talismans for it with the local weaver.”

“Is the daozhang a secret wino?” Xue Yang accepts the small white jar. He’s not one for drinking, but he can’t turn Xiao Xingchen down. “Is that what you’re really doing during your private meditation sessions?”

Instead of being offended, Xiao Xingchen smiles. “Given how many great poets were drunks—going by their poetry—I could do well to follow their example.

‘Life in the world is but a big dream;

I will not spoil it by any labor or care.

So saying, I was drunk all the day,

Lying helpless at the porch in front of my door—’ ”

“A tripping hazard for A-Qing.”

“ ‘When I awoke, I blinked at the garden-lawn;

A lonely bird was singing amid the flowers.

I asked myself,

Had the day been wet or fine? ’ ”

Xue Yang struggles to keep a straight face despite the fact that Xaio Xingcheng can’t see him. “Baoshan Sanren teaches cultivating by way of winemaking? No wonder she has to hide on her mountain. Every cultivator for miles around would be trying to sign on with her.”

Xiao Xingchen laughs. “Given how many classic poems are about drinking wine, I wouldn’t be surprised if such a thing existed...at least the poems in Shifu’s collection. She didn’t focus much on classical poetry.” He pulls the stopper from his jar, sniffing it. “So…I just…drink it? Is there some kind of…I don’t know…”

“A wine-drinking ritual? Like you walk in a circle three times, flapping your arms—”

“…do you think we can forgo it, just this once?”

Xue Yang is the one to laugh this time, though he’s not sure if Xiao Xingchen is joking. “You just drink, from what I’ve seen.”

“From what you’ve seen?”

“I don’t drink.” He instantly regrets his words at the look on Xiao Xingchen’s face. “I mean…”

“It’s fine. I wouldn’t want to make—”

“I mean—” And suddenly he hears himself saying, “I could never afford to be…impaired in any way. For…my own safety, I mean. I was just never…look, it’s…” And then, just as suddenly, he’s uncorking his jar and taking a deep draft.

It burns unpleasantly in his throat, but it’s worth it for the smile on Xiao Xingchen’s face at the silent admission that he feels safe here.

That Chengemi does, at any rate.

“How does it taste?”

“Good, I think,”Xue Yang lies.

Xiao Xingchen sips delicately at his jar, then wrinkles his nose. “The poems made me think it would be a lot more like drinking moonbeams and lotus blossoms.”

“More poems about passing out on the lawn?” Xue Yang asks. Poetry is just as useless as he’s always imagined it to be, but it sounds nice coming from Xiao Xingchen. Melodic. Kind of like singing...

...Must be the wine, that idiotic thought.

" 'A cup of wine, under the flowering trees;

I drink alone, for no friend is near.

Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon,

For he, with my shadow, will make three men.’ ”

Xue Yang frowns slightly. “I’m sitting right here, daozhang.”

Xiao Xingchen smiles. “So you are.”

Xue Yang shakes his momentary pique away. “Four men, then. Five, counting my shadow. You know, I don’t think those poets knew what the hell they were talking about, like with anything.”

“That’s not true…well, not entirely…there are some very pretty poems about nature…”

“How about a drinking game: I say something untrue, and if you correctly guess that it’s a lie, then I have to drink.”

“Alright.” By Xiao Xingchen’s amused smile, it’s clear he doesn’t think Xue Yang can successfully lie to him.

“I’m ugly. Hideous. Ladies pull their skirts away from me in the street and I frighten children and old people.”

Xiao Xingchen laughs, misjudging the distance between them again and touching his arm by mistake. “Not going by what I’ve heard.”

Smirking, Xue Yang takes a drink. “Your turn.”

“I…I have two heads.”

Xue Yang rolls his eyes. “That the best you can do?”

“I’m not accustomed to falsehoods!”

The pretentious way he put that should have made Xue Yang roll his eyes again, but the strong wine has mellowed him. “Drink. I hate candy.”

“Drink!”

“See, it’s not fun if it’s something too obvious.”

“Fine. I want that puppy you mentioned.”

“…drink?”

Xiao Xingchen raises his jar. “No drink! I wouldn't mind a puppy."

“You seem more like a cat person.”

“I like all animals. Would you rather a cat? You seem like a cat person. Like…” Xiao Xingchen hesitates. “Takes a while to warm up, independent, but loyal once you know you can tru…” He trails off, as if sensing he’s gone too far.

Biting his lip, Xue Yang looks out over the beds of budding vegetables, silver in the starlight. He’s never imagined anyone examining him in any way other than to evaluate him as a threat. Certainly not to comment on any traits in a tone Xue Yang tells himself is definitely not one of fondness, no matter how much it sounds that way. “Well, I have always liked cats better.”

“My favorite food is congee.”

“No drink, for reasons I’ll never understand.”

“You can add anything to it, and you have a nice warm meal!”

Xue Yang shakes his head. “I killed a man today for trespassing.”

“Oh, that’s terrible, Chengmei! Drink….”

It’s late when Xiao Xingchen's wine jars are empty. He'd had another two tucked away in his long white sleeve, and grown melancholy as the night wore on.

“I did everything I could to ruin my friend’s life,” he says, raising the last of his wine to the moon.

Xue Yang glances at him sharply. He’s kept his head better than Xiao Xingchen, only pretending to drink most of the time. “You what?”

“Song Lan. Zichen. The destruction of his temple was all my fault…” Head drooping, he slides sideways, cheek resting on Xue Yang’s shoulder. “All my fault, his eyes, all me…”

Xue Yang sits very still. Xiao Xingchen is warm against him, his breath soft on his neck. Then, very delicately, he pries Xiao Xingchen’s fingers from the wine jar and sets it beside them on the step.

“That was not your fault,” he says, and feels a thrill at his own words, because of course it was Xiao Xingchen’s fault, it was all his fault, and one day Xue Yang will get to throw it all in his face—

But not tonight.

“You did more than most would,” he says instead. “You gave him your eyes.” And he took them, the fucker! he wants to add. You do-gooding moron, mutilating yourself in service of that plodding lump of self-righteousness—

“My fault, my fault…”

“For what, doing your duty?” Xue Yang’s throat is beginning to tighten. He’s not sure why Xiao Xingchen would be telling him something so personal. For all his friendly, open nature, Xiao Xingchen is guarded when it comes to anything too revealing, to the point that Xue Yang sometimes feels as if he only half knows him. “You’re not responsible for that madman’s actions.”

Xiao Xingchen moves slightly, eyelashes brushing Xue Yang’s throat. “You really think so?”

“I know so,” says Xue Yang, and then, mentally, Drink!

And suddenly Xiao Xingchen is all smiles again, straightening up. “You always know just what to say to cheer me up. You—you wouldn’t leave me like Zichen did, would you? Not even if…I…” He hiccups. “I’d…I’d miss you too much…”

“Drink,” Xue Yang says automatically.

“No drink.”

Xue Yang glances away. Xiao Xingchen chooses this moment to pitch forward, to be caught by Xue Yang moments before he sprawls forward onto the stairs.

“I might be a little tipsy,” he mumbles into the hollow of Xue Yang’s throat.

Xue Yang tightens his grip. It feels…it feels wrong to be holding a person that isn’t a corpse.

A warm, living person, who seems to want to be in his arms.

Not hate being there, at least.

Or so he thinks. Xue Yang has never embraced another person before and isn’t quite sure how people are supposed to behave. Surely Xiao Xingchen would have pushed him away if he found his touch detestable—?

“You really can’t hold your liquor, can you,” he says before he can think into it too much. Gently, he scoops up Xiao Xingchen and half-carries him into the house. He weighs almost nothing, and Xue Yang thinks, I should get him to eat more, then chases the ridiculous thought away and bleaches the spot it had rested.

Xiao Xingchen grips the front of his robe as Xue Yang lays him down on the Coffin House's single bed. “Stay with me. Talk to me.”

Xue Yang hesitates, glancing over at his coffin in the corner of the room. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Xiao Xingchen almost pouts. Drunk daozhang is a petulant daozhang, it seems. “Just for a little while.”

The feeling of wrongness increases as Xue Yang crawls into bed beside Xiao Xingchen, keeping on top of the covers.

It shouldn’t be like this.

It’s not as if he hasn’t pictured sharing a bed with the daozhang. Who wouldn’t, if they had only a claustrophobic coffin to sleep in? But he’s never imagined an inebriated Xiao Xingchen curling into him, picking up his good hand, playing with it. Tracing the scars, running his fingertip between his fingers, brushing the palm with his thumb.

Soft, harmless touch that makes Xue Yang freeze, every nerve in his body screaming at him to snatch up Jiangzai.

“You have nice hands,” says Xiao Xingchen, voice thick with alcohol, almost giddy, and Xue Yang, focusing on the familiar voice, feels himself relaxing.

He’s safe, here. Safe with the daozhang.

The daozhang would never hurt Chengmei. And Xue Yang is Chengmei, for now.

The daozhang cares about Chengmei.

And in turn—

And in turn, the daozhang belongs to him.

Xiao Xingchen, the man who despises Xue Yang more than anyone else, now owes him more than he can ever repay in a single lifetime. He has saved Xiao Xingchen’s life a dozen times over without him having so much as suspected his life was ever in danger.

True, Chengmei could have killed the unsuspecting daozhang hundreds of times over the past year.

But this is different somehow.

Better.

Xue Yang is the guardian of the man he hates most in this world. Has held his life in the palm of his hand and chosen not only to let him live, but to actively destroy his enemies.

A delicious perversion of what he knows will come on the day he tears off his mask and reveals everything to Xiao Xingchen.

Finally takes his life, after preserving it for so long.

Xiao Xingchen rolls over, soft black hair in Xue Yang’s face, still holding Xue Yang’s hand in his.

Xue Yang wonders what Xiao Xingchen will say in the morning. If he’ll be embarrassed or realize that this was all simply the wine. If Xue Yang should pretend to have been too drunk to remember, or if he should say something, maybe crawl under the covers tomorrow night before Xiao Xingchen gets into bed, see what happens…

The bed is far more comfortable than the coffin, after all.

Will be warmer in winter, too…

He winces at the thought. He should go back to his coffin, stop whatever this is.

"You don't really want me here," he says.

“Drink,” Xiao Xingchen mumbles, and drops off into slumber.

Xue Yang takes a deep breath. He wants to free his hand but is afraid of waking the daozhang. As if sensing this even in sleep, Xiao Xingchen tightens his grip on his hand.

Xue Yang stares up at the ceiling, mind settling, the last of his tension fading.

He thinks he’ll go into town tomorrow and buy some flower seeds.

_______________________

thanks for reading! Spare a reblog? AO3

[julieloves074]

Out of the Darkness pt.3 (Darkling x reader story)

Lets just ignore that English is not my first language :)

“Would you rather wear my black colour instead?” his question sounding genuine but a trap all the same, he didn’t move, waiting for my answer, two could play this game.

“Have I made you speechless?” he asked. So simply.

“Well that would just be improper General,” I said taking the red kefta out of his hand with force, he latches onto it for a moment so that I can’t take it out of his hgrips, “I don’t know what I would do to thank you,” I added, with a gaze of admiration, still pulling away from the idea of battering my eyelashes, that would be too obvious, he would see right through me.

Though, his kefta did look warmer, maybe this was his autumn wear, either way, I would never wear his colours, or any colours if I could help it.

“They’re bullet proof, after transporting the sun summoner who knows when one may attack us again,” he commented, and waited until the red clothing was secured around my limbs and body before walking towards two of his soldiers, one was holding the rein of the horse behind them. A midnight black stallion, clearly pure breed.

I huffed as I brought the material forward in one rough pull, fixing the collar while I’m at it. He doesn’t looked back to me, until his body is secure on his horse.

“I will ride on horseback, and you shall be in my carriage, with two of my trusted guards,” he said turning back to me for one moment, his brave commanding voice didn’t quiver now that other first and second army eyes were us and our exchange, him mostly, but some eager eyes didn’t shy away from peeling at me, the new Grisha, that so happened to appear during the night, giving me the benefit of a doubt.

I turned back towards the carriage, looking both ways, past the stares, how else could I get away?

Only to get my arms in not so friendly hold of the guards, who somewhat forcefully push me into the carriage. The space is small, confined, the window quickly becomes a good friend of mine. With nowhere else to look the views outside are quite lovely. Forests and greenery, not much different to where I came from, but still something new.

As we dove deeper into the forest I turned to my new favourite, hated game called stop every mistake you made when you were taken into that tent. I focused on every single little detail that went wrong, I could have forced myself to say on the floor, I knew the mattress and duvet, and the fluffy blanket would lure me away in a deep world of sleep.

I did need it, but I wish I could have prevented it. Made up a plan or even just a lie.

Instead, here I am, sitting across from two soldiers in their black unfirmos, neither of them Grisha, meaning that his most trsuted Grisha were at the Little Palace with Alina, protecting and watching her, bearing in mind that the walls could protect her enough; she really seems like a bird trapped in a cage.

This is good, better than good, excellent, now I can just maybe tip the carriage, not burn it that would be a waste, but maybe just make it seem like an accident, best done during the night, slipping away unnoticed. Really uncontacted this time. I would leave the red kefta on the floor, make sure it gets in the flames, it would burn like the fire itself.

But then he’d suspect me: an inferni. I sighed but the guards weren’t really paying that much attention to me anyway. They sat their bodies square to me looking straight ahead, this is probably the only time they’ve ever been allowed to sit inside this carriage.

Instead I could slow their hearts, he wouldn’t blame it on me, he couldn’t, in his black glossy eyes I am only an inferni after all. Why would he need another inferni anyway, surely he had plenty at the palace? Unless he was really low on fire.

At the sow descend of the shadows, as the sun started to cower down I urged myself forward, my eyelids seemed awfully heavy, unlike their usually feathery float, I hoped the two men didn’t realise, I wanted to get this over with.

But they too shuffled forwards in their seats, hands on their knees. Still staring forwards, almost like gargoyles on old, gloomy caste roofs.

I’m not their prisoner, or his, or so he said. So why would they give such a care? My eyes widened, without turning to me, one of each hand goes to my wrists, entrapping me again in their will. I couldn’t slow their hearts.

“Let go of me! You have no right to me!” I screamed instead, though they did nothing more than hold onto my arms, urging me to stay in one space, to make sure I wasn’t trying to pull any tricks out of the bag.

How’d I create myself such a reputation so quickly?

In a sudden burst the carriage stopped, I couldn’t hear anything or anyone outside, as if the world had stopped, the guards faces turned alarmed, their eyes gazed around, their other arms ready to grip their weapons. Taking the initiative I shuffled backwards, pleading my hands to follow, they stayed in their grips.

Then there was a shuffle outside, footsteps, the guards didn’t even get a chance to shuffle back themselves, or grab their weapons before the door flung open, as if the wind attacked it, harshly beckoning it to open up.

Their hands rip away ferociously, so I rushed mine to wrap them around my knees in a protective position, not weak, but self-protective. Never weak. Edging away from them I painted the situation in exactly the right shades and colours.

“We’re making a stop for a few hours, then the girl rides with me,” he said sternly to the two men, giving them the look of what I would call a waring, they wouldn’t dare lay a hand on me, not when the General could make them pay for it greedily.

The two men looked to each other’s; fear blemished out of their pupils which turned smaller by every second of his stare.

I had my way, I was out of the carriage for the remainder of the journey.

He reached his gloved hand my way, I looked at his hand, then back into his eyes and then to his hand again. The other rested in the doorway of the transport, even in such a lousy position he stood taller and more proper than any man.

“Y/n?” he said, I took a breath, letting my eyes creep to the two guards again before finally accepting the General’s hand out of my seat.

The chilly air hit, like jumping into freezing water all at once. In front of me I saw what looked like an old barn, there was already movement inside, with the way the darkling’s face stayed stoic, calm I could tell that they were out people. His people.

As we were leaving the camp I wasn’t sure how many of us were travelling, it was mostly just soldiers, only two of us, the Grisha.

Landing both my feet steadily on the ground, he let go of my hand, it seemed as though he intend to glide it to my arm or lower back to guide me in but I was already ahead of him, moving towards the entrance of the barn.

Some men and women were already sitting around some sticks, the General looked to me when we sat down. This was my cue to start a fire, could it have been part of a test? Some kind of trial to see if I can even control my power.

Like a baby latching onto their parents I lit a fire in my palm, hearing it crinkle, everything else is quiet, I revel in silence, in the dark when I can pretend there is no one but I in the world. The crinkle of self awareness in a way calms me.

I throw my arms towards the wood, which then too starts to roar in flames, and suddenly nothing seems personal, I feel exposed, but open my eyes and shake off the feeling. It’s just lighting a fire, I remind myself.

Standing there for a moment I stare into the raw beaty of the red and orange dancers, the mild wind too joins in with the solstice. I avoid his stare but he finds a way to make me turn his way, he calls me over with the very movement of his body, I chose not to resist, to get any more conversation out of the way.

Most would kill to be this close to the General, and some would kill to never within a couple of miles of him ever again. I fit nowhere in that scale, which makes it even worse, he doesn’t matter to me, he doesn’t fit anywhere into my life, or my outlooks.

“Did you never want to be with the rest of us?” he asks, the concentration of pressure of the us. He didn’t sound offended or insulted by the fact that I didn’t try to find a way to be with the Grisha. He seemed genuinely confused. Like it were unusual for people with these abilities to shy away from that life.

“You could have been living with the services and care you deserve,” he continues, his voice dark in a way I wasn’t sure was possible. Many described the fold as darkness but a place, they weren’t exactly wrong, but the General’s voice was darkness if it vibrated though words.

What did he know what I deserved? It being clear he thought everyone with these skills should have everything, at least a little less than him.

“I was a run away. Never wanted anywhere, never welcome anywhere. Grisha or not I learned to live a new way, and I like living that way,” I said and it was partially true, learning a new way to live was no easy feat but the freedom was like running around a sandy beach with wind in your hair and the smell of the salty sea.

“Well, you needn’t worry about that, your wanted at Little Palace with others like you, you’re welcome there, it shall be your home,” his voice was slightly gentler, or maybe it was the new hushed tone, as if this was our secret, one that no one can know.

With that he leaped gracefully onto his feet and walked other to his soldiers, solid in his stance but passionate in his words. Just hearing him from here talking about how much he wants to help the people on both sides. For closer up he wasn’t as dark as some might have imagined.

I ended up falling asleep, the kefta was good for that remark, it wasn’t like I had anything better to do, he chose not to sleep, he just sat there, some guards napped and took turns but the General didn’t wink an eye.

We never made eye contact, I couldn’t read his face, and then again like a weak child I drifted to sleep.

For a second night in a row there was no nightmare, and there was always nightmares, they would crawl at me, in every single corner of my head and brain, until I would scream and awaken to sweating and the cold hard ground.

From then on I only allowed myself to sleep a few, a couple of hours.

It’s like my system forgot to be aware, alert.

I woke at the General telling the soldiers to get up and ready to leave, I assume he was coming to wake me up next with his loud words of a calm demeanour but I got to my feet with the left over soldiers, already turning to make my way out of the barn.

Still I had to wait next to where the horses stood because now I would ride with the General, on a horse next to him more specifically, I would escape or else I will be killed.

Once everything else is installed in its places he comes over, only his black stallion in sigh, he meant literally ride with him, now I was starting to have slight regrets. The carriage might have been a better idea.

Without a word he got on then his head turned to me and his hand followed, I rose an eyebrow but the mystic glare of his eyes and tension between his brows put me on edge.

His arms wrapped around me as he reached for the rein and then we were off, the speed felt more real here, faster, for one it might have been the fact that we were gradually losing the carriage behind us.

After getting onto the plainer field there was only us and no on else in sight. It was a quiet journey, one of which the inner of my thighs were burning, I’d never been on a horse before, family was too poor, and I never had a job.

I didn’t dare complain, his heart didn’t show a shudder of anything, but mine was much quicker, whether it was from the thrill of riding a horse or from having the black General so close to mine I would never know?

His arm hovered too closely to mine for a moment and that pass of surety surged through me, it was weird how simply he could make me feel so weak, but so powerful at once, he could make me lose control, that would end in disaster.

“Are you alright?” he asked, though with my whole body screaming for more power to rush into my palm his voice was a whisper. The words echoed around my ear, his lips so close to my ears.

I took in a low breath.

“I’m fine,” I said but he didn’t move from the close position, “Thank you,” I added and like a calling he moved his head back and I felt weak, everywhere.

How was I supposed to get away now?

Part four

[dialovers-translations]

DIABOLIK LOVERS Do-S Kyuuketsu VERSUS Ⅱ Vol.6 Yuma VS Azusa [TRACK 2]

Original title: 欠ける月を見ながら

Source: Diabolik Lovers VERSUS II Vol. 6 Yuma VS Azusa [CD not owned by me]

Audio: Here

Seiyuu: Tatsuhisa Suzuki & Kishio Daisuke

Translator’s note: I have no words. I swear the last few minutes of this track are just Rejet having way too much fun. You cannot convince me that they wrote that without knowing that it could EASILY be taken the wrong way. I mean, the whole situation isn’t exactly ‘innocent’ either way but it sounds even more dirty than it is. I’m not gonna try and hide either ーー my mind went straight to the gutter as soon as Yuma suggested she uses her hands instead of her mouth. If you’re curious what I’m talking about, you’ll have to read the translation. ;)

Track 1 ll Track 2 ll Track 3 ll Track 4 ll Track 5 ll Track 6

→  LIKE MY TRANSLATIONS? SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI!

Track 2: While Gazing at the Chipped Moon

Yuma: For a basement, it’s brighter in here than I thought. Is there a window on the ceiling or somethin’? 

You follow suit.

Yuma: Ah? What’s wrong? ...Ahー Ya pissin’ yer pants? ...I don’t mind. Come here.

Yuma hugs you close.

*Rustle*

Yuma: Just stay close to me, ‘kay? ...Take a look! Right above ya! There’s a big hole to look through! ...Aah, seems like this basement is right underneath the garden. 

You look up.

Yuma: They’re a bunch of dried up branches layin’ ‘round the edges of the garden. I had no idea this kinda room was underneath it. I’m surprised. 

*Rustle*

Yuma: ...Well, I guess it helps brighten up this place a lil’ without any lights ‘round, so I don’t see a problem with it. 

Something catches his attention.

Yuma: ...Oh? 

You ask what is wrong.

Yuma: No, it’s just...Ya can see the moon through that hole, right? Take a closer look. It’s slowly bein’ chipped away at. ...What was it called again? A lunar eclipse? Ya don’t see that every day. It’s my first time seein’ one.

You agree.

Yuma: You too? Hm...I see. Well, I guess we got lucky. It’s a rare sight after all. Too bad it’s from inside this creepy room.

You tilt your head to the side.

Yuma: This room just screams ‘creepy’, no? Ya still haven’t noticed? What kind of room this is, I mean. Take a good look around.

You look around.

Yuma: There’s a bunch of strange devices, right? Ya better don’t try and act like ya don’t know what these are. 

You reluctantly answer.

Yuma: Exactly...Hehehe...Seems like this was the pentalty room. In other words, the items lined up here and there are what you’d call torture devices

*Cling cling*

Yuma: Take a look at these handcuffs. It’s still got blood on there. Means these bad boys got used at some point. Seems like the previous owner of this manor was a shitbag who loved pickin’ on the weak. 

*Cling*

Yuma: There’s freaks like that crawlin’ ‘round the surface of this earth, ya see...They either get a kick out of tormentin’ others, or enjoy gettin’ teased themselves. ...Ah, right. Ya love that sorta stuff as well, no? Hehehe...

You quickly deny.

*Cling cling*

Yuma: Now that we discovered this hidden gem, it’d be a shame not to use the room to its fullest potential, right? ーー To start things off. 

*Cling*

Yuma: I’ll put these handcuffs on ya like this. Hehe...

You protest.

Yuma: How does it feel to get robbed of yer freedom?

You beg him to take them off again. 

Yuma: Ah...Lemme think. If ya want me to remove them that badly, don’t ya think ya should adjust yer attitude a lil’? 

*Rustle rustle*

Yuma: Come on...Tell me what to do. Woah there, don’t look away. I’ve taken away yer freedom, so ya better keep yer eyes on me. 

*Rustle*

Yuma: Exactly. Hehe...Nice expression. Bet ya didn’t think I’d do this, right? ...For some reason, I’m in a weird mood right now. Could that moon be to blame? I feel restless...in a different way from usual. I don’t really get it, but it has taken control over me, and I can’t help but have this strong cravin’ for...you. Mmh...”

Yuma kisses you passionately.

Yuma: I want to make you cry, make you submit to me...and have you admit the most obscene things. Mmh...

*Smooch*

Yuma: Hm? ...Hah. Judgin’ by yer face, ya just felt yer heart skip a beat, didn’t ya? Bet ya don’t find this all too bad, huh? Fine by me. I’ll do as ya wish. Come on, brace yerself. 

*Rustle*

Yuma: What do ya want? Should I just leave some kisses here and there? Like this...Mmh...

*Smooch*

You flinch.

Yuma: Or do ya prefer the pain? Ya want these fangs, don’t ya? Haha...Don’t try and hide it. I know that you’re yearnin’ for them. However, I won’t give them to ya ーー not this easily at least. That’d be borin’ as hell, right? We’ve got this convenient room to our disposal after all...

*Cling cling*

Yuma: Makes ya wanna try and push yer boundaries a lil’, no? Hehe...Let’s leave the main course for last and enjoy some stuff we usually never get to do. Nn...

*Rustle*

Yuma: This is a whip, right? No doubt in mind that guy used this to torment those poor little lambs. ...Didn’t I tell ya earlier, there’s people who need that sorta kick. Perhaps I’m one of them as well? When I picture your expression as you fight back the pain...It sends shivers down my spine.

*Rustle*

Yuma: Ahn? I’m not actin’ like myself? Ya think so? Hah. Then this room and the moon might be messin’ with my head. I shouldn’t be interested in lil’ games enjoyed by those disgustin’ noblemen. If anythin’, they used to make me gag...So I wonder why I’m havin’ so much fun right now? ...Could this be my true colors showin’...?

*SMACK*

Yuma: Heh. This bad boy makes quite the sound. ...Wait, what am I doin’? ...Aah, my bad. I felt a lil’ dizzy just now...There really is somethin’ wrong with me, huh? Ugh...

*Rustle*

Yuma: I...

You seem worried. 

Yuma: Hah. ...Haha. Just kidding~ 

You get upset.

Yuma: Ah? I was jokin’ just now. I wanted to see what kind of face you’d make, and just couldn’t help myself.

You protest.

Yuma: It looked convincin’? Don’t be fuckin’ kiddin’ me. I’m not the type of dude who would torment the weak, geez. Ya can’t even tell the difference between the truth and an act? Ya really are an idiot.

*Cling cling*

Yuma: There we go...Oi, lift yer hands a lil’ higher. I’m gonna remove the handcuffs.

You obey.

Yuma: Ahー The hole’s over here, right? ...’Kay. ...Huh?

*Cling cling*

Yuma: Ahn? ...That’s odd...I’m pretty sure this key...Ugh...Ah!

*Clunk*

Yuma: Ah...Fuck! It broke!

You make a fuss.

Yuma: Ah, hold on! Do ya really need to get that upset!? ...Hey! Don’t hit me!

*Thud thud*

Yuma: ...Calm down!! I can just chop off yer wrists and problem solvーー

You continue protesting.

 Yuma: ...I’m just kiddin’! Geez...I’m sure we’ll find a solution if we head upstairs. ...God, yer wrists are bleedin’. It’s ‘cause ya kept on movin’ ‘round. Does it hurt?

You nod.

Yuma: Guess I have no other choice. I’ll apply first aid.

Yuma licks the wound.

Yuma: There. Lil’ better now? ...Let’s say we’re even now, ‘kay?

You puff out your cheeks.

Yuma: Don’t hold it ‘gainst me. I was just curious how it’d feel to step out of my comfort zone for once. Don’t ya ever get that itch to try somethin’ new as well? ...More importantly, drinkin’ yer blood made me thirsty.

*Sluuuurp*

Yuma: After all, you’re like a delicious treat. Just a lil’ taste isn’t enough to satisfy us. ...Ah, yer blood really is nice. ...Say? Won’t ya let me feed off ya now that you’re stuck like this anyway? Ya don’t mind, do ya?

You hesitate. 

Yuma:  Ahー What a pain.I’ll take that silence as a yes. I’m not the most patient fella ‘round.

*Rustle*

Yuma: Now behave. I won’t hurt ya. 

Yuma bites you.

*Sluuuuurp*

Yuma: Mmh...Delicious...I can’t stop...

*Rustle*

Yuma: ...Gimme more...I’ll suck from this hand next. Mmh...

*Sluuuuurp*

Yuma: Mmh...Nn...

*Sluuuuurp*

Yuma: ...Haahー This is bad...I really went to town on ya, huh...Did it hurt? Or maybe it feels good? 

You whimper softly.

Yuma: Hehe...I wonder if it’s ‘cause ya had yer blood sucked while being handcuffed, but ya look as if ya enjoyed it way more than usual.

You seem embarrassed.

Yuma: No need to be ashamed. ...It’s too late for that. I’ve been showin’ ya my pathetic side as well, no? When I see yer blood...or get a wiff of it...I get so turned on, I lose sight of myself. However...

*Rustle*

Yuma: That blood of yers...

He sniffs it.

Yuma: Hmmー How strange, it doesn’t smell as strong as usually...Now that ya mention it, I feel as if it tastes different as well? The fuck’s goin’ on? ...Oi, Sow. Stop spacin’ out and look at me, come on!

He forces your face his way.

Yuma: ...Do ya notice anythin’ off ‘bout me?

You shake your head.

Yuma: Right? But ya know, something’s not right. ...Oi, inspect my body. I’m sure there’s somethin’ wrong with it.

You seem baffled.

Yuma: This time I’m serious. I’m not just teasin’ ya. Come on, hurry up.

You protest.

Yuma: Ahn? Ya can’t use yer hands? ...Well, I guess that’s true. But even without yer hands, you’ve got somethin’ else that’ll work just fine as a replacement, right?

You tilt your head to the side.

Yuma: Whatcha so confused ‘bout? I’m obviously talkin’ ‘bout that mouth of yers.

You seem surprised.

Yuma: Check my body thoroughly with those lips. ーー Oh come on, didn’t I tell you just now? I’m bein’ serious. 100% sincere. So, where ya wanna start? With my neck, perhaps?

*Rustle*

Yuma: Yeah, just start from there and take it nice and slow...What’s wrong? Are ya holdin’ back? ...Ya can be a little more rough, ya know?

*Rustle rustle*

Yuma: Ah...Your lips are so soft...Nn...It’s almost like someone is trailing a feather across a skin...Ah...

You sigh.

Yuma: Hah? Ya won’t be able to tell this way? You’re always so quick to decide without givin’ it a try, huh? How dull. Come on, get on with it already.

*Cling*

Yuma: Nn...Yeah, just like that...See? Ya can do it after all...Or are ya growin’ desperate now? Hahaha...Ya suddenly...picked up the pace...Nn...It tickles. Is this you’re way of takin’ revenge? ...Oh well, whatever.

You continue trailing your lips across his skin.

Yuma: Yeah, just keep goin’ like that...Nn...Carefully slide your lips across...Hah...Nn...Feels good...

*Rustle*

You ask if he’s doing this to tease you again.

Yuma: Hahaha...Guess I’m busted, huh?

*SMACK*

Yuma: ...Ow!! Did ya really need to hit me!? I was just havin’ some fun! For one, we wouldn’t need doctors if we could simply find out what’s wrong with someone’s body this way.

ーー TO BE CONTINUED ーー

[skellebonez]

72 and 73 for a continuation/part 3 of that thing with Macaque impersonating Pigsy and then nabbing Tang because AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHALSKMGAOWMFE?

Exactly what does Macaque have planned... I wonder. Original Prompt! The Sequel!

Don’t you dare./You’re putting an awful lot of trust in them.

Everything was warmer than Tang had expected when he woke up.

The scholar wasn't sure what Macaque had given him, probably some stolen pain medication from the nearby hospital, but he must have giving him something at some point when he was still half out of it. Or even when he was unconscious. At least his head had stopped hurting so much. His eye was still sore and was certainly going to be bruised for days, but he would manage. He just wished he could see without his glasses.

He'd been taken... somewhere. He wasn't sure where. It didn't feel like the demon monkey had gone far enough fast enough to be outside the city at least, and Tang was certain he could hear cars honking far off. But he was hurt and he couldn't be entirely confident in his guesses. But he had to try to figure something out. Because Macaque wanted something that Tang knew he could not have under any circumstances.

There was a palpable fear running down his spine, icy and cold, as he waited for the demon monkey to return. He hadn’t seen him once since waking up, at least since waking up fully coherent, but there was no way he wouldn’t return soon. He had to have something up his sleeve, something that he would hold over Tang’s head... he worried, for a moment, if he would use his own form to hurt Pigsy... Tang had invariable hurt the chef more than he could possibly make up for in his knee jerk reaction... if only he had taken the time to think! Go to Sandy first instead of going to get the artifact... maybe MK would be safe at home right now instead of wherever he was.

He remembered somewhere, in the vague coherence of his concussion, Macaque had explained part of what had happened. Maybe he just wanted to gloat. He’d had this planned for a while, intending to sow discord between the group of MK’s friends to keep them distracted by using Pigsy’s form since he had the most to hide. Use it to get close to MK, hand him over to DBK to get something out of their plan for himself. Tang getting the artifact wasn’t planned, but it made things so much easier. And he had a much better plan now, one that he didn’t need DBK or “his brat” for anymore. He had Tang and all the encyclopedic knowledge his brain held. And that brain knew where the exact thing he wanted might be.

Maybe if he cooperated nicely he would let him go back home.

Tang just hoped that Pigsy would let him apologize when he did. Before he left. Because he knew he had no home to really go back to after this.

"Oh Scholar!" Macaque's voice echoed through the empty building, startling Tang from his thoughts. There was an odd warble to it at first, like the air around him was warping. "I have a little... incentive for you to cooperate. I know I said this could come after but, you know, I’m feeling nice and that little artifact you handed over helped grease the wheels with old DBK pretty easily. Never tell anyone I can't be generous."

Generous? The way Macaque said that made Tang feel he was being anything but. Surely there had to be some kind of trick to-

"M-Mr. Tang?"

“MK?” Tang asked quietly, not wanting to allow himself to believe it was him. Macaque was tricky, a shapeshifter, even his shadow clones of legend could probably shapeshift into whatever form he demanded. But the hope that rose in his chest hurt with the idea that it could have been a lie. What purpose could MK have served to the Demon Bull Family? Would the immortal monkey have really left him there and taken the time to make a clone to trick him when his Wukong disguise had failed so quickly?

But then again... he had believed his Pigsy disguise so readily, in his anger and sorrow muddled mind.

There were two blurs in front of him, judging by the way one of them hovered off the ground he assumed Macaque was holding “MK” in his tail. That smaller blur was tossed at him, and he let out sound of pain as his full body weight slammed into Tang’s stomach.

“Mr. Tang! You’re hurt!” MK said, grabbing onto his face and Tang could almost see the wince of sympathy pain on the younger man’s face. Just this once he was glad he was more nearsighted, even if his vision was bad overall. He heard MK growl, turning back to Macaque as he wrapped a protective arm around the scholar from beside him. “When I get my powers back I’m going to kill you.”

Tang had never heard MK sound like that before. Full of anger and rage and murderous intent. But it was too strong in his voice to be faked, at least that’s how it felt.

“Don’t you dare,” Macaque hissed out, and the room darkened around the two of them. “You may know how to fight, but you’re no match for me even at full power, not with your staff at the bottom of the ocean.” MK froze beside Tang, his hand gripping the fabric of his scarf behind his head as it shook in anger. “That’s what I thought...” The room brightened and Macaque chuckled, and if he wasn’t smirking Tang would have been surprised. “Now, whether or not you make it out of here alive is no skin off my back. Hell, it’d probably be better for me if I got rid of you both before Mr. Man of the Hour shows up. And he will. But in the meantime, we’re going to do three things.”

Macaque moved toward the door, tossing something in their direction. A basket of... something.

“I’m gonna let you two have some quality father-son time before we get the ball rolling.”

And then he was gone. Door opened and slammed shut faster than either could react.

“MK...” Tang started slowly, keeping his breathing even. “What happened on my birthday 4 years ago?”

It was an odd question, one that had clearly thrown the person beside him off. But it was a necessary question. He had to make sure this MK was real. Not a clone made to look and sound like him, and not Macaque in disguise again. No, he needed to know he could trust the person beside him. Hopefully Macaque had been just as through in trying to trick him as he had been in his Wukong disguise.

MK was quiet for a moment, clearly trying his best to remember, before answering. “Your... your apartment burnt down and Pigsy offered you a place to stay. We made you a cake at Pigsy’s and Mei brought everyone cheese tea. I drew you a portrait and you were a mess.” He chuckled, the memory bittersweet. “And you accidentally called me son. It was the first time you did something like that.”

Tang tensed for a moment before reaching over and pulling MK into a tight hug, sighing in relief. He and MK were the only two people who knew that part. There was no reason for Macaque to have asked such a simple but out of left field question to MK before faking him to trick Tang into cooperating. “MK, I am so sorry! I should have done something to stop him, I-I thought he-I should have done more!”

“It’s ok Mr. Tang,” MK said softly, holding his father figure back just as tight. “We’ll figure something out, we always do!” He pulled away from the hug, just enough to pick up the basket in front of them. “At least we won’t starve...”

He held something out and gently took Tang’s hand, pressing some kind of fruit into it. A... peach? No, a plum. It was too dark in color.

“MK... did he tell you what he wanted?” Tang asked, rubbing the skin of the fruit with his fingertips.

“No,” MK admitted, mouth full of plum before Tang could tell him not to eat it. He hoped that Macaque hadn’t tampered with the fruit. “Just that he needed me more than DBK did. Did he tell you anything?”

“Yeah...” Tang said softly, lifting the plum to his lips before taking a bite. If he had tampered with the fruit, to hell with it. He would rather die from poisoned plums than tell him what he wanted, but Macaque would have likely not done that unless it was something that wouldn’t kill him outright. His brain told him 'You’re putting an awful lot of trust in them' when he thought about what he would say, but after all that had happened he had to trust someone. Anyone. “He wants... MK... he wants me to tell him where... a copy of The Golden Fillet is...”

[yeojaa]

( GHOST IN MY BED. )

Sometimes, hating someone is the only thing you can do.

pairing.  jjk x named f!reader.  a bit of jhs x named f!reader (but not really)?

genre + rating.   rockstar!au.  e2l (exes n enemies!).  general flangst?  anguf?  a blend of angst and fluff, tbh.  mainly angst tho.

tags / warnings.  sibling dynamics, introspective sadness, talk about not-so-healthy relationships (obviously), dumbass!jk, asshole!jk, jealous!jk, how many more jk tags can i add?, a silly reference to scott pilgrim.  nothing serious. 

beta reader(s).  @hobi-gif​ aka the loml!!!

wc.  3.1k

chapter four.

You and Yoongi don’t fight.  It’s always been a point of pride - something to look at and smile on. 

That must be why it feels so terrible now, with his knuckles blown white and enough rage to start a war simmering within his veins.  You’ve never seen him like this:  a world away from your soft Yoon, your best friend, your beloved brother.

“Yoongi, really--” 

“No.  Stop saying that.”  Despite the fact that you know his anger isn’t directed at you - that you’re the farthest target in his mind - it still hurts, like getting caught in friendly fire.  Pinpricks of guilt spill across your skin, nerve endings shot to hell by the way his mouth curls and tears, venom laced between his teeth and draped across his tongue.  “He came here and you didn’t tell me?  I told you - I’ll kill him.”

Hyperbole, you’re sure, but you can’t help the way your heart stutters.  A little oh no for a boy who doesn’t deserve it - whose silhouette still carves a spectacularly painful hole in your chest.

“I didn’t want you to worry--”  It’s not an excuse.  It’s not meant to be.  You never lie to Yoongi.  Frankly, you don’t think you could.  

“You’re my sister.”

It’s enough of a rebuttal that you’re reduced to silence.  He’s right.  You’re family;  family don’t keep secrets.

“I’m sorry,”  you try again, feeble and emphatic.  

There’s an unbearable distance between you - a sea’s worth of sadness that rocks the rickety boat you’ve built.  You can practically see it stretching on and on, sweeping you further and further from his safe shores.  It’s an awful feeling. 

“You’re my sister,”  he repeats, suddenly so tired you worry for him.  For once, he looks that much older than you, as if five years have forced passages of experience within his pages.  “You can’t hide things from me.  Who’s going to be there for you if not me?”  

You want to rebuff him - insist that you’re stronger than he gives you credit for - but you know it’s not what he means.  More than anyone, Yoongi believes in you.  He sees your strength even when you can’t see your own;  he’s been that strength more times than you can count.  

The reality of your situation isn’t lost on you.

He’s the only one who knows everything you’ve been through.  A diary in living breathing form, full of your most shameless secrets, your deepest worries, your worst heartbreaks.  

“I know.”  Apology threads each syllable, stitches them neatly to each other.  The sincerity is blinding, bright white and earnest.  “I didn’t mean to make you worry.”  

The smile he offers is rueful, twisting the edge of his mouth in a manner you’ve adopted over the years.  You return it without thought and then, all at once, the expanse is closed.  He’s laughing - a sound that doesn’t ring true in the way you know it should - but it’s a laugh and you know everything is okay.

“Still worried,”  he returns with a quiet sigh and flick of his wrist.

You’re with him in a breath, curled against his side on the couch you’d cried yourself to sleep on just days ago.  While you’re both far closer in size than you’ve ever been - you were always a tiny kid growing up, even against Yoongi’s own slim frame - it’s reminiscent of your childhood and being caught beneath haphazardly strewn sheets and disorganised chaos in the form of blanket forts.

Dry lips find a home against the side of your head, his arm dragging you to warmth.  “You’re an idiot, you know.”  He says it in the way only an older brother can - with all the frustration and love in the world.  

You do know, intimately well, how idiotic you are.  Have been.  Seemingly always will be.

“I know,”  you mumble, sad into the raised hood of your sweater.  “But I made him leave.”  It sounds like a child begging for praise - to be told they’ve done well.  You won’t deny you need it now.  

Good is the first thing Yoongi says, a little flippant and with a hard set of his jaw.  More comes when he catches your expression and the way the dent forms between your brows, the tiny pout of your lips.  It’s the same face you’ve made all your life - one that hits him right behind the ribs like a Whack-A-Mole game at the carnival.

“You did good, Vivi.  I’m proud of you.”  They’re bandages, sticky and adhesive on the stitches Jungkook’s visit had torn open.  “You’re great and he’s…”  There are words he’d like to use - a million scathing adjectives to paint the asshole in technicolour - but he knows better.  Knows you can’t take it, at least not right now.  “He doesn’t deserve you.  You get that, right?  You’re better off without him.”

You nod against his side but offer nothing further.  The silence speaks worrying volumes.

“You’re not going to answer him again, right?”  

Some half-mumbled non-committal response comes.  Yoongi wants to tear his own hair out.  Better yet, he wants to tear yours out.  Instead, he blows a long exhale through his nose, free hand coming to scrub across his face.  When will you learn?  

“I’m scared.”

It’s so quiet even you hardly hear it, ear tucked against the cotton of Yoongi’s flannel.  You think, for a moment, maybe he’s missed it too.  Then he squeezes you a little tighter:  a silent reassurance.

“Seeing him again just brings back so many memories.”  Every other word is muffled but it’s the most you can do.  Courage is carried quietly - too loud and you’ll shatter it.  “I thought three years would be enough.  It should be, right?”

It’s a rhetorical question;  Yoongi still debates answering it, just for his own sake.

“Maybe he’s changed.  Or maybe I’ve changed.  It could be different.”  It’s a clandestine belief and one you shouldn’t speak to life - especially to your brother.  It spills forth of its own accord, wrong for so many reasons but begging to be asked.  You have no control over it and the hope it sows somewhere within your chest.

“You can’t actually believe that.”  

It’s infinitely more scathing than Hoseok’s reaction, tearing out of Yoongi’s mouth like a bullet.  You can’t help the way you frown, brows drawn and lips pursed.  You’ve known Yoongi your whole life.  Reading between the lines feels like you’re fucking stupid but you know it’s not quite so harsh.  A frustrated you dumb idiot, maybe.

“Don’t make that face.”  

“I’m not making any face.”  

“Yes, you are.  It’s the same one you made when I embarrassed you on your first date.  Also the one you made after you threw up all over Hoseok’s shoes the first night you met him.”  The recollection doesn’t help your cause - you’re grimacing even more deeply, chagrin spilling into misery in the form of red hot heat over your cheeks.  “Don’t resent me for being realistic, Vivi.  You know he hasn’t changed.”

The silence is childish.  You know that.

“You can’t fix people.”

He arrives with flowers.  Two full bunches of your favourite blooms - pretty peonies in shades of coral and lavender.  They’re heavy in his arms, held so gingerly it’s almost comical as he extracts himself from the vehicle he most definitely should not be driving.  He wonders whether you’ll be home - if he’ll get to see your expression when he presents them to you.  He hopes you’ll light up, brighter than the sun in the sky and better than any nightlight.  

What he doesn’t expect is someone walking up the sidewalk, gym bag slung across his shoulder like he’s getting ready to settle in for a long night.  Short - atleast a few inches shorter than himself - with a stupid face that makes Jungkook want to punch it.  Dumb shoes, too.  Who the fuck wears Off-White Jordan 1s in that colourway?

There’s a permanent scowl etched across his face as he watches from behind the tinted comfort of his car, single hand caught around the edge of the door.  He’s vaguely aware of the fact that he’s perhaps crushing the stems cradled in his arms, inked knuckles blown white around quickly crumpling brown paper.

Maybe he’s your neighbour.  Or maybe he’s going to the other house or maybe—

No, he’s definitely walking right up the front path.

The words are out before Jungkook can stop them, shouted into the quiet afternoon more loudly than he anticipates.  “Hey!”

Dumbass with the face turns, full of surprise and wandering eyes.  He hesitates halfway up your stoop, looking stupider than ever as he looks around for the source of the voice.  

Then his stare falls on the brunet with his hands full and it’s like a flip has switched - mouth hardening into a line that raises the hairs on the back of Jungkook’s neck.  He’s glaring at him (or something close to it).  

Seriously - who is this fucker?

“Can I help you?”  Hoseok speaks far more reasonably, at an octave that doesn’t shatter the peace of the residential neighbourhood.  He’s still caught on the steps, fist tight around the strap of his bag as he studies the man - no, boy - that jogs up to meet him, two rungs the only thing separating the two of them.

“Do you know Vira?”

A part of Hoseok flinches at Jungkook’s casual use of your name - like he knows you or deserves to address you like an old friend.  This kid really was clueless.

When he speaks, he’s perfectly composed, tension held tight behind his teeth.  “I said, can I help you?”

Jungkook bristles at the response, some snarky comment threatening to knock the other off his apparent high horse.  He barely catches it, grinding it down into a fine powder beneath his molars.  He has to tread lightly here. 

“I’m a friend of hers.”  Not a lie, per se.  You two were friends;  after all, you’d come when he’d called.  That meant something, right?  Had to. 

“A friend?”  Disbelief slips into place, evident in the tone of Hoseok’s voice, how his brows shift beneath his chestnut fringe.  He knows better than to believe Jungkook - has heard all the heartbreaking stories - but he can’t quite keep the worry from worming it’s way into his thoughts.  They settle uncomfortably, just beneath the surface. “Is she expecting you?”

Everything about Hoseok makes Jungkook hate him.  From the sneakers he wears to the watch on his wrist - understated, all gold, more expensive than a nerd like him should have - there’s something undoubtedly punchable about him.

It certainly has nothing to do with the fact that he’s seemingly close with you.  Definitely not.

“I was going to surprise her.”  The flowers are held aloft, gesticulated in the best manner Jungkook can manage with his arms so full.  “I didn’t know she was expecting you.”  It’s a cheap tactic - recycling words - but he can’t think of much else beyond fitting his foot into this guy’s mouth.

“She’s not.”  Sharp, sparse, with no hint of indulgence.  Hoseok’s not about to get into a verbal sparring match with Jungkook.  It’s not worth his time.  

He is, however, going to put him in his place - and easily at that.

“She’s still at work.”  Slim bundle of keys rise - two unassuming and one for an Audi.  Perhaps unnecessary but Hoseok takes great pleasure in the other’s expression.

Tch is Jungkook’s first thought before the second smacks him straight in the face.  He has a key to your place?  The fact rubs him all the wrong ways despite the fact that he has no right to be bothered;  it isn’t his home any more - hasn’t been in years.  It still hurts, though, right behind his ribs and all the way down to the tips of his fingers.

Is this how you felt all those times?  

Something like nausea builds in Jungkook’s stomach, throwing acid up the walls of his throat.  It burns and strings, licking painfully all the way into his mouth.  His teeth ache - buzz uncomfortably - and his tongue feels suddenly far too heavy.  He wonders if he might choke on it.

Then, slowly, in a voice he doesn’t recognise.  Too soft, years younger, uncertain.  “Can you give these to her?”  He hates it.

He hates even more the way Hosoek looks at him, with such pity Jungkook wants to curl it around his fist and break the older man’s teeth with it.  It’s something he’s seen a handful of times - from you, from your brother, from his worried mother when she thinks he doesn’t notice.  It never gets easier. 

It forces him into a position he hasn’t been in in years:  weak.

“I don’t think so.”  By how calmly Hoseok speaks, it’s almost as if he’s commenting on the weather or passing along a banal bit of information.  It’s far too nonchalant to be breaking Jungkook’s heart, splitting it cleanly in two.

“Why not?”  Jungkook’s petulant, a child denied his favourite toy, forced into time-out.  

That’s not for you screams Hoseok’s expression.  She’s not for you.  “I’m not comfortable with doing so.”  

The sinking feeling hasn’t stopped for Jungkook.  It goes and goes until he wishes he were six feet under, buried under ground as low as he feels.  He should leave.  He knows he should leave - if only to stop the discomfort that’s gripping every nerve, twisting them like an elbow about to snap.  

“Anyway.”  There’s boredom working its way into Hoseok’s stare, relaxing the shape of his mouth until it falls wide around a short, terse sigh.  “If you’re friends, you can get in touch and drop them off later.”  

He’s done playing gatekeeper - can feel his frustration bubbling to the surface in a way he’s not about to entertain.  He nods once, dismissive, before turning away from the so-called rockstar that seems terribly small and the farthest thing from it.

“Goodbye.”  Then he’s disappearing into your home, leaving Jungkook on the steps with his tail between his legs.

You return home three hours later - blissfully unaware of what’s transpired.  

You set your dinner on the kitchen island, deftly unpacking takeout boxes as Hoseok hurries to your side to help.  You don’t mind when he bumps into you, knocking his hip against yours with a heart-shaped smile.

It burns a little brighter than usual.  “Good day?”  

He hums in response, sneaking a yellow tomato from the salad box he’s just popped open.  “Something like that.” 

“Something like that?”  You can’t help but echo him, a pretty parrot with shining eyes and a silk bow in your hair.  “Don’t play coy, Jung Hoseok.”  A digit closes the minimal distance between you, finding purchase against his side - right where he’s most ticklish.

He shrieks, nearly upending the fries he’s tried to dump onto a ceramic plate.

“Hey!”  Hands swat, then fold, catching your fingers between his in an awkward hand-hold.  “Keep your hands to yourself, Vi.” 

“You don’t complain normally,”  you retort.  You’re not wrong.  Skinship with you is one of his favourite things, fourth only to his dog, dancing, and a certain green-labelled soda.

“Well, today’s a special day.”  

Hoseok really doesn’t know where he’s going with his words - only hoping that he’ll find their destination somewhere along the way.  He doesn’t want to tell you too soon, all too aware of how the mention of your ex will bring this perfect moment crumbling down.  He wants to hold it, perhaps a little too tightly, for as long as he can.  He thinks he’s doing you a service, giving you these few extra minutes.

“Oh yeah?”  You’re twinkling eyes and pealing laughter, so far removed from the bag of bones and sadness of only days prior.  It’s hard to believe there’s something broken inside of there - tucked right behind your breastplate and out of sight.

“Yeah.”  

You wait for him to continue, opting instead to fill the silence with mouth noises.  He’ll tell you when he’s ready.  He always does.  

“Jungkook came by.”  It comes halfway through a bite of a french fry, the carb nearly bringing you to an early death when you choke on it.  All at once, everything spins, as if just the name is enough to upend your entire world.  Hoseok’s clapping your back, rubbing soothing circles over the cotton of your shirt, and you’re struggling to find words or breath - heaving around the sudden heaviness.

“What?”  So small, it’s hardly a word.

“He was here when I got here.”  You’re not oblivious to the careful way he speaks, choosing his words with utmost care.  You don’t miss his grip either, gentle and unyielding at your side - as if he might steady you beneath the sudden tidal wave of emotion.  

You do well, keeping your voice level once you’ve found it again.  “And?  What did he want?”

Hoseok does you the great service of pretending as if he doesn’t hear the hope in your voice.  You’re grateful for that. 

“He came with flowers.”  Not quite a laugh comes - more unimpressed and derisive than amused.  “Two bouquets, actually.”  You can feel him studying you from your periphery, his careful stare trained on your face and the dozen emotions that run rampant through it.  “Your favourite flowers too.”

Your laugh matches his own, though far heavier, as if the sound won’t form without immense effort.  “Wow.”

“Yeah.”  It’s a word you’ve heard a lot tonight.  It feels right.  One syllable to encompass every feeling you can’t properly articulate.  “He asked me to give them to you.”  

It should surprise you but it doesn’t.  Jungkook’s never been one to ask - instead taking what he wants - but it’s still funny.  Of course he’d ask that of Hoseok, as if the act itself weren’t terribly strange, the flowers an unwelcome, begging apology.  Jeon Jungkook only did what he wanted - etiquette be damned.

“I don’t see them anywhere.”  

“I told him I wasn’t comfortable doing it.”  There’s a touch of pride, glimmering gold painted over consonants and vowels.  It’s understated in the way that Hoseok always is - not how he looks, but is;  you’re drawn to it nonetheless, squeezing your fingers around his own in a silent thank you.

“I hope it wasn’t weird.”  It must have been.  It’s still the thought that counts.

Hoseok hams it up, scoffing like it’s just been another day.  “Weird?  Of course not.  I have to deal with my friend’s horrible exes all the time.  I’m practically Scott Pilgrim.”  

“Does that make me Ramona Flowers?”  

“No - but you’re my flower.”  He says it in jest, only to make you smile, because he knows you need it right now.

You try not to think of how you prefer Pumpkin, instead.

tag list.  @jalexad @aa-ronpa @kookiesbreaky @celestialflamefairy @xjoonchildx @pars-ley @seokjinssi @youwannabelostandnotbefound @patpus @dazedjjk @koozui @jinhitwhore @always-wishing-for-rain @neverthefirstchoice @snackhobi 

[yandere-daydreams]

how about Shinso's darling thinking it's hot when he gets possessive, so she'll let guys flirt with her so he'll get jealous

One day, I’m going to get tired of Darlings who aren’t prepared to reap what they sow, but that day’s a long way off. Enjoy your Jealous! Shinsou, in the meantime.

Title: Give and Take.

TW: Unhealty Relationships, Emotional Manipulation and Mentions of Physical Violence. 

~

To be fair, it wasn’t like he was completely innocent.

You’d always had a talent when it came to people like Shinsou, Heroes like Shinsou. Victors and champions so noble and golden-hearted, they had to be hiding some affinity for violence, something to drive them towards the dark alleys and side-roads you so often found them attempting to drown their sorrows in. Your quirk was only confirmation of that. You amplified emotions, you didn’t create them. If Shinsou wanted to be angry, you couldn’t change that. If he wanted to be kind, you’d only be able to make him more charitable.

But, he didn’t want to be kind, or generous, or anything like that. He didn’t want to be nice.

And you didn’t want him to be, either.

You let out a pained hiss as your back hit the solid, sturdy wood of your apartment’s door, closing your eyes and hunching forward to avoid another head injury. You’d been through this too many times not to know a concussion would ruin your night. Both of you had, judging by the moment of hesitation Shinsou took before tightening his hold on your thighs, nails digging into thin skin and threatening to draw blood at the slightest hint of a struggle. You didn’t mind. You didn’t plan to run, not until Shinsou wanted a chase. 

Instead, you wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him closer and letting him find his place in the crook of your neck, labored breaths fanning over your skin as he made himself comfortable. His chest pressed against yours, your legs pinned against his sides, and suddenly, you realized how much you missed the closeness of it, the intimacy. A kiss would’ve achieved the same end, but it would’ve been domestic and harmless - over as soon as it’d begun. You liked to draw things out.

You opened your mouth, but stayed silent for a moment, letting his rage wash over you. Anger, resentment, all those dark, devious emotions that Shinsou was so good at generating, with or without your help. You drank it in, letting the heat of another person’s temper fill you, forming a ball of warmth somewhere below your conscious mind. A contented sigh made its way through your lips before you could stop it, but you covered it up quickly with a grin and a laugh, running a hand through his hair as you spoke. “Someone’s energetic tonight,” You sighed, resting your chin on his shoulder. “Is this about the bartender? Or, was it the waitress--”

“Don’t say a fucking word.” His voice emerged as a growl, cutting you off for an unnecessary explanation. Envy was radiating off of him, something between fierce jealousy and mild betrayal, but it was strong enough to stir that primal, ingrained sense of dread inside of you, a feat Shinsou had never managed to accomplish. You’d be tempted to say you were impressed, if it hadn’t taken so much dedication on your part. “Everything you do is… You’re infuriating.” A pause, a ragged inhale, both signs that you shouldn’t try to push him any further. You only beamed, your attention dropping to his collar, a gentle tug serving as his cue to continue. “You swore you wouldn’t try anything, tonight. You promised. How am I supposed to be with you if I can’t even trust you?”

“You can trust me, baby,” You mumbled, your tone nothing short of soothing, patronizing. You felt him stiffen, and with some effort, you suppressed your self-satisfied smirk, melting into him as his grip became tight enough to bruise. “I’m still here, aren’t I? That should be enough. There’ll always be someone else to catch my eye, but…” You trailed off, drawing him closer, only slightly deterred when he refused to budge. “You’re the one I come home to. That makes it all better, right?”

There was a stifled rebuttle, a scowl pressed against vulnerable flesh, and that was all it took for the adrenaline to hit, ruthless and cruel and relentless. In an instant, you were ready, your shoulder squared and every nerve in your body on-edge, waiting for the break in the tension, the tearing of cloth and the bruising of the skin and the splatter of fresh, hot blood, either from your veins or his, you didn’t care. You were ready. You were waiting, and...

And you were left waiting.

The pain never came.

Without warning, you found yourself falling, a hollow thud reaching your ears before your tailbone collided with the floorboards, an indistinct, impersonal spike of pain racing up your spine as you hit the ground. You were still, for a moment, too stunned to be disappointed, but you snapped yourself out of the haze quickly, intent on finding your partially-willing partner and salvaging what you could.

Luckily, Shinsou didn’t make it difficult. He’d collapsed less than an arm’s length away, dropped to his knees and folded in on himself, his hands currently preoccupied with the tears beginning to gather in the corners of his eyes, the futile pursuit keeping him busy as you approached. The last traces of your influence blurred and faded, leaving Shinsou crumpled and exhausted and, more likely than not, feeling more empty than he had when you started. As you got closer, you could hear pathetic, muffled sobs, gasped breaths that made it difficult to do anything but pity the man in front of you.

You leaned into the feeling, resting a hand on his shoulder, positioning yourself at his side. Your touch wasn’t nearly as condescending as it had been, or… you hoped it wasn’t, at least. This was the part you’d never really gotten the hang of. “I can leave,” You offered, half-heartedly. “I… I’d understand if you want to be alone.”

He stayed silent, his verbal response delayed in favor of reaching out and wrapping an arm around your waist, dragging you closer, pulling you into his lap like a toddler preparing to coddle their favorite toy. “I don’t like it,” He said, the admission barely making it off his tongue. “When you talk to other people, when I have to stand back and let you. It’s unfair, and it makes me feel so…” He bit the inside of cheek, glancing towards you but never quite meeting your eyes. You couldn’t quite blame him, right now. “It makes me think things would be better if you couldn’t talk to other people at all.”

That should’ve been your sign. Your red flag, your warning, your signal to run while you could and only look back to make sure you were doing so alone. But, as you stared down at his pitiful expression, a new kind of warmth filled you, the gentle embers that came with real, genuine desperation. The kind your quirk hadn’t managed to taint, yet.

You smiled as you knelt down, kissing the top of his head, making sure to be more gentle than you’d been all night. “Don’t worry,” You whispered, unsure whether or not you wanted him to hear.

“I can work with that.”

[grimmseye]

Tandem

Read on Ao3 Here

Rating: Gen

Fandom: She-ra

Relationships: Hordak & Entrapta, Hordak/Entrapta (pre-relationship

Chapter Characters: Hordak, Entrapta

Chapter Tags/Warnings: This is just 1500+ words of Hordak’s thoughts about Entrapta, Pre-Season 2

(Disclaimer: remember that Hordak is both an imperial soldier and a cult survivor. This is also before he and Entrapta have really started building their relationship. His narration is told through that lens. )

— — — — — — — —

Years of sifting through the Horde’s administrative detritus had not made the job any more bearable for him. Even when Shadow Weaver had been keeping operations smooth, there was a certain portion of work that had to fall on his head, plans and projects needing review before they could be dismissed or approved of.

It was aggravating work, with one new exception. When he reached the file with telltale oil smudges on it, he could already feel the weight of his armor ease. There was a quickness to his movements as he flipped the file open — certainly not eagerness, but anticipation. For once, the weight of the file pleased him rather than had Hordak biting back groans.

Entrapta’s projects were the only things that brought him any mental stimulation these days. He took a cursory flip through the first packet, ears perking as he spotted the first draft of her blueprints. For once, she wasn’t offering new weapons to deploy, but rather a more espionage-focused design: something small that could scope out their targets before they sent any troops to seize new territory.

It was delicate work, and deeply time consuming. He settled in to read in more detail, making a note to himself to grant her a more direct line of contact to him. From now on, Entrapta’s projects should be sent through communication pads, to be vetted by the only person in the Fright Zone who could offer worthwhile criticism. Two pages in, he could tell notes from those who had reviewed it before were utterly worthless, all questions and conjecture with no understanding of what it was that they demanded. It was worthless to insist she work faster if there wasn’t a method to do so.

There was one, potentially, but not a single of the previous readers had mentioned it.

Hordak created a document on his communications pad and set a stylus to the screen. He got several lines into his writing before he had to stop, giving a faint sneer. His armor weighed his limbs, making his writing sloppy, and regardless...

He tapped his nails along the edge of his throne. As excellent as Entrapta’s reports were, she did not receive the same work with enthusiasm. Audio recordings were her preferred means of reference if he recalled correctly, remembering a delay in her work when she'd first began working on his bots. When he'd inquired about it, she'd mentioned something along the lines of struggling to digest the information. A vocal repetition and a recording of the instructions had been enough to get her back on schedule.

A moment’s deliberation sent to the security feeds, ensuring Entrapta was in her lab before he flicked on a monitor. Through his screen, it gave an overhead of Entrapta at her workbench, looking to be setting up to get to work. Good. He wouldn’t be able to interrupt her if she were doing something delicate.

He lifted his chin before announcing himself with a call of, “Princess Entrapta.”

She straightened up at once, head swiveling before she caught sight of the monitor, gawking for a moment before breaking into a smile and calling out, “Hello!”

She’d forgotten to bow. Again. He pushed a breath through his teeth, finding that the urge to demand proper respect felt oddly diluted for Entrapta. Whether or not she bowed had yet to compromise her work. Instead he skipped to the point: “I received your newest blueprints. The design is promising, if… inefficient.”

Entrapta clapped her hands together, looking excited before the words caught up with her. “Oh, I know. I’ll need to develop a prototype to get a real sense of what materials I’ll need and how much time it’ll take —” As she spoke, her words grew quick, almost snappish. “— But right now the estimated time per drone is much longer than I’d like, let alone viable for regular use.” Her hair frizzed out, bristling not unlike a cat’s. A clear sign of displeasure.

He lingered in that for a moment, then spoke. “I have a suggestion,” He said, appreciating how she perked up at once. It was gratifying to work with someone who knew what they were doing, and even understood what he was doing — at least as far as an upbringing on this planet allowed. “There is a synthetic compound we produce here in the Fright Zone that may work as a substitute for what you intend to use: adamantine. It should have the strength to support this device even in sheer pieces.”

She listened to him speak, interrupting only once to ask if she could run a recorder. Once again, he found satisfaction in that. He rarely had trouble with being listened to — with the exception of Entrapta, all knew to bow in his presence, to not speak while he was speaking. He had fear, and respect, and obedience, he had created a facsimile of the true Horde, successful in his emulation of Horde Prime. And yet, while Princess Entrapta did not fear him or even always obey him, she heard him in a way no other creature on Etheria had before. She challenged him, even, and as irritating as her insubordination could be, there was value in an alternative perspective.

Truly, she was impressive. Despite being a princess, Entrapta had taken well to life in the Fright Zone. Everything he knew of the Etherian princesses suggested inordinate wealth and luxury that would not lend itself to the Horde’s lifestyle. The primary kingdoms were disorganized and self-serving, lacking unity and loyalty to any but themselves, excising that which they found displeasing and then stuffing their castles with unneeded opulence. Here, closest thing to luxury Entrapta had been provided was her own room, something all ranking officers were granted. And yet he’d heard none of the anticipated whining, just a snippet of her voice from Imp about the brown nutrition bars being unfavorable in texture, even once cut into smaller cubes.

He wasn’t sure he could count her among the ranks of the princesses at all, and that was entirely favorable. Dryl had such organization and stability that even in their princess’ absence, the small nation ran like clockwork. It seemed almost entirely self-sufficient, and what necessary trade was denied to them after allying with the Horde could be supplemented.

Again, he berated himself for not considering Dryl’s value. It seemed that like the other nations of this planet, he’d vastly underestimated its value, and Princess Entrapta’s value most of all.

At some point, their conversation drifted off track, to the materials Dryl itself mined and then stories of what Entrapta had found beneath the earth, the First Ones’ tech she was so enamored with.

“Their power sources are more efficient than any Etherian technology I’ve seen,” Entrapta breathed, her chin cupped in her hands. “One crystal,” she framed her thumb and forefinger approximately an inch apart, “could have enough energy to fuel one of your Skiffs for a full day of flight, longer if you stop to let it replenish — because that’s what makes them so amazing, they don’t run out of power. I think eventually they might exhaust their capability for storage but I have yet to prove it, but in the meantime they seem endlessly capable of recharging their own energy, potentially by harnessing the latent magic in Etheria’s atmosphere.”

Sometimes it could become difficult to keep up with the pace of her voice, when her words began to run into one another and she took great gasps as she ran out of breath. And yet, the subject held his attention, ears perked forward with fascination.

“If we were able to collect such crystals…” Even that much energy would be insufficient for his portal machine, but to collect a great quantity —

“That’s the trouble,” Entrapta sighed, deflating. “I’ve rarely found these crystals intact.”

Disappointment weighed heavy in Hordak’s chest, then curled into anger. He’d hardly known about it for a moment, and already his hope —

He slammed his fist down on his throne. Hordak glanced at the clock, realizing half an hour had slid by without his noticing. This entire thing had been — “A waste of my time.”

“I disagree!” Entrapta’s rebuttal made his eyes narrow. Still, he knew to listen to his officers when they spoke — even to Shadow Weaver, who had to walk through elaborate metaphors and tangents before she ever got to the point. Though perhaps he should have listened less to her. The very premise of her arrival should have served a warning — seeking revenge did not sow loyalty.

Unlike Entrapta, who worked for her discoveries, for possibility rather than vengeance on the fools who had left her for dead.

So he did not silence her as she continued, “Your input was quite valuable! If you could have some of that material sent to my lab, I’ll be sure to attempt a prototype using it and see if it will be a good substitute.”

His ears relaxed from their flattened position. Hordak glanced away from the screen for just a moment, taking a breath to calm his frustrations. “Of course. I will see it is done.” He hesitated for just a moment before saying, “That is all. You are dismissed, Princess Entrapta.”

“Okay!” She smiled. “It was nice talking with you! We should do this again!”

His finger hesitated over a button. Hordak inclined his head, half of a nod before he ended the transmission.

The quiet that followed left him with a strange feeling: reluctance to continue his work, the want to shift it aside and perhaps pull up his records on Dryl to read more on what Entrapta had told him. Instead he took his pad, putting in two orders: one to deliver a shipment of adamantine to Entrapta’s lab, the other opening a direct line to her own communicator.

Just in case she wanted to consult his opinion once again.

[everybodyscupoftea]

sick (of you)

pike jj x reader

cody and jj are idiots, you have to deal with it

pre-relationship - sorry but i’m sure y’all knew it was coming eventually

(warnings: cursing, zero? editing)

“I told you,” you paced, “I literally told you fucking idiots that it was a dumb idea. And did you listen to me? Of course not. Don’t know why, I’m clearly the smartest one in the group.” 

JJ was sitting on the couch, arms crossed petulantly, frowning, until he couldn’t hold his breath any longer and had to open his mouth to breathe.

“Fucking mouth breather,” you muttered. “Hey,” JJ protested, sounding stuffy, “it’s not my fault, it’s Tyler’s. He’s the one that challenged us in the first place.”

“And if Tyler challenged you to jump off a cliff,” you started, only to be interrupted by the man himself.

“Now there’s an idea.”

“No,” you glared at him, “no dying on my watch.” 

“Simply do not watch,” he shrugged.

Ignoring him, you went on, “Now all you idiots are sick and who has to house you for the time being? Me. Because the rest of the house kicked you out so you didn’t spread it to all of them.” 

“I really don’t think we would,” Cody spoke up for the first time.

“I really think you would, boys are fucking gross as it is.” 

“Yet here you are,” JJ smirked.

“Only because I love you guys, I wouldn’t otherwise.” 

“Hmm, I disagree, you’re simply the best of us.” 

“Well I certainly suppose that’s the truth,” you decided to take the compliment even though Cody was clearly just buttering you up.

You sighed, as JJ coughed pathetically, “Some soup would be awesome,” he suggested.

“Sure. I’ll order some from Panera. Then Tyler can babysit while I take a shower.” 

“Woah,” Tyler held his hands up, “why do I have to babysit?”

“You’re the reason they jumped into the pool in 20 degree weather asshole. Reap what you sow,” you pointed at him accusingly.

He sighed, put upon, “Fine.” 

“You guys are just lucky Zach is out of town because if he weren’t and I couldn’t see him until you fools get better, I’d be mad.”

“Where’s Zach?” JJ asked, sitting up.

“He’s with his parents for the next two weeks. He’s coming back straight after Christmas.” 

Cody waved his hand, “It’s fine, we’ll FaceTime him eventually.”

-

Tyler left after a day because he didn’t want to get sick. He said it wasn’t his fault they forgot to get their flu shots. Which, to be fair, it wasn’t yours either, but you were nice enough to let them crash on an air mattress in your living room for the time being.

And to your fear, they got stir crazy quick. Cody was the first to start whining, “We’ve literally watched everything on Netflix.” 

You raised your eyebrows, “They literally posted a new season of Criminal Minds yesterday that we haven’t even started yet. I’m literally waiting on you hand and foot. Not getting paid and risking my health. What the fuck could you possibly be complaining about?” 

Cody did at least have the decency to look a little chargrained, “You’re right, I’m sorry.” 

You sighed, thinking a few seconds, “I could paint your nails if you want.” 

JJ brightened immediately, “Yes please. Can you do Christmas colors? Tis the season and whatnot.”

Standing from the couch, you shrugged, “Unsure, let me go check what colors I have.” 

There was no green, but you did have red and white, JJ hummed, “Candy cane. Good enough for me.” 

“I’m not doing stripes,” you warned, “but I’ll alternate fingers.”

“Deal.”

So you settled in, all three of you on the floor, and started the new season of Criminal Minds. It started quiet, but Cody got antsy quickly and started talking, “So, how are things with you and Zach?” 

“Good,” you answered, tongue sticking out a bit in focus, “I talked to him last night. Things are going well at home. As well as can be at least.” 

JJ knew nothing about Zach’s home life and the pressure his family but on him, but Cody did, so he nodded understandingly, “Fuck, well I’m glad it’s not a total shitshow.” 

“Yeah. When he gets back we’re celebrating our anniversary. It was actually a few weeks ago, but obviously finals and now he’s not here so.” 

“Oh yeah, what are you getting him?” JJ asked eagerly, crossing his legs and leaning forward on his elbows.

Your cheeks heated up, “It sounds so dumb, but I was planning for the main gift to be me telling him that I love him.” 

Cody cooed and JJ wrinkled his eyebrows, “You haven’t told him yet?” 

Sighing, you looked up at him, “No, why?” 

“Has he told you?” 

“Well, yeah.” 

JJ hummed, “I see.”

Defensively, you crossed your arms, “I’m not obligated to tell him just because he’s told me. That’s not how relationships work.”

JJ’s eyebrows shot up and he held his hands out, “Hey, not accusing. Just wondering. It’s not personally how I’d like things to be done.” 

You scoffed, slamming the cap back into the nail polish bottle, “Well guess what, you not only have zero say in my relationship, you also have zero control over me or my feelings. Zach and I have talked about it and turns out he’s not a selfish dickhead and understands where I’m coming from.” 

Cody raised his eyebrows at your snap and put a hand on your shoulder, “Help us understand, sweetheart. Talk it out.” 

Without meaning to, you teared up, frustrated that you had to defend yourself to two boys who didn’t really need to know, but you were going to do it anyway.

“I don’t want to say I love you to someone until we’ve been dating at least a year. Because love is a choice, feelings of attraction are how two people get together, but feelings fade, ask literally any girl. Based on how you know that person, you choose to keep being with them. You choose to love them despite their flaws, despite their mistakes, and despite the things you may not like so much about them.”

You paused, taking a shuddering breath and blinked back the tears, “And once I’ve chosen that person for a year and they’ve chosen me. Then I’ll say it. Because being in love with someone isn’t something I just take flippantly, it’s not just a word to casually throw around. It means something to me. So I’m sorry if my reasoning isn’t up to your standards.”

They were both quiet for a moment, JJ wouldn’t meet your eyes, but Cody lunged forward, wrapping his arms around you tightly. For a split second, you melted into it before realizing he was there because he had the flu and jerked away.

Face hot you stood up, “Finish your own nails, I’ll be in my room.”

Pacing a few times, you turned your phone over in your hands anxiously. You didn’t have anything to prove to them, you and Zach really had talked about it. But as tears rose in your eyes, and your throat tightened, you dialled the number.

Zach picked up on the second ring, greeting you breathlessly. You could hear the smile on his lips and had to wonder how the fuck you deserved this sweet sweet boy. And it was very clear to you, you loved him, would keep choosing him because no one else knew you quite like him, not even your friends.

“Hey hon,” you managed to croak out.

He sounded concerned, “What’s wrong, sweetheart.” 

“I just,” you paused and twisted your fingers in your shirt until you’d calmed down, “I wanted to let you know that I love you.” 

Zach was quiet, stunned into it if you had to guess, and he eventually whispered back, “I love you too.”

It gave you enough relief to lay down and relax. The two of you spent the next few minutes catching up, and eventually went silent, listening to each other breathe.

“I missed you,” you whispered, and then a bit louder, “or I guess I should say miss.”

“I miss you too, so much. I want to see you, and my parents haven’t been,” he paused, looking for the word, “good enough to justify me staying here.”

You sat up, excited, “Seriously?” 

“Seriously.”

“Oh my god. Okay, I’ll see you soon?”

“You absolutely will.” 

When you walked back out to rejoin the boys, you felt significantly better. Sitting down, in the armchair instead of the couch with them like you had been, you told them cheerfully, “Better get well soon because Zach is coming home early, and I’m ready to see him.”

Cody cheered and JJ looked at you with a face you couldn’t quite figure out. After a few seconds, you got a bit annoyed, “What?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled, finally looking away.

~

day 16 of @obxmermaid​‘s holiday challenge: under the weather

[itsamejin]

leave me || part 3 || suga angst ||

Part 1 || Part 2

Warning: angst, cheating, cursing, intoxication (heavy drinking)

Summary: He’s cheating and you’re aware. You just don’t know what to do about it.

–

Min Yoongi, to say the least, was tired. He was tired of his fame, his fans, his group members. No, fuck it. Min Yoongi was exhausted.

The guilt that came with his infidelity led him to a nearby bar where he could drown himself in his sorrows once again. He should've known better. 

It's been two weeks since you've left him and in some twisted way, he still believes you'd come back. If he had been kinder, if he had told you sooner... Would you have been more forgiving?

Shot after shot of vodka, Yoongi didn't know when to stop. It was self-destructive, he knew it better than anyone else. But Yoongi didn't need someone to tell him what's right and what’s wrong about his situation because he already fucking knew that he messed up, that there was no turning back.

Yoongi was prepared to pass out at that bar tonight, lacking the energy to call a cab and drag himself home. He was prepared to just lay there and hope the bartender doesn't call the cops on him or that even more videos of his drunken adventures show up online the next day. He was so prepared that it came as a shock when a pretty young lady scooped him up and took him to the BTS dorm.

As he got one last glimpse at his savior, he wondered why he felt so at home in her arms.

–

Waking up with a feeling of intense grogginess, Yoongi regretted every decision he made last night. The world was spinning and he needed to throw up. Running to the restroom, Yoongi splurged his guts out. He coughed up the remainder of his vomit and groaned. He muttered incoherent words, clinging onto his scalp for dear life. It wasn't the migraine that hurt the most, it was that deja vu feeling of you patting his back over the toilet bowl after an intense party you both attended.

"Yoongi, baby, are you okay?" a sweet voice called.

Jieun.

Yoongi groaned even louder. He must've drunkenly texted or called her last night. Of course she was the person that took him home. Why did he trick himself into thinking it was you?

Jieun lightly tapped on the bathroom door and opened it slightly. She gasped at his appearance.

"What happened?!" she screeched.

"Just threw up, that's all," he said, his mouth sore and his head pulsing.

Jieun looked at him with those puppy dog eyes, pouting at his wrecked state.

"C'mon, let's get you fixed up babe.”

She was ever so sweet, ever so loving. But somehow the look of worry on her face made Yoongi's migraines even worse. Without warning, Yoongi threw up the remainder of last night's alcohol all over Jieun’s feet.

–

“Hey can anyone help me in here? Yoongi’s passed out on the floor,” Jieun called out from inside the bathroom, scrubbing the vomit off her feet under the bathtub faucet.

When she heard no response, Jieun wiped her feet on the bath rug and stepped over Yoongi’s lying form to get to the living room.

A few minutes ago, the rest of BTS was on the sofa watching reruns of a 90s sitcom, but it seems that ever since she got there, all the members except one moved to their own rooms.

“Hey Jin, can you help me carry Yoongi to his bed again?” she asked kindly. 

It seemed everyone wanted nothing to do with her today because he audibly sighed and did not acknowledge her existence even as he got up to pass by her. 

Seokjin grimaced at the site of Yoongi. He reeked of alcohol, vomit, and bad decisions, but Seokjin soldiered through his own queasiness to get him on the bed.

Jieun watched from the door frame and chuckled nervously. 

“What’s gotten into him lately?” she wondered out loud. 

“Jieun I think you should go,” Seokjin replied coldly, ignoring her previous question.

“What? Why?”

“I’ll handle it from here,” he said, keeping his focus on Yoongi’s intoxicated form.

“I need to know what’s going on, Jin. He’s been like this for the past few weeks, I’m worried-”

“Yeah well, maybe you shouldn’t be,” he cut her off. This was the first time he looked at her throughout her whole visit.

“Jin, I know you don’t like me but-”

“This has nothing to do with how I feel, Jieun. You just need to go,” he walked towards her.

“I just want him to be okay,” she replied, tears forming in her eyes. Seokjin was always like this to her, saying hurtful comments with no consideration towards her own feelings.

“Trust me Jieun when I say that you could do so much better than Yoongi,” he started. “You’ll learn that soon enough. For now, I need you to leave.”

The tears ran down Jieun’s eyes with no semblance of stopping. She didn’t know why he felt the need to even talk about Yoongi’s worth when it came to her. Seokjin pitied her ignorance but he knew it wasn’t his place to say anything too specific. Let Yoongi reap what he sowed.

Afraid of how her voice would come out, Jieun just nodded. Without another word, she slipped her high heels back on and left the dorm. She noticed, before she left, that Yoongi’s room was strangely empty. 

As if it was a guest room.

– 

Yoongi, woke up once again, in a bed he hadn’t slept in since he moved out with you. Instead of being greeted with Jieun's honey-like voice, the first thing he saw was Seokjin’s disgusted expression.

“What the fuck, can you not look at me like that right when I wake up,” Yoongi murmured under his breath.

“Are you feeling any better or should I get you something?” Seokjin asked, but there was obvious contempt in his voice. He said it out of courtesy, not concern.

Yoongi caught this so he shook his head, but he definitely needed some hangover medicine to ease the headache.

“I’m good.”

“Alright,” Seokjin sighed. “I’m just gonna tell you straight up."

Yoongi scratched the back of his neck in irritation and confusion.

"What?"

"You barhopping every fucking night is ruining the group’s image," Seokjin started, "Do you know how many videos the company has taken down with you screaming at bartenders for refusing to give you any more drinks?”

Yoongi groaned.

“Listen, bro. I’m sorry. It won’t happen-”

“No, you listen. You don’t think I know what this is about?” Seokjin asked grabbing Yoongi by the collar of his shirt.

Yoongi only tilted his head in confusion. Seokjin continued on.

“You’re insane if you think [Y/N] is gonna take you back after this and you’re even more insane for stringing along Jieun so you can have someone to have sex with while you drink away your problems.”

Yoongi wanted so desperately to respond, but Seokjin’s grip on him was intense.

“We all know Yoongi, all of us. That you cheated on [Y/N]. And it’s crazy because just last year you were planning to get married to her and now look at you!”

Seokjin let go of Yoongi and stepped back, clearly disgruntled with Yoongi’s lack of a reaction.

“I didn’t think it would come to this either but-”

“Stop making excuses, Yoongi. You can deceive those poor girls but you can’t trick me. Get this shit settled with before you damage everything we built up to get here. Namjoon was too scared to confront you because you’re his hyung, but I’ve stayed quiet long enough.”

Yoongi looked down at his bed sheets, unable to come up with a good enough response to Seokjin’s harsh words. As if his body wasn’t already drained, the tears went down his face onto the blanket so rapidly he was almost blinded. He grabbed his hair and sniffled.

“I want to make things right, but I don’t know what to do,” he whispered, almost to himself.

Seokjin glared at him and made his way to the door. Before exiting Yoongi's room, he turned around only slightly.

“Apologize to both of them. The right way.”

–

Yoongi spent hours rehearsing this exact moment as he stood in front of your parents' house. He kept repeating the same words over and over again as if he was trying to memorize rap lyrics to a new song. 

As he finally took a deep breath in, Yoongi pressed the doorbell. There was nothing at first and went to press it again until he heard light footsteps on the other side. His heart rate picked up and Yoongi’s palms were sweaty.

Without looking through the peek hole, you opened the door without hesitation. Immediately regretting it, you attempted to shut the door just as quick. Unfortunately, Yoongi’s foot stuck out and stopped it from closing any further. You wanted to scream, but you know the reaction your neighbors would have if you actually did.

“I just want to talk,” Yoongi said, reading off the script he prepared in his mind.

“I don’t,” you replied coldly.

“I just want closure. Nothing else. I need to see you one last time,” he said, getting choked up between his sentences.

You paused your attempts to close the door to assess the situation. There was no need to see him one last time, you thought. You already got all the closure you needed. As you were about to reject his offer, he continued speaking.

“You don’t have to say anything. Just... meet me at the apartment tomorrow. I’ll be waiting.”

He took his foot out and shut the door for you. He came as easily as he left and yet for some odd reason, it felt like he hadn’t even come at all. After a few seconds of deliberation, you opened the door again. There was no sign of him and that got you to thinking. Would it be such a bad idea?

–

The next day came and Yoongi felt like you weren’t going to show up at all. No message, no call, no nothing. He waited in the apartment after preparing a dinner that he doubts you’d even touch if you did ever decide to show up. 

It felt so cold in the comfort of his own home, with no other person occupying the vast space with him. He no longer slept in the bedroom, opting for the couch because he always seemed to tear up at the sight of the bed without your body laying next to his. 

Yoongi wondered if this endless waiting was similar to how you felt when he was at the studio or with Jieun late at night. Again, the guilt bubbled up inside him and his heart clenched with hurt. He felt suffocated in the apartment and he need to step outside to clear his mind. He’d visit the boys and maybe then their presence would lighten his mood.

–

“Yoongi, I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” a voice called out to him as he walked down the dorm’s hallway. He turned around to put a face to the voice and sure enough, it was exactly who he expected. Jieun.

“I thought today was your day off, why weren’t you at the dorm earlier?” she asked, clutching onto his arm when she got to him.

Yoongi flinched at the contact. He felt so conflicted with himself. He wanted to push her off, but he also wanted to tug her into his arms and pull her in closer. He wanted so badly to tell her everything, to apologize for his actions and that she didn’t need a scumbag like him. But he was still so selfish because he thought that if it didn’t work out with you, at least he’d still have her.

“I actually have something to do today, let’s talk another time. Okay?” he replied, softly pulling himself away from her. She pursed her lips and sighed.

“I’m just worried about you, alright? You’ve been so distant lately. I just want to ease some of the stress.”

“I know you do, but I need to figure this out for myself. I’ll text you later, okay?”

She nodded and pecked him on the lips. He wished he could say that he hated it, that the feeling of her kissing him repulsed him, but Jieun was Jieun and he couldn’t resist kissing her back.

“Another time then, babe?”

“Yeah,” he said solemnly. As Yoongi watched her walk back down the hallway towards the elevator, he felt like ripping out his own heart and stomping on it. Because even though it's fucked up that he's still so infatuated with Jieun after everything that has happened, he can’t help but want her to stay instead of leave.

Staring at his dorm door, he decides against going inside. He didn’t feel like seeing Seokjin’s disapproving gaze again.

–

It was a bad idea. 

It was such a fucking bad idea. 

You paced back and forth the apartment lobby like a mad woman. You should leave. There was enough time to go back home and relax, but again and again the nagging voice in your head telling you to hear him out seemed to annoy you much more after his surprise visit. You wanted to know so badly why he came to you reeking of desperation and heartbreak. If there was even a reason to his affair and if he truly regretted his actions, you just needed to know. Making your way to the apartment elevators, it was almost fate that you’d bump into the very person you despised besides Yoongi.

The other girl.

She was just as shocked as you, but for another reason. Your handbag had fallen to the ground and she apologized profusely.

She exuded the very definition of beauty. Her skin glowed with no imperfections, her legs long, and fingers dainty. Aphrodite had appeared right in front of you and all you could do was stare at her with an open mouth. You should’ve been more angry to see her in front of you, but you couldn’t shake of the feeling that Yoongi deserved to be with someone like her. Someone so unlike you.

“Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry, I’m so clumsy,” she chuckled. 

Jieun picked up your bag and the contents that slipped out and gave it back to you. She looked at your stunned form and laughed a bit more.

“I’m sorry, were you a fan? Would you like to take a photo?”

Bewildered by her response, you just shook your head.

“N-no, I was just shocked to see a celebrity here," you lied, knowing full well that BTS and a couple of other groups have lived there for years.

“Oh, well I was visiting my boyfriend so you’ll probably see me often if you live here,” she smiled to herself.

The first spark of anger rang through you when she said that. It was then the image of her beauty had started to crumble as you thought of Yoongi and her together. The nights they spent, the romantic dinners they had. 

None of them with you.

“Well, I need to get going so it was nice meeting you,” you replied, clearly wanting to get out of the conversation.

Just as Jieun was planning to say goodbye, she noticed the ring on your finger and something about it made her heart drop. Now where did she see that ring before?

–

You stood in front of your old apartment with a new sense of purpose, no longer nervous or anxious. You were ready to walk in there and break his heart into pieces. To reject any compromise or excuses he’d make. You knocked on the doorbell and waited a few seconds until you knocked again. The door opened slowly, as if a gust of wind was what got it to open. You pushed the door to reveal Yoongi in a white sweater and ripped jeans. He smiled and invited you in.

“Sorry, I didn’t answer the first time. I thought you were one of the boys,” he said as you pushed past him, took off your shoes, and walked into the living room. The place was so bare, it was a wonder that anyone even lived in it. You did a good job, you thought, of cleaning everything out so perfectly.

“Let’s make this quick Yoongi,” you replied curtly. The run-in with Jieun had pissed you off immensely and you just wanted this confrontation to be over with.

Yoongi looked at you and sighed. 

“I made dinner,” he said.

“I don’t care.”

Your response went as expected, he thought. Yoongi sat on the sofa as you hesitantly took a seat on the arm chair next to it.

“Well, get on with it, Yoongi. Talk.”

He hated how aggressive you sounded. This conversation was supposed to be civil, meant to convince you that he was truly sorry for his actions. He needed to speak wisely if he wanted to get you to calm down.

“I’m sorry that I cheated on you with Jieun,” he started, slowly easing into the words. You scoffed.

“Why are you sorry? I ran into her earlier, she’s a very nice girl," you said sarcastically.

Your voice was so coated with malice that Yoongi struggled to breath under your cold gaze.

“Please don’t blame Jieun. It’s not her fault,” he gulped. “I never told her about you. About anything. I led her on.”

You gritted your teeth enough to hear it.

“Do you make it your business to break girl’s hearts, Min Yoongi?”

Feeling guilty over your toxic behavior towards Jieun earlier, you channeled that anger to the man sitting in front of you instead.

He flinched and shook his head.

“I’m so fucking stupid, [Y/N]. You don’t know how much I hate myself for what I did to you and what I did to her, but I didn’t think it’d turn out like this. I thought we could work it out. I didn’t think this would be the fucking end-”

“Yoongi, you’re a fucking cheater. Us breaking up was actually the best case scenario,” you said, raising your voice.

“[Y/N], please. I’m asking you to hear me out.”

“Go ahead,” you started, “but nothing is going to make me forgive you. I hope you know that.”

He brushed his hair back with his hand. He didn’t know where to start and whether it would even make sense in the end.

“Our relationship just didn’t feel like how it used to, you know? It’s like you weren’t the person I fell in love with when we first started dating,” he cringed at his word choice but kept going. “And Jieun... she was so much like you and I couldn’t get her out of my head. But I know now. I know I should’ve treated you better, I know you deserve-”

“Then why the fuck am I here Yoongi,” you stood up, looking down at his sitting form. “Why the fuck are you expecting me to accept your apology when you don't deserve it? You don’t care about how I feel at all, Yoongi. Because you’re a selfish bastard.”

You were practically screaming at this point, tears threatening to fall to the ground.

“You’re here because you know you want me back too [Y/N],” he said, his voice slightly shaking. “I know you want me back as much as I do."

“You're the last person I want to be with right now” you seethed. “You could die at this moment and I wouldn’t fucking care.”

To that, Yoongi snapped. You were making things so much more difficult than it had to be.

“It must’ve been so easy for you, huh [Y/N]?” Yoongi stood up. “It must’ve been so easy to play the victim when you were the one that fucking fell out of love with me first.”

You looked at him, confusion written all over your face. The argument had escalated beyond what you were expecting. There was no fucking way he was bringing that up.

“Yoongi, how are you not over that? It’s been a year-”

“What the fuck do you mean [Y/N]? I proposed to you! I promised you my life and you fucking said no. That shit is gonna live with me until I die. There's no way I'm going to forget that.”

“Oh no, Yoongi did I hurt your feelings?” you said in a mocking tone. “At least I didn’t fuck another guy behind your back for a few months and announced it to the whole fucking world!”

“That’s not the point and you know it!” he walked towards you, his eyes watery. “You didn’t even give me a reason, [Y/N]. The least you could’ve done was tell me why.”

You avoided eye contact with him, opting for the bare wall behind him and the wooden panel floors underneath you. You hated it when he was angry, but you needed to get this off your chest.

“You want your reason, Yoongi? You want it plain and simple?” you said, gaining more confidence.

You treaded closer to him, so close to his face that you could feel his breath on your skin. Your face neared his left earlobe.

“I wasn’t fucking ready to spend my life with a guy who was eventually gonna cheat on me anyways.”

You pulled away to take a glimpse at his shocked state. You were satisfied with the reaction. He looked almost just as broken as you did a few weeks ago. His fist was clenched so hard you saw the veins protruding underneath his pale skin. Composing himself, he took a deep breath.

“[Y/N]. I’m begging you. I’m not going to ask for a second chance, not anymore. It’s obvious we’re past that,” he swallowed back his tears. “I just want to know the real reason. None of that petty shit.”

You scoffed at his naivety. Maybe it was time to come clean, to do him a favor.

“Yoongi, did you really think that just because you asked your company to let you propose means that they’re actually going to approve that easily?”

He squinted.

“What are you talking about?”

“How many times did I have to tell you that I loved you even after you proposed? How many times did I have to fucking reassure to you that eventually we would get married?! That it just wasn’t the right time-”

“So you’re saying that-” he tried to interject.

“Yoongi. You’re smarter than this. I would have fucking said yes in a heartbeat if you’re manager didn’t come to me and tell me that BigHit would ruin my life if we got married. My face would have been all over the news. Your contract would have gotten terminated, Yoongi. They put all that pressure on me and you didn’t even fucking notice,” you cried.

“Wait, but-”

You wanted so desperately not to cry in front of him but the tears wouldn’t stop flowing. He grabbed the back of his head with both hands in exasperation.

“How the hell would you expect me to know that if you didn’t tell me at all?” he replied.

“It doesn’t matter, Yoongi," you shook your head. "Because I’m positive you would have cheated on me anyways. That’s the type of person you are, Yoongi. It didn’t matter if I said yes, it didn’t matter if I said no. Because we’d still be arguing in the end anyways.”

“That’s not true and you know it-” he started, but got cut off as he stumbled over his own words. You only continued on.

“You know I treated this promise ring like the real thing,” you cried, fiddling around with the accessory adorned on your finger. “It didn’t matter to me if we were married, just as long as were together. Because six years with you meant everything to me, but now I realize I waited for no reason. I don’t need it anymore Yoongi. I don’t need you.”

You struggled to take off the ring that had been stuck to your finger for so long that it felt foreign having it off. You walked passed him and slammed it down onto the coffee table. It felt liberating but that tiny voice that wants to forgive Yoongi once again whimpered because of the ring’s absence. His expression had noticeably darkened, his eyes red.

“You had no fucking right to make that decision for me [Y/N]. You had no right to keep that information to yourself when it could’ve saved our relationship.”

“What’s done is done,” you replied, wiping your eyes with your sleeve.

He chuckled out of disbelief.

“No, fuck that," he replied. "You don't get to give me a half-ass response like that. I spent a whole year wondering where I went wrong and if you even loved me anymore and you tell me now that you said no because of my company?! I would have quit, [Y/N]! I would have done everything to be with you!”

“And that’s the problem Yoongi,” you threw your hands up in the air in frustration. “You give up anything without thinking! You see how easily you could find someone else to love? How easily you gave us up?”

He shook his head, tears streaming down his face.

“That’s different, I was in a dark place in my life. If I only knew I would have never even talked to Jieun,” he said.

“Stop making excuses Yoongi. It’s not going to work with me anymore,” you whispered.

"I didn't mean to, I'm sorry [Y/N]. I'm so fucking sorry," he said trying to move closer towards you.

"I’ve realized that I'm better off without you and it’s time you realize that you don't need me as much as you say you do. Think about the months you spent ignoring me," you said, wiping the tears away. "I accept your apology, but please. Never contact me again.”

As you turned your back on him, he pulled you to face him again. But the hurt in your eyes made him let go. His throat was so dry that he couldn’t speak another word as you walked towards the front door. You put on your shoes and didn't bother to look back at his broken state. You opened the door and underneath your breath, you whispered "Goodbye, Yoongi."

And with that, you exited the apartment you once called home.

Even in that moment, Yoongi couldn’t shake the image of you turning your back on him outside of his head. Because it looked so much like Jieun’s earlier that day. That’s right. 

He needs to see Jieun.

–

AN: I will say this as loud as I can. I AM SO SORRY THAT THIS WAS RELEASED AFTER A WHOLE YEAR. TRULY FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART I AM SORRY. This was already written and done with a year ago. Part 4 is done as well, the last part of the series. I was just so unconfident with this third part that I never posted it and I regret that decision very much. I never forgot about this blog, I was just very insecure about my writing that I have all these drafts for no one to see. I’ll start posting them and even accept drabble requests from now on. (I’m in quarantine what else can I do?) I should have kept you all updated, but I didn’t and I promise from now on I will communicate with you guys so much more. I actually checked my inbox yesterday and was flooded with support from you guys and that really motivated to keep this blog going. I legitimately almost cried. Thank you guys and I love you all. I hope you liked this part. 

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