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icequeenbae · 4 years ago

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Desert Flower (m) Ch. 2 | BBH

Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader x Baëkhyun

Characters: EXO and X-EXO (not all of them mentioned)

EXO vs X-EXO dynamics, complicated relationships, angsty, action, smut (as usual)

Warnings: sorta mingling with your ex’s ‘evil twin’, mentions of blood/ violence (nothing too graphic… I suppose), Y/N gets teary a lot(?), explicit content, rough sex, unprotected sex

Word Count: ~13.5k (full), ~3.4k (Chapter 2)

Summary: Baekhyun, your beloved boyfriend of three years, suddenly breaks up with you and disappears from the city in an attempt to protect you. But leaving you alone and clueless means trouble will surely find you. For it is easy to spot a flower in the desert.

Masterlist >> One >> Two (m) >> Three (m) >> Four (fin)

Author’s Note: This chapter is going to be a little different! There’s angst, there’s drama, there’s smut... You will find out what I meant by ‘complicated relationships’ 🤭 Don’t forget to share your thoughts^^

Tags: @blahblahblah-boo @baeklightsx @wooya1224 @baekklove

Chapter 2. Get him back

The day he left you it was pouring, and in your mind, it rained ever since. Hours turned into days, days turned into weeks, and weeks flew by. You did everything on autopilot, without thinking or differentiating between tasks. Everything around you was a grey mess, and you couldn’t maintain a single thought in your head, not one thought that didn’t have something to do with the breakup.

Was it even that? He just left, telling you that it was ‘for your own good’. Asking for no opinions. Frankly, you were angry with him. You would've been furious, but it was hard to tap into your irritation when it hurt so much in your chest. For the first time in your life, you realized that you were gone too far. So far, that you felt like a piece of you was missing now. The one you’d possibly never get back.

You also realized that you belonged fully to that friend circle as well — there wasn’t even anyone for you to talk to anymore, or wallow with, which made your sorry ass feel even more pathetic. Your entire world revolved around your protective boyfriend of three years, and now that he was gone it felt as unsafe as ever. Who knows, maybe it was your sixth sense alerting you as to what was to come.

It happened over a month after your last encounter with Baekhyun.

You were lounging in the campus library, mostly because your weeks of heartbreak caused you to miss a few deadlines, so now you had to take additional assignments to do well at the finals. Having no inspiration, or better yet, no one to hurry to, made you stay there for long hours, barely managing to get one task completed at a time.

The space was almost empty since it was rather late, and looking around you suddenly felt a tinge of nostalgia. Muttering that you should get ahold of your stupid self, you walked slowly towards the tall aisle with your useless book. In the labyrinth, you wandered for a bit, reminiscing of the first interaction with your… now ex? Your first boyfriend? Your first love?

The thought left a bitter taste in your mouth, and you opted for walking further as if surrounded by books you could somehow block your bubbling feelings out.

A strange sound caught your attention.

No idea why, you kept walking towards it, soon stepping around the corner and freezing on the spot.

Only a few feet away there was a couple making out. The girl was pressed harshly into the shelves and grunted, as her partner shoved one hand underneath her shirt to squeeze her breast, and his other one grasped her neck, adding to the obscenity of their misplaced passion. You were ready to flush tomato red and vanish on the spot when you noticed something… familiar.

That side profile.

You would never mistake it for anyone else’s.

Wide-eyed in shock, you almost jumped when the male turned around, dark irises foreign to you. His eyebrow raised slightly as he took in your distress with half-lidded eyes, not even bothering to stop groping the girl.

‘B- Baekhyun?’ You said in such a tiny voice that you barely even heard yourself.

The sound of your book dropping to the floor ripped you out of the stupor, and you turned around. Out of the labyrinth you ran, not even bothering to put your belongings back into your bag neatly. You simply grabbed everything from the table and kept running. The surroundings were blurry, but you could see one thing clearly – his lustful eyes, mocking your naivety.

It hurt too much. Unable to hold your tears till you make it home, you found yourself locked in the stall of the nearest bathroom. The way you cried there was almost physically painful, and you struggled to catch enough air as you did. Nor did you care enough to prevent yourself from making noises. Your whole body was shaking with your sobs, and you weren’t entirely sure you hadn’t gone crazy just then. From seeing what you saw. From reopening the still-hurting wounds and seasoning them richly with salt.

However long it took you to dehydrate yourself with the seeping sorrow, you managed to stop, hiccupping only every now and then. Finally shoving your laptop and notes into your bag, you got out of the stall. Walking up to a mirror on wobbly legs, you gasped at your puffy face and red swollen eyes. Not that you really cared, but it was quite late, so you had good chances of sneaking out and getting home unnoticed.

Unless someone would be purposefully waiting for you to show your face, of course.

You took notice of the dark figure across the hall momentarily after exiting the bathroom. Turning the other way, you increased the pace of your steps, almost breaking into running speed to put some distance between the two of you.

‘Hey,’ a voice called from behind, and you felt a hand grabbing your upper arm to stop you.

The nerve he had.

‘Don’t fucking touch me!’ You barked at him, ripping away from his grasp fiercely.

He blinked, letting go, and you almost hiccupped again at the sight of his hair – even more silvery-white now than when he left you, slightly unkempt (from the prior activities, no less). As he opened his mouth to say something, you beat him to it.

‘Don’t talk to me. Don’t even look at me. You make me sick!’ You spat, wanting to both claw at his beautifully sculpted face and to snivel pathetically again. Instead, you turned around and took off before he gathered himself enough to try initiating a conversation again.

Because… What the fuck was he thinking?

***

You fell ill. It probably wasn’t unrelated to what happened at the library, but you became so feverish that your roommate was on the verge of driving you to the hospital. Three days later your fever finally broke, however, you felt weak and drained and depressed for another week afterwards.

Staying at home, you kept rewinding back to the ‘event’. How could he? Coming back like that, and not even having the decency to not screw around right under your nose. You were repulsed by what you saw, and it was almost hateful how the heaviness in your chest only worsened. The bitterness of the situation added to it – he lied to you, just to be with someone else weeks, or, perhaps, even days, hours after. Maybe all of it was a lie, you didn’t know anymore.

This Baekhyun… You didn’t think you’d ever known him.

The subsequent week you avoided all of the crowded areas of the campus, dreading that you’d have to face him again. It would be impossible to maintain your calm in that case, so you took all of the possible precautions. But what could you have done if he was looking for you?

Upon your following encounter, you failed your attempt to vanish out of his sight the way you did before. It was essentially you walking into a trap, as you headed home rather late after finally squeezing your last important assignment out on paper. Not giving the outside world a single moment of attention, you stopped at the top of the stairs to put your phone into your bag and zip it up.

‘Aren’t you a mystery woman, Y/N,’ the voice almost made you drop your stuff.

You glanced up, taking notice of the murky figure, leaning onto a nearby tree. As he began walking in your direction, you turned on your heels and took off. It felt stupid to run from him like this, but you absolutely did not want to break down in front of him. You wanted to preserve at least some dignity.

As you flew down the stairs, you stumbled and almost dove headfirst to the ground. Thankfully, a swift limb wrapped around you before you could do that.

‘Are you dumb?’ He exclaimed into your ear.

‘Let go of me!’ You writhed in his hold, trying to free your body from the illusive familiarity of his touch.

‘You’re a danger to yourself! What the fuck,’ he swore under his breath, releasing you at once.

‘I told you to leave me alone. Do whatever you want, just stay out of my freaking life, Baekhyun!’ You yelled in his face, fuming from his shameless behavior. Why was he acting like nothing was even wrong with this?

‘Unbelievable. Your twin screws someone over, and you’re the one held accountable,’ he rolled his eyes.

Twin… what?

‘What are you talking about?’ You asked in bewilderment.

‘I believe, introductions are in order. I’m Baëkhyun, nice to meet you.’

***

That was… embarrassing. So embarrassing.

You had no idea there was, well, a live copy of Baekhyun walking around. And even though your ex-boyfriend was secretive, you couldn’t believe he left something like this out. Were you an actual joke to him?!

Baëkhyun said they weren’t particularly close. He explained to you that he hadn’t seen his twin in years, and his friends helped him obtain the little knowledge of his whereabouts that led him here. Thinking he could find Baekhyun by asking around he… got ‘involved’ with a girl or two. Or a dozen, who knows? But, apparently, your reaction the first time you’d met piqued his curiosity. When you flushed at the memory, apologizing profusely, he only said that he found it odd and strangely cute, the way you got upset with him.

‘I’m not as great of a guy as Baekhyun,’ he shrugged. ‘Not that I’m trying to be, anyways.’

You frowned.

After the way he left you, Baekhyun was not at the top of your ‘greatest people of all times’ list either. You could understand why your new acquaintance mentioned this, you had witnessed enough to gather that he was not at all well-behaved. Also, his ways of extracting information… Not very professional, to say the least. But who were you to judge? Now that you’d learned that he wasn’t your ex, you were genuinely ashamed of the hysteria of the past couple of weeks.

But Baëkhyun was different.

When he got your number and promised to text, you didn’t think much of it. You hummed and rolled your eyes – as if that was going to happen. Yet he surprised you by sending a quick message the following week. And then… you just kept talking. Which went on for a while, whilst you’d grown slightly addicted to it. Somehow, Baëkhyun became the only person who could take your mind off of his twin. So, even when you finally went on the long-awaited summer break, you stayed in touch with him. And not only via text – you’d been seeing each other on a regular basis.

Randomly at first – you’d just bump into him somewhere around the university premises, and he’d then suggest grabbing coffee. But as it progressed, you ended up inviting him over for dinner. Partially because you felt acutely lonely with your roommate gone, and partially because… you missed him. It was hard to put a finger on it – you’d initially thought that it was just misplaced longing for Baekhyun that pushed you towards his twin, and it felt so wrong. Almost like you wanted to use him to soothe the ache in your heart that had been bothering you ever since your ex-boyfriend had left.

Yet Baëkhyun seemed so magnetic. He hypnotized you with his blue eyes, which changed from the icy light color to dark, almost black, and were just as sharp as his twin’s. And his sassy smirk – the one he had plastered across his face almost always. Baëkhyun wasn’t warm like Baekhyun, yet there was still something about him that had you walking willingly into his trap. Maybe it was the mysterious glint in his eyes as he looked down at you or the way he sized you up whenever he caught a glimpse of you, like you were his prey. Being alone with him felt both dangerous and exciting, and you kept fooling yourself, basing your blind trust on nothing but his relation to your ex.

You never noticed how quickly he managed to build trust between you. And how you didn’t even know much about him, yet you did tell him a lot. Like that one time, he asked you where you thought Baekhyun was.

‘Wouldn’t I like to know,’ you chuckled, sadness in your voice. ‘He just left. I don’t think he even kept his phone.’

‘I always said he was the dumb one of the two. And to think that he’s the strategist,’ he snorted, splayed on your couch comfortably.

You looked at your hands in your lap, subconsciously calming yourself by playing with your fingers.

‘Stop,’ you shivered as his palm covered your fidgety hands. ‘Stop thinking about him.’

Eyes traveling to his face, you caught a glimpse of the frown that formed there.

And then he kissed you. Out of the blue, giving you no time to think or pull away.

And you let him. Grabbing at the soft leather of his pants, you allowed him to do as he pleased with you. Baëkhyun tasted familiar, though his kissing was anything but – rough and messy, lots of tongue and teeth, making your head spin with flaming passion. You didn’t resist when he pulled you into his lap, or when he ripped your clothes off, item by item. He was not asking and you were not thinking. It didn’t feel like something you should stop at the time. Rather, you thought you would’ve cried had he paused for longer than a second, so you kept clinging to him in response.

The demanding grip he had on your thighs only made you crave it more, lust seeping into your system as you wrapped your arms around his neck and rolled your hips into his. He emitted a deep sound, helping you grind on him.

‘Good girl,’ he gritted into your lips, landing a slap or two on your ass along the way.

As you kept going, your bare breasts grazed his skin, and your panties became soaked and sticky. You were probably flushed rosy red as you chased the tight feeling in your lower abdomen, his eyes hungrily taking in your frenzy. He slapped you again, a sharp hit resonating through you like electricity.

‘Baëk,’ you half-moaned. ‘Please fuck me-’

You couldn’t even believe that you were begging him like that, out loud. But the desperation grew as your body threw itself at him, demanding release.

He moved your panties out of the way, fingers instantly getting wet with your arousal.

‘Such a needy little slut,’ he murmured, making you shiver.

It was all new. The name-calling, the manhandling, the way he bit harshly into your lower lip and tugged at your hair. And somehow, it was exactly what you needed.

He didn’t waste much time to prep you, opting for taking his already hard length out and running the tip between your folds, making you jolt and cry out, nails digging into the back of his neck.

‘Sink on my cock and take what you want. Like a bad girl would.’ He addressed in a low voice, smearing the remainder of your lipstick over your mouth with his thumb. ‘Wanna be a whore for me?’

‘Yes,’ you muttered, and he smacked you on the ass again, emphasizing that you needed to be louder. ‘Yes!’

He let go of your hips, hands resting on your legs, allowing you to slam down on your own. You whimpered at the slight burn but kept going. Moving this fast wasn’t the way you were used to doing it, but all the more exciting for that. Using his shoulders to steady yourself, you worked your hips hard. A sheen of sweat on your chest glimmered as you increased the pace, wailing as his tip nudged at your cervix. He watched you with his dark blue eyes, hands kneading your ass, and filthy mouth guiding you.

‘Squeeze your tight little hole.’

Meanwhile, you struggled to maintain the tiresome pace, yet held onto the sensation of his girth pressing against your walls as he glided in and out of you.

‘Ah fuck, Baëkhyun!’ You moaned, feeling the tickle of perspiration making its way down your abs.

‘I know you’re close.’ He licked his lips seductively. ‘Want me to help?’

‘Yes, yes, please,’ you keened, leg almost cramping from the uncomfortable position.

‘Leave your begging for another time, baby. Like I said, if you want something, you should take it.’

You whined, head spinning at the suggestion. His eyes, expectant, traced the stubborn crease between your brows while you kept rocking your hips. Then, you did the first thing that came to your blurry mind. Your hands reached up to grasp his hair and pull hard, tilting his head back and leaving the long column of his neck exposed for the attack of your lips. Sucking a bruise on it harshly, you then used your teeth to ensure he’d have a bright mark in a few hours. Creeping up his neck and his jaw, you licked at his lower lip, and then into his mouth – like an animal would.

‘Oh,’ he smirked, hands seizing you and holding you down, with him snug inside you. ‘So, my good girl is not as innocent as she seemed?’ He teased, the lustful glint in his eyes boosting your confidence to the level of insolence.

‘Shut up,’ you replied firmly, sliding off of him and flopping backwards to finally get some circulation in your legs. ‘Stop slacking off and make me come, you asshole.’

His eyes flashed at your brazen words. Shoving you roughly until you were flat on your back, he grabbed onto your thighs, dragging you closer to him. Instantly you cried out as he landed two consecutive slaps on your pussy, holding his heavy hard-on at the base. Pleased with your reaction, he did it again, not saying another word before he bottomed out inside you. A new wave of arousal washed over you, and you clenched around him, eyes fluttering shut. He didn’t even think to spare you the morning soreness as he nailed you like an actual whore.

‘Ah right there, right there- oh fuck, Baëkhyun,’ you sobbed, clawing at his flexed arm, when he placed one of your legs over his shoulder and leaned forward, basically stretching you open for himself.

This position made you feel vulnerable, like you had no choice but to take everything he was giving you, but it was what you needed. His every thrust resonated inside, making your muscles clench, and ripping more curses and moans out of you. Even though his pace was rather brutal, there wasn’t too much pain along with it – Baëkhyun knew all the right spots.

Mouth agape, you arched your back in silent agony, and a few more hits of his thighs later came so hard that it almost made you pass out on the spot. The hand over your mouth muffled your scream, and he let your leg slide off of his shoulder, pressing his palm against it to keep you in place and prevent you from closing your knees.

Muscles contracting uncontrollably, you whimpered at his continued thrusts as you became too sensitive from the drawn-out pleasure, tears soaking your lashes by the time he finally pulled out.

Baëkhyun grunted lowly, and you opened your eyes to witness him jerk himself off at the sight of your swollen, fucked out pussy, not even blinking until thick ropes of his semen painted your lower belly.

Despite having just performed a thorough fucking, he lowered himself on his elbow slowly and brushed the rogue strands of hair away out of your eyes.

‘You’re a naughty one. I love it,’ he murmured, positioning one of his hands on your neck as he kissed you deeply. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to be in control.’

And so, you let yourself fall down the rabbit hole. And there was no telling what you’d gotten yourself into.

>> Chapter 3

A/N: Whooo, Baёk is here, stirring some kind of trouble, isn’t he? 🤭 Our poor Y/N-ie is walking on thin ice. What do you think of their relationship? Feels a little bit like cheating, right? Technically it isn’t. But still, the darkness is always pretty seductive...

#baekhyun smut #byun baekhyun smut #baekhyun x reader #exowritersnet #baekhyun x you #icequeenbae fics #Desert Flower #exo smut #baekbaёk

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petri808 · 3 years ago

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A Bond Built Through Adversity

For @itafushiweek bonus day

Bang Bang Bang “WAKE UP!!” Gojo cackled in the dorm’s hallway. Bang Bang Bang “RISE AND SHINE!!”

Slowly, but surely two grumpy faces shambled out from their rooms, each using the doors threshold to hold themselves upright. The sun had barely cracked the horizon, and neither were thrilled by the early morning wakeup call!

“What the fuck do you want?” Megumi spat out as he rubbed his eyes. “It better be good!”

But Itadori…

“Oi!” Gojo clapped his hands loudly in front of the man. “Wake up!”

… Itadori was sleeping where he stood. “Huh?” One eye cracked open. “Ye-yeah I’m up. What’s up?”

“Today we’re going on a special field trip to the mountains!” Gojo clasped his hands in front of himself with a mischievous grin. “You’re growing too soft, so a lo—ng hike is just what you need.”

“Are you crazy!” Megumi snapped to attention.

“Of course, I am,” Gojo’s smile never faltered. “Isn’t that obvious by now?”

Megumi crossed his arms in a huff. “Well, I’m not moving until you give me a damn good reason.”

“Megu—” Gojo reached out with a whiny voice, and pulled his hand lose, throwing on his saddest, please, for me smile. “Be a good boy for me, Megu…”

Yuuji quickly straightened up stiff as a board in annoyance and smacked Gojo’s hand away from Megumi. “Stop it with that cutesy stuff, just answer the question.”

“My, my, Yuuji, such a morning grump,” Gojo teased knowingly. “Fine. It’s a bonding exercise, so dress for a hike, pack a backpack with water, a towel, and be out front in 20 minutes.” But still when nobody moved. “Chop, chop!” He clapped his hands condescendingly. “It’s best to get an early start before the sun is high.”

Through the muttered swears and slams of dresser drawers, the students gathered the things their teacher had told them to pack. Megumi was the closest to a morning person of the pair and even he was fuming over being awoken at such an early hour. If it were for a mission, fine, but not some stupid hike into the mountains! They each had their reasons for being annoyed with the whole situation, but for Yuuji it was different. Frankly, he didn’t care about going on a hike, or a bonding exercise. The moment Gojo grabbed Megumi’s hand it woke him up and not in a happy way.

“Oh, hell no!” Megumi snapped as his eyes trailed up the steep, long, narrow stone steps leading through and disappearing into the thicket of pine trees. “You’ve got to be kidding us!”

“There’s a prize at the end,” Gojo wrapped an arm around Megumi’s shoulders, taking his time to lean in and whisper close to the man’s ear. “I promise you’ll like it.”

Seeing his friend’s fist ball up, Yuuji pulled Gojo off Megumi. “Come on, come on, let’s get this shit over with.”

Yuuji did his best to stay between Gojo and Megumi as they walked up the stairs, but it wasn’t easy. The incline was quite steep, following the side of a mountain, with dense brush along the edges. It was certainly a very old, worn trail and one not used very often in modern times. Could anyone be blamed for not using it? First off, it was in the Hakone national park, half a kilometer off a hidden trail, and up a ridge. Park rangers probably didn’t know it existed, so how Gojo knew of the place Yuuji had no idea. He assumed this would lead to some ancient and abandoned mountain shrine once used by jujutsu sorcerers. Maybe Sukuna would know of its existence?

‘I don’t, so don’t ask,’ the voice in his head answered the question. ‘I’m old, but I don’t know everything.’

‘Surprising,’ Yuuji growled back at Sukuna for eavesdropping on his thoughts.

‘Oi, pay attention,’ the voice growled back.

‘To what?’

‘Your boy.’

‘My—’ Yuuji cut off his response when he saw what was happening ahead of him. He’d been so focused on the natural surroundings, he forgot about the unnatural one taking place. ‘That damn, irritating!’ Yuuji walked faster to catch up with Gojo and Megumi, cutting in between and forcing Gojo to step backwards. “Less talking, more walking.”

“But Yuuji,” Gojo wrapped his arm around the man and forced him to line up with him. “How are we supposed to…” he leaned in with a grin, “bond without talking to each other.”

Ugh! Gojo’s voice was so irritating when he whined and acted childish. “You can talk,” Yuuji shoved the man off. “But talk doesn’t involve hanging all over us.”

Gasp! Gojo feigned surprise. “Yuuji are you jealous of me touching Megumi?”

“WHA— what?!” Yuuji caught himself quickly before Megumi would hear him. “I am not!” He spat back through gritted teeth. He crossed his arms. “I’m still annoyed you dragged us out here so early.”

“Oh…” Gojo chuckled. “Mmhmm, I guess that would account for your behavior today.”

For two hours the back and forth continued. Yuuji watched with a locked jaw in frustration when every chance Gojo had he took to touch Megumi. Playing with the man’s hair, hanging on his shoulder, talking so closely as if the man was deaf and it was necessary. And each time, Yuuji would cut between them. Oh, Megumi fought back too, snapping at Gojo, and pushing him away, but the man never took the hint. What was up with their teacher today! This was not the norm for Gojo. He never showed so much interest in either of the students before! So, why now? Why bring them here? ‘And what was with the obsession with Megumi!’ Yuuji snapped in his head.

It took almost three hours, but the trio finally reached the top of the stairs and breached the tree line. Okay, Yuuji had to admit the view was quite spectacular from this vantage point. On one side Mt. Fuji rose like a Goliath ready to smite any who dared to disturb it. On the other side, they could see the expansive blues of the Pacific Ocean stretching out to the horizon. And lastly, a handful of steaming hot ponds in various sizes. A couple of them were small, enough for maybe two people to be comfortable in, and one was large, almost the size of a residential swimming pool.

“Surprise!” Gojo’s arms raised above his head as he cheered. “A secret onsen! Isn’t it cool! Geto and I found it years ago by accident while tracking a curse.” He pulled the two students close, one under each arm. “It’s perfect for a little bonding time.”

Megumi shoved Gojo away. “I can’t believe you dragged us up a mountain ridge just for this.”

“Oh, don’t be like that!” Gojo flung himself onto the man in a tight hug from the back. “I wanted to share something special with you,” his voice whined.

“That it is!” Megumi completely snapped. He wiggled out of Gojo’s hold and swings a fist at the man. It misses, but that didn’t stop him from continuing his tirade. “You damn perverted teacher! Go flirt with someone who wants your attention, cause I don’t!” Without waiting for a response, Megumi grabbed his back and stomped away to one of the smaller hot ponds further away with Gojo only standing there watching him leave, with a big grin in his face.

That’s when Yuuji, who’d had enough as well, followed the energy left in Megumi’s wake to confront their teacher. He whipped Gojo around, grabbing the front of his shirt with his hand raised to strike. “Talk! What’s your deal? Why are you acting like this?!”

Gojo shrugged, his trademark cool grin never leaving his expression. “Someone had to push you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?!” Yuuji screamed.

Gojo simply flicked the hand of Yuuji’s holding onto his shirt causing the man to let go and wince in pain. His simple strikes were always so much harder than they looked. He then smoothed out the wrinkles on his shirt left by Yuuji. “Two weeks ago, do you remember the day you were supposed to be mopping the dojo?”

“Yeah.”

“Mopping the dojo,” Gojo reiterated, “as in cleaning and not dancing…”

“Yea— oh… maybe…”

“It was adorable, really, and that dip— I was impressed that you knew how to dance like that Yuuji. Your partner was a lucky… mop,” he snickered.

“Ha, ha, funny,” Yuuji pretended not to care. “So, what if I was dancing with a mop? As if I don’t do weird things sometimes.”

“Oh, that’s certainly true,” Gojo chuckled again, “but I heard you thanking your partner…” He wrapped his arms around his body in a reenactment, adding exaggerated kissing sounds for effect. “Thank you for a lovely dance, Megumi. smooch, smooch, smoo—”

Yuuji slammed a hand over Gojo’s mouth to stop him. “Shhhh!! I get it! Okay, you caught me!” His ears burned and heat dusted his cheeks in embarrassment. “So, you were actually trying to make me jealous.”

“Yup! As if it was hard to do.” Gojo jabbed a finger in Yuuji’s chest. “Now, run along young one and go bondwith your love interest.”

“Ugh,” Yuuji groaned. Did Gojo have to be this transparent?! “You’re not cute.”

“Yes, I am.” Gojo turned away to leave. “Oh, and by the way, Nitta will pick you up at the bottom road at 6pm, so don’t be late. That gives you…” he checked his phone, “at least 4 hours of cuddling time.”

“Bastard!”

Gojo winked in a side-eye with a two-fingered wave. “See you back at campus!”

‘Wanna kill him?’ Sukuna laughed in Yuuji’s head. ‘Push him off the cliff?’

“No…” Yuuji sighed, and shoulders slumped.

‘You’re so not fun.’

“Hush!” Yuuji snapped at Sukuna. “Go back to sleep or something!”

‘Pfft, suit yourself loser!’

And just like that, Yuuji was alone again. Hopefully. After dealing with Gojo, the last thing he needed was an annoying Sukuna in his ear constantly teasing him too. He had a much bigger issue to deal with now. Megumi. What to do about Megumi?!

He followed the same trail around a sheer cliff face and found the man already submerged in a hot pond at its base. It was a cute little tucked away spot, and under other circumstances the perfect place to relax away from society. But not today, and for probably the first time in Yuuji’s life he was embarrassed to undress in front of another person. He’d never been the shy type about his body, at least when it came to other men, but this wasn’t just any man he was facing. Yuuji took a deep breath with an even longer exhale in preparation.

“Hey!” Yuuji waved as nonchalantly as he could under the weight of emotions circling his brain. “Mind if I join you?”

“I don’t care.” Megumi responded. He looked around. “But where’d Gojo go?”

“Oh, um… he left.”

Megumi sat up in the water. “Seriously?! He dragged us up here only to ditch us?!”

“Yeah…” Yuuji scratched his head nervously. “Said something about giving us time alone to bond. Nitta’s gonna pick us up at the bottom road at 6pm.”

Megumi groaned and slumped back into the water. “Guess, nothing else to do but forget about him then.” He closed his eyes and leaned back. “Actually, the peace and quiet is a good thing.”

Yuuji chuckled nervously. “Oh, yeah, that’s true.”

He removed his clothes and slipped into the water adjacent to Megumi. The water was the perfect temperature, not overly hot but bearable on this light snowy day. It was deep enough to where the water almost covered their shoulders too and wide enough with legs stretched out not to hit the other’s feet. Yuuji does his best to relax, closing his eyes and letting the steamy waters melt away the torment brewing in his heart. Gojo had put them in this situation for a reason. He knew the answer, but did Megumi suspect anything? Kami he hoped not! It was his fault for getting caught in the first place. Gojo wasn’t even supposed to be on campus that afternoon, off on a mission a few towns away outside of Tokyo. In fact, none of the other students had been on campus except him. So, he’d thought, why not have a little fun? ‘I got carried away,’ Yuuji groaned in his head.

Several minutes pass by in relative peace and quiet. The only sounds were of the water anytime one of them shifted, occasional birds risking the winter air, or just the natural sounds of the forest. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. Their profession could be daunting at times and breaks like this one a luxury. Yuuji couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to an onsen. Was it before he’d even become a jujutsu sorcerer? But now that he thought about it, this spot was also romantic in its own way. The natural beauty bathed in the shadow of Mt. Fuji. The random, wispy little snowflakes that fell around them, to the instrumental music of the forest lulling them into a comfortable mood. Even the heat played its role, soothing their muscles and warming their bodies. A great way to hide the emotional heat stirred up on his skin for sure! If Yuuji stopped controlling his mind, his cheeks would certainly be marred by a cherry finish.

“By the way, thanks back there,” Megumi broke the silence. “You know, with Gojo.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. He was being overly annoying today.”

“Yeah, I don’t understand what his problem was. He’s usually not this bad.”

Yuuji chuckled nervously. “Yeah, that guy is something else.”

Catching the anxiety-laden tone in Yuuji’s voice. Megumi opened his eyes and stared at the man. “Do you know why he was acting like that?”

“What?! Me, ehrm, no!”

“Now I know you lying, cause you suck at it. Yuuji, why was Gojo being an idiot?”

“He, um… It’s because he, you know, notices things.”

“Uh-huh? Like what?”

“Things.”

“What things?!”

“You know, like about people. He’s perceptive.”

“While I don’t disagree, I’m sensing a specific thing is the reason. So just tell me what it is.”

“I told you. He said we needed to bond more.”

“Bond? As in what? We already work together just fine, what more bonding do we need to do?”

“Um… I don’t know… he’s got weird ideas sometimes; you know that Megumi.”

“If you don’t want to tell me, then fine.” Megumi closed his eyes again in a huff.

Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck! Yuuji cringed all the way down until his nose barely treaded water. He could tell plain as day Megumi was irritated with him by the inflection of the man’s voice. This wasn’t good! Ugh! It was going so smoothly too! Tell him? Don’t tell him. Tell him? Don’t tell him… the choice flipped back and forth in Yuuji’s head.

‘For fucks sake just tell him you damn virgin!’

“Shut up!”

“What?!”

Oh, fuck! “N-not you!” Yuuji waved his hands to clear the air. “Sukuna. H-He won’t shut up in my head.” He watched Megumi’s eyebrow raise slightly before he closed his eyes again, seemingly satisfied by the answer. Yuuji breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Let me run my own life!’ He screamed at Sukuna.

‘Fine. Virgin boy, I’m just trying to help so you’d shut up about it.’

And again, silence once more in Yuuji’s mind. Oh, how he wished he could reach into his own head and strangle the cursed user! ‘I’m gonna enjoy killing you,’ Yuuji spat back a final retort.

But both Gojo and Sukuna were right. Yuuji had a choice to make. Tell Megumi how he felt or forever bury his peace and learn to live with the pining… which would include not getting jealous— ‘that’s not happening…’ Yuuji sighed internally. Lately it’s been getting harder and harder to curb those tendencies. With Gojo, well, it’s Gojo, so he’d reacted on instinct. But others, the public, victims, fellow students… Yuuji might develop TMJ if kept his jaw locked any more times just to stop from reacting. He didn’t want anyone too close, especially men. Things were getting out of hand. ‘This isn’t me! I’m the nice guy!’ And yet here he was acting like a fool.

“Yuuji, why do you look so tense now?”

Eek!! Yuuji sat up quickly. “No, why do you ask?”

Megumi narrowed his eyes. “Because you looked constipated. Talk.”

“I—” Yuuji started ready to make another excuse, but his mouth slammed shut when Megumi’s brow raised with his ‘no bullshit’ look. “Okay,” he sighed. “I’ll tell the truth.” Yuuji shrunk down as his voice lowered and eyes turned away. “I… like someone… like, a lot and well, you know how Gojo kept bugging you, he um, was actually trying to rile me up about the… person… but yeah, so that’s why I was acting weird.”

“I already know you like me idiot.”

“Wait! You do?!”

“You’re not hard to figure out. That’s why I never said anything when you kept running interference with Gojo.”

“I can’t believe you knew all this time… now I’m so lost.”

“Also not surprising, good thing I don’t mind.”

“Don’t mind?”

Megumi rolled his eyes. “Will you just ask me out and get it over with. I’m trying to relax.”

Yuuji moved over tentatively until he was sitting next to his friend. “Megumi, will you be my boyfriend?”

Megumi chuckled under his breath and simply closed the small gap between them, leaning his head against Yuuji’s shoulder with a contented sigh.

Oh, this was perfect! Yuuji sighed too and leaned his head against Megumi’s. His heart still raced, but for a new reason. It was an exciting rush to have his best friend at his side, in a new relationship built on trust and bonded by experiences. Yuuji felt invincible at that moment.

‘You’re still a virgin idiot.’ Sukuna laughed.

‘Tch. Not even you can ruin this for me,’ Yuuji spat back and closed his eyes with the biggest smile of his life.

#itafushi #itafushi week #itadori yuuji #fushiguro megumi #itafushi fan fic #itafushi fan fiction #canon divergent #jealousy prompt #bonus day #yuuji x megumi #petri808

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taexual · 4 years ago

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i’d love you to stay but that’s simply insane // JJK (13)

jungkook is an uncontrollable lead vocalist of the campus band, and you’re a goal-oriented top student that’s known his rich and complicated family since childhood. you don’t want anything to do with each other, until each other is exactly what you want to do.

pairing: jeon jungkook x reader

genre: college au

warnings: angst, years of longing escalating into something serious

words: 8.6k (send help)

chapter thirteen

The lamp posts on the street illuminated Jungkook’s face with a warm yellow haze as the two of you walked back to your dormitory, the noise of the party – and the argument you’d had outside of it – already behind you. You didn’t dare to watch him for longer than just a split-second but you could feel his eyes on you when he thought you were too focused on the pavement to notice.

You hadn’t said a word to each other since you left the front yard of his house – and that was already two and a half blocks away – and both of you were busy worrying what the right way to say goodbye once you reached your dorm was. A wave didn’t feel enough but a hug seemed inappropriate after the intense conversation you’d had.

Clearing his throat, Jungkook volunteered to make your trip less awkward.

“Were you actually going to have me arrested?” he asked, recalling your previous threat with surprising clarity – probably because it had impressed him so much.

You sighed, recognizing the amusement on his features – no matter how hard he tried to play it off as simple curiosity – and then said, “no, probably not. That would have only ruined your whole plan and your future—”

“I already have a record,” he pointed out. He said it like that was supposed to make you feel better – it’s totally fine if you get me arrested, you know – but you almost stopped walking in surprise.

“Y-you do?” you asked, unable to fathom how a family as rich as his could not find a way to ensure their beloved son remained a flawless citizen.

“It’s not the first time I got into a fight,” he explained simply and, if you hadn’t known the truth, you’d have thought he really was just your usual troublemaker with no strong backing from his relatives whatsoever. “Some of those fights were more public than others.”

“And your dad—?”

“He took care of it to the best of his ability,” Jungkook admitted, sounding far less dignified than when he mentioned he had a record – as if that was something to be proud of. “But he can only do so much without staining his own reputation. It’s just a few misdemeanors anyway, so he decided it wasn’t worth it. If it proved to be a problem later on, he thought he could just blame it on my youth.”

You chose not to voice it – to avoid an argument that would certainly arise because that was just how Jungkook was – but you couldn’t help thinking that his father’s reasoning was actually different. Maybe he chose not to cover Jungkook’s previous arrest up to teach him a lesson.

“Does that bother you?” you asked instead.

“What?

“That he didn’t put enough work to cover this up.”

Jungkook looked down. All of your questions about his feelings, his wishes, his ambitions were so unusual to him that he didn’t even know what the proper way of answering them was, because you looked like you genuinely wanted to know. You didn’t ask just to be polite.

“No,” he ended up saying, “I didn’t want him to cover it up. And it’s not like I acted out to get his attention, or anything. He seemed really tired of it all when he had to deal with that. You know he’s usually the sort who gets his frustrations out vocally?”

“Yeah,” you said.

“Well, when he picked me up from the police station, he didn’t say a word,” Jungkook said. “It was like I’d unlocked a new level of disappointment – one I’d never seen before – where he was just quietly fuming. Or just… so disappointed, he couldn’t even begin to find words.”

You felt jittery. It was hard to walk when your legs kept trying to bounce nervously, hoping to rid you of the excessive anxiety.

“I never knew this,” you said.

Jungkook gave you a smile that wasn’t supposed to seem sad but, because it was purposefully meant to conceal his despair, sad was exactly what it seemed like.

“My mom didn’t tell yours,” he said.

“But they tell each other everything,” you felt the need to point out but you could feel your own naivety getting the best of you – even the people, who had no secrets, had secrets.

“Yeah, I know,” Jungkook replied. “But I don’t think my mom would have had it in her to brag to her best friend – with a straight-A student for a daughter – that her son got arrested. She may have been less obvious than my dad, but she was still just as disappointed.”

Your heart clenched uncomfortably when he mentioned your scholarly achievements and, for a brief moment, you almost felt bad for being such a good student when he was struggling to be a good person.

But you didn’t think now was the time to feel bad about yourself – especially since there wasn’t anything you should have felt bad about in the first place – and you eyed Jungkook carefully before finally daring to ask, “did they ever say they were disappointed in you?”

“They don’t have to say it, it’s plain and obvi—”

“No, but maybe that’s just you assuming things,” you interrupted. Your mind conjured up a thousand scenarios of how this conversation could have gone wrong, but your mouth kept moving, “you have that right. I mean, they have been disappointed in you plenty of times before. But maybe this time they weren’t. Maybe they were just scared for you.”

Jungkook looked at you and he wanted to believe that you were basing your speculations on some legitimate evidence that he’d missed, instead of just hoping that this was true. But he’s known his parents long enough to recognize their defeat.

“Why would they be scared?” he questioned rhetorically. “I know how to throw a punch.”

“Well, maybe that’s why,” you said.

“No, that’s not it,” he said firmly. “They don’t get scared when I get into fights. They get frustrated, like how did I dare to do that? And then do that again. And again. Maybe they also get confused: I am their son and yet they can’t explain why I am this way.”

He said it like he was diseased – like lacking proper conflict-resolution skills and being impulsive was an illness he’d inherited from someone and, since no one else in his family was sick, that had to mean he didn’t belong there. He belonged somewhere else.

And every time he did something that did not fit into the frame of acceptable behavior in his family’s eyes, it just reminded them that he was the black sheep in a herd of white ones. How did he get here?

“It’s not just you,” you said, your heart hurting. No matter if his parents were really disappointed in him or if they were just worried for him, no child should ever feel like he didn’t belong at home. “Kids from close, loving families rarely grow up to be impulsive or, well, aggressive.”

He clenched his jaw after you said this and that was when you knew that, despite feeling shunned for not being the son his parents had wanted, Jungkook was still their son. They were still his parents.

“I was always like this,” he declared. “From the day I was born. You know that. The relationship with my family hardly changed anything.”

You wondered if he was aware he was defending his family – the family that constantly hurt him with their expectations – by shifting all blame to himself.

“They could have worked as a preventative measu—”

“How, exactly? Remember the time I gave three kids from my pre-school class bloody noses?” he said to prove his point. “Because one of them mocked my drawing of a giraffe and the other two laughed.”

“I-I remember—” you struggled to find a word, “that. It’s not an acceptable way to solve conflict. If they’d taught you that—”

“Acceptability is subjective,” he snapped.

“Uh, sure,” you said and then stopped to wonder if you had the right to draw these conclusions about him.

You thought that, if only Jungkook had gotten more love from the people who were most responsible to love him, he may have grown up to be different – but saying that out loud would have made you sound far too condescending and it would have made a normal person feel uneasy.

Someone who was as arrogant as Jungkook was bound to get riled up – he was already defensive enough as it was – and, maybe, rightfully so. He wasn’t telling you about his family to have you psychoanalyze him. He was just talking to you.

“I-I guess there are other factors that determine how a person chooses to react to something,” you said, threading more carefully now. “For example, you let your testosterone make your decisions for you.”

The sudden transition to biology confused him as he turned to look at you with furrowed eyebrows. “My testosterone?”

“Yeah,” you nodded. “It’s obviously your uncontrollable hormones that get you in these situations in the first place. You’re like a twelve-year-old boy, unsure what to do with himself, so you just go with whatever your instincts tell you.”

“Fourteen-year-old boy,” he corrected.

You shrugged. “What’s the difference?”

“The difference is I was fourteen when we stopped being friends.”

That only confused your further. “What does that have to do with—”

“Maybe you were the preventative measure that my family was supposed to be for me,” Jungkook said, the words pouring out as smoothly and elegantly as the floating of your skirt in the windy night. He chuckled humorlessly as he finished, “and then I lost that – the only positive influence in my life.”

You wanted to tell him that he never lost you. That he tried to rid himself of you, he tried to walk away – but he never lost you. No matter how much you wanted to detach yourself from him, to walk away, to move on – he never lost you.

And, more than that, you wanted to ask him why that happened – to demand why he walked away – but allowing him to shift the focus to your relationship would have been selfish. This wasn’t about you-and-him right now. This was about you and him.

Because you were here. You were always here. But Jungkook wasn’t – not always. Often, he fell out of touch with himself completely. And if there was no him, there could never be you-and-him.

“You… you need to be the positive influence in your life,” you said instead, advocating for independence when all you wanted was for him to let you hold his hand so he was steadier on his feet. “You can’t rely on others to get you out of the messes you create all the time.”

“I know,” Jungkook said but he no longer felt like discussing the reasons for his behavior, because every reason eventually led back to you – and when he thought of you, he couldn’t think of anything else. “But I never learned how to take care of myself, did I?”

“No, you never did,” you agreed and then, watching him smile appreciatively – you rarely ever agreed with him – you continued more playfully, “maybe it’s time you started learning, you big baby.”

He laughed and even the wind stopped to listen.

“Maybe,” he said then, the same pathetic hopeful tone that was in your voice before, now evident in his, “I do have you to help me again, don’t I?”

You do, you wanted to say, you’ve always had me. But you only smiled.

“I can’t be the one to handle your conflicts for you,” you said instead. “You have to learn how to do that yourself. How to do that responsibly. I can just… be there for you.”

And, much to the joy of your body that was aching to support him, he smiled and said, “that’s more than enough.”

“Okay,” you swallowed. You felt relieved suddenly – like the tension that surrounded you since you left the party had finally dissipated – and, paradoxically, nervous. Like you didn’t know how to act anymore.

Jungkook didn’t seem to notice that, however, as he teased, “support me even when I inevitably fuck up again, though, yeah?”

You raised your eyebrows, countering his lively pout.

“That’s not a very good attitude,” you said. “How do you expect to change if you’re setting yourself up for failure from the get-go?”

He shrugged. “By a miracle?”

“Jungkook.”

“Come on. I have you rooting for me. I won’t let you down,” he assured you and then, carelessly throwing his arm around your shoulders, added, “I am a great actor. I just have to start playing a responsible role.”

“It’s your father you’re supposed to prove your responsibility to, not me,” you reminded him – just like he’d reminded you a few days ago in your dorm room – although your skin was burning from his touch. “But I’m hoping that by pretending to be responsible, you’ll actually learn a thing or two and prove yourself to us both.”

Jungkook looked at you – his face so close and so welcoming – and said, in the most laid-back fashion that was possible for someone who’d just crossed half the campus while analyzing his childhood issues, “you’re very preachy when you’re drunk.”

It felt like you’d left the party years ago as you said, “I don’t feel drunk anymore.”

“Oh, well. That doesn’t surprise me then.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” he leaned his head against yours and the touch of your temples was electrifying -- like shock therapy that numbed every one of your senses except the ones that consumed his close presence. “I’ve missed your lectures.”

You doubted that but your voice didn’t sound convincing when you spoke – he probably wouldn’t have even heard you if he wasn’t so close, “have you, really?”

“Hmm,” he purred and your pulse nearly flat-lined. “I’ve missed everything about you.”

If you two weren’t walking so close to each other, if he didn’t have his arm around your shoulders, if his head wasn’t pressed against yours – then maybe his words wouldn’t have strummed the strings of your heart so terribly and so delightfully. Maybe you wouldn’t have forgotten all about the seven-year-long silence when you heard the song his words played for you.

But you were walking so close to each other – so close, in fact, that a passerby wouldn’t have been able to tell where your body ended and his began; you shared a silhouette.

And he did have his arm around your shoulders – pulling you closer to him while making sure you were steady on your feet even if his own balance was off.

And his head was pressed against yours – so gently and yet so naturally, it was as if there were magnets inside your skulls and they literally pulled you to one another.

And, thus, when you reached the door of your dorm room, you could not imagine yourself saying goodbye. You couldn’t imagine watching him walk away.

“Are you coming in?” you asked as Jungkook waited a few steps away, unsure how to behave now that the moment-at-the-end-of-the-night had arrived.

“I thought you said you felt like going to sleep,” he said perhaps a little awkwardly.

“I do,” you said and maybe you were still drunk without realizing it but you felt bold enough to add, “but I also feel like spending time with you in a place where... we don’t have to worry about what other people think. Not to mention, your wound needs to be taken a look at.”

“My wound?” his bruised cheekbones had completely escaped his mind. “Oh, that—it’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“At least, let me put a band-aid on it,” you asked.

“And cover up my beautiful face?” he scoffed, using his favorite strategy of dealing with problems – deflection. “No.”

You sighed. “It won’t be beautiful if it scars.”

“Are you kidding?” he still didn’t give in, bringing a hand down the side of his own face and clenching his teeth so you wouldn’t see him wince when he touched the wound. “It’ll make me look badass.”

“You’re a baby,” you declared and then ordered, “come inside.”

“Not if you’re going to be pulling your medical equipment out on me—”

Groaning, you cut him off with a reluctant – but irritated – promise, “I won’t. Now, come in.”

“Are you sure?” Jungkook checked again but he was already reaching for the door that you kept open for him.

“Yes,” you said.

He still hesitated. “Because you don’t have to—”

His uncertainty did terrible things to your boldness – it seemed to vanish with every moment that he did not enter your room.

“Look, if you’d rather get back to the party,” you said, “and drink some more of Taehyung’s painfully unbearable drinks, then, by all means, go—”

“No,” he cut in sharply – maybe too sharply – and then, just to be sure you understood why he cut you off, he said, “I’d rather be with you.”

“Well, come inside, then,” you said and, because you were nervous, you felt the need to add, “but I can’t promise to be more entertaining than absinthe.”

He snickered, finally walking past your doorway. “Oh, you have a far bigger effect on me than absinthe.”

He stopped to take his shoes off. You stopped to lock the door.

The hallway of your dorm-room was very small for two people but, locked away from the rest of the world, you suddenly felt like you were home. Like there was nothing to be nervous about here. Like you were back with your best friend that you’d known for decades.

“Ah,” you started to say because you were back with your best friend that you’d known for decades, “so it burns your throat when you get in contact with me and you feel sick every time you look at me?”

“That’s—” Jungkook paused, one sneaker off. He raised his eyes to look at you. “You really hate it that much, huh?”

“It’s a rational feeling,” you said, unbuckling the strap of your own shoes. “Absinthe is not meant to be enjoyable.”

“Well, if we’d stayed longer, you would have seen what my bandmates do with it,” Jungkook said. “It involves a cube of sugar and a whole lot of cursing because their hands shake too much to do anything.”

He hadn’t realized just how hypnotizing it could be to watch someone take off their shoes so, when you finally placed your shoes on the floor, your feet aching from the torture you’d put them through tonight, he was still staring at your legs.

You cleared your throat, somewhat self-conscious now. “I’m, uh—I’m a little intrigued.”

This got him to lift his eyes to your face. “Oh? So�� does that mean there’s a little possibility you’ll go to the party with me again next week?”

“Next week,” you repeated, realizing that this was Parental Advisory’s routine: parties every Friday, hangovers every Saturday. You turned around with a soft sigh and headed into the bedroom, plopping down on your bed. “I didn’t sign up for that.”

Jungkook chuckled, sitting down on the bed next to you.

“You don’t have to come,” he said, keeping respectful distance from you – because you weren’t walking across campus anymore, now you were on a bed – but still remaining close enough to hear your faint breathing. “I was just kidding. We can stay here.”

You looked at him. “No.”

“No?” he repeated, his voice breaking in surprise. “Okay, then. We don’t have to do anything togeth—”

“No, I just mean—you like that,” you clarified before his stomach could drop any lower. “You enjoy partying, hanging out with people, drinking, dancing, and all that. I don’t want you to give that up to hang out with me here.”

You were saying you didn’t want to bore him. You were saying you didn’t want him to overstep the boundaries of your fake relationship.

He’d never heard you say something so stupid before and he didn’t realize that it was his own words that got you to feel this uncertain.

“I’m not giving anything up,” he said because, apparently, even the smartest people sometimes needed to have it spelled out for them. “I do enjoy that but I also enjoy spending time with you.”

In your defense, it wasn’t spelling out that you needed. It was reassurance.

“We haven’t done that since we were… well, in middle school,” you pointed out and your last words were an incantation of a silence spell that prevented you from saying anything else for the next few minutes.

This time was no exception, as both of you shared a thoughtful moment, avoiding each other’s eyes, and then Jungkook clapped his palms on his knees, nodding his head in the direction of your laptop on the desk across the room.

The spell was broken. You weren’t going to speak of that day. Not today.

“Well, come on, then,” he said. “We have a lot of catching up to do, it’s been seven years. Show me the movies I’ve missed.”

“Lots of movies came out in seven years,” you replied but got up from the bed to get your computer nevertheless.

“Well,” Jungkook said, dramatically extending his arm to check the non-existent watch on his wrist. “We’ve got a long night ahead of us.”

You sat back down, smiling at his antics, and pulling up your Videos folder. You scanned it briefly, trying to pick one movie that would leave a long-lasting impression on him – even though you couldn’t explain why you wanted to impress him.

“Don’t think about it,” he suggested. “Just choose the first one. We’ll watch them all.”

You scoffed. “There’s not a chance in hell you’ll stay awake through more than one movie.”

“You want to bet?” he countered, knowing your taste in movies too well. “After the movie you’ll choose, I’m sure I won’t be able to sleep for a week.”

You rolled your eyes as you smiled – he’d never grown to like horror movies as much as you did – and teased, “don’t be a baby.”

“I can’t,” he pouted on purpose, hoping for more of your sympathy and not knowing that he already had all of it. “I scare easily.”

“You don’t,” you said. “You just get distracted all the time and everything catches you unprepared.”

“That’s the same thing,” he insisted.

Sighing as you finally settled on the movie, you gave him a look. “Just try not to fall asleep on me, okay?”

“Do you mean that literally or—”

“I mean it in every sense of the word,” you replied. “If you start snoring during my favorite part, I might not be able to forgive you.”

“So strict about snoring,” he said, a mocking grin on his lips.

“I am,” you replied, completely serious. “So, now that we’ve established that—”

“We established that in second grade,” he reminded you, “when you tried to suffocate me with a pillow during our sleepover.”

“I…” you started to say but the memory was too unexpected and overwhelming – and he didn’t remember it correctly. “I tried to get you to stop snoring!”

“By putting a pillow on my face!”

“Nothing else worked!”

“You could have kicked me!”

“I did!” you said. “Several times. My feet bruised.”

He rolled his eyes, adamant to prove your murderous tendencies. “Oh, please.”

You shook your head, the argument so pointless and unnecessary that you chose to opt for a compromise. “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen tonight, alright?”

“It won’t,” he assured you, “I stopped snoring after that incident. I guess, you could say I haven’t recovered from that trauma. I’m constantly afraid someone’s going to try to use a pillow on me—”

“I wasn’t trying to do that!” you said with a groan and when he opened his mouth to protest again, you cut in quickly, “drop this or I really will suffocate you with a pillow.”

He closed his mouth again and then nodded, impressed.

“Still very strict about snoring,” he corrected his earlier statement. “I’ll keep my breathing in check.”

You finger lingered on the mouse button, ready to play the movie you’d picked, but your mind lingered on the memory he’d brought back and all the other memories that came with it. It’s already been a long night, full of reminiscing, discussing, and analyzing.

But you couldn’t resist it.

You’d wanted to know for so long – even if there was nothing to know and it was something that just happened as things sometimes did – that even the late hour couldn’t stop you.

You didn’t want closure. Seven years have gone by – you didn’t want it.

You needed it.

“Can I ask you something?” you started, swallowing slowly.

“Of course,” Jungkook said, unsure why your face had clouded all of a sudden.

“It’s been seven years,” you said and the thunderclouds started to make sense. “Why did you talk to me that night at the party?”

The question was so loaded, he probably wouldn’t have been able to answer it without reflecting on his entire life. But right now, after the night he’d had, you managed to catch him off guard and his mind was void of any answer that made sense.

“Because you were there,” he said because that was the simplest way of explaining it.

You needed more. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve…” he shifted his weight to his side until he was half-laying on your bed, his left shoulder pressed into the corner where your bed met the wall. His body was facing you but his eyes were on your hands, “I’ve wanted to talk to you for a very long time. Actually, since the day I told you we shouldn’t be talking anymore,” he paused here. He never learned how to talk about that without pausing. “Not a clever decision on my part.”

“Mm, no, not really,” you felt the bitterness in your voice as you said this but you didn’t try to justify it – and Jungkook didn’t need you to.

“Yeah,” he only nodded. “So, I don’t know. I saw an opportunity to talk to you again – and I was drunk, and sort of on a post-show high – so I took it.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” he confirmed but it sounded like only one half of an answer that you needed. Jungkook didn’t know how to explain the other half and he naively hoped he wouldn’t have to. “Timing, right?”

You weren’t sure if that was right. He could tell.

“You deserve a better answer,” he acknowledged, sighing heavily, “but I don’t want to lie and make up stories about how I’d been—I don’t know—bracing myself to talk to you for a long time, how I planned it all out, because that’s not true. I did want to talk to you, I’ve wanted to every day, but I probably never would have. Not if I wouldn’t have seen you right then and there, in front of me.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t think I was in any position to seek you out,” he replied, “and, actually, I sort of got the feeling that you weren’t that excited to see me, either. Every time I saw you on campus, I’d blink, and you’d be on the other side of the street, already far away from me.”

Fair enough, you weren’t entirely blameless in this, either, you decided, and then admitted, “yeah. Maybe I was avoiding you a little.”

He chuckled. “I deserve that. I made the decision to… to stop talking to you and I knew I should have stuck with it.”

“Can I ask you something else, then?”

He knew what you were going to ask as he exhaled shakily and closed his eyes. “Yeah.”

“Why did you make that decision?” you asked, unafraid of the potentially childish connotations in your voice. You just needed to know. You’d waited for this long enough. “Why did you decide to stop being friends with me?”

Even though he hadn’t answered you yet, just getting the question out of your system felt so relieving, it was as if Sisyphus had dropped his boulder on your chest seven years ago and now, at long last, you’d rolled it off.

The boulder seemed to roll off onto Jungkook, however, as he tried to open his mouth to speak several times, but always ended up closing it again. He didn’t know where to begin.

“We… we were so different back then,” he finally said. He looked at you then and there was hope in his eyes – he wanted you to understand him without any words. “Remember?”

“From right now?” you asked. You weren’t willing to try to decipher the signals his eyes were sending you. Right now, you needed him to use his words.

“From each other,” he clarified. “You were always so focused on your studies and spent so much time working with the school staff when you were in the student council, you were essentially the de facto headmaster of our school.”

You snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Right. And I was… well, you knew me then. I haven’t changed much.”

“The troublemaker,” you said and then, almost automatically, tried to make light of the situation because he looked like he was having a hard time and you didn’t want that. “Good thing there are no more PTA meeting in college, huh?”

Jungkook laughed at this but his laughter lacked humor.

“Yeah,” he said, not sounding wistful in the slightest. He wouldn’t go back to high school even if someone paid him to do it. “There’s still the risk of expulsion even without them. That never goes away in any institution.”

“It’s what brings you to life, though,” you said, your previous discussion returning to your mind. “You love the adrenaline, the danger of doing something that might have long-lasting repercussions. You always have.”

“And you don’t,” he said sadly. “That’s why I felt like—I didn’t want to—I was bad for you.”

Your loud heartbeat momentarily halted your ability to comprehend his words. “Hmm?”

“You probably don’t know this, but,” he hesitated on the very edge of what he knew you needed to hear, “I’d overheard my parents talk about us once, after our middle school graduation.”

There it was again. The last day of your middle school.

Thankfully, this time, the silence spell didn’t linger and Jungkook continued. Actually, this time, the spell didn’t even work on him – now that he’d decided to answer your question – now that he’d found how to answer it – he couldn’t be silenced.

“And the only thing I remember from their conversation,” he said, “is my mom – who’s been on my side for as long as I could remember, standing up for me to my teachers even when they believed I was a lost cause – saying to my dad that she was afraid I was going to be the end of you.”

“What?” you asked, perplexed.

After spending almost every day with Jungkook – and his family, too – for years, you hadn’t even considered that they may have been talking about you when you weren’t there.

“She, um… she saw something between us that we didn’t, I guess,” Jungkook continued as his fingers absentmindedly toyed with the edge of your blanket, his eyes on the shredded fleece. “And she believed I would be the reason why you stopped working so hard. Why you lost your ambitions. She thought I’d turn you into someone entirely different.”

“But that’s—why would she—” all the questions you had tried to pour out of you at once.

“She saw how much we meant to each other and—”

“Yeah, but—” you cut him off and, closing your eyes for a moment to settle on just one of the many things you wished him to explain, you tried, “I mean, why couldn’t she have looked at it from a different perspective? I could have been the good influence that you needed in your life. Y-you said I was.”

“I thought you were. I still think you are. But, um…” Jungkook spoke to the fleece blanket because he couldn’t speak to you, “she… she didn’t seem to think you had it in you to resist me.”

“Resist you?” you repeated, unexpectedly offended. But that only lasted for a second before you felt it necessary to disarm yourself and stop pretending. You were absolutely devoted to Jungkook when you were growing up. “Oh, fuck it,” you said. “She probably had a point.”

Jungkook was prepared to hear your offence. He was not prepared to hear that.

“She had?” he repeated, looking at you for the first time since he started talking.

You swallowed the ball in your throat. “Yeah.”

Shakily, Jungkook concluded, “so, I made the right choice, then.”

“By putting an end to our friendship?” you asked, suddenly aware of how cold your body seemed to be, your hands especially – and painfully so, too. Dancing with the ghosts of your past proved to be difficult. “Was that for my benefit, then?”

It wasn’t the disbelief in your voice that he focused on. It was the anger.

You’d moved on. He thought you moved on – you were still the same in almost every aspect that he remembered, but you were also so different: so mature, so determined, so certain.

And he was partially right – you clearly didn’t hold a very strong grudge. But he also felt ridiculous for assuming that, despite it being so long, you wouldn’t still be angry about this now.

You’d allowed him back into your life and blessed him by not asking him to explain himself for weeks before you finally gathered the courage to do it; it was natural for you to feel angry about something that you’d waited for for so long.

“That’s… well, it was supposed to be,” he explained and then felt the need to defend his decision by saying, “that’s how everyone seemed to see it. I didn’t want you to lose the best parts of yourself because of me. And I don’t doubt that your parents were also relieved when I was no longer such a prominent part of your life.”

You had considered the possibility that Jungkook ended your friendship per the request of his parents. But you had assumed they saw you as a threat to him – even if, in retrospective, that didn’t make a lot of sense; what threat could you have possibly posed to him or the company?

Instead, it was the other way around.

Looking down, you said, “my parents weren’t relieved.”

“They weren’t?” Jungkook repeated because he couldn’t find enough words of his own.

“No,” you confirmed, remembering the not-so-distant times when Jungkook’s name was a forbidden word at your dinner table. “Hardly any parent would feel relieved to see their child cry her eyes out for days.”

Admitting this made you feel vulnerable and it would have made you feel pathetic, too, if Jungkook didn’t immediately wince after you said this – not from pity, but from his own hurt.

“I’m sorry,” he said because he had to, and because he was. And then, even though he didn’t have to, he continued, “I didn’t handle that well, either. I broke my leg in a bike accident about three weeks after we last talked.”

You frowned, focusing all of your energy into your confusion so your wet eyelashes wouldn’t release the droplets of tears down your cheeks. “Was that—”

“That’s how I deal with my emotions,” he said with a nod, confirming your guess. “That is, I don’t. I get reckless and I do stupid shit. That’s the last time I ever saw Dad’s beloved Ducati. He sold it.”

“He sold the bike?” you asked. The bike had belonged to Jungkook’s father who was a casual collector of sports cars and motorcycles – much to the joy of his underage son – but Jungkook was never permitted to drive any of them, at least, not until he was “old enough” according to his father’s standard.

“On the same day they ‘scraped my body off the pavement.’ That’s how he put it,” Jungkook said. “I only got to ride it that one time. Clearly, I’m not a natural. But dad couldn’t believe I was stupid enough to get on a bike for the first time without a helmet or any help at all. He wasn’t even looking for reasons why I did it, he didn’t ask me anything. Just sold the bike, locked up the garage, and didn’t talk to me for a week after I returned from the hospital. Actually—t-that was the first major thing that lead to me moving out of their house later on.”

You replayed his words for a long time, thinking and trying to understand.

“Why did you ask me to put this act? To play a couple for your parents?” you asked when you thought you were ready for the final cross on the last T. “If they thought you were a bad influence on me, this—seeing us back together again, could have painted you in the wrong light again.”

He didn’t think so.

“It’s been so long,” he said, “and you’re arguably the best student in your year. You’re determined and driven. And you’d rather kick my ass to the curb than give in to me and what I want. You… you affect me in ways I could never affect you. Control me in ways I could never control you. And I mean that in a good way. You are a good influence on me. And my parents can see that now.”

Obviously, he wasn’t entirely aware of how much control he still had over you, but because now you knew that this was precisely the reason why you’d stopped being friends seven years ago, you chose not to bring it up.

“I… I don’t control you,” you said.

“You do,” he disagreed. “Maybe not intentionally—actually, probably not; I’d like to think that you didn’t want me to suffer—but you do. You want to stay inside of your room, watching movies – and I want that, too. You want me to come to class and I want that, too. You want me to change and I’m changing.”

“I just—I don’t want you to kill yourself with your recklessness. But I don’t want you to be different,” you said, looking down. “I’d... always liked you the way you were.”

Your broken-up confession couldn’t have warmed his heart more. And yet, he had to point out, “I was unbearable.”

You gave him a look that wasn’t threatening at all because your eyes were still glossy from the tears.

“I know,” you said.

He smiled in spite of himself. “And you still liked me that way?”

You nodded, not saying anything else because he already knew the answer to that—and every other—question.

“I’m sorry for these seven years,” Jungkook said then and maybe that wasn’t enough to cure the wounds the years had left but it was a start. “You had a future ahead of you and I didn’t. My parents could see that but there was little they could do. I had to understand and deal with the fact that I was going to fall off the rails sooner or later myself. I was fourteen and I had to understand that. And I did. I knew that. And I also knew I didn’t want to drag you down with me. You didn’t deserve that.”

You fell into silence again.

You knew you wouldn’t have walked away from him then – anything he’d have asked, you would have given him. Any cliff he would have jumped off of – you would have followed.

To realize that Jungkook didn’t let you go because he didn’t want to be your friend anymore, or because he got tired of you, or because he didn’t care about you anymore -- or because of any other reason you tried to find over the years -- but rather, he let you go because he knew you wouldn’t, was groundbreaking.

It didn’t fix the hurt, it didn’t make it better, and, perhaps, nothing would – the years have gone by and you couldn’t get them back – but now you knew that the end of your friendship was a sacrifice of sorts.

You were intertwined together – it was you-and-him, always you-and-him – and you were comfortable living this way, both of you were. But that wasn’t right. It wasn’t healthy.

Except, you weren’t the one who had her eyes opened seven years ago – if there was no you and him, there could never be you-and-him – and so Jungkook ended up having to break out of your comfort zone, to leave your sanctuary, and walk in a different direction. On a different road.

All so you could have a road for yourself.

“I’m…” you tried to say but the tears that had welled up in your eyes were now cascading down your face and Jungkook – alert as soon as he saw that you were crying – sat up straight. “I’m fine. It’s just been a long day. Thank you for telling me.”

“I… you’re welcome,” he said, wanting to reach out and wipe the tears away but watching you do it yourself. “Although, I wish I didn’t have to tell you anything. Not just because I don’t want you to think about my mom differently after this—she always wanted what’s best for you, we both did—but also because I… I wish there had been a different way. A way where we could have kept in touch and still remained individuals.”

“Maybe there was no such way at the time,” you said. “We’d been close from the day we were born. Maybe we needed to spend some time apart to learn how to be ourselves.”

“Maybe,” he agreed but he didn’t think that was fair. “We were too close.”

“We were,” you said and couldn’t help sniffling; the tears have started to block your breathing. “Sorry, I just—it didn’t have to be seven years. I-I mean, it doesn’t take that long for people to mature.”

“No. It didn’t have to be,” Jungkook said but the fact that he agreed with you didn’t bring you much joy because his words were sad. “I have no excuse for that.”

Knowing that you could have been setting yourself up for more heartache, you still dared to ask, “would you have talked to me sooner if I hadn’t been avoiding you?”

“Probably,” he said, afraid to look at you in case he’d lose control of himself at the sight of your tears. “I-I couldn’t resist myself. But would you have replied to me?”

You looked down, making it easier for another tear to trail down your cheek. “I did that night at the party.”

Jungkook bit his lip. “Would I have seen you again if I hadn’t crashed my car?”

You inhaled sharply, not liking that this was what it came to. “No. Probably not.”

“It didn’t have to be seven years,” he said again, nodding thoughtfully, “but I think that we… started to talk again right when we had to. When it was time.”

You didn’t like that, either. “That can’t be true.”

“We’ll never know what’s true,” he said, leaning in closer to you but still not daring to reach out and touch you. “But it’s been long enough.”

“It has been,” you said, nodding and, feeling more tears coming. You sniffled, throwing your head back to fight the crying, and excused your emotions again, “it’s been a long day. It’s been seven long years.”

It’s been a long life; but you didn’t think of your years as his best friend to be draining. If anything, these were the years that made you feel alive: both of your families so close, it was like you grew up with two sets of parents, and with a soulmate for a best friend.

It’s what happened next that was a task.

Life had been pouring out in every shade of color around you when you knew him, when you laughed with him. And when you didn’t, you had to physically strain yourself to see the world in anything other than black-and-white.

You’d worked so hard to get used to the darkness of your life that the explosion of the color spectrum when you finally got to laugh with him again was almost painful. You’d grown so accustomed to monochrome that seeing colors all over again felt scary. Dangerous. Potentially hurtful.

But now you knew he never meant to take the colors out of your life. By doing so, he ended up having to sacrifice his own brightness. His own light.

Maybe what hurt the most right now wasn’t the memory of the years that you’d spent without talking, but rather the pointlessness of it all because here you were again: together. Affecting each other in ways ordinary people should not have been allowed to affect one another.

“Come here,” Jungkook finally asked, extending his arms, but you shook your head, not wanting to admit to how big the hurricane cloud in your chest was. “Come here, please.”

The insistence of his tone wasn’t what got you to move closer in the end – it was the pain in his eyes.

This had hurt him, too. He was the one who had to find a different way so he wouldn’t have to end your friendship. He was the one who eventually failed and had to say goodbye – stone you so you’d run away. Wound you, so you wouldn’t come back.

It would have hurt your pride if you didn’t love him so much.

And he couldn’t find it in himself to say how much he wanted you to come back after he told you to leave; how much he agonized over your phone number – which he’d deleted off his phone only to realize that he knew it by heart – and how much he wished he was different—better—so he wouldn’t have to stay away from you. He couldn’t find the words.

So, he just held you – like it was the first and the last time he was ever going to hold you. And he hoped that this would be enough for you to know that he knew you loved him. He’d always known.

And he loved you, too.

“I’ve missed you. Everything about you,” he whispered, clutching your body tightly against his own and sinking his face into your hair. “So much.”

Your hair grew wet – you could feel the pain leave his heart in tears – and, even though you’d seen him cry before, you’d never cried with him. But it felt inevitable now – like everything you’d done together in the past few weeks was only the prologue and tonight you were turning the page, you were starting the first chapter of the rest of your lives.

It hurt because of how long the prologue was. It hurt because of the seven empty pages.

But it felt so relieving to reach the end. So freeing.

You wrapped your arms around him tighter because you were ready to work on letting go of the pain, and you were ready to move on, and you were so happy to have him with you. You didn’t know what awaited you after tonight but that scared you much less than all that you’d already survived.

“If history repeats itself,” you said, your nose stuffed from the crying, “we’ll find a different way, right?”

Jungkook considered pulling away when you said this but that didn’t seem right. Not holding you when he could, didn’t seem right.

“We will,” he said into your hair. “I’m not leaving again.”

And he meant it – in the long run, at least. Because this night was coming to an end.

Your laptop – and the movie you didn’t get to watch – was long abandoned as you and Jungkook sat on your bed, your legs crossed and hearts open, and you talked.

You talked and the seven empty pages filled. The filled with words, written in different fonts with different colors, but they filled.

You talked and your bodies grew tired even if your minds didn’t, so you lied down on your backs next to each other, the white concrete ceiling painting itself in the colors of all that you’d missed about each other.

You talked and the hours went by – minute by minute, morning was creeping up on you.

“It’s late,” Jungkook said when your room got so dark, he couldn’t make out which bits of skin, glistening in the pale light from the street lamps outside, were yours and which were his. But even so, he remained on his back next to you. “I should probably go home. Maybe we can watch a movie tomorrow? Or next week?”

“I… I don’t have plans tomorrow,” you said and you wanted this night to keep going so badly, that if you’d been Faust, your soul would have gone straight to hell: beautiful moment, do not pass away! “Will the party be over now?”

“No, probably not yet,” Jungkook replied, “won’t be the first time I’ll be woken up by someone drunkenly smashing a bottle or something,” he said and then, when you bit your lip, clearly concerned, he added, “it’s fine. I’m used to it.”

Then, because you were not Faust and the devil had not chained your soul to the pits of hell just yet, you found a way to stop the moment as you said, “you could stay here.”

“Hmm?” Jungkook turned his head to look at you, unsure if he understood your offer. “H-how do you mean?”

“Just… stay here,” you said with a shrug as if it was that simple. Your eyes remained on the ceiling. “The RA didn’t see you come in with me. And, usually, no one smashes anything in the middle of the night here.”

“Are you sure?” he asked again. He didn’t want to go – but just like he did before coming inside earlier tonight, he didn’t want to force you into something you weren’t ready for; God knew you’d already done so much for him.

But you assured him, “yeah. You didn’t want me walking home alone, well, maybe I don’t want you stumbling around at 3 AM, either. You’d already had one fight today.”

“It’s, uh,” he checked his phone, “four-thirty.”

You gave him a look.

“But your concern is understandable,” he added quickly, catching on, “I just don’t want you to feel uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable with you here.”

“Okay,” he said, your gazes so intensely focused on each other, both of you were almost paralyzed as you lied side by side.

“Yeah?” you asked. “So, you’ll stay?”

“I’ll stay if you let me.”

You turned to your side, facing him. Your eyes never left his, just like his did not stray from yours. You even seemed to blink in unison.

“Stay,” you said. “I’m letting you.”

He turned to his side as well and, as his eyes fell to your lips – he could have touched them with his own if he dared to move a little bit closer – you knew you would have allowed him do a lot more than just stay here for a night.

But you’ve come a long way tonight, both literally – when you walked back here from the party – and figuratively – when you scratched the wounds until they bled because there was no other way for them to heal properly – and maybe that was enough for one night.

“Goodnight,” Jungkook whispered because you’d walked so much tonight but your road hadn’t ended yet. He didn’t dare to touch you.

“Goodnight,” you whispered back because just having him here with you after so long felt enough right now. You didn’t have to to touch him.

keep reading | masterlist

#bts reactions #bts fanfiction #bts college au #jeon jungkook #jungkook fanfiction #bts angst #college au #bts x reader #jungkook x reader #friends to lovers au #bts f2l #fanfiction #bts au #angst

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hoebii · 4 years ago

Text

Like me better

Pairing : Park Jimin x Reader

Genre : Fluff, Highschool!Au, e2l, rivals

Rating : PG13

Warning : ‘Curse’ words are mentioned (is ‘shit’ even a curse word fhgjv), OC wanting to choke Jimin and not in the kinky way, brief mention of Jimin being a playboy thot, hating on mint chocolate because it’s the worst flavour to exist you can fight me on this

Wc : 4k

A/N : Alright, this was originally supposed to be a birthday drabble but it got a little out of hand as you can see. We had a whole lot planned for this fic but it got too long oops- so we decided to cut it short and keep the ending open huhu. Happiest birthday to our precious maknae @heejinnien from @xiaokoo (who also made this AMAZING banner btw) and I. Hope you like your present baby! We love you so so so much~<3 Also this isn’t as edited as I’d like it to be but I got impatient okay don’t @ me :<

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The bustling crowd of students bumped into you repeatedly as you weaved through them to get to class. You kept a strong grip on your books so as to not drop them. People squeezed passed as you tried not to trip and fall flat on your face. You had slept through your alarms and were currently rushing to your class, cursing at yourself for this blunder in your head.

“Sorry, excuse me, oh shit!” You catch yourself as you tumbled to the ground. Your books splay across the floor as you winced at the sore feeling. Hopefully, no one would step on you or your books - you had paid good money for them!-. As for tripping over, you looked over your shoulder, glaring when you caught sight of a group of boys laughing.

“Aw is little princess hurt?~” You heard one of them call out, the others snickering in the background. You ignored them and started gathering all your books, telling yourself they weren’t worth the trouble. You were almost done picking up all the books on the ground when one was suddenly snatched from your grasp. Looking up at the culprit you see Park Jimin, the bane of your existence, holding it up.

“Are you sure you even need books?” He snickers, flicking through it. “You’re not even smart, why bother studying if it doesn’t do you any good?”

You feel your blood boil. How dare he?! You were smarter than him in every possible way. He had no right to mock you, sure he was smart but you always placed second. If there was one thing you hated, it was being second best to Park Jimin.

“You’ll just come second like always.”

That comment hit you hard. You tried to keep your cool, resisting the urge to punch him in the face. Sure, Jimin was annoying but there was no way you were going to create a scene because of it. Not again. Instead, you rolled your eyes, choosing to ignore him and walked away. There would be no reason to argue with a dumbass. Why waste your time?

Jimin watched as you walked away. He smirked to himself. Despite acting calm, he’d known you long enough to know that you were fuming inside. There were buttons he knew how to push to get the reaction he wanted and he thoroughly enjoyed provoking you.

--------

You stumbled into the classroom, panting from the light jog. “Damn I need to get back in shape, Jesus Christ.” you whispered to yourself.

“Miss Y/L/N, care to explain why you’re five minutes late to the class?” Your professor’s voice boomed in the small classroom. You look at him, giving him a sheepish smile as you rub your neck.

“I… got lost…?”

What was that?! You wanted to smack yourself at your own words. So much for your perfect attendance.

“You got lost?”

“Y...es…”

Your professor took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Just, just go to your seat.”

You scurried to your seat, setting down your books and sitting down. You heard snickering from beside you and you turned your head slightly towards the sound to see none other than Park Jimin laughing at you. Feeling your face flush in embarrassment, you turned towards your professor and started jotting down notes. You were not going to get riled up by Jimin during a class.

-----------

It’s official. Life hates you. You must have been some sort of a witch in your last life who thrived by torturing others. That had to be it. Why else would you ever get partnered with Park freaking Jimin for your science project?! Apparently, the professor had said it was because you two were ‘top students that will compliment each other well’. But you’re certain it was actually because she hated you and you must have tortured her or something in your past life and this was her way of getting revenge. You’re pretty sure you came up with at least 7 ways to end Park Jimin in the time he took to move his seat closer to you for ‘discussing details about the project.’

“So you’re gonna draw the diagram and write everything,” Jimin started as soon as he sat down. He dumped his bags to one corner taking out the necessities. “I will be supervising you as I’m clearly the better one here.”

Oh how much you craved to just lean forward and wrap your fingers around his neck and choke him. How can a person be this insufferable? You could just shove a damn pen up his-

“Alright class dismissed! Remember, the deadline is on Monday next week! Have a nice weekend.” Your professor announced, snapping you out of your thoughts.

“I’ll see you tomorrow then, don’t screw up the project.”

With that Jimin left you sitting there fuming at him. You let out a tired sigh and begin packing up to leave too, mind running wild. Why couldn’t Jimin just be a good person for once?

-------------

The weekend seemed to go by in a flash, just you working on the project with Jimin, who had surprisingly been quite helpful. Just when you thought he had a heart, he had said it was ‘so you don’t ruin my grades.’ Yeah nevermind he still sucks.

What you didn’t know was Jimin being nice - well as nice as a jerk can get anyway - was because he had a bet to win. One of the boys had proposed a bet after class when he caught Jimin bickering with you yet again. The bet was simple really, ask you out and date you for a while before leaving you. Jimin had refused at first but then everyone started taunting him. Who liked getting mocked? No one. It was plain simple anyways, no one would actually get hurt, wasn’t like you liked him. So he accepted.

It wasn’t easy to catch your attention, given the fact the both of you were mortal enemies, it was near impossible. He did everything in his power so you would look at him but all tactics had somehow managed to flop. There was only one other way of actually getting you to notice him and that was annoying you. However, that would ruin the whole point of the bet.

“Y/n, Y/n, Y/n.” Jimin chanted as he poked you on the cheek incessantly. “Y/n pay attention to meeee.” He continued to whine.

You felt your right eye twitch. Why was this dumbass bothering you?! There was no reason for him to even be five feet close to you.

“What is it Jimin?” You turn to him, a sickly sweet smile on your face. “What is so important that you’re trying to talk to me?”

Jimin grinned, his eyes turning into crescents as he poked his cheek and gave a wink. “Hi~ How are you doing?”

Is he for real right now? Did he think he was cute? You felt like throwing up. “Park what are you up to? You never act,” you started, eyes squinting in suspicion, “like whatever you’re doing right now.”

Jimin gasped and placed a hand on his chest as if in pain before exclaiming, “What?! Me? Up to something? Impossible, I’m as innocent as an angel.”

An angel? More like a devil. There was no way he was telling the truth. You’d known him long enough and not once in your life had he treated you with such...whatever that emotion was.

“Right. An angel. Okay.” You nodded.

“Do you not believe me? You can ask anyone on this campus and they would tell you how amazing I am.” He gestured his hands wildly.

You scoffed at that, of course they would, he had slept with the majority and had the remaining wrapped around his tiny fingers. Plus, no one wanted to cross Park Jimin. He ruled the campus and everyone knew it.

“Listen, just get to the point. I don’t have time for this nonsense.” You said, rolling your eyes and huffing. You had to get to your next class in about five minutes. There was no way you were going to be late because some idiot was bothering you.

“Go on a date with me.”

You choked on air at that, did you hear that right? “E-excuse me what?!”

Jimin shrugged and crossed his hands, flexing slightly, “You heard me, go on a date with me this weekend. Heard there's a new ice cream shop here, we could go there.”

“You want to take me on a date?” You look at him skeptically. Was this a test? Were you being filmed? “You’re joking.”

“No.” He fixed you with a stare. “I’m serious. One date, if you don’t enjoy that one date, I promise I won't bother you ever again.”

You stood there staring at him, alarm bells ringing in your head. This can’t be real. He’s lying. “You? Never bothering me ever again? That’s like saying you don’t sleep with everyone you meet.”

“I didn’t sleep with you.”

“That’s different!” You exclaimed, face flushing. “You hate me!”

Jimin tilted his head, his nose scrunching up. “I never said I hate you.” You open your mouth ready to retaliate. “You simply assumed I did, my actions don’t mean anything unless I say something.”

You stood speechless. There had to be one occasion where he had stated he hated you. One. You searched your brain. Sure enough there was no such memory.

Not wanting to lose to Jimin nonetheless you stomped your feet and said, “Yeah well that makes no sense! Haven’t you heard ‘actions speak louder than words’? I thought you were smart” You tsked, shaking your head as if you were disappointed.

“But I’m standing here asking you out, I’m sure that counters all the things I’ve done to you.” He gives you a sly smirk, one you’re all too familiar with. “There’s really two options Y/n. One’s yes and the other is...yes. Which one do you choose?”

If you could you would have burned him to a crisp with your glare. Unfortunately, you hadn’t been gifted with laser vision like superman. It would have been quite a gift if you had. Imagine how peaceful life would be without Park Jimin judging your every move. Then again, you would miss him. Wait what?! You shook your head to clear your mind before looking at Jimin.

“No.”

Jimin’s eyes widened as he spluttered. “W-what do you mean no?!”

“N-O. No. Don’t tell me you forgot basic english.”

Jimin clicked his tongue in annoyance, glaring at you. No one had ever turned him down. Whatever Park Jimin wants he gets. Right now he wants you.

“Why not?”

You gave him a look. “Well, it isn’t exactly a secret that you sleep with anything that has two legs. I don't even know why you’re asking me out, you never go on dates.”

“That's because you’re different.”

You scoff. “Listen Park, this isn’t some shitty rom com that you can charm your way to my heart, this is reality and I’m smart enough to realise how much of a jerk you actually are.”

Words seemed to die in Jimin’s throat. A jerk?! Sure, he annoyed you but he didn't think he deserved the title of a jerk. If it wasn’t for that stupid bet he wouldn’t even be asking you out. There was no reason why you couldn’t go on just one date with him. It wasn’t as if he was asking you to juggle swords and then swallow them. Besides, Jimin was a very attractive person and he knew it too. What’s so bad about going out with him? You should feel blessed he was even asking you out in the first place!

“Just say yes already woman. One date won’t kill you,” Jimin groaned out, throwing his head back in frustration.

“One date with you will.”

You stared at each other, no one making a single move. The silence stretched on for a moment before Jimin sighed loudly and ran a hand through this hair.

“Come on!”

“No”

“...Please?” Jimin couldn’t believe he had to beg. He never begs! The things he does for a stupid bet.

Rolling your eyes at Jimin, you sigh, “Fine. We can go there this Saturday.”

“I begged, why won’t you just accep--” Jimin started before cutting himself off, “Oh you said yes. Um, well, yeah ok.” He mumbled, trying to fix his composure. “Yeah see you there or something. Bye,” and with that he walked away, leaving you both amused and confused… and also late for class! Damn Park Jimin.

-----------

You stood in front of the ice cream shop waiting for Jimin to show up. He was late, but then again what were you expecting anyway? You rolled your eyes as you looked around, “If he doesn’t show up in the next minute, I’m leaving.” you mumbled to yourself, checking your watch for what felt like the umpteenth time.

“Y/n!” A voice shouted from behind causing you to turn around. Jimin ran towards you, panting slightly. “Sorry, I had to run all the way here.”

“Did you forget about the date or were you just being a jerk and were late intentionally?”

His face flushed pink, avoiding your gaze. “I might have forgotten but that wasn’t completely my fault, I just lost track of time.”

“Yeah whatever.”

Jimin went to hold open the door for you but you beat him to it, opening it for yourself and slamming it in his face. He held back the urge to leave right there. A bet needed to be completed. He followed you inside trying to strike a conversation with you, trying to get just a crack of a smile.

“So Y/n, how’s your day?” Jimin asked, giving you a sweet smile that would have anyone swooning but it had no effect on you.

“It would be good if the one who asked me out on a date came on time.” You didn’t look at him, instead you were staring intently at the menu.

Jimin bit his tongue to stop himself from saying something he would regret, giving you a tight lipped smile. “I’m sure your date regrets being late.” ‘And asking you out in the first place’ Jimin thought the last part but didn’t say out loud.

“Doubt it.” You shrugged.

Jimin knew what you were doing. You were specifically trying to provoke him, there was no way that he would ask you out on a date voluntarily. You were trying to gouge out any secrets he was hiding. His job, obviously, was to try and not let you find out those secrets. There was no way you were going to cooperate if he told you about the bet.

The two of you knew each other since you were both babies, your mothers knew each other and would always coo at ‘how cute these two will look together.’ Unfortunately for them though, since you were both young the two of you had some sort of competition going on. Didn't matter if it was who was smarter, who was faster or who could fit the most grapes in their mouth, the both of you were always competing.

As you both grew older the bickering turned into bullying on his part. In truth, you actually didn't know what started this long feud, all you remembered was one day when you were five an annoying boy yanked your hair so hard that a few strands had come out. Annoying boy turned out to be Park Jimin and the two of you haven’t stopped arguing since.

“What flavour are you getting?” Jimin peered over your shoulder. He looked at you expectedly. “I’ve already chosen mine, so it’s just up to you and I’ll pay.” He holds his wallet out.

“Vanilla.” You said plainly.

“What?!”

You turn to face Jimin, frowning. “What’s wrong with vanilla?”

He makes a face. “Y/n, it’s so boring, like you no doubt.” The last part had slipped out accidentally and he regretted it as soon as it left his mouth. That was it. You were going to scream at him and he would lose the bet.

Instead, you ignored his comment fixing your gaze back onto the menu. “What do you think I should get then? I’ll give you the choice, assuming you don’t pick a disgusting flavour like mint chocolate chip, I’ll be fine.”

Sure, it was a stupid decision giving Jimin the power to pick what you were going to eat, but what could go wrong? Worst case scenario, you didn't like the flavour and he would be forced to go get a new one, which would cost him more money. It’s a win win.

“You’re giving me the freedom to pick what flavour you’re having?” Jimin asked, making sure he didn't misunderstand your statement. You simply nodded, shrugging nonchalantly.

“Yep” you replied when he stared at you for a while longer, popping the p.

Jimin smirked. “I’ll get you the best flavour to ever exist then.”

You raised an eyebrow at his statement, “Oh?”

“Yeah, mint chocolate~”

You stared at him in disgust, scowling as you said, “Dude I just said that flavour is disgusting. Made by the devil himself.”

Jimin tapped his chin, as if he had no clue about you were saying, “Did you really? Can’t recall anything like that. Hmm.”

“Park Jimin, I swear to god if you get me that flavour I will rip your eyeballs out and shove them up your ass.”

“So you wanna touch my ass now?” He grinned smugly. You felt your cheeks heat up as you spluttered, desperately searching for a comeback.

“Just- just get me whatever you’re having. Unless it’s chocolate mint, then get out of my sight right now.”

“Don't worry, I hate the flavour as much as you do. So, two birthday cakes coming right up.” You try to find ‘birthday cake’ on the menu.

“Dude, the thing looks like a unicorn just threw up on it.”

Jimin shoots you a glare. “Don’t disrespect the superior flavour bestowed upon us by the ice cream Gods.” You gape at him open-mouthed. Ice cream Gods?! The guy was insane. You were on a date with a guy who was insane. Rest in pepperoni to you.

“You’re insane,” You shake your head. “I’ll be waiting over there. Be quick.” You point to a table in the corner.

“Yes ma’am” Jimin saluted before going to order at the counter. You shake your head. You’d known Jimin of most of your life and he’d always been silly and annoying.

Some reason you knew a lot about him. You blamed it on your parents making you spend too much time with each other when you were younger. Also you needed to know every little thing about your mortal enemy, wasn’t that what mortal enemies did? You had to be prepared for anything and keep track of them at all times!

“Got your ice cream.” Jimin placed the cup in front of you as you stared at it with distaste. You’d never really had ice cream often but when you did you always went for the plain vanilla. It was simple, no need for toppings or colourful flavours. You weren’t one to take risks.

“What monstrosity did you get for me, Park?”

“Oh stop being a baby, it’s just strawberry with some syrup on it.” Jimin answered while he rolled his eyes, lips tugged up into a small smile. Eyes twinkling with adoration as he looked at you.

“I’m not eating it.”

“Oh yes you are. Here comes the airplane!” Jimin started, taking a spoonful of the ice cream and moving it towards your face as if talking to a child.

“I’m not a kid. I’m not ha-” Jimin shoves the spoon inside your mouth when you open it to retaliate, his lips lifted into a sly smile. You snatch the spoon off him while glaring at him and start feeding yourself. “Don’t patronise me, you jerk.” You grumbled.

Jimin almost cooed out loud at your pout but he barely controlled himself. Since when were you this cute? He watched as you ate.

“Is it good?”

“...yes” You reluctantly answered, still pouting.

Jimin smiled, leaning back on his chair as he pat himself on his shoulder. “Another job done well by yours truly.”

You rolled your eyes. Then you noticed that Jimin’s ice cream looked slightly different to yours. It wouldn’t hurt to ask for a bite. Would it?

“What’s on yours?” Jimin looked up, the tiny spoon still in his mouth. “What’s on your ice cream?”

“Just extra sprinkles and chocolate sauce, nothing too special.” He shrugged, continuing to devour his dessert. You stare at your cup and then at his. Something must have been possessing you because before you knew it you were leaning over and digging your spoon into his cup.

“Hey, you can’t just do that!”

“Pretty sure I just did.” You popped the spoon into your mouth, savouring the taste. “You know you really weren’t kidding when you said this was good. For once, you did something right, congrats dude.”

Jimin would have made a snarky comment but the look of pure ecstasy on your face stopped him. Even though he knew you for most of his life, there were parts you kept hidden. He knew you didn’t get out much, constantly studying was the only thing you seemed to do. A nice feeling bubbled inside of him. It was nice to know you were enjoying yourself, made him feel happy for some reason.

You giggled, shoving more of the sweet dessert into your mouth. Too busy to notice that Jimin was staring at you. When you did, you gave him a look of confusion.

“What’s wrong?”

“You got a little something here.” He pointed to the left side of his face, holding in the urge to laugh at your cute expression. “No here, no.” He leaned over brushing his thumb over the corner of your lips. He stared at you, had your eyes always been so pretty? You felt yourself grow red at the close proximity between you two, not knowing what to do. Jimin leaned away, - why did your heart sink at that? - and licked his thumb. “Love this flavour.”

You avert your eyes quickly, blush getting brighter. You should not have found that as hot as you did. Get yourself together Y/N! Park Jimin, enemy number one! Nothing he does is mildly attractive. Nothing. He is the devil reincarnated!

Suddenly your phone started ringing, shattering whatever moment you two had going on. You picked up the device and checked the caller ID. Why was Jungkook calling now? You gave Jimin a sheepish look.

“Hello? I’m out. No. What? How did you- Alright alright.” Jimin watched as you spoke on your phone.

You sighed in annoyance, hanging up after a while and giving Jimin a sheepish smile, “I need to go. Jungkook somehow made the microwave catch on fire.”

Jimin raised his eyebrows in shock, looking at you as if you had grown two more heads. “What? How is that even possible?”

“Not a clue but I gotta dip. Thank you for inviting me here today. I still think you’re up to something though but whatever.” You spoke, getting up from your seat and grabbing your small messenger bag that you brought along.

Jimin stood up alongside you, the both of you walking out of the shop and stopping on the sidewalk. “Yeah… Thank you for coming here with me.”

You two stood there staring at each other, not wanting to leave just yet.

“Well then! I’ll see you on Monday. Bye Jimin,” You announced after a while, quickly pressing a small kiss on his cheek before dashing away.

Jimin stood there in shock, hands raising to touch where you kissed him. Why was his heart racing so fast and why did he feel so warm inside?

“Huh.. maybe you’re not so bad Y/L/N” Jimin spoke up to himself before he too started his walk back home, mind filled with thoughts of you.

#thebtswritersclub #bangtaninn #blackswannet #castlebangtan #pjm #bts pjm #park jimin x reader #bts park jimin #bts jimin #jimin fluff #bts fluff #highschool!au #bts fanfic

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seasonsofeverlark · 4 years ago

Text

Pumpkin Pie and Cheese Buns

Author: @evestedic

Prompt: Hard working coming home for thanksgiving. Stops at the store on the way to pick up the dessert she didn’t bother to make no one will notice anyway and runs into their ex lover. Tries to leave fast but has to take the walk of shame back to grab the cranberries too. Arrives home not just with the cranberries and pie… [submitted by anonymous]

Rating: T

____________

“God damn it!” Katniss was not happy.

It was Thanksgiving, which meant she was being forced to spend time with people she didn’t even know.

Why?

Because they’re family, Katniss.

She could hear her Aunt Martha’s voice.

Why should she care that her cousin was getting married?

Or that her nephew had gotten into college?

Or that her godfather was slipping her a 20 buck bill while winking an eye at her?

She wasn’t a total bitch, so she bore with it, but this was people she saw one fucking time per year!

If it wasn’t for Thanksgiving, she was sure she wouldn’t see them again as they never even called. Nor did she.

But, be that as it may, Prim loved big gatherings and the attention; she was, after all, quite cheerful. Her father also bore with it, although better than her.

However, who knew? This year her mother was coming with her new boyfriend.

Ugh, puke…

And that was why she was there, November the 26th, coming back from work and on her way to Aunt’s Martha’s house.

Katniss was not happy.

She had already left the store not five minutes ago, but something kept nagging at the back of her head while she accommodated the bags in the back of her car.

Of course, being who she was, she had forgotten dessert. The pumpkin pie with maple whipped cream. Sighing and fuming, she went back to the absolute chaos of the aisles. If she arrived at her aunt’s without dessert…well, she would rather face a biblical plague.

After perusing the dessert stand and seeing everything was completely wiped out‒not even crumbs were left‒she gave up and thought about getting some canned peaches and cherries. That’s when she heard it…

“Is that you, Katniss?”

That voice.

She had loved it at one point. Now, it was just nails on a chalkboard.

Turning around, she set her eyes on a huge blonde guy; he had a perfect gym advertisement body, a smirk on his face, and his arm around a blonde girl with the same perfect gym advertisement body.

“Cato.”

“Buying for Thanksgiving?”

“No, just came because I was craving some peaches.”

“Oh.”

Seriously? It was the most direct sarcastic answer ever, and he had actually believed her?

Katniss rolled her eyes and was about to turn around when the Barbie clone spoke.

“Is this the one, babe?”

“Yes, baby, that’s her.”

“Oh, I thought she’d be…I don’t know, prettier?”

“She never wanted to put in the effort, baby.”

“She is standing right here. And if working out turns you dumb, I’m glad I didn’t do it.”

Katniss had gone out with Cato for two years when they were nineteen. Back then, he had been a kind guy, funny and perhaps a bit silly, but very nice, normal. He had asked her out after a college party, and she accepted; the rest was history.

However, after one year of being together, he began frequenting the campus gym and suddenly started to change. All he could talk about were diets, exercise, and protein. Katniss was all in for a healthier life; hell, she knew if she kept on eating Greasy Sae’s food every other night, she was going to clog her arteries by the time she was 35, but Cato was relentless. He got rid of all of her comfort food and she had been forbidden to eat chicken and meat ever again. Only turkey and fish were allowed, vegetables, no dairy or eggs, no sugar! She was going crazy; Katniss had reached the obscene point of hiding in the bathroom to eat a Snickers bar, only to quickly brush her teeth and rinse with Listerine at least thrice so that her boyfriend wouldn’t taste any trace of chocolate when he kissed her. It was that night when she knew she couldn’t do it anymore. She no longer recognized the guy she had agreed to date or herself, for that matter. So, Katniss decided to end it right then and there. She skipped her next class and went to their dorm only to find him banging the very same Barbie girl who was in front of her in the canned aisle right now.

Quickest breakup ever.

He had said it was her fault for not ‘putting in the effort,’ and she hated him for it.

“Jealousy doesn’t fit you, Katniss. Well,” Cato gave her a once-over, “I doubt anything does. Have you gained weight?”

“If I have, that wouldn’t be any of your fucking business. What are you doing here? Came to buy something for dinner? I think there’s a celery and mineral water pack on sale.”

“Still salty because I chose someone better?” Cato shamelessly licked the girl’s ear, making her giggle in an obnoxious way that made Katniss want to gag.

She didn’t have to stand here and watch this; she-

Was that a hand on her waist?

“Hey, sorry I took so long. I literally had to wrestle this from an old lady.”

That voice.

Peeta Mellark was holding onto her waist and smiling that charming smile that could probably tame a wild animal, while proudly presenting a ham to her.

“Um…” Eloquent as always.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t know you were with friends.”

“Yeah, no…Not my friends.”

“Aren’t you the baker guy? You’re slumming it with the bakery employee?” Cato laughed while Barbie‒Katniss really couldn’t care less about her actual name‒looked at Peeta appreciatively.

“I haven’t introduced myself,” Peeta said, extending his right hand but not letting Katniss’ waist go. Cato immediately took it, flexing his bicep as he did so, but his expression faltered when he shook Peeta’s hand. “Peeta Mellark, owner of ‘The Cake Lair’. Have you guys ever been?”

Katniss was confused.

It wasn’t as if she and Peeta were actually friends. They had talked, yes. She simply loved the pastries he sold, and because of how she had raved about his cheese buns, well…the double entendre put her in an uncomfortable position, but he had only laughed and thanked her for the compliment, as he had, in fact, baked those himself.

Peeta always made sure to set aside at least two cheese buns for her prior to the end of the day.

And okay, yeah, they had exchanged numbers and texted from time to time, but nothing deep. It was always things about the weather, the cheese buns, or how Prim was. Did that qualify as being friends?

Katniss was awful at being a good friend, hence why she only had two: Gale and Madge. Her sister and father didn’t count; they were family.

Shaking her head, she returned to the present to find that arm still around her and Cato’s face getting red.

“Just let go, dude. You’re about to pop a vein.” Peeta chuckled.

Katniss directed her gaze at their hands; she could see they were both squeezing the hell out of each other. Cato probably thought he could scare Peeta off with his muscles, but he clearly hadn’t seen Peeta shirtless on a hot day, hauling 100-pound flour sacks onto his back as if they were light cargo. Peeta was strong, like ‘I could iron clothes on your stomach’ fit; he just didn’t flaunt it, and Katniss appreciated that.

Cato huffed and let go, and Peeta smiled once more and winked at Barbie, who was giggling like an idiot.

“So, we should be going soon if we want to make it, Katniss. You know how Aunt Martha gets if we don’t get the groceries in time for her.”

So yeah, she had told him about her hellish weekend to come last week, but Katniss didn’t think he would remember.

With his hand still on her waist and her still not shrugging it off, they made to pass Cato and his doll, but, of course, the bodybuilder felt the need to use the sole neuron in his brain.

“You know you’re just a replacement, right? I mean, she went and looked for the next guy that kinda looked like me because she clearly can’t forget me.”

Tuck your thumb over your middle finger to make a proper fist. If you wrap your fingers around your thumb, you’re likely going to break it.

Her father’s words and the boxing lessons came back in a flash, and before Peeta could hold her back, Katniss pivoted on her left foot, momentum aiding her, and connected her first with Cato’s jaw. She wasn’t an expert boxer or anything of the sort; she just liked the exercise, and she was strong. But Katniss must have been lucky enough to hit the sweet spot because Cato dropped to the aisle floor, unconscious.

“Babe!” Barbie girl screeched, and suddenly, two more gorilla-looking guys were coming to her aid.

Friends of his, no doubt.

“Tell your boy toy, next time he wants to bully me to think twice, lest he finds himself beaten up again by a woman,” Katniss spat at the blonde girl.

“You did this?” A broad and tall black guy asked. He was actually pretty scary, but Katniss held her ground and managed to nod. To her surprise, he chuckled and sort of bowed to her. “He’s an ass. I bet he had it coming. We’ll take care of him.”

“Thresh! He’s your friend…” Barbie girl actually had tears in her eyes.

“He’s not. We’re just in the same weightlifting class. And don’t cry; he’ll come to soon. Finnick, help me bring this idiot back.”

“You must have a mean right hook, hon,” the guy with reddish hair and perfect teeth told Katniss.

“I do.” She jutted out her chin proudly; her dad had taught her well.

“Nice to know you have it all sorted out. Katniss, should we go?” Peeta was pulling her a bit, and she let him, both soon finding themselves out in the parking lot, having decided to leave behind the cans and the ham.

Once they were in front of her car, Katniss did something she rarely did.

“I’m sorry I cost you your ham.”

Peeta seemed surprised, but he simply smiled. “That’s okay. There are a lot of hams left, actually; I just needed an excuse to walk up to you.”

“Why did you do that?”

“That guy was an ass, and I know you could’ve handled it on your own, but…,” he leaned in a bit and whispered, “doesn’t it feel good to let him know you’re with someone much better now?”

Katniss couldn’t help it, she laughed. “You’re full of yourself, Mellark!”

“Hey! I’m a catch, I tell you. Owner of his own bakery, hard-working; I know how to cook and bake, and I’m easy on the eyes, too.”

“Not to mention, tons and tons of humility.”

“That, too.” He smiled, and Katniss rolled her eyes, but she really didn’t feel angry with him. She hadn’t needed his help, but he had offered it freely without expecting anything in return. “So, I guess this is where we part ways.”

“What are your plans for tonight, Peeta?” Katniss suddenly asked, and he was surprised as well.

“Uhhhh, not much. Bake something? Eat it while watching TV, nothing exciting.”

“You can come to my Aunt Martha’s, if you want. Prim would love to see you, and this way I can repay your ‘act of kindness’.”

“Really? You sure it wouldn’t bother you?”

“If it did, I wouldn’t have asked.”

“Sure, I’d love to.”

“Okay, but before that, there’s something I need you to do for me.”

“What is it?”

“Can you drive? My right hand is killing me.”

°•. ✿ .•°

“Why couldn’t you just buy it?” Katniss whined.

“Because I actually enjoy baking. You should know this already.” Peeta chuckled as he handled the mixer. After a few more turns, it seemed everything was ready. “I just need to flour the containers now.” Peeta patted his hands on his apron and went back to the pantry.

Katniss took her chance.

She slowly inched her hand forward, her eyes not leaving Peeta’s back, just in case.

Two more inches and-

“I swear, Katniss, if you’re reaching for that dough I won’t make any cheese buns for a week.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” she exclaimed, shocked. That wasn’t fair! Peeta hadn’t even turned around, but he knew what she had been about to do.

“Try me, love.” He then approached the table again, watching a grumbling Katniss cross her arms. “You know you can’t have raw dough while pregnant.”

“That’s a stupid rule. I bet it’s invented. How did women manage centuries ago, then?”

“Oh, I don’t know. They sometimes died intoxicated, so no biggie.” Peeta was serious now.

“I wouldn’t die over a bit of dough…” She said it under her breath, but he heard.

Peeta sighed, and Katniss felt a pang of regret. Damn him. “Katniss, do we really have to discuss this again? It’s Thanksgiving, and I’d bet my bank account Aunt Martha would come down here and force you to go to the party if you weren’t so-”

“Go on, finish what you were going to say.” Katniss knew she was so big she might be in need of her own postal code.

“-tired. You’re carrying twins, and that’s not an easy feat. The only thing she asked for was the pumpkin pie with maple whipped cream.”

“Every fucking year.”

“She indulges during the holiday.”

“Why not just get one from the bakery?”

“She wants it fresh.”

“Why doesn’t she come down here and get it herself?”

“You really want your Aunt Martha here? Right now? Today?”

“…No.” Why did Peeta have to be so logical?

“I know you’re crabby and your feet are probably swelling. Let me put this in the oven, and then I’ll massage them with some of that lavender cream your mother gave you.”

“And a bath.”

“A massage and a bath, you got it.”

Peeta, of course, fulfilled his promise and left Katniss so relaxed she fell asleep and didn’t even notice her husband had gone and come back from the Everdeen’s annual Thanksgiving gathering.

By the time she opened her eyes, he was sitting next to her, reading a book.

“Hey…did you all get a proper rest?” Peeta put a hand on her belly, smiling.

“I think so, yeah; they just started moving.”

“I can feel. Here, let me help you up.” Peeta’s strength was no joke. He could single-handedly lift her up, yes, even when she felt like a whale, and prop her on the bed so she could sit comfortably. “That okay?”

“Yes, perfect.”

“Happy anniversary, love.” He presented her with a huge cheese bun, making her laugh.

“Peeta, just because we fucked for the first time four years ago today, doesn’t mean it’s an anniversary.”

“For me it is! Come on, I bet you didn’t think we’d end up doing it in the bathroom that night.”

“I seriously didn’t.”

“But here we are, and that’s all that matters.”

Her husband really was the cheesiest person alive, but she secretly adored that part of him.

“Shut up and let me enjoy my cheese bun.”

“Your wish is my command.”

#everlark #everlark fanfiction #autumn #autumn 2020 #evestedic #submission #prompt

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noona-clock · 5 years ago

Text

Him

Genre: College!AU, Enemies to Lovers

Pairing: Jinyoung x You (Female!Reader)

Warnings: None

Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 | Words: 1,685

“And that’s all I got for you today, folks,” your professor announced before closing his laptop and ending the slideshow presentation. “Class dismissed.”

A low buzz of activity suddenly filled the lecture hall as your fellow classmates began to pack up their bags and then make their way to the door. Once you slipped your laptop into your backpack, you followed them, sidling down your row of seats and loping down the stairs.

Before you reached the door, though, your professor called out your name. “One second,” he said.

Your brow furrowed slightly, and you gripped one strap of your backpack as you turned toward him. “Yes, sir?”

“Are you still interested in a TA position?”

The wrinkle in your forehead suddenly smoothed out as your eyebrows rose. “Oh -- yes. Yes, absolutely.”

Last week, you’d asked your professor if he would need a teaching assistant for this class next semester. Unfortunately, he’d said ‘no’ at the time, but maybe now he’d changed his mind!

Your parents’ business had run into some financial trouble recently, so you would have to pay your own way through school from now on -- but it was way too late to apply for a scholarship this year, which meant you had to find a job. And fast.

Obviously, you would work retail or in one of the campus food halls if you had to, but a TA position was perfect for you and your organizational skills -- especially for a professor in the literature department.

“A colleague of mine was talking about needing one, so I thought I would tip you off,” he continued, and while it was little disappointing he didn’t need one himself, you couldn’t afford to be picky right now!

...You actually couldn’t afford anything.

“Thank you so much,” you replied, shooting him a hopeful grin. “That would be perfect.”

Your professor reached for a sheet of paper on the lecture stand and handed it to you. “It’s Professor Stewart, he teaches Medieval Literature.”

Well. Your major was British Literature, but hey. Britain was around in Medieval times, so you could totally follow along with the curriculum.

Hopefully.

You took the application from him, and he gave you Professor Stewart’s office room number before you thanked him again and headed out the door.

You decided to fill it out now so you wouldn’t get caught up in your studies and forget, so after exiting the lecture hall, you made a beeline to one of the study rooms in the literature building.

After scratching down your information and answering all of the questions in your favorite green ink pen, you hurried out of the study room and made your way to the offices on the second floor.

You searched the small numbers on the side of each door, looking for the one your professor had given you not even fifteen minutes ago. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw another figure coming down the hallway from the opposite end, walking toward you, so you stepped over just a bit to the side so he -- or she -- could get past you.

But when you found the office number you were looking for and stopped walking... so did the other person.

You shifted your gaze to look at this other person, quickly realizing it was a him.

And... a very handsome him.

“Excuse me,” he murmured, and you once again stepped to the side so he could get past you.

But he stepped to the side at the same time, like he was allowing you to get by.

“Sorry,” you chuckled awkwardly, now taking a step to the other side.

...But he did the exact same thing.

“I -- I’m trying to get to this office, actually,” you explained, your lips curved into a very clumsy grin.

“Oh,” the guy replied as his brow furrowed. “...So am I.”

And it was then you noticed he had a piece of paper in his hand just like you did.

“Are --” you gulped. “Are you applying for the --”

“TA position for Professor Stewart,” he finished. “Yes.”

You shifted your weight slightly and let out another awkward chuckle. “Me -- me too. I really need a job, and who wants to wash dishes in the dining hall, right?”

You weren’t sure why, but you anticipated the same sort of reaction from him. He would let out a nervous laugh, smile a bit anxiously, and wish you luck.

Instead, you got raised eyebrows. You got a very serious expression.

And you got, “I have the highest GPA in the department, and I’ve taken two of Professor Stewart’s classes before. You should probably just recycle that, if I’m being honest.”

It took everything in you not to jerk your head back with surprise.

But you did knit your brows together and say, “Excuse me?” in a very annoyed and confused tone.

“I’m going to get the job.”

You just kind of... stared at him for a few moments before letting out a disbelieving laugh. “What makes you so sure? My professor seems to think --”

“I already said,” he interrupted. “I have the highest GPA in the department. Professor Stewart knows me. He knows how impeccable my work is, there’s no reason why he wouldn’t accept me.”

“My work is impeccable, too!” you scoffed.

“Trust me. As soon as he sees my name on the application --” The guy turned his piece of paper around and tapped on his name.

Park Jinyoung.

“He won’t have to even look at yours.”

“Okay, getting hired simply because the boss knows you is called ‘nepotism.’ You know that, right?” you reminded him, trying your absolute best not to sneer at him.

One corner of Jinyoung’s mouth quirked, and he murmured, “Well, at least your vocabulary skills aren’t lacking.”

All right -- it was time to ask a question you should’ve asked about two minutes ago. “I’m sorry, do we know each other?”

Jinyoung immediately shook his head.

You narrowed your eyes in confusion, your forehead even more wrinkled than it had been just a few moments ago. “Do you always treat people you’ve just met like this?”

I mean! The guy was being incredibly arrogant and had just insulted you! ‘Well, at least your vocabulary skills aren’t lacking.’ Who says that without even knowing someone’s name?!

Jinyoung looked at you as if you were just a little bit crazy before he let out a soft chuckle and answered you. “No, of course not.”

“Ah, so I’m just that lucky,” you retorted, barely holding yourself back from rolling your eyes.

“Not it when it comes to getting this TA position.”

You actually laughed at that. You had to! Because the nerve of him! It was so ridiculous that you had to laugh -- otherwise, you probably would have punched him. And there was a good chance Professor Stewart would have found out about it which would have definitely hurt your chances of getting the position.

“I guess we’ll leave that up to Professor Stewart,” you countered with pursed lips. You reached over to open up the mail slot in Professor Stewart’s office door and slid your application through.

If Jinyoung had been a normal person -- meaning polite and not a total asshole -- you would have held the thin, metal flap open for him so he could slide his application in, too.

But he wasn’t a normal person. He wasn’t polite. He was a total asshole.

So, you didn’t hold it open for him.

You let it close with a fairly loud clang, turned on your heel, and strode away from him with your head held as high it could possibly be.

It wasn’t until you stepped outside of the literature building that you let out an extremely frustrated groan. Honestly, you felt like clenching your fists and stomping your feet, too -- but you would hold off on giving into those urges until you got back to your apartment.

Seriously, though! You had never in your life met someone so irritating and arrogant and annoying and handsome and aggravating and presumptuous as that guy! That -- that Park Jinyoung.

Ugh!

Hopefully -- if there was some higher being out there in the universe -- you would never run into him again. You hadn’t run into him before today, so it stood to reason that the odds of seeing him after today were pretty slim.

As you marched toward the nearest bus stop on your apartment complex’s route, you realized -- he hadn’t even asked you what your name was. You hadn’t given it to him, and even if he had asked, you probably wouldn’t have answered.

The fact he didn’t know your name was a pretty good sign that he probably wasn’t fuming about you as you were about him. So, you would let yourself be bothered on the bus ride home, and then you would stop.

You would stop thinking about his arrogance. His stupid little smirk. His dumb face. My word, did he have a dumb face. Just thinking about it made you even more angry than you already were.

But what put the icing on your angry cake?

His dumb face was just so perfect.

How sad that his extremely good looks -- and I mean extremely -- were wasted on someone with that personality!

Okay, you should probably just stop thinking about him now. The bus ride was far too long to let your thoughts go on like this. The bus wasn’t even here yet.

So, you took off your backpack and plopped down onto the bench with a sigh.

That was it. No more thinking about -- no, you wouldn’t even think his name. No more thinking about him. Instead, you would think about an email to draft and send to Professor Stewart once you got home. That was definitely more worth your time than... him.

In fact, by tomorrow, you were pretty sure you would forget all about him!

Yep.

Totally!

He would be 100% completely and utterly and positively forgotten.

Part 2

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soul-wanderer · 3 years ago

Note

So hear me out: Beca/Aubrey/Jess. Aubrey overhears Beca talking to a ‘Jess’ on the phone and it’s clear it’s more than just a friendly chat. So Aubrey is pissed cause she thinks Beca is getting Treble boned and she’s also low key jealous cause like Beca may be a pain but she’s cute and driven and treats her friends well. Anyway Aubrey goes to confront Beca about it cause of course and it turns out the Jess Beca was talking to wasnt Jesse but Jessica. Anyway Jess thinks they need to talk about their feelings and then that’s all I’ve got. XD

It had been going on for a while now. Not that Aubrey Posen, of all people, would pay particular attention to what a certain Beca Mitchell was up to in her free time, but, well- she couldn't help but notice. Or, as she would tell herself, it was for the well-being of the group to know if Beca was seeing someone from the Trebles. She knew Beca knew the rules, but Aubrey is sure she was doing this to specifically piss her off and what's even worse is that it was working. And again, this was about the Bellas and the upcoming competitions, but there was also this nagging feeling that it might just be a little more.

So, it's no surprise that Aubrey is low-key fuming when she overhears Beca on the phone one afternoon. Her voice is muffled through the slightly ajar door, but Aubrey swears she can hear the name Jesse being dropped. And, what's even worse - Beca's voice was almost soft. And happy. So, whatever was going on, she was in this deep. And Aubrey hated that. Because, well because - no this wasn't because of the Bellas. It was because she liked Beca too, but she wasn't ready to admit that, not even to herself. Also, Beca pissed her off. She was obnoxious and a pain in the ass. And she was clearly pushing her buttons and ignoring her rules.

When the phone call ends, Aubrey quickly moves away, already planning on how to confront Beca about this.

Beca can feel Aubrey's hostility during the following practice and is not surprised when she hears her name being called after everyone else has already left the room.

"What the fuck did I tell you about dating a Treble?" Aubrey asks and Beca turns and raises an eyebrow at her, like "what?" and Aubrey really lacks the patience for this game. "Don't act like I don't know what's going on. I heard you on the phone with Jesse" Aubrey sounds upset now and Beca would be pissed at the eavesdropping if she wasn't so damn amused at the same time.

"Jesse?" She smirks and Aubrey almost loses it at that "yes, Jesse!" she retorts and Beca full on grins now "I'd never date that dude" and that catches Aubrey off-guard because Beca might be a lot of things, but she's sure she wasn't a liar.

"I'm not dating a Treble, Aubrey. I'm dating a Bella" There's a hint of a smirk on Beca's lips as she reveals this. Aubrey is silent for a long moment before whispering "Jessica" and Beca nods in confirmation "yeah, Jessica" and then shrugs "you never said we couldn't date another Bella", clearly proud of working her way around the rules - once again.

"Well," Aubrey smacks her lips a few times, clearly lost for words now and even Beca doesn't want to see Aubrey suffer like that "now, unless you want to impose a ban on that too, I gotta get to my waiting girlfriend" and Aubrey simply nods and watches Beca leave, clearly trying to work through this new piece of information.

It takes Aubrey a while to work through it. It actually takes her longer than she'd like to admit and in the end of it she's still none the wiser. Beca had been right - there was no rule against what she was doing. And there really wasn't a reason to make one, because they had clearly been keeping it to themselves, so it wasn't affecting their practices either. And still - it bothered Aubrey. It bothered her enough that her eyes kept landing on them during practice or whenever she saw them around the campus. It bothered her to the point where even Chloe noticed it and addressed her odd behaviour. And still – she wasn’t ready to admit the underlying reasons for that to herself, much less to Chloe.

At the same time Beca and Jess were starting to have frequent conversations. At first about Aubrey’s odd behaviour and then, after many nights of carefully approaching the topic, about their mutual feelings for the blonde too. Beca hadn’t wanted to admit it at first, but Jess knew Beca and could tell when she liked someone like that. And after the initial shock it had helped that Jess had admitted to liking the other blonde like that as well. Not that it made the overall situation any less terrifying, but at least they could come up with a plan together now.

And well, as it turns out, their plan was shit.

They had tried to be gentle when asking Aubrey out on a date with both of them, but Aubrey’s fight or flight response had been a bit too heavy on the flight part. Which was okay – or at least that’s what they told themselves. And thank the lucky stars there was Chloe, who had caught Aubrey and had made her spill the beans, only to talk some sense into her afterwards.

It still takes quite a while until Aubrey stops running from her feelings and gets used to the idea of going on a date, with two women who were already in an established relationship nonetheless, but when she finally agrees, she is actually pleasantly surprised by how easy-going and attentive they both were, which seemed to be an especially stark contrast to how Beca tended to behave during their practices.

They still don’t rush her, don’t pressure her or try to talk her into anything she’s not ready for and Aubrey appreciates that a lot. They go on several dates, mostly as friends, sometimes as more, and they respect her boundaries and let her get used to whatever it is that is forming between them.

In the end it sneaks up on her, the realization that she truly loves these women and – even more amazingly – that they loved her in return and it doesn’t seem like such a big change after all the dates they’ve been on, doesn’t seem scary anymore either and Chloe just smiles when she sees them together, because sometimes her best friends were too stubborn for their own good, but in the end everything had turned out just fine after all.

#Pitch Perfect #Aubrey Posen #Beca Mitchell #Jessica Smith #Aubrey x Beca x Jessica #polyamory #ask #writing #own #fanfiction

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shorkbrian · 4 years ago

Text

“Oh, don’t worry. This won’t hurt at all. Well, it won’t hurt me. You? No, it’ll hurt really really bad.”

Prompt^

Warnings: slight NSFW.

I feel like Bakuboi has some real issues if you didn’t acknowledge him or if you ignored him.

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You didn’t even know what you had done to cause Bakugou to set his sights on you. Maybe it was because you refused to interact with him; simply locking your jaw and giving him a bored expression whenever he taunted you, Easily letting him win any training exercise where you were paired together…. Then immediately going on to demolish every other opponent. You could tell that your lack of response to his brutish personality was driving him insane.

He had started trying to get your attention in a relatively harmful way, by picking on your friends while you were around. You avoided that by snatching your friend’s wrist and leaving the room, taking your friend with you and Bakugou fuming.

He had tried physical pranks, “accidentally” spilling his lunch all over you in the cafeteria, sneering as you cleaned it up with so much as a glance his way. He would push your books out of your hands any opportunity he got, almost growling when you picked them up without taking a break from the conversation you were having with Mina. Despite his best efforts in being an A+ jerk, there was nothing he could do to get you to acknowledge him.

For a short, very brief moment, Bakugou had even attempted being nice to you. He stopped pushing you around, left your friends alone, and returned all the pencils and other school supplies he had stolen from you. It’s not like he needed them, he just wanted to see you come to him, begging for him to give them back. Obviously that hadn’t happened. One day he had even moved over on the common room couch so you could sit down, which was unheard of; Bakugou moved for nobody. You had passed over the seat, and instead chose to sit on the floor next to Todoroki so you could ask him what he was doing. Bakugou had caused a ruckus as he left, not destroying anything but being extremely close.

He started inserting himself everywhere in your life. You didn’t know how he had figured you out, or if someone told him your schedule, but he always seemed to be in the same places at the same time you were. He never pulled anything, just glared at you from afar, his presence threatening. Of course you ignored him; he was just a spoiled little brat used to everyone bowing down at his feet. He wouldn’t intimidate you into doing the same.

You wished you hadn’t done that.

Spring break had come quickly, and the school was virtually empty. You had gotten special permission from Principal Nezu to be allowed to stay on campus during the break; You didn’t have anywhere else to go. Thats why waking up in a dark room, bound tightly with a gag shoved in your mouth, had you screaming and thrashing in fear. Had the LOV somehow captured you? Oh god, if they had, there would be no help coming, only Principal Nezu knew you had stayed and you promised you could take care of yourself. What would they even want with a lowly UA student such as yourself?

Your racing thoughts were halted as the door slammed open and the lights flicked on, revealing the standard layout of a UA Dorm room. You twisted to glare at your captor, and immediately knew that this would be so much worse than being captured by the LOV. Bakugou leaned against the wall, hands shoved deep in his pockets as he sneered down at your tied form.

“You’re gonna fucking wish you had paid attention to me, you little slut.”

He pushed himself off the wall, stalking over to sit down beside you on the bed. You yelled and tried to squirm away, but he grabbed one of the ropes encircling your chest and dragged you close to him so he could look you in the eyes. “You little bitch, acting like you’re better than me. No one’s better than I am. I’m gonna make sure that gets through your pretty little head.”

Unceremoniously, he dropped your upper half back onto the bed, causing you to slightly bounce as he got up. He began rummaging around in a black bag he pulled out from his closet, and your fear spiked. You had just wanted Bakugou to leave you alone. You had seen how intently he had bullied Izuku, and you thought that ignoring him would make the blonde boy loose interest in teasing and scaring you. It had done the exact opposite.

Bakugou’s hands were full of unfamiliar objects, things you couldn’t even begin to try putting together what they were used for or where they went. One object that you did recognize was the large, new bottle of lube. You knew what teenage boys were like, and Mina had no shame in telling you about her romps.

You started crying.

Bakugou set the items down gently on the ground beside the bed, almost looking kind as he wiped away a couple of tears.

“Awww, is the little bitch scared? Are you scared of me?” His expression dropped into something much more predatory. “You fuckin’ should be. When I’m done with you, you won’t be able to walk. Now stop with the tears and shit, they aren’t gonna make me let you go.” He scoffed, before leaning down to snatch up a pair of scissors from the pile of dropped items.

“Y’know, I’m really gonna enjoy this shit. Your eyes will finally be on me. You’ll be begging and pleading and crying for me to stop, but I won’t.” He began snipping off your clothes, despite your muffled protests and angry wiggling. It’s not like that deterred him, in all honesty, he just thought it was cute.

“I wanted your attention so bad in the first place cause you’re so fucking perfect for me. Goddamn, you’re so sweet and gentle with everyone. Although, I like how when we train you’d get ruthless and bloodthirsty and shit just for victory. Remember that time you landed Todoroki on his ass?” He gave a low chuckle, taking one final snip with the scissors as your ruined clothes fell away. You had been thrashing and moving about so desperately to get an edge, to maybe get in a position where you could kick him, or free your arms from the rope, that you had wiggled the gag down. You took in heaving breaths, drawing Bakugou’s attention to your face and away from your body. Instead of anger that you had gotten the gag loose, he smiled dangerously, his hand coming up to slap your cheek with only the slightest force behind it, just enough to make it sting.

“B-B-Bakugou….. please, I don’t-“

“Shh, I don’t care what you want. I want your eyes, on me, your attention on me. You’re mine now, and you won’t ever ignore me again, got that?”

“Bakugou Please!” You begged, “Please don’t hurt me, I’m sorry! This isn’t right you can’t-“

His laughter cut you off. It made you uneasy. He glanced over your body again, before locking eyes with you.

“oh, don’t worry. This won’t hurt at all. Well, it won’t hurt me. You? No, it’ll hurt really really bad.”

He leaned down close to you, pressing his clothed chest against your naked one as he bit your earlobe.

“But it’s okay……… you’ll love it.”

#yandere #yandere bakugo katsuki #yandere thoughts #yandere imagines #yandere bnha #bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki #yanderebakugou #jealousy #begging #bnha x reader #reader insert

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smashing-teacups · 2 years ago

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Preview: Chapter 2 of A Breath of Snow and Christmas

A/N: I’ve been working on this next chapter when I can, but between the holidays and two back-to-back vacations (about to leave for a trip to Disney World this evening!), I haven’t had time to finish it. That said, I wanted to give a wee sign of good faith that it’s in progress! How about a peek into Jamie and Claire’s first date?

____________

“No she did not!”

“Aye, she did.” Even in the dim lighting of the bar, I could see Jamie blush straight to the tips of his ears. Shaking his head, he brought his tumbler to his lips and took a healthy swallow. “Fair certain the whole campus saw it ‘fore I got wind of it and threw it in the bin.”

Despite the dire warnings from Google that the holiday might impact business hours, it had been surprisingly easy to find a pub that was open at 9:30 PM on Christmas Eve. Even more surprisingly, we found that the place was packed; there were several middle-aged couples dressed in their finery, out for a nightcap after the symphony or ballet, clusters of Harvard students who had chosen to stay at uni through the holiday, a handful of lone stragglers hunched over their cups.

We’d gratefully accepted a pair of stools at the far end of the crowded bartop, huddled quite close together by virtue of necessity. Given our unorthodox day back at the hospital, though, what might otherwise have been an awkward proximity for a first date felt surprisingly comfortable — natural, even — between the two of us. And with the addition of alcohol, the last of my social inhibitions had all but dissolved, my head pleasantly light, my belly warm with whisky, and my knee tucked intimately between Jamie’s.

He was a born storyteller, and I found myself completely enraptured as he told me about his childhood in the Scottish Highlands, his embarrassing trials and tribulations at uni (I simply couldn’t get over the fact that he’d been a frat boy, and had teased him until he finally relented and told me about it), and his bumbling romances all throughout. Despite my initial skepticism when he mentioned that he hadn’t been in many relationships — one look at him, and I’d thought he must have slept with half of Massachusetts — it became increasingly apparent that he actually found his appearance to be a hindrance; he was frustratingly recognizable, never able to just blend into a crowd, always drawing the wrong sort of attention at the wrong time. He’d just finished telling me about a girl at uni who’d printed out his pictures from Facebook and pasted them over the faces of naked men in a Hot Scot calendar, then pinned it up on the community board with a sticky note that said You’re welcome, ladies!

“I hope you got a bloody restraining order!” I fumed.

“Nah.” His mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “She was just a lass, a freshman. Didna mean any harm by it, jes’ thought she was bein’ funny.” He tipped his tumbler back, draining the dregs, then spun the empty glass in his hands for a moment before shrugging dismissively. “But that was, uh… that was the end of my love life at uni. Most everyone thought I was the one who’d put it up, and ye can imagine what sort of impression that left on the women I was interested in.”

I nodded slowly, well aware of what I would have thought — assumed — had I been in school with him. “I’m so sorry.”

At long last, he raised his lashes to look at me, and not for the first time, I was struck by how kind his eyes were, how soulful. “I’m not,” he said softly, setting his glass down on the bartop with a dull clink. “Probably better that way, in hindsight. Meant that I was able tae put all my focus into my studies. Dinna ken that I would have ever gotten into nursing school otherwise.”

I smiled, watching him over the rim of my glass as I took a long, pleasantly burning sip of my own whisky. Grateful for the segue into common ground, I asked after I’d swallowed, “So what made you decide to go into nursing?”

#a breath of snow and christmas #outlander fanfiction #smashingteacups #jamie x claire

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hains-mae · 4 years ago

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Flowers - Pt. 3

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 (end)

(Damian x Reader) Soulmate AU

Rating: T

Ages: Damian and you are 16, everyone’s ages follow after.

Summary: Soulmate AU where the wounds on your soulmate turns into a flower tattoo on your skin, if it heals with no scars the tattoo goes away, if it heals with a scar then the tattoo stays.

It just got worse.

Disclaimer: I do not own DC. If I did, I wouldn’t make it as confusing as it is now.

The convention hall was huge. The lights shone brightly at the many innovative inventions made by the young minds of Gotham City. the entire city was invited to participate after all. As Wayne Enterprise made the whole event international, we had guests from all over the globe looking for potential students to take under their wing. Rumour has it that everyone on the guest list was hand picked by the man, Bruce Wayne, himself.

I looked around in a daze as I clutched the metal briefcase that held my project.

Running in an hour or two of sleep and caffein, I made my way through the growing crowd. Finally I was able to locate my designated table, a small booth in the chemistry section. I made quick work on unpacking the projector and placed it square on a folding table. It would play the presentation of what my project was about and all the necessary details to explain the chemical compounds and a quick scanned blueprint.

“I feel so nervous.” I mumbled to no one in particular.

Then placing a black cloth on the table as my workspace, I made sure to put the specifically designed gun carefully on a stand that I had quickly melded together. The projectiles rested in the container. Only two remained. I stared at it for a while as the scene of that fateful night replayed in my head.

I had found my soulmate.

Which was good.

He was Robin.

Which was bad.

There was a chance he could be Damian Wayne.

Which was worse.

This relationship was doomed from the start. My soulmate was a freaking vigilante! He was running around at night, putting his life in danger. Death was a constant in my mind after that. Knowing that one day I might loose him. It was a weird thing, this soulmate bond that we shared. Somehow meeting him solidified his existence in my life. Now every time I received another flower on my skin I would know what might’ve caused it. Worry started to form in my gut as I thought about the bullet wound in his shoulder.

I shook my head to get any more lingering thoughts out as I willed myself to focus on the task at hand. I needed to get my head in the game.

Pulling the beakers and flasks out as carefully as I could, I placed them each on the other side of the table. I filled them with their chemicals and started the burner. I had wanted to show them the process as a prototype. I doubted anybody here wanted to be encased in rock.

I was so deep in thought as I mindlessly tinkered around to keep my hands busy that I didn’t even realise a figure standing before me until he cleared his throat.

Looking up from my notes my eyes grew wide.

Mr. Bruce Wayne, owner and CEO of the Wayne Enterprises was standing at my table. He had a charming smile plastered on his face.

“My, what an interesting piece we have here. Don’t you agree Damian?” His voice was calm and even.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

“I do, father.” He agreed. His eyes caught mine, and all I could do was stare into his green orbs.

“Oh forgive me.” Mr. Wayne chuckled and held out his hand. “Bruce Wayne.”

I returned the gesture and shook his hand telling him my own name.

“Pleasure to meet you.” He said. “And this is my son, Damian.”

“We met.” He said simply, but still took my hand and shook it.

“I’m really interested in your work.” Mr. Wayne continued. “I’d like to come back after I make the opening speech.”

“Of course.” I plastered on the best smile I could muster.

It wasn’t too long after that when Mr. Wayne came back, but this time he had an entourage. To his right he had his sons, all 4 of them. They were exactly as the magazines showed and described them to be. Each one was dashing. I didn’t know much about them, but hearing their names tossed around every day in school made me involuntarily learn anyway.

Richard, the eldest had a polite smile and kind blue eyes. They were warm in a comforting way and his manners were that of a well bred socialite. He waved at some of the students and nodded at a few of the adults he passed.

The one beside him was Jason, his cold glare could strike fear into anyone’s hearts. Especially when he is backed up with high status and money. No one dared mess with him. But even I had to admit there was a certain charm to his features, he had a bad boy kind of vibe.

Tim was next, walking just a few steps ahead of his older brothers. His nose was buried in an iPad and his fingers were flying through the screen at top speed. He was just a few years older than me, and I’ve actually seen him around the campus before, but I never met him.

Lastly, Damian. He stole a glance at me as they walked towards my table and turned to Tim, mumbling something before looking ahead.

To Mr. Wayne’s left were two well renowned chemists that I personally follow. Their works and research papers were incredible, it was actually the basis of my own invention. Instantly the butterflies in my stomach fluttered around.

After introductions were made, I presented my work and did a sample test before leading their attention to the finished product which were the glowing orbs.

“And what inspired you to create such an invention?” Mr. Wayne inquired.

“I just wanted to help.” I said truthfully. “We’re aware of the crimes around our city, and I thought it would make the job of catching the criminals easier.”

“And it will.” He smiled. “I’d like to offer you an internship in my company. And if you wouldn’t mind, a mentorship with my two top scientists there.”

“It would be an honour!”

This had to be the greatest moment of my life. For the first time that day I felt my mood get better.

The rest of the days passed on in a blur. My invention was one of the top picked topics in the scene, much to my pleasure, and the interview for the internships and mentorships went well. I honestly couldn’t ask for more.

Mr. Wayne’s secretary handed me, and a couple of other students he scouted, a form to fill out and sign. Our parents/legal guardians were immediately informed and the school assured them before any action is taken they will be holding another meeting. Everything seemed to be going smoothly. Many of us were able to grab great opportunities, both in and out of the cities.

I looked around and saw all the doors opening up for the next generation in Gotham. Happy smiles and excited chatter filled the room. Promises of a greater future were announced. I realised, this was probably history in the making. This would be where everything turns around for the better. I might sound overly sentimental, and perhaps a tad bit exaggerated, but I was feeling hopeful.

The interviews were over, and after the last of them had been held, the announcement came to remind us of the upcoming gala. We had an entire day to prepare – “Therefore, use it wisely.” Our professor advised.

Many of the girls had rushed out in groups (with a teacher chaperone) as they headed towards the fancy boutiques and malls. I on the other hand decided to be practical. My roommate and a couple of friends that I had made during my stay, required it be essential that I tag along with them. I was peer pressured (and I say that lightly), but it felt good to explore the city without the danger.

“Oh my god I just saw the Wayne brothers!” Someone squealed at the store front that we were in.

“What? No way! Where?” Another piqued.

We heard the teacher sigh and ask us not to make a scene since we were in public. I felt myself tense at the thought of him and his green eyes.

“They’re heading this way!”

I dove behind one of the clothing hangers and hid as best as I could. Good lord, is this some kind of drama series? My new friends sputtered out a greeting as I imagined them walking by, and all I could do was concentrate on not self-combusting.

“Y/n?”

My eyes darted up from the spot on the floor that I was staring at. I didn’t want to come out, but the longer I stayed behind the wall of clothes, the more embarrassed I became. With a defeated sigh, I walked out.

“H-hey.” I waved lamely.

“What were you doing behind the clothes rack?” Damian cocked a brow at me.

“I was looking at it, kinda the reason I came here.” I said, not really meaning to sound defensive but it came out that way anyway, and I already wanted to take it back.

“You’re that girl with the blue marbles.” The eldest said smiling broadly. “Y/n L/n, right?”

I nodded meekly.

Dick smirked and went back to his smoothie.

“The one Damian wouldn’t shut up about?” Jason teased wickedly. I felt my blood rise up to my face.

Damian kicked him behind his knees which only made the man laugh.

“You know better than to tease.” Tim rolled his eyes at his brothers antics. “You’re embarrassing him in front of his crush.”

I just wished the floor would swallow me whole right now.

Tim immediately hid behind Dick and the laughter was nearly uncontrollable from his brothers. Damian was currently fuming, and tomato red in the face.

“I’m going to kill you Drake.” He said through clenched teeth.

Dick groaned. “Cant you guys behave?” He strolled over to me and tapped my shoulder lightly. “You’re embarrassing y/n.”

“Sorry, it was just meant for lil-D over here.” Jason apologised.

“Alright boys, that’s enough.” The teacher called out. “We’ve got a schedule to follow. I’ll have to cut this meeting short.” She was right, and I was so thankful at the moment that we did.

Dick apologised again, and pushed his brothers to move along. As soon as they were out of earshot the girls bombarded me with questions, demanding they know the details. There wasn’t anything to tell, since I’ve only known them as long as the length of this trip, but they didn’t let the subject go. I thanked my lucky stars that the rumours I heard about the boys and their fanatic fangirls did not exist in the group I was in. They had gushed about how lucky I was to catch their eye – I really wish they didn’t – and how amazing it must be for them to hold an interest in me – I honestly could care less. But girls being girls, I had to let them be.

The evening of the gala arrived faster than I anticipated, and true to their promise, the girls had all squeezed themselves into my room.

“You guys really don’t have to do this.” I said, slightly exasperated.

“Nonsense.” They quipped back. “We’re all going to look fabulous and make a great impression.”

They rolled out their brush pouches and stacked their make up on the vanity table. I eyed it all wearily.

Sometimes I had to hand it them, females can be terrifying when they need to be.

“Do you think this will be it?” One of them asked out of the blue. “Is this what is going to turn this city around.”

“I hope so. Thing’s are getting worse around Gotham, if this works, we can secure a safer future.”

“Look at us sounding diplomatic.” We laughed at that.

“I think it’ll work out.” I told them with an air of confidence. I saw the looks everyone had at the gatherings. It wasn’t just hope. There was a sense of motivation. An active decision in every one of them that wanted to strive for more. It was encouraging and empowering.

We all shared a unanimous agreement and continued on preparing.

I wasn’t joking when I said I would be practical. I pulled out one of my mothers old gowns from a battered box that was hidden deep under my suitcase. It was off white, with a few hints of lavender and creamy grey. The dress was long-sleeved, made with loose and flowy material. The collar tapered upwards and into a modest keyhole neckline. On my waist rested a silver strap embezzled with crystals. It’s length reached the floor and the slightest movement swayed in the wind. It made me look like I was floating.

As we made our way to the entrance of the gala, men in black suit tailcoats took our coats and opened the grand doors. I was in shock at the beauty of the room.

The entire ceiling look painted on by Michelangelo, in between hung massive sparkling chandeliers. The windows were from ceiling to floor and draped in expensive red velvet curtains. I gazed in awe at the marbled floor that were polished so well we could see our reflection from it.

Light music hummed tastefully in the air as my friends were whisked off by the boys for a dance.

“Y/n!” A savvy voice called out from across the crowd. Turning around I found the Wayne brothers around a table. I managed a wave.

They waved back and invited me over. How could I refuse? Steeling my nerves, I walked towards them.

“Good evening.” I said politely.

“You look stunning.” Dick complimented. Beside him was a woman with incredibly dazzling red hair, it almost looked like it was on fire. Her bright smile reached up to her green eyes. “This is Kory. Kory Anders. Kory, Y/n.”

She stood up tall and shook my outstretched hand.

“Pleasure.” I said as I introduced myself.

“It is glorious to finally meet you.” She said. “I have heard many things.”

I noted her slight accent and choice of words. She must’ve come from another country.

“All good I hope.” I chuckled nervously.

Her smile only widened. “You need not worry.”

“Would you like to sit with us?” Tim offered.

I looked across the dance hall and saw that my friends were already at their own table. I accepted it and sat down at the last seat which was available, and as fate would have it, it was next to Damian.

When I moved to take my place, his perfume infiltrated my senses, leaving me slightly light headed. I pushed my qualms away not wanting to look rude.

“Hello again.” I spoke to him.

Damian nodded, his expression unreadable.

We made small talk, and discussed about the what I should be expecting when I started working at their fathers’ company. They gave me the basic ropes and tried to ease the pressure away.

Then the topic moved to my invention. I told them how I actually got the idea from my dad, they found it honourable in a way. I felt a sense of pride blossom.

Jokes went around as the food was being served. I quickly learnt Dick had the worst case of pun-overdrive, yet it still had me giggling because of how bad it was. Jason was not any better at his come backs to his brothers play on words. They made quiet the duo. Kory laughed heartily between them. Tim and Damian were taking turns lightly jabbing one another, it was almost endearing. As I looked at them from where I sat I couldn’t help but miss the simpler times my family and I shared.

The melody from the band took a slow turn and I saw Dick stand up.

“May I have this dance?” He offered his hand to Kory and exaggerated a bow.

“I would be delighted.” She giggled and let herself be swept onto the dance floor.

I watched as they danced to a slow waltz. Her hands were on his neck as his was kept firmly on the small of her back. They looked lovely together.

“That’s my cue.” Jason spoke up, his eyes gazing the crowd for what I assume was a possible dance partner.

Tim followed shortly behind, but not without leaving us with a wink and tap on his nose.

Damian cleared his throat, breaking my reverie.

He stood and offered his hand. “Would you like to dance?”

I blinked at him, surprised that he actually asked. I gingerly put my hand on his and nodded.

He expertly sashayed us to the middle and twirled me around before moving us to the rhythm of the music.

“You’re good.” I should’ve known he was a skilled dancer.

“You’re not so bad yourself.” He replied.

His scent was overwhelming, especially being this close to him. I reminded myself that his boy could very well be Robin.

Robin, the vigilante. I sighed inwardly. How could I have forgotten? But if he was then… My hand that was on his shoulder tightened ever so slightly as I remembered the gun shot.

“Is everything okay?” Damian asked, squeezing my hand.

“Yeah, everything’s fine.” I lied. The urge to just ask him never felt so powerful until this moment.

It’s not your place to know. I scolded myself for being presumptuous. This could all have been a big misunderstanding on my part, and I could very well upset him if I asked, not to mention embarrass myself. It wasn’t that I wanted to pry, but the bond I shared with my soulmate only seemed to strengthen these past few days. It drew us closer but I couldn’t begin to explain how. You hugged him, you hugged a stranger – that is a mystery in itself, my inner muse stated.

But then the question of the day was; if he was aware of who I was. There was no way he could possibly tell, there was no proof except for the time I cried out in pain when he got shot. Then again, anyone would’ve screamed if they witnessed that.

I settled with the verdict that he most likely doesn’t know.

“I’d like to apologise about yesterday.” Damian said, sounding solemn. “My brothers have been a thorn to my side ever since I could remember.”

I laughed. “It was embarrassing, but I forgive you, and your brothers.” He visibly relaxed. “It felt like I was reliving some old memories.”

“Do you have siblings as well?”

I shook my head. “No, but it would be nice to. Unfortunately right now it’s just me and my mom. It gets a little lonely but we manage.”

Damian let out a quiet ‘oh’ before lapsing into silence again. I didn’t want to kill the mood so I quickly thought of what to say to keep the conversation going.

“So what about you?” I asked. “I mean, anything you’re comfortable sharing of course.”

The boy sighed and looked up to think before answering.

“I like to paint.” He said. My eyes grew wide at that.

“For real?”

He arched a brow in confusion. “Yes. Is something wrong with that?”

I quickly shook my head again. “No, no of course not. I just, well, it’s surprising. That’s all.”

“Tt, not something you expected?” He teased lightly which only made me surprised all the more.

Was he trying to – flirt?

I laughed. “Guilty as charged.”

Damian looked a little proud of himself.

“What do you like to paint?” I asked curiously.

“Mostly portraits.” He answered easily. “And my pets.”

I gave a fake gasp. “The Damian Wayne, painting his pets. I would never have guessed.”

He smirked.

“So, is it a dog?” I asked.

“Yes, there’s a dog.”

“There’s? Meaning there are more?”

He smirked again this time wider.

“A cat.” I guessed.

He nodded. “Yes there’s a cat too. Though I doubt you’d be able to guess the rest of them.”

Laughing again, I shook my head in disbelief. “You are one intriguing person, Damian Wayne.”

“I could say the same about you.” He told me squarely.

The heat on my cheeks creept up. I looked away a little embarrassed.

He opened his mouth to say something to me, but was cut off.

I heard screams.

Damian quickly pushed me to the ground and shielded me as the glass windows shattered. The shards fell ferociously all around us.

“Fuck.” He gritted his teeth and looked down at me. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “What was that?” I clutched my head, my ears were ringing from the sound of the blast that shattered the windows. I looked around panicked and scared.

“Don’t know.” He told me gruffly as he pulled us both back up.

Grappling hooks shot up from the broken windows and before I knew it I saw the pointed end of a sword aimed towards Damian’s.

“Damian!”

In that moment I cast aside all the doubts. I still wasn’t sure but if by a long shot; this was Robin, if Damian was Robin, then he could do something about this.

He knew how to fight. Unlike me. If I could give him a head start or a fighting chance, then he and the other superheroes could save everyone.

That’s what I told myself anyway as time stilled and I took the leap.

The blade sliced into my lower back and for a split second all I could feel was searing hot white pain. I cried out as it rippled through my torso. The sword was pulled out just as quick as it was pushed in. I could swear the world was tipping over. The blood had gushed out and I found it staining Damian’s pristine suit.

I could barely hear Damian’s scream as I phased in and out of consciousness. Somehow he had blocked another hit that was aimed at us before kicking the man as far away as possible. He pulled me towards him and muttered something incoherent before dashing across the hall.

The warmth of my own blood pooled over me. Mom would kill me when she saw the stain, if I wouldn’t bleed to death before she finds out that is.

“Shitshitshit, y/n!” He ducked behind a table and grabbed a bunch of napkins, applying pressure as he held it against my stomach. “Stay with me, you’re going to be alright.”

I weakly nodded, feeling sick to my stomach at the smell of iron and sudden blood loss.

“Fuck.” Jason slid next to us as the gunshots started to fire. He noticed me and his features paled. “Oh, shit.”

“Jason, I need to bring her somewhere safe!” Damian said, his voice urgent.

“All citizen, please evacuate the building!” A strong voice bellowed from above us. It was a woman, dressed in purple. Her hair was on fire (literally) as it trailed behind her.

Starfire. But what was she doing in Metropolis…?

The people ran towards the entrance and a man in a tight body suit with a blue winged symbol on his chest directed the crowd flow.

Superboy zoomed in next, his features etched in worry as soon as he saw me. The wound must’ve been worse that I thought.

“What the hell is going on?!” Damian demanded from the superhero. “I thought this place was secured.”

“Kryptonite.” Superbly answered with an ominous tone. “I don’t know what happened but we should get the civilians – uh, you guys, to safety.”

The amendment wasn’t lost on me.

“Y/n, I’m going to find you after all this is over.” Damian promised. “Until then please, hang in there.”

I managed a weak smile and a sad excuse of a chuckle as the blood started to run down the corner of my mouth.

“I still need to guess the rest of your pets.” I joked, hoping to lighten the scene.

His response was a pained smile.

“Take her to Alfred.” He delicately passed me on to Superboy’s arms. “He’ll know what to do.”

Superboy nodded and flew away. The last thing I remembered was Nightwing and Starfire fighting off mechanical robots and ninja assassins. After that, my world went dark.

...

... to be continued ...

371 notes · View notes

pepperful-qt · 4 years ago

Text

it's just milk

Kageyama Tobio x f!Reader

A/N: 🥛he cute

Warnings: strong language

Length: 3.9k

***

Kageyama's day had been going well. He’d woken up refreshed and made it to school on time, and even written some notes the way Yachi taught him during English class, even if he’d missed some of the lecture from focusing too much on the color coding. His mind was clear and calm, so much so he knew exactly which flavor of milk he wanted today.

Everything was going so well, until you happened.

The vending machine he frequented was located in a quiet spot on campus, which is part of why Kageyama liked it so much. He could collect his thoughts on yesterday’s practice or plan new techniques to try that afternoon. He didn’t think much of the unfamiliar girl standing in front of the machine and stepped behind you.

After a moment of thought you tapped the button under the milk carton and fetched your dispensed drink from the bin. As you walked away, Kageyama wasted no time and punched in his request immediately.

OUT OF STOCK.

The dooming message scrolled across the led screen before his eyes. He retracted his fingers and looked in shock at the red light shining from the button, confirming the horrible reality.

“Huh?” Kageyama exclaimed out loud. This had never happened before. This machine never ran out of anything.

You casually looked over your shoulder at the noise as you sipped on your drink. Kageyama glanced your way, only to immediately tense at the sight of the carton in your hand. It was his milk.

“Hey you!” he seethed with narrowed eyes. You froze and nearly choked under the boy’s intense glare. Warily you peeked behind you, only seeing two other conversing students who now had their attention trained on you both, though when you looked back at the boy who had called out was undoubtedly staring at you. Slowly, you raised a finger towards yourself.

“Me?”

“You took the last milk drink,” he accused and paced up to you with purpose. You blinked in shock at how much taller he was up close before you processed his words.

“I--what?” You stared, bewildered, at the boy staring absolute daggers into you. Did you hear him correctly? He pointed at the drink in your hand.

“That. You took the last one.”

“I’m...sorry? I guess?” You tilted your head, unsure what he wanted.

“Can I have it?” Though he phrased it as a question, his tone sounded as though he was giving a command.

“What? No.”

Kageyama’s eyes widened in shock before a snarl twisted his lips.

“Why?”

“Why?” You repeated his words in bewilderment. “Well firstly, I’ve already opened it, so unless you’re willing to share my spit, you’re not getting it.” Kageyama’s nose scrunched at your straightforward language. “Secondly, it’s first come first serve, so don’t be a sore loser.”

That set him off more than your threats of germ-spreading.

“What?” he growled lowly.

“That’s how it works,” you stated matter-of-factly, taking a long sip from your straw to emphasize your point.

“I don’t lose.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” you offered, unsure what to say to this boy who seemed to be taking his milk way too seriously. “There’s other drinks, just get one of them.”

“I don’t want the others,” he fumed, his fists clenching and unclenching in irritation. What was with the nerve of this girl?

“Look, I don’t know what to tell you,” you said, backing up to leave. There was just the slightest amused smile on your face that made his insides burn. “Better luck next time, okay?”

Kageyama watched you disappear around the corner with his mouth agape.

The students that had been watching the exchange stood in shock as well, then turned cautiously back to the bristling setter still frozen in the middle of the hallway. With a huff he turned on his heel and marched away, absolutely bristling.

***

Kageyama had made sure to get there first the next day, but his mind was nowhere near as clear as it had been the day before. Since yesterday your words had been echoing in his head nonstop, and his pleasant day had been ruined thereafter. Even his teammates noticed he was on edge during practice. After Hinata mentioned it and received a spike to the head as a result, the rest of the team decided to leave it be.

So here he was, staring down the vending machine with fervent consideration. The button for his favorite still shone a dull red, leaving him with only three other flavors to choose from.

“You’ll burn a hole through it if you stare any harder.” A distinctly familiar voice met his ears and broke his trance. When his eyes fell on the source, you, he let out an involuntary sigh of disdain.

“What?”

“You’ve been standing there for at least five minutes,” you said, a hand on your hip. “Are you having a crisis or something?”

“Why do you care?” Kageyama frowned, jerking his head back toward the machine.

“I’m thirsty,” you quipped back. He felt his patience thinning. How could you be so infuriating?

“If you don’t want to wait, go to another machine,” he countered with a scowl, though he maintained an even tone.

Kageyama expected another retort, but was surprised when he heard your soft laugh instead. He eyed you curiously as you approached.

“Nah, I’m good,” you smirked, leaning in front of him to drop in a coin and punch the button for strawberry milk. Kageyama stood stunned before his brain registered how close you were and he jerked back.

“H-hey!” he stuttered indignantly. You simply straightened and waved the drink in your hand before poking the straw through and taking a sip. “You said first come first serve!”

“Oh, did I?” You tilted your head innocently. “I don’t remember.”

Kageyama narrowed his eyes into a fierce glare. You stared each other down before you shrugged and stepped aside. Taking a soothing breath, he refocused his attention on the machine. Instead of leaving, though, you leaned back on the cement wall and continued to observe him. He shot you another glimpse before deciding to ignore you out of spite.

“Sorry, I was just teasing,” you spoke up after almost a minute of painfully awkward silence. His jaw clenched to the sincerity in your voice, but he still kept his eyes trained on the drinks, silently begging you to leave. Earning no reaction, you continued, “So, what’s on your mind?”

Silence. Kageyama clearly wasn’t trying too hard to hide the fact he was purposefully ignoring you.

“That’s mature,” you snickered quietly.

“What are you still doing here?” he snapped suddenly, once again staring a hole into the machine.

“Having a one sided conversation apparently,” you sighed. He didn’t respond. “Why do you care so much about the milk anyway?”

“I don’t owe you an explanation,” Kageyama scoffed before he could stop himself. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed you flinch at the harshness of his tone, but he decidedly swallowed his guilt.

“I was just curious,” you muttered so quietly he wasn’t sure if he imagined it. Your head was turned away and the straw was stuck between your pouting lips.

“I like it,” he stated with a huff. “Do I need another reason?”

You laughed again, and he was just as surprised as before. He felt a heat on his neck from embarrassment, even though he knew there was no reason to be. He hadn’t said anything weird, right?

“What?” he asked, furrowing his brows defensively.

“Nothing,” you grinned, shaking your head slightly.

A shout and laugh echoed in the distance, catching the attention of both of you. Curiously you peeked around the corner, spotting two figures tossing a ball between them.

“Oh hey, volleyball!” you exclaimed. Kageyama’s head immediately jerked in your direction, taking two steps to peer out from behind you. His face involuntarily twisted into a frown when he saw Hinata and Sugawara passing the ball back and forth.

“This school’s boy’s team is supposed to be really good right?” you continued.

“Yeah,” Kageyama responded with a nod.

“I just transferred here so I’m not in a club yet.” You took another thoughtful sip as Kageyama’s eyes stared at the back of your head. That explained why he didn’t recognize you. “I’d like to watch them play one day. My last school wasn’t very good at sports.”

“All that shrimpy dumbass knows how to do is jump and hit the ball. He has no actual technique,” he grumbled while drilling a glare into Hinata’s ginger head. You whipped your head around at his language and noticed how he watched the other boy.

“You know him?” you asked with a raised eyebrow. Kageyama met your gleaming eyes and looked away with a frown before returning to the machine. You just sighed and watched the boys for a little longer before turning back.

“Here.” You dug in your pocket for a second before reaching out with your fist, gesturing for his hand. Confused, he held out his palm and you pressed two 100 yen coins into it. His hands were surprisingly well taken care of, you noticed. “For last time.”

Kageyama just stared down at his hand with a blank expression.

“Thanks,” he managed.

“Take it easy, alright?” He glanced back at your face. You were smiling. “It’s just milk.”

He watched you walk away again, feeling the weight of the coins in his hand.

***

Kageyama noticed you in the halls now. He was just a little more aware of your presence. You continued to greet him when you met at the vending machines, and he would give you a nod in acknowledgement. The majority of his annoyance toward you had receded, though there was still a prickling in his stomach caused by your presence he couldn’t seem to shake.

The week after your first encounter the vending machine got restocked. Kageyama practically lit up at the sight of the green button and eagerly inserted his coins. However, to his dismay, the drink never came.

“Huh?” He banged his fist against the glass. No way had it gotten stuck. A slew of curses flew from his mouth as he slammed his knuckles into the button again in vain. Just as he was about to shoulder slam the machine, he noticed you approaching from around the corner.

You stopped in your tracks at the sight of Kageyama staring back at you in position to tackle the vending machine.

“I, uh, it’s stuck,” he explained sheepishly, feeling his ears start to burn. Quickly, he averted his gaze and rubbed the back of his neck in hopes you wouldn’t notice.

“Ah.” You watched him squirm and smiled to yourself before walking over and putting your hands on the machine. “There’s a trick to these ones.” You slammed your fists on the top of the machine and gave one more whack to the middle before the drink came tumbling into the bin. Satisfied, you threw a thumbs up at Kageyama, who had taken a step back and was looking at you with wide eyes.

“Th-Thanks,” he stuttered, reaching down to grab his milk. He gave you a nod and started to walk away.

“Kageyama, right?” you said suddenly, making him turn back to you. He hadn’t realized you never introduced yourselves. “That’s your name yeah? I’m y/n. Shouyo told me about you.”

Kageyama’s hand clenched at the name, squirting milk into his face. He cursed and wiped it away with his sleeve, trying to settle the burning in his chest. Was he angry? Why would he be angry? Also, why were you on a first name basis with Hinata?

“How do you know that idiot?” he grumbled and squinted towards you.

“Ah, it’s a long story.” You waved a hand dismissively. “Short version is I thought he looked cool while playing and started talking to him.”

A loud tch escaped Kageyama’s lips at the absurd statement. That feeling in his gut swelled up again, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth.

“He’s not cool,” he retorted with a scowl. “He’s a dumbass who looks flashy because he can jump high.”

“You think so?” you laughed, leaning back against the vending machine.

“It’s just the truth,” he stated, looking away from your teasing smirk. “It’s much cooler to watch someone who actually knows what they’re doing.”

“Oh of course. Someone like you, Mr. miracle-super-setter?”

Kageyama flushed at your absurd nickname. Why were you looking at him like that?

“Well..I-I guess.” He lifted his chin a bit. “The setter is the best position after all.”

Your eyebrows raised at his confidence. To his disappointment, you just nodded and received your own drink.

“He also said something about you being a King of the Court,” you mentioned, turning the carton over in your hand. Kageyama’s blood turned to ice at his old moniker. Before he could open his mouth, you raised your drink towards him and continued, “I don’t know if I believe that. You’re more like a king of vending machine milk, right?”

“I’m not a king,” he deadpanned. His cold tone caused you to hesitate. You regard him carefully before offering a small smile.

“I hope to see you play sometime, Kageyama.”

“Right,” is all he manages to say. Immediately the cold in his body is replaced by fiery warmth when he hears you say his name. He gives you a quick nod before pacing away and leaving you in the dust.

***

Slowly, friendly greetings turned into casual conversations, and eventually those conversations continued after you left the vending machine where you met each day. Walking you back to your class became a daily routine. You shared the same one as Tsukishima, he discovered. The blonde boy raised an eyebrow the first time he noticed the two of you waving goodbye outside the door, but he had yet to bring it up during practice.

It wasn’t that Kageyama never got nervous. There were definitely matches in the past that caused his insides to seize up and feel as though he was being eaten away from the inside. However, he was confident in his abilities and grew accustomed to calming his nerves when required. That said, he couldn’t seem to nail it with you. No matter how hard he tried to push it down, the tickling in his stomach whenever you were around always prevailed. Whenever you laughed, he couldn’t stop the redness spreading on his ears that threatened to take over his face. It ticked him off.

“Say Kageyama,” you asked one day, “why don’t you ever smile?”

“Huh?” was all he could say.

“You always have this scowl on your face like you’re concentrating really hard.”

He didn’t know what to say, so he opted for a shrug.

“I’d like to see you smile.”

“You really don’t,” a cool voice said to your side. It was Tsukishima. “It’s disturbing.”

Kageyama’s shocked face immediately twisted into one of displeasure.

“What’d you say?” he growled, jerking out his chin. Tsukishima’s eyes widened for a moment before he smirked. Kageyama wasn’t usually one to rise to the bait so easily.

“That’s more like it,” the tall boy snickered and walked off.

“Charming, isn’t he?” you sighed with a roll of your eyes and pulled Kageyama forward by the elbow, distracting him from his rising anger.

One day, you came up during conversation at practice.

“Oi, Kageyama, you know y/n, don’t you?” Hinata chirped as he bounced a ball on his forearms during break.

“Yeah,” he answered, narrowing his eyes at the short blocker. He vaguely remembered you calling Hinata by his first name, and that fact just fueled his contempt for the boy.

“She’s awesome!” he gushed, a familiar spark of admiration in his eye. “Super smart too! She’s helping me with Japanese and I feel like I’m already ten times smarter. You should--”

“What?” Kageyama’s head snapped towards the boy as he barked the exclamation. Hinata startled and fumbled the ball, sending it towards where Tsukishima and Tadashi were conversing.

“I just said she’s helping me with Japanese,” the ginger repeated with wide eyes.

“You’re not in the same class or anything, how’d you meet her anyway?” Kageyama demanded as he loomed over Hinata. Before the shorter boy could respond, Tsukishima's scoff interrupted them. Both boys looked over to where he stood holding the ball that Hinata had been dribbling.

“That’s cute,” he sneered, “the king has a little crush.”

Kageyama tensed on the spot as he processed Tsukishima’s words. Crush?

“Kageyama, you like her?” Hinata blurted, catching the attention of a few of their teammates. Immediately Kageyama regained control of his body and lunged towards Hinata, who ducked with a yelp.

“Of course not, dumbass,” he retorted with gritted teeth. He wanted the ground to swallow him up as he felt his entire face start to burn. Tsukishima’s laugh only deepened his rage.

“Kageyama, if you like her, you should tell her!” Hinata insisted, seemingly oblivious to the other boy’s attempts to decapitate him.

“Don’t say stupid things, dumbass!” He went in for a kick that the red-head narrowly dodged.

“Is that the only insult you know?” smirked Tsukki, just loud enough for Kageyama to hear him. The setter turned on him, face still flushed and opened his mouth to retort.

“No, I’m serious Kageyama!” Hinata continued to prod, moving into Kageyama’s line of sight. If looks could kill the small blocker would’ve been incinerated on the spot. “I-I think she likes you too!”

Kageyama froze, his fist stopped right above Hinata’s head.

“W-what?” he stuttered, taking a stumbling step backward. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, the first time I met her she came up to ask about you,” Hinata explained, scratching the back of his neck while fidgeting under the dark-haired boy’s gaze. “And you come up, a lot actually, whenever we hang out.”

“What?” Kageyama could only repeat his earlier word. His mind seemed to have halted in place, as if going any further would cause permanent damage.

“Even the simple-minded beast figured it out. What’s it like having a brain that slow?” Tsukishima wondered aloud, earning a snicker from Tadashi.

“I-I…” Kageyama trailed off as he just stared at the floor. He thought back to every smile you gave him, the small touches, the way you greeted him every day. Each thought made his heart beat faster. He...liked you? And you liked him back?

“I think you broke him,” Sugawara chuckled from where he was watching in amusement with a wide-eyed Daichi.

“That’s a first,” the other third year mused before falling into laughter as well.

***

Kageyama did not have a plan. He’d tried to think of one, a smooth, way to bring it up in conversation. However, it was lunchtime already and he was standing in front of the vending machine, his mind completely blank. He aggressively jammed his knuckles into a button, causing a passing student to flinch in surprise. In the process of trying to poke his straw into the carton, he put in too much force and snapped the straw in half. With an irritated grunt he stabbed a hole with his pencil and resorted to drinking out of the small opening.

You were taking longer than usual. Possibilities raced through his mind. What if you were sick? What if you decided not to come today? What if you were sick of him? Did you really even like him?

Finally draining the last drop from the milk carton, he slammed it into the nearest trashcan and began marching back to his class. The one day he needed you to show up, and you ditched him. He felt like a fool.

In his seething anger, he almost missed your laugh echoing down the hall. He jerked his head up toward the sound, forgetting his anger and momentarily forgetting his previous panic at the thought of seeing you again. He peered around the corner where he’d heard your voice, and then his heart dropped.

You were standing next to a chattering Hinata, smiling. What had he told you? What if...no.

The ginger saw him approaching first, his face instantly blanching at the expression on the setter. You followed the boy’s eyeline and noticed Kageyama right as he stopped in front of you.

“Oh, hey Kageyama! Sorry I--”

“I LIKE YOU!”

You jumped and froze on the spot, gaping. Though he’d just practically screamed his confession, his face was twisted into a scowl rather than any kind of endearing expression, making your brain work ten times harder to process his words fully.

“You...what?” Your voice was hardly louder than a whisper. Hinata snorted into his hand. Kageyama immediately faltered at your words, his face burning when he realized what just happened.

“I mean, um, I think I do,” Kageyama sputtered, one hand reaching up to grasp his face. He was on fire. “No--I mean, yes.”

“Uh,” you started, still recovering from shock, “which is it?”

“I, um, I do,” he muttered, moving his hand to fully shield his eyes from yours as he looked to the floor. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stup--

“That’s a relief,” you chuckled nervously. He swore his heart stopped beating for a moment. “I thought I’d be pining forever.”

A warm touch spread through his skin just as his hand was pried away from his face. It took a moment for him to realize you’d taken it tentatively in yours.

“Wait, you…” Kageyama couldn’t even finish his sentence, or take his eyes off where your thumb stroked his hand in a soothing motion.

“Yeah, I like you, Kageyama,” you laughed again. That wonderful laugh he grew to love so much. “I really do.”

Finally his eyes met yours.

“Oh,” he breathed. His chest suddenly felt light. Your sheepish smile widened into a grin.

“I was wondering what your real smile looked like.”

He was smiling?

“Oi, Kageyama, what’s with that face?” Hinata suddenly gasped, breaking the serene moment between the two of you. The little ginger was staring open mouthed at his teammate. “I didn’t know you could actually smile! It’s creepy!”

“Hinata, you dumbass, get out of here!” The smile you had produced was deftly swept away as the setter lunged at his teammate.

“So violent!” Hinata pouted as he leaped back. “You shouldn’t be like that in front of your girlfriend!”

You, however, were giggling into the back of your hand.

“Alright Hinata, that’s enough, scram,” you said, waving your hand with a smile. Hinata nodded fervently and scooped up his bag, sticking out his tongue towards Kageyama before running off.

“I can’t believe that dumbass was right,” he muttered as he looked to where your fingers were still intertwined. Then something clicked. “Wait, you called him Hinata just now.”

“Yeah, I called him Shouyo before to see if you’d react,” you confessed with a coy smile. “It worked though.”

“Well, you should call me Tobio then,” he demanded. “I mean, if you want to..you know.”

“Be your girlfriend?” you finished, and he nodded slowly. You gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “Alright then, Tobio.”

His heart stopped and fluttered at the same time. How was that even possible?

“Come on.” You grasped his hand fully in yours, looking pleased as you watched his ears turn pink again, and pulled him along by your side.

He knew he was smiling again. It was a good feeling.

***

A/N: please don't punch vending machines. never written for kags I hope it was okay

#kageyama tobio #kageyama tobio x reader #haikyuu #haikyuu writing #haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu!!#haikyuu scenario #haikyuu imagine #can you tell my way of flirting is teasing #haikyuu x reader #kageyama x reader #kageyama tobio imagine

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rhysismydaddy · 5 years ago

Text

The Librarian Ch.1 (Nessian fic)

Wowzers, it’s been a while since I posted! I’ve been writing though! I just have a problem where I start writing shit and never finish it haha.

I finished this one, and it’s 4 parts, they’re all written, and they’ll be becoming out this week!

Synopsis: Cassian Nezara is the King of Campus. He’s the star quarterback for the winning football team, he’s got a great personality, and he’s pretty good looking, too. But when he’s forced to volunteer at the campus library because of a fight, he meets Nesta Archeron, the mysterious and sarcastic librarian. Finding out her secret changes how he views his status on campus forever.

| Masterlist | Part 2 | Part 3 |

________________________________________________________________

~Cassian~

Cassian barreled through the sea of freshman in front of him, almost knocking one into the bookshelf next to her.

“Sorry,” he muttered, not slowing down.

Coach would kill him if he was late.

He practically ran up to the little desk in the corner of the first-floor lobby. “Hi, um excuse me,” he said to the woman sitting behind the desk. She had her back turned, feet propped on the desk in front of her without a care in the world. “Do you work here?”

She didn’t turn around. Maybe she didn’t work here. The back of her head looked a little young to be a librarian, anyway.

“Excuse me,” he said again to her back.

She still didn’t turn around. Cassian managed to put his temper on a tight leash before slamming his hand into the little bell on top of the desk.

With a heavy sigh, the woman snapped her book shut, whirling around.

Cassian froze. And stared.

He’d been right about the young part. She was probably his age, maybe a little younger. And fucking gorgeous. Crystal blue eyes, high cheekbones, lips that begged to be kissed. She was in an oversize sweatshirt and jeans, but he could tell she had a small figure that’d fit perfectly in his arms.

Why the hell was she in this dusty place?

“Books are organized by topic and last name, reference numbers are posted at the end of the columns,” she said drily, then made to turn back around.

He reached out and grabbed the edge of her chair.

“I’m not looking for a book.”

She glared at the hand clamped on her chair until he released it. “It’s a library. Surely even you noticed that.”

Jesus, what was this chick’s problem? Weren’t librarians supposed to be sweet old ladies with cats and a kink for romance novels?

“Yeah, I noticed,” he replied, equally as terse.

She just raised an eyebrow.

“I’m Cassian Nezara. I’m... a volunteer.”

The librarian looked him up and down. “Blood drive’s next week.”

“I’m not here for the blood drive. Coach Hampton should’ve sent an email-”

She’d been terse before, but her tone shifted even more toward something like hatred. “Coach Hampton.”

Cassian nodded, confused as hell. Everyone loved Coach.

I mean, he’d led the school to victory in the National Championship for eight years in a row. Football was practically a religion around here, and Ron Hampton was the god.

He supposed that made him and his teammates angels. He didn’t exactly hate the idea. It sure as hell matched with how the population of the school treated him.

Ever since his first game when he’d been subbed for the starting quarterback, he’d been revered on campus. And had started. Everyone around him loved football. Loved coach.

But the woman in front of him rose to her feet, jabbed a finger into his chest, and practically shoved him backwards, growling, “You tell Coach Hampton to find somewhere else to stick his delinquent players.”

His eyebrows shot to his hairline, and he would’ve retorted, asked why, but the look in her eyes told him not to. Plus, it’s not like he wanted to be stuck volunteering in the library every day.

So Cassian just shrugged, grabbed his phone as he walked out of the building, and called coach.

“What the hell did you do now,” the old bastard gruffed as soon as the line went through.

He huffed a laugh. “Actually, I think it might have been you this time. The receptionist, librarian, whatever she is told me to tell you to ‘find somewhere else to stick your delinquent players.’”

Coach paused at that. Then, “Who was it?”

“Didn’t get a name.”

He could tell coach was pinching the brim of his nose as he said, “In your twenty-two years of life, when have you ever not gotten a girl’s name?”

“Listen,” he explained, “This chick is seriously pissed off at the world. And possibly deranged.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

The line went dead.

Cassian groaned, resisting the urge to chuck his phone into a nearby fountain. The fact that he was being punished in the first place as stupid to him. But it was stupider that coach seemed it fit to make him suffer in a library of all places.

Plus, he was being punished for “fighting,” if you could even call it that. Cassian had landed one punch to the bastard’s face before his teammates pulled him back.

Plus, the idiot had deserved it. Captain of the rival football team and an all-around prick, Tamlin O’Connor had practically goaded him into a fight. And Cassian had been stupid enough to let him.

So stupid.

Coach usually didn’t care if they fought, but the prick was threatening to sue if the school didn’t “discipline” him. So library duty it was, apparently.

Coach’s car pulled up, and the stout man hopped out, already looking pissed off.

“Okay, you bonehead, I’m here. This has to work out, Cassian,” he scolded, that signature scowl of his deepening. “The library is the only place on campus you don’t have to have a record of working. Labs, working as a TA, the gym... they all record it. So if it goes in the system, it’s official, and I’ll have to bench you.”

Cassian rolled his eyes in annoyance, following coach back inside.

He pointed over to the desk where the receptionist sat, facing them this time, but still holding a book.

“Excuse me. I need to talk to someone about one of my player’s volunteering here,” Coach’s usually raspy voice was nicer, softer.

The woman sitting in front of them just looked up at Cassian as if to say, Ran to daddy?

Then flattened her gaze on coach. Waiting.

“The dean has ordered Mr. Nezara here,” he flung a hand in Cassian’s face, “to volunteer somewhere on campus as punishment for something, and we think the library would be a good fit.”

“Interesting. I don’t.”

She looked back down at her book.

Coach gritted his teeth. “Can I speak to your boss, young lady?”

Blue eyes flashed up at him, and a cruel smile twisted her mouth. “I don’t have a boss, old man.”

If Cassian had been anyone else, he’d have pulled up a chair and grabbed some popcorn. Coach was used to being listened to. Feared, even. And yet the woman lounging before them, looking at them as if they were filth... she didn’t seem the type to listen to anyone.

“Listen here-”

“No, you listen. I’m not one of your little preening ogres in a leotard you can boss around. I run this library. So I know about you’re little scheme.” She whispered the last part conspiratorially, “The one where one of your players does something stupid and you tell the dean he’ll “volunteer” somewhere, then let him nap in the library for an hour every day.”

Coach opened his mouth, but she held up a hand.

If he wasn’t being insulted every two seconds, he’d swear he was in love with her for that gesture alone.

“Mr. Nezara,” she spat, “will not be serving his sentence here. People who volunteer here want to volunteer.” She looked up at him. “And usually know how to read.”

With that, she simply opened her book again. Conversation over.

Cassian turned to leave, both annoyed and impressed, but Coach asked, “What will it take? For you to let him volunteer, and I mean actually volunteer, here?”

The librarian closed her book with a deep sigh. “Five percent of the annual earnings from football gets donated to my department,” she said as if she’d been waiting for the question.

Holy shit. That was insane. Coach would never-

“Two. Pre-season only.”

“Three. Regular season, no playoffs.”

“Deal,” Coach practically growled at the woman, turning to stomp out of the building. “He starts tomorrow.”

Casaian followed coach outside, and managed to contain his laughter at the man practically spitting fumes.

“You realize that if you don’t win the championship this year and make the money back, I’ll kick your ass, right?”

“Why the hell did you do that?” he asked instead. “Three percent of our regular season is still a good chunk of change.”

Coach shrugged, jaw tightening. “When I was your age, I made a similar mistake. And it went on my record and hurt my chances of going pro. I still made it happen, but it was harder. A lot harder. The school will still make millions from the season, and the majority of the cash comes from the playoffs anyway.”

Cassian usually didn’t run out of things to say, but he found himself struck dumb. Coach was a mean old bastard, but he cared about his players and would do just about anything for them. “Thank you.”

Coach spat on the ground. “Get your punkass to the stadium. And, for the love of God, don’t piss that woman off even more.”

~Nesta~

A cheap, cheap woman. That’s that Nesta was.

She’d sold herself out to the football team. For a chunk of money. Granted, it would probably be the biggest income for the library in years, but still. The thought of what she’d done made Nesta queasy.

And to Ron fucking Hampton out of all people. Her hatred for him and his entire team of stupid, muscled toddlers pretending to be good guys ran deep. And she’d agreed to spend an hour with one. Every day.

A cheap, cheap woman indeed.

Two years ago, she’d promised herself she would never again lay her fate in the hands of someone like Hampton. And yet, she’d just done exactly what he’d wanted her to do.

Granted, she didn’t roll over and take it like a good little young lady, but she ended up giving him what he wanted. Exactly like everyone else.

But, no. She wouldn’t let it be that easy. She’d punish Hampton the only way she could: through “Mr. Nezara.”

As Nesta walked into her apartment, locked all three deadbolts on her door, and took a steadying breath, she vowed to make her new volunteer’s life hell.

And smiled.

~Cassian~

Cassian hustled into the library once again the next day, sliding to a stop in front of the reception desk. He checked his watch, then smiled. A whole thirty seconds early.

The woman from yesterday just closed her book and jerked her chin to him. “Follow me.”

She walked through aisles of books, hips swaying in a way Cassian couldn’t help but watch. He’d thought about it after he’d left yesterday, but still had no idea why someone so young and beautiful would work in a boring, dead-end job like this. Or how she’d come to run the place, despite being the youngest librarian he’d ever seen.

He shook his head, continuing to follow her her down a set of stairs, a narrow hallway, and into the room at the end.

She strode on through, but Cassian paused in the doorway. The room was covered in dirt and dust and cobwebs, stacked floor to ceiling with boxes overflowing with books. Empty shelves stood along the walls, the middle space being taken up by the mountain of boxes.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

She ignored him. “Books go on the shelves. Cleaning closet is across the hall.”

“What the hell’s the point? They obviously haven’t been touched in years.” The thought of going through all of them made him growl.

“They’re books that have been taken out of circulation. We don’t throw them away.”

Cassian muttered, “Pack rats.”

The librarian rolled her eyes, striding for the door and gesturing for him to move.

He shook his head. “What’s your name?”

“Move.”

“Nope.” He had no idea why he wanted to know, but calling her the librarian was getting old.

A flash of something in her eyes. It looked like panic, but it was too quick to read properly. “My name is Nesta. Now move.”

He just stuck out his hand, smiling. “So good to meet you, Nes-”

The vile woman grabbed his hand, twisted it so hard he almost fell to his knees, and pulled him out of the doorway. “Asshole,” she muttered, smacking the back of his head for emphasis as she strode by him.

By the time his breathing returned to normal and the ache in his now-sore wrist dulled, she was gone.

It seemed as if little miss Nesta was trying to make him miserable. Probably so he’d quit and she didn’t have to deal with him anymore.

He grinned, eyeing the monstrous stack of dusty books once more. You’re going to have to try a lot harder than that, Nesta, baby.

~Nesta~

Nesta smiled as she headed down to the basement fifty minutes later. She made her footsteps quiet, hoping to catch him sitting on his ass. If she was being honest, she couldn’t wait to see how miserable he was.

It made her a terrible person, but she didn’t fight it.

Nesta peered around the corner.

And lost every thought of malice in her head.

The room was pristine. And that was putting it lightly. The shelves were shining, filled with clean books, the floors still wet from being mopped. Hell, even the ceiling looked like it had been scrubbed down.

Cassian stood in the corner, the last box of books on his shoulder, and said to her, “You guys invest in way too many books on the Civil War.”

Nesta forced herself to sound unimpressed, bored even. “They’re the most requested. But new ones come out every year with different information, so we have to replace them.”

He hummed, turning around to face her, that stupid little smile on his lips.

Apparently done with the box, he took it between two hands and crushed it, the motion making the muscles in his arms bunch together.

She looked around the room again, and his smile widened proudly. So Nesta just sighed and said, “Put the boxes out back in recycling, and you’re free to go.”

He managed to only look a little disappointed as he grabbed the rest of the boxes, then walked in front of her up the stairs. She sat behind her desk as he went outside, taking a sip of her smoothie.

Which she almost spit everywhere as a smooth voice said from behind her ear, “That, by the way, is how you sneak up on someone. See you tomorrow, baby.”

She swirled around to strangle him, but he was already walking away, hands in the hair in mock surrender.

Oh, she was going to kill him. Or at least make his life miserable. Let the games begin, baby.

________________________________________________________________

PART 2 will be out Thursday :) I promise it gets a lot more interesting. Let me know in my asks if you want to be tagged!

@bamchickawowow

#cassian #nesta archeron #nessian #nessian fanfiction #a court of thorns and roses #a court of mist and fury #a court of wings and ruin #a court of frost and starlight #acomaf #acotar #acowar #acofas #cassian x nesta

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astralaffairs · 5 years ago

Note

can i get number 29 from valentine's day prompts with laurens?

prompt 29: Secret Admirer

it took hella mental effort not to make this ridiculously tacky, and i cannot explain how it became 3.5k words. but pls someone explain to me why RA john is such a cutie??

————-

It had to be a crime for anyone to be up that early on a Sunday morning.

You’d spent your Saturday night out with Hercules and his clan of fellow grad students; you were still an undergrad, but he and you had always been surprisingly close for siblings, so when you entered his university just two years behind him, he’d adopted you into his friend group, who accepted you with open arms.

This, however, was three years later. You were a junior, and you’d spent the fall thanking your lucky stars that your friends had decided to stick around for grad school there, as, not only would you have missed them dearly, but just by chance, a few of them had ended up as teacher’s assistants for your year’s courses.

Them staying around also meant they could drag you to law school parties off-campus, and it meant you had them to thank for your hangover. You were lucky John had been the designated driver; as the RA of your floor, you and he were headed to the same place at the end of the night, which meant you had him to force you to drink a bottle of water and actually go to sleep in a bed, as opposed to passing out sloppy and wasted on the floor.

Who you really owed your thanks to, though, was whatever genius decided it’d be a good idea to come knocking on your door at 6 AM.

You let out a long, dramatic groan as you pulled yourself up. This was one of few times you were relieved not to have a roommate.

Despite the shrunken proportions of your dorm room, walking those eight feet to the door felt like walking eight miles that morning. It didn’t help when you opened the door to an empty hallway, no one standing before you. You were about to slam the door in a fury, seething quietly at whoever thought it’d be a funny idea to ding-dong-ditch you at the crack of dawn – you’d have guessed it was Alex, but you’d also be shocked if he wasn’t still lying fully unconscious on the floor of Lafayette’s apartment. That was when you noticed a small box sitting at your feet.

You did a double take down the hall around you; it was still deserted. Hesitantly, you picked up the package, praying it wasn’t anthrax. (You didn’t have many enemies, but surely there was someone who wanted to murder you quietly.) You checked around you one last time before retreating into your room, throwing yourself back onto the bed. As much as you wanted to go immediately back to sleep, your curiosity had the better of you that Sunday.

You eyed the little, plain cardboard box that you’d deposited at the foot of your bed warily. Surely if it contained a bomb, there was nothing you could do about it now, anyway, so what was the harm?

You eased the flaps on the top apart, and the first thing you saw was a paper, folded up to the size of your thumb and, for whatever reason, taped onto a box even smaller than the original. You opened it and were surprised to see it’d been typed up.

Y/N–

Okay, so at least you knew you weren’t gonna find anyone fuming later on because they’d left their girlfriend’s Valentines gift by the wrong door.

I’ve never been good with words – though, I guess that’s why you’re the English major instead of me – so I’ll keep this short & sweet, much like you ;)

You rolled your eyes at that. You didn’t know who this letter-writer thought they were, but waking you up at six in the morning to call you short wasn’t what you’d call suave. (You weren’t short, anyway, and you’d stand by that until the day you died. Though, unfortunately, you may have had to stand slightly below that until the day you died – you weren’t sure you could reach.) You ignored how the last line made your pulse jump.

I think you’ll find the contents of the box fill the same role.

Yours.

That was it? Yours? Not, ‘yours, the cute stranger down the hall,’ not, ‘yours, the buff TA from Accounting Law,’ not even, ‘yours, the guy you pass in the elevator at the gym every Thursday who knows very well you’ve been eyeing him all semester.’

Just, yours.

You opened the box to find a slice of strawberry shortcake, and again, you rolled your eyes. How clever. You had to force yourself not to be endeared by who was apparently now ‘your’ mystery, but you couldn’t fight your smile at the sheer audacity.

——–———–

Predictably, you brought it up to everyone you knew within the next few days, and unfortunately, they seemed every bit as stumped as you were. At that point, you didn’t know what to do but ignore it.

So, you went on with your week, and the next Sunday, you were again awoken at first light.

Your groan this time wasn’t any less annoyed at the knock on the door; this time, the note made a jab at your dancing skills, said that ‘you still made being sloppy drunk look cute.’ You furrowed your brow. If this was someone’s way of trying to unlock your heart, this wasn’t exactly the key. However, if your being sloppy drunk was on their mind, it had to have been someone at the frat party you went to the night prior. Or, someone you passed in your building on the way back. Which narrowed it down to approximately half of campus.

Again, the letter was simply signed as 'yours.’ You didn’t know what to make of it all.

The contents of the box made you smile, though: a water bottle and a pack of Tylenol. It wasn’t exactly the height of romance, but something about the hangover care package made it feel more thoughtful yet.

You popped a Tylenol and went back to sleep. You’d be better at overanalyzing after you’d gotten at least six hours.

Those six hours turned out to be six more hours, though, and you emerged from your room just after noon. You stifled a yawn as you made your way out to the common area, still in your pajama shorts and the sweatshirt you’d pilfered from someone’s floor, to find Angelica on one of the couches eating boxed mac-and-cheese.

She was one of your oldest friends at your university; she’d been your roommate freshman and sophomore year before she ultimately elected to move in with her boyfriend. She raised an eyebrow as you entered, wearing a knowing smile that you couldn’t decipher the meaning behind.

“Hey, Ang,” you said wearily, making your way to the cupboard to pull out one of the instant ramen cups you’d kindly labeled 'Y/N ONLY.’

“Hey.” She eyed you, amusement dancing in her eyes, and when you continued to stare blankly at her, she spoke again. “Did you seriously manage to get another noise complaint today? That’s, like, the fifth this month. You’ve really been busy since I moved out, huh?”

While she looked smug, her words just had you confused. Unless it was from you snoring too loudly (which, in hindsight, was very plausible), there was no way you’d have ended up with a noise complaint that night. You furrowed your brow. “What?”

“What?” She shrugged as you put your noodles in the microwave. “Didn’t you? I mean, I saw Laurens walking away from your room this morning and just kind of assumed.”

You chuckled. “No, he was just my ride back from a party last night. Unfortunately, not one where I managed to get laid.”

“And you got back at 6 AM?” She looked surprised, and your confusion only mounted.

“No?” you said, your voice hesitant. “Wait, what are you talking about? 'Cause it’s obviously not the same thing I’m talking about.”

She shifted on the couch to face you where you stood near the microwave. “When I got back from my run this morning, I came back up to my and my John’s room–” John Church, her long-term boyfriend and inaugural junior-year roommate, “and I saw Laurens coming back from, like, right by your door. Not at three AM, or whenever it was that you got back from the frat house.”

It took you about that long to connect the dots. John at 6 AM, coming back from your room, the knock that’d woken you up bright and early – no way that could be a coincidence. Your eyes widened; you started down the hall toward the RA dorm without a second thought. “I’ll be right back,” you muttered. Angelica’s brows shot toward her hairline.

“Wait, Y/N, what about the microwave?” she called after you. You’d slipped too far into your tunnel vision to care. “Y/N, your noodles!”

You reached the end of the hallway and promptly banged on the door before you. John emerged in a matter of seconds, whether it was because he happened to be up or because of how aggressively you were trying to get in.

“Y/N?” He sounded surprised to see you. You didn’t humor him.

“Did you leave that box outside my door this morning?”

Slowly, his mask of confusion cracked, a grin adorning his lips as he leaned against the side of the doorway. “Busted.”

However, your brow knit at the immediate admission, trying to suppress a smile despite your shock. “Wait, so you left me those little… 'secret admirer’ notes?” You hesitated; he raised an eyebrow. “What… why did you–”

“Hold up, I don’t know anything about any notes,” he cut you off, holding up his hands as if to claim innocence. “Don’t shoot the messenger; I dropped those boxes off because someone asked for an assist.”

You paused, taken aback. You hoped he didn’t notice when your face visibly fell. “Wait, so if it wasn’t you…” you trailed off, pondering his words. You raised an expectant eyebrow. “Then you know who sent me those!”

His smile again graced his lips at that; he raked a hand through his hair as he chuckled. “Now you’ve really caught me,” he said, tone teasing. You could only roll your eyes.

“Who is it, then?”

“It wouldn’t be a secret admirer if I just told you!” He put a hand on his heart, his expression a caricature of scandalization, and when you glared, he chuckled. “I promise it’s not rocket science, Y/N; just figure it out.”

You scowled. “It’d be so much easier for everyone if you just told me,” you whined, and he gave you a mock pout.

“Oh, you poor thing,” he sighed, “Now that you put it like that, I guess I’ll have to tell you.”

Your eyes lit up. “Really?”

“No.”

You huffed, folding your arms and stomping your foot like a toddler, and he reached out to ruffle your hair with a laugh. You yelped as you ducked away from his hand, and his grin only grew. “You’re an absolute clown, you know that?”

He shrugged, looking as though he was entertaining the thought. “Maybe, but I’m your absolute clown.”

Something in the phrase struck you as being familiar.

——————-

Your noodles were ruined, and you spent the rest of the afternoon sulking about it. Perhaps Angelica was onto something when she said you needed to listen to her more often (though, you hadn’t quite heard the reasoning behind it). Moreover, you were growing increasingly frustrated with the secret admirer notes. After making yourself a fresh cup of noodles (and cleaning the microwave; your first cup had exploded), you spent your Sunday absentmindedly watching Netflix and overanalyzing everything you could take away from the secret admirer notes. You’d come to only a few conclusions.

1. If they were working through John, it had to be someone who lived on your floor, someone who knew you well, or someone who knew John well. That provided very little input.

2. If they’d managed to create and get the second box to you between 3 AM and 6 AM the previous night (morning, really), then it had to be someone who you went to the frat party with who also lived in your dorm – again, a fairly deep pool of prospects.

3. They felt comfortable enough with you to call you short, make fun of your dancing, and note that you couldn’t hold your alcohol. That was telling – it had to be someone you knew well who also lived in your dorm.

However, you didn’t get the chance to conduct a thorough examination of all your friends in the building; you still had three readings and a paper due the next day that you hadn’t done because you were, as your pursuer so elegantly put it, busy 'getting sloppy drunk.’ So you went through the motions – you did your work, you went to your classes the next day, and you arrived back at your dorm to the unexpected: another box.

There was a week between the first and second of them; a third already being on your figurative doorstep was unprecedented. You didn’t hesitate to open this one, and its contents immediately had you grinning: four cups of instant ramen and a note. This one wasn’t typed.

Heard I ruined your noods, so it seemed only fair to send you some of my own. I showed you mine, now you show me yours?

Yours ;)

The handwriting was immediately recognizable, and you couldn’t help but think that was the idea. You marched down to John’s room with the letter and knocked every bit as aggressively as you had before. Again, he opened it immediately.

“Y/N?” He raised an eyebrow. “Finally figure out who’s been sending you those notes?”

You stuck the letter in his face. “This is your handwriting,” you accused him. He took it from you, looked at it mildly for only a moment, and shrugged.

“Sure seems to be.”

“So you wrote this!”

“Looks like it.” His nonchalant expression had your head spinning.

“Can you stop with the vague answers for one minute?” you huffed, and he raised his eyebrows, pushing himself off of the doorframe. It appeared he could tell that this was genuinely beginning to trouble you. “I cannot deal with whatever it is you’re playing at with these.” You snatched the note back, waved it at him. “Just explain.”

A small smile was beginning to form on his lips by that point. “Well,” he began, voice soft, “Seems pretty clear to me. Both the conclusions you came breaking down my door with were apt.”

“So you wrote these, then?” He nodded, and you pursed your lips. “Which means what, exactly? What am I supposed to take from that? That you’re an incredible accomplice for whoever dreamed this up?” His smile began to grow as you began to rant, seemingly becoming more amused with each word. “That it was you leaving the packages? Because, John, I need answers, and this is really just starting to mess with my head.”

When your voice softened, your shell of anger cracking around the edges to reveal the slightest bit of vulnerability, John was hit with a pang of guilt. He hadn’t meant to mess with you. “Y'know, I thought I was being painfully obvious from the first one.”

“You… ?”

“I figured you’d open it, bring it to me, and we’d have a good laugh. Just that.” He shrugged, eyeing your stunned expression before continuing, “Maybe I just didn’t realize quite how drunk you were.”

“What d'you mean?”

“The morning I left the first note, you’d spent thirty minutes on the ride home telling me how you’d absolutely die for strawberry shortcake right then, and then you tried to shove me outta my own car when I called you a shortcake in response.” He grinned, and you just looked dumbstruck. “The second one didn’t even require any knowledge of the night before. Gotta say, I’m a little disappointed.” He sighed, falsely wistful, but cut himself off when he caught wind of your wide eyes. You were still struggling to believe his words.

John, who had spent the past three years making fun of your eating habits, chewing you out for showing up late because you went to three different drugstores to find the right bottle of $6 wine; John, who groaned every time Hercules dragged you to him, letting him know you’d been throwing up in the bathroom, but who drove you home without a second thought, always came to check on you in the morning. John was your secret admirer? The whole thing felt backwards.

“When you came to confront me yesterday, I knew I had to fess up sometime soon.” He rolled his eyes, as though exasperated with your incompetence. You were still shocked beyond a shadow of a doubt.

John was a generally caring person. It was why they gave him RA status, it was why he brought bakery to the commons area every Thursday afternoon, knowing that the professors there were notorious for Friday morning tests, it was why he kept a first aid kit stocked with everything imaginable outside his door – bandaids, Tylenol, pads, tampons, even chocolate.

He’d always been caring. His behavior toward you just felt like part of the pattern.

“Why?” you breathed, unsure of yourself. “Why’d you start leaving them?”

He considered himself, tongue in cheek. “Well, the first wasn’t meant to be quite so elusive. I spent half an hour refusing to pull over at the nearest bakery; I thought it’d be nice to bring you what you asked for when you weren’t dangerously tipsy. Honestly, didn’t even mean for it to be such a puzzle. Just a little gift.”

“But apparently, someone can’t take a hint.” You scowled as he ruffled your hair, and he just chuckled. His gaze was soft, his smile wide. “When you showed up here with the second note, I didn’t mean to deny it. But then, you sounded mildly ticked.”

“I wasn’t annoyed,” you protested mildly, cheeks burning when he raised an eyebrow.

“Anyway, here I was thinking I had more game than that, so I lied. Just a little.” He shrugged. “But then you looked so disappointed, so maybe I did have game afterall, hm?”

“Why wouldn’t you just come talk to me about it?” you asked softly, and the amusement in his gaze didn’t subside as he raised an eyebrow. Part of you struggled to believe he’d missed the way you spent the past three years looking at him. That he’d missed how, no, you weren’t an affectionate drunk – he was just the one driving you home.

Finally, he spoke. “Now, why would I do that, when I could bring you here to come talk to me about it?”

You frowned, though there was no malice behind it. “Coward,” you accused playfully, jabbing at his chest.

“Maybe.” Again he shrugged, before a wide grin split his mask of nonchalance. “But your coward.”

You huffed out a laugh, surprised by the teasing words. “My oblivious coward, apparently.” He raised an eyebrow.

“Oh?”

“Half the campus has a thing for you, John,” you scoffed. His smile was soft, then.

“Maybe, but I don’t care about half of campus.” Tentatively, he took a step closer to you, tucked a lock of hair behind your ear. “I care about you.”

You bit your lip, staring back up at him hesitantly. Your heart seemed to have stopped. John’s hand fell to your cheek, cradling your face. “John?” You finally said.

“Hm?”

“Can I kiss you?” The words were hardly a whisper, and before you could do anything else, he was reacting, taking a final step forward to snake his arm around your waist, pull you to him as he finally pressed his lips against yours. Your hands found their way to the back of his neck. Though the kiss was chaste, no more than lips against lips, it left you breathless, chest heaving against his when you finally pulled away.

You looked surprised, and he gave you a wry smile. “That’s a yes, for the record.”

You couldn’t help your grin. “Hey, so about that note…” He raised an eyebrow, and you reached up to tug at the collar of his shirt. “What was that, about, 'I’ll show you mine if you show me yours’?” Mischief seeped into your tone, and he looked stunned, his smile one of entertained disbelief.

He didn’t even bother to respond, moving quickly backward into his dorm room, tugging you with him, and you jerked forward with a squeak. He gave you a sly grin. “Lock the door.”

#John Laurens #john laurens x reader #laurens #laurens oneshot #john laurens oneshot #john laurens one shot #laurens x reader one shot #laurens x reader #john x reader #john laurens x reader oneshot #laurens x reader oneshot

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taexual · 4 years ago

Text

i’d love you to stay but that’s simply insane // JJK (5)

pairing: jeon jungkook x reader

genre: college au

warnings: angst + soft joon cameo

words: 3.9k

chapter five

You tossed and turned for half the night and when you finally managed to fall asleep, your phone buzzed with a text message. Sticking your hand out from under the covers, you kept your eyes closed as you looked for your phone and debated throwing it against the wall so you could keep sleeping.

Driven by some sort of a pathetic hope – what if it was him – you opened your eyes after all, only to see that the text came from a student in your Sociology class, Namjoon. You were supposed to work on a project with him and he was wondering if you were free to meet him at the library today.

“It’s Saturday,” you texted back sleepily, thanking the God for autocorrect, “I don’t mind but don’t you have plans?”

You put your phone back down, hoping to get at least a few more minutes of sleep, but another text message came in almost instantly.

“Everyone will flock to the library on Monday and pick out the best books,” Namjoon said in his text, “so I’d like to get a head-start. Would 9 work for you?”

Nine in the morning – considering that it was eight right now – was absolutely not going to work for you because you were still half-asleep and weren’t motivated enough to have breakfast, shower, make yourself look presentable, and drag yourself across campus in an hour. But you didn’t want to be a nuisance, so you texted back, “sure! See you at 9” and sighed your way into the dorm bathroom.

Thankfully, everyone else seemed to be still asleep, so you got the whole place to yourself and could shower for as long as you liked, without fearing that someone was going to rip off the curtain, separating your naked body from the rest of the room – it was the sort of fear that didn’t go away in all of the three years that you’d lived here.

The shower did wake you up but, with waking up, came the memories of last night and the disappointment that Inna had brought home.

Truthfully, what hurt you the most wasn’t even the fact that Jungkook had presumably spent the night with some other girl but rather, the fact that he did so right after you decided not to purposefully sabotage your budding friendship with him and, instead, give it a chance to see what happened.

Well, you saw what happened and you didn’t like it one bit. So, on the other hand, maybe this was for the better. Clearly, there was still a lot of the old Jungkook – the one you knew and loved once upon a time – left in him, but there was also a part of him that you had never gotten to know – that was the part responsible for the end of your friendship seven years ago.

And, stepping out of the shower in your robe, you decided it’d be best to never get to know the foreign parts of him. Obviously, some of those feelings you’d had for him all of those years ago – actually, a lot of those feelings – had survived the long hiatus and were very much making a comeback – if they ever truly went away, that is – so it was best to quit before you got burned. Again.

And then, by a stroke of simply awful luck, you exited the communal bathroom only to see a familiar figure leave someone’s room down the hall. Being the only two people here, the two of you immediately took notice of each other, and you were starting to wish someone had ripped that shower curtain off so you could have died of embarrassment back there, instead of suffering through seeing Jungkook right here.

“Hi,” he said, just as surprised to see you here even though he walked you home yesterday and knew very well where you lived. “W-why are you up so early?”

“I have plans,” you said, your answer more curt than you’d intended. Being subtle would probably work better since you didn’t want him to know how hurt you were.

“Oh,” Jungkook said. He noticed that you didn’t ask why he was here which could only mean that you knew. “Can I walk you? I was on my way home anyway.”

“I’m not going out in a robe,” you said, “I still need to change.”

“Well, I can—I could wait,” he said, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans to hopefully stop them from clenching into fists. Your coldness was messing with him.

“No need,” you said, abandoning all hopes for subtlety, “I’m sure you’d rather get back to your—well, friend, I guess. She’s probably waiting for you inside.”

You wanted to walk past him into your own room – and would have done so, too, if you were only a little faster – but he was quick enough to get his hand out of his pocket and grab your wrist, stopping you.

“Are you jealous?” he asked and you began fuming at this—very observant and absolutely correct—accusation.

“What? I’m not jealous,” you lied loudly and proudly. “I just think it’s funny how you’re trying to get your life together one moment, and then go ahead and sleep around the next.”

He let go of your hand. “I—”

“If that’s your version of drinking responsibly,” you added with a scoff, “then I have to tell you, it’s not all that different from any other type of drinking you’d been doing since you started college.”

“Drinking—are you going to preach about absenteeism to me now?” he asked, suddenly focusing on the wrong thing. “That’s very closed-minded coming from someone like you. I thought you were—”

“I’m obviously not who you thought I were,” you cut him off again, even angrier now that he’d touched you – just like that time at the party last week – because, despite the circumstances, the softness of his skin felt outrageously nice.

“Okay, fuck!” he couldn’t help raising his voice. “I’m still trying to catch up on all that we’ve missed about each other.”

“Why?” you demanded. “Why does it matter?”

“Because we were friends once upon a time,” he quoted the words you’d said to him and you groaned as you recognized them.

“Once upon a time was a long time ago,” you said. “Maybe what’s in the past should stay in the past.”

Jungkook had gotten into physical fights more times than he could count and yet he’d never gotten punched just by someone’s words until now. It hurt and, frankly, he’d have preferred it if you’d socked him in the eye instead. At least that way you could both could see the damage done.

“Right. Well, in that case, it’s really none of your business how or how often I’m drinking,” he said, his hurt feelings coming out in chilly, stone-hard sentences and you’d already heard him tell you something like this before. You should have listened and hung up the phone as soon as he called to apologize about it.

“Hey,” you raised your hands in defense, “you’re the one who called me last night.”

“I was drunk,” he shot back, his voice as cold as yours had been, “I barely even remember it. Don’t think it means anything or gives you the permission to—”

Not realizing what excellent liars you both were when you were angry, you allowed yourself to listen to him until his words started to sting too much.

“Oh, don’t worry,” you said then, turning around to go back to your room. He didn’t try to stop you this time. “I never thought it meant anything.”

You were late to meet Namjoon at the library because, after having closed the door of your room, you didn’t dare to come back out into the hall even after you dressed up and got ready, in case Jungkook had lingered. But it all turned out to be just wishful thinking – he probably left as soon as you went inside – and there was no sign of him anywhere when you did finally come out.

Well, that was that. This time last week, you had been on your way to visit Jungkook at the hospital, and now your very unsuccessful attempt at reconnecting had ended.

You should have seen it coming, it’s been far too long. Pretending that it hasn’t and rebuilding your friendship on memories had, clearly, not worked.

“So sorry I’m late,” you announced to Namjoon when you finally reached the library, all out of breath and with a very poorly hidden bad mood.

“It’s alright,” Namjoon replied, showing you his cup of coffee, “I stopped by the café next-door, so I just got here myself,” he said and then realized, “oh! I didn’t get you anything, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what—”

“Oh, no, there’s no need,” you plopped down into a seat opposite him. “I had a quick cup before I left the dorm. Thanks for thinking of me, though.”

“Yeah, of course,” he nodded and, taking a sip of his beverage, gave you a look that he’d hoped appeared as nonchalant and not at all suspicious – even though it was – and, as soon as he placed his cup down on the table between you, he inquired somewhat awkwardly, “are you okay?”

You were busy taking your backpack off and putting it on a chair next to you, so his question took you off guard.

“Hmm?” you turned to give him a look. “I’m fine, why? Is it about being late? I was just—”

“No, no, it’s just that—well, nevermind. I thought you looked upset,” he said and then regretted ever bringing it up. His perception had gotten him labeled as creepy several times before. “Sorry if that’s out of line for me to say.”

“No, it’s, uh—” you looked down, unsure if pouring your heart out to someone who was virtually a stranger to you was such a great idea since you obviously sucked at making – or, well, remaking – friends. “I am somewhat upset, I guess. I got into a fight with—with a friend before I left. But I promise it won’t interfere with my work!”

“Ah. Sorry to hear that,” Namjoon said and he sounded genuine, which was nice, considering he didn’t have to try so hard for someone who was just his partner for a Sociology project.

“Yeah,” you spoke and allowed the quiet atmosphere of the library on this early Saturday morning to engulf you both before finally saying, “anyway. Do you have the literature list, perhaps? I seem to have misplaced mine.”

“I have it on my phone,” he said and, in an attempt to sit up straight and pull his phone out from his back pocket at the same time, he spilled some of his drink on the table. “Oh, shit, uh—sorry about that.”

“It’s fine,” you told him, reacting immediately and reaching for a pack of tissues you always carried in the outer pocket of your backpack. You extended it for him. “Here.”

“Thank you,” he took one out and wiped his own hand first before cleaning the drink off the table.

“Is your hand okay?” you asked. “The coffee seems to be hot.”

“It’ll be fine,” he said with an awkward laugh. He’d already showcased enough of his inability to function as a normal human, he didn’t want you to have to deal with the stinging pain of his palm, too. “So, anyway, as I was saying, I have the list on my phone. I can send it to you and then we can split up to find the books faster.”

“Okay. That sounds great!”

And it really was great because, aside from being somewhat clumsy – he spilled his coffee again when he was pushing his chair back to get up from his seat and then dropped his phone as he was attempting to clean the new puddle – Namjoon was also an honest, dedicated worker and you appreciated that. You’d already had to work on many projects with peers who were more than happy to let you do all the work.

“I love the library at a time like this,” Namjoon told you from the other side of the book shelf as you two began to freely roam the near-empty library, browsing for books. “Not crowded with people, I mean.”

“Yeah, I love it, too,” you agreed. “But I don’t get to see it often, to be honest. I’m one to jump on the bandwagon and come here when everyone else comes.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, usually, I’m like that, too. But I started coming on weekends recently. It’s blissfully empty here, especially in the morning.”

“Everyone’s probably hungover,” you observed. “Parental Advisory had one of their usual ragers last night.”

“Ah, yes,” Namjoon nodded and then, somehow hesitantly, asked, “why weren’t you there?”

He made it sound as though you were supposed to be there and, for a minute, you wondered if your very few public conversations with Jungkook ended up bringing more attention to you and him than you’d realized.

“I—well, I don’t really go to those things,” you admitted, “it’s not really for me. I was home, binging on TV shows instead.”

He laughed – not mockingly but rather, understandably. Like he could relate.

“That’s my usual weekend, too,” he said then, confirming your thoughts and you gave him a smile through the gap between the books on the shelves. “I’ve been catching up on the movies I’ve missed during mid-terms.”

“Oh?” you picked one book up to check the edition and then put it back after realizing it wasn’t the right one. “Did you watch anything last night?”

“I tried to give the Kristen Stewart movie a shot,” he replied, dragging his finger on the spines of the books as he looked for the one he needed. “But it didn’t do it for me.”

“Underwater?” you asked. You had dragged Inna to see this movie in the theater with you. “I didn’t like that one, either. Even though Kristen Stewart was, predictably, great.”

“Oh, you’ve seen it, too?” he seemed surprised as he stopped and glanced at you over the shelves.

“Yeah, horror movies are much more my thing than campus parties,” you said.

“Really?” now he was properly intrigued. “Mine, too.”

You stopped browsing as well and your eyes met even if your bodies were separated by shelves of books. Not wanting to make this awkward, Namjoon didn’t let his gaze linger for too long before he looked back at his phone and continued his search for books.

“What would you say were your Top 3 horror movies of the last few years?” he asked, not just to keep the conversation going, but also because he was genuinely curious. He hadn’t met a lot of other people who were into horror.

“Only three?” you put your hands on your hips, deep in thought. “Okay. I’d choose Get Out, Us… and Midsommar.”

Namjoon wrinkled his nose at this. “Midsommar? Really?”

“Yeah,” you looked at him in confusion. “Why? It was good!”

“Well, it wasn’t bad,” he said, “but it just… I don’t know, it didn’t have enough horror elements for me. You do have good taste, though. Get Out is definitely one of the few late-decade films worthy of its’ horror genre.”

You couldn’t deny that but felt like you had an addition, “I actually quite liked Hereditary, too. It was different from what I usually watch.”

“Is that the one with the actress from The Sixth Sense?” he asked as he pulled a book from the shelf nearby to check the cover.

He was truly proving to be a project partner sent from heavens as you squealed, forgetting the library rules for a minute, “Toni Collette! Yes!”

He turned around, surprised by your excited tone.

“You liked The Sixth Sense?” he asked with a laugh, then.

“Loved it,” you said, still overwhelmed by the realization that you two seemed to share the same taste in movies. “It’s one of the best movies out there, in my opinion.”

“I think it might just be,” he agreed. “I’ve never seen Hereditary, though.”

You stopped walking and turned to him with wide eyes. “No. Are you serious? It’s terrible! I mean, terrible as in, I had to look away from the screen several times and I’m not one that gets fidgety during horror movies. That really proves how good it is.”

“Ah, yes, as the rating for horror movies goes – boring, decent, bad, terrible,” he counted with his fingers as you both laughed. “No, I don’t know, I just somehow never got around to watch it.”

“I have it on my computer,” you found yourself saying, “if we wrap this project up quickly enough, we could watch it. If you’d like.”

“I’d love that,” he said, smiling, and then stopped himself, “although, I don’t think the library allows that sort of activity here.”

“Oh. No, I guess not,” you thought about it for a moment and then came up with a plan, “well, are you free on Monday? We could work on the project at my dorm and watch the movie then. My roommate has classes in the afternoon, so it’ll be quiet.”

You hadn’t even realized that you were inviting a guy you’d almost literally just met over to your room and neither had Namjoon as he considered your offer – trying to remember his own schedule for Monday – and then nodded.

Truthfully, he didn’t even consider that there could have been some concealed intentions behind your invitation – he genuinely wanted to watch this movie with you since it seemed to have left an impression on you.

“Okay, yeah,” he said finally. “Monday sounds good. I’ll bring my books.”

“Great!” you’d have clapped your hands together if you weren’t holding three books and your phone. “I’ll bring the movie.”

Shortly, the two of you had finished your search for the books for the project and Namjoon excused himself – apparently, his drunk roommate had lost his keys and couldn’t get home – agreeing to meet you at your dorm on Monday.

You didn’t even realize it until you sat down by the table to put the books into your backpack but discussing your favorite movies with Namjoon had helped you forget all about your fight with Jungkook. Smiling solemnly to yourself, you concluded that you were actually feeling surprisingly well right now in comparison to how disheveled you’d been when you first arrived here.

Deciding that it was your choice how to feel about your second falling-out with Jungkook, you chose to move past it with surprising swiftness. If a good conversation was what it would take for you to forget about him, then you were just going to have to find more interesting people to talk to. Inna, once she sobered up, would work perfectly.

You’d have probably succeeded at this plan if it weren’t for the two girls that just arrived to the library, sunglasses and paper cups of coffee in hand. You merely glanced at them, choosing not to say hi even though you thought you’d seen them around the dormitory, as they sat down a few seats away from you.

“Okay, listen, why does it matter that he left early?” one of them was saying as you pulled the zipper of your backpack, opening it up. “Everyone still knows that you went home with Jungkook last night.”

That’s when you froze, focusing all of your energy into not turning around to look at them again.

One of these girls was the girl whose room Jungkook had left this morning.

“Yeah, but so what?” she replied to her friend. You knew you had to keep putting the books into your backpack or else you’d look weird just sitting here, obviously listening. But moving with minimal noise, so you’d still be able to hear them, was difficult. “Nothing happened between us.”

“I mean, not nothing,” her friend countered and then hesitated, “you did kiss, right?”

“Yeah, but—I don’t know. We kind of did,” her friend said and you found yourself drowning in waves of hotness. You decided you should probably go if you wanted to still have a chance at the swift-moving-on you’d planned. “But it was really more me, kissing him. He didn’t even—he was just there, you know what I mean?”

“Was he drunk?”

“No—well, yeah, we both were,” she giggled. You mentally gagged as you hurriedly stuffed the books into your bag. “But he was sober enough to recognize where I lived.”

“He knew where you lived? Girl, that’s good!” her friend clapped her hands together.

“No, but he didn’t, he just—he knew someone in the building,” she said. You sat up straight suddenly and the two girls stopped talking. Trying to play it cool, you coughed nervously and pushed your chair back, standing up. They carried on, “anyway, I think he just went with me because he wanted to visit that friend who lived there. But he tripped over the door on our way in, and I said that maybe we should stop at my place first, I could get him a drink or something. He said, ‘yeah,’ so we went and… he fell asleep basically as soon as he entered my room.”

“What? Seriously?” her friend asked as you zipped up your bag.

“Yeah,” the girl said. “I sat him down on my bed, left to pick up some snacks from the mini-fridge, and when I came back, he was full-on snoring.”

“Shit. Maybe he’s sick or something.”

The girl wasn’t so sure. “Or maybe he’s just not into me.”

Choosing not to listen anymore or else they’d have to notice you loitering, you picked up your backpack and headed for the exit. Your mind was buzzing and even the walk across campus to your dormitory didn’t help make it stop.

Apparently, Jungkook hadn’t slept with the girl that brought him home – he just let you assume he had. Not that you’d given him a chance to deny it, to be fair, accusing him of sleeping around one second and drinking himself blind the next.

It was clear that you’d overreacted and, in a moment of weakness, you considered calling him to apologize. But then you stopped and reconsidered – he’d told you it wasn’t your business to worry about his drinking. He’d told you his late-night phone call meant nothing and that he could barely even remember it.

So, maybe the argument in the hallway meant nothing to him, too. Maybe you were the only one still thinking about it while Jungkook was already off, doing whatever he did Saturday mornings because, God knew, moving on came easy to him.

Deciding that it was time you listened to him when he told you not to get involved in his decisions, you exhaled shakily and put your phone back in your pocket.

There was no point to apologize to him about anything.

It was over.

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