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daryl-dixon-daydreams · 3 months ago

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Words: 3,844 Pairing: Negan x Reader Reader pronouns: she/her Era: Alexandria, after the war, Negan is imprisoned Warnings: language, mild gore (killing walkers) Summary: In lieu of Negan's failing mental health, Michonne looks for options and Y/N steps up to do her share. A/N: This is part 1 of a miniseries (maybe 3?? parts) for Negan that I've been working on! I started it as a one shot, but... you know me lol so here we are! Part 2 will be released next week on Wicked Wednesday! Happy reading! “I’m afraid we’ve got a problem,” Michonne said seriously. You exchanged a glance with Daryl.

“What kind of problem? Like, Annoying Steve is being annoying or a new horror is coming to destroy everything we have and love?” you asked wryly.

Daryl let out an appreciative dry laugh but Michonne remained serious. “Somewhere in the middle, I think,” she said. “It’s about Negan.”

Daryl swore and paced a tight circle. “Course it is. Somehow, it’s still always ‘bout him, ain’t it?” he growled.

Michonne forged ahead. “Gabriel is—fed up with him. There’s no other way to say it. He’s not trying to do anymore counseling and he needs a break. I don’t blame him. He’s taken on everything with Negan since—since Rick—”

You frowned, your brow furrowing as grief roared upwards in all of you. “What exactly is the problem?”

“His mental state is really deteriorating,” Michonne explained. “Being in there by himself all the time, just the odd hour or two outside, no one talking to him—”

“Why should we give a shit?” Daryl asked in a low, dangerous voice. “Ain’t the whole damn point of him bein’ in there so he has to suffer for what he did for the rest of his life? His mental state… Fuck. They fed me one fuckin’ dog food sandwich a day after they shoved me into a fucking closet naked. They —”

You reached over and put your hand on Daryl’s arm before he got further charged up. He stopped abruptly and drew in a long breath.

“I know. I know what he did, but no,” Michonne said. “The point isn’t for him to just suffer. If we do that, we become no better than him.”

Daryl glanced at you and let out an exasperated exhale. “Hell, ya already know what I think about it,” Daryl said firmly. “He shouldn’t even be breathin’ still. ‘M the wrong damn person to ask ‘bout this.”

Michonne sighed and leaned forward on her hands. “I’m just trying to honor Carl and—”

“We know,” you interrupted her quickly. You paused thoughtfully. “I—I can take this on. I’ve dealt with him the least so far out of the three of us. Probably makes it my turn.”

Daryl’s brow furrowed. “What’re ya gonna do? Rub his back while he cries? Hold his fuckin’ hand? I mean, how do we help somebody like him.”

Michonne shrugged. “A little more conversation to start, I think. He said being alone and the boredom is eating him alive. Maybe we come up with some more things for him to do outside the cell.”

You nodded. “I’ll brainstorm,” you said.

Daryl looked concerned, his eyes flickering over you. “Yer gonna have to be careful. He’s a manipulative asshole. And I dun trust a damn thing ‘bout him. If he can get out, he will. Don’t matter what he’d have to do.”

“I’ll be careful. I’m not an amateur, Daryl,” you said, shooting him a smile.

He nodded, ducking his head. “I know. I just gotta say it.”

“Are you sure?” Michonne asked. “It doesn’t have to be one of us. I can talk to some other people.”

“I’ve got it. I’ll start today. I’ll take him his meals and check on him, make sure he gets some time outside the cell. I’ll take care of it.”

_ _ _ _ _ _

Flat on his back, Negan heard the door open and shut but he barely moved. His eyes stayed closed and he heaved a heavy sigh, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose in some anticipation of annoyance. “Gabey-baby, I am not in the fucking mood for your guidance counselor horseshit today, so why don’t you just turn that tight little toosh around, waltz back out, and leave me the fuck alone…” he said.

“Wow. That was—gross…” you said.

Now, his eyes opened. This was something different. You were different. He swung his legs down and sat on the edge of his cot, his hazel eyes finding you and looking you over. “God Bless America, a change in the fucking monotony,” he said. “Is Gabe still mad at me?”

You approached his cell, tray in hand and nodded. “Yep. In fact, so pissed that he’s officially on vacation from you.”

“Gotta envy that,” Negan quipped. “How do I sign up for one of those?”

“A vacation from yourself?” you asked, cocking an eyebrow at him. “I don’t think that’s in the cards.”

“Damn. It was worth asking.” He seemed to be looking you over again and you rolled your eyes.

“My eyes are up here, Negan,” you joked.

His lips curled into a half-smile. “Sorry. But Gabe isn’t exactly my type and I don’t get much chance to look at anything so—”

“Just stop right there, okay?” you interrupted him. You slid his tray through the slot at the bottom of the door and straightened back up.

But Negan wasn’t interested in his breakfast. “It’s Y/N, isn’t it?” he asked.

“You know perfectly well what my name is, Negan,” you countered.

He cocked his head slightly. “You’re right about that,” he admitted. “So, what’s on the agenda?” he asked, finally moving to grab his tray. He returned to his cot and set it on the small side table.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Gabe was always counseling me. Trying to rehabilitate me. Were you a therapist or something in the old world?” He grabbed the small apple and shined it on his shirt before taking a bite.

“No. But we’re perfectly aware that your mental health has taken a nosedive recently,” you said.

Negan let out a low laugh. “And you give a shit?” he asked skeptically. “I nearly fucking destroyed all of you and you’re worried about my mental health?”

You sighed and nodded once, stiffly. “We’re not the same as you, Negan. We’re trying to do better. And Michonne wants to honor Carl’s vision.” You watched as Negan’s face fell. The look in his eyes grew distant and his shoulders slumped slightly.

“Yeah… He was a helluva kid,” Negan said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” you replied, taking a seat in the stiff wooden chair set outside his cell. “I watched him grow up from a scared little kid and survive everything this world threw his way. You have no idea what kind of loss that was.”

Negan was looking at you thoughtfully and you were surprised when he didn’t reply, only nodded, and then returned to his apple.

“The agenda is for me to—” you hesitated for a moment. What the hell was the agenda? “For me to help you how I can. I know you’re alone a lot and you probably need some company, a change of scenery every now and then, mental stimulation…”

Negan laughed and smirked. “That’s not the only kind of stimulation I need,” he said.

You glared at him. “Jesus, Negan…” you murmured, rolling your eyes.

“It’s the truth,” he laughed.

“Yeah, well, I’m not helping you with that. I guess you’ll just have to try your hardest to think back to one of your past six wives,” you sassed.

The grin stayed on his face. “Five,” he corrected you. Then, the smile faded. “But, uh, only the first really counted.” Negan’s head dropped and you watched him curiously.

He was struggling. You’d never sensed so much truth or vulnerability in a single thing that had left his lips.

“I see,” you said.

For some reason, this made him laugh again. “You know, Gabe used to say that all the time. It’s some of that non-value, non-judgement counselor language.”

You stood up suddenly and sighed. “Finish your breakfast. I’m gonna go do a few things and then I’ll be back. We’re gonna get you out of that cell for a while today.” You fixed a stern and perceptive look on him. “If you think you can behave.”

Negan looked curious. “For you? I might.”

You cocked your head at him and looked unamused. “You will, or I’ll fucking kill you.”

Negan laughed again and turned back to his food. “Got it.”

_ _ _ _ _ _

“Why don’t I come with ya?” Daryl asked, watching as you slipped the pistol into your holster.

You looked up at him with a furrowed brow. “You think I can’t handle this?” you asked.

“Not that ya can’t handle it. It’s just—it’s Negan. We all know what he’s fuckin’ capable of,” Daryl said, walking behind you out the front door and across the steps.

“You’re conflating past Negan with Negan now. I just talked to him, and I’m telling you—it’s like he’s been robbed of all his menace and power. He’s been sitting in that cell a long time, Daryl. I don’t think he’s the same and I don’t think he’s going to—to suddenly hit me over the head with a rock or something,” you said.

“But outside the walls? Already? Why dun ya just—just start with somethin’ in here first and see how it goes? That way there are other people around and I can stop by when I can and check in.”

You read the intense concern on Daryl’s face and then nodded. “Alright. We’ll stay in the walls today. But I think part of the problem with him is that he hasn’t seen a single different thing outside in too long. He’s going a little stir crazy in there and I can’t entirely blame him.”

“Yeah, well, he fuckin’ deserves it,” Daryl growled.

“He does. But Michonne is right… we should be trying to be better. Otherwise, we should have just killed him.” You paused, trying to come up with something for him to do that would give him a little exercise and change of pace. “I’ll have him help me clear out that area for the new garden plots. There are some plants to harvest over there anyway before we clear it. It’ll teach him something too.`”

Daryl nodded. “ ‘Kay. I’ll stop by and check in,” he drawled. “Just be careful. Dun let yer guard down.”

“You know I never do.” You turned and headed back toward Negan’s cell.

Negan rose from his seat on his cot, the tray from breakfast sitting empty beside him on the small side table. He watched as you withdrew a ring of keys from your back pocket and fiddled with them a moment as you stood in front of the cell door, eyeing the lock. Was this a good idea?

Negan took a few cautious steps toward you, watching your face intensely. “Am I… getting out on good behavior, warden?” he quipped, flashing you a half-smile. It seemed to draw you back out from your reverie.

“Temporarily,” you replied, finally fitting the key into the lock and turning it. The metallic clunk was striking. “If you can handle it…” you added.

The pistol on your hip wasn’t lost on Negan. He nodded. “I think so,” he said. “What’re we doing? Hard labor?”

“Not so hard,” you said. “But I would appreciate your help with something.”

Negan froze just after stepping out of the cell and fixed a queer look on you. “Appreciate?” he repeated.

You nodded. “Mhm…”

His eyebrows lifted. “You better be careful with the way you’re talkin’ to me, Y/N. I might just fall in love with you,” he chuckled. “I haven’t felt appreciated in… oh, I don’t know—how long have I been in here?” he asked, brushing a hand back through his hair.

“Didn’t Gabriel speak nicely to you?” you asked, shutting the cell door behind him, giving him a questioning glance.

“Well, sure. Or maybe not nicely. He was at least neutral,” Negan said, slipping his hands into his pockets. “I think I ruined that though.”

You shook your head and sighed. “Yeah, he’s not pleased with you, Negan,” you agreed. “Look, this is just a test run. We’re staying in Alexandria today, but eventually… I’d like to get you outside of the walls on occasion.” Negan looked shocked. “Obviously, that’s going to take trust,” you emphasized. “But I think it would do you good.” You hesitated, wondering if you should admit this to him, but you decided it would be good for him to hear it. “You’re not the same as you were when you were locked in here. And—I intend on finding out if you can really be rehabilitated. Not that I’m ever going to forget what you’ve done… but there’s got to be more than this,” you said, gesturing to the cell behind him, “in your future. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

“You’ve just explained exactly what has me so depressed,” Negan admitted. “I’ve spent most of the last however many fucking years wishing Rick had just killed me.”

Those words hung in the air like a toxic cloud. You gulped and couldn’t help feeling an ache of compassion at his words. Compassion for Negan. What a peculiar thought… You tilted your head toward the door. “Come on. Follow me and stay close. And let me be perfectly clear; I will shoot you if you try to pull any bullshit,” you emphasized.

He nodded, his expression surprisingly serious. “Got it.”

You led him out into the summer sunshine and walked through Alexandria until you reached the overgrown section near the wall that you planned to tackle for the day. The two of you had gotten plenty of stares as you moved down the street, but you noticed that Negan had mostly kept his head down. His shoulders were somewhat slumped and he made no witty comments on the walk, though you caught him closing his eyes to enjoy the breeze or staring up at the blue expanse of sky overhead multiple times.

He stopped beside you, his hands in his pockets, as you stared at the tall grass and brambles ahead and sighed.

“What’re we doin’, boss?” he asked.

“We’re going to start clearing this area out so eventually we can put in some new garden plots. But there’s a little more to it. We used to have some medicinal plants in here before it got overgrown. I’m hoping to find them and save them for transplanting, so we can’t just start ripping everything out.”

“How the hell am I supposed to know what’s medicinal and what’s not?” he asked.

“I’m gonna teach you,” you said confidently.

Negan laughed a little at the assertion. “Look, doll… I was a gym teacher in the old world. ‘Not Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,’” he said.

Your eyebrows lifted. “Wow. That was a deep bench reference,” you said.

He smirked at you. “I was pretty proud of it myself,” he said.

You couldn’t help a dry laugh and small shake of your head. “It’s not that hard. We’ll work together to start and I’ll show you how to identify them. The grasses can all be pulled, but we’ll identify the broadleaf plants and get them ready for transplanting if they’re something we can use.”

Negan looked skeptical but shrugged. “Well, you’re the boss. Not like I’ve got a full schedule,” he said.

“Exactly,” you agreed. There was a reason you weren’t just having him pull all the grass and doing the rest yourself. Negan was smart and not having any mental stimulation was probably contributing a lot to his mental health issues. If you gave him a task that was a little physical and a little mental, you were hoping it’d give him a sense of purpose and productivity.

You got started right away, mainly just pulling the grasses and clearing a large area that remained dotted with forbs. It was summer and the respiration of the plants you were sitting in made the air humid. It wasn’t long before you were wiping at sweat along your hairline and stopping to push wet strands back out of your face. For a while, you worked in silence beside Negan, only speaking to instruct him, but he finally tried to start some conversation on his own.

“So, what the hell did you do in the old world anyway? Were you some kind of plant guru?” he asked, pausing to pull off his gloves for a moment and get a drink from the canteen you’d provided for him.

You paused, standing up to look down at him where he knelt in the grass. He was sweaty too, like you were, and his dark blue shirt was clinging to his back in the heat. “I don’t think I owe you my backstory, Negan,” you said. Your tone wasn’t unkind, but it was a little stern.

“Aw, come on. This is part of that trust-building thing you mentioned earlier,” he said, taking another drink. “I’m just trying to figure you out a little bit,” he said.

You crossed your arms and surveyed him. “So, you can better manipulate me when it’s beneficial to you?” you asked.

“What? No,” he said with surprise, and you almost believed him. “I mean—I currently have no concrete plans to manipulate you…” he admitted, a small bit of jest in his voice. “I’m bored all the time in that fuckin’ cell. I could sure use the conversation. Isn’t that what this is about? My ‘mental health’,” he quoted, shooting an expectant look at you.

You sighed. “What do you wanna know?”

Negan licked his lips and then smiled, thinking about what he wanted to ask, but before he could say a word, bootsteps behind the two of you caused you both to look over to see Daryl standing there.

You went to greet him, pulling off your gloves.

“How’s it goin’?” he asked in an undertone, glancing past you to shoot a glare at Negan.

You shrugged. “Fine. It’s been completely fine so far.”

Daryl nodded, but still looked suspicious. “He ain’t tried anythin’?”

You shook your head, dusting the soil from your gloves. “Nope. We’re just working.”

Daryl nodded, still clearly apprehensive. “Well, s’almost noon. Get him back to his cell by 1 and I’ll bring his meal down,” he drawled.

“I can take care of that,” you offered.

“S’fine. I wanna have a word with him anyway.” He put his hand on your shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze, giving you a small smile. “Yer doin’ enough for him. Be careful.”

“Okay,” you agreed, nodding. “See you later.”

When you turned around, you noticed Negan had been watching the interaction carefully. There was a thoughtful look on his face, but when you simply returned and got back to work, he joined you again in silence. You continued on for another hour or so, managing to clear quite a wide area by the time you needed to get Negan back to his cell for a late lunch. You walked beside him, both of you now dirty and plenty sweaty, and your hand strayed to the handle of your pistol again absently.

Negan noticed and broke the silence that had stretched for what felt like a long time. “You’re a fuckin’ great shot with that thing,” he said, nodding toward the gun.

“What?” you asked, turning to look at him, puzzled.

“I said, ‘you’re a great shot’,” he repeated. You still looked confused. “I noticed… during the war,” he said. “I mean—I noticed you but also your aim.” You stared at him, your brow furrowed. “You almost blew Simon’s fuckin’ head off,” he said with a laugh. “If he hadn’t flinched at the last second…” Negan let out a low whistle.

“How’d you know that was me?” you asked.

He shrugged. “Like I said, I noticed you.”

You looked… unsettled? Uneasy? Negan couldn’t quite define it, but there was some sort of tension in the air as you walked him back the rest of the way and finally locked him inside his cell again.

He gripped onto the bars and watched you turn away before he managed to get your name out. You turned toward him again, the high arch of your brow inquiring. “Thanks,” he said. “For today. It was the best fuckin’ day I’ve had in a while,” he admitted.

You gave him a baffled look. “I made you work outside in the sun all morning,” you laughed.

“Yeah… but I wasn’t alone. And I’ve had waaaaay worse company. Just—even if you decide you can’t do more than today, I want you to know that it mattered to me. Thanks.”

That look was on your face again, some mix of surprise and bewilderment. Finally, you sighed. “Daryl’s gonna bring you lunch. I’ll see you later, okay, Negan?”

He nodded, still gripping onto the cold, iron bars of his cell, and watched you walk out.

A short time later, Negan had washed his hands and splashed cool water from his basin over his face, dabbing at it with his small scratchy towel, when he heard the door open again. He looked up to see Daryl coming in with a tray of food and a scowl. He set it down by the slot at the bottom of the cell door and pushed it roughly through with the toe of his boot, almost spilling the water cup. Daryl’s expression didn’t change. It was stony and guarded.

Negan eyed him and then wandered over to grab the tray. He did feel hungry for once, something that had been rare for quite some time. When he straightened up, Daryl’s blue eyes were narrow and stinging.

Negan grabbed the apple off his tray and took a big bite. It was sweet and crunchy, satisfying and refreshing after being in the sun all morning. “Something on your mind, Daryl?” Negan asked, a faint smile on his lips.

Daryl stepped closer, right up to the bars. “Yeah. One thing. If ya fuck up, if ya try to hurt Y/N, if ya pull anythin’ I dun like, I don’t give a shit what Michonne or anybody else is tryin’ to do—I don’t give a shit about your rehab, I’ll put ya in the fuckin’ ground. Got it?”

That smile was still on Negan’s face, annoying the shit out of Daryl.

“I mean it, Negan. Ya hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” he said, taking another bite.

“Good,” he growled, and the archer left.

#negan smith x reader #negan fanfiction #negan series #negan smith #negan imagines #negan drabbles #wicked wednesday #negan smith x you #negan x y/n #negan fics #the walking dead #negan twd

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kelin-is-writing · 11 months ago

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Chapter 341 - The Story of How We All Became Heroes, Part -1

#bnha #mha #dabi #touya todoroki #manga panel #NAAAAAAAH GUYS I CAN'T DO THIS I'M ABOUT TO BRAINSTORM FROM HOW FUCKING FINE THIS MAN IS JESUS ON CHRIST #look... LOOK. if he ever looked at me like that i would fucking FOLD???????#PLEEEEEEASE I CAN'T I'M SMILING SO BIG AT THIS PIC WHILE KICKING MY FEETS SOMEBODY SEND HELP

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oobbbear · 5 months ago

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Since there's one person who keeps being a jerk to you the positivity fairy has come to say that she really enjoys your Pirate Deadendia AU and to give you an open invitation to share anything from it that you've been hoping somebody would ask or you really want to share but haven't had the chance

If there's any question you've been hoping for, imagine it's here, and if not, then have a great day regardless and I'm glad you got your luggage sorted out (^.^)

Ohoh okay here’s som random facts and doodles

This is Pael’s design, he’s a white peacock

These two doodles mirror each other, the second one is Cour first time meeting Dan, it’s a fight between some angels and Cour’s boat. Dan’s on angel’s side, he’s not a fighter but he got caught in the fire and left behind by the angels on the boat

Basically, Courtney: “Oh this one looks like me, can we keep it” The others: “ Um yeah sure” ✨Danny has joined the party✨*insert rpg game sound effect*

I find this story kinda silly and don’t make much sense so I stopped working on it

I dont have the designs yet but Barney and Log are shark mers. Barney is great white and Log is nurse shark

Some birb Cahdan because ye

I probably mentioned it before but here it goes again Cah has bigger chest fluff cause I said so

theres some keychains I want to make

I think that’s all for now! Feel free send me asks about this au, brainstorming is fun

#ask #my art #pirate au #dead end #deadendia #deadendia au #dead end courtney #deadendia courtney #deadendia cahatel #deadendia danny

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rrxnjun · 1 year ago

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i felt younger when we met | n. yuta

nakamoto yuta was your hero. as the lead singer of the rising punk band takes you along with him on his journey to stardom, you realize that you never knew heartbreak could taste so sweet.

PAIRING: nakamoto yuta x fem! reader STARRING: lead singer! yuta, guitarist! doyoung, bassist! johnny, drummer! mark GENRE: rockstar au, band au. angst, suggestive. WC: 17k (17.630) WARNINGS: age gap, mentions of alcohol, weed and hard drugs, yuta and his band actually played the warped tour (canon!) pls somebody tell me yall get the reference, cheating and breaking up

PLAYLIST: honey - l'arc en ciel ; i felt younger when we met - waterparks ; your power - billie eilish ; motion sickness - phoebe bridgers ; guys my age - hey violet ; praha/vídeň - calin ; drugs - cheridomingo

A/N: oh yall are gonna HAATE this one. thank you arden @zhongriot for brainstorming with me about this it was greatly appreciated <3 growing up is realizing doyoung was actually the only decent one and that jaechan was right. also the original title of this wip was honey so sweet bc of the honey cover just so yall know lol

I. honey, so sweet

The last few tones of a G chord resonate through the garage, the platinum blond’s raspy voice fading out into silence as you watch the band in front of you with stars in your eyes, breathless and with your ears ringing only slightly due to the noise that’s been happening for quite some time now. Feeling yourself clap and squeal at the little show you just finished watching, you’re brought up to your feet as you jump around enthusiastically, the sound of the thick sole of your boot against the ground waking you up only slightly from the weird state of euphoria you’ve been in until now.

You’ve known Yuta for quite some time now, but this was the first time he let you watch his band practice. Everything you’ve known about the music he plays was through the headphones sneakily passed to you when you had a night shift at the diner, or from the voice memos he’d send you very early on in the morning when you were supposed to be asleep, and everything you’ve known about his band members was through his words shared in the comfort of his car seats or the benches in the park. You’ve seen Mark once before, when he had late dinner with Yuta while you were working at the diner downtown, but your interaction didn’t go further than a polite greeting and a boyish grin sent your way from the charming drummer.

It’s only natural that everything about the late night feels ecstatic to you now. The tones of electric guitars and the rhythm of the drums making your heart beat faster than before, Yuta’s sharp, yet hearty vocals calling to you like sirens in the middle of the ocean. Tonight’s one of the few nights you don’t have night shift at the diner– since you usually take all Friday night ones; you get paid more for them and with your schedule at school, you can’t afford to work more night shifts throughout the week– and Yuta took that as an opportunity to invite you over to his garage to listen to his band play. The lead singer made eye contact with you throughout each song, and you felt yourself flush at the thought that the words coming out of his mouth might have been addressed to you, written about you, adrenaline soaring freely through your veins.

“That was amazing! Wow, like,” you throw your hands up, at a loss for words, “I literally couldn’t believe my ears.”

“You expected less of me, babe?” Yuta grins at you from his place at the microphone stand, taking a step back from the device to put away the guitar hanging around his neck. You watch his movements intensively, eyes scanning the outline of his biceps and the loose hems of his jet black shirt, the platinum white hair falling into his eyes. “I thought you already knew what we were made of when I let you listen to our songs back then.”

“Well,” you sheepishly hum, “it’s different to hear it live.”

The singer snickers, shrugging to himself. “Told you to prepare yourself.”

“I don’t think I could even if I tried,” you compliment the man, eyes watching the rest of the band as they put their respective instruments away. And again, you don’t know these men that well– you’re not as familiar with them as you are with their frontman, since you haven’t spent much time around them just yet– but there’s something joyful in the bassist, Johnny’s smile when he meets your eye before he puts away his guitar into its dark blue case.

Their band– Neo zone– consists of four members. Yuta, your friend, plays the guitar and sings. He’s the frontman of the group and also the person that founded the band; at least that’s what he told you. He met Johnny at college– both of them majoring in Finance before they decided to drop out in their sophomore year– and soon after, he recruited his friend to be the bassist for his band. The two of them met Doyoung, their lead guitarist, at a concert of an underground band some years ago through a mutual friend Taeyong, and they all hit it off so well that when the thought of a band first came to light, Yuta wasted no time in chatting up the charming male for the position. And lastly, their drummer Mark– he was the youngest of them all, the most quiet one, and from what Yuta told you, he met the man through his younger brother. The two of them were friends at college, so Mark spent a lot of time over at Yuta’s house, and he knew that the male could play the drums– so after a casual conversation over a beer one evening, here they were.

“I’m heading home,” says the drummer, waving at the rest of the group, “I have a thing I’m supposed to attend with Jaehyun today.”

“Aight,” Yuta hums, nodding, “good job today, Markie. See you next week!”

The male disappears out of the rusty garage in no time, and with him follows the tall one– Johnny– saying he has a morning shift at the store he works at tomorrow, excusing himself out of the after-practice hangout. That leaves only you, Yuta and Doyoung in the room, and while you’d like to get to know his friends and bandmates better, you’d be more satisfied if either all of them stayed behind, or if the only one who stayed was anyone but the lead guitarist.

See, you don’t know Kim Doyoung that well. All you know about him is that he’s a year younger than Yuta and that he’s painfully good at what he does. You also know that he has a sharp jawline and even sharper eyes, which he gladly lands on you whenever he hears you talk, and that motion makes you self-conscious and insecure on most instances. He also has a sharp tongue, which you learned not that long after being first introduced to him this afternoon, and while you don’t know what you did to get on the man’s nerves so much, you figured it’s for the best to interact with him as least as humanly possible if you wanted to spare your feelings and not get yourself hurt.

“Today was good, but try getting over the last song on your own again,” Doyoung offers to his friend, watching him with cold eyes. Yuta makes his way around the room and takes a seat next to you on the dusty, maroon sofa, his legs spreading wide making your eyes drift towards his lean figure. You watch the exchange silently, picking at the skin of your cuticles anxiously, hoping for it to be over quickly.

“The Departure?” Yuta assures himself.

Doyoung nods as he hides his guitar into his case as well, handling the instrument with utmost care. “You went a little off-beat in the last part.”

“Got it, chief,” Yuta jokes, saluting the man, a lazy grin overtaking his features. “Wanna grab a beer and stay over for a bit?” he asks, the question making your insides heaten up with anticipation, stinging a bit of an anxious fear.

It’s almost as if the guitarist feels that you’re afraid of his presence– it’s not like he scares you, to be exact, you’re just slightly intimidated by the serpent-like male– as he meets your eye before he turns towards the frontman. “Nah,” he shrugs, “I’m good. Maybe next time,” he adds, taking the guitar case off the ground and heading towards the door.

“Whatever floats your boat.”

“Try not to fuck the kid on the couch, right? We sit there sometimes,” Doyoung snickers before he’s off, his raven bangs bouncing up and down when he skips out of the old-smelling garage. The remark stings you a bit, the harsh words, although you hate to admit it, feel like salt thrown into a fresh wound, having you chew on the inside of your cheek as you listen to the door close behind the male, leaving you alone with Yuta.

The male next to you clears his throat, easing the tension in your muscles when you look up at him and see him smiling softly at you, a twinkle in his eye. “What?” he asks you, sensing that you’re feeling a little down.

“It’s- it’s nothing,” you nod to yourself, not really wanting to be as vulnerable in front of your friend. You treasure Yuta more than anyone else, since you always somehow feel like your souls are connected on a level you haven’t felt with no one your whole life, but sometimes, you feel a bit shameful to admit to your worries in front of him. To the male, the world is his sea, his place that he swims through with passion and enthusiasm. He doesn’t seem like the type of person to worry about what your friends would think of him, no matter how bad it could be. He doesn’t seem like the type of person that would understand you if you worded your anxious feelings out loud, the type of person who’d reassure you without making you feel foolish.

Still, somehow, he sees right through you. “Don’t worry about Doyoung. He’s got a stick up his butt on most days, it’s nothing to have with you,” he says, offering you the gentlest of smiles, poking your cheek a little when he sees you pout.

You heave out a sigh, but offer the man a loop-sided smile– the kind you fake, but hope the receiving side is satisfied– watching him as he scoots closer to you and puts an arm around your shoulder. The scent of his cologne hits your nose and you feel yourself easing into him, the gesture somehow protective and affectionate in your eyes, but the proximity still makes your heart thump fast against your ribcage. Taking a shaky breath through your nose, you find yourself staring intensely at his face.

“So you’re saying you enjoyed hearing us play?” he asks you, tone of voice kitten-like, yearning for praise. He sounds coy, confident, but still searches for hearing you say it out loud. Sometimes you think he enjoys listening to you talk about him. It makes him feel good when you flutter your eyelashes at the male in the middle of the diner and tell him you love the way he sings, it makes his ego grow when you gasp at all the right parts and compliment the lyrics in the chorus. And you don’t think it’s a bad thing– you think you’d do the same if you were in his shoes.

Hushed voice, you nod eagerly, grinning. “Yeah,” you agree. “I also enjoyed seeing you play,” you muse, watching as the satisfied look on Yuta’s face grows and his excited eyes gleam with more intensity.

“Did you?” he teases, head ducking closer to you, the proximity making your breathing catch in your throat. You bet he knows about the effect he has on you by now– you bet he realizes that each time he talks to you with that tone, the flirty hint of it in his voice, you feel weak in your knees, ready to fold for him. You bet he is aware of the fact that you watch him all the time, eyes glued to his confident figure, amazed at the way he moves around the garage with his guitar, tinted with a hint of jealousy when the girls that go eat at the diner at the same time he visits you on your night shifts ogle him and he sends some a shameless wink. You’re almost sure he knows about the dreams you have of him at night, about the fact that you fantasize about him writing songs for you and singing them on stage, letting the world know that your feelings might be reciprocated.

The idea makes you cave in on yourself. “Yeah,” you breathe out, feeling heat rising to the tips of your ears.

“That’s good,” he hums, “wanna hear a little secret?” he asks, eyeing you with a glimmer in his eye. You hum in response, eager to be let in on the confidential information. “I wrote the last song about you,” he whispers. “Maybe I’ll release it one day.”

The sentence startles you, the comment makes all sorts of warm gold sprawl around your stomach, the tips of your ears burning and the nerve endings on your fingers tingling from excitement. “Really?” you gasp. You never imagined having a song written about you. You never imagined someone caring enough– never imagined having someone sing to you, about you. Sure, you fantasized about it happening, almost a little foolishly and childishly, but you never once dared to think of the fantasy as true.

Yuta laughs at your composure. You bet you look small in his eyes. “What? Are you shy about it, pretty girl?”

“No,” you peep, averting your gaze from him and aimlessly searching through your surroundings, watching the unmoving garage. Your eyes glue to the white wall in front of you, ignoring the fact that Yuta’s face is only an inch away from yours, your hands now clammy as you rest them in your lap.

“It seems that you are,” he grins, “you don’t have to be, though,” he notes, a finger hooking around the bottom of your chin, a gentle hold making you turn your face towards him, eyes locking in a dangerous blink.

Gaping, not breaking eye contact– too afraid to break the spark– you wait for what’s about to come, welcoming it with open arms. The air around you gets thicker and the silence becomes overbearing, you find yourself counting each white strand that falls into his eyes, when the male leans in to you, the sudden shift making your eyes flutter close on themselves.

It happens, the moment you’ve been dreaming about; the moment you’ve wanted to experience ever since you first met the male, all real and only yours to live over and over in your memories– Yuta kisses you, gently at first, lips playing with yours in a way that makes the soft sense of nervousness flutter like butterfly wings in your stomach. Your shy hands grip the front of his shirt when he deepens the kiss, makes it more firm and urgent, teeth clashing against each other in the messy cacophony of your souls, a sound of a heavy breath flying into your ear as the male grips your jaw and angles your face the way he wants it to, testing the waters with a bit of tongue.

You invite him in, parting your lips and letting him explore, letting him win the battle for dominance– not that you even wanted to be the one in charge in the first place– and although you feel a little overwhelmed, a bit too lost in the moment, you find yourself moving from your place and straddling his lap, the hands that were once cradling your face falling off and gripping your hips, keeping you right where you are.

When you feel your lungs being knocked out of all oxygen, you pull away from the male, eyes locking with his swollen lips, and you feel a bit satisfied with yourself– having him like this, eyes blown-out and staring at you like you were the only thing in the whole entire universe that mattered right in this moment. There’s something about the wrinkles on his shirt from how you’ve been gripping on it, about his flushed cheeks, that makes you feel proud of yourself. You did this to him, you smile, you are the reason why he looks like this.

Pressing your forehead against his, eyes still staring into his deep, dark orbs, the singer breaks out into a boyish grin, shaking his head in disbelief, wanting to bring himself back to the present moment. “So I’ll take it as my pretty girl will come watch me play more often, right?” he hums.

A fluttery feeling erupts in your chest, warmth spreading all the way to the tips of your fingertips. “Your pretty girl?” you ask.

Yuta nods, snickering to himself. “My pretty girl,” he mumbles, and before you get a chance for a rebuttal, he pulls away an inch, cradling his neck up to press a peck to the middle of your forehead.

The adrenaline, the smell of his cologne, the excitement seeping right through you and to the space all around– you never knew Yuta would taste this good. You never knew he could taste this sweet.

II. the rush of adrenaline, I'm not scared to jump in

The smell of burned oil and grease fills your nose as you make your way through the kitchen, figure skipping through the whole diner in irregular intervals during yet another one of your Friday night shifts. Taking the plate filled with chicken nuggets, potatoes and ranch dressing, you offer a quick smile to your coworker Jaechan as you walk out of the back, ready to serve the food to one of your regulars.

As you finally get out of the heated and humid place, back to the main dining area that has air conditioning on, your eyes catch with a certain someone waiting for you at the pult, a grin settling onto his features when you light up at noticing his presence.

“I’ll be right with you,” you say to him as you pass his body and walk over to one of the tables in the corner of the room, smiling at your customer when you give him the plate. Your steps are lighter and more enthusiastic when you get back to Yuta sitting at one of the tall stools, his face still adorned with a soft smile. The male watches you as you work, and you feel warmth envelope your insides.

“Weren’t you supposed to have practice tonight?” you ask him, settling behind the pult. There aren’t many people in the diner right now, and the work during the night is slow– you kind of despise the fact that you’re open 24/7, but that’s what you get for working at a diner– so there’s no issue in you chatting away with your friends that come visit when you have the time. You always make sure to do your job well and put the customers first, so your boss never really complained.

“It’s over already,” he says, “we got over the songs quite quickly,” he notes, seeing you nod and smile at his response.

“That’s good,” you say, “I’m glad. Do you want something? Fries? Coke? On the house, obviously,” you grin, making the man eagerly nod to your question, eyes lit up in joy.

“Just a glass of coke is fine,” he says.

You turn away from him for a mere second, taking one of the clean glasses to your hand and then walking a few steps to the right where the coolers are, taking out a glass bottle of Coca-Cola. Offering the drink back to your boyfriend, you watch him as he pours the black liquid into the tall glass, the two of you enveloped in a comfortable silence. The diner doesn’t play music after 10 PM, and somehow, you’re glad. It gets kind of annoying to listen to the same few songs on loop the whole night– because the speaker system is old and doesn’t have an AUX input, you have to listen to the same 3 CDs over and over again the whole year– and so whenever Yuta comes to visit you during your night shifts, the silence only adds to your sense of intimacy and comfort with the man.

“Was Doyoung less snappy today?” you ask, watching the male grin and shake his head at your question.

“A bit,” he admits, “not too much, though. Don’t know what’s gotten into him lately, but he’s been a real bitch.”

You hum at his response, eyes tracing his features. “Maybe he’s stressed about something,” you propose, and you don’t really put much meaning into your own words– you don’t know the man enough to know how he reacts under pressure, nor do you really care– but the man in front of you only squints his eyes in thought, shrugging.

“Could be it,” he agrees, “I mean, there’s a lot happening with the band right now, so it would be only natural,” he says, making you furrow your brows at him in question. You weren’t aware of anything big happening– maybe the news were recent, you didn’t know, but judging by the fact that you’re pretty updated on things concerning the band, you wouldn’t be surprised if they were.

“What do you mean?” you ask, folding your hands at your chest and leaning on the counter, your face now closer to Yuta’s– god, you’ll never get used to just how beautiful this man is in your poor eyes.

The singer grins to himself, acting innocent. “Just… some stuff,” he says.

“What is it?” you ask again, this time with a coat of persistence in your voice. You don’t want to say it out loud, but you’re getting kind of worried– Yuta doesn’t usually hide things from you. Hell, you’d even go as far as saying that you are the first person he comes to when something happens, no matter if it’s good or bad, and with the suspicious way he’s acting right now, your mind can’t help but wander.

“Nothing,” he peeps, taking a sip out of his glass, making you sigh and roll your eyes at the male. You point your finger to the middle of his forehead, poking him– his head lulls backwards a little, making you heave out a soft giggle– before you squint at him in annoyance.

“Come on,” you huff, “you’re not gonna tell me?” you pout, mastering your best attempt at puppy eyes– something inside of you tells you that no matter how stubborn Yuta is, he’s kind of weak for you when you look at him like that– and the man only snickers at you as he shakes his head in disbelief.

“I will,” he admits, smiling at you. The gesture has you soften a bit, your muscles losing their previous tension, because come on– if he’s smiling at you like that, there’s no way the news could be bad– but before you get a chance to pry him about it, the ring above the door makes a sound and your eyes trace the figures of two girls, both a bit older than you, smiling at someone in particular.

And that someone isn’t you– of course, why would anyone smile at their server, am I right? – that someone is Nakamoto Yuta, the man sitting in front of you, and you’re already familiar enough with the two girls to know what’s about to happen next.

See, you are aware that Yuta is attractive. Hell, you blushed under his gaze when you met him in this diner for the very first time, his hair back then raven black, falling into his eyes. You’re painfully aware of the fact that you’re not the only one who finds him beautiful, but there’s something about the very obvious gazes and giggles the girls who frequent the diner send to him that has your stomach turn, making you see red and feel very obvious green, and no matter what you do or try to tell to yourself, you can’t battle the feeling out of your veins.

The scenario is one you’ve seen before– the girls giggle out as they arrive, sharing a knowing look, before they pass the pult you two are standing behind, sending very obvious looks to Yuta as they reach for the table in the corner. They greet him with their soft, honey voices, they say “Hi Yuta!”, because he’s known around the town– everybody knows the name of the rising band’s lead singer, everybody wants to take a glimpse of him, shoot him a flirtatious smile, because once he makes it big, you can tell yourself you knew him, he knew you, he looked at you and said hi back. Yuta looks at them and grins, sends them a wink, greets them with his raspy voice that says “Hi ladies,”, and it makes your stomach growl, it makes your gaze harden, but most importantly, you feel acid on your tongue when the man in front of you sends them his usual wink.

Clearing your throat as all goes exactly how you remember and expect it to go, you watch as Yuta looks back at you with an innocent smile, not really minding that he told you you were his pretty girl just last week, not really caring that now, his actions have very different consequences. Back when you were uselessly pining over him, you knew your jealousy was foolish– you didn’t really have a reason to feel possessive over the man, because he was very clearly single. Now, things have changed, though, and you kind of expected his behavior to alter around the girls– the girls that are a few years older than you, a few inches taller than you, a bit more mature and a bit more pretty.

“Something’s wrong?” he asks you, face coy and feline-like. You glare at him, knowing he’s aware of what you’re implying, but still, he does nothing to apologize as he only giggles at you and leans in, pecking your lips.

“Everything’s peachy,” you mumble, shaking your head as you take the menus from the counter, ready to serve the customers.

As you’re about to exit the pult and pass your boyfriend, he grabs your wrist and spins you so you face him, making you watch as he downs the last remains of the Coke in his drink, offering you another smile. “I’m gonna get something at the gas station real quick,” he muses, “I’ll wait for you in my car after you get off?”

Sighing, still acting a bit annoyed at his behavior– but knowing, sensing that you already forgave him the moment he spared you a single glance– you nod. The male pulls you closer to him, sending another kiss, this time firmer, to your lips, and if he wasn’t in control of the situation, you know you’d get too lost in the moment, too distracted to do your job– but before you know it, he leans away and stands up from the tall chair, pats your bottom and walks over to the front door.

Watching as he disappears behind the glass, laughing to yourself when he waves at you and blows you a kiss, you shake your head as you walk over to the table with the two girls sitting at it, their mood not as bright as it was before, and with a victorious smirk, you realize, with a hint of joy in your heart, that they’ve been watching the exchange.

The singer waits for you in the parking lot, his figure leaning on the 2007 Volkswagen golf he sometimes drives you home in, and although it’s already 4:45 AM (your shift ends at 4:30, but you have to count up the register and change before you go), you find yourself walking over to him with a pep in your step. The platinum white falls into his eyes as he grins at you, reaching his arms out once you’re close enough, pulling you into a hug.

You and Yuta never really hugged much. You can’t say you dislike the change.

“How was the rest of the shift?” he mumbles into your hair, holding you close to his chest. His arms feel almost possessive, making you feel secure, and something about the whiff you get of his cologne makes your head spin a little when he lets go, watching you as you walk over to the passenger’s side and get into his car.

“It was okay,” you admit, shrugging, “not busy.”

“That’s good to hear,” he nods, getting in as well and fastening his seatbelt, putting the car into reverse and slowly driving out of the parking lot. The radio is turned off at this hour– a thing that rarely happens in Yuta’s car, because he always has to have music playing in the background of his life– and the silence envelopes you in an intimate, comforting atmosphere.

Hence, why you ask the crucial question that’s been bugging you the whole night. “What did you want to talk about earlier?” you mumble, the tone of your voice light and coated with tiredness. You’ve been up the whole day, since you have classes in the mornings, but now that you know there’s something Yuta’s been keeping away from you, you know you wouldn’t be able to fall asleep even if you tried, overthinking making your mind too busy to lull you into the dreamland.

“Are you up for a drive? I’ll tell you and then drop you off at dorms,” he asks, eyes locking with yours for a split second before he focuses back on the road.

Humming, you agree with his idea. You give him some time while he takes the turn that goes out of the city and towards the ring road, tracing his actions with your hazy, half-asleep eyes. The car takes a steady speed, one that’s neither alarming nor too slow, and Yuta’s palm easily takes a hold of your thigh, the steering wheel now being operated with only one of his arms. The affectionate action makes you feel heat in the tips of your ears and on the highest parts of your cheekbones, gaze shifting away from the male next to you towards the empty road. Everything about the things you’ve been dreaming about– the subtle touches, the glances, the pet names– makes you shy away from the man. It’s not that you don’t enjoy it, you would be a liar if you said you didn’t, but still– the novelty of it all still surprises you, keeps you on your feet.

“So,” he starts, clearing his throat a bit before proceeding, “you know how I told you we now practice more often than we used to?” he asks, eyes peering at you with expectation, waiting for you to answer. You offer him a tired hum, too sleepy to really master up anything else, and when it reaches his ears, he takes it as his lead to continue.

“Well, it was for a reason… at our last gig, there were some scouting people, or whatever you call it… and I didn’t tell you before, because it wasn’t certain and I also don’t really know how these things go– y’know, that’s Doyoung’s thing, sorta– and I also didn’t wanna sound silly if things didn’t work out,” he explains, deep voice resonating through the low hum of the engine, keeping you awake, “but things did work out and we got signed to a label.”

Yuta gives you a minute to process the information. He doesn’t say anything for a bit, only waiting for you to reply back to him– to react, in any way, really– and when he doesn’t get any words out of you, he looks at you with a look so fragilely expecting that you almost want to coo at the male and hold him in your arms, tell him you’re just as excited as he is, because it’s the truth, and you are; you just can’t really find the right words to express so right now.

“Wow,” you heave out, half-lidded, something warm and proud bundling up in the depths of your chest, “that’s- that’s awesome,” you mumble, watching as the male next to you visibly relaxes at your response.

“Yeah,” he nods, suddenly more energetic than before, and you chuckle at the realization of just how important your opinion was for him– even though it shouldn’t be, really. It’s always been his dream, and what you think of the matter shouldn’t be any of his concern. “So they heard us play and listened to our songs and stuff, and they said we can record an album somewhere towards the end of the year, but they said we gotta promote ourselves a bit first, so…” he freezes a little, chewing on the bottom of his lip.

Suddenly, he seems nervous again. It’s a strange sight– you don’t often see Nakamoto Yuta so worried about the opinion of other people. You don’t often have the privilege to see the singer so open and so vulnerable, so easy to break. It only happens with stuff important to him, you think– the band is always his priority, and you’re more than happy that he’s finally getting the recognition he deserves and strives for. Hand slowly reaching for the one that’s resting on your thigh, you interlock your fingers with him and squeeze his palm in a reassuring manner, as if to tell him that he doesn’t have to be afraid, that you’re his biggest supporter, that you’re always here for all the news– good or bad.

“So…?” you prob him.

“So,” he clears his throat, smiling at you when he gets reassured, “we’re going to tour this one festival. It’s only for a couple of weeks, and it’s around the country, so we don’t have to fly out and all, but… I’ll be out of the city for a while, is what I’m saying.”

The confession makes your stomach churn in fear. Suddenly, you’re painfully aware of Yuta’s worry about talking to you about the topic. Somehow, you understand him completely. Ever since you met Yuta, you haven’t gone more than three days without seeing each other. You two are like puzzle pieces that fit together perfectly, always searching for the other pair when it’s not in its place by your side. Your relationship is very fresh, very new, and although you know your bond is stronger than the distance, you can’t help but feel a bit of worry in the tips of your fingertips, in the pit of your stomach. And also, there’s this silly feeling– small, but yet so overbearing– that comes with the image of not being close to Yuta for weeks, of not being able to see him every day and find the light in his eyes to get you through the week. There’s this silly feeling of missing him, of yearning for him to be there with you every minute and every second of the day, and hell, sometimes you miss him even when he’s away for a day, and you don’t know what you’ll do if it’s gonna be weeks, a big, nasty thought that’s both unreal and too realistic prickling your brain– how will you even survive when he’s not by your side? Without Yuta, you’re nothing. No one.

Still, you’re not about to ruin this for him. You’re not about to act sad, or act disappointed, because you’re not, at the end of the day. At the end of it all, you’re aware that this has always been his dream. You are happy for him– you’re ecstatic. And that’s exactly how you’re gonna react.

“That’s awesome, Yuta,” you muse, and you’re glad the tone of your voice stays genuine, “that’s big news. I’m so happy for you,” you say, seeing as the male next to you breaks out into a boyish grin, excitement spreading into every inch of his body, fingers tugging at yours to bring your interlocked hands into his lap.

“It’s gonna be over soon and then I’m right back by your side,” he hums, and you shake your head at him.

“I’ll wait however long it takes,” you disagree with his statement, “don’t you worry. I’m gonna cheer for you every night.”

The road in front of you signals a turn back into the city, Yuta’s car naturally and smoothly driving back towards the center of life. You subtly hear your partner talk excitedly about all his dreams and all the visions he has of the festival tour– how he’s going to have the time of his life, how the boys will make it big, how he can’t wait to show everyone what they’re made of– and although you’re happy and content, the buzzing excitement of his voice does nothing to keep you awake in the late hour. You feel a peck pressed to the back of your hand, your sleep-filled eyes meeting with his, when he shakes his head at you in disbelief.

“We’re almost at yours now,” he hums, “I’ll wake you up in front of the building.”

Smiling, you nod. Somehow, you drift off with thoughts of full crowds cheering for Yuta, with thoughts wishing for him to make it just as big as he’s always dreamt of. You battle your own worries away, telling them you’re silly for thinking that things will change between the two of you when he’s away, writing them off to be your own unreasonable anxieties.

Things won’t change, you repeat to yourself, and if so, only for the better.

III. a little bit of California with a little bit of London sky

Life has stilled into a pleasant, comfortable routine for the two of you. You admired just how easily Yuta fit into your daily schedule, just how easily he managed to get used to the cycle of your days, and the knowledge makes you that much sadder to let him go. You go to class from Monday to Friday, snatching mostly the morning ones this semester, which is a thing you’ve grown to be appreciative of, since it means you have time off in the afternoon for your shifts and hanging out with Yuta. On Friday evenings, you take the night shift and have your boyfriend drive you back to dorms when you’re off, and on Sundays, you and Yuta go out to eat in your favorite sushi restaurant downtown as he talks to you about the events of the whole week. He talks your ear off with his excitement, sometimes not even giving you a chance to speak yourself– which he apologizes for on most days, and you’re not mad at him, because truly, you understand– telling you about how practice is going and how their new manager, a thing they haven’t had before, is keeping everything in check for when the festival tour happens.

You went to listen to them practice one more time. You don’t really dare to go close to the garage anymore, since Doyoung has not grown warmer to your presence, but you still enjoyed yourself as you realized that their mutual passion only made them perform better.

And with days going by slowly like this, you almost don’t notice when it’s time for Yuta to leave, and suddenly, you’re standing in the crowd of the first show of their first festival tour– the thing that’s supposedly going to make their career take off– as they play songs you know like the back of your hand by now for thousands of people around you in your hometown. Something about the first stop of the tour being your hometown made you feel a bit unsettled– isn’t it always the other way around? Aren’t you supposed to reunite with your lover while he plays his last show back home? But then you realize that it’s a festival, and not their own tour– they aren’t as big to have one themselves yet– and you’re understanding of the logistics. They can’t all play the last show in their hometown.

You brought your roommate Aeri along with you to the show, both of your outfits matching in shades of black and red as you make your way towards the front row, making sure you have good enough of a view to see your boyfriend on the stage. There’s a nervous pep in your step when you wait for the band to arrive, the knowledge that your roommate has never seen Yuta before; you wonder if this is how he felt when he was introducing you to his bandmates all those weeks before, and if so, why he didn’t tell you about it.

Murmurs of the people in the crowd fill your ears, and you watch them with a horrifying realization that you don’t seem like you belong here– so out of the general aesthetic of the crowd, making you feel not cool enough, not punk enough, not good enough to be by the side of someone like Yuta– but before you get a chance to really vocalize your thoughts, there’s a sound of a drum coming from the front of the stage that makes you turn your head forward, watching as Mark grins at the crowd with something you’d call a nervous, yet excited smile, starting off their gig with an up-beat song.

“They’re kinda good!” you hear Aeri scream into your ear, and something about the compliment makes you relax. This is a good thing, you think– she doesn’t hate it, which means she probably won’t hate the members of the band themselves either.

Once Yuta walks on the stage with his guitar slung over his neck, playing the chords you’d be able to name by memory– having your boyfriend repeat them to himself for a few good minutes once when you came over to his house and he was practicing the song by himself– and even though you wouldn’t be able to play it, you’re sure you’d recognize this song even if you were woken up in the middle of the night, slightly sleepy and still out of it. The crowd cheers, and you find yourself smiling in a sense of euphoria.

Jumping around with the rest of the population, you get lost in the music. Their set plays out for a good hour and a half, combining cover songs and their own originals, the sun setting with the sound of their eclectic guitars. There’s always something about concerts that makes you lost in time, not really register the way it flows by and leaves you unknowing in the spiral. You didn’t even realize it– you don’t think you even fully registered the experience of seeing Yuta play live on a stage for the first time– and it’s over and you’re catching your breath, feeling your ears ring from the noise that’s been there for the last hour or so and now isn’t, everything around you muffled and a little bit hazy.

“Let’s go, we gotta catch them in the back,” you hurriedly mumble into Aeri’s ear, the girl following you with excited steps as you drag her around the crowded space. Yuta told you he is leaving as soon as the festival ends so their van can drive over to the next city as soon as possible, and since they were the second to last to go on, you feel a threatening bubble growing in your chest.

There’s a group of girls waving at the band leaving off stage, and you pray that you can somehow catch Yuta before he has to walk over to their van.

You catch a glimpse of the platinum white bangs when you jump around and try to see them, and as your eyes meet, the singer breaks out into a smile before he turns towards the rest of the band, waving at them and telling them that they can go and that he’ll find his way back in a bit. The gesture warms your heart, a sense of relief settling onto your shoulders.

“You were amazing!” you holler as you get towards the metal gate that keeps the artists away from the crowd, your body getting into contact with the cold material as you throw your hands around your boyfriend’s neck, grasping him harder than ever before. His arms reach around your waist, squeezing out all of the air in your lungs, as a laugh bubbles out of his chest and makes you feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside.

“I was singing the songs for you, babygirl,” he hums into your ear, heat rising to your cheeks at the sentiment. When you pull away visibly flustered, Yuta laughs at your face, making you swat his arm in an act of playfulness. “You must be Aeri!” the man notices your roommate tagging along, smiling at her with his welcoming, warm smile.

The girl nods at him, greeting him almost a little too politely. “Yeah! I heard a lot about you, so I’m glad Y/N wasn’t lying, y’know,” she giggles, and you roll your eyes.

“See, I would never lie to you,” you snicker, and as you put your arm on the metal gate to steady yourself, you feel warmth cover it as Yuta’s own palm envelopes it in a sweet gesture that still surprises you whenever it so effortlessly happens, but also puts you at ease all in one minute.

“I liked the drummer,” Aeri muses, making Yuta laugh at her.

“I’ll let him know,” he salutes, and with that, he turns back to you with wide eyes, a thousand glimmering stars behind them making you admire just how beautiful and full of life the man in front of you suddenly looks. It tugs at your heartstrings– it’s only the first show and it’s already gone so well, he was born for this, you think, and even though it’s difficult, you suddenly feel like letting him go will be so much easier after the sight, because you’ll be doing it with the knowledge that it’s the best possible thing for him, something you would never be able to give to him if he was stuck with you back home.

“It went exactly how we wanted it to go, it was- it was so great,” he sighs, the crowd behind you suddenly disappearing and grouping around the front of the stage again, signaling that the next band is about to play and finish off tonight’s stop, “thank you for coming.”

“I wouldn’t miss it, you know,” you shrug, gazing into his eyes. There’s a lot of noise around you– the sound of the people talking and cheering behind your back, the beat of the drums, the shuffling of feet– yet, you feel like in this moment, everything else tuned out, everything around you disappeared for a second and left only you and Yuta in the big place, eyes and hearts for each other.

“I’m gonna–”

“Don’t say it,” you hush him, chewing on the inside of your cheek in nerves. You don’t want to hear it– you don’t want to hear him say it, because then, it would make it feel more real, more raw. You wanted to name the sensation when it comes to you, not have it in your brain before you even get a chance to get it, but Yuta shakes his head at you and sighs.

“I have to say it.”

“No, you don’t,” you giggle, amidst a little sadly.

“I do,” he nods, “because it’s true. And you deserve to hear it face to face, not over the phone,” he says, and you heave out a sigh at his words.

“Fine,” you grant him permission. Get it over with.

He shakes his head at you in disbelief, his hair bouncing in the motion. It makes you want to reach over and brush back the damp locks, put the wet strands into their place, but you don’t– and why you stop yourself is a question you don’t get to ask. “I’m gonna miss you,” he completes, and you nod.

Tears prickle at the edges of your eyes, and you promised yourself you’re not going to cry when Yuta goes– something about it feeling childish, too overly dramatic for a fact that he’s gonna be away only for a couple of weeks– and that’s exactly why you didn’t want him to say it, why you didn’t want to hear the words before he’s miles away and talking to you through the phone, because crying seems foolish in this moment. It seems stupid, dumb, dramatic, because tonight’s a good night– one that should be celebrated– and you feel like you’re ruining it.

“I’m gonna miss you more,” you muse, choking through the tears, battling away the heat in the corners of your eyes and begging that no tears actually fall down your cheeks– you could handle tearing up, but crying was a bit too much– but when the man softly scoffs at your state and brings you towards his chest, you feel them escape and fall freely, wetting his sweaty shirt more as you hold him closer, trying to hide into his body.

Who knows? Maybe if you hug him hard enough, you’ll be able to fit into his skin so he could bring you with him. Maybe you won’t have to be apart.

“Don’t cry, you dummy,” he sighs as you push yourself away from him, trying to laugh through the pain that’s hitting you in your gut right now, praying hard you can ease the situation, “I’ll be back in no time,” he says, wiping at your cheeks with the pads of his thumbs– one of the only fingers that aren’t calloused with the force he plays on the guitar– the action so tender you swallow in on yourself.

His voice is as soft as it can get over the loud music, and you nod at him, trapping your bottom lip between your teeth so you can stop it from trembling. “Come here,” he hums, tugging you into him once more, but before you get a chance to hide your face into his chest, the male leans towards you and kisses you on your lips, a firm, sweet contact with the chapped surface.

When you pull away, he goes in for another, a starved man wanting more, and you try to remember the imprint of his lips on yours so you don’t miss it on lonely nights, so you can remind yourself of it whenever he’s away.

There’s an arm on his shoulder when you pull away from him, a tall figure tugging him backwards, and before you have a chance to register what’s happening, you recognise Doyoung telling your boyfriend that it’s time to go, we gotta get on the road soon, and you’re left aimless and lost in the crowd, the hollowing feeling in your stomach only deepening once Yuta nods at his bandmate and turns to you again, smiling.

“Take care of yourself, okay?” you tell him, hating the fact that you can barely see him over the tears, but not really caring enough to try to stop them now.

“I will,” he reassures you, hand coming up to your hair to pet it, a soft laugh escaping his throat. “I gotta go now, baby.”

“Okay,” you nod.

“Okay,” he repeats, taking a few steps back from you. You watch him, his figure skipping away from you, when he turns and hollers over the loud set. “Love you!”

You don’t get a chance to react before he disappears out of your sight. You don't even get a chance to say it back after hearing it from him for the first time, and something about the fact brings countless worries to your chest. Still, you chant to yourself– nothing’s gonna change. And if so, only for the better.

IV. no matter where you go, somebody follows

Navigating through the foreign city with the hood pulled over your head, the plastic bag full of take-out hanging loosely from your hold, you squint at the buildings around you and sigh in relief with the recognition of your surroundings– you didn’t get lost, despite your biggest concerns, and you’re at the parking lot behind the venue, multiple buses parked right in front of you. Jogging through the space, your sneakers hitting the pavement in a sound you find satisfactory and calming to your nerves, you reach one of the older buses parked in the corner of the parking lot, the windows dark and the vehicle painted in a chipping, rusty white color. Still, it’s a tour bus– an upgrade from what Yuta and his band departed in from your hometown just three weeks ago– and you feel a sense of pride swell inside of your chest at the sight.

Yuta’s band has been growing successfully and steadily– just like his new manager thought would happen. Their songs are catchy, their fanbase is growing in amount, their exposure is getting bigger on social media and some of their songs even play on the radio. Sure, you wouldn’t call them radio hits– it’s not like your parents or your professors would recognize the band or know the lyrics if you showed them the tune– but it’s still something, and even that something feels tremendously big in your eyes.

The decision of skipping school for a few days and coming up to visit Yuta on his tour was spontaneous. It came to you after you missed him particularly much one night, going to sleep without his call– he apologized a day later, telling you he’d been too busy to talk– and after you counted up the money you saved up from working at the diner, you realized you can afford going on a little getaway to meet up with your lover. Yuta was delighted to hear about your plan and even got you a free ticket to the festival, and after watching him and his band play, you decided to get McDonald’s as a form of a late night snack.

You expected your boyfriend to follow you, but he didn’t. It was okay, though– he was probably tired. Traveling both gives and takes a lot from you, and while Yuta was given a thousand opportunities over the past few days, his energy has been slowly receding. You understand– as his girlfriend, it’s your job to.

Knocking on the door of the bus– and hearing the ruckus coming from the inside, making you gaze at the darkened windows in suspicion– you get inside after the driver opens the door for you and nods at you in acknowledgement. The tour bus is kind of old, again– Yuta isn’t at a point in his career yet where he could afford the latest gadgets– but although the lights aren’t neon and the space isn’t big and modern, it still serves its purpose. It has a functioning bathroom in the front, with a surprisingly working lock on the door, and it also has a kitchen area that’s big enough to host a couple of people behind the efficiently placed table. The bus has a corridor with bunk beds on the sides and a small bedroom in the very back of it all, which is used by their manager Sangyeon.

Usually, the bus stinks a bit. You don’t really know what it is, but you can’t really get the bad smell out no matter how hard you try. Now, though, the bus stinks even worse– and although the smell is a tad bit different than the one you’re used to (even though you’ve only been here for 2 days, with the next day being the morning of your departure back home, to your ordinary life), you can’t quite put your finger on the cause.

You walk over to the kitchen area, the plastic bag full of food still loosely placed in your grasp, and the noise gets even louder now, the laughter and the loud music over the speakers mixing together in a way that has your head pounding similarly than to what you experience when you stand front-row during the festivals, and when you put your head through the entry to the small area, the sight in front of you has you gasping. There’s a bit more people in the tour bus than you’d expect– you mentally count the heads, realizing there are four unfamiliar faces in the small crowd– and that’s what initially makes you shy away and want to hide. See, your experience with Yuta’s band mates wasn’t the brightest– that’s why meeting another potential friend group of your boyfriend has you shrinking away in worry.

“You’re back already?” Mark asks you, your presence noticed by the man first. You nod at him, offering him a tight-lipped smile as you hold up the plastic bag in the air, showing him its contents. He smiles at you, but doesn’t pay you much attention after, instead focusing back on the commotion in front of him.

Disappointment washes over you when you realize your presence hasn’t been acknowledged by your boyfriend– mainly because everyone else at least offered you a nonchalant nod of a head, Doyoung included– and that’s when you sigh to yourself and move closer to the small table, ready to put the food in the middle and try to join the conversation. You’re taken by surprise when you realize it’s harder to find an empty space on the crowded surface, bottles of beer, shot glasses and a bottle of tequila settled all around, a potato chip bag thrown in the corner, almost falling off. An ashtray in the middle of it all, almost full to the brim, something white and messy lined up on the other side of the table, folded arms falling to the surface with a loud thud that have you snap your head around and watch Yuta as he settles his chin on them and closes his eyes and then slowly opens them in a hazy blink, pupils almost as big as his whole iris.

This has you stopping in your tracks, this has you slightly wake up in a cold sweat, making you too aware and alert of the situation.

Your eyes scan the surroundings again. The four men at the table seem a bit older than your boyfriend, and you’re sure you saw them on stage a few hours ago, playing their own set. The bottles of alcohol are almost empty, the ashtray filled with cigarettes, your gaze finding the source of the weird, sweet, yet earthy smell when you see a bag of dried weeds loosely thrown behind a beer bottle, rolling papers settled on the side. Finding the platinum blonde head again, the line of white substance close to Yuta’s elbow, chills run down your spine when the male looks at you with big eyes, his smile slightly out of it, yet amazingly satisfied.

Suddenly, you’re terrified. You’re scared and afraid, and you wonder how things could have gotten so out of hand in the time you were gone. Surely your trip to McDonald’s didn’t take more than a few minutes, or did it?

“What’s all this?” you ask Yuta, your voice hush, yet loud enough to be heard over the music.

“What?” he asks, voice coated in a blissful sweetness that has your hair stand up, goosebumps rising all over your body. Frustrated, you run your hand through your hair, seeing that your interaction doesn’t have many viewers comforting you only the slightest.

“What’s all this, Yuta?” you ask, pointing everywhere around the place, but mainly to the substances found on the small, dark-wooden table.

“We’re just having fun, baby,” he says lazily, grinning at you from under his eyelashes. Were the circumstances given to you different, you’d admire his features– his flushed cheeks and his strangely starry-glazed eyes, the satisfied and comfortable smirk playing with his flush lips. But now, you feel shaken-up; a strange kind of terror you’ve never experienced before, and frankly speaking, one you wouldn’t imagine experiencing even in your worst nightmares.

“This is fun to you?” you ask, scoffing. “Is- what happened here?” you keep dumbly asking, not finding any more coherent thoughts in your brain that could be expressed by words. Somehow, the whole situation is painted right in front of you, yet, you don’t think you have it in you to describe it or admit it to your brain.

“Why are you freaking out?” he asks, reaching out one of his hands to you to hold your hand, but you shake it off with a different sense of vigor.

Why are you freaking out? Is he out of his mind? Does he not understand the consequences of his actions; the full implications of everything that’s going on right in this moment? Are you overreacting? You find it hard to think that’s the case.

You scoff at him, not really believing you’re in this situation right now. Something in you feels a bit shameful to be acting like this, now that you’ve been called out on it. You’re in a battle of opinions– one side telling you to drop it and let him live his life, because he’s an adult and he knows what he’s doing, the other one shouting at you that this is not okay and you need some space to breathe and get away for a second. Yuta said he was having fun, but to you, none of this was even close to funny.

“You’re unbelievable,” you say, moving away from him and sending him a gaze you hope signifies the turmoil of emotions on your insides right now, your hands shaking as you cross your arms on your chest. You’re not met with the desired reaction, though. Somehow, Yuta makes the matters even worse as he scoffs at you, shaking his head and pointing it towards the group as he mutters something under his breath.

“And you’re being unreasonable.”

The argument makes your blood cold, your eyes widen. You’re being unreasonable? In your eyes, you’re being ignored. You’re being put on the very end of the ranking of his priorities, and you’d understand it if the first one was held up by his career, his dreams– you’re not willing to battle for that place with alcohol and drugs, though. You’re simply not.

Storming out of the area, suddenly feeling like there’s no air in your lungs, no oxygen in the whole planet Earth, you run through the small and crowded place, making eye contact with no one as you run out without a plan. You bump into a slender figure as you plan on escaping the vehicle, right in the place where the stairs down are located, crossing your paths– one going in and the other one out. The person smells of cigarette smoke and when you look up to find a raven-haired boy staring at you with a glare, the plan of leaving sounds even more urgent in your head.

“Where are you running off to?” Doyoung asks, voice laced with indifference.

“I don’t want to talk right now,” you snap at him, trying to push through the small corridor past him so you can get out and get some air.

“Saw something you didn’t like?” he mocks, laughing at you.

“Doyoung-”

“Those places aren’t for college kids like you, Y/N,” he snarls, huffing out air as you push against his chest to get him out of the way, “this is how this world works. Get out before it gets you too, kid.”

V. you're the only one I'll miss when I'm gone

The coldness of the liquid spilling down your throat makes you cool down noticeably, your fingers working on the lace around your waist to loosen up the apron you’ve been wearing for the last couple of hours. You sit on one of the tall bar stools, facing the diner with your back, as you scroll through your phone and look through all your social media. You’re working another one of your night shifts, the diner surprisingly empty as you allow yourself some time to just sit around and do nothing– it’s not like you have anything else to do or any customers to serve in the first place.

Checking your messages– and finding none, much to your dismay– you move over to other apps, opening up Instagram with a swift tap of your finger, eyes tracing the posts appearing on your phone screen. There are some from your favorite music artists and some from your friends from high school, and you’d usually find an Instagram story from your boyfriend’s band right at the very beginning of the little reel on the top as well, but ever since they got signed to a label, their page is hands of their manager Sangyeon, so the account is no longer as active and as unserious as it was when Yuta was the one behind the posts.

Scrolling down a little, your eyes zero in on a post of the mentioned account– a carousel of professionally-looking pictures of the band on the stage, taken from multiple angles and in perfect quality, colors most likely edited and lightning adjusted so they look as nice as they can. You were in the crowd just a week ago, and although you only left your visit recently, you already miss seeing Yuta in real life, playing and talking to you, existing by your side.

You haven’t heard from him much since the day you left. Still shaken up from the sight in front of you that one night, the band’s manager let you sleep in the only bedroom of the tour bus before you took off to the station in the early morning, having Yuta groggily press a kiss to your forehead as a goodbye, telling you to stay safe as you travel, before he went back to sleep. The events of your last night with him went unnoticed and unmentioned and you’re not exactly sure if it’s for the best– you two barely call nowadays, since your schedules don’t align, and it’s kind of hard to talk about it over a text, especially when the conversations are short and dry, like they’ve been for the last few days.

Zooming in on the picture, fingers pinching the screen to take a closer look on Yuta’s face, you chew on the inside of your cheek, letting your thoughts run a thousand miles an hour. What did you do wrong? Or was he just busy?

That must be it. He’s in a band. A touring, rising band. He must be busy.

“What are you staring at?” you hear a male voice coming from your right, making you jump in your seat. Eyes landing on Jaechan, your coworker from the kitchen, you watch as he throws a damp kitchen towel to the counter and takes a seat on the chair next to you with a sigh. You shrug. The male takes a peek over your shoulder, craning up his neck to get a closer look, a hum escaping his throat at the sight. “Is that your boyfriend? I heard he’s in a band.”

You find yourself humming in agreement at his question. Jaechan nods at you in acknowledgement, resting his head into his palms, eyes zeroing on your stoic face. “Did something happen between the two of you? You don’t sound too happy talking about him right now.”

Sighing, you put the phone down, the screen still on and displaying the professional picture their photographer took, showing Yuta with his platinum blonde hair damp and all over the place, the singer in the middle of a song gripping his microphone tightly, veins protruding due to the notes he’s singing on his sweat-covered neck. Once again, you find yourself shrugging. “I don’t know. He’s just… not really talking to me?”

“Did you two have a fight?”

“No,” you shake your head, “not really. It’s not like he’s not talking talking to me, it’s just that he’s not doing it as often as he used to before,” you explain, chewing on your bottom lip as you tear your eyes off the picture and glue them to your companion instead, seeing as the older male hums, pressing his lips into a tight line.

“He must be busy,” you say, not really knowing who you’re saying this for. Is it to prove to Jaechan that your relationship is completely fine, that there’s nothing shifting in the dynamic you had with Yuta, or is it to reassure yourself, try to manifest the thought into life? You’re not quite sure at this point.

“Well, he texted you a lot more often before,” he points out, “how busy can a singer really be, you know what I mean?”

“There must be something that’s taking up so much of his time,” you sigh, the male in front of you scoffing and rolling his eyes at your naivety.

Jaechan argues with you, and something about his sentence makes your mood even gloomier, your composure shake further. “I mean, what does a singer even do? He plays a gig in the evening and then he’s lazing off the whole day, it’s not like he’s recording an album or something, do you feel me?”

To this, you shrug. What does Jaechan even know about this? He’s never dated anyone in a band before. He’s never been in one either, so he can’t know how this life works. Maybe he’s just jealous that your significant other is famous and his is not (because it’s non-existent, just for the record), and that’s what’s making him say all these things.

“What do you know?” you scoff.

Jaechan looks at you with a softer look in his eyes now, the black bangs falling into his forehead serving as a sort of a curtain when he smiles sadly at his next words. “Enough to see when a guy gets bored, Y/N. If he had time before, he just can’t be assed now. I’d hate to see your heart break over him,” he says, each word like a sharp knife to your heart, a stinging pain erupting into each crevice of your body. Your mouth opens to reply to him, to argue that he is clueless, he is snide, he is acting like a know-it-all, when the bell above the entrance rings and a small group of teenagers enters the diner.

Before you get a chance to stand up from your place to re-tie your apron and serve them, Jaechan, who doesn’t usually serve– since cooking is his job around here– beats you to it and pats your shoulder as he goes. “I’ll get it.”

You’re left sitting at the bar, eyes bearing into the screen of your phone, gazing at Yuta on the other side of the country, almost begging him with your eyes to text, to call, to do something, before the screen darkens and your phone eventually locks, the time running out already.

VI. and he holds me like a woman

Prepared for another night of staring at the ceiling, not even the sound of Aeri’s snoring present to lull you to sleep with its monotonicity, since the girl went out and stayed over at her (as she calls him) sneaky link’s place, you settle into your bed sheets and pull your blanket close to your neck. Unlocking your phone and scrolling through social media, planning to do so until your eyes are droopy enough that you don’t have much time to overthink in the late hours of the night, waiting for sleep to take you, your finger moves through all the different apps, begging for your brain to stay occupied. You have to treat yourself like you’d treat a little child while trying to get them to sleep– except you don’t watch Cocomelon, instead you settle on the latest episode of your favorite podcast– and it starts working eventually, until you’re woken up with a knock to your door, cursing at the person behind the wall for disturbing your routine, because now, you’ll have to do it all over again.

Sighing, you stand up from your bed, lazily walking over to the door of your room– sometimes, you despise the fact that your dorm layout looks like the corridor of a hospital wing, with rooms all over the hall and a common kitchen and a bathroom at the very end, since the living space for you and your roommate Aeri is a 5x6 square meters with little to no storage room– but this time, you thank the god for this fact, since it means that nothing is too far out of reach and nothing can get lost in the small space. You think of whoever might be behind the door– is it Aeri? You doubt it’s Aeri. She usually doesn’t back out of a hook up, and even if she did, she’d text you about it before– she has her own set of keys as well, so she wouldn’t just knock.

Is it your dorm mate? Yeji from three rooms down the corridor sometimes comes over and asks you if she can use your frying pan– since the ones in the common kitchen suck and are hardly ever clean– so maybe it’s her. However, you’re not quite sure why she’d want to cook something so late in the evening.

Shrugging, deciding that you’re not gonna dwell on the thought much longer and instead look for yourself, you unlock the door (you learned to do that every night after Ningning, the freshman that lives across the corridor from you, once stumbled into your room at 3 in the morning, drunk out of her mind, because she confused her left and right) and crack it open, shock overtaking you as you recognize the figure casually standing on the other side of the wall.

“What are you doing here?” you gasp, the man with platinum blonde hair snickering at your parted lips and big eyes.

“Visiting,” he shrugs, “I missed you.”

Taking a few seconds to process the situation, you stay standing in your place, a metaphorical loading bar appearing in the middle of your forehead. Yuta shakes his head at you in disbelief, taking a step closer towards you. “Aren’t you gonna invite me in?”

“I- I am, but-” you stutter, taking a step away from the doorway, watching as your boyfriend walks in as if he owned this place, “who let you in? We can’t have visitors after 10 PM,” you mumble, suddenly aware of the fact that you could get in trouble.

You close the door after yourself and lock it– old habits die hard– as you watch the male giggle at your shaken composure. “The doorkeeper recognized me,” he announces, “I just had to say I have a girlfriend I haven’t seen in a while living here and he let me right in,” he shrugs.

Humming, you play with your fingers as you walk over to your bed. “So you’re like, famous famous now, huh?”

“Not that famous,” he sighs, “but quite a few people know me now.”

“So I’m dating a rockstar,” you joke, taking a seat on the uncomfortable mattress, watching as the male follows you and invites himself into the sheets.

“Something like that.”

A smile overtakes your features at that, and your room breaks into silence. Something about the quiet makes your skin scatter with goosebumps, the discomfort of his stare making you almost hate the fact that he’s here now, after not talking to you properly for a couple of weeks, but at the same time, you know you don’t really hate it. You love it, actually– the fact that he came to surprise you in the middle of the night, the fact that he’s here, the fact that he thought of you, spared you the time of his day. You love it and you love him and the fact that he came back to you. He came back for you. Only you. That sounds like a prize, doesn’t it?

Still, you feel a bit of a distance in between the two of you, and you can’t believe the fact that he feels further despite being closer in space. Maybe it’s because you can’t blame his lack of words for him being busy now– he’s right in front of you, paying you his full attention.

“How long are you staying?” you ask, picking at the skin of your cuticles.

Yuta averts his gaze from you, looking almost shameful at his reply. “I have to leave tomorrow afternoon,” he whispers, “I left suddenly, but we gotta get back on the road.”

You hum at that, not offering him a vocal reply– you don’t have any words to say to him anyway. What is there to say about a fact you can’t change? You only have to accept it.

“We only have a couple more stops to go. It will take another three weeks or so, and I’m back with you,” he says, this time locking his eyes with you in a sincere gaze, “I promise.”

The sentence has you gazing at your hands, clasped in your lap, nodding. Holding eye contact with him is suddenly hard when you feel just how far away he is from you, in another world, in other circles– and you can’t help but not see yourself fitting those, you can’t help but hate the fact that you’re so far away from everything that completes him as a person now. Maybe you’re a burden now– maybe you’re a nuisance, a baggage he has to carry even though he doesn’t have to, but keeps holding on to just because of a promise.

You remember how you chanted to yourself– believed– that nothing’s gonna change, and if so, only for the better. But you’re not so sure it came true, looking at everything now. And you do admit, you feel a little silly. Both for making the promise to yourself, and both for feeling so defeated when your world is shifting. Because things did change, and you should’ve expected it, and for Yuta, they did change for the better. He’s chasing his dream and everything’s coming out well for him. You should be happy.

You should be happy that he’s texting you less, talking to you less, having less time for you. Because that’s proof of him succeeding, after all. You just wish you could’ve been there to witness it with him.

“It must be so hard for you,” Yuta suddenly hums, leaning closer to you and wiping your cheeks. You haven’t even realized you were crying– you failed to keep your emotions in control– but instead of pushing him away and not showing him just how much the distance hurts you, you only hold him closer, crying into his chest.

His hands caress your hair, smoothing down the strands and providing you comfort, your body folding into his hold. He lays you both on the bed and tugs the blanket over you, strong arms shielding you from the pain. “Are you- are you having fun at least?” you ask, hiccuping through the sobs.

“I am,” he hums, and something about the sentence comforts you, making you fail to address everything you’ve witnessed when you came to visit him and just how much it made you worry, “wish you were there with me, but I know it’s hard. We just gotta hold on and get through this, and it will only get easier as we go, alright?”

You hum, fists bunching up the fabric of his thin black shirt. “Promise me to hold on for me, pretty girl? It’s gonna be okay. I swear.”

Another silent sob accompanied by an eager nod, hands letting go of his shirt and instead sneaking around his waist, nose burying into his chest intaking his scent. “I promise. It’s hard, but the thought of you having fun and chasing your dream comforts me.”

“That’s my sweet girl,” he hums, smoothing down your hair, “now stop crying. There’s nothing to be sad about.”

Nodding, you try your best to relax. He’s right– you were being unreasonable. Silly, even. Everything’s okay and everything will turn out just fine, you just gotta hold on for a few more weeks. Once Yuta’s back, your relationship will go back to normal and things will get better.

Leaning your head back, you press a kiss to his lips. He holds you to his chest, deepening the contact of his mouth with yours, wiping the last tears off your cheeks and placing pecks all over your face. When his lips find their way back to yours, his kisses are deeper, more firm, experience making him smoothly slip his tongue into your mouth to battle with yours, passion dripping off the muscle and tasting just like honey.

He makes your heart race, just like he did when he first kissed you in his garage, and when his lips smoothly travel down your neck, placing bites and kitten licks to smooth the area after, you let him work his magic. You relax under his touches, you let him unravel you from your clothes, big hands testing flesh, calloused fingers pressing into all the right places. It feels amazing. It feels rewarding– and even though you’ve never done this before, you’re glad he’s your first. It’s good to look back at your first time when it’s done with someone you love– someone that’s admired, older, but still so fond of you. You feel beautiful with his hushed compliments, whispered promises. It’s like you’re running on a high, and you’re not sure if and when you’re ever gonna get back down.

You ache a little when you wake up for your morning class the day after. Throwing on his shirt you find on the floor, taking a seat next to him on the bed and brushing back his disheveled hair, his arm finds yours and tugs you back towards him.

“Stay,” he hums.

“I can’t,” you reply, “I have class in a few,” you explain, pressing a tender kiss to his cheek.

He sighs, dissatisfied, but lets you go. When he chants a goodbye at you as you close your door after with the knowledge that he won’t be there when you come home in the evening, you chew on the inside of your cheek with the crushing feeling of living in a different world than he does. And it shouldn’t matter to you– because he loves you and showed you so last night– but still, it keeps annoyingly eating you up from the insides.

He’s in a rising punk band, and you… you have to get to class.

VII. he used to sing me sweet melodies

The news hit you on a Thursday afternoon, on your way to dorms after your last class of the day. You feel exhausted, both mentally and physically, and so you decide to take the bus– the journey isn’t long, but you don’t feel like walking, and so you slung your pained body onto one of the free seats after pressing your travel card against the terminal to pay for the ride.

Fingers searching through your tote bag, a small sense of victory filling your veins when you finally find your phone in the mess of things, you grip the device and unlock it, deciding to search through social media to pass time and let yourself dissociate.

A flood of uninteresting posts flashes through your vision as you absent-mindedly scroll through your feed, unfunny memes making you roll your eyes at the absurdity of the jokes, political discourse just making you sigh. After a while, posts from Neo zone update pages that you selfishly and amidst a little foolishly followed quite some time ago start appearing one-by-one on your Twitter feed, the face of your boyfriend smiling at you from fan-taken pictures from the last few stops of their festival tour. It’s been three weeks since you last saw Yuta, and even though you’re glad he’s enjoying his life to the fullest, you can’t help but admit to yourself that you oh so desire to have him back home as soon as possible.

One post in particular makes you stop in your tracks, furrowing your eyebrows as your eyes scan over the headline of an article with your boyfriend’s face clearly staring down at you through the screen. It’s not often that Yuta or his band get interviewed– or at least, it wasn’t the standard before, but you heard from him that he did get an interview from one of the local newspapers right after he got signed to an agency– but it seems that after getting interest from the punk scene during the festival, everybody wants to know more about the lead singer and his friends; press included. The existence of the interview itself isn’t what makes you so startled, though– it’s the headline of the article, each word like a sharp knife to your heart, making you more and more confused.

“No, I’m not dating anyone right now.” Neo Zone’s frontman reveals in our latest article, the title reads, your shaky fingers pressing down on the picture to have the text pop up, making you brace yourself for the impact. You know that the press loves to twist words and put statements into people’s mouths, but you don’t really know how those exact words could come out meaning something completely different– your very much taken boyfriend told everyone he is very much single. Do you not deserve to be talked about, after everything? Is he ashamed of you?

Sighing, taking a peek out of the window to see if you’re at your stop yet– you’re not, and you think you have just the right amount of time to read the whole article before you have to get off. And so you do that– eyes quickly skimming through the words, Yuta’s answers transcribed so perfectly you can almost hear his voice saying the words in your head, the essence of him everywhere, making your chest tighten on itself.

The Seoul-based punk band Neo Zone is picking up everyone’s attention as they take over the Warped tour festivals with their ecstatic performances and amazing stage presence. Their sound is like no one else’s, making their fanbase rise quickly, the fastly growing popularity making a lot of questions rise in the heads of the public– one question in particular mostly in the female side of the spectrum.

We met with the frontman, 28-year old Yuta Nakamoto, to ask him a few questions about the band’s slow, but steady journey towards stardom, and also a bit about his personal life. Stay with us to get all the answers to questions you’ve been wondering about!

Eyes only briefly reading over the questions that ask about their journey– since you do know how they got where they are now, being there to witness it all; from band practices on Fridays, Yuta’s worried words at midnight over your night shifts, the songwriting sessions they had with Doyoung, where Yuta would send you pictures of his lyrics, asking for advice from his one and only muse, to them getting signed and going from playing local gigs at bars filled with cigarette smoke to venues filled with thousands of fans, all in the course of a few months. There’s only one thing you’re searching for in this article– although you’d read it all anyways, taking your time to patiently skim over each sentence, cheering Yuta on silently, there’s a thing in particular that makes you so jumpy to get to the bottom of the headline.

Finally, you get to it. You can only imagine the voice of the woman who did this interview with Yuta to be annoying, her eyes sneaky and coy as she asked him the question– but you soon catch yourself and sigh at your antics, at disbelief with what you managed to turn yourself into just for attention of a man that deemed you worthy.

“I’m sure a lot of girls are wondering the same thing, Yuta– especially after seeing you play on stage. I mean, you have an amazing stage presence, one that can’t help but attract people. The public– me included– wants to know: are you dating anyone right now?”

The singer laughs at the question, shrugging to himself. The words don’t take long to come out of his mouth. “No, not at all. With how things have been going for us, it’s been really hard to find some time to date, but I’m sure that if anyone shoots me a wink from the audience, I can change my mind quickly.”

The words make you scoff. You rest your head against the seat, your tongue poking the side of your cheek, when you notice that you’re at your stop– resulting in you scrambling for your things and practically throwing yourself out of the bus so the doors wouldn’t close on you and drive you away from the bus stop you need to get off on. Yuta’s response keeps repeating in your brain– ‘it’s been really hard to find some time to date’ – at least he’s not lying about that, you think.

And yes, maybe you should’ve understood his motives. Maybe he wanted to protect you from the hate, maybe he simply wanted to give you your privacy, but still– something in you breaks at being denied, at being hidden, and that burning, green feeling has you dialing Yuta’s number, waiting for the singer to reply.

It takes him a few seconds to pick up the call– you expected it, since it’s an usual occurrence now, with your texts going unanswered and calls mostly ignored, if taken, then either after a lot of ringing, or being returned to you after a few minutes when you get through to the voicemail. Still, you’re relieved when you hear his voice on the other side of the line, a little low and groggy, but still familiar.

“Hello, my love,” he says, and the pet name makes you equal parts warm and furious. So now you’re his love? What about the time he did the interview?

“Hi,” you breathe, walking down the sidewalk to your dorm building.

“Why are you calling?” he asks. Do you need a reason to? He seems to be asking this a lot lately, but now that you actually have a reason is when the question hurts you the least.

You hum into the phone, finding the right words to say. Something inside of your gut is screaming at you, telling you just how silly and childish you’re going to sound– at just how demanding and clingy you’re going to look. But still, you can’t help but let the words slip past your mouth. “I was just wondering… about the stuff you said in the interview,” you say.

The male is silent for a little, not really responding to your worries. When he seems to gather that you’re not going to explain– and you don’t have to, since you’re aware that he knows what you mean by your subtle prompt– he talks to you with lightness in his tone, something akin to playful teasing in the reply that has you feeling stupid, so stupid for calling him.

“About that? Y/N… you know you don’t have to worry about the two of us,” he says, laughing, “it’s just… I couldn’t just tell them I’m dating. My manager said I couldn’t, since it may damage the band’s image. I have to stay desirable to keep up the interest.”

You’re silent. So he did it for the band. Not your privacy, not your safety.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I’ll make it up to you when I get back, okay?”

You find it in yourself to hum at his explanation– no matter how unsatisfactory it was, no matter how it made you feel even worse about the situation than before you called. It’s okay, though– you know that his band always comes first. You can’t tarnish his dreams like that. If a secret is what you have to be, then you’re more than okay with that, if it means Yuta gets to shine like the star he’s always been in your heart.

“Is that all you wanted to talk about?” he asks. “I have to go now, if you don’t have anything else.”

“That’s- that’s all, yeah,” you mumble, sighing as you walk over to the dorms, opening the door with your student ID and slipping inside.

“Okay,” he hums, “I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

No I love you, no how was your day, no I miss you. No I’ll see you soon, no I can’t wait to see your face, no I can’t wait to hear your voice. It’s okay, though– he must be tired.

VIII. broke, but gave all money to an airline

The next time you allow yourself to travel to see Yuta (despite all your responsibilities at college, with finals coming up and assignments piling up, making you bring your laptop to work with you and type away to finish up all your essays in between customers, having Jaechan read over the passages when your sleep deprivation gets the best of you and you can’t even recognise if you’re using the correct grammar and punctuation anymore), is on the last show of his festival tour. Something inside of you is telling you that you should go watch your boyfriend’s last gig for the time being, to congratulate him and show him just how much you support him, despite your busy schedule (that he is unaware of. You don’t want him to worry).

And on top of that, it’s his birthday– the surprise visit to the show is only an addition to the gift you bought him, though. The personalized lyric journal and a box of his favorite chocolates seems too silly of a gift for somebody like Yuta Nakamoto, but it’s all you can afford, all you can give him. Still, you hope the sincerity and love is able to be felt through the action; you hope he realizes just how much you love him and just how much you missed him all those months.

The journey to the last state was long. You didn’t get enough sleep, you felt jittery and anxious, everything in your bones was screaming at you and cursing you for allowing yourself to make such a trip so early after the old one. Traveling is exhausting, you realize– both mentally and physically– when you have to walk distances and flash all your savings down the drain just to get bus tickets, when you have to rack your brain over to not get lost and take the right directions, make the right turns and walk the right distances. You guess you could understand Yuta a little bit better now– you’re not the one traveling somewhere else every night, and still, you feel insanely tired.

You didn’t tell Yuta about your visit. All you texted him the night before was that you wish him good luck on stage today and that you’re proud of him– sentences that get a short-cut response, an uninterested tone. You guess he just got bummed out that you didn’t stay up and wish him happy birthday the first thing at midnight– a thing he did for you when you weren’t even dating yet, the action warming you up so much back then– but even though it broke your heart, you couldn’t blow your own cover. You wanted to wish him happy birthday in person, to his face.

There is a buzz in the tips of your fingertips when you arrive at the festival. You’ve watched countless of clips online, experienced the concert first-hand multiple times before– you’re sure you could recite the setlist and the exact order of the acts playing if you were woken up in the middle of the night, drenched in cold sweat– but still, you can’t wait to see Yuta perform. You can’t wait to watch the joyful look on his face, the dreamy eyes gazing over the crowd, the raspy voice calling to you like a siren in a love song you were told was about you in the middle of the night, holding him in your dorm bed.

You didn’t stand in the front rows this time. For some reason, you don’t want the singer to know you’re here. You want to watch the show unnoticed, unannounced, enjoying it like every other fan would– except, you’re expecting to meet him after, the way so many girls dream of every night, but never get to experience.

And in a perfect reality, the show ends and you run backstage. The security acknowledges you as his girlfriend and lets you in, smiles at you and pats you on your lower back– go get him, he’s all yours– as you excitedly grin and get ready to finally close the distance between you. In your perfect dreams, that don’t become reality, you’re meeting Yuta and holding him close, chanting whispers at the universe and telling them see? We made it, no matter how many obstacles you threw our way. We made it despite the distance.

Maybe somebody should’ve told you you were a naive dreamer before you came here to embarrass yourself. Nobody did, though– and so here you are.

“Unfortunately, fans aren’t allowed backstage,” the security says, and you understand him– your relationship is secret, not public, so really, he couldn’t have known you were not just a fan, but his girlfriend (despite still thinking that you are Yuta’s biggest fan, always. Nobody could ever support him the way you do).

“I’m not a fan, sir,” you grin, “I’m his girlfriend. I know anyone could say that, but if you just get someone from the back and tell them my name, they will tell you that I’m his partner, trust me,” you explain, a desperate inkling in your voice.

“I don’t have time for that, kid,” the man says. And it’s fair. He’s just doing his job.

“Please, I went here to surprise– there he goes!” you point towards your boyfriend walking off the stage, his head snapping towards you at the sound of your voice, still recognisable even through the flood of screams around. The man locks eyes with you and you wave at him, a fond smile overtaking your tired face, the flame inside you that’s currently giving you third degree burns of anxiety finally starts to get more subtle when recognition flashes through Yuta’s face, but again– you were naive. Naive to think he would appreciate your visit, naive to think he’d like the surprise, naive to think nothing would change between the two of you, naive to think he wouldn’t get tired and find someone new.

A naive kid.

That’s what you are.

Nakamoto Yuta runs off stage, envelopes an excited girl around her shoulders when she runs after him from backstage. Her hair is longer than yours, her face more mature, her smile similar to the ones you saw all the time at the diner whenever Yuta was around, a flirting spark somewhere in between her pearly white teeth. She kisses his jaw and he grins at her, not bothering to look around. The crowd around you gets silent, but your brain tells you it’s foolish to think everyone suddenly stopped talking– it was just your senses slowly shutting out, your vision getting blurry.

So this was the problem all along, you think.

“Anything else? If you’re done being delusional, you can get lost,” the security spits at you, and you chuckle to yourself.

Delusional. That hits the nail on the head.

Nodding, you chew on the inside of your cheek as you stumble backwards, running off through the crowd as you try your best not to get your legs tied and fall over. Your vision is hazy and you refuse to look up, too embarrassed, humiliated by the events of the day to show your face to anyone, resulting in you bumping into someone, your figure limply falling to the ground. Sobs make your shoulders shake, all motivation to stand up and move leaving your body when somebody crouches down next to you, a considerate female voice reaching your ears.

“Everything okay, hun? I’m so sorry, I should’ve watched my step,” she says, a hand patting your back, the smell of her perfume filling your nostrils. “Why are you crying? Are you hurt?”

Shaking your head, you refuse to speak. The female considerately sneaks her arms around you, pulling you to her chest. “What is it? You can tell it to a stranger, I won’t spill.”

“Yuta-” you choke out. Embarrassment is finally the least of your concerns.

“What? What about him?”

“I loved him and he– he threw it all away,” you finish, now completely breaking.

The girl rocks you back and forth, hand running up and down your back to get you to relax. It’s strange, since you haven’t even seen her face, haven’t even asked her name– for all you know, she could think you’re just a crazy fangirl, crying for no reason. But the universe has its way of looking out after you tonight– the soul next to you holding you tight, fingers running through your hair. “It’s alright, babygirl. Cry it out,” she says, “he doesn’t deserve you… I know, I’ve been there. That’s a lesson you have to learn, though– you never date a band guy.

He’s always gonna break your heart.”

EPILOGUE - try not to abuse your power

Yuta Nakamoto was your hero.

He was your everything. He was someone you admired, someone you longed for, someone whose attention you craved for ever since the day you met him for the first time. It’s not every day you get to hang out with a guy that’s in a band, and it’s also not every day that the said guy shows you any type of interest or gives you any type of attention– and in your foolish heart, you took all of that and ran with it, chasing down the adrenaline and calling it love.

You guess it’s never a good idea to date your hero. See, people tend to idolize the ones they admire. People tend to put their heroes on the pedestal and do everything for them, putting them as their priority and disregarding their own needs and interests just to be worthy in the eyes of the other. You were too young to differentiate between healthy love and toxic obsession. You were too young to realize the relationship you had with Yuta wasn’t built on healthy grounds.

Yuta was your hero, yet, he managed to ruin you in a little not over a year. You bet it wasn’t even that hard.

Yuta was sweet. He tasted of honey and adrenaline, of chasing your dreams and running through empty streets with sparkles in your eyes. Yuta was someone older than you, more mature, promising you security and safety that he failed to give you despite your delusional beliefs of having your haven in him. You were young; thinking that guys your age don’t know how to treat you, won’t ever know how to treat you right– being with someone like Yuta was only right in your eyes. You were his fragile piece of pottery, the thing he was supposed to handle with care, and yet, you found yourself shattering at his touches. You should’ve expected it– his fingers were always too calloused to know how to touch anything gently anyway.

And yes, you do feel guilty. You do feel like it’s your fault that you let someone do this to you. You should’ve known better– you shouldn’t have been so childish, so naive. But really, you didn’t know any better. No one ever told you it was wrong. No one warned you. No one told you how it’s supposed to look.

No one told you that you weren’t supposed to spend all your money on plane and bus tickets just to see him for a couple of days. No one told you you weren’t supposed to support him unconditionally, ignore all the bad signs and pay no mind to the way his treatment made you feel worthless. No one told you you weren’t supposed to believe his sweet words, put trust into his empty promises.

It makes you sick, in a way. He knows your freckles, he knows your skin. He knows you like the back of his hand. Maybe, just maybe, you’d still fold under his touch if he dared to get close to you again. You don’t know if you’re strong enough to resist.

And maybe you do know better now, you do hate him for what he did, but you still miss him like a little kid. It’s like you were put on a drug that made you hate everyone and make him the only one you miss when you’re gone.

You do miss him. You do sometimes look at his social media. You do read the headlines of magazines when his face is on the front page. You do think of him whenever you wipe the counters during your night shifts, gazing at the spot he used to sit in whenever he came to keep you company, almost as if you could wish him back into existence. It’s a weird battle. The strangest type of inner conflict.

Driving down the road, back to your dorm in the car you saved up for, the radio humming lowly to keep you company in the silence, you recognize the first few tones of a G chord, the song sending chills down your spine. You listen for a few seconds, waiting for his voice to start– the raspiness, the strongness of his vocals still making you feel some type of way– before you chuckle to yourself.

You guess he did end up releasing the song, after all.

You sigh. It feels like ages have gone by since you heard the song for the first time. It feels like you aged a thousand since you last saw his face.

It’s still strange to hear him on the radio. He made it big, you think.

After all, you still wish him well. Somehow, you still think he deserves the glory.

You skip the song.

You park the car.

You get inside your dorm.

You live your life.

#nct #nct x reader #yuta #yuta x reader #yuta fic #yuta fluff #yuta angst #nakamoto yuta #nakamoto yuta x reader #nct 127 #nct 127 x reader #nct 127 fluff #nct 127 angst #nct angst #nct fluff

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agent-cupcake · 11 months ago

Text

Flashbang

Chapter 1 - Puppet Loosely Strung

Spotify Playlist / All Chapters / Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 /Chapter 7/ Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 pt.1 / Chapter 9 pt.2 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12

Pairing: One Piece Live Action Buggy x f! Reader

Synopsis: Running away to join the circus doesn’t go exactly as you hoped it would.

Warnings: Mentions of past abuse, murder, generally dark content

Word Count: 13.9k

Disclaimer: I don’t read the manga or watch the anime. This is based solely on OPLA Buggy because Jeff Ward.

Some quick notes before we start: This is what I've been working on this since October. Originally it was going to be one really big one-shot posted at the same time, but it's big enough that I can justify posting it as a series. I'll add warnings as I go, but this is not a happy story and there will be explicit content later on. The reader character might not be somebody you see yourself in, I had a very specific image of what character I had in mind while writing. To me, reader fic is more of a sort of play acting rather than "oh that's literally me" but I know that's not everybody's cup of tea. A lot of this is cope fic and it shows. When times get rough the porn gets rougher, right?

I had help writing this from an individual who is very dear to me. Flashbang wouldn't exist without her, especially since she was the one who gave me the clown brain rot. And then there has been the hours of brainstorming and spitballing and watching Jeff Ward shows/movies as she continued to feed my addiction. Thank you, my love, and also damn you because this wasn't what I needed.

New chapter every Sunday. Enjoy~

“Let me put myself in your shoes

As a puppet loosely strung

Around you, they were so confused

That a faulty man could have so much fun”

All it took was a little doubt. Through logic or confusion or wishful thinking, you could be convinced that the insignificant person who had parasitically driven you around for the past however many years was a stranger, and now they were gone. Everything that had ever happened fell into incomprehensible dust, and every thought you ever had belonged to somebody else. A cycle of a million memories you didn’t recognize spun through this foggy place, none of them real, none of them familiar.

Logic, confusion, wishful thinking, or unconsciousness. An endless dream of nothing at all. But as soon as you became aware, it was awareness that those thoughts happened in the past tense, crushed inward by the unrelenting force of existence, and you were shoved back into a body. You—not the real you, the stranger you, the one made of heat and fury and pain, the one you couldn’t recognize—were gasping and thrashing in ignorant confusion, coughing out the sickening taste of blood in your throat.

Everything, all of it, hurt. And that was all that existed.

Until it wasn’t.

Your panicked thrashing made you realize that you were upright, your body straining painfully against the various chains keeping you pinned against the wall in an X. The position put nearly all of your weight on your shoulders and left your head to sag heavily to the side, making the terrible, dizzying headache that much worse. Having suffered more than your fair share of them, you knew that this headache was from more than an uncomfortable position or your old injury. A hot throbbing pain radiated out from the back of your head, shooting little sparks down your spine. It hurt bad enough that nausea formed a tight, heavy ball in your stomach. Gritting your teeth, you forced your eye open, fighting the urge to cringe away from the light as it rolled this way and that. Colors and lights were nothing more than a nauseating smear, but at least you could see.

Little by little, you became aware of yourself. From far away, you had a vague recollection of leaving, of nerves, excitement, and then of danger. But… no, why weren’t you at home? Doom settled in its rightful place as you realized exactly how little you remembered or knew, slotting into the spot of coherence and reason. Despite the pain, you fought against the shackles holding you in the uncomfortable position, irrationally desperate to be free of them.

“There she is! Finally,” somebody said from your left. His voice hit like a hammer to the back of your aching head. You strained to look at the speaker, he sounded close, but you couldn’t turn your head far enough to make up for your limited vision.

Luckily, he didn’t stay out of sight for long. The man’s boots were loud and deliberate as he slowly moved out of your literal blind spot. To your ill-adjusting eye, he was not much more than a blur of white and red and blue, his big smile smudged as you rapidly blinked to focus. A little shock of meaningless recognition in your brain saw the makeup and red nose and said ‘clown’, but the sheer ridiculousness of that made you even more sure that this wasn’t real.

“Not a fun way to wake up, is it?” he asked. “Keep breathing, let it drain back and cough it out. Trust me, it’s over quicker that way.”

The question you tried to form was, “Who are you?” but all you could manage was a heavy groan followed by a fit of painful coughs, wheezing raggedly in between. Each desperate convulsion rattled the chains and caused the wood to creak, but did nothing to free your bound limbs. The man seemed bored by it, annoyed he had to wait for you to get ahold of yourself.

Since he hadn’t immediately helped you down, you could only assume that he was the one who shackled you in the first place. Strung you up against a wooden board of some kind in a room you didn’t know. Cramped and windowless, it reeked of paint and sweat and sawdust and sweet salty rot—a unique smell that didn’t help your nausea. Clutter stacked up against the walls. Dense, humid air pressed against you like a heavy coat, paradoxically chilling. Probably because of the fever burning beneath your skin, slicking you up with sweat, soaking into your clothes and the bandana you kept wrapped around your head over the left eye.

Breathe. You focused on your breathing. Panic wouldn’t help you.

“You done?” he asked. Without any other choices, you turned your head to shamefully wipe your face off on your sleeve before nodding. “Great. Well, now that you’re awake… Welcome!” He threw out his arms with the flamboyant manner of a showman with the greeting, but they wilted right after, his big smile dropping a bit. “Or, at least, that’s what I would say if you hadn’t let yourself in and stolen the opportunity from me.”

That was bad. Very, very bad. You jerked in an awkward, uncoordinated burst, physically reacting to the danger he presented.

“No, no, don’t leave on my account,” he said, waving his hands and getting closer as if to stop you. “Oh wait, you can’t! Hah! Yeah, ‘cause of the chains.” He smiled affably, like it was a harmless joke, standing close enough for his gloved fingers to skim along the chain wrapped around your neck. “I guess you’re not going anywhere, huh?”

You didn’t respond, barely daring to breathe when he was so close. Smiles and melodrama aside, his blue eyes were oddly dead, fixed on you without the slightest bit of humor. And then it finally came back to you, the vital thing that you should have known, that you would have known if you weren’t strung up and suffering such a crippling headache. The makeup, the nose, the hat—

“You’re,” you began to say, but your voice was hoarse and weak, you could barely get it out when he was looking at you so closely, so intently. You cleared your throat, wincing at the metallic taste. “You’re the-that pirate captain Buggy, like on the-the poster?” Right! The clown guy, the red-nosed pirate. You were looking for him. So this was… good, wasn’t it?

He gave you a flat look, clearly not sharing your weak enthusiasm. “Yes. I am that pirate captain. Buggy, the Genius Jester? The most feared pirate captain in all the East Blue?” He turned with a dramatic flick of his coat, messing with something that had to flash silver before you realized it was a knife. “The man destined to find the One Piece and become King of the Pirates. Yes. I am that pirate captain. And,” he paused, checking to make sure you were paying attention, “a very busy, very important man. I’ve got, oh, ten minutes or so for you to decide how this is gonna go. So let’s get straight to it.” He turned back, pointing the knife at you. “Who are you, and what are you after?”

The accusatory tone of his voice took you aback. “Nothing… I’m not anybody,” you stammered out. “And this… this isn’t what it looks like, I swear.”

Buggy, to your surprise, relented after a second of considering your appeal, nodding understandingly.

There was no transition from his look of sympathy to raising the knife and aiming it at you. By the time you realized he meant to throw it, you barely had a chance to yelp. The blade took a loud, thumping bite into the wood beside you. On your left side, of course. Where you couldn’t see it. You could feel it, though. The air displacement ruffled the fine hairs around your ear. If you had flinched in that direction, it probably would be in your skull. With your dizzy head aching and confused, you had no regulation to your fear or discomfort, your breathing dangerously unsteady and tears pricking the corner of your eyes.

“Let me try a different question,” Buggy said before you could collect yourself, pulling out another knife. “Who else knows about this place?”

“Nobody! I swear, nobody else. I was just…” You didn’t know what to say. It was all you could do to breathe the thick, heavy air and fight down the tide of nausea.

“Just what?” Buggy asked, leaning in with raised eyebrows to show that he was listening intently. You opened and closed your mouth, unable to come up with the right words. Thoughts churned through the thick sludge in your head, getting stuck or lost or confused.

“I’m so sorry,” you said, the stumbling apology coming out more naturally than anything else, an attempt to buy time while you organized your thoughts. “Please doh-don’t…. I’m so ss-sorry.”

Buggy sighed, standing up straight and raising his hand to aim.

“Nonono, please d-” You yelped louder this time, flinching away as the knife streaked through the air and stuck not even an inch away from your right cheek. You exhaled a pathetic little sob, whatever you were bound to shaking with your body.

“Listen, honey buns,” Buggy said. “Drop the act. Stop the whining. I caught you, red handed, sneaking into my lair.” He pulled something out of his pocket. Not another knife, but a piece of paper which he unfolded, holding it up for you to see. His wanted poster, creased into sixths from the way you folded it to keep it close, to keep it hidden. “I found this in your bag. You know who I am, and you know where you are. You have to, so let’s do away with all the theatrics, okay?”

You swallowed hard, nodding quickly in the hope that it would appease him.

“Right now, this is a conversation,” Buggy said, gesturing between the two of you. “A light interrogation, really. But if you keep being uncooperative and wasting my time, it’s gonna go from being interrogate-y to being torture-y real quick. You don’t want that, right?” Although he was unmistakably threatening you, Buggy’s tone was more natural than before. There was a bluntness to it, an honesty. Men like him didn’t idly use words like torture.

You sniffed, trying very hard to calm yourself down. This was a misunderstanding, so you just had to convince him. Simple as that. He would understand. You would make him understand.

“Right,” you agreed.

“Fantastic. So,” he loudly clapped his hands together, “who else knows about this place?”

“Nobody, I promise… I’m really sorry I broke in,” you told him, speaking slowly so your words didn’t catch. “I just wanted to meet with you.”

Buggy’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, the hair hanging out from the sides of his hat swaying as his head tilted curiously. “You’re a fan?” he clarified. “That explains why you’re so pathetic. Well I hate to break it to you, but there’s a reason I only hold meet and greets after shows.”

“No, that’s not why! I-I want to join your crew,” you said. “I came to ask you to let me join your crew.”

He blinked twice, staring at you with obvious disbelief. “Excuse me, what?”

“I want to be a pirate,” you told him, louder. “Please. Please let me join your crew.”

Buggy’s expression didn’t change, but you could see the rippling shift of incredulity, befuddlement, skepticism, and then amusement in his eyes. That emotion burst outward into a loud laugh, making you flinch. “That’s the best you can do?” he asked. “Ask to join my crew?” He looked at you again, laughing even harder. “I don’t know what’s funnier—that anybody would send you to spy on me, or that you’d think I would consider hiring you.”

“I mean it!” you argued, humiliation and desperation seeping into the thousand other discomforts of your position. This wasn’t at all how you wanted this to go.

“Sweetheart,” Buggy said condescendingly, “even assuming I believe you, this is a pirate crew, not an afterschool club.”

“I know. I know what pirates do, I know what you do,” you told him. “I’ll do anything, whatever you want. Please, please, just give me a chance.”

He nodded, turning to pace as he thought about it.

“Okay, let’s say that I buy this… this act of yours,” Buggy said. “Do you have any experience? Maintaining ships, reading maps, loading cannons. You know, basic stuff.”

There was a line you had prepared to answer this question, one that would paint you in the most charitable light. You remembered that, but you couldn’t remember the line. All you could give was the truth. “A little.”

He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “Thought so. What about specialties? Unique skills? Any sort of talent that I can use in my show—anything at all. I mean other than,” he gestured vaguely in your direction, “that. We don’t need another one eyed midget. They’re surprisingly common.”

“I’m not a midget,” you told him, nerves fading to incredulity.

Buggy stepped back to size you up before seemingly conceding the point with a shrug. “And the eye?” He covered his left eye to illustrate. “Is that for a bit or something?”

Your stomach twisted with a familiar lurch. Disgust. Shame. Phantom light in the dark. “It’s not.”

“How’d you lose it?”

“I didn’t… lose it.”

“It’s still in there?” he asked excitedly, stepping forward and reaching to remove the bandana. “I have got to see this.”

“No, please—please don’t,” you begged, trying to wriggle away from his hand. Pinned to the board with your hands bound above your head, there was nowhere to go. “Please don’t, please-”

“Come on,” Buggy said, indifferent to your pleas as he pulled the sweat soaked fabric off of your left eye. “How bad could it be—AH!” He yelled in horror, jumping away as if you’d bitten him.

The bandana hit the floor, leaving your ruined eye and its jagged scar exposed. You couldn’t hide. All you could do was flinch back, turning your head away. “I’m sorry,” you said, ready to continue apologizing before you realized that his shock had immediately dissolved into raucous laughter. “Why are you… why are you laughing?” you asked, pulling desperately against the chains.

“I got you good,” Buggy said, his laughter subsiding. “The way you reacted, I thought that you’d be completely deformed. A real sideshow. But this…” He grabbed your chin, forcing it to the side so he could get a better look. “I couldn’t charge for this.”

“Please stop,” you begged, shaking off his grip and staring hard at his shoulder.

“Ohhh. You’re really embarrassed about it.”

You didn’t say anything, focusing mostly on fighting the tears.

“Okay, alright, yeah,” Buggy said, stepping back. “I think I’m starting to get why you would risk life and limb to beg me for a job. You grew up as a cute girl in a shithole town like this. A big fish in a little pond, as they say. Then, suddenly, BAM, you’re deformed, and, sure, they all say that it was tragic, but the truth is that they can’t stand to look at you. Even the people who loved you, the people you trusted, think you’re a freak. They abandoned you. So, without any other options, you come to me, pleading for me to give you a place amidst your fellow freaks. That about it?”

You didn’t say anything—what could you say to that?— which Buggy seemed to take as confirmation, nodding thoughtfully.

“Well, go big or go home, right? As far as a starlet’s breakout role, you couldn’t go any bigger. Thing is, I’m not really looking for new acts. Not to mention your abysmal audition.” He sucked in a breath through his teeth, looking you up and down again.

You could feel your chance slipping away. Just like that. Go big or go home, that’s what he said.

“Please, Captain Buggy,” you begged, staring him in the eye despite how disquieting it was, despite how your skin crawled from exposing your left eye to somebody. Addressing him properly, at the very least, got his attention. “I promise that you won’t regret it. I’ll learn, I want to learn how to be a pirate, how to perform, all of it, everything. And if I can’t, I’ll do laundry and clean and cook, I have lots of experience with that. I don’t care what you ask me to do, if you let me join your crew, I’ll happily serve you for the rest of my life.”

Buggy didn’t respond right away. You thought—hoped—that it meant he understood how serious you were, but his expression gave you nothing. There wasn’t much light in the room in the first place, but somehow he found enough to shine unnervingly in his pale blue eyes. Somebody with a bright red clown nose shouldn’t have been able to look so intimidating, but the way he studied you burned with an uncomfortable intensity. It had been a while since anybody looked at you so frankly, so openly, without disgust or pity.

“Why?” he finally asked.

“Why…?” you repeated, confused.

“I get that you want to leave this place, and I even buy into your whole wanting to be a pirate thing, but, you know, aside from the obvious,” he gestured to himself, “why should I believe that you really want to serve me? You’re young and cute…ish, don’t you want freedom and empowerment and all those other things girls go on and on about?”

Your eyebrows furrowed. “Why would I?”

A moment of quiet that wasn’t quite silence but twice as heavy passed before a slow smile began to spread over Buggy’s face, and then—of all the bizarre, uncomfortable responses he could have—he laughed. “Oh, you’re broken, aren’t you?” he asked, clearly overjoyed by the revelation. “Well, I’m sold. I’ll have to start you on probation just in case you’re secretly up to no good. But, after that, you can audition for real. I’m sure I can find something you’ll be useful for.”

His reaction gave you whiplash. The word ‘broken’ was obviously bad, but everything else was good. You had succeeded. Only, you didn’t know why. You were still trying to decide if being called cute-ish was a compliment or not.

“Hey, just one more thing, okay?” Buggy asked, tapping your cheek. Standing mere inches away, he smiled a rictus grin. It wrinkled his eyes, but they were without life or pity or mercy. “If you’re lying to me about anything, I’ll carve some symmetry into your cute little face. You’ll thank me for it too. You won’t want to see what the guys will do to you after I toss you out there.”

“I’m not lying,” you said softly, shrinking back. “I promise.”

“Great!” Buggy said, his demeanor immediately cheering up. “Let’s get you down.” He walked behind the board you were strung up on, and you let out a shaky exhale. “Brace yourself,” he called. You had no idea what that meant, or how you were supposed to brace yourself when there was nothing for you to brace yourself on. “Three… two…”

He undid the lock, and the chains keeping you bound to the board went slack. You dropped hard, your limbs as heavy as lead. Luckily, your head was too light to feel anything when you hit the ground with a dull thump and the loud cacophony of rattling chains, spinning and blank and utterly empty. There was a suspended moment of floating, lighter than air itself. And then you were blinking rapidly and nauseous, pain shooting up your arms and knees.

Buggy dropped a key in front of you, metal bouncing on the old concrete.

“Unfortunately we didn’t bring any real props with us, so I had to improvise,” he said. With numb fingers, you grabbed the key and worked it into the locked cuff around your wrist. “You lucked out, if this were the real Wheel of Death, you’d be blowing chunks!” He paused, looking down at you. “Can you hurry this up?”

“Sorry,” you said. Your shaking hands kept missing the keyholes, but you finally got the last lock on your ankle open. The cuffs hadn’t broken skin, but your wrists and ankles were rubbed raw, ugly bruises already developing. You’d had worse.

“Alright, upsy daisy,” Buggy said, crouching down to take the key away and grab the only chain you hadn’t gotten out of—the one around your neck.

It acted as a noose, giving you no other choice but to lurch upward with an unappealing choking sound, your head spinning all over again, the weightless itch tingling all the way down to the base of your spine. You stumbled forward, unintentionally falling against him.

“Holy shit,” Buggy exclaimed, helping you stand up straight with a hand on your shoulder. “I didn’t know girls came in fun size. Legally, at least. Are you sure you’re not just like… the maxiest midget?”

“‘m dizzy,” you muttered, swaying despite his support.

“That’s not really… Ah, whatever. Hey, at least if you fall, you don’t have that far to go.”

“I’m… I’m okay,” you finally said, which was mostly true. Breathing slow, steady breaths helped, and then you shook your head a little. The bump on the back of it throbbed painfully, and you’d have bruises on your knees the size of apples, but you would survive. You were still trying to get control over your body. It was heavy and unwieldy, although part of that must have been the exhaustion.

“If you need to vomit, make sure to aim away from me,” he said. That was about all the warning you got before he decided it was time to go, dragging you along behind him like a dog on a leash.

You realized you were leaving your bandana behind, your left eye uncovered, and reared back, trying to stop him. “Wait, I have to grab my-”

“No time,” he said, talking over you and tugging again at the chain.

There was nothing you could do but stumble over your own feet to keep up with him as he led you through the cluttered and dark storage area. You felt a tiny bit of relief that you were still in the familiar decaying buildings northside. The old warehouses were dark, dank, and dingy. Easily defended and difficult to navigate, perfect for criminals to hide out in. You knew them very well, and that helped orient you.

"As I’m sure you noticed, I’m running a bit of a skeleton crew here. The rest aren’t coming ‘til the grand finale,” Buggy said, leading you into the main warehouse space by the chain around your neck like it was completely normal. The awful smell of rot and decay was only compounded by a sickly sweet, chalky scent you didn’t recognize. Gray sunshine flooded in through the broken windows around the high ceilings, piercingly bright. “And after that, we’re gonna blow this town.”

You didn’t respond, growing even more skittish. The two of you drew the attention of the people scattered around. Some were lounging, others were training. All of them turned to look at you, watching with the dark, focused stare of hungry dogs. Colorfully dressed, very dangerous dogs.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have an introduction to make!” Buggy called in a loud enough voice to fill the large space. “Crew, new girl. New girl, crew. Make sure to give her a nice, warm welcome." None of them spoke or reacted, watching you with varying degrees of hostility. Buggy pulled you forward a few steps so he could whisper to you. “See that guy?” he asked, pointing to a bald man with square features and an especially dark glare. “That’s Ivo. He was the one who caught you. To be completely honest, I think he’s still a little angry that he didn't get to keep you. If I were you, I’d try to stay on his good side.”

“How?” you asked, your uneasy stomach sinking further, but Buggy was already preoccupied with something else.

“Oh, hey-” he called, flagging down a woman who was leaning against one of the steel supports. You stumbled behind him, holding the chain around your neck to ease the pressure. “Crina, I have got a very important job for you.”

The woman slowly looked from Buggy to you, giving you a weighty once-over with dark, kohl-lined eyes. Her clothes were different from the rest, draped with beads and loose and layered in shades of purple. Beneath the mystique, however, you felt the same hardness you recognized in all the pirate’s faces. “You want me to look after the little rat,” she said with an accent you didn’t recognize.

"God, it’s like you can read minds or something,” Buggy said, laughing. “Anyway, yes. Make sure she doesn’t get up to anything naughty while I’m gone. In fact, don’t let her out of your sight.”

“With all due respect,” Crina said, “why not just kill her?”

“Because I don’t want her dead,” Buggy snapped, suddenly irritated. If Crina was surprised or off put by the abrupt change of his mood, she didn’t show it.

“Of course, captain.”

“I thought I saw some cages over there,” Buggy said, gesturing vaguely and forcing the chain into Crina’s hand. “Stick her in one of those. In the back, away from any prying eyes.”

“A cage?” you asked.

“As fun as it is to see you all chained up,” Buggy said. “I worry that it might send the wrong message. Out of sight, out of mind—I don’t need you distracting my crew. They’re planning a very big surprise party. If you behave, I might be able to find some time for you later. Sound good?”

You nodded, almost surprised by how good that sounded. He ruffled your hair before turning away, barking orders to some of the men.

“Let’s go,” Crina said, pulling your attention back to her. “We have our orders.”

The cage Crina put you in, one out of several bolted to the floor in the corner out of the way from the main space, had just enough room for you to sit slouched, or lay curled on your side, meant for big dogs or small humans. There was a market for both, and you knew that this warehouse had likely housed both.

The old, dilapidated buildings had been out of use for a long time, as long as you could remember. Barley Village had been originally built to be close to the mineral deposits, but as those dried up and industry trended towards the water, southward expansion left all of the old buildings empty and rotting. There was always talk about tearing them down, but it was only ever talk. One time you were told that some people wanted to keep the buildings available to people who wished for some privacy. But when you asked your dad if that was true, he got angry, telling you that was a lie, that he would never let that happen. He said it would just be too expensive to take them down, and that there was really no point in it.

But he also told you to never, ever spend time northside. Of all of the rules he gave you, that was the only one you ever truly disobeyed. You had no idea how many times you had gotten in trouble for playing here, climbing up rusted stairs and crossing the support beams up by the ceiling, using rocks to knock out the jagged edges of broken glass from the windows so you could go onto the rooftops. Your health problems made it difficult, and sometimes impossible, but you were patient. Plus, that had been before the accident, when your coordination was still good.

Back then, you didn’t worry about the many dangers that lurked here, and you certainly didn’t believe you could be hurt. You were too entranced by the world you created for yourself. The only thing you worried about was the beatings you earned when you got caught. Dad used to tell you that if you kept disobeying him by going northside, you’d wind up locked in one of these cages—or worse. It took you a while to think of the word, because it wasn’t funny, but it also was. Ironic. It was ironic.

You couldn’t even imagine what kind of reaction he would have to what you had done now, what punishment you would earn. It would be bad. You knew it would be very bad.

Better not to think about it. Falling unconscious after being hit on the head was the most you had slept for the previous two days. It was the level of exhaustion that you could be staring down the business end of a sword with indifferent, sleepy eyes. Being locked up was bad, very bad, but you were content to lay listlessly on your side.

At some point, you must have fallen asleep because you weren’t entirely conscious when somebody kicked the front of your cage. “Hey, wake up.” Your physical response was to startle, jolting you awake enough to flinch away from the violence. But it was only Crina who crouched in front of the cage. “I have food for you. And medicine for the headache. I’m going let you out, and I suggest you don’t try to run. If the guys get a hold of you, I won’t stop them.”

“I won’t run,” you told her, your voice hoarse, your eyes fixed on what she had brought. A bowl of something that looked like stew and a bottle. More than food, you wanted water. Crina undid the lock and you shuffled out of the cage. Your head spun just as badly as it had when you dropped onto the floor earlier, your vision crawling with darkness and stomach heaving unhappily. She was right about the headache. It wasn’t a pain you ever got used to, no matter how many days you spent laid out from one. After an uneasy moment, you sat on the floor, grabbing the water and eagerly uncapping it.

“Hand,” Crina said, holding out a glass bottle. You allowed her to shake two capsules into your palm, tossing them into your mouth before taking in a blessedly wet mouthful of water. It soothed your tongue and throat like a salve, although you knew your stomach wouldn’t be quite so happy to receive anything. The stew’s scent alone made your stomach clench and churn with equal parts hunger and nausea. Slow. You had to take it slow.

“Thank you,” you told her, picking up the bowl. She’d brought a wrapped sailor’s biscuit to eat it with. Not very appetizing, but you hadn’t eaten much more than you slept. It could have been saw dust and you would have been grateful.

“I have your bag,” she said to fill the silence as you ate, pushing the limp canvas towards you. “They took anything that looked valuable, but your clothes are all there. They need to be washed. I’ll lend you something to wear in the meantime.”

Since your mouth was full, you nodded your thanks.

“While you eat, I’m going to talk. You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to,” Crina said. “You don’t strike me as the talkative type.”

She didn’t say that in an accusatory tone, but it still caused your heart to skip with anxiety. The fear had to be irrational, it wasn’t as if you had lied to Captain Buggy, so what did you have to worry about? Besides, only the guilty feared scrutiny, that was a favored line of your dad’s.

“There’s a man in town asking if anyone has seen a girl. Petite. Missing an eye. Mentally unwell. He’s concerned that she might have gotten lost somewhere,” Crina told you. “From what I gather, her father is a pillar of the community. They’re all very worried.”

You averted your gaze, anxiously pulling your hair to cover your left eye. Of course Randall would be looking for you, although you had hoped you would have more time before he noticed your absence. It didn’t matter that you left in such a way to raise as little suspicion as possible, or that you were an adult, or that you didn’t want to be found. Your dad asked him to be your keeper while he was gone, and Randall did as your father said. Everybody did.

“Finish your food,” Crina prompted. “It’s worse when it’s cold.”

Right. You started eating again, your movements mechanical. She said nothing, and you had nothing to say.

“Everybody has their reasons for turning to piracy, and they’re not always pleasant,” Crina suddenly said. “Unless it interferes with my own business, I don’t care about who you were and why you ran away. It was a stupid choice, I think you know that. I won’t try and convince you to leave. Buggy seems to like you, so you wouldn’t be able to go anyway. But you need to understand that there will be consequences. The life you had before, no matter how terrible, did not prepare you for the life you’ve thrown yourself into.”

You stared hard at the bowl, thinking about that. It was true, you had to accept that you had blindly stumbled into a world you knew nothing about. But what choice did you have? The things that led you to this point were arranged like the rusty, creaky rungs of a ladder scaling the side of a building. Climbing up had always been the easy part, it was the inevitable descent that gave you trouble. You had to go slow, one rung at a time, blindly feeling with your toes, holding on with sweaty fingers, not looking up and not looking down because once you were on the ladder, you could only keep going. The first rung was spotting the Buggy Pirates, which you only did because you were sulking around the docks after seeing your father off on his trip. You only recognized the crew because your dad kept track of pirate captains with significant bounties. You only had the courage to sneak away from your house because dad was too far away to stop you. You only had the ability to scope out Buggy’s temporary hideout because of how much time you spent northside when you were younger. Those things all connected and followed so naturally and you didn’t know if fate existed, but you knew for a fact that you wouldn’t have wound up here on your own volition. It wasn’t a choice you made, it was the only way to get down from the roof that you had been stranded on for so long.

“I’ll give you some advice,” Crina continued, her tone lighter, “and I suggest you listen. You’re young and pretty, and you wouldn’t be the first to try and use that to get an advantage. It might work for a while, but men will get bored and your looks will fade. Before long you’ll be spat out into a cheap whorehouse with a couple of children you can’t afford and a hell of a rash.”

The whiplash from your thoughts to the conclusion she had drawn made your stomach twist with disgust. “No,” you said. Was that what she thought of you? Even if the idea was utterly ridiculous, shame rolled uncomfortable through you. “I would never—I could never ever do that.”

“Don’t be naive,” Crina said, rolling her eyes. “The boys you’re used to are disgusted by that scar, but the kind of men you’ll meet from now on won’t be. If your low self-esteem dictates who you let between your legs, you’ll find yourself in the gutter. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t sleep with men to get an advantage if that’s an option, only that you must be smart about it.”

You pulled your hair forward again, shaking your head clear of what she was saying. She didn’t understand. It wasn’t the assumption that men would be repulsed by your scar—which they would be, you knew that—but that you didn’t have it in you to invite or manipulate male attention. In so many ways you were already ruined, but to stoop down to letting other men touch you would be too far, it would destroy you.

“Assuming you live past tomorrow night,” Crina continued, “get a knife and figure out how to use it. The men aren’t going to accept you as a member of the crew until you prove yourself. So if anybody gets too close, you prove yourself with blood.”

“Do you think they’ll try to hurt me?”

“I think you look like an easy target,” she said. “And I know you have no concept of self preservation or defense.”

“Yes, I do,” you said, frowning. You had made it this far, after all. That was more than anybody would have thought of you.

“You don’t,” she said plainly. “The tablets I gave you are for treating pain, but imagine if they weren’t. You didn’t so much as ask me to clarify what they were.”

You opened your mouth to argue, and closed it, shame squeezing your throat. You hadn’t even thought about that.

“It might not matter anyway,” she said, “depending on Buggy’s reasons for keeping you.”

“What do you mean?”

Crina gave you a long, pitying look and you could tell there was something she wanted to say, something she was holding back. Eventually she shrugged. “That is between the two of you.”

You wanted to push for more, confused by the cryptic answer, but you didn’t. You could tell by the hard look on her face that she wouldn’t tell you anyway.

“One more thing. The most important thing,” Crina told you, leaning close so she could whisper. “Never, ever mention the captain’s nose. In fact, never mention noses at all.”

“His nose?” you repeated softly. “Is it… is it real?”

“What did I just say?” she asked sharply. “He killed a few of the last new recruits for saying something that sounded like nose while he was in a bad mood.”

“He… killed them?” you asked.

“Buggy is a very temperamental man,” she said, leaning back. “Try not to get on his bad side.”

“It sounds like you don’t like him.”

“I do, actually. God knows why. Are you finished?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Come on then,” Crina told you, getting to her feet and dusting herself off. “There’s running water on the other side. I’ll keep watch so you can clean up.”

Although birds called and the breeze carried all sorts of noises from Barley Village, none of it really reached the northside. A solemn graveyard hush settled heavy between the wreckage of ruined buildings, drafty even in broad daylight. No ghosts hid in the shadows, no historical tragedy marred its name, but there remained the haunted imprint of people who were no longer around.

Before setting you on your task of the day, Crina had given you a dress of hers to wear while your own clothes dried in the sun. You swam in it, but a sash at the waist made the fit look somewhat intentional and the long sleeves hid the ugly bruises cuffing your wrists. That, combined with having slept the previous night and most of the day, left you feeling oddly refreshed. Sure, all of the sleep had been in a cage and the only ‘bath’ you had was a couple of minutes alone with a spout that spat freezing water and a washcloth, but it was better than yesterday. Better than the day before that too, save for the bruises and big goose egg bump on the back of your head.

Despite the headache, you were glad to be given something to do. The task wasn’t difficult. Busywork that kept you out of the way. Checking to ensure that everything which would be loaded on the ship was documented, organized, and ready for transport. It wasn’t entirely unlike what you had done in the past and, you imagined, would be doing in the future. It was, however, the opposite way around. The goods were obviously looted, you were creating a list to know exactly what and how much of it had been stolen.

Vinegar, oil, wax.

You used the end of the pen to scratch beneath your bandana, which Crina had kindly retrieved for you. Sometimes the scar got itchy, like it had when it was healing.

Twine, needles, thread.

There was a particular smell to supply crates like these. Something to do with the place they were stored, or where they were made. Even now, years since you had been on a ship, it was overwhelmingly familiar. It made your stomach ache and chest clench, although you weren’t sure which quality of the scent was so unsettling.

You scratched the scar again.

Vinegar, oil-

Wait, you had already done that. Annoyed, you crossed out those words and crouched down to get into the next crate. Rope. It was coiled in tight loops like a huge snake, coarse beneath your fingers. Anything that was strong enough to endure the fury of the sea had to be coarse. Good rope was vital on a ship, you knew that even with your limited experience. Touching it reminded you of the time your dad tried to show you how to tie knots, and then subsequently had to treat your rope burn.

What would he think when he returned? Retired Marine or not, he was deeply involved with northside business and law. Missing supplies, missing daughter. Sometimes you felt an acidic sort of pleasure when imagining his reaction to your absence, but usually it was just dread.

Or worse. Prickling paranoia. You could run, for a time. But that was all it was. Running. He used to be a Marine, it wouldn’t be difficult for him to find you. When you were younger, the thought gave you comfort.

But you didn’t want to think about that. Not at all. Not ever again. You stared very hard at the rope, desperate to put those thoughts out of your mind.

You stared and stared and stared and-

Somebody grabbed you around the bicep, dragging you to your feet and forcing you back to reality. Yelping in fear, you were nearly knocked back down from the bloodrush dizziness of standing up too fast, saved only by the crates.

“Good god, girl,” the unfamiliar man said, taking a step back, clearly put off by your reaction. “Are you deaf or something? I hollered at you three or four times. Were you sleeping?”

Putting a hand to your racing heart, you looked from him to the still open crate and the notepad you had abandoned mid-task. You had no idea how long you had been sitting there. Long enough for your foot to go numb, prickling with pins and needles now that you were standing up.

“I’m sorry,” you told him.

“The captain wants to see you. It’s urgent,” he said. When you didn’t immediately respond, still orienting yourself, he sighed impatiently and grabbed your elbow, physically dragging you away. You stumbled to keep up, trying very hard to avoid falling. “If Buggy asks why you took so long, you better tell him it was your fault.”

“I will,” you said to appease him, attempting to shake off his hand before realizing that it was pointless. “Please slow down.”

“Not my fault you’ve got stumpy legs,” he said. “Keep up.”

The unfairness of that stung, but you didn’t have much choice. You had a feeling that he’d keep on pulling you along even if it meant dragging you across the ground.

“Where are we going?” you asked, embarrassingly out of breath.

“There,” he said, nodding to one of the waterfront buildings. At least it was close. You never strayed so close to the water, the buildings were too squat to make for fun exploration and too exposed to give cover.

The pirate released you when you got to the door, leaving you winded and scared. You adjusted your bandana and tried to catch your breath. “Don’t forget to tell him it was your fault it took so long, not mine,” he said, opening the door.

“I won’t,” you promised, the words papery thin on your dry tongue.

You were in trouble. You had no idea what you might have done, but there had to be something. Why would you be summoned like this otherwise? A very bad feeling pressed against your sternum, but you forced yourself to walk forward. The door shut behind you. Inside, the air was dark and cool and wet, sending a little shiver down your spine.

Buggy stood in the middle of the room, the only place where the sun found its way between the mangled teeth of glass and steel that used to be windows, his own little spotlight amidst the ruins. There were three other men on the edges of the light, their backs to you. One of them was bound. You did not like this.

“There she is!” Buggy exclaimed, inviting you forward with his arms spread wide. “Come on, don’t be shy. Especially not after keeping us waiting so long. Your friend over here could hardly handle the suspense.

Rocks and broken glass crunched beneath your feet as you approached them. Once you got close enough, finally, you could see the faces of the other men. One was the square-featured, angry man Buggy called Ivo. Another, a man you didn’t know. And the third, the one bound with a busted lip and developing black eye—

Randall called your name, trying to escape and rush to your side. Ivo grabbed him, pressing the blade of his knife against his throat.

“See, I told you, they’re working together,” Ivo said, glaring at you. “She tipped him off. No doubt this place will be swarming with the law before long.”

You stood completely still, staring at Randall with the steadily rising tide of panic sloshing in your stomach. After everything you had done to misdirect him, the note you left to beg he didn’t follow, the trouble you had put yourself through to keep from being seen, he was still here.

“Are you okay?” Randall asked, looking you up and down frantically, concerned in a way he never had looked before. “Did they hurt you?”

“I told you, she’s fine,” Buggy said with a grin. “I mean, yeah, Ivo over there did give her a little knock on the ole noggin—a love tap, really—but the eye was already like that when we found her.”

“I wasn’t asking you,” Randall said, glaring at Buggy.

“Shut up,” Ivo said, pressing the knife close enough to Randall’s throat that it broke skin.

“No, no, let him go,” Buggy ordered casually, waving his hand. “He’s not gonna do anything stupid.” He threw an arm around your shoulder. “Not when I’ve got her.”

Ivo reluctantly complied, releasing Randall. He watched you intently, and you knew what he was thinking. How could he save you?

“Ivo over there thinks that the two of you are working together,” Buggy told you, smiling. His arm was heavy around your shoulders, oppressively so. “He thinks that we should kill you both.”

“I’m not—I wouldn’t,” you told him.

“And see, I wanna believe you. I really do. But he’s not talking, and,” Buggy ran his finger over your right cheek, reminding you of his threat from yesterday, “I’m starting to worry you’ve been lying to me.”

“I’m not,” you said, ice cold dread dripping into your veins a drop at a time. You fought your discomfort and forced yourself to meet his eyes, hoping he could see your sincerity. “I promise I’m not.”

“Then how did he find this place?”

“I don’t… I don’t know…”

“She used to hide here when we were kids,” Randall answered. “I thought she ran away, not that you freaks had kidnapped her. If I had known I’d find pirates here, I would have come armed.”

“Is that true?” Buggy asked you, pulling you even closer. Close enough to be embarrassing, to give the wrong impression, especially when he was stroking your cheek with a sort of affection that didn’t mesh with the danger in his blue eyes.

“I told you it is. Let her go, clown!” Randall shouted. His voice was loud enough to echo, and harsh enough to make you wince. That sort of rage wasn’t one you expected from him, but it was familiar all the same.

“Oh, wow,” Buggy said with a laugh, looking up at him. “Is that jealousy I hear? She didn’t tell me she was leaving behind a boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you said softly, your insides twisting at the thought.

“Really?” Buggy asked. He shrugged, and looked at Randall. “If you’re not doing this because you want to have sex with her, why are you here?”

“I am a dear friend—both to her and her dad,” Randall answered. “He asked me to look after her because she… She’s not in a sound state of mind. And she’s the only family he has left. Without her, he’ll have nothing.” He grit his teeth. “Take me, kill me if you’re that thirsty for blood, but let her go. Please.”

“You’re a real knight in shining armor. Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but she came here all on her own,” Buggy said, releasing you to approach him instead. “She begged to join my crew, got down on her knees and told me that she would be happy to serve me for the rest of her life. It was the most adorable thing.”

“No,” Randall said, his face twisting with disgust. “You’re lying. She wouldn’t do that.”

“Ask her yourself,” Buggy invited, stepping aside and sweeping out his arm. All eyes landed on you like a spotlight. Blood rushed in your ears, and you felt dizzy with it, ready to pass out on the spot. When you looked at Buggy, he smiled and nodded encouragingly.

“It’s true,” you said.

“No. That is impossible,” Randall said. “This is insane. You are mad, you cannot make decisions like this for yourself.” You stared at his feet, your hands balled into fists. You were not crazy. You were not. That had to be true. “Whatever hysterics brought you here, give it up. These are pirates.”

“I’m a pirate too,” you declared, your hands forming fists at your sides. You weren’t crazy, or mad. You were thinking very clearly, more than you had in a while.

“No, you are your father’s daughter,” Randall insisted, loud enough to make you flinch. “Can you imagine the agony he would feel hearing you say that?”

Your breathing was too fast, rapid enough to make your head spin. You kept shaking your head, tears flying off of your cheek, but you couldn’t recall when you had begun to cry. “I don’t care.”

“Don’t care…? This bastard has already gotten into your head,” Randall said. “He has poisoned your broken mind with his lies and manipulations, please don’t let this go any further.”

You shook your head again, but there was nothing you could think of to say. You didn’t want to talk anymore, you just wanted this to be over.

“Believe me, as much as I would love to claim otherwise, I had nothing to do with this,” Buggy said, raising his hands innocently. “You’ve got no one to blame but yourself. Think about what would drive a girl like this into the arms of a pirate. A broken heart, maybe? Was that your doing, lover boy? Did you break her heart? Make her feel like she wasn’t good enough?”

“Keep your big goddamned nose out of our business, clown,” Randall said.

The other pirates audibly gasped, and you could feel the sudden zap of tension in the air. Buggy’s taunting smile froze in place, his posture icing over like a statue. And then, a second later, he was rushing at Randall, burying his fist in the other man’s stomach. Randall crumpled onto his knees with a heavy grunt and you waited for something else, something worse. Crina said that Buggy had killed over jokes about his nose, and, right then, you believed it.

Nothing happened. You watched, frozen, as Buggy breathed in deeply, his shoulders rising and falling with it, and then he raised a hand.

“New girl,” he called, snapping to beckon you closer. You obliged, rushing to his side. He didn’t look angry, not like you feared he would. Instead, he smiled. It was a mean smile, a frightening one. But a smile all the same. “Are you ready for your big moment?”

“What?”

“Your audition! I thought of the perfect act for you. Kill him.”

You looked down at Randall, he was clearly still in pain, his eyes watering as he looked up at you. “I can’t,” you whispered, shaking your head again.

“You can and will. Assuming you want to remain on my crew. Otherwise I’ll kill him and you’ll have to explain to daddy why prince charming was here in the first place.” He held out his hand towards Ivo. “Knife.” When he got it, Buggy flipped the knife handle first, holding it to you with a flourish. “You’re up, babydoll.”

“She won’t do it, clown,” Randall said through grit teeth.

“Of course she will,” Buggy said. “For me.”

As if moving through the dusky haze of a dream, you took the knife, wrapping your sweaty hand around the grip. The way Buggy smiled in response made your heart flutter, something to cling to amidst the horror and disgust. It didn’t feel real anymore. How could it be real?

“I don’t know what to do.” Were those your words? Your voice?

Buggy laughed. “Of course you don’t,” he said, circling behind Randall. “C’mere, I’ll help you.”

Randall was shouting and pleading, but Buggy had grabbed a fistfull of his hair to keep him from escaping.

“You’ve gotta hold him still,” Buggy told you. “Like this, see?”

“-don’t do this, please. You can’t… I love you!”

You got a fistful of Randall’s hair, making him cry out in pain. There was no pleasure in the sound, only a roiling sense of disgust. It would be better when he was dead, and then he wouldn’t be in pain.

“God you’re short,” Buggy said as he adjusted you into place, right between him and Randall. “You’ll be better off going for their ankles.” He wrapped his hand around yours, getting a good grip on the knife and holding it still.

“-when he gets bored of fucking you. That’s all pirates do, rape and murder. You’ll never be one of them, you’ll just-”

“Start on one side and move to the other, easy as that,” Buggy said comfortingly, resting his chin against the side of your head.

“-he doesn’t kill you, your dad will. Do you really think you’ll ever be able to hide from him?”

Moving slowly, through a dream, you put the knife on the left side of Randall’s neck. It was no different from what a butcher did, really.

Breath in. Pull. You instinctively locked up at the sound of Randall’s screams and the resistance of his flesh, but Buggy forced your hand, pulling the blade deep into his neck and then fast to the side. The knife got caught part way through, stuck in something hard. You tried to saw through it and Randall made an inhuman noise of agony. Buggy had to help you unstick it, to follow through until the knife slashed that horrifying scream short and then there was just a sort of gurgling sound and you didn’t know if it was because he was still alive or if it was an automatic process.

There was so much blood, and it was hot, burning you. For some reason, you hadn’t anticipated the messy scarlet spray. From the deep slice came more blood. More, and more still. Randall’s heavy, limp body dropped onto the floor into a puddle of it, although you weren’t sure when you let go of his hair. Buggy released your hand, but you didn’t drop the knife, holding it in a death grip as blood streamed like red veins down your hand and wrist, down the blade and all the way to its tip before dripping to the dirty floor. The tang of iron filled your lungs. You shook all over, all the way down inside, your bones and organs shivering. It was your heart. It pounded frantically, like butterfly wings. And your breathing. Wheezing, gasping, gurgling like Randall’s had before he fell.

Your mouth opened to exhale, but there was nothing there. No air, no words. Nothing. Your cold gaze turned to look at Buggy, confused as to what you were supposed to do next. He had led you this far, but now you were lost. He smiled, and laughed, and took the knife away from you, tossing it to the side where it clanged and slid away.

And then he folded you into his arms, your head pressed against his chest. His heartbeat was firm and steady, and he was so warm. He smelled of gunpowder and salty sea air and greasepaint and the natural warm scent of his skin. You clung to that, breathing in deep to excise the scent of blood.

“Congratulations, babydoll,” Buggy told you. “Looks like you just got the part.”

The first firecracker went off not long after the sun had gone down, kicking off the surprise party with an especially loud zip and then a bang and a bursting sizzle. “It’s a surprise party,” Buggy told you, his face illuminated by the flash of red. “As in, the people who live here are going to be so surprised by the party I’m throwing for my crew. Get it?”

A chain of firecrackers followed the first, a show that the pirates set off amidst a barrage of explosions, lighting up the sky with brilliant colors and smoke, making the earth tremble beneath your feet. They acted as distraction and lure, drawing people further into the town and inviting the ship that had been lurking nearby to enter the harbor.

And after that came the chaos.

Many things happened that you were aware of, if only passively. Leaving the northside and then Barley Village, waiting at the dock, and then boarding the ship as men and women in colorful attire flooded the yard, overtaking the few armed guards. You were told to sit on the deck and wait, so you did. Aware of it all—noxious sulfur and smoke filling the air, thunderous claps of explosives, popping gunshots, screaming voices, roaring fires—but uninvolved. There was a sense of great quiet. Not outside where things were loud and violent and scary, but inside. You were very quiet on the inside. Far away from everything and everyone else.

Blood flaked off of your skin, caking beneath the nails when you scratched your arm. It would have been nice to wash it off, but you didn’t know where you would go for that, and you didn’t want to get up.

“Yoo-hoo, is anybody in there?”

A gloved hand waved in front of your face.

You let out a hoarse scream, nearly tipping backwards from how violently you startled. It didn’t take long for you to realize how overblown the reaction was, Buggy’s laughter made the point quite clearly.

“What was that?” he asked, almost laughing too hard to get the words out. He stood above you without his coat and hat, although he kept the striped headscarf, and a bottle tucked under his arm.

“You scared me,” you told him, a hand on your racing heart.

“That noise you just made though,” he said, still laughing. “It sounded like one of those scream-y fireworks.”

“I didn’t know you were there.”

“Your fault, not mine. I was trying to talk to you, but you just sat there. I thought it was your eye that didn’t work, not your ears.”

“I guess I… zoned out a little.”

“No shit. Ah, that was good,” Buggy said as his laughter subsided. “I had no idea human beings could even make sounds like that.” Letting out a big breath to settle himself, he sat down next to you. Very close, far closer than you would have, almost touching. “Kinda makes me wonder what other kinds of sounds you can make.”

“I know, it’s annoying,” you said, staring hard at the deck. “I’m sorry.”

Buggy laughed at that too, shaking his head. “You really have no clue, do you?” he asked. “Is it weird that I’m into it?”

“Into what?” you asked. “I’m sorry, I… don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t, and that’s okay,” he said with a mocking sort of indulgence, patting your head. “Anyway, I had a little business in town and snagged this from some rich guy’s house.” He held up a bottle by the neck and swished its contents a little for effect. “We’re going to celebrate.”

“Wouldn’t you rather be out there?” you asked, the first coherent question that came to your mind as it scrambled to make sense of what he had just said.

“Between you and me, this,” Buggy said with a confidential hush, gesturing to your burning town, “isn’t my thing. It’s a reward for my freaks, gives ‘em an outlet to express themselves artistically. I prefer a more… performative platform. True art deserves a spotlight and an audience.” He waved that away, smiling. “But this isn’t about me, it’s about you.”

“Me?”

“You really impressed me earlier. I mean, yeah, your technique needs polish, and you’ve got no stage presence to speak of, but you displayed raw talent. I really think you have a shot at success, sweetheart. Stick with me, and I’ll make something out of you yet.”

“Thank you,” you said softly, shying away from thinking about earlier. The praise though, that was heady. That made you feel warm.

Buggy popped the cork off the bottle, taking a drink straight from it and smacking his lips appreciatively. “You like sweet things, right?”

“I-”

“You’ll love this then. Here, try it.”

You eyed the bottle he was proffering to you warily. Alcohol was something you were familiar with, but you could count on your fingers the number of times you had actually tasted it. “I don’t know…” you said, trying to think of ways to reject drinking without seeming ungrateful.

“You’re a pirate now, so you’ve gotta learn to drink like one,” Buggy told you, pushing it into your hand. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

You sniffed the open lip, surprised by the sweetness. It didn’t smell as strongly of alcohol as you feared. Not like what your father drank. Maybe it would be okay. Trying to avoid embarrassing yourself, you tipped the bottle back just like he had. That was a mistake. It didn’t smell like alcohol, but you could taste it—feel it, even. Panicked by your body’s natural response to expel it, you swallowed as much as you could, coughing out the rest. Red liquid drooled down your chin, staining the dress that was already ruined with dried blood. Buggy laughed. A little at first, and then a lot.

Flushing, you wiped your mouth.

“Oh, don’t be like that. That was hilarious,” Buggy told you. You looked away, even more embarrassed. “Your face was priceless. You threw that back with the confidence of a real fire-hazard, saggy skinned, dead eyed alcoholic. You were so serious about it too, and then… Good lord.”

“I didn’t know!” you said, trying and failing not to sound shrill.

“It’s okay, you’ve got me to help you now. Try it again, but don’t be so greedy. Baby sips.”

“No, thank you,” you said, holding the bottle back to him.

“Drink. That’s an order,” he said, pushing it back to you.

That gave you pause. “Do you mean that?” you asked.

He nodded, urging you on.

Your shoulders drooped in defeat. Trepidatiously, you took a small sip. At least you didn’t hack it back up this time. While the taste was sweet, the burn was not. It rose up like smoke into your head, you could feel it.

“What if I get drunk?” you asked.

“Oh, you’re going to get drunk, captain’s orders,” Buggy said with a grin. “I can’t stand watching you sit around moping about killing that guy. Besides, you’re a pirate now.”

The little ball of anxiety deep in your gut doubled. This was wrong, you knew it was. Or maybe you were wrong, and Buggy was right. You didn’t know.

“I don’t want to embarrass myself,” you muttered.

“As long as you don’t jump into the water or shit yourself, you’ll be fine…” You looked at him, horrified. “Joking! C’mon, I’ve taken good care of you so far, haven’t I? You’ll be fine.”

The way he laughed made you want to believe him. He was your captain now. You nodded seriously and, steeling yourself, took another drink. And another.

“See? It’s good, right?” Buggy asked, holding out his hand for the bottle.

You licked your lips, cleaning up the lingering sweetness. “It is. Thank you,” you said, unable to keep yourself from admiring the way his throat worked as he swallowed, the view unfortunately obscured by his cravat.

The perverse thought took you by surprise. Was it the alcohol? Already, your head was spinning, your thoughts a little more disorganized. It wasn’t like the quiet, empty feeling of before. It was warm and distant, it made your shoulders relax, the anxiety and uncertainty of before fading. This was a good idea, you already felt so much better. When he passed the bottle back, you didn’t have to be prompted to imbibe, chasing that feeling.

“I don’t mean to pry, but when that guy back there mentioned your dad, it really seemed to get to you,” Buggy said. “What, did daddy not love you? Or maybe he loved you a little too much.”

You didn’t want to talk about that. You didn’t want to think about it. You took another big drink.

On the horizon, the town was utterly ablaze. As the night grew darker, the flames rose higher. Which building was burning so brightly? It belched thick, black smoke into the night sky. Who was in it? Anybody you knew?

“Don’t wanna talk about it, hm? That’s fine,” Buggy said, stealing the bottle back. “With any luck, my freaks’ll kill him tonight, eh? Then you’ll really be free.”

“He’s gone right now,” you said, your words soft and slurring together. “Out of town.” What would he think of the smoldering ashes? Would he believe you had perished in the flame? Somehow, you doubted that. He would know what you had done. There was no chance of freedom, not for you.

“That’s even better,” Buggy said.

Your eyebrows furrowed as you turned to him, both in confusion and disbelief. “How?”

“Because, babydoll,” Buggy told you, shaking your shoulder to make sure you were paying attention. “It’s good to have somebody to hate—somebody to prove wrong. He tried to convince you that you’re crazy, he tried to keep you from ever being yourself. That pain and anger made you weak. But you’re not weak anymore. Tonight, I showed you how to be strong. It’s not enough to tell those assholes that they’re wrong, you have to prove it to them. That’s what tonight was about, right? You proved to your dad, to everybody, that you’re stronger than they thought. And, hey, you proved it to me, too. I wasn’t sure about you at first, but I changed my mind.” He threw an arm around you, pulling you close. “I like you, kiddo. A lot.”

“I like you too,” you said, relaxing into the little side hug, very aware of every place his bare arm met your bare shoulders and neck. The alcohol had stoked a nice blaze in your stomach and chest, making your head spin in a way you didn’t mind that much. Smoothing the colors, softening the air, making you want to lean into his touch, made you crave more of it.

Buggy pulled away, leaving the bottle in your hands. You felt a little cold without him.

“You know,” he said, smiling at you. The far off flames glinted mischievously in his eyes. The flaring reds and oranges highlighted his cheekbones too, defined the sharpness of his jaw. You were caught off guard by how viscerally you reacted to the thought that he was handsome, your filterless mind caught in an endless loop of focusing on the fact. “Burning down this shithole is nothing compared to what I will do. The towns I’ll raze to the ground, the treasure I’ll steal, the shows I’ll put on. Now that I’ve got a crew, I’m gonna put on a show like nobody’s ever seen. The biggest, flashiest, greatest show ever. Everybody will be screaming my name, recognize my face. I’ll shine so bright that they’ll have no choice but to love me. ”

Buggy’s intensity made you smile, you couldn’t help it. Alcohol had created a cloudy burst of affection within you, or maybe it was just the floodgates of tension finally collapsing, letting out something that would have otherwise been smothered. Either way, it was as intoxicating as the drink itself.

“Are you laughing at me?” Buggy asked, his tone filled with steel. You looked to see his dark expression, his narrowed eyes.

“I’m not,” you said, confused by his rapid shift in demeanor. “I’m… I’m happy. I’ll do anything to help you.”

He relaxed. “Well, you’d better start working on your act.”

That made you laugh, a dizzy, bubbly sound. “I can’t do an act. I wouldn’t know what to do.”

“There has to be something. Let me think… Can you sing?”

“I used to, a little. But not for a really long time.”

“Come on, let me hear it.”

You were drunk, you knew that for a fact because in no state of sobriety would you offer to sing in front of another person. But, right then, bubbling with alcohol and protected by the darkness of the smoky night sky, you felt invincible.

“Oh, what do you do with a drunken sailor? What do you do with a drunken sailor? What do you do with a drunken sailor, early in the morning? Slash his…um… something, something, captain’s daughter. Toss him in… to… the dirty water…” Whatever coherence you held onto unraveled into a fit of drunken laughter at the awful rhyme. “I’m sorry, I think… I think I forgot some of the words.”

“Seems like you forgot the tune too,” Buggy said, wincing dramatically. All that did was make you laugh harder. “Hold on a second, let me wipe the blood out of my ears.”

You swatted his shoulder, although your attempted indignance probably wasn’t very convincing when you were still smiling. “Don’t be mean!”

“That’s a bold way to treat your captain,” he told you, but he was smiling too.

“Please don’t be mean to me, Captain Buggy,” you said, speaking slowly to emphasize how serious you were.

“Beg me again.”

You blinked. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, waving it off in a way that made you think he was making fun of you. “Anyway, I’m being nice right now, especially after that performance. The critics would eat you alive for that one. So, singing is out. Clearly. What else have you got?”

“Oh! I know a, um, a rhyme. A joke.”

He looked at you skeptically. “Really?”

“What is that s’posed to mean?” you asked.

“You don’t strike me as somebody with… How should I put this… A sense of humor?”

You frowned.

“Alright, alright, quit pouting and tell me,” Buggy said impatiently, waving you to continue.

You cleared your throat very theatrically, sitting up as straight as you could manage.

“There was a young lass who thought

Very little but thought it a lot.

Then at long last she knew

What she wanted to do,

But before she could start, she forgot.”

Deflating, you laughed, surprised at how clearly you had delivered the words. Especially considering how long it had been since you heard them.

Buggy didn’t look nearly as impressed. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a clean limerick before,” he said. “And now I know why. I mean, what’s the point of limerick without the ick.”

You blew a raspberry at him. “Fine, you do one.”

“Okay, but you have to prepare yourself,” Buggy said. You nodded encouragingly.

“There was a young plumber named Lee

Who was plumbing his girl by the sea.

She said, ‘Stop your plumbing,

There's somebody coming’

Said the plumber, still plumbing, ‘It's me.’"

Belatedly, you gasped, your hands covering your mouth. That shock dissolved into giggles. “That’s, oh, that’s… that’s dirty.”

“Aw, was it too much for your delicate sensibilities? Now that you’re a pirate, you’re gonna hear a lot worse than that. A looooooooot worse. I hope your unspoiled ears can handle it.”

“I can!” you insisted, taking a big drink to steel yourself before setting the bottle aside. If you were going to be a pirate, you had to stop getting so flustered. “More. Please.”

“Okay, okay…” Buggy cleared his throat. “A hooker roaming the East Blue,

Once filled her vagina with glue,

She said, with a grin, ‘Well, they paid to get in,

And they’ll damn sure pay to get out, too.’”

You laughed loudly, as much at the joke as the taboo nature of it. You laughed, and then giggled in a bubbly, drunken way that you knew was too loud and embarrassing. “That is icky,” you told him. “Jeez, that’s…” Your faux seriousness dissolved into a fit of giggles again and you leaned against him for stability. “What would you even do?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. It sounds like a sticky situation,” he said, nudging you with his elbow. That, of course, sent you into another fit of giggles.

“I’m sorry, I’m…” you said. “I think I’m drunk.” You looked behind yourself at the town, the glittery haze of joy buzzing in your head fading at the sight. It was horrific, wasn’t it? And here you were, laughing like a fool. You couldn’t really comprehend the magnitude of it all, even if you could acknowledge that it was terrible. “Is it okay?” you asked, looking back at him imploringly. “Everything that happened tonight… I thought I would feel very different after, but I don’t. It almost feels like it’s not even real. You ever get that? When things happen but they feel so impossible that you get confused?”

“If you can think that clearly,” Buggy said, “then you’re not drunk enough. Bottoms up, babydoll.” You smiled at his use of the pet name and the fluttery feeling it gave you. What else could you do but oblige, tipping the bottle back like before. Only, unlike before, you kept it all down. There wasn’t any real burn, just more sweetness, more warmth.

And then there was nothing left.

“Woah,” you said, lowering the empty bottle and wiping your mouth. “‘s all gone.”

“And how do you feel?” he asked.

You opened your mouth to respond, but all that came out was a dizzy sort of laugh. “I dunno…” you said, closing your eye, trying to collect your thoughts. “I’m…” Already things were getting even more fuzzy and foggy. Fabric stuck to your flushed skin, the salty air drying across your chest and cheeks. “I feel… very…”

Making an upset noise in the back of your throat, you pushed your hair back, catching the bandana and pulling it off so you could feel the breeze on your whole face. That helped. Drawing in a deep breath, you looked at him, trying to focus. Only, the second you saw him, all you could do was smile. His eyes were greedy about the light, sparkling with it. Even with the nose, Buggy was handsome. That was not something you could tell him though, not at all ever. Unfortunately you had forgotten what you were saying in the first place.

“Very… what?” Buggy asked. “‘Cause if you keep trying to be a buzzkill, I’ll give you something to laugh about.”

Were you a buzzkill? You couldn’t remember what you had said or done to earn that title. It was hard enough to comprehend what was happening in the moment. “Like what?” you asked.

“Like… this!” Buggy said, using the sash around your waist to pull you closer so he could tickle your sides. You jumped and squealed, the bottle rolling out of your hands as you tried to fight him off.

“No no no, don’t,” you cried, trying to escape. You were being too loud, moving too much, acting like an idiot, but you didn’t have enough control to stop.

“Why not?” he asked. “You’re laughing, aren’t you?”

It was true, you couldn’t stop yourself from laughing, letting it out in panicked little bursts. Time had a bizarre elasticity to it, everything hitting you at once and fading just as fast. Laughing, sobbing, begging him to stop. It was easy to catch and hold onto one of his hands, but that left the other one free. And if you tried to catch that one instead, you had to release the first. There must have been a better way to do it, but you felt as if, bit by bit, particle by particle, the world was separating, the hot and humid air splitting, your limbs becoming loose, your capacity for rational thought dissipating like mist.

Lacking any sort of control and with a completely undeserved sense of invulnerability, you tackled him. Buggy let it happen, still laughing. At least he had stopped.

“God, it’s like being attacked by a drunk, one-eyed toddler,” he said. “What are you gonna do, whine me into submission?”

“Don’t be mean,” you said seriously, your words ruined by something wavering between a laugh and a sob, or maybe it was just the drunken slur.

“You attacked me. If anything, I'm the victim here.”

“No! You started it!”

“Hold on, are you… crying?” Buggy asked incredulously. “Aw, you poor thing. I mean, you were laughing so much, how could I have known you didn’t like it?”

“I don’t!” you insisted.

“To be clear,” he said. “You don’t like this?” He attacked your sides, not tickling so much as just teasing, but to the same effect. You yelped and sat up squirm away, swatting at his hands.

Rather than laugh like before, Buggy groaned, his hips bucking up against you. A loud, harsh gasp left your mouth, your entire body going rigid from the liquid heat of friction, your thighs squeezing around him. At some point, your skirt had ridden up, your panties being the only barrier left. You didn’t think you had ever been as acutely aware of how achingly empty, electrically tingly, as you were right then.

Bad. Very bad.

“Oh, there’s another fun noise,” Buggy said, laughing as he propped himself upright with his arms. “I can’t believe that got you.”

“No,” you said quickly, dizzy from the intensity of your reaction and how close the two of you were. You could smell him, the sweat, the musk, the salt, the greasepaint, the gunpowder. You could see the glitter in his makeup, the fire catching in his eyes. “It jus’... surprised me.”

“Is that why you’re shaking?” Buggy asked, rubbing your exposed thigh, the fabric of his glove catching the sensitive skin.

“I’m… um…” Your eyebrows furrowed as you tried to organize the drunken slush of your brain. Being so close to him, feeling his body against yours, sent deviously tantalizing tingling sparks through you. And guilt. It was wrong, he wasn’t doing anything to invite those feelings, you were just being weird and drunk and embarrassing and you couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to kiss him. You’d have to tilt your head a lot, although the stubble would be more hazardous than his nose. The last time you kissed someone, you were both young enough that you didn’t have to navigate facial hair. And then there was the matter of the makeup. You tried to imagine what you might look like after, the slash of red and imprint of white. Maybe they’d mix into pink. You tried to force yourself to focus on something else, but you couldn’t meet his eyes either. Nervous and confused and filled with a million different feelings you had no name for, you squirmed again, thoughtlessly adding to the anxious feedback loop of heat and need and intoxicated emptiness.

“You know, sweetheart, this reminds me,” Buggy said, “there’s still the matter of your physical. It’s standard procedure for new crew. We could get that over and done with while you’re… lubricated.”

“What’re you… talking about?”

“I’ve gotta make sure you’re fit, healthy… Clean of anything you could pass on to the forty or so people you’re gonna be stuck with in an enclosed space for weeks at a time.”

“How d’you do that?”

“You’ve been to a doctor, right? It’s kinda like that. I know it can feel a little invasive, so it might be better to do it while you’re drunk.”

“What…” you started to ask, but then Buggy shifted, his hips pushing up against you. The fresh wash of warmth it sent into your core scattered your mind, and you lost the already tenuous thread of thought. Your eyelashes fluttered, although you weren’t sure when you had closed your eye. “Umm…”

“Well, first,” he said, answering the question you hadn’t asked, “you’d have to take off your clothes. Then relax while I have a little look-see. It’s important that you stay as still as possible. I’ll have a hard time finishing if you can’t stop squirming around the whole time.”

“Do you really have to?” you asked, your brow furrowing. It sounded embarrassing. But maybe if it was him, you didn’t mind? Your dad did all of your past medical check-ups so it wasn’t inherently wrong. But the thought of Buggy seeing you without clothes wasn’t exactly nice, you could only imagine his disgust. That was bad.

“Depends on if you’re serious about being a pirate or not,” Buggy said.

“I am serious!” you exclaimed. Your hands went to the sash around your waist to pull the bow free. If you did it quickly, you wouldn’t be as embarrassed.

“Woah, wait. Holy shit,” Buggy said, “are you seriously—” He cracked up laughing, making you freeze. “I didn’t think you’d actually fall for that.”

“You’re… laughing,” you said, your fingers falling with the slow sink of humiliation.

“You really were going to strip for me, out in the open and everything.” Buggy laughed harder, rocking forward. “I didn’t expect you to be so eager. Hey, if you really wanna get naked, I’m not going to stop you.”

“I don’t, I just… I thought…” you said, pulling away from him and trying to get onto your feet to get away, embarrassment lighting the worst sort of fire within you.

“Woah, calm down, it was just a joke,” Buggy said, his laughter fading. “You’re absolutely plastered, if you stand up, you’re gonna fall right back down.” You didn’t stop, resolute to get onto your feet and put some distance between you and him. “I won’t catch you.”

“’m fine,” you told him.

You finally got your footing and braced against your knee to lurch upright. For a second, you were standing up and weightless. And then you were nothing.

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