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talkdutchtome · 1 year ago

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You Should Have Said No Chapter One

pairing . . . max verstappen x reader / pierre gasly x reader )

summary . . . when your fiancé cheats on you, you strike up an unusual friendship with one of his closest friends, who just so happens to have had a crush on you since he set eyes on you. chaos ensues.

inspired by the works of miss taylor swift )

genre . . . angst )

song . . . should've said no- taylor swift )

warning . . . cheating, mental illness, angst, eventual smut, poorly translated french and dutch, swearing, mention of parent loss, emotionally abusive parent, slight social media au, kendall jenner as fc (potentially more i’ll add as i go along)

series masterlist . . . available here )

“And Pierre Gasley is the winner of the 2023 Monaco Grand Prix”

Pride encapsulated your heart, finally taking a breath after holding it for what seemed like the last few laps of the race when your fiancé had overtaken Max Verstappen on the 70th lap of the race.

You watched him celebrate on the podium with Charles and Max; seeing him take his second ever first place trophy brought tears to your eyes. You two were childhood sweethearts so you had been with him since the beginning of his career and seeing him now win the most prestigious race on the calendar, the one he had dreamed of winning since he was a child, you couldn’t think of anyone who deserved it more.

“I’m so proud of you Mon amour” you exclaimed as soon as he entered his drivers room where you were waiting for him, your arms wrapping around him, planting a congratulatory kiss on his lips. He kissed you back passionately, you could see in his sparkling blue eyes how much this meant to him. All the tireless training, strict dieting and time away from the people he loved the most, finally paying off, finally meaning something. He picks you up, your legs wrapping around his waist, like muscle memory having have been in this position thousands of times before, you face buried in his neck sticky from the champagne inhaling his scent, smelling the cologne you had watched him put on this morning. You felt him breathing in your scent too, nose buried in your long hair, smelling like the Apple shampoo you had been using since before you had met him, the familiar fragrance calming his racing heart.

“Mon chéri, I did it. No, we did it” he whispered in your ear. You were alone in the room but the intimacy of him talking lowly in your ear made your stomach flutter.

You found yourself in the hottest club in Monaco that night with a good portion of the grid, celebrating the three men on the podium. You were never a person interested in clubbing, usually letting Pierre go alone. Your anxiety of overly crowded places being triggered by the dark rooms filled with hundreds of drunk party goers. But today was his night, you couldn’t not be there celebrating his big win. Sat around a table in the VIP section with Pierre, Max, Lando, Charles and his girlfriend, you felt acutely aware of the swirling pit of anxiety in your stomach but you persisted, wanting nothing more than to celebrate with the love of your life. Pierre had his arm lazily draped around your shoulders, engrossed in a conversation with Charles about the race, Max and Lando were talking to two girls who were gushing over them, Lando relishing it in whilst max shuffled awkwardly in his seat, clearly not wanting the girl sat next to him to be rubbing her hands all over his arms and chest. You smiled to yourself, observing that Max was more than likely acting as a wingman for the young British driver. Looking away to reply to a question asked to you by Charles’ girlfriend, you missed the longing gaze Max gave you.

Hours past and as the club closing time drew near, you became increasingly more tired, just wanting to go home and spend the rest of the night alone with Pierre. Lando’s voice interrupted your train of thought “Everyone’s up for the after party after this right? No need for this party to end” he said taking a break from sloppily kissing the girl sat next to him. You looked up at Pierre, trying to gauge what his thoughts on the proposition were. “Hell yeah” he spoke smiling ear to ear. Feeing your heart sink, knowing that your wish of getting some well needed alone time with your fiancé was now no longer going to come to fruition, you whispered in his ear, telling him that you weren’t feeling great so you would like to go home but that you didn’t expect him to come with you, wanting him to make the most of his celebrations.

“Okay Mon chéri, are you sure? I don’t mind coming home with you if you’d prefer” he whispered back to you, smiling at his selflessness, you planted a soft kiss just below his ear. “I’m sure”

Clambering in the Uber with Charles and his girlfriend who had also decided to call it a night, you gazed out the window watching as the picture of Pierre, Max, Lando and the two girls getting smaller as the car drove away. You waved timidly through the windows, putting on a smile, even though you would have preferred Pierre to come with you, you knew that he had been working so hard and deserved a night to blow off steam.

Falling asleep almost as soon as your back hit the mattress of your shared apartment, you slept undisturbed until you heard Pierre come home. He tried his best to be a quiet as he could coming in, but his drunkenness made that difficult and you stirred, half awake and half asleep as he got into bed. Not awake enough to say anything to him, but awake enough to cuddle into him, you breathed in his scent again, subconsciously noticing that he smelled different to how he normally did, but your brain foggy with sleep didn’t think too much of it.

Your 9 AM alarm rolled around far too quickly, tiredness and a light hangover made your head pound but wanting to stick to your daily routine you pushed through it. Planting a kiss on Pierre’s sleeping head before walking into the bathroom. You spent an half an hour in the shower before you put your make up on and placed a painkiller on your tongue, the headache finally getting the better of you. On your way to the kitchen, you peaked your head into the bedroom, giggling at the sight of your sleeping fiancé still snoring away. In the kitchen you turned on some Taylor Swift and began to prepare breakfast for Pierre, placing bacon in the oven, you began to get to work on making a pancake mix until you heard your phone ring, interrupting the song that was currently planning. For some reason unbeknownst to you, you felt your stomach sink, like you almost knew whoever was phoning you was about to tell you some bad news. Shaking the thought away and dismissing it as your anxiety you picked up the phone and saw that the person phoning you was Max Verstappen. Your eyebrows furred for a second, unsure as to why Max Verstappen would be phoning you. You two had never really been friends, just friendly acquaintances. Chalking it up to it likely being something to do with Pierre having lost something at the after party and Max wanting to return it, you swiped your thumb over the screen, accepting the call.

“Hey Max what can I do for you?”

You heard a shaky breath come through the speaker.

“Hi Y/N, do you have a second to speak? There’s something I need to tell you” you heard the Dutchman say his voice shaking as he spoke, causing the sinking feeling in your stomach return, only more prominent now.

“Uhh yea..” there was a silence as Max willed himself to break the news to you, not wanting to tell you but knowing that you deserved to know.

“Max what is it? Please just-“ you managed to squeak out before being interrupted by the voice coming through the phone again.

“Pierre, he.. well he.. After you left Sophia, one of the girls who was sat with me and Lando”

He paused but your mouth was too dry to be able to fill up the silence, you let it linger before he began again

“Well she started to get closer to Pierre, started flirting with him, and he well he didn’t stop her. He started flirting back. I tried to speak to him, I was going to tell him to stop, to remind him why he shouldn’t be doing what he was doing but he disappeared and I couldn’t find him. Or her.”

Silence filled the air again, tears starting to fall down your face, feeling like your entire world was crashing down, silently preying that Max had nothing else to say, that he was not about to go where you knew he was going with this conversation.

“They eventually came back, together. They were both very disheveled and Sophia’s dress was on inside out. They.. I’m really sorry Y/N. I hate to tell you this but you deserve to know”

Silence filled the air again before a loud sob from you took it’s place. You heard Max breath on the other end of the line, waiting for you to say something, anything. You hung up not wanting Max to hear you cry.

You sat down at the kitchen table, tears streaming out of your face freely, and placed your hand over you mouth, not wanting Pierre to wake up hearing your cries, you couldn’t face him, not right now. Maybe Max is lying, or just mistaken, thoughts flew through your mind, desperately looking for something to cling on to, anything. Memories of last night flashed through your head, Pierre smelling different, but he didn’t just smell different, he smelt like Marc Jacobs Daisy; a fragrance you did not own. You began to sob harder, now struggling to breath you were worried you were going to pass out. The breakfast you had began to make lay forgotten until you heard a shrill alarm fill the house, it was burning and it caused the fire alarm to be set off. You tried to raise to your feet to stop the food from starting a fire but you couldn’t move. It was like you had forgotten how to walk.

You heard footsteps approaching in the distance, Pierre came running through, awoken by the alarm trying to find out what on earth was happening.

“Mon chéri what happened what are you doing?” He questioned you, approaching the oven before turning it off and removing the charred food from within. You said nothing. You did nothing. The chair you were sat on faced away from him and you didn’t make the effort to turn around, not wanting to see his face.

“Y/N? Hello? Is there a reason you were about to let the building burn down?” He questioned walking toward you, his hands finding your shoulders as he stood behind you. You flinched at his touch. The touch that an hour ago you would had relished in.

Pierre’s brows furred at your flinching, before walking in front of you. Worry washing over him when he saw your face, red blotchy with mascara tears streaming down it.

“Mon chéri what on ever is wrong?” He spoke in a panicked voice, before attempting to pull you in for a hug. His worries getting more intense when you resisted the hug instead of melting in his arms like you usually did.

“Don’t call me that.” Your voice was no more than a whisper but it was the loudest thing Pierre had ever heard. He looked at you, expressionless. You knew, he didn’t know how you knew but you did.

“Is that what you called her last night?” You spoke again questioning him.

His heart sank and he was completely stuck, he had no idea what to do, pretend he didn’t know what you were talking about or be honest and work on damage control. He flicked between the two options, truly unsure what to do. But in the time it took him to decide the decision had been made for him. An innocent person wouldn’t have paused like that, an innocent person would have looked confused, not guilty.

“Y/N..”

“Don’t Pierre, just don’t bother.”

“Please Mon chéri let me explain.” He pleaded, although he wasn’t exactly sure how to explain.

“Ok Pierre, explain. Explain why you slept with another woman whilst I was sleeping in our bed waiting for you to come home” you spat, the sadness in your voice replaced with venom.

“She was all over me. I was drunk. You left and went home. It was one moment of weakness. She isn’t the one I want, you are.” He spoke, tears welling up in his eyes.

You scoffed at his excuse, or excuses rather, he seemed to just throw everything at the wall to see what one would stick.

You began to speak, to tell him to leave and never come back but he continued.

“Please forgive me Y/N. I love you so so much. She was all over me and I was missing you it was a moment of weakness you have to forgive me” he pleaded, repeating his words from before.

“You missed me so you slept with someone else?” The question left your mouth before you had a chance to stop yourself.

He was taken aback by your bluntness.

“Yes, uh no I mean no” he stumbled “I didn’t mean for it to happen, I wasn’t thinking”

You rolled your eyes, about to reply with another scathing comment but the venom and anger left your body in an instant. Replaced with an unbearable sadness. You wanted so hard to believe what he said, to forgive and forget and carry on with your life as normal, to marry the man stood in front of you just like you had agreed to all those months ago. But you couldn’t, even if you could find it in your heart to forgive him, things would never been the same again.

“Please just leave, I can’t do this anymore.” You spoke as you stood up and began walking away from him.

“Mon chéri please-“ he began but when you looked back at him he could see the heartbreak in your eyes and he simply nodded before walking to the door. His hand reached for the door handle, ready to let himself out when your voice broke the silence again. You didn’t want to ask, you weren’t even sure you wanted the answer but you couldn’t not know.

“Was it worth it?” He looked up at you, shame in his eyes. “Was she worth this?”

He sighed gently and shook his head “No Mon chéri. She wasn’t. Nobody would be” he looked at you, waiting for you to say something, anything.

You looked at him, the man you had loved for more of your life than you hasn’t and did the last thing he expected you to do. You let out a very low very soft laugh.

“Then you should of said no”

#f1 x reader #f1 smut #max verstappen #formula 1 #max verstappen smut #pierre gasly smut #pierre gasly #pierre gasly x reader #max verstappen x reader #pierre gasly x y/n #pierre gasly x oc #max verstappen x ox #max verstappen x y/n #f1 fanfic #fanfic

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honeymoonavenue · 1 year ago

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taylor swift challenge day 5: favourite outfit - the wonderstruck dress

taylor swift chose a slightly customized version of a look from christian siriano’s spring 2012 collection for both the print and video ads for her Wonderstruck fragrance campaign.

#taylor swift #tswiftresources #tswiftcreatorsnet #taylorswiftedit #enchanted #wonderstruck #speak now #speak now era #tschallenge #tswiftedit #candy swift #myedit

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doreminimi · 27 days ago

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lost in translation: fated encounters

⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ 𝓟𝓪𝓲𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓰: Yuki Ishikawa x Exchange Student Reader

₊˚⊹♡⋆ 𝓦𝓸𝓻𝓭 𝓒𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓽: 9,286 (with epilogue)

⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖ 𝓢𝔂𝓷𝓸𝓹𝓼𝓲𝓼: An architectural exchange student from Japan finds herself in a bind when a service repairman arrives at her apartment in Perugia, Italy, but doesn’t speak a word of Italian. Amidst the chaos and miscommunication, her friendly neighbor, Yuki Ishikawa, steps in to help. His fluent Italian and kind demeanor break the ice, sparking an unexpected friendship between the two, maybe even leading to something more.

a/n: I might have added more to the story after that little teaser from a few days ago 🙈 but I hope you enjoy the story!

song playlist - daydream, ariana grande // perfect, one direction // stuck with you, ariana grande & justin bieber // angel baby, troye sivan // snooze, sza // 2002, anne-marie // enchanted, taylor swift // swap it out, justin bieber // late night talking, harry styles // written in the stars, wendy & john legend // fallin' all in you, shawn mendes // night changes, one direction // i like me better, lauv // count it, nayeon // dandelion, jaehyun // moonlit floor, lisa // saturn, sza (songs to listen to - doesn't have to be in any particular order)

One:

It’s another breezy autumn day in Tokyo, where life flows like a river through the bustling city streets. The air is crisp and invigorating, carrying the vibrant scents of street food — takoyaki sizzling on grills, the sweet aroma of taiyaki fresh from vendors, and the earthy fragrance of fallen leaves creating a rich collage of seasonal delights. As you navigate through the busy crowds of people, each absorbed in their own worlds, you find solace in the rhythm of the city, a comforting backdrop to your hectic life as a graduate student.

Rushing toward the University of Tokyo, you glance anxiously at your watch, a knot of worry tightening in your stomach. Today marks your weekly meeting with your supervisor, and the stakes feel especially high. You can’t afford to be late. Your heart races as you weave through groups of students, professionals, and tourists, each person wrapped in their own narrative, blissfully unaware of the internal chaos swirling within you.

Y/F/N Y/L/N. At 27, you’ve dedicated yourself to your Master’s degree in Architectural Conservation. For you, this isn’t just an academic pursuit; it’s a calling that intertwines with your passion for history and your desire to shape a better future. You envision a world where the stories of the past are honored and preserved, one building at a time. It’s a lofty ambition, but each day you draw closer to that goal, even if it feels like a long and winding road.

Finally, you reach the meeting room, taking a moment to collect yourself before stepping inside. The door swings open to reveal a space that feels like a sanctuary, walls lined with bookshelves crammed with tomes on architecture, history, and conservation, each volume whispering secrets of the past. Your supervisor, a seasoned professor with a welcoming demeanor and an infectious enthusiasm for his field, greets you with a smile that immediately eases some of your tension.

“Y/N, it’s good to see you,” he says, gesturing for you to take a seat at the polished wooden table strewn with papers and blueprints. “I’ve been looking forward to discussing your progress.”

As you dive into the intricacies of your research, examining the elegant curves of Baroque facades and the solemn lines of Gothic structures, emphasizing the vital importance of preservation, you can’t shake the feeling of anticipation bubbling just beneath the surface. The room feels charged, as if the air itself is holding its breath. After you lay out your findings, your supervisor leans back in his chair, his expression shifting to one of intrigue and excitement.

“Y/N, you’ve made remarkable progress. I’m genuinely impressed,” he begins, his tone growing serious. “I have a unique opportunity for you. The university has partnered with several prestigious institutions in Italy focused on architectural conservation, and we would like to offer you a short-term internship. It would involve further research at the University of Perugia.”

His words hang in the air, and for a moment, time seems to freeze. The prospect of Italy, a country steeped in architectural marvels and rich history, sends your mind racing. Images of ancient ruins, stunning cathedrals, and charming piazzas flood your thoughts, and you find yourself questioning the serendipity that has led to this moment. Ever since you were young, you have been captivated by the Italian lifestyle, the art, the culture, and the passion for beauty in every detail.

“Would you be interested?” he asks, his voice steady, grounding you in the moment.

Your heart leaps, a thrill of excitement surging through you. “Yes! Absolutely!” you reply, your voice filled with an enthusiasm that surprises even you.

His smile widens, radiating a mix of pride and encouragement that wraps around you like a warm embrace. “Fantastic. I’ll arrange the details. This could be a life-changing experience for you,” he assures you, his eyes twinkling with the promise of adventure and discovery.

As you leave the meeting, a renewed sense of purpose fills your veins. The bustling streets of Tokyo fade into the background, replaced by the vibrant, sun-drenched landscapes of Italy, where your dreams of conservation and culture are about to unfold.

Two:

Packing for Italy felt like a whirlwind, chaotic and exhilarating, with an undercurrent of anxiety gnawing at your excitement. Unlike your usual trips or holidays, this journey was more than just a vacation; it represented a chance to dive deep into your passion for architectural conservation. Each item you carefully folded and placed in your suitcase felt heavy with significance, as if you were curating a small part of your identity to bring along on this grand adventure.

You meticulously arranged your favorite sketchbooks, ensuring they were nestled safely between layers of clothing, their pages eager to capture the inspiration that awaited you. Your trusty set of pencils, worn from years of use, found their place alongside a few carefully chosen tokens from home: a small photograph of your family, a delicate charm bracelet from a friend, and a handmade postcard filled with messages of encouragement. Each item served as a reminder of the love and support that surrounded you, especially from those who had gathered for tearful goodbyes and heartfelt hugs. As you zipped up your suitcase, the reality of what lay ahead began to settle in, sending a shiver of anticipation down your spine.

Finally, the day of your departure arrived. The air buzzed with excitement as you boarded the plane, your heart racing at the thought of what awaited you in Italy. Tokyo faded beneath you, the sprawling metropolis giving way to the vast expanse of sky, filled with endless possibilities. You found solace in the thought of exploring Italy’s rich history and architectural treasures, even as nerves about the language barrier nibbled at the edges of your excitement.

Upon landing, Italy enveloped you like a warm embrace. Perugia welcomed you with its sun-drenched hills and terracotta rooftops, the vibrant colors a stark contrast to the muted tones of Tokyo. The cobblestone streets wound like ancient rivers, guiding you through a city steeped in history. You could almost hear the whispers of those who walked these paths long before you, and a thrill of inspiration coursed through your veins. The air was rich with the scent of aged stone and blooming flowers, creating an intoxicating blend that made your heart swell with possibility.

After settling into your cozy off-campus apartment, characterized by its rustic wooden beams overhead and a small balcony overlooking the lively street below, you took a moment to breathe in the charm of your new surroundings. The view from your balcony offered a snapshot of everyday Italian life: locals chatting animatedly, children playing, and the distant sound of a street musician strumming a cheerful tune. Yet, a shadow of anxiety loomed over you; while you were fluent in Japanese, English, Korean, and even had a bit of Mandarin under your belt, Italian was a language you had never studied. Taking a deep breath, you resolved to embrace the challenge and immerse yourself in this new world.

The next day, you headed to the University of Perugia for your initial meeting with the faculty contacts regarding your internship. The campus was alive with students bustling between classes, the air buzzing with excitement and lively conversation. As you navigated through the maze of historical buildings, each with its own unique character, you finally found the office of your liaison, Dr. Conti. She was a warm and welcoming woman with an infectious smile that immediately put you at ease.

“Welcome, Y/N!” she greeted you, extending her hand enthusiastically. “We’re thrilled to have you here. I hope your journey was smooth?”

“It was wonderful, thank you!” you replied, feeling a swell of gratitude for her kindness.

Dr. Conti led you into a sunlit conference room adorned with images of historical sites, an inspiring backdrop for your discussion. The walls were lined with photos of breathtaking architecture, from the intricate details of Renaissance buildings to the stark beauty of medieval structures. You felt a surge of motivation as she began outlining the internship details, her enthusiasm palpable.

“We’re excited to facilitate your research on architectural conservation,” she explained, her eyes sparkling with energy. “You’ll have the chance to visit various historical sites across Italy.” As she spoke, she painted a vivid picture of what lay ahead: Florence with its iconic Duomo, Venice with its enchanting canals, and Rome, where history echoes in every corner. “We have partnerships with several institutions, and you’ll be collaborating with experts in the field. We’ll focus on preservation techniques and the history behind these magnificent structures.”

Your heart raced at the thought of exploring those iconic cities. Eagerly, you leaned in, absorbing every detail of your impending adventures. “What will my specific role be?” you asked, your curiosity piqued.

Dr. Conti smiled warmly. “You’ll assist in research and documentation at each site. This will involve taking notes, conducting analyses, and participating in discussions. It’s an incredible opportunity to learn and contribute to important projects.”

As she detailed the itinerary, a sense of purpose solidified within you. The language barrier still loomed like a specter, but the thought of working alongside passionate individuals filled you with hope and determination. The prospect of diving headfirst into your work ignited a fire in your belly.

After the meeting concluded, Dr. Conti extended an invitation to a small get-together dinner with your new colleagues that evening. “It’ll be a casual gathering, a chance for you to meet everyone and unwind after your travels. We want you to feel at home here,” she said, her tone warm and inviting.

“Thank you! I’d love to join,” you replied, your spirits lifting at the prospect of making connections.

Later that evening, you found yourself at a cozy trattoria, laughter and conversation enveloping you like a warm blanket. The air was filled with the enticing aroma of homemade pasta and rich sauces simmering on the stove. Colleagues welcomed you with open arms, sharing stories and anecdotes that made you feel instantly included. Their passion for their work was infectious, each person animatedly discussing architectural styles and preservation techniques, their love for Italy evident in every word.

You listened intently, contributing whenever you could, though you occasionally struggled with vocabulary. Their encouragement and patience made it easier to engage, each smile and nod reassuring you. The clinking of glasses and the warm glow of candlelight created an atmosphere of camaraderie, allowing you to relax and enjoy the evening.

As you sipped on a glass of local wine, the initial anxiety began to dissipate, replaced by a sense of belonging. Surrounded by friendly faces, you realized that you were not just in Italy to study; you were part of a vibrant community that shared your passion for history and conservation. With a heart full of hope and excitement for the journey ahead, you reveled in the moment, knowing that this was just the beginning of an incredible adventure.

Settling back into your apartment later that night, you reflected on the day’s events, the rich tapestry of history and culture surrounding you felt like a dream come true. With the promise of exploration and discovery ahead, you drifted off to sleep, a smile on your face and a sense of belonging warming your heart.

Three:

The days flew by, each one brimming with new experiences and challenges that filled your senses with wonder. Your routine quickly settled into a rhythm that felt both invigorating and comforting: mornings filled with engaging lectures on architectural conservation, afternoons dedicated to sketching the breathtaking landscapes around you and diving into research, and evenings devoted to practicing basic Italian phrases and vocabulary. As the days passed, the vibrant city of Perugia slowly began to feel like home.

Every day at the University of Perugia unveiled something new, like peeling back the layers of a complex painting. The professors were not only knowledgeable; they were passionate, eager to share their insights and foster discussions that ignited your curiosity. Each lecture was a journey, leading you deeper into the intricacies of Italy’s architectural heritage. You spent hours in the university library, poring over texts that chronicled centuries of design and innovation, planning visits to historical sites that made your heart race with excitement. With every new detail you uncovered, your understanding of the country’s storied past grew, and you felt a deeper connection to the very stones and bricks that had shaped its cities.

Yet, despite the thrill of discovery, the language barrier continued to present formidable hurdles. Simple tasks, such as ordering a cappuccino or asking for directions, often morphed into frustrating battles. You found yourself relying heavily on gestures, fumbling for words, and chuckling at the miscommunications that inevitably arose. At times, it felt isolating, and the weight of loneliness pressed heavily on your chest. The café you frequented before classes buzzed with animated conversations in rapid Italian, laughter spilling over like the foamy milk of the cappuccinos being served. You often wondered if you would ever feel fully woven into the vibrant life in this enchanting city.

One particularly chilly afternoon, disaster struck. You returned to your apartment after a long day of lectures, only to discover that the heating had failed. A sense of dread washed over you as you realized the implications; the temperature was plummeting, and you needed to address the problem quickly before the cold seeped into your bones. You recalled seeing a number for a repair service posted in the hallway and decided to take action.

You rushed to your phone, your heart pounding in your chest as you dialed the number. The sound of the ringing filled the silence, amplifying your anxiety. When a voice finally answered, relief washed over you, but it was quickly overshadowed by a wave of panic. “Um, non funziona,” you stammered, realizing that your command of Italian was far from sufficient to communicate your urgent issue.

The voice on the other end responded rapidly in Italian, the words flowing like a rushing river. You frowned, trying desperately to catch snippets of meaning, but it was overwhelming. Desperation gripped you as you gestured helplessly, wishing you could convey your problem more clearly.

Just then, you heard a knock on your apartment door. You opened it to find a service man standing there, clipboard in hand, ready to assess the situation. His expression was friendly, but as he spoke, you quickly realized he was speaking in rapid Italian.

“Non capisco!” you exclaimed, feeling the panic rise within you. In a moment of inspiration, you dashed to the kitchen and grabbed your translation device, hoping it could bridge the gap. With a deep breath, you pressed the button and spoke into it, “The heating is not working.”

You held it out toward the service man, who glanced at it with a raised eyebrow. As he listened to the translated message, you could see a flicker of understanding cross his face, but he quickly replied with a string of technical terms that left you even more bewildered. Your heart sank as you struggled to keep up, the situation feeling increasingly hopeless.

Just as you were about to hang your head in defeat, a figure appeared in the hallway.

“Hey, is everything okay?” a young man asking in Japanese, stepping into your view. His dark hair fell just above his eyes, and he radiated a casual confidence that made you feel instantly at ease.

Yet, you blinked in surprise at his presence, not expecting someone to help you especially in a language that feels like home to you. “You speak Japanese?” you asked, a glimmer of hope igniting within you.

“Yes, I’m Yuki, your neighbor,” he replied with a friendly smile that melted away some of your anxiety. “Let me help.”

Relief flooded through you as he turned to the service man and began translating smoothly, effortlessly switching between Italian and Japanese. You watched in awe as he conveyed your issue, the service man nodding along, clearly understanding for the first time. The tension in your chest began to loosen, and you felt a wave of gratitude wash over you.

In mere minutes, Yuki had communicated the problem effectively, and the service man responded with assurance, gesturing for you to follow him to the heating unit. With Yuki translating the technical details, you learned about the issue at hand and the steps needed for repairs. His presence transformed the intimidating situation into something manageable, and you found yourself smiling as you listened.

After the service man left, you turned to Yuki, gratitude spilling from your lips in Japanese. “Thank you so much! I really appreciate it. I have to run now, or I’ll be late to my meeting!”

As you scurried off, Yuki watched you leave, a mix of admiration and intrigue in his eyes. “She’s something else,” he thought, already pondering how to get to know you better. The warmth of human connection began to replace the earlier chill, leaving you with a sense of hope as you stepped out into the bustling streets of Perugia once more.

Four:

Days turned into a week, and you continued to navigate life in Perugia, where its rich culture began to unfold before you. The city slowly revealed its beauty, sun-drenched piazzas, charming cafes, and stunning vistas, but the language barrier persisted, creating a constant challenge. One serene afternoon, you found yourself in the garden of your apartment block, sketchbook in hand. The golden leaves danced in the autumn breeze, swirling gently to the ground, and for a moment, you allowed yourself to forget the struggles that lingered in the back of your mind.

Yuki had just returned to the apartment complex after a particularly intensive volleyball training session. He felt invigorated yet exhausted, the fresh air revitalizing him as he inhaled the sweet scent of blooming flowers wafting from the small garden shared by the residents. Deciding to take a moment to unwind, he stepped into the garden, his eyes scanning the peaceful scene before him.

To his delight, he spotted you sitting on a bench beneath a large olive tree, deeply engrossed in your sketching. Your pencil moved fluidly across the page, capturing the delicate play of light and shadow. A rush of warmth spread through him at the sight; there was something undeniably captivating about watching you in your element, completely absorbed in your passion.

Suddenly, you heard footsteps approaching. You looked up to see Yuki, relaxed in a simple t-shirt and joggers, a friendly smile on his face. “Hey, enjoying the garden?” he asked, his voice breaking the serene atmosphere.

You smiled back, feeling a warmth spread through you. “It’s beautiful here. I’ve always dreamed of coming to Italy, but… I’m struggling with the language.”

Yuki quickly took a seat beside you on the bench, considering your words thoughtfully. “I can help you with that. How about I teach you Italian, and you teach me English?”

Your heart leaped at the idea. “That sounds perfect! I’d love that!”

From that moment, you began your weekly meetups, gathering in each other’s apartments, surrounded by textbooks, notes, and the occasional stray sketch. The air was filled with laughter and the gentle hum of learning, punctuated by the occasional frustration as you fumbled through phrases. Each lesson felt like a dance, with Yuki patiently correcting your pronunciation while you helped him navigate the subtleties of slang.

“What’s the Italian word for ‘dream’?” you asked one evening, jotting it down in your notebook.

“‘Sogno.’ It’s a beautiful word, don’t you think?” he replied, a soft smile lighting up his face. “It holds a sense of longing, of hope.”

As the weeks passed, your conversations deepened, exploring not only language but also the stories that shaped you both. One evening, sitting on your balcony under the silvery glow of the moon, you turned to Yuki and said, “You know, I’ve always wanted to travel and see the world. But coming here… it’s more than I imagined. It’s like I’m not just discovering a new place; I’m discovering parts of myself I didn’t know were missing.”

Yuki leaned closer, intrigued. “What do you mean? What have you discovered about yourself?”

You hesitated, the weight of your thoughts grounding you. “I’ve always been the one to follow the rules, to stay in the lines. But here, I feel free to explore, to create. The architecture, the history,it speaks to me in a way I’ve never experienced before. It’s like I can finally breathe.”

His expression softened, and he nodded thoughtfully. “It’s amazing how a place can unlock something within us. What about your studies? Why did you choose architectural conservation?”

You took a deep breath, reflecting on the journey that had led you here. “I’ve always been captivated by the stories buildings tell. Every crack, every faded paint color,it's like they hold memories of the lives that came before. I want to preserve that history, to honor it. In a world that often pushes for the new and shiny, I believe there’s beauty in what’s old and worn. It deserves to be seen, to be understood.”

Yuki listened intently, his eyes bright with curiosity. “I can see how passionate you are about this. But why Italy? What draws you here specifically?”

You smiled, the memories flooding back. “As a child, I was entranced by Italian art and architecture. I’d spend hours in museums, dreaming of standing in front of a Renaissance painting or wandering through ancient ruins. Italy isn’t just a backdrop for my studies; it’s a living, breathing piece of art itself. It felt like destiny to come here.”

He leaned back, contemplating your words. “You have such a deep appreciation for history. But isn’t it intimidating to think about preserving something so grand and significant?”

You nodded, acknowledging the weight of the responsibility. “It is. But it also feels like a calling. I want to learn from the past to create a better future, even if it’s just one building at a time. It’s about connecting with people through these structures, sharing their stories.”

A moment of silence settled between you, the moonlight casting a serene glow. Yuki felt a newfound respect for you, captivated by your passion and depth. “That’s beautiful. You’re not just studying architecture; you’re crafting a narrative that will resonate long after you’re gone.”

Your heart swelled at his words. “Thank you, Yuki. That means a lot coming from you.”

As you spoke, the boundaries between you began to dissolve. You were no longer just a stranger in a foreign land; you were two souls intertwined in a shared journey of discovery. Your laughter filled the night air, each moment bringing you closer together. You realized that by opening up to each other, you had started to build a friendship that not only reflected the rich histories you both cherished but was also blossoming into something deeper — a relationship full of promise and connection.

Five:

As the weeks rolled on, the anticipation of your next nightly meeting with Yuki lingers in the back of your mind like a sweet melody. Classes were engaging, and you found yourself diving deeper into your research, but there was a lightness in your heart that made even the most tedious tasks feel enjoyable. The bond you were forming with Yuki. had brought a spark to your days, and you couldn’t wait to see where it might lead.

One evening, after a long day of lectures, you decided to unwind by scrolling through TikTok. As the videos flitted by, one caught your attention: a clip of a volleyball match featuring a player who moved with incredible agility and grace. You couldn’t help but stop, mesmerized by the power and finesse on display. The comment section was flooded with admiration for the athlete, and as you watched, a familiar face appeared on screen, Yuki.

Your jaw dropped as you recognized him, the same easy smile and familiar dark hair. You quickly scrolled through the comments, realizing he was the captain for the Japanese national team and a star player in the Italian league. The hours go by as you continually scroll through the app to learn more about your recently neighbour-turned-friend. Your mind raced, filled with questions. How had you not known?

The next time you met Yuki in the garden, you could hardly contain your excitement. “Yuki, you didn’t tell me you were a famous volleyball player! I saw a video on TikTok of you playing! You’re amazing!” you exclaimed, your eyes wide with astonishment.

He chuckled, scratching the back of his neck with a shy smile. “I didn’t think you would find out this way.”

“I can’t believe you’re a national team player! Why didn’t you tell me?” you pressed, still buzzing with disbelief.

“I guess I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it,” he replied, a hint of modesty in his tone. “I just love the sport. My older sister introduced me to volleyball when I was young, and I’ve been hooked ever since.”

“That’s amazing! What made you stick with it?” you asked, genuinely curious.

Yuki leaned back against the bench, a thoughtful expression crossing his face. “It was more than just the game for me. It was a way to challenge myself, to grow both as an individual and as a player. When the opportunity came to play in Italy during my college years, I couldn’t resist. It felt like a chance to expand my horizons, experience a new culture, and improve my skills.”

You nodded, impressed by his journey. “So, how’s the league here compared to Japan?”

“It’s different, for sure,” he said, his eyes lighting up as he spoke about the sport. “The style of play, the atmosphere in the arenas, it's all unique. I’ve learned so much from my teammates here, and it’s been a rewarding experience.”

“What’s the biggest difference you’ve noticed?” you asked, leaning in, eager to hear more.

Yuki thought for a moment, then smiled. “In Japan, there’s a strong emphasis on precision and teamwork. Here, the players tend to be more individualistic, which creates a different kind of excitement. The energy in the stadiums is electric; the fans really get into it. It makes every match feel like an event.”

You could see the passion in his eyes, and it made you want to know more. “Do you have a favorite match or moment that stands out to you?”

His expression turned nostalgic. “Definitely. One match during the volleyball nations league finals in 2023 was unforgettable, it was the first time Japan won a medal in the VNLs. The game went into five sets, and the atmosphere was just insane. I remember making a crucial spike that turned the tide and closed the game. The roar of the crowd was deafening, it felt like everything I had trained for had come to fruition in that moment.”

“Wow, I can only imagine how exhilarating that must have been! Do you ever get nervous before a big game?” you asked, intrigued.

He laughed lightly, a hint of vulnerability in his voice. “All the time. But I’ve learned to channel that nervous energy into focus. It’s like a dance, you have to find your rhythm, or you’ll get lost in your head. Plus, having my teammates around helps. We support each other, and that bond is really special.”

You smiled, appreciating his perspective. “It sounds like you’ve built a great team dynamic. It’s so important to have that kind of support.”

“I’d love to see you play,” you said without thinking, your excitement bubbling over. “Do you have any upcoming games?”

Yuki’s expression brightened. “Actually, yes. We have a home game this Saturday. Would you like to come? It would mean a lot to me to have someone there supporting me.”

Your heart raced at the invitation. “I’d love to! What time is the game?”

“Starts at six. I can get you a ticket,” he offered, his enthusiasm palpable.

“You don’t have to go out of your way to do that for me, I can try to get the ticket myself. But thank you for the offer. Regardless I can’t wait to see you play live!” you thanked him, your excitement blending with a hint of nervousness.

As the conversation flowed, you both discussed the logistics of the game, and you found yourself getting caught up in his passion for volleyball. It was a side of him that felt so vibrant and alive, and you felt lucky to be included in this part of his life.

When the day of the game finally arrived, you found yourself buzzing with anticipation. You dressed in comfortable clothes, deciding to wear a simple oversized jersey tucked neatly into the seams of your jeans. As you made your way to the arena, a mix of excitement and nerves fluttered in your stomach. This was a chance to see a different side of Yuki, and you were eager to experience it.

Upon arriving at the venue, you were greeted by the energetic atmosphere, the sounds of fans cheering, and the smell of popcorn wafting through the air. You spotted Yuki warming up on the court with his teammates, and your heart swelled with pride as you watched him move with such intensity and focus.

As the match progressed, you found yourself completely immersed in the game, cheering along with the crowd. Every time Yuki scored a point, you erupted with joy, your excitement matching the energy of the fans around you. It was exhilarating, and you felt a newfound appreciation for the sport and for Yuki himself.

When the final whistle blew and the team celebrated their victory, you couldn’t help but join in their excitement. Yuki spotted you in the stands, a radiant smile breaking across his face as he jogged over, still glistening with sweat from the game.

“Did you enjoy it?” he asked, breathless but beaming.

“It was incredible! You played so well!” you exclaimed, still riding the high of the match.

“Thanks! I’m glad you came. It means a lot to have your support,” he said, his expression warm and sincere.

In that moment, surrounded by the buzz of victory and the vibrant energy of the arena, you realized just how deeply your feelings for him were growing. It was more than just friendship; there was something special blossoming between you, and you couldn’t wait to see where it would lead.

Six:

As spring blossomed in Perugia, the city transformed into a vibrant display of colors. Flowers burst into bloom, filling the air with their sweet fragrance and the promise of new beginnings. It had been several months since you first arrived in Italy, and as your internship at the University of Perugia neared its end, you found yourself reflecting on the incredible journey you had taken, not just in your studies, but in your relationship with Yuki.

The bond between you had deepened remarkably over the months. What had started as a friendship rooted in shared experiences and language lessons had evolved into something much more profound. You spent countless hours together exploring the charming streets of Perugia, visiting museums, sipping coffee at quaint cafés, and enjoying late-night dinners at local restaurants. Each outing felt like a new adventure, a chance to learn more about each other and the world around you.

One sunny afternoon, you found yourselves at the farmers’ market on a rare day off together, the lively atmosphere filled with laughter and chatter. Yuki walked beside you, calm and collected, a gentle smile playing on his lips as you bounced from stall to stall, your excitement palpable.

“Look at this!” you exclaimed, holding up a plump tomato. “These beauties are going to be the star for our sauce-off next pasta night!” You turned to him, beaming.

Yuki chuckled softly, his eyes glinting with amusement. “They certainly have potential,” he replied, his voice steady yet warm. “Just promise not to underestimate the power of love when cooking in the kitchen.”

You nudged him playfully. “Only if you promise not to use it as your secret ingredient!” His laughter felt like a soothing balm, easing the joy swirling around you.

As you wandered through the market, picking out ripe strawberries and fragrant basil, you marveled at how far you had come together. From art galleries filled with Renaissance masterpieces to lazy Sunday mornings sampling fresh produce and local delicacies, each shared moment deepened your bond. You even braved the bustling Christmas markets, bundled up in warm coats, exchanging playful banter as you browsed stalls filled with handmade crafts and seasonal treats.

With each shared experience, your feelings for Yuki grew stronger. His kindness, passion for volleyball, and genuine curiosity about the world drew you in like a moth to a flame. You admired how he balanced his athletic commitments, and his dedication inspired you to push harder in your own work. In turn, he found your determination and enthusiasm infectious, and the way you embraced every moment made him appreciate life in Italy even more.

Eventually, you made your way to the artisan corner of the market, where the air buzzed with creativity and the scents of handmade goods mingled with fresh produce. Colorful stalls displayed everything from intricate pottery to handwoven textiles, each one a testament to local craftsmanship. The vibrant atmosphere was alive with laughter and chatter, drawing you in like a warm embrace.

You spotted a vibrant scarf draped elegantly over one of the tables. Picking it up, you wrapped it around your shoulders and looked at Yuki expectantly, your eyes sparkling with mischief. He raised an eyebrow, a smirk forming on his lips. “You look like a fashionable grape,” he teased, his tone light and playful.

“Very funny!” you rolled your eyes at him, but a smile tugged at your lips despite your best efforts to feign annoyance. You were having too much fun to take him seriously. “What about these earrings?” you asked, holding up a pair of colorful dangling pieces that caught the light just right, their hues reflecting your excitement.

Yuki took a moment to consider them, his expression thoughtful. “Those might be a bit too bold,” he finally said, his voice steady. “You need a hat to balance it out. Something to bring the whole look together.”

“Alright, fashion critic,” you laughed, a challenge dancing in your eyes. You scanned the nearby stall and spotted a wide-brimmed hat perched jauntily on a display. Without hesitation, you picked it up and plopped it onto your head, striking a dramatic pose as if you were on a runway.

Yuki’s laughter filled the air, rich and soothing, wrapping around you like a warm hug. The sound was infectious, drawing smiles from passersby and making your heart race a little faster. In that moment, something shifted; the playful teasing felt charged with a new warmth. You exchanged glances, and a flicker of understanding passed between you, as if you were both aware of the deeper connection growing in the space between your playful banter.

This wasn’t just a day at the market; it was a moment full of potential, like the scarf and hat you wore, colors blending together that hinted at the beautiful growth of your relationship. Surrounded by the lively buzz of the market and the promise of what lay ahead, you felt a thrilling sense of possibility lingering in the air.

As you both finished exploring the artisan corner, your bags filled with vibrant finds, you glanced at Yuki, who was quietly admiring a delicate glass ornament he had picked up. “I think we’ve officially completed our market adventure,” you said, grinning.

“Agreed,” he replied, a calm smile on his face. “But I think we deserve a reward for our hard work. How about a stop at that café we saw on the way in? I hear they have the best pastries in town.”

Your eyes lit up at the suggestion. “That sounds perfect! I need something sweet after all that shopping.”

With the market behind you, the two of you strolled toward the cozy café, the air still buzzing. Yuki walked beside you, his presence steady and reassuring as you chattered excitedly about all the finds of the day. As you entered the café, the warm scent of freshly baked goods enveloped you, making your stomach rumble in anticipation. The café was charming, with rustic wooden tables and twinkling fairy lights that added to the inviting atmosphere.

You approached the counter, scanning the display of decadent desserts. “Look at all these choices!” you exclaimed, pointing to a beautifully layered cake that seemed to call your name. “I have to try that!”

Yuki nodded, his gaze calm and focused. “That looks good, and we can’t leave without getting their famous hot chocolate.”

After placing your order, two steaming mugs of rich hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and a selection of pastries, including the layered cake and some tiramisu, you found a cozy corner table by the window. You settled in, the warmth of the café enveloping you as you watched the world outside, where the lights danced against the evening sky.

As you sipped your hot chocolate, you couldn’t help but smile at Yuki. “This is the best way to end our day. Just look at everything we’ve accomplished!”

He took a sip of his drink, nodding appreciatively. “Absolutely. And we still have dessert to look forward to.”

You shared the desserts, each bite sweeter than the last, and the conversation flowed effortlessly between you. Laughter filled the air as you exchanged stories and silly banter, both of you completely absorbed in the moment. Yuki listened intently, responding with a soft chuckle or a thoughtful nod, his calm demeanor providing a comforting balance to your excitement.

With each shared smile and gentle touch, the bond between you felt even stronger, creating a collection of memories that you knew would last far beyond this magical day. As you prepared to head home, a sense of contentment settled in, the possibilities of what lay ahead blooming in your heart like the vibrant colors of the market. You knew this was just the beginning of many more adventures together.

Later that evening, back at your apartment after a long day, you lounged on the couch, the soft glow of the lamp casting a warm light over the room. You turned to Yuki, recalling how every moment spent together had brought you closer, solidifying your bond.

“Do you remember the first time we met?” Yuki asked, leaning back with a nostalgic smile. “I was nervous about helping you with the repairman.”

You chuckled, recalling how flustered you had been that day. “Really? I didn’t even know! I was panicking, thinking I’d never figure anything out without your help. I can’t believe how far we’ve come since then.”

“Yeah, it’s like we’ve become a team,” he said, his gaze steady on you. “I can’t imagine my time here without you.”

The weight of his words settled in the air, and for a moment, silence enveloped you both. You felt a flutter of something, a shared understanding that your friendship had shifted into deeper territory. The thought of returning to Japan in a few weeks loomed over you, casting a shadow of uncertainty.

“What are you thinking?” Yuki asked gently, sensing your contemplation.

You took a deep breath, heart racing as you chose your words carefully. “I’ve been thinking a lot about our friendship… and what’s going to happen when I go back to Japan. I’m excited to finish my thesis, but I’m really going to miss this. I’m going to miss us.”

He nodded, his expression turning serious. “I’ve been feeling the same way. This place, the experiences we’ve shared,they’ve meant so much to me. I didn’t expect to form such a close bond with you.”

As he spoke, your heart pounded in your chest. The air crackled with tension, and you could feel the shift in the dynamic between you. You both had been dancing around your feelings for weeks, and now it seemed the moment had finally arrived.

“I think what we have is special,” you admitted, looking into his eyes. “But I’m scared. I don’t know what it looks like when I go back. I don’t want to lose what we’ve built here.”

Yuki leaned forward, his gaze intense. “You won’t lose it. We can figure it out together. I want to keep this connection alive, no matter the distance.”

Your breath caught at his words, a sense of hope blooming within you. “Really? You mean that?”

“Of course. I’d like to explore what this could be,” he said, his voice firm yet gentle. “I don’t want to put pressure on you, but I feel something more here. And I want to see where it leads.”

The warmth of his words enveloped you, and you felt a wave of relief and excitement wash over you. You both leaned in closer, the space between you charged with possibility. The idea of a romance blossoming felt thrilling yet daunting, but you couldn’t ignore the connection that had grown between you.

“So what does that look like for us?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper, the reality of the situation settling in.

He paused, contemplating. “Well, for starters, we can make a plan to visit each other. I can come to Japan during my off-season, and you can come back here when you can. Plus, we can always video chat and keep texting.”

“Yeah, I’d love that,” you said, nodding, but a thought nagged at you. “But what if things change? What if we grow apart?”

“Change is inevitable,” he replied, his sincerity shining through. “But I believe we can adapt. We’ve both grown so much during our time here, and we can keep growing together. Our experiences shape us, but they can also strengthen our connection if we let them.”

You felt comforted by his words. “You’re right. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, and it scares me. But it also feels right.”

Yuki smiled softly, his expression tender. “Me too. I want to be there for you, even from afar. I’ll support you with your thesis and all your future plans. And I want you to be there for me when I have games and tournaments.”

A playful smile crept across your face. “You mean I’ll have to learn how to cheer for you in Italian now? That’s going to be a challenge!”

He laughed, the sound rich and warm. “I’ll help you with that! But honestly, I just want you in the stands, cheering me on. It would mean the world to have you there.”

“Deal,” you replied, your heart swelling at the thought of supporting him.

“But beyond just cheering,” he continued, his voice growing serious, “I want you to be part of my life, to understand the things that are important to me, just like I want to understand yours. It’s more than just distance; it’s about really sharing our lives.”

“Absolutely,” you agreed. “I want to know everything, your daily routines, your training, even your favorite post-game meals. And you’ll have to tell me all about your family and life back in Japan. I want to understand the real you.”

Yuki nodded, his eyes sparkling with enthusiasm. “And I want you to show me your world, too. I want to visit your favorite places in Japan and meet your friends. I want to know more about you, just like you will learn more about me.”

As the evening wore on, you both continued to talk, sharing hopes and dreams, crafting a vision of a future filled with adventures together. The laughter and warmth that filled the room made it feel like anything was possible.

With a newfound resolve, you both made a silent agreement to embrace whatever came next. For now, you were here together in this beautiful moment, ready to see where your journey would take you. The possibilities stretched out before you like the blooming flowers of spring, and you felt a renewed sense of excitement for what lay ahead.

Seven:

Returning to Japan was a bittersweet experience. The familiar sights and sounds of Tokyo enveloped you, yet they felt strangely different, transformed by your time abroad. The bustling streets, the scent of street food wafting through the air, and the vibrant energy of the city reminded you of home, but they also brought back memories of Italy - the warmth of the sun on your skin, the laughter shared over meals, and the enchanting cobblestone streets of Perugia. You had left as a passionate student and returned as someone shaped by profound experiences, both academic and personal, particularly your blossoming relationship with Yuki.

As graduation day approached, the atmosphere buzzed with anticipation. The University of Tokyo, renowned for its rigorous academic programs, was a place of pride, and the excitement of the upcoming ceremony filled the air. Friends and family gathered, and you felt a mixture of nerves and pride at the thought of standing before everyone as the valedictorian. It was an honor you had never anticipated, and the weight of that responsibility felt both thrilling and daunting.

On the day of the ceremony, you slipped into your cap and gown, your heart racing with both pride and anxiety. You took a moment to look in the mirror, smoothing down the fabric and adjusting your cap. You thought of how much you had grown over the past few years and how much you had learned about yourself. The thought of Yuki filled your mind, and a bittersweet smile crept onto your face wishing he would be here to celebrate your special day together.

As you arrived at the university hall, the grand space was filled with graduates in their caps and gowns, family members taking pictures, and the chatter of anticipation echoing off the walls. The sight of your friends, who had supported you through countless late-night study sessions and group projects, made you feel grateful. They had been your rock, and now you were about to embark on a new chapter of your life, one that included Yuki in a way you had never expected.

When it was time for your speech, you took a deep breath, stepping up to the podium. The audience was filled with familiar faces - your friends, family, and faculty members who had guided you through your studies. You glanced around, and there, amid the sea of graduates and supporters, you spotted Yuki sitting proudly beside your friends. His presence shocked you as you were not expecting him to be there, and yet you felt a surge of happiness at his presence.

“Good afternoon, esteemed faculty, family, friends, and fellow graduates,” you began, your voice steady and clear as you looked out at the crowd. “Today marks a significant milestone in our lives, a celebration of our hard work and perseverance. As I stand here, I am reminded of the incredible journey that brought me to this moment.”

You spoke about your experiences at the University of Tokyo, recounting the late nights spent in the library, the professors who inspired you, and the challenges that shaped your academic path. “I was fortunate enough to be presented with a unique opportunity to study architectural conservation in Italy. This experience was not only about expanding my knowledge but also about discovering who I am.”

As you shared stories of the people you met and the places you explored, your gaze drifted back to Yuki. He was leaning forward, a warm smile on his face, his eyes shining with pride. The sight filled you with warmth and strength as you continued, recounting how your time in Italy had broadened your horizons, enriched your life, and ultimately led to a profound connection with someone who had become a crucial part of your journey.

“During my time abroad, I learned that the world is vast and filled with opportunities for growth,” you said, your voice gaining momentum. “But more importantly, I discovered the value of connection. The friendships I forged and the love I found have made all the difference.”

You looked out at the audience, your heart swelling with emotion. “I remember feeling lost in a new city, struggling to communicate, yet I found a neighbor who became a friend, a mentor, and something even more special. The bond we formed taught me that sometimes, the people we least expect to touch our lives can change everything.”

The crowd erupted into applause, and you could feel the support wrapping around you like a warm blanket. You noticed your family beaming with pride, and your friends were clapping enthusiastically, but it was Yuki’s unwavering gaze that kept you grounded. He was your rock, your partner in this journey, and you couldn’t help but feel grateful for the love that had blossomed between you.

As you concluded your speech, you felt a rush of adrenaline. “Today, as we celebrate our achievements, let us remember that we are not just graduates. We are explorers, dreamers, and builders of our futures. And no matter where life takes us, the connections we make will always guide us forward.”

With that, you stepped back from the podium, applause crashing over you like waves. You took a moment to soak in the atmosphere, feeling exhilarated and relieved. The ceremony felt surreal, and you spotted Yuki standing, clapping enthusiastically, his eyes sparkling with pride. Your heart swelled as you realized just how far you had come, from strangers to neighbors, from friends to a couple deeply supporting each other.

After the ceremony, you stepped off the stage, a mixture of relief and joy washing over you. Friends and family surrounded you, offering hugs and congratulations, but all you could think about was Yuki. You made your way through the crowd, your heart racing with anticipation.

Finally, you spotted him waiting for you, his face lighting up as your eyes met. He stepped forward, enveloping you in a warm embrace that felt like coming home. “You were incredible. I’m so proud of you,” he said, his voice filled with genuine admiration.

“Thank you! I couldn’t have done it without your support,” you replied, pulling back to look into his eyes. “It means so much to me that you’re here.”

“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” he said, a soft smile playing on his lips. “You’ve achieved so much, and I’m honored to be part of your journey.”

You stood there, the noise of the crowd fading into the background, lost in the moment. It felt surreal to have him by your side after all that had happened. You had grown together, navigating challenges and triumphs hand in hand.

As the festivities continued around you, he leaned in closer, his voice barely above a whisper. “What’s next for us?”

You smiled, eyes sparkling with excitement. “Well, we have so many places to explore together! I’ve been wanting to go to this cute otter cafe in Harajuku but I didn’t want to go alone. But now that you’re here, I finally have a reason to go!” you excitedly tell him, while holding his hand and ushering him along to finally meet your family.

With laughter and shared stories, you both stepped back into the bustling crowd, ready to celebrate not just your accomplishments, but the journey ahead together. The day felt like the beginning of everything, a promise of more adventures, love, and support as you embraced the future together.

Epilogue:

The next weekend, after the whirlwind of graduation festivities, you and Yuki decided to treat yourselves to a day of fun. The thought of visiting the otter cafe in Harajuku filled you with excitement, and you could hardly contain your giggles as you made your way there.

When you arrived, the cafe was a cozy little haven filled with the soft sounds of water splashing and playful chirps from the otters. The friendly staff led you to a designated area where you could interact with the otters, and you could already see them swimming gracefully in their enclosure.

As you settled in, the otters began to take notice of Yuki. At 192 cm, he was an imposing figure, and it didn’t take long for a particularly adventurous otter to swim up to him. Without hesitation, it scrambled onto Yuki's shoulder.

“Uh, hello there,” Yuki said, trying to maintain his composure as the otter settled in. You couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

“Look at you! You’ve got an otter on your shoulder!” you teased, grabbing your phone to capture the moment.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” he replied, trying to gently nudge the otter off. But before he could, another otter climbed up his other arm, causing him to squirm slightly. “They’re really persistent!”

You were doubled over with laughter now, holding your phone up to record as one particularly bold otter made its way onto Yuki’s head. “Oh my gosh, this is the best!” you exclaimed, barely able to catch your breath.

“Please tell me this isn’t going to be on social media,” Yuki groaned, a mix of exasperation and humor in his voice as the otters seemed to make him their personal jungle gym.

You couldn’t resist. “I’m sending this to your sisters! They need to see their ‘tall otter’ brother in action!”

“Not my sisters! They’ll never let me live this down!” he protested, but the playful glint in his eyes betrayed how much he was enjoying the moment, even if he would never admit it.

“Look at them! They love you!” you laughed, your phone capturing every second of Yuki's predicament as the otters scampered up and down his arms, occasionally pausing to peer at him curiously. One even made itself comfortable on his head, causing him to tilt sideways in an attempt to balance.

“Why are they so drawn to me?” Yuki asked, feigning exasperation. “Am I some kind of otter magnet?”

You shook your head, tears of laughter forming in your eyes. “Maybe they think you’re a giant otter! Just look at that one on your head! You’ve become their throne!”

Yuki finally managed to free himself of one of the otters, only for another to take its place. “This is a nightmare!” he said dramatically, though you could see the hint of a smile lurking on his lips.

“More like a dream for me!” you replied, continuing to film. “Your sisters are going to love this!”

“Please, no more videos,” he pleaded, but you could see he was secretly amused, the way his shoulders relaxed even amidst the chaos.

As the hour went by, you enjoyed every second of Yuki's playful misery. The otters eventually climbed down, allowing him to regain his composure, but you couldn’t shake the laughter that had filled the space.

When it was finally time to leave the cafe, Yuki looked at you, shaking his head with a mock-serious expression. “You’re so mean, laughing at my plight. I’m going to hear about this for ages.”

You leaned closer, your heart full of warmth. “But you have to admit it was worth it. Besides, you looked adorable!”

He rolled his eyes but couldn’t suppress a grin. “Only you could make me enjoy being a human playground for otters.”

As you walked through the bustling streets of Harajuku, hand in hand, you felt a sense of joy radiating between you. The laughter, the shared moments, and even Yuki's good-natured misery made everything feel alive with possibilities. With every adventure, big or small, you knew that your bond was growing deeper, and you couldn’t wait for what lay ahead together.

Hi guys! I hope you guys enjoyed this writing, definitely longer than my first one but will definitely not be the last. If you guys have any suggestions or requests for stories, let me know! I am quite interested in writing stories for the other members, as well as people in the k-pop scene ♡ Don't forget to like and comment if you enjoyed reading this story!

#ishikawa yuki x reader #yuki ishikawa x reader #ishikawa yuki imagines #ishikawa yuki au #ishikawa yuki fluff #yuki ishikawa imagines #yuki ishikawa au #yuki ishikawa fluff #ryujin nippon #yuki ishikawa

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featherandferns · 1 year ago

Text

pirates (fic)

jj maybank x fem!reader | shamelessly and obviously inspired by taylor swift's 'seven'

content warning: mentions of abuse (physical)

word count: 9k. roughly

blurb: if you ever needed to find yourself or jj maybank, one would recommend you head to pirate's cove, no matter the age or day.

The water was tepid. There was some lingering woodsy fragrance, probably from the cedar trees that towered high all around the waterside, alongside something undeniably fresh in the air. JJ waded in the murky water. The ground was warm with sunlight that flitted through the canopy of trees. As it illuminated the leaves, there was a strange greenish hue that overcame everything. The water plants and reeds only added to it, making the place feel peaceful and serene. In one hand he held a net, and another a bucket. JJ was searching for frogs. His father had told him it was season for them and JJ had taken that as his summer-break mission.

There was a ripple in the water and something that wasn’t short of a ‘splash’, and JJ spun around in time to see a frog leap from the water and onto a moss-covered rock. He grinned.

“Got ya,” he muttered to himself.

Slowly, carefully, he approached. Net at the ready, he continued to ease towards it. ‘Slowly now, JJ’, he told himself. ‘Slowly’.

A sudden scream ripped through the trees.

The frog leaped away for safety and JJ, in the fright of it all, stumbled backwards and tumbled into the water. It came up to his shoulders, his tiny body almost fully submerged, and he swore out like he had heard his father do. Somehow, it made him feel slightly better. Before he could get to his feet, the scream came again. It sounded high, but there was no telling if it was girl or boy. It was probably somebody playing around. He rolled his eyes, frog now gone, and got to his feet. Just as he went to get back to frog spotting, he heard it again. Only, this time:

“Help!”

His head spun around to where it came from. That didn’t sound like no joking. He waded out the water as quick as he could, feeling as if it were pulling at his legs to keep him from land. Managing onto dry ground, he looked around through the thick forestry for where it came from.

“Come on,” he mumbled to himself. His little legs were a little scratched up from the rocks and dirt he’d fallen on in the water. As the air got to the tiny cuts, making them sting.

The scream came again, this time louder and more panicked. JJ started off in the direction of it, ditching his bucket but holding onto his net. He raced towards the sound, perfecting his course with each one that came, until he stopped at a bank.

There stood a girl on a mud bank.

You couldn’t have been older than seven. You were surrounded by marsh water. Hair falling around your shoulders as if the sea had churned you up and spat you out. Your cheeks were wet and eyes wide, focused on something below in the water.

JJ squinted as he tried to focus. Driftwood?

The wood shifted closer to the bank and you opened your mouth in a screech.

“Gator,” JJ said.

Your head darted up at the sound. You locked eyes with JJ. More tears came.

“Help me!” you cried. “Please!”

JJ looked around. Where was his dad? Wasn’t there somebody else here? Could nobody else hear you hollering like someone being murdered out in daylight?

“It’s getting closer!” you wailed. JJ watched the gator slowly slink towards you, as if taunting.

“Okay, okay,” he said, nodding. “Lemme think, alright? You’re gonna be fine.”

“Hurry,” you continued to sob.

JJ’s young mind was racing. He thought back to his mother’s lessons when they were sat out in the sun the other week. Snakes don’t like dogs and gators don’t like noise? Was that it? He looked down at the net in his hand. It was a long stick, at least half his height. If he were to disturb the water and yell, maybe it’d change course? That’d give you enough time, perhaps?

“Alright,” he said, voice trembling. He looked to you again and, as if you could feel his gaze, you looked up from the gator. Clearing his throat, he tried to make his tone more demanding like his pops. “Alright, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna try and distract him over here, and you’re gonna make a run for this here bank.”

“What?” you gaped. “I…I can’t do that!”

“You gotta! Run as fast as you can, alright! Keep running that way, back to the houses,” JJ instructed, pointing to his right. Your lip trembled. “You can do it, alright? I’m gonna be right behind ya.”

You stared at him. Looking back down at the gator, you seemed to consider his plan. Then, meeting his eyes again, you pursed your lips, sniffled, and nodded.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” JJ said, nodding himself. He swallowed his fear, squared his shoulders, and moved to the left of the bank. Grabbing another large branch, struggling only slightly with the weight, he took a deep breath. Then, splashing the water as hard as he could, he began to yell. “Come here gator! Come on!”

The moment the gator turned; you took off running. Your small body met the water and you started to swim as fast you could. JJ hit the water harder now, yelling louder.

“Come on gator boy! Come on!”

The frantic splashes of your front stroke seemed to catch the gator’s attention more so. You weren't looking behind you, eyes focused on the land.

“Come on! Come for me!” JJ practically pleaded.

The gator stayed still a moment. Then, slowly, began to sulk towards JJ.

His victory and smile were only brief, as his prepubescent brain caught onto the fact that a gator was making way to him.

Glancing to you, he saw you crawling onto the land, coughing and panting. You began to race towards the houses, just as JJ has instructed. Following suite, he ditched his net and branch and took off after you.

“Keep going!” he hollered. “Keep going!”

The pair of you ran and ran and ran. You ran until you were out of the marsh, out the of the clearing of the trees, and out onto the main street of the neighbourhood you were in. You finally stumbled to a slow, and eventually a stop. JJ copied. The two of you hunched over, panting heavily, hands on knees.

“Oh my God,” you whispered to yourself.

JJ felt as if he couldn’t get enough air in his lungs. It certainly didn’t help when you flung yourself at him, arms wrapping around his neck.

“Thank you!” you cried.

It took a moment for him to react. Then, he wrapped his scrawny arms around your frame.

“Hey, hey,” he coaxed, rubbing your back like his mom did with him when he was poorly. “You’re alright now.”

You nodded against him but continued to cry, nonetheless.

“I thought I was dinner for a second,” you laughed sadly. JJ chuckled too.

“You scared off my frogs,” he told you. You laughed harder, untangling yourself from him.

“Sorry,” you said, wiping your cheeks.

“What were you doing on that bank, anyway?” JJ asked.

You looked down at her feet nervously, almost embarrassed.

“There was this real pretty butterfly on there and…I just wanted a closer look.”

“Don’t nobody tell you that’s gator land?” JJ said. You looked back up to him and shook your head.

“No! I just…I wasn’t thinking!” you replied, becoming tearful again.

JJ reeled himself in.

“It’s alright,” he said. “It gets confusing out there.”

You smiled tentatively and nodded. Sniffling once more, you stuck out a hand and introduced yourself.

JJ took it and gave it a shake like he’d seen adults do at school and his daddy’s work. “JJ.”

“Nice to meet you, JJ.”

“Nice to meet you too.”

You both stood a moment and smiled at one another. “I’m sorry about your net.”

“It’s alright. Had it for ages.”

“I can get you a new one,” you told him. Then, as if a light bulb had gone off, you said, “I have a spare one I think!”

JJ hesitated. His mom had told him not to be greedy of people. ‘We don’t take charity, JJ.’

“You don’t have to,” he hesitated.

You shook your head firmly and took one of his hands in yours. You began to drag him as you set off walking down the road.

“Yes, I do. You saved my life, after all.”

JJ couldn’t really argue with that logic. Hand in hand, the two of you walked to your house. As you went, you asked about the frogs. JJ told you as much as he could remember reading. There was a picture book in school about them with a few easy-to-read facts put here and there. It was far more interesting than the maths the teacher had been going on about, so he’d read it under his desk. You nodded along and listened fervently. At some part on the walk, you'd started playing frogs. Ribbiting and hopping around, even playing leapfrog. Eventually, you came to your house.

JJ paused as you started walking up to it. When you noticed he was no longer by your side, you turned around.

“What?” you asked.

“It’s just…I live just down the road there,” JJ said, pointing. “Near the water.”

Your smile came back, wide and pure. “No way!”

He smiled back. “Yeah!”

You raced over and grabbed his hand, pulling him around the back, to the shed.

“We’re gonna be best friends!” you cheered, making JJ laugh.

He didn’t hate the sound of that. Making friends at school hadn’t been all that successful. There was only one boy who he truly got on well with, and he was called John B. JJ wasn’t sure why his name was John B, but then again he wasn’t completely sure why everyone called him JJ. He liked your name. It was different, a bit like you.

You came to the shed and pulled it open. Going through the tools and such, you dug about until you found a spare net buried amongst spider webs near the back.

“I knew it!” you triumphed, holding it up. Walking over to JJ who stood out in the late afternoon sun in her garden, you stopped before him. “Kneel.”

JJ did as demanded.

Tapping him on each shoulder, you announced with a laugh, “I now pronounce you sir knight JJ…Uh, what’s your last name?”

“Maybank.”

“Sir knight JJ Maybank!” you said, loud and proud.

JJ giggled as he got to his feet, giving a bow. He then began to wave like he’d seen the English queen do on TV once. You began to applaud and cheer, pretending to bow to him like he was Jesus walking into town on palm Sunday.

Someone called your name. "Is that you?” a voice called from the house.

The pair of you turned to see a woman stood on the patio, using her hand to keep the sun from her eyes.

“Yeah, ma!”

“Come on in! Dinner’s nearly ready!” She called.

You nodded and looked to JJ. You handed him the net.

“What’re you doing tomorrow?”

“Nothing, I don’t think,” JJ replied.

“Want to play pirates?”

“Sure,” he said, not fully sure what pirates involved but very interested, nonetheless. Maybe he could see if John B was free too. The three of you might make good ruffians.

“Okay,” you grinned. You flung your arms around his neck again before racing towards your house. As you went, you called out your farewell to him.

“Smell you later, Maybank.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*

The creek had quickly become the usual haunt of JJ and yourself. It was a little bit from the waters near his house, more secluded by forestry, though not as much as the marsh. You still got twitchy about going in there after the alligator incident. JJ couldn’t really blame you. The thing would’ve eaten you in one bite.

You'd found a small nook of fresh water, deep enough to swim. There was a rope swing tethered to a branch which made your secret spot feel only slightly spoiled, under the notion that someone else had gotten there first. Never the matter, every time you went, it was empty. Your whoops and hollers, and the narrative of whatever make-believe game you had come up to play, filled the air. It probably carried through to JJ’s house, which was nearest the spot that only JJ and you knew.

“Ahoy!” you growled, jumping out from behind a bush. “Gimme your gold and nobody gets hurt.”

“If I’m getting hurt then there’s gonna be two funerals!” JJ returned loudly as he unsheathed his sword.

You advanced forward with yours, already posed for fight. JJ slashed in return and the two of you heard the clink of metal hitting metal. You swung and sparred, dancing around the bank of the water. Bare feet treaded over pine needles and rotting, fallen leaves, damp from the water from when the rain pushed the level to rise yesterday.

Gasping, you ducked to avoid a deadly swing of JJ’s sword to your head.

“You’re gonna regret that, matey!” you threatened, and with that, drove him into the water. Before you could break free, JJ was pulling you in with him, and the two of you became submerged.

The water was cold. The continuous flow of it meant there was no time for the sun to heat it, least of all through the leaves above them. There was only one break in the trees where you could see the blue sky fully. You broke to the surface first, then JJ. The two of you were grinning as they clambered to your feet. The water came up to your waists, though only to your parent’s middle thighs most probably. Not that your parents knew their spot. This was sacred ground. When you'd found it, you had demanded that JJ keep it a secret.

“Cross your heart, won’t tell no other,” you'd said. JJ did as you asked and you grinned that same carefree grin as you copied. JJ was still warming up to ask youif John B could join. As the summer had gone on, he’d become closer and closer to Big John’s successor.

“You’ll never find me gold!” JJ announced, holding his sword above his head with one arm. “It dies with me!”

“As will I!” you countered loudly.

Another battle, bloodier than ever, and JJ ended up on his back on the wet bank, dripping from head to toe. His t-shirt was drenched, sticking to his sun-kissed skin, and you stood over him in your sopping blue summer dress. Your skin sparkled with the sheen of the water under the sunlight. It was as if the heavens were blessing you.

Your sword’s tip met his chin, driving his head backwards and up.

“Any last words, Maybank? Your crew is nowhere in sight,” you snarled.

JJ grinned. “Kiss my ass.”

You couldn’t help but gasp out a laugh. Taking advantage, JJ batted the sword off of him and drove his into your chest in one fluid motion. You stumbled backwards with another gasp, this time more dramatic. Holding the handle of the sword, you gently pulled it from her chest.

“You’ll rue this day,” you warned weakly.

Then, you tumbled backwards into the water to meet your untimely demise.

A hand searched for your arm and wrapped around your bicep, pulling you up to sit.

“What does ‘rue’ mean?” JJ asked you.

You sat in the water.

“I don’t know,” youreplied. “I just heard them say it in a movie once.”

“Hm,” JJ thought.

He sat himself beside you. You were no longer pirates battling over treasure. Instead, you were best friends for the summer. At that age, of seven-turning-eight, friendships come fast and easy. All what matters is if you’re any good at gallivanting and sword fighting, or running secret missions against the Russians and English, or racing from one house to another. Not what clothes you wear or how much money you have, or if you’re a kook or a pogue.

“I should probably go home soon,” JJ said. The sun was getting crisper, more orange, warning of dusk.

“You could stay for dinner at our house if you like,” you offered.

JJ thought it over. “I’d have to ask my parents.”

“Okay. I can come with you, if you like.”

“That’s alright,” JJ said. He got to his feet and you got to yours. “Come on.”

The two of you made their way out of the hiding spot and back into real life. A slight shiver had begun to run up your back now that you weren’t racing around in battle. It was a chillier night. You came to JJ’s house first. He hesitated as he looked up at the door. There was a faint ruckus coming from inside. You stood beside him and stared up. He’d been in your house plenty of times, but you’d never been in his. Come to think, you'd never met his parents.

“You gonna ask?” you wondered.

JJ didn’t look at you as he nodded. His eyes remained focused on the door.

“Yeah. Just…wait here a moment,” he said quietly.

JJ approached the house and made his way up the porch steps slowly, then opened the shutter. To the back door he went. He took a breath before pushing it open and walked into his home.

You stood in the garden and waited.

The ruckus was getting louder and it began to sound like voices, shouting. A woman and a man. There was the sound of something being shoved, maybe a table, and then a loud smash of a plate. You gasped and felt your heart begin to pick up. This wasn’t the same sort of heartbeat as when you were battling JJ on the water banks. This was true fear. The type you'd felt when you were face to face with the gator. It only seemed to speed up the louder the hollering got.

“Leave her alone!” you heard JJ’s young voice yell.

A crisp, clean noise echoed in your ears.

Skin hitting skin.

JJ’s unmistakeable screech.

You couldn’t stop yourself from taking flight. You raced to your house, up the street.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

There was the sound of something tapping. It wasn’t a regular tapping, like a leaky drain dripping outside. It came and went for ages, then again, maybe louder or quieter. You groaned and tucked your head under her duvet, hoping it would pass. It wouldn’t. You tossed your sheet off and flicked on your lamp. Staring to the window, you waited for it to come again. For a long while, it didn’t. Then: clink.

“Are you joking me?” you mumbled sleepily, getting up. You trudged to the window and pulled up your blind. It was dark outside. The sound of crickets and a distant owl hooting was the only sound you were met with when you pushed the window up and open. Looking around, there was nothing save for your back garden.

“Psst!”

You frowned and looked down. There stood JJ. He was in his pyjamas, barefoot.

“JJ?”

He replied with your name as if checking, nervous. You heard him sniffle.

“What are you doing? It’s really late,” you yawned, rubbing your eyes to help them adjust.

JJ rubbed his arm.

“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you okay?” you asked, trying to keep your voice to a whisper. JJ looked up at you again and now, with your eyes adjusted, you could make out tear streaks.

“Can I sleep over, do you think?”

Glancing briefly to your bedroom door, you wondered what your parents might say. They liked JJ for the most part. He was polite when he came around. They knew he made a good friend for their daughter. Besides, it was the summer break. Why couldn’t you have a sleepover? You looked back down to him and nodded.

“Can you climb up?”

You lived in a lodge, the same as most of the people on the cut. It was elevated from the ground by a meter or more. JJ nervously eyed up the wall before shaking his head.

“Do you have a rope or something?”

You turned around and searched your room. You could tie together your bedsheets and blankets, like they did in the movies. No, that wouldn’t work.

“Ah,” you said.

You spotted a skipping rope hung up on the back of your bedroom door. Grabbing it, you came back to the window and lowered it down. JJ wasn’t particularly large. You were the same height and nearly the same weight. His shoulders were a little broader and his legs a little longer, but save for that, you were equals. You believed you might be able to tug him up.

“Grab on.”

JJ began to climb up the wall, using your rope to help. You struggled as you held it steady, managing his weight only just. He came to the windowsill and got a grip, clambering in. You helped him step down into your room. In the full light of your bedroom, you could make out his running tears. On his left cheek was a bright pink mark, almost the perfect shape of a hand.

“Oh JJ,” you mumbled.

That only seemed to make him cry more. You quickly wrapped her arms around him in a hug. It made you feel better to be hugged whenever you scraped your knee or fell off your bike. JJ hugged you back, crying into your shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he wailed, voice small and fragile like a fixed China plate.

“You don’t gotta be sorry,” you told him quietly.

When JJ had cried most of his tears, you pulled away and closed your window. JJ made his way to your bed, burying himself under the pink and orange duvet. He mumbled something about his head hurting. You closed the blinds, climbed in too, turning off your lamp. You tucked your white childhood bear, named August bear, under one arm.

You lay in silence for a moment. This was different to the other sleepover you'd been to. You'd only been to one, for a girl classmate’s birthday. The other girls and you had spent all night whispering, giggling about anything and everything. The birthday girl’s mom had shushed you several times. Here, all there could be to hear was JJ’s shaking breaths and occasionally sniffs.

“JJ?” you whispered. It was dark now and you couldn’t make out his face.

“Yeah?” he whispered back.

“Can I tell you something?”

“Yeah.”

“I think…I think your house is haunted,” you told him quietly.

JJ sniffed. “Why’s that?”

“Well, your dad’s always mad,” you explained in a hush. “I think something in there takes control of him and…the ghosts are messing with you all.”

JJ’s face was slowly coming into view. His pale skin and blue eyes. Thin lips, still trembling, and nose redden from crying. “You think so?”

“Mhm,” you said.

You found his hand under the blanket and clasped it tightly.

“I think you should come live with me and…and we can be pirates, and sleep at sea, out in the secret spot, and never have to answer to anyone ever again. We won’t have to go to school when summer ends. And you won’t have to hide anymore.”

“That sounds nice,” JJ yawned.

Contagiously, you yawned too. “Yeah. It does.”

Closing your eyes, you felt herself beginning to drift off once more. Your hand remained enclosed around JJ’s. A strong grip, tight like a bowline knot. Then, JJ whispered your name.

“Mhm?”

“Thanks.”

“Anytime, smelly,” you hummed.

~*~*~*~*~*

A tapping at the door came. Three rhythmic knocks. Your face lit up and you got up from the breakfast table to answer it.

“Coming!” you called. You'd grown a little over the last school year and didn’t need to go on your tiptoes no more to open the door. On the other side stood JJ, smiling.

"Morning smelly!"

“Morning,” he said. He walked into the now familiar house. Two years of friendship meant he had become a local in your household. “Did I miss breakfast?”

“Nope,” you said, walking to the table with him.

“Morning JJ,” your mom said. She plated him up two pancakes and handed him the syrup as he took the spare seat around the table.

“Morning,” JJ said politely. He was always polite to your parents.

Your dad sat to the left, saying a hi behind the paper. He came alive in the afternoons. Your mom rubbed her swollen belly. JJ had never seen a pregnant woman before. At first, he was worried an alien was growing inside of her. When he told you that, you nearly died with laughter. It wasn’t the greatest feeling to be on the receiving end.

“What’re you kids plans for the day, then?” your mom asked as she took her seat.

“We might go fishing,” JJ said, lathering his pancakes. “There’s some good spots near the marsh.”

“Not the marsh,” you said. Still afraid of the gators, even after two years.

JJ rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, you gotta be careful of them gators,” he told you. He grinned as he lent over to steal a slice of bacon off your place. “They might bite!”

“Hey!” you complained, shoving him in the shoulder.

“Easy you two,” your mom chuckled. “What about John B? He coming with?”

“Maybe. We could go by his and ask,” JJ said to you. You nodded.

Your twosome became a threesome towards the end of the first summer. After playing pirates for the majority of your break, they had decided to invite John B to join. Your friendship with JJ was already set in stone (with him sleeping over almost every other night, though neither of you spoke about why), but considering you went to a different school to them both (a Catholic joint for girls only), your friendship with John B had mostly blossomed at the weekends or in the evenings after school like moonflower. Winter was filled playing games mostly inside, and spring in the grass largely. But now summer was back, school done with, and at the age of nine, there was little else more important than fishing, swimming and playing pretend in the wake.

The two of you polished off your breakfast and you finished getting dressed. Then, out you headed on your pushbikes. You stopped by John B’s, said hi to his dad, JJ stealing another slice of toast in the process, and then your trio went off to the jetty with the promise of being safe. John B had learnt how to drive his dad’s boat, so long as you stayed within a certain area, and JJ was becoming a natural fisher like his dad. You made yourself useful in anyway that you could. It seemed your blessing was swimming. You were strong in the water, could hold your breath the longest. You had taught JJ how to backflip off the jetty.

“I caught one!” JJ hollered. He tugged on the rod, struggling a moment. Reeling in a fish, he whooped loudly. It wasn’t exactly large but compared to the three nine-year-olds, anything was a marlin.

You did a little victory dance.

“Think we could have it for dinner?” John B wondered. His brown hair blew around in the summer breeze.

You pinched the still wiggling fish off the rod and dangled it in John B’s face. He cringed and scrambled away.

“Gross!”

You laughed like a mad man and then tossed it back in the water.

JJ whined. your name in complaint.

“What!? That thing wasn’t good enough to eat,” you said.

“I could’ve used it for bait,” JJ said.

“Oh,” you went meek. “Sorry.”

JJ kept his forlorn expression a moment longer as he got to his feet.

“You’re gonna be!”

With that, he pushed you in the water. You gave out a small squeal as you tumbled in. Before you hit the surface, you heard JJ’s mad laughter. An idea popped into your head. You broke to the surface, gasping for air and thrashing like you'd seen a guy do on TV.

“Help!” you gargled.

JJ panicked, leaning over and calling your name.

You kept your hands above you, splashing around. JJ tried to grab onto you. The moment you felt his hand in yours, a wicked grin came to your face, and you tugged him in too. When he came to the surface, you were cackling away, treading water comfortably as if going on a brisk jog.

“Hilarious,” he muttered, splashing at you. You splashed him back.

John B muttered something snidey about third-wheeling, and JJ and yourself shared a look. One nod then another, and the two pirates were hijacking the ship and pulling the third of their gang into the water too.

After swimming around for what felt like hours, the three of you clambered back into the small rowboat. Cheeks aching from laughter and chests heaving, you collapsed onto your backs. You grinned up at the sky. You wanted forever to feel this way. Lungs full, heart light, mind empty.

And hey - why couldn’t you?

~*~*~*~*~*

On his way back from school, JJ heard your laughter from your garden. He could recognise that sound anywhere. Walking over to your house, through to the back yard, he saw you sat on the porch steps. Your dad was sat with you, blowing bubbles in front of you both. The moment JJ came into sight, you were sitting up straighter, waving.

“I like your cap, smelly,” you said as he approached, nodding to his head.

JJ grinned and took it off. Placing it on your head, pushing down on the lip so it fell over your face, he said, “got it from my dad.”

“Nice,” you giggled, correcting it.

JJ smiled down at you. He was taller than you now, by a couple of inches.

It felt as though he had recently realised you were a girl. It sounded stupid, because JJ knew that you'd always been a girl, but when you were playing out it never seemed to matter. You were a good pirate nemesis and a decent fisher, and always up for a laugh. But in the latest school year, the girls had started whispering about the boys, nervously asking them to hold hands around the playground, playing kiss tag during lunch break. JJ and John B never got involved. They’d sit back and watch from a branch in a tree, talking about surfing. JJ was itching to try it out. His dad always raved about the waves.

You had nice hair though. Sun-stained skin and strawberry kissed lips. Your colourful eyes were squinting against the sun.

JJ stole back his cap and cleared his throat awkwardly, trying to distract his wandering thoughts.

“Wanna go get John B and head to the cove?” he wondered.

You turned and asked your dad. The answer was yes, so long as you were back before dark. With that, the two of you set off to John B’s place. JJ bumped your shoulder as you walked. You talked about school and your peers. Told stories about the fights that had broken out on the school yard. You complained about your school's mandatory summer dress's and the lack of good jello flavours in the canteen. JJ complained about only catching small fish and nothing big enough to fry.

When you went to retrieve John B, he complained that he was tired, and didn’t feel up to coming out. Walking to the pirates cove, JJ and you complained about John B not coming out to play when you hadn’t seen him in five days.

“He’s so lame,” you muttered, kicking a stone.

“What an asshole.”

“I don’t think he’s an asshole,” you said to JJ. “Sides, you shouldn’t say things like that.”

JJ shrugged. “My dad says it all the time.”

You eyed his side profile. “How are things, with your dad?”

JJ shoved his hands in his short pockets and shrugged again, watching his feet as you kept walking. “Fine.”

“He do anything lately? To you, I mean?”

He sniffed and looked the opposite way to you, at the houses. “What’s it matter?”

“Well…” You weren’t sure how to answer that. You sighed and conceded. “I guess it doesn’t.”

The rest of the walk to pirate cove was quiet. JJ felt badly and he wanted to apologise, though there wasn’t anything specific to apologise for. There was just a feeling itching at him that he’d upset you. As you came to the clearing which led to the cove, he stopped. You followed suit, watching him.

“Race?” he offered, giving you a small smile.

You grinned.

“Bring it.”

A countdown, feet poised and at the ready, and you were off. JJ stumbled over a tree root as he ran, making you laugh. You ran and ran until you got to the cove. There, panting, you had to accept defeat. JJ’s hand slapped the tree in victory.

“First!” he cheered.

You laughed.

“Best two out of three?” you wondered.

JJ eyed up where you stood, on the edge of the jump where the rope swing had been made. There was a small drop into the deeper part of the water. He grinned.

“Nah.”

Shoving you on the collarbones, you let out a screech as fell into the water. When you came to the surface, you were yelling all sorts of things at him. JJ knew you weren't really angry.

“Asshole!” you hollered.

JJ barked out a laugh.

“You said it!”

“Screw you!” you returned, making him laugh harder.

You swam to shore and unsheathed your sword. It was a little rusted from want of use, with school disrupting your battle. The older the two of you got, the more unnatural it was starting to feel to wield it. You raised it in threat of war. JJ raised a brow. Doing the same, he pulled out his own sword. Recently sharpened.

“You’re gonna regret that, Captain Maybank,” you said in a croaky voice.

“Argh,” JJ countered, advancing to you with his sword extended. “We’ll just have to see.”

The battle was bloody and brief. Though out of practise, you triumphed, with JJ dead on the dirt bank once more. Winning the fight, the map died with him, and thus the treasure. Upon realising this, you cried out a long, dramatic ‘noooo!’, dropping to your knees before falling flat on the dirt beside your defeated foe.

As you caught your breath, your smiles slowly fading, you watched the sky above. You'd fallen on the perfect spot where you could see it through the trees. Sun now lower, the days shorter thanks to fall, you sighed and folded your arms behind your head. JJ did the same.

“Hey. Can I ask you something?” JJ wondered.

“Yeah, course.”

“Have you had your first kiss yet?”

You kept watching the sky. A bird flew by, merely a dark spec.

“No,” you said. “I mean, I go to an all-girls school, remember? Not many guys to be kissing.”

“You could kiss a girl.”

“I don’t know,” you said. “Not sure if I wanna. Kiss a girl, that is.”

JJ nodded against the floor. He sighed and watched the leaves rustle in the breeze. A few fell.

“Have you had your first kiss?”

“No,” JJ admitted. Somewhat bashful and somewhat proud, he told you, “this girl Becky wanted to kiss me.”

“She did?”

“Mhm. But I didn’t feel like it.”

That was a lie. Ten year-old JJ was nervous as hell. Scared, even. He’d laughed it off with John B, was perhaps a little mean to Becky in the process, but she didn’t ask again. That was on Tuesday.

“What do you think it’s like?” you wondered. “I mean, they do it all the time in the movies.”

“Not sure,” JJ frowned. “Maybe wet?”

“Ew,” you laughed, snorting. You sat up and dusted the pine needles and dirt off your wet arms. They were already drying off. You looked down at him. His grey t-shirt was stained with dirt and dust. The red cap on his head sat funny, having been shifted since he laid down.

“We could always kiss,” you said.

JJ’s eyes darted to you.

“We could?”

“Why not?” you shrugged. You fiddled your fingers. “You and John B are the only boys I know.”

“Then why don’t you kiss John B?” JJ asked you, sitting up too.

You shrugged, looking to the water. “Just…don’t wanna.”

JJ considered your offer. He took you in as you watched the creek. Slightly imperfect features, sun-kissed cheeks, faintly rosy from running and playing. He’d rather kiss you than anybody else.

“Okay,” he said. You turned your head to face him.

“Okay.”

The two of you nervously giggled, then shifted around awkwardly. Somehow, you both ended up on your knees, facing one another. You had your hands clenched in little fists on your thighs. JJ had his buried in his short pockets. You stared at one another for a long minute, then slowly, nervously, leaned towards each other. You closed your eyes and JJ supposed he should do the same. That’s what they did in the films, after all. A gap, a falter, and then your lips clumsily met. It wasn’t a quick peck like JJ saw the other kids doing at school during kiss-tag. It also wasn’t long or passionate, like in the films. It just sort of…was. You pulled away first.

JJ opened his eyes just before you opened yours. His face was bright pink. You snorted before laughing altogether. JJ couldn’t help but copy. The two of you fell into hysterics.

“That was it?” you howled.

“What the hell is all the fuss about?” JJ agreed with a guffaw.

Your laughter echoed off the trees and rocks, and encased you in a joyous, jovial bubble.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

There were no more pirates, at pirates’ cove. Now, instead, you, JJ and John B would sit around on the dirt bank and listen to music. You passed stories back and forth about school, with the JJ’s become more and more filthy, making you and John B groan through your laughs. You often wished you went to the same school as JJ and John B. Jealousy tickled at your throat whenever you thought of the two of them hanging out without you throughout the day. You knew JJ didn’t love school. As you neared the age of thirteen, he joked about skipping class more often. You also had this weird feeling that he still preferred it to being at home. Just two nights ago he had slept at your house again. He had red markings around his neck, as if his dad had tried to choke him. As always, you didn’t ask and he didn’t explain. You just held his hand and let him sleep. Snuck him breakfast in the morning and helped him climb out your window. He didn’t need the rope as much anymore, having had a growth spurt over the summer. It remained your shared secret. It was the only one you had from John B now. Neither of you had said about keeping it on the downlow– you just mutually decide it was best to.

JJ’s aforementioned growth spurt hadn’t gone unnoticed by you. As the three of you passed stories about the boat race that happened a couple of days ago, in the first week of summer break, you found your eyes drifting to JJ. To the way his arms moved as he talked, the beginnings of muscles building since he started getting more obsessive with gym. Around his neck is a shark tooth necklace that you’d given him as a feel-better gift, a couple days after his mom left, a year ago now. It sits against his toned, sun-kissed chest. The black button-up shirt he was wearing hung lose on his frame.

“Hey! You wanna stop ogling JJ and answer the question?” John B asked, tossing a grape at you to get your attention.

You rolled your eyes at him and flipped him the bird. “In your dreams am I ogling JJ, John B.”

“Think they’re more like his dreams but whatever,” John B muttered. To that, JJ flipped him off too.

“What was your question, then?” you asked.

“Wanna go hang out at the docks? See if there’s some odd jobs that need doing? We might be able to earn a couple of bucks or something,” John B said.

You shrugged. That actually didn’t sound half bad. So, finishing your soda, you nodded and got to your feet. “Let’s do it.”

“I’m telling you,” JJ began as he stood up, too. “This guy Heyward gave me a twenty just for helping wash down his boat the other day.”

“You’re full of shit,” you told him, rolling your eyes.

“I swear to God! A whole twenty!” JJ argued back loudly. His voice cracked in the process, making you and John B share a snigger. “Fuck off.”

“Oh, someone’s got their panties in a twist,” you whistled with a grin.

“You think I wear panties?” JJ asked you, raising a brow. The three of you had started walking by then, out of the marsh.

“I know it,” you quipped back.

JJ grinned boyishly and sprinted ahead, back facing you, before promptly mooning you and John B. You both groaned, shaking your heads at him as he broke into hysterics.

“You’re so gross, JJ,” you muttered, pretending to gag.

“Lucy don’t think so,” he cockily replied, falling back into step with the two of you.

“Lucy? That the flavour of the week, huh?” you teased.

JJ rolled his eyes, smirking. “She’s cute. She’s got this wonderful, enormous—”

He gestured graphically to his chest.

“-Personality.”

“You need help, JJ,” John B said in response, making you laugh.

It seemed the moment JJ had become an official teenager, he started thinking more with his dick than his head. Girls weren’t blind to him. He was a good-looking kid; funny and outgoing and rebellious. One of the girls in your friendship group at school had a crush on him, too. Had started asking you all about him: his favourite food and favourite music. Shamelessly, she wore a band tee-shirt of The Kooks (which hung so big on her, you suspected it was from her dad’s wardrobe) the next day when the two of you went to the boneyard to hang out. The older kids didn’t much like you guys there, but when there was enough of you, they seemed to tolerate it. You had stuffed down the joy you had gotten when seeing how JJ barely even glanced at her.

The docks were rather quiet that day. Miss Amy nodded hello to the three of you as you walked down the jetty. JJ made a crude joke about her to John B, earning a shove in the shoulder as the former boy laughed. You petted one of the fishermen’s dogs as you passed another boat. Then, you were walking up near Heyward’s. There was a boy sat outside, reading a book.

“Yo. Heyward in?” JJ asked him.

The boy looked up. Dark skin and dark hair, eyes wide as if surprised someone was talking to him. “He had to head out for a bit.”

“Damnit,” JJ sighed, looking to you and John B.

“Why? What’d you need?” the guy asked.

“We’re just looking to see if we can make a couple bucks,” JJ told him.

John B clarifies what he meant by adding, “we helped him out with some groceries the other day.”

“Oh,” the guy nodded. “You guys from around here, too?”

“Sorta,” you replied. “We go to Kildare High.”

“Me too,” he smiled. You smiled back. He seemed like a nice guy. A little awkward and tense, but friendly, nonetheless. “I’m Pope.”

You introduced yourself, shaking his outstretched hand. John B did the same and JJ nodded at him, dropping his name last.

“There’s no groceries to run but the boat needs a clean,” Pope told you all, rising to his feet. “I was just gonna finish this chapter before doing it.”

“We’re down to help if you like,” John B said.

“How much for, like?”

“JJ!” You scolded.

He held his hands up. “What? Just asking! Not gonna do slave labour!”

“Ignore him,” you said to Pope. You looked to the jetty. “Which one’s yours?”

“This one,” Pope said, pointing. It’s painted white; a little well-loved but still in good nick. He put his book down after dog-earing the page. You couldn’t help but take a scan of the cover. The World Of Autopsies.

Following his lead, you grabbed at buckets and sponges. Pope unravelled the hose pipe and pulled it with him as you headed towards the boat. JJ messed with his cap, chatting to John B about fishing, and you fell in foot with Pope.

“What’s that book you’re reading?”

“It’s about autopsies,” Pope replied, sounding somewhat embarrassed as he looked at his feet.

“What? They didn’t have any copies of Jekyll and Hyde left?” you joked.

He smiled at that. “I wanna be a coroner, when I graduate high school.”

“Damn, you’re thinking about after high school? I don’t even think past after this year,” you chuckled.

“I don’t even think past after today!” JJ added loudly.

“You don’t have any reason to!” you called back snidely. He stuck his tongue out at you.

The three of you climbed aboard and got to cleaning. The conversation came naturally; cracking jokes and telling stories, getting to know Pope. Already, he was starting to feel like he was slotting quite comfortably into your strange little gang of pirates. JJ took the piss out of him rather a lot, but you knew that he liked him; could tell by the way he kept asking him questions and offering him help.

As you hosed down the deck, JJ scrubbed away at a stain on the flagpole. A wasp flew at you. Made you screech and dodge out of the way, sending the water stream messy. It hit JJ and drenched him in a second. He shouted out your name in a curse.

“Sorry!”

JJ rolled his eyes, finding his smile, and grabbed at the bucket of soapy water. You already knew what he was thinking. Laughing, you went to start running, but he was so fast (legs now so much longer than yours) and caught up easily, tipping the water on you. Screaming from the cold, you directed the hose pipe on him, aiming for his face. The two of you laughed, starting to wrestle as he battled for the hose, and you feel like pirates again, just as you were when you were seven.

Finally, easing up, the two of you broke apart. Your chest ached from laughing. JJ wiped his face and took off his soaked cap to brush back his hair. Then, his eyes fell on you.

Laughing, pointing at you, he said, “you’re looking way to hot right now.”

You looked down to see that the t-shirt you were wearing was now see-through from the wet, sticking to your bralette. Rolling your eyes mirthfully, trying to fight off the heat that was rushing to your cheeks, you messed with your top so it was no longer pasted to your skin.

“If you two are done flirting, I’ve got some drinks for you kids for your hard work,” a deep voice called.

You and JJ spun around to come face to face with Heyward. He was holding up a tray of plastic cups. The warmth in your face only got worse. JJ mumbled something along the lines of ‘we’re not flirting’ under his breath as the two of you dumb your stuff. Stepping off the boat, hose pipe now switched off, you, JJ, John B and Pope all enjoyed a drink, an unspoken, newly formed foursome.

~*~*~*~*~*~*

At sixteen came the year of experimenting. Alcohol and weed and cigarettes. A few classmates were now in relationships. First kisses were a thing of the past and instead gossip consisted of sex. Who did what? How far did they go? Conversations like that were made for JJ. Sat around at John B’s house, you sat next to the latest member of the group (Kiara), he’d divulge in dirty stories of debauchery which none of you asked for, but all would listen to, semi-curious. Especially the boys. John B was already leaning towards being a hopeless romantic. He’d revealed to you, one night, his crush on a certain Kook girl. You tried your best not to laugh him out of your room. There’s was no chance in hell anything like that could ever work out. Pope was less awkward with you guys now, but still useless with girls. Flirting was like a foreign tongue to him. Kiara didn’t seem all that interested in dating. You and she had never talked about crushes or guys.

“I swear man, this girl was going down on me like she was thirsty,” JJ grinned, smug and sure of himself.

You gagged into your drink, making Kie laugh.

“You’re so full of shit,” Pope told him.

“Dude, I’m telling you. Getting your dick sucked is like the best feeling in the world,” JJ gloated.

“Can we please talk about something else?” Kiara asked, rolling her eyes.

John B seemed happy to indulge. “So, my dad’s got a new trial he thinks with this gold—”

“Not about the gold!” the four of you chorused at him. John B shrunk back into his seat around the fire, taking a swig of his beer, wincing at the taste. None of you really liked it all that much, yet.

“Well, my parents are still leaning towards sending me to Kook Academy,” Kie said.

You frowned. “Really?”

“Mhm. I’ve managed to convince them to let me stay another year, but I think when I turn seventeen, it’s gonna happen.”

“Damn,” you said.

“Well, we’ll still, like, come hang out with you,” JJ told her.

“Gee, thanks, JJ,” Kiara sarcastically quipped at his luke-warm sentiment.

“Yeah. I’m sure your life is going to be lacking without JJ’s sex-stories,” you joked.

“Jealousy is a disease, babe. Get better,” he said to you, semi-bitter.

The conversation fell into talks about school and summer. Daydreaming for the endless days, when the sun rises at four and sets at midnight. Life feels infinite then, full of endless possibilities. Possibilities that you dote in, like how maybe JJ might snap out of dating this endless string of girls and look at you for once as more than a friend. You knew it was a pipe dream. After being his friend for so long, it seemed pathetic to think he might be able to picture you outside of that box. No matter. He was still your best friend.

“I gotta get going home,” Pope eventually said.

“Me too,” Kie agreed, getting up.

“You guys staying?” John B asked you and JJ.

You shook your head. “Sorry, Stinky. My parents asked for me back for midnight, so I’m already past curfew.”

John B smiled at the nickname. JJ was Smelly so it only seemed right for John B to be Stinky. Downing the last of your beer, you groaned and got to your feet. JJ stood up too.

“I better head as well before my old man gets ticked off,” JJ sighed.

The two of you share a look. You know it was bullshit; he was crashing at your place tonight, just like he did almost every night. The last fight him and his dad got in got bloody. JJ was strong enough to fight back now. He didn’t cry like he did when he was a kid. Just got angry. More times when he’d show up to your house after a row, he’d be seething, cussing his dad out and tugging at his hair. It scared you to see him collapse under the pressure like that. It seemed more and more like there was this tension lying under him. Part of it must’ve been inherited from his dad – his short-fused temper – but it seemed the happy-household he lived in only coaxed it out of him further.

“Ciao ciao,” JJ called as the two of you walked away from the chateau.

“Later Pogues,” John B hollered back.

“Pogues?” you mumbled, looking to JJ.

“Like Pogies? Scum-fish?”

“Ah,” you said, nodding.

“I like the sound of it,” JJ said.

You hummed your agreement. He fixed his cap. This one was green. He got it cheap from a thrift shop.

“Hey, smelly?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?” you wondered.

“I feel like you’re going to anyway,” he chuckled.

“Is sex…Like, is it actually that good?” you asked. You want to look at him when you do, but you can’t seem to be able to hold his gaze. Found it easier to casually look at the ground ahead.

JJ shrugged; hands shoved in his short pockets. “Depends. Sometimes it’s better than other times.”

You nodded.

“Why?”

“Just wondering,” you mumbled.

The two of you don’t talk more about it. You walked back to your house in near silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable or tense. Routine as always, you headed up the front door and quietly call out to your parents who are sat in the living room, watching television. You snuck past your younger brother’s door to his bedroom before walking into your own. Opening the window, you started taking off your jewellery at your dresser whilst he clambered through the window. He grabbed his toothbrush from your make-up brush pot, checked the cost of the corridor before darting into the bathroom. By the time he’s done, you were in your pyjamas and sat on the bed, scrolling through Instagram.

JJ borrowed your comb to start taming his hair. He’s stood in front of your mirror, in a pair of gym-style shorts that hang low on his waist. You do your best not to look at him, stood half-naked, abs on proud display. It feels wrong for you too.

“You haven’t had sex yet, right?”

You have to look up from your phone with that.

“What?”

“You haven’t slept with anyone yet, have you?” he repeated.

“Well…No, I guess not,” you mumbled.

JJ looked to you. “Why not?”

You laughed, trying your best to keep your voice down. “Nobody’s really into me like that.”

“Bullshit,” JJ immediately said.

“What?”

“Bull-shit! I know Matty P was asking you to the kegger just last week. That guy’s so horny for you – it’s obvious,” JJ replied.

You rolled your eyes and looked back down at your phone. “He’s also a sad loser who thinks owning a designer watch is an entire personality trait.”

JJ sniggered. “True.”

“I mean, everyone knows it’s fake,” you chuckled. It seemed to work, your distraction from the topic. You didn't think there would be anyway for you to subtly explain how you hadn't entertained the idea of someone else, in the hopes that one day, JJ might want you back.

You move to crawl under the bedsheets as JJ finished up on his hair. He took his spot and you yours, like always, and you flick off your lamp. There’s nothing but a single string of fairy lights keeping your room lit up. They hang above your bedroom door, batteries half-dead, only half-lit. Sighing, you turned off your phone and dumped it in on the bedside table. JJ got comfy, shifting around under the sheets. He smelt of cologne and smoke from the bonfire.

As he laid on his back, you laid on your side, facing the wall. You felt wide awake.

“You remember when we kissed?”

Wide wide awake.

“You mean back at Pirates’ Cove?”

“Yeah,” JJ said lowly into the darkness of the room.

“I mean, yeah. I remember it,” you replied. Silence. “Why?”

“Just thinking about it,” JJ mumbled. Frowning, you wondered what he could mean.

“In what way?”

“I don’t know,” he sighed. You hear the rustle of the duvet as he turned onto his side. You weren’t sure if he was facing you or the other wall. “Just how that was the first time I sort of realised you were a girl.”

You couldn’t help but laugh. You moved the blanket to muffle the noise. Rolling over, you come to find he was facing you. There was barely enough space for Jesus to fit between you both. Maybe his arm, might?

“Flattering, smelly,” you mumbled. Both of you sported lazy smiles.

“You look so different now,” JJ told you.

“I should hope so. That was six years ago,” you replied.

“Shit. Was it that long ago?” he checked. You nodded. “So, we’ve been friends for…”

“Nine years,” you finished.

“Nine years,” JJ echoed.

There was a strange sadness to his voice, like time passed too quickly. He was so much older now. Youth still there but mellowed, from his dad and his mom and his life. One would think adult things like sex and drinking would make him more mature, but it just screamed out him being young. Wanting to experience everything the world can offer, as if he might drop dead tomorrow.

“You know the first time you slept here,” you began, “you were crying. It was after your dad hit you.”

“He’d been laying into my ma,” JJ said, filling in the blanks. “I tried to get him off her and he just went for me instead.”

“I told you something.”

“I know,” JJ smiled. “You told me my house was haunted.”

“I really thought it was,” you chuckled soberly. “And I really thought if we just moved to pirates’ cove, everything would be fixed.”

“I know,” JJ said. “I believed you. I…I remember thinking that it was one of the nicest things you’d ever said to me, when you did.”

“Really?”

“Mhm. I think…”

He cut himself with a sigh, eyes drifting down, away from your gaze. For some reason, it makes your heartbeat viscerally harder.

“You think?” you encouraged, staring at him.

“I think that was the moment I realised I liked you.”

“Well, obviously. We’re friends, JayJ. I knew—”

“No,” he said, cutting you off, firm. His eyes are boring into yours, as if he can see into your thoughts. Your short-lived smile faded. “I mean that I realised I liked liked you. That I had a crush on you.”

You licked your lips nervously. “When we were kids?”

JJ’s fingers brushed against your own, under the blankets. He tangled his into yours, intertwining your hands, just like you had done when you were kids. You couldn’t tell who moved first, but the two of you start to kiss. You sighed against his lips, bringing up a hand to stroke at his jaw, feeling half-detached from your body. Is this real? Is this actually happening? The moment JJ’s teeth gently nipped at your lower lip was your answer. Yes.

All the other girls and all the other bullshit faded away. It didn’t matter to you, in that moment. JJ was tethered to you from the start, since you were kids. Everybody could see it coming – maybe even you – that the two of you would tumble through life together. It just needed time to grow, like nurturing a rare but beautiful flower. Yes, you thought, as the kiss deepens and the hands explored; good things take time.

#jj #jj maybank #jj x reader #jj maybank x reader #jj x oc #jj maybank x oc #jj x original character #jj maybank x original character #outer banks #outerbanks #outer banks fic #outerbanks fic #obx #obx fic #taylor swift #seven #original character #jj x mitzi #jj maybank x mitzi

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haeigoo · 1 year ago

Text

Found You (ZCL)

ღ pairing: idol!chenle x fem!reader (ft. jaehyun & jisung)

ღ description: based off a funny chenji incident

ღ word count: 1,562

ღ genre: established relationship, SLIGHT angst & fluff

ღ warnings: kissing, suggestive, swearing

ღ playlist: perfume by nct dojaejung, plot twist by niki, ours by taylor swift & when i met you by apo hiking society

ღ author's note: this is my first official fic that i wrote in years. and its all thanks to my love @lowkeyjaemle for being a huge help in the making of this au, go read her works HERE!

DON'T LIKE? DON'T READ!

You have been dating Chenle for seven months now and it is no surprise to you that your anniversary happens to fall on the same day as their third group comeback, ‘ISTJ.’ Both their managers and fans have not been so forgiving of you ever since your relationship came into fruition. Several complaints made their way to the company of Chenle allegedly taking sick days and leaving rehearsals early to be with you. It got worse when stolen photos of the two of you circulated online like wildfire on the day that he chose to ditch schedules. After New Years’ Day, the management released a statement about enforcing restrictions of all artists under the label from engaging with individuals outside professional relationships to avoid further mishaps that may hinder the flow of the business. This gut-wrenching news isolated you both but you knew exactly what you were getting into when you decided to join him in the public eye.

When the morning of your anniversary came, you were already used to waking up to cold mornings without Chenle. He trusted you enough to look after Daegal while he is at work but not even her presence could cheer you up. You only got to communicate with him through calls and last night, he had reassured you that his group was finishing up. Chenle was staring close through the screen, grinning while he reiterates how much he misses you. You let out a huge sigh before puckering your lips together to say goodbye as you ended the call.

You got up from the master bed and shimmied yourself up to look nice today. As you were showering, something at the back of your mind was eating out at you – How will this be any different from the last? What if I’m just another lost cause?

When you reached over to your closet, you saw the lustrous baby blue Sunday dress that you have been saving up to wear for weeks as it paired neatly with your black combat boots and faux leather handbag that Chenle got you last Christmas. You rushed downstairs to leave the house when suddenly your phone vibrated. It was a text from Chenle, he will unfortunately be working late tonight to make adjustments for the shoot. For a moment, you stood there frozen and stiff as your face dropped and your left hand made a fist. This always happens, you told yourself.

You caught yourself falling into the depths of despair since today was clearly a special occasion. You immediately locked the door behind you and walked outside with a stain in your heart. The cool breeze brushed through the locks of your hair, in the hopes of soothing your troubled soul when you spotted a perfume shop just around the corner. You were greeted by a variety of scents as you gracefully walked through the door of this well-lit establishment. After countless browsing, a Myrrh & Tonka cologne from Jo Malone caught your eye and took a few puffs from the sample available.

You were not notorious for using fragrances and Chenle knew that best. But the thought of wrapping yourself in a fresh bouquet of aromas unfamiliar to Chenle would surely have him by surprise. You picked up a piece and headed towards the cashier whose smile was glistening through the room.

“You find everything to your liking?” Jaehyun asked softly.

“Yup!” You nodded.

“You know, a whiff of this sensational notes of almond and vanilla will have anyone under your spell. May I ask, who’s the lucky man?”

“Zhong Chenle. You couldn’t miss even if you tried, Jaehyun.”

“Right. Well, tell him I said hi!” He chuckled as you bid you farewell.

You left the store feeling accomplished when you gazed upon the vast, hazy sky around you and knew by then, it was already sundown. You had called a taxi and dashed through the car door to hopefully catch Chenle still at the building. The driver had dropped you off just outside when you felt a shiver down your spine.

You took a deep breath as you stepped through the main entrance when your phone started buzzing, an incoming call from Chenle. You shook off your nerves and ignored the needy hollers of your boyfriend. You exited from the elevator and sprinted towards the practice room to find the lawless space empty with plastic bottles and chips scattered messily around the floor. After some time passed, you caught a glimpse of his tumbler across from you and that was the information you needed.

You went to check on the bathroom only to see from your peripheral, a drowsy Chenle with his head buried in his knees. You crouched down as you elevated his face to meet yours when you realized how droopy his eyes were from today’s schedule.

“I’m here, baby.” You exclaimed as you rubbed sweat off his forehead.

“(Y/N)? I’ve been worried sick. You didn’t answer me all day! What’s going with you?” Chenle blurted out.

“Chenle, this whole fiasco got to me! Being away from you was torture itself. So, I came by to surprise you.”

“Baby, having you in my life was the biggest plot twist I could ever ask for. I would replay the very first moment my heart belonged to you.”

“Have you been drinking? I’ve never heard those words before especially coming from you. Well, you better get up before anyone sees you like this!”

When you tapped his shoulders signaling him to stand up, he swiftly grabbed your wrist in lightning speed and dragged you to one of the stalls. Chenle abruptly shuts the door behind him which made a loud thud as he is brimming with excitement. He sits on the toilet seat and spreads his legs like a king on the throne while checking you from top to bottom. Clicking his tongue and smacking his thigh, encouraging you to delicately plop yourself onto him. Chenle had that smug expression wearing nothing but his black sweatpants, GSW T-shirt and white rubber shoes.

“Chenle, you’ll get your ass beat if your manager storms in on us!” You said incredulously.

“Baby girl, they’re never gonna find out because I know how to shut that beautiful mouth of yours.” Chenle remarked confidently with a smirk.

“This is serious, dude. I’m not taking my clothes off, you maniac!”

“Ugh, you’re no fun. Just sit on my lap. I need you close, baby.”

You diligently abide by his request and the next thing you know, Chenle’s hands are in between your thighs which makes you quiver. You promptly frowned at him, refusing to let him near you when all of a sudden, he took one hand away to cup your cheeks and pulled you in a deep, passionate yet sloppy kiss. The hand then travelled down your neck where he tightens his grip, making you scoff out a little cough. The moment you parted with his lips to catch your breath you throw your head back as you were holding onto his shoulders for support when he took notice of your scent.

“Baby, you smell so fucking good. What’d you put on?”

“Jo Malone perfume I bought from Jaehyun. I’ll explain later. You’ve a lot of catching up to do, mister.”

“Whatever you say, princess.” Chenle uttered under his breath as he flashed his signature crescent moon smile.

The further your bodies were intertwined, the more he got captivated by your scent. You completely lost yourself under your boyfriend’s touch when you hear footsteps outside the stall. Stomping loudly towards your direction, your eyes widen and hid your face onto his chest. When you hear the twist of the knob turn, you had already hoped it was his manager to usher you out of this hellhole. Instead, you glanced up to see a tall man hovering the both of you with a confused look plastered on his face. It was Park Jisung, all dressed in black ever so handsomely.

“Sorry, I didn’t know this was occupied. Hi (Y/N)! It’s been so long.” Jisung said as he scratches the back of his scalp.

“Hey, it was a surprise for this guy!” You stated as you tilt your head.

“Excuse me! Jisung, do you mind?” Chenle vocalized, motioning his hands together in a brisk fashion because he was already vexed at his best friend for walking in on you two.

“Yeah, I’m leaving. Bye (Y/N), it was really nice seeing you again!” Jisung responded with a playful wink as he closed the door.

You could sense Chenle fuming behind you, arguably pissed off from Jisung’s remark as you played along. Chenle’s cheeks had never gotten this red before, you could spot his furrowed brows and face flushed when you turned around to see him pouting his lips. This was one of the few times you ever saw your boyfriend sulky and admittedly enough, you found it cute.

“Aww, why the long face?” You said teasingly, pinching his plum cheeks.

“Because you seem to like Jisung more than me.” Chenle muttered defeatedly, shifting his gaze and not meeting yours.

“When we locked eyes for the first time, my heart knew what I needed and it was you. In a million timelines, I’d choose you. Chenle, you’re my north star.” You lovingly affirmed his tense face as you leaned closer and planted one last kiss.

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vigilxnte-shit · 4 months ago

Text

i can see you || matt murdock x éliette de castillon || one-shot

summary: éliette de castillon is 19 years old and engaged to a 22-year-old law student. as far as everyone is concerned, she’s eager to marry and lead a god-fearing life, but a certain blind classmate of her fiancé can’t help the way she takes over his senses.

word count: 2,993

warnings: angsty kind of?? STEAMY. MAKING OUUUUUT. no smut but it gets kind of close, el is engaged to another guy while making out with matt. mentions of emotional abuse. also not edited and its 2:30 AM as i’m starting this

a/n: I DO NOT CONDONE CHEATING this is a one-off instance where it’s lowkey kind of hot and also el’s fiancé sucks ass. once again thanks to yuna for the inspo <3

this is an 18+ blog. minors dni. || masterlist

matt murdock saw the world in a different way than most. he had lived without his sight since he was nine, moving through a world on fire with as much grace as one could muster. he smelled every tear leaking from an eye somewhere in the room, heard each cry and moan and shout as he walked the streets at night. matt murdock couldn’t see, but he could feel, a reality that often made the world seem loud and undefeatable and evil.

and then he met el.

el smelled like vanilla and cashmere wood, a scent matt had picked up on half the girls in his classes- clearly, it had to be sold out at the mall right now. despite that, despite it’s overuse, it smelled different on el, unique, warm and soft and scrumptious. it was the first thing his senses picked up on when she sat next to him on the clubhouse fireplace. he’d smelled the exact fragrance on foggy’s date from last friday, but this time it was intoxicating. this time it was enticing.

he turned to face her then, ready to make a move based on scent alone. he didn’t need anything else, he wanted his lips on her skin, but as he turned to her he paused.

her heartbeat was racing. her breath was jagged and raspy, choppy, uneven, a sensation that he knew too well. her temperature was rising, he could taste the salt in the budding tears, and he knew he had to say something.

“hey, are you okay?” he asked. he sensed the turn, could tell she was facing him now, but she remained speechless for the shortest moment. she was taking him in. he was used to that.

“your breath picked up,” he explained softly. the last thing he wanted was to raise her anxieties, to spike that precious heartbeat even more- he just wanted to explain himself. “it sounded like you were about to hyperventilate.”

he heard her heartbeat begin to slow, the milliseconds between beats starting to lose their numbers and her lungs taking in their oxygen more slowly. he didn’t let himself smile on the outside, but he felt it internally. he’d done something to help.

“i…i’m okay, thank you.”

in that moment, matt could have sworn the floor had given out and sent him straight to heaven. her voice was soft and warm, laced with the smallest hints of a foreign accent on the end of the words- french, he would later learn. in the moment, though, he didn’t care. god himself could not have bestowed a damn about the origin of her accent, all that matt knew was he wanted her to start talking and never stop.

éliette de castillon became his own phantom that night. he went to bed with her voice echoing in his head, with the scent of her vanilla perfume stuck in his nostrils that he hoped would never leave. the sound of her slowed, peaceful heartbeat, the gentle warmth in her cheeks- she was a walking lullaby, a fresh cup of chamomile tea on a chilly winter’s night. and sure, he couldn’t tell what she looked like. he had no clue what her skin tone was, what shade of hair she had or the color of those undoubtedly gorgeous eyes. but matt could see éliette de castillon, and that vision was enough to make her his very own patron saint.

he spoke with her three more times before she married samuel joseph. two more parties; both garish and loud and overstimulating, leading to them heading outside to talk on the local playground for hours; and one fateful five-o-clock in a maintenance closet.

it was an icy december evening, three days before the end of the semester. the last party they had been to was a fortnight prior, and el had been haunting him since. he’d learned to zero in on her scent amongst the hundreds of girls wearing the same one: she paired it with a caramel body wash and the natural fragrance of her skin, just defined enough she stood out in the overcrowded smellscape, and he knew she passed by him at least once a day. her heartbeat varied in an out, and he usually heard her humming to herself- musicals, pop songs, classic rock. anything. she could have hummed to a sports broadcast, and he would have listened with the fascination of a child in a space museum.

she’d told him at that party she didn’t want to marry sam. that she was desperate and terrified of him, that he mocked her smallest mistakes and encouraged his friends to do the same. she was only marrying him to get away from her foster parents, to escape the life she’d lived in italian catholic purgatory ever since frank had left for the military. she had let matt hug her, and he’d spent each of those fourteen days dreaming of the day he could experience that again. her body was perfect, everything he’d dreamed of. she’d felt like she was made for his arms, the way her waist dipped in right at his arms’ height, her head perfectly on his shoulder and that irresistible vanilla signature strong in his nose. she’d only pulled away after a second too long, and she’d stared at his lips after- he felt her hesitation, the wheels turning in her head as she debated and then shut down the second sam announced his arrival.

he hadn’t been able to focus in class. he’d barely even updated foggy on his love life, too busy thinking about the chances of talking her into breaking it off. he could not care less about preserving his friendship with sam, about keeping things in line with the future district attorney, as he gratuitously called himself. no, matt only cared about taking the dove clean out of sam’s hands before he could clip her wings.

even now, walking down the hallway from the library, matt thought of it. he felt around with the cane he didn’t need, almost swinging it as he dreamed of their embrace and her heartbeat and her voice and the way she spoke french. his heart had been dropped in her backpack, carried around with her all day, and matt didn’t care to get it back. she could keep it, she could stomp on it, she could toss it out the window and run it over with her car- it was hers to keep and destroy if she wanted.

he made it almost to the entrance, head in the clouds and feet about to join it, when his nose picked it up. he froze in his tracks and his cane with him, sniffing around, trying to figure out it’s direction. that was el’s perfume. undeniably, definitively el’s.

before he knew what he was doing, he followed it. he had the thought to fold up his cane and toss it in his bag, to drop the act of needing it and just find her, but in the end he didn’t even need it. the smell got stronger, and he paused as his fingers brushed another’s.

“hi, matt.”

it was like sunshine on a spring morning, a fresh-baked cookie after a long day. he couldn’t think straight, all he could muster was vanilla warm sweet as he reached for her hand.

“el, we need to talk.”

he couldn’t see her furrowed brow, but she didn’t protest, letting him drag her back up the hallway. she asked for an explanation, checked to make sure he was okay, but he didn’t answer. he walked to the closest supply closet as fast as his feet would carry him, following the closest smell of bleach to get him there.

when he pulled her into the closet, she hesitated. he couldn’t blame her- this was sudden and so shocking, even he didn’t fully process what was happening. he couldn’t give her an answer, though, just pulled her in and locked the door behind them.

in the tiny closet, he barely remembered to switch on the lights. he hung his backpack on the hook and took el’s messenger bag off her shoulders, not answering her questions. once both bags were safely hanging on the back of the door, he pulled his glasses from the bridge of his nose, tucking the rectangular lenses into the water bottle pocket on the side of his bag.

“matt, what is going on,” she demanded. “you’re acting so strange, we’re in a supply-”

her mouth stopped the second his hands touched her face. she froze completely, and he couldn’t help but pause to take in the entire sensation. her stunned silence, the sensation of her cheeks heating, her speeding heartbeat and that damned perfume. the silence was a perfect backdrop as he slowly traced his thumbs over his cheekbones, the bridge of her nose, her lips.

“don’t marry sam.” it was whispered, reverent, a sign of worship. a show of devotion.

he heard her breath catch and felt her eyes searching his. the whole room felt like it was rising in temperature, like at any second foundation would collapse and the ceiling would cave in on them from the sheer tension in the room.

“matt.” her voice was near silent, quiet as a dandelion seed, it would have carried away on the wind had they been outside. her soft, fragile fingers covered his, a second frame for the beauty he held between his hands. “matt, you…i can’t just…”

“you can.” he nodded, biting his lip with an air of certainty. “you can. you can tell him no. you can take it back, tell him you’ve changed your mind, and leave him behind.” one hand dropped from her face, taking hers and kissing each of her knuckles. “el, he isn’t good for you. your sparkle fades the second you hear his voice.”

“what would i tell him?!” she squeezed his interlaced hand, never taking her eyes from his intense, gorgeous, unseeing gaze. “what would i say? i can’t- i can’t just leave-”

“it’s your life, el.” the sentence lingered, hung in the air and stagnated. he had fired the bullet. “it’s not his.”

verbal lightning had struck the room. all that remained was stillness and electricity and static, two people and their frazzled minds and a life-changing decision.

she wasn’t saying she loved sam. that was what matt kept saying to himself, that in the midst of it all, in the silence and the conversation and the nights at parties, she had never once declared that she loved sam.

and now el was silent. quieter than a nun during the eucharist, than the falling snow on the night they’d first met. no words escaped her lips, and he could taste her strawberry lip balm even with the distance. he sensed it as her eyes dropped to his own lips, her focus undivided and her heart rate slowly climbing. he could hear the blood rushing, imagined the pink in her cheeks.

slowly, he released her left hand. he moved his right forward to hold her waist, his fingers brushing the soft polyester of her shirt. his left pinkie and ring finger curled just under her jaw, a gentle tug, a silent request.

“tell me to stop,” he whispered.

“no,” she answered.

the distance between them was closed in seconds. el’s lip were the softest paradise he’d ever experienced, soft and hydrated, coated with a strawberry flavor that could have been candy. he stole kiss after kiss from her lips, her breath escaping in delicate whimpers between lips and touches and emotions. his right hand found its way slowly up her side, his languid fingers coming to her neck- not to squeeze, just to hold.

“can i go further?” matt whispered. his free hand migrated from her cheek to her hair, lightly gripping a handful and pressing his forehead to hers. “tell me if you don’t want this, el.”

she nodded. he smiled at the feeling of her hair as she did, still holding it gently.

“words, el.”

“i do.”

he didn’t know it at the time, but he’d think of those two words for years. he’d spend days agonizing over them, weeks on his knees in the church, begging god to bring his el back so she could repeat it over the altar this time. he’d spend five years wondering how she was doing, if she was okay, if she’d lost her sense of flight.

but for now, it was enough. it was enough for him to tighten his grip in her hair and slip his tongue past her lips, kissing her as though she was the only thing he had ever wanted, the only prize he could ever dream of winning.

he had to press her against the wall, press one hand to the wall next to her head to stabilize himself. she tasted like summer breezes and cozy nights, like a strawberry shortcake on a blanket in the middle of june. each breath stolen was a treasure for his collection, a moment to add to the track for each time he felt unmotivated or lonely or sad. she giggled when he bit her lip, tugging the bottom between his teeth with a slightly harsh nibble.

“you’re an angel, el,” he whispered, fastening his hold in her hair to pull her head to the side. “you’re a goddess. too heavenly to be on this earth.” with his newfound angel, matt’s lips trailed to her jawline. he left open-mouhted, sloppy, and passionate kisses down her features and onto her neck, nipping at the skin and sucking a bruise to her collarbone.

a mistake that would haunt him for the next half a decade.

suddenly, el’s eyes snapped open. “matt, stop. i can’t.”

without hesitating, he pulled away. his stomach dropped, his sightless eyes blown wide and beautiful despite the panic rushing over him. had he done something wrong? had he upset her?

he waited in agonizing silence, listening as she straightened her clothes and fixed her hair. there was a sadness in her movements, a slowness and hesitation that he began ignoring as soon as she picked up her bag and stopped his world from spinning.

“matt, you’re amazing,” she said softly. he recognized the edge of tears in her voice. he had no clue how to fix that.

“you’re kind, and you’re smart, and you’re so handsome.” matt felt his heart sinking. he didn’t care for the compliments, he didn’t care for the praise- he wanted her. he wanted her in his life, in his house, in his bed. he couldn’t move as he heard her swallow.

“and i really hope you find a girl even have as spectacular as you.”

with those words, el stepped out into the hallway, shutting the door behind her. at first, matt thought to follow her. chase her down, get on his knees if he had to, tell her he would take her to the courthouse tomorrow and make her a murdock if it would get her out of this.

he didn’t, though. he listened as her steps synced up with the cracks in his breaking heart, waiting for her to leave the building, to get to her dorm. he never moved the entire time, just sat and listened and thought.

he pushed the thoughts out of his head- of her, miserable and afraid, living on the whims of an idiot lawyer and his pastor paychecks. he thought of how she said sam had never hugged her like that, never held her or listened to her thoughts, and how she had just walked right back into that fate. how she had stared freedom in the eyes and been too scared to step forward.

matt couldn’t sleep that night. he tossed and turned, replaying el’s whimpers in his head, touching his lips and wishing it was her. he knew he couldn’t do it. he couldn’t just let her accept such a loveless destiny, leave her to a shadow of loneliness and way too many kids on an upstate farmhouse.

he got out of bed at 6am, the morning sun fresh in the sky as he ran to her dorm. he’d never been before, only been told the address, and after much trial and error he arrived at #96. he cleared his throat and made the sign of the cross before reaching forward, his fist balled to knock, when he heard someone clear his throat.

“don’t bother.” it was a neighbor down the street, just returned from grocery shopping. “they moved out last night. not sticking around for winter, so they headed out early.”

matt tilted his head, his heart dropping. “...they?

the neighbor nodded. “yeah, the pastor’s kid and his fiance. gone like magic this morning. didn’t give us much warning, either.”

matt just nodded. “thank you.” he stared at the door for minutes as the neighbor walked away, desperate, listening for any signs of life from the other side- nothing but buzzing electricity and the occasional mouse.

matt spent the next five years thinking about her. she came to mind every time he dated someone new, each time he went to church and smelled vanilla perfume. he tried to find a facebook, an instagram, a linkedin- anything that might tip him off to where she went, how she was doing. it didn’t work. she may as well have vanished from the earth…or so he thought. everything changed one rainy day in hell’s kitchen, when éliette joseph stepped off the c-train. she walked fifteen minutes in the pouring rain, the scent of the city and the petrichor so strong that matt couldn’t even pick out her familiar vanilla perfume. he couldn’t pick up anything about her- the flushed cheeks or the beating heart or the humming of a broadway showtune. he had nothing to tip him off, nothing to prepare him for the moment the door to Nelson & Murdock swung open and his angel walked right back into his life.

#matt murdock #charlie cox #daredevil #matt murdock <3 #netflix daredevil #vienna writes #matt murdock x oc #matt murdock imagine #matt murdock fluff #Spotify

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