#thank you tumblr for making it annoyingly blurry

[lukreziaaa]

[lalal-99]

of timeless love {h.j.} | track 1

©March 2023, February 2024 by lalal-99

Han Jisung x afab!reader | trope: slice of life, coming of age | word count: 2.6k

Synopsis: You and your annoyingly adorable boyfriend Jisung move off to university, to make new friends, find a calling and learn how to live on your own for the very first time in your lives.

Check Chapter Overview for complete list of warnings

Note: I first thought of this story about a year and a half ago. I didn't feel ready at the time, but as I got better over the years, I picked this story up again. Updates might be slow, so bear with me please

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You, 6 years ago, wouldn’t have bought this romantic af, straight out of a fairy-tale storyline.

You going to University? With the love of your life? Like the picture-perfect couple, smiles glued to your face? Nuh-uh. Not you. Not in this lifetime and most likely not in the next dozen—if you ever were so unlucky.

Family, love, college. All of it was bullshit. Temporary.

Nothing good ever lasted. If anything, a dark twist was already lurking around the next corner at any given moment. You couldn’t imagine a dimension in which you were ever happy. Let alone content.

Your 14-year-old emo self would never grow out of the jet-black hair. Or the countless piercings decorating your face. Or those cole-coloured ripped skinny jeans you wore like a second skin. So much you knew. Past-you only ever wanted to gloom through life in a hazy blur. Depressed about My Chemical Romance breaking up and all the other hardships life had already put you through.

That girl would have despised who you had become. Hair grown back to its natural colour. Wearing shirts without some underground metal band’s logo printed on the front. That girl would have likely made fun of you for even thinking about grades. And your future? If you ever had one, your 14-year-old self knew it would include nothing but darkness and despair.

Every teenager around you went through that phase, though you were sure it was more than that. A phase. A short and survivable part of your story. You fully and whole-heartedly believed nothing would ever change about your attitude towards life. It couldn’t, not after everything that had happened.

Overcoming that horrible chapter of your life seemed unimaginable. That you even got the chance to reach out and grab your future by its horns only had one reason. One person who was to become the most meaningful part of your life. Of the same future, he was the reason you even considered having.

Han Jisung.

A boy of innocence and noisy introversion. A boy who, despite having lived through similar trauma as yourself, had a will for life toxic enough to capture you. A boy who you became sure was the closest thing to a soulmate you would ever find.

No one could have prepared you for how hard you’d fall for Jisung. You loved him at his best, worst, and everything between. And you had fallen in love with him despite his lousy sense of humour and silly persona. Or maybe, you had fallen for him because of it. Because he had a similar story to yours but an opposite look at it.

Your 14-year-old, always-depressed, doom-certain-self could have never imagined being with someone like him. Let alone being head-over.heels. All while doing what? Watching him do something so mediocre and none-life changing as buying toothbrushes?

“I don’t know. Which ones do you think?”

Jisung presented you two indistinguishable packs of toothbrushes, waking you from your daydream. Thus, the blurriness faded and your eyes focused on the tiny words on each cover.

“These,” you decided on the left option. “Those bristles are too hard for your gums.”

“Oh, we definitely can’t have that.” With a dramatically disgusted expression, he returned the wrong set to its place on the shelf. “I want to keep at least some of my teeth.”

“Thankfully,” you agreed with a snicker. His words cracked you up more than they should have.

No doubt, your 14-year-old self would have hated yourself six years later.

“Okay. What else is on that magic list of yours?”

“Microwave popcorn and some instant ramen. And we should get some notebooks and highlighters for tomorrow. That’s it.” You listed the remaining articles off the slip of paper while crossing out the products you had retrieved from the hygiene section. “Should we split up?”

“Nah. That’s how they die in horror movies. And I’m not going out in the food court of a 7/11.”

“Fair. How about the Back-to-School aisle then?”

Jisung pondered his reply as he wandered past toothpaste and mouthwash. “Too many pens for people to draw penises on my face. The cleaning section, however? That’s a whole other conversation.”

“How come?”

“Well, there’s bleach and mops already. Also, buckets. So they can simply wheel my corpse away.”

As you walked by the pasta and other canned foods, you picked up a tray of ramen each. For convenience, if anything. Had it not been for the thinness of your wallet, you would have gone for fresher produce. So much for independent living.

With an intensive focus on your absurd conversation—Jisung listing places he would most likely die in if he were a character in a horror movie—you didn’t notice a tray of stacked goods blocking the path. It wasn’t until you bumped your shin on the square-edged tower that you finally took notice.

As a wave of pain swallowed your leg, you left out a shriek. “Gosh freakin’ dang it!”

“You good, baby?” His concern was genuine, though he couldn’t help smiling at your desperate attempt not to swear. “Let me see.”

Jisung kneeled in front of you, noticing a reddening wound once he had dragged the jean fabric up your leg.

“Just a bruise.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one feeling like your skin is being dragged off your flesh.”

“No. But I can make it better.”

He rose to his feet, arms hugging your frame as he picked you up without any effort. You giggled as he heaved you into the cart, careful not to squish the food.

“What are you doing?”

“No girlfriend of mine should have to walk when she’s in pain,” Jisung explained, helping you get settled. Pushing the crushable goods out of the way, you sat on the cans. Not the most comfortable seating, but it worked, nevertheless.

“Damn, those other girls are lu-cky.”

Jisung was pleased at how casually you had joined in on his joke. A smile formed on his lips as he pushed you along the shelves of seasonal produce.

You soon reached the Back-to-School aisle. There you took your sweet time deciding on notebook formats and highlighter colours. It kept surprising you how much fun it was to go grocery shopping when done with the right people. Everything was about 50 percent less boring because of Jisung. Jisung and his ability to find something ridiculous in anything and everything.

After you had made some other critical decisions—like which folders would make organising the year easiest, the ones with dogs or flowers in front—you finished up your school-supply-run.

When you reached the cash register, you noticed the strange looks the other customers gave you. Two young adults strolling through a supermarket, pushing each other in grocery carts? Definitely side-eye-worthy.

Maybe you would have cared more had you not been so enticed by Jisung’s mindless humming of Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.

“What?” Jisung questioned your glances as he started unloading the items from the cart.

“Nothing.” You joined him, unloading all the trays of food you had picked minutes earlier. “This feels weird. Going grocery shopping together. Feels grown-up somehow.”

“We go grocery shopping once a week,” he declared with a thoughtful pout.

“But that’s different.”

After you had emptied out your purchase, he wheeled you further down the band. The woman behind the cash register seemed equally interested in you as all the customers. Soon enough, she continued doing her job.

“You mean because we didn’t have to pay for it ourselves?” He held his hand to his heart as if heartbroken. “I miss your dad, too. Always so kind, paying for all our stuff.”

You chuckled at his playful sincerity.

“No, idiot.” As Jisung reloaded the cart, you payed for this week’s necessities. “Because we’re grocery shopping on our own, living off at uni. We have officially moved out of our home, living in the big city. It’s— new. That’s it.”

As soon as you had reached the exit, you picked reached for the strawberries, unable to abstain any longer. Strolling towards his car, you handed one over to your boyfriend while sucking on your own. Like the gentleman he was, Jisung helped you jump from the car and you packed everything into the trunk.

Once you had placed the cart back by the others, you finally headed home. Or rather, the dorm room you would be living in for the next four years.

You weren’t at that point of calling it your home yet.

A comfortable silence surrounded you throughout your drive. It remained while you stacked away your half of the food back at your place and lasted until you finished. This sort of silence wasn’t uncommon these many years into your relationship—you hardly noticed it anymore.

“Man, all this talk about horror movies makes me want to watch one.” That you hadn’t mentioned this topic for over 30 minutes seemed irrelevant.

“But you’re horrible with horror movies,” you pointed out.

“Not when you’re there to protect me.”

An hour later you were sprawled out on your bed, the last sweet strawberry long gone.

With your legs entangled, Jisung’s face rested on your chest as you massaged his scalp. After minutes of fruitless discussion, Spiderman was now webbing his way through your laptop screen. In the end, it really didn’t matter what movie was playing. It never did as long as you were with each other.

Not even 20 minutes into the movie, Jisung had fallen asleep on top of you. His faint snoring was now mere background noise as you followed the plot, ehich wasn’t as simple as it sounded. Your energy was more than drained from running around all day.

Only three days ago, you had still been back home. Packing for your upcoming move to a new city, two hours from every place you had grown up in. The one thing keeping you calm throughout the stress was your sweetheart-boyfriend. To no one’s surprise. He was the only person able to keep you sane when all you wanted was to scream and cry. Had you not had him by your side, you would have drowned in all the noise your brain usually produced.

His ability to calm your nerves when you needed him to—know when to make you laugh or when to distract you from your everyday stresses—surprised you to this day. You couldn’t begin to explain how you had been lucky enough to find someone like him. Someone you loved as much as you had seen your parents do when you were younger. Let alone how he loved you the same way, almost self-destructively so.

Your 14-year-old self would have called bs. But that girl was someone else—you, but in another lifetime. You but pre-Jisung.

When the door to your room rushed open, it pulled you from your quiet slumber. You had turned off the lights earlier to set the mood but still knew the intruder was your roommate. Besides you two, only Jisung knew the code to your dorm—a decision you had previously discussed with your new roomie, of course. Seeing as he was knocked out on top of you, you could cross him off your list of possible visitors at 8 pm on a Monday.

Adapting her eyes to the darkness, she checked her surroundings before tiptoeing into the room. The light remained off as she expected you to be asleep.

“Hey,” you greeted the dark-haired beauty, making her jump in surprise at the sudden noise.

“Fu—God! You scared me.” With one hand over her heart, your roomie calmed herself from your unexpected jump-scare. Once her heart rate had settled, she slipped out of her heels and left them by the end of her bed. “Is he asleep?”

“Yeah,” you confirmed, letting your finger run along his jaw to check. He didn’t move, so you knew he was most likely out for the night. “Long night?”

She gagged with an eye roll, pulling her jeans off her legs and exchanging them for grey sweatpants. “Don’t get me started. I haven’t even started writing my thesis, and it’s already kicking my ass.”

You watched her as she also changed out of her dress shirt and into an off-the-shoulder crop top. She slipped into a pair of sneakers while making her way to her dresser where she sprayed herself in a cloud of perfume.

“You’re leaving again?”

“Yup. I spent so much time at the library today, I apparently neglected,” she air-quoted with an eye roll, “my girlfriend. At least that’s what she said.”

“The things we do to keep our loved ones happy.”

“Exactly.” Unleashing her long curls from a tight ponytail, she ran her fingers through them for a few seconds. Her beach-waves veiled her face, so she pushed them behind her ears to instead frame her near-perfect features. “Anyway, I’m staying at hers tonight, so don’t wait up for me.”

“Okay,” you agreed with a yawn, your roommate replying with a deep chuckle.

The past few days, you had mainly spent in your new room, settling in and getting ready for the start of the semester. You liked planning ahead, knowing your life was organised to a T, so you could focus on the important stuff. Your studies, and your boyfriend.

Your roommate seemed to have most of the same priorities. She had gone out every night since you moved in, be it to study at the library or spend some time with her better half. However she managed to squeeze in all the partying? You had no clue. You could only hope some of her togetherness rubbed off on you. But then again, never judge a book.

“I’m going to take you out one of these days. You are not going to be sitting inside all year. Not on my watch.”

Spending the first two days inside, you must have looked like the biggest couch potato ever.

“Sounds good.”

As she waltzed towards the door, you grabbed her attention one last time. The hallway lights blinded you with their brightness, framing her curves in a halo.

“Oh, and Hwasa?” She turned to face you, looking like she had jumped straight off a Vogue cover. How she did that without trying was a mystery to you. “Can you not tell Wheein he’s sleeping over? I wouldn’t want my first warning on the third day already.”

“Babe, as long as you’re my roommate, my dorm-supervisor-girlfriend won’t dare write you up. Just don’t set anything on fire, and you’re solid.”

With that, she waved goodbye, leaving you and your boyfriend alone. Well, apart from the ever-so-handsome Tom Holland, who somehow made full-body suits look like a reasonable choice of clothing.

Not soon after, your eyes fell close, sending you off into a deep rest.

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[ivarsrideordie]

Your recent post on AHA being absent from social media got me thinking; my response is verbose and I was nervous it would be annoyingly long to post in the general comment section. So I came here? Is that a thing? Lol. I'm still in my infancy stage with Tumblr. Learning the ropes. So, the thoughts:

Sadly, loneliness and projection are too real. Day dreaming is fun, but scary territory when the dreamer begins to derive their self-worth and happiness from a person or relationship built in the mind. Truth is, this man is merely an attractive stranger whose true personality we can only scratch the suface of. There is no true, substantial two way relationship. So when people 'miss' his presence, who do we miss? The character of Alex developed in the mind? The idea that if he posts, it directly validates his acceptance of 'me' as a person? That he posts because he cares about engaging with 'me'? Alex cannot accept or reject 'me'... he doesn't know 'I' exist. He's engaging with an idea of a group that he hopes is kind but sometimes isn't- a general group of people he's probably grateful for but also weary of. When a fan's emotion and self worth becomes impacted by an actor or influencer's engagement... that's where the line gets real blurry.

I read an article I think of him mentioning that people write to him frequently with heavy thoughts, asking him to respond, to ultimately save them from themselves. That's fking tragic, for both sides. Both humans. My heart breaks for the lonely and the lost who put so much stock in a stranger's validation. Because the savior in their mind is all they have. I'm not judging. I'm not. I understand walking that line more than I'd like to admit. Its too easy to do when you've made inferences in your mind and patchworked together the personality of a potential friend. And what can he do? Its an unfair ask with one person, let alone hundreds, thousands? How can he protect himself from that impossible emotional burden if not by hiding? This person we follow online is just another human in the world who poops like rest of us. And the psychology of acting and influence is heavy. To get the big roles and make a good living, you sell your image, I suppose. You're the product. The more popular, the more valuable in the box office. But also the more exposed, judged, and vulnerable. Do you give up the dream of your passion as an income and the idea of supporting your family because you 'can't handle the heat'?

I do believe all jobs come with a trade off. If I want to earn enough money to afford certain things, I trade time away from my children while working, for example. I don't know if we can change the machine. The psychology behind why his job works like it does. But, just as I am on an endless quest to find balance between what I gain and what I lose as I endeavor to be both happy and provide financially, I imagine he is too. And that's ok. That's fair. Not personal. 

Suffice to say, if I were this dude I'd be ghosting too.

Sorry it took me a bit to get back to you on this.  I actually wanted to be on my laptop so I could answer with more than a 4 word reply.  

First off, WELCOME TO TUMBLR!  I’ll take any comments or questions no matter how long they are so don’t worry about being lengthy.  It’s not hard to use and its both fun and annoying to be on.  This social media platform is becoming just about as bad as Twitter or Facebook.  

You make some very good points.  I agree there is a very fine line between reality vs “reality’ and some fans can’t seem to figure out which is the real one.  When I was younger, I had issues with this.  I have done some stupid stuff that was totally stalkerish.  Then I grew up.  That was also the time I started realizing I was bipolar with high anxiety.  I would have rather been in my own little world with my fake friends then real life.  It takes a lot of hard work and time to pull yourself out of that kind of mentality and also a lot of work to stay out of that kind of thinking as well.  

I’ll admit I say that I miss Alex as well.  It’s not necessarily him that I am missing though.  You are correct.  It is the essence of what Alex puts out there of himself.  We all have come to love him as Ivar.  Some people can’t get away from the fact that he is in fact not actually Ivar so they have that whole image of him in their minds thinking that that is who he is.  I feel for those people.  I feel like some, if not most of the people who have this disassociation have had horrible childhoods.  That was my issue.  And like I said, I have learned through therapy and hard work how to distinguish the two.  

Expecting anything from anyone that doesn’t know you is definitely unfair.  I would never put Alex or anyone in a situation where I would tell them I would die or kill myself if they didn’t talk to me or love me.  That is selfish and unfair to do to anyone.  

That is just my two cents.  Thank you for this comment and somewhat of a debate.  lol  

[everythingispinke]

Possibly the best fight ever.

‘’No I can’t stay here and hold her, tomorrow act like I don’t know her’’ Tumblr Girls by G-Eazy was blasting on max through my headphones as I were slowly walking towards my school, well aware that I would be late. Who cared? That day my face was in a lot of pain and I had a huge headache. 

As I were reaching the top of the stairs I couldn’t stop thinking about how I would usually panic if I were late because then all the attention would be directed to me and everybody would notice my every move. That day was different, everybody was going to be staring anyway so I figured being late wouldn’t hurt anyone.

I slowly pushed open the door and looked around the classroom. Yup, all eyes on me - after getting eyecontact with almost everybody in the room I turned to the teacher, slowly nodding and giving a shy smile followed by saying ‘’sorry for interrupting.’’ He likes it when you apologizes. He looked around the class, while I were walking towards my seat, to see if anyone appeared to know something. He then fully gained eye contact with me, just staring for a while. It begun to feel uncomfortable.

He spoke up, breaking the silence, ‘’what happened to your eye?’’ he asked slightly pointing towards my black eye. I held back the urge to look around, but I already knew that everybody had been staring for a while.

‘’I umm.. I got into a fight yesterday.’’ I informed him, as well as everybody else in the room. He nodded, ‘’care to go into details or should we just leave it there?’’ he asked me in an unsure way. Right before I spoke he interrupted me, saying ‘’I hope the other one looks worse.’’ thanks, I rolled my eyes in a discrete way. 

‘’Well, it got a bit out of control.. and yeah, she looks way worse. Her nose is broken and I’m pretty sure I ripped her lip too.’’ I shrug. No big deal.

I didn’t need to turn around, I heard them whisper. It went silent for a while until the teacher decided to continue class.

When we all got to working I turned around to two of my friends sitting behind me. Jake and Atlas. Jake always blurts out stupid stuff. Atlas just sat there, kind of surprised as he said ‘’I didn’t know you that kind of girl.’’, he seemed impressed. ‘’Yeah did you just BOOM BAM POW her and then what? How did it happen?’’ Jake asked as the curious dog he always is.

I lightly shook my head with a small chuckle ‘’One of my friends filmed it, wouldn’t you rather see the video than hearing me explaining?’’ I asked both of the boys since I were a bit annoyed about explaining, it always takes them a while to understand what I’m talking about.

‘’Oh yes that would be cool!’’ Atlas exclaimed. ‘’Haha, okay even though it’s a total chick fight and embarrassing’’ I told them. Atlas nodded eagerly ‘’that doesn’t matter, show me!’’ so typical of him.

I fiddled with my phone, looking for the video. It wasn’t that hard to find, I mean, I might have thousands of things in my gallery, but that was from the day before - not that hard. 

I played the video for everybody wanting to watch it.

It started off with Natalie and I standing extremely close to each other, face to face, yelling complaints and insults at each other. That lasted for a while, slowly growing more violent. Natalie had her arms raised high, pushing me aggressively causing me to stumble backwards. I looked at her with eyes full of anger, walking up to her again, the yelling continued. She grabbed my shirt as I almost ripped her hands off of me and basically threw them away. She seemed taken by surprise. She proceeded to pushed me over and over again until I hit the back of my head against a brick wall. Everything became blurry for a few seconds. When I regained my focus I noticed her annoyingly satisfied smirk. My thoughts were ‘’She going down’’. In my memory it all went black from there, I guess I had a back-out caused by rage.

According to the video I grabbed her by the hair, I guess it was full-on mode, and dragged her into the wall that I had previously hit myself. I didn’t drag her hard though. As she turned around I realized that I had ripped her lip, it was bleeding bad. Probably going to leave a scar. She touched her sore lip, noticing the blood herself too. She looked up at me, out of breath. Without being prepared she had a fist flying towards my right eye. She must be left-handed. 

That’s when it clicked for me. I knee’ed her in the gut, causing her to bend forwards, making it easier for me to hit her face, I punched upwards with my left hand and hit her lip again. I punched with my right hand immediately, at her weakest, to hit her nose. That punch had also sent her to the ground. I straddled her, holding both of her wrist so she couldn’t do anything. We were both out of breath and staring at each other, studying what we had done. 

I leaned down so the crowd couldn’t hear me ‘’Are we good? I mean don’t get me wrong, this was wild, but I am kinda feeling better ya know?’’ I asked Natalie. While still out of breathe she let out a slight chuckle as she nodded. 

I got off of her and proceeded to help her up. We went to the nearest bench, noticing the big crowd we had attracted, we looked at each other and bursted out laughing.

We agreed to go to the emergency room just to make sure the damages would heal nicely.

The video ended after I had helped Natalie standing up. ‘’Sooo...’’ I was anticipating what they would say. They all shared looks. ‘’That was pretty badass’’ they all said in different ways.

The day went on and as always rumors spread fast. That day were nothing but questions and conversations about it being true or not, getting stares, and being praised. Yes, praised. 

Authors note: So ummm... I had to write this down because it kept popping up in my head and I needed to share it, to get peace so that I could continue reading my current fan fiction. Hope this was good xx