#that I am already sick to death of the show

[hypothesis-hobbyist]

Me @ every single fucking website rn

[gregoftom]

TO ME, THAT’S CINEMA

[mint-mumbles]

Gonna use this image any time someone says something low key sexist about Sable (ie "she's showing too much skin" regarding a fucking bathing suit 😭🤦)

I don't hear you complaining about Spirit 😭

[lyrefromthesea]

Male pillars x Reader - Comfort

request: the male pillars reactions towards a s/o that feels insecure about their rank as a hashira

pairing: Tengen x reader, Obanai x reader, Rengoku x reader, Sanemi x reader, Giyuu x reader, Muichiro x reader, Gyomei x reader

content warning: suggestiveness (Obanai, Sanemi)

Tengen:

the pillar meeting, it would start in an hour and you didn't feel ready. everyone in the corps knew the rules, pillars get ranked upon achieving one of two things: behead one of the demon moons or atleast fifty demons.

so why didn't you feel ready? you've fought, since you've joined the demon slayers about two years ago, you've slayed a total of 76 demons. what now? this didn't feel right.

you couldn't stand next to the bravest swordsman between all of you. they were different, they've looked into the eyes of death. you knew, your husband was one of them after all.

perhaps you should quit, tell master Kagaya that you weren't ready, weren't deserving of such a high rank. the insecurities took over your mind, not even noticing how your husband entered the room.

"what's up with that face? ya gotta be more flamboyant, baby!" he encouraged, walking up to you. he sat down next to you, the bed sinking under his weight. "..baby?"

"this doesn't feel right.." you eventually said, his eyes widening slightly. he already knew about your insecurities, you had told him about them, but he didn't want to acknowledge it.

"i know. it doesn't. maybe it never will, but that's something you have to accept." he answered, suddenly appearing more serious than usual. he didn't mantain his "flashy" demeanor during serious topics - he never did.

"did it ever feel right to go outside and possibly sign your death sentence?" he joked, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you closer to his side. head leaning against his shoulder, he looked down at you.

"i know that you deserve this place. you don't need to worry over it as long as I'm by your side.." he said, his voice having turned more gentle. you gave him a small smile, nodding lightly.

"let's go, i'll help you through it." he told you, standing up and holding a hand out. you took it. he was right, it didn't feel as bad when he was with you.

Obanai:

"stop saying that." he scolded you, not accepting the way you were belittling yourself. you had looked stressed since this morning, now slowly starting to make him worry.

when he asked what's wrong, he was shocked to hear you talk upsetting about yourself. you sounded completely discouraged.

"your opinion doesn't make sense. i know you're the right person for this." he said, watching you sit down on the bed.

"Obanai, listen.." you tried voicing your insecurities, only to feel your breath hitch. he had taken his mask off, standing right in front of you. feeling him press a kiss against your lips, your eyes widened.

"i will show you how serious i am about this." he claimed, hands coming to your waist. truthfully, he typically wasn't the one taking control in these situations, your heartbeat picking up with how serious he sounded.

Rengoku:

small tears gathered at the corner of your eyes, trying to stop them didn't help at all. you felt selfish, thinking of the sacrifices of the other hashira. would you be able to do as they did when it came down to it?

you've seen the scars on Sanemi's body long before you stepped into your place as a pillar. you've watched Muichiro train himself sick - what did you do? your thoughts got interrupted by a warm hand on your shoulder.

"Kyojuro! I.. I didn't see you there." you looked at him, head immediately turning away again. you didn't want him to see your tears, it would only hurt more.

"little flame! didn't you hear me? why are you crying?" he asked, confused upon finding you sulk in your bedroom. he gently turned you to face him, wiping the tears away. they wouldn't fall under his watch.

"what's wrong?" he tilted his head to the side, wanting to understand you. truthfully, he didn't understand what was going on, but he wanted to.

"i don't think I can do this.. all of you did amazing, fighting for the people you love. i'm not like that.." you admitted, brushing his hand off your shoulder, stepping away. he let you. he knew how important personal space could be.

"that's nothing i haven't seen you do already, little flame." he answered, trying to encourage you. he was glad you weren't crying anymore, but he couldn't stand seeing you so insecure either.

"but i can see it! or did you see me rupturing my eardrums to save others?" you spat back. you would regret your attitude later - he didn't deserve being treated this way, but right now you couldn't concentrate on that.

"little flame, don't compare yourself to me!" he answered, promptly pulling you into a hug. you were surprised by his actions, he normally only was this straightforward with words.

"besides, thinking of it now, damaging my own hearing wasn't the smartest idea!" he confirmed, yet his tone was enthusiastic, you felt yourself smile at his words. sometimes his tone didn't match his words.

he didn't know what exactly cheered you up, but he was happy he made you laugh.

Sanemi:

"you do know how weird your worries are after looking at me, right?" he had a challenging glint in his eyes. it was already clear for him, it didn't matter what you said, he would prove you wrong.

"you don't count, you're a marechi." you answered, looking away. his scars were different, they gave him an advantage. you received them for acting dumb and endangering yourself.

"do you think i'm doing this myself? never. every scar symbolizes were a demon has hit me before." he told you, your eyes widening.

"are you seriously worried about some scars." he asked you, grabbing your wrist and pulling you closer. he nearly sounded offended at the mere thought. "i like them. i don't see a problem with a few lousy scars."

"did this one make you feel that way?" he asked, nodding towards the scar on your arm. he kissed the scarred skin softly, his eyes staying on yours. "or this one?"

you felt your cheeks flushing, the man slowly finding every scar that was seen, determined to show his own kind of affection. he kissed over the scar on your collarbone, fingers unbuttoning your uniform.

"i'll show you how much i appreciate every single one of them."

Giyuu:

"i don't deserve this. i shouldn't have the right to stand next to you or the others.." you said, clearly in distress. he didn't say anything, staring at you.

your words felt too familiar, too reasonable. he understood your dilemma, he knew that it felt like an endless hole. that's why he remained silent and only listened.

you don't remember when you started talking - insecurities revealing themselves. he hadn't moved since then, his eyes focused on you.

after what seemed like forever, he moved for the first time, standing right in front of you. he would've liked to approach this from a logical perspective, tell you why you were perfect as a pillar.

yet he knew that logic wouldn't come through, that he needed to comfort you differently.

you went quiet, looking at the raven-haired man. before you knew it, you were caught in his embrace.

no words were exchanged and no more actions were initiated. you just stood there, accepting his warmth.

it was enough.

Muichiro:

"i told you to stop doubting yourself." his voice always sounded monotone when he wasn't happy about your behavior. you could feel it even now. he didn't agree with your earlier statement.

"that's easy for you to say, you're a prodigy." you countered, but your argument didn't reach him. he was set on his words. "you're only saying that because i'm your tsuguko."

"that has nothing to do with your title as my tsuguko." was the answer you received from him. he sounded serious, your eyes slowly searching for his.

"you're an exceptional fighter. if it wasn't for you, i would've already died in past missions." he claimed, your words dying down. you had much to say, but the certitude he showed made it hard to argue.

"will i be able to rely on your talent again?" he asked, grabbing your hand. he was serious, he believed in you. insecurities were nagging at the back of your mind, but you wanted answer - to agree.

"..yes." you answered quietly, feeling him gently pull you along. as long as he was there, you couldn't think of your insecurities, you had something to protect.

Gyomei:

the master's estate was quiet, at least his backyard made you think so. the pillars should meet in about 20 minutes, why was no one here? you knew they respected the master - everyone did.

you should've been promoted to a hashira in front of them, it wasn't easy to kill one of the lower moons after all. did they forget? ..or maybe they're not coming on purpose.

you barely survived your interaction with the lower moon, they must've done much more expressive things than you. what if they didn't accept your title?

"[name], are you listening?" Himejima asked, he had noticed you after hearing your quiet mumbles. when you didn't react, he crouched down right next to your sitting for form.

"no.. i don't think i can do this.." you admitted, looking away. he had seldom heard your voice so quiet, your confidence had seemingly vanished. he quietly placed a large hand on your back. "i'm not as good as you, i don't fit into this place."

"i don't think you understand. even the pillars have differences in their strengths." he told you, finally sitting down properly. you glanced up at him, he was much taller than you.

"we learn from our fight. even now we learn with every demon we slay." he encouraged, trying to make you see that there's no need for insecurities.

"let's not worry about this now. tell me how your last mission was." he asked, wanting to make you think of different things. you smiled softly, trying to remember the demon you've fought.

[lanabuckybarnes]

Would you write a plus size reader w either bucky or steve(or both) where they are her first real relationship and she gets scared that she doesn't deserve to be with either of them and so she tries to push them away so she doesn't get hurt but instead they show her why she is their person.... like tooth rotting fluff and the filthiest smut..... if that's okay if not no worries

| All Yours, Only Yours |

18+ Minors DNI

✧Pairing✧ Bucky Barnes x Plus Size!Reader

✧Warnings✧ A lil angsty, Sharon being a big bully (like seriously you’re 50 and you’re bullying someone? ick), Name calling, Angry Buck, Crying, Bucky is a simp, Confessions, Marking, Dry humping, Oral (F), Fingering (F), Teeny bit of cum play, Dirty talk, Unprotected PinV, Praise, Petnames, My shitty writing — again very tame for me but i didnt want to go overboard. If there any more I’ve neglected to add please let me know.

✧Word Count✧ 4.3K

✧Author Note✧ I really hope you enjoy this and I've done your request justice, I honestly tried my best but idk…Anyways!!! Much love to everyone, please let me know what you think. Love ya xxx

“Still not answering?” Natasha asks from her spot in the cockpit, concern evident from the wrinkle between her brows.

“Nope” he spits his reply, reeling from the whole ordeal. He thrusts his phone into his jean pocket, sick to the back teeth of nothing but a black screen greeting him instead of your sweet little messages.

“Did you piss her off or something?” Sam tries to lighten the mood but is swiftly shut down, his hands rising in surrender at the killer glare the brunette shot his way.

“Calm down everyone, we’ll be home soon so we can figure this out” Steve, the voice of reason commands order within the small confines of the jet. He sits, a gloved hand rubbing over his friend's shoulder trying to reassure his muddled brain but to no avail.

Bucky is pissed. He’s pissed and he’s worried sick. A week he’s been gone for and he’s missing you like crazy. The only issue? You are ignoring him, straight up ghosting his brooding ass which is completely unlike you. Often on missions when Bucky clicks his phone on he’s greeted with a flurry of messages from you; photos of little birds you see on your walks, photos of alpine taken at odd angles and constant little messages that make his heart full and ready to continue his painstaking missions—none of it, just a notification from your favourite restaurant offering a discount to keep him happy.

As soon as this jet landed he was going to get to the bottom of what was going on and then he was going to cuddle you to death as punishment. Not that he’d let anyone else know that.

One Week Earlier…

Beep beep beep. Bucky’s alarm sounds at the ungodly hour of five am, his groan following. He didn't want to get out of this bed, he was too warm, his huge body wrapped around yours. Your movements spurred his own, your arm reaching over to switch off his alarm while he pushed himself into a sit, thoughts already on the mission afoot.

“Morning,” your raspy voice purrs, bringing his attention back to you. His eyes fall to your face; following the slope of your puffy cheeks up to your barely open eyes, your hues peeking through only enough to tease him. Putting his weight on his right arm he’s on top of you before you can blink, his head tucked into the crook of your neck, peppering tiny kisses along the warm skin.

“Morning princess,” he bites back his yawn, shifting so his hips slot in their spot between your plush thighs, loving the way they wrapped around his narrow waist just the way he loved. Practice truly did make perfect. His dark vibranium fingers drifted from your collarbone, over the swell of your breast until it found its favourite perch on your hips.

“So fucking pretty” he breathes, his pupils dilating to let more of you in — until you pushed him away.

“You gotta get ready Mr” you giggle, moving your foot so you could push him further away, ruining his plan B of pinning you down by your hips.

“Don’t remind me…”

His cold left hand hooks around your ankle, pushing at it until your knee hinged, bending up and out. A suspicious hardness presses against you, a wicked smile on your boyfriend’s face.

“I mean it Buck we can’t, Nat will be kicking that door down any minute” he groans at your words knowing that you are completely right. That lock had been replaced an embarrassing amount of times because of that exact situation. You hated rejecting him, knowing that he could easily put you back to sleep until midday if he wanted. After a small standoff between you both you warn him again, an arch in your brow and a growl behind his name.

“You’re such a little tease, you know that?”

You laugh, sitting up, watching him skulk around the room in nothing but his grey Calvin Kleins, “I haven’t done anything!”

“Sure you haven’t” he argues, moving over to you again, his metal fingers looping under your chin to tilt your head back to gaze up at him, “Looking so fucking sexy in the morning and I can’t fuck you stupid. That’s not teasing that’s damn near criminal.”

You groan, rolling your eyes at your pouty 106-year-old man. You inch closer to his mouth, a sickly sweet definitely not bratty smirk on your face. “Get your ass ready.”

“Fine…but only because you looked so fucking sexy ordering me around,”

“Bucky!” You shout after him, blush on your full cheeks. He only smirks over his shoulder, pushing his briefs to the floor at the entrance to the bathroom, giving you a full view of his posterior.

You get up too, knowing you had been awake too long to fall asleep again. You get ready with the shower as background noise, pulling on some workout clothes. Today you decided you’d try out the gym right here in the compound, you’d been to many different ones in the past; often polluted with the smell of days-old sweat and men reeking of testosterone, grunting and groaning at weights you could only dream of lifting.

An hour later, after waving Bucky off on his week-long mission you were in the gym.

“Hey” you smile as you pass Sharon, her blonde hair whipping as she ducks and weaves to dodger imaginary punches the bag throws out before throwing a couple of her own. She offers you a tight-lipped smile, her eyes straying from your face down your body. She takes note of your long top and shorts that settle around mid-thigh compared to her sports bra and tiny shorts — her flat stomach and sculpted legs on display.

God you wish you had just as much ventilation. Just as you go to place your earphones in your ears you hear a scoff coming from Sharon’s direction. You pay it no mind, setting the treadmill for a nice incline and pace, pressing the timer until it shone with the time you wanted.

The treadmill slowed for the cooldown. Your eyes moved from the display in front to glance over your shoulder, the gym was empty. You grab your bottle only to realise thanks to your distraction you'd finished off your water. You stop the treadmill and hop off, making a beeline for the kitchen. The walk to the kitchen from the gym wasn’t that long but with the feeling of your sweat culminating in places you didn’t want it to be it was almost torturous.

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw her,”

A gaggle of hushed laughs comes from the kitchen, stopping you. A familiar dread coils in your stomach, reminding you of when you were young, the children pointing and laughing — joking at your expense.

“she must been on that treadmill for about five minutes and she was all like huff huff” she laughs obnoxiously “Her face was like a big tomato, I almost died trying to keep myself from laughing” Sharon continues.

The group cackles again at your expense, almost doubling as Sharon makes the huffing noise again. You cling to your shirt, pulling it from sticking to your body. These women you thought were friends did just what everyone else did.

“She’s pathetic, I don’t know what Bucky sees in her” Your heart stops. That little devil on your jumps and cheers at the confirmation of what it has been telling you since the start of your relationship with Bucky. You were never enough.

“I can’t wait for him to dump her once he gets sick of her wide load.”

Tears fall on their own accord but you don't register them, too busy inside your head being suffocated by every doubt and self-conscious thought you ever had since you confessed your feelings for the super soldier. You didn't deserve Bucky and everyone thought that too.

Back at your room, freshly clean. You scrolled through your messages from Bucky. The little hearts next to his messages no longer felt genuine like he was only doing it merely to save your feelings from being hurt. You were nothing but a burden that he was forced to bear; it wouldn’t be long before like Sharon said, he got sick of the clinginess and the need for reassurance and broke up with you.

Well, you weren’t going to be a burden any longer. You wouldn’t let him break your heart first. You turned your phone off, tucking it into your bedside drawer.

—

“Bucky wait!” Sam calls from the quinjet but it goes ignored. Bucky’s face is twisted in annoyance as he takes wide, purposeful steps towards the tower doors. He was going to find you and you were going to tell him why the fuck you were ignoring him.

He ignores the shouts of his name as Nat, Steve and Sam follow him indoors, smashing the elevator button with his thumb and stepping inside. Once on your floor, he stormed like a charging bull to your room, slamming a gloved fist on your door in a poor excuse for a knock.

The loud knocking from the other end of the room had you jumping back in your seat, the slee overtaking you gone in an instant. Your heart lurched at the familiar face, worn from exhaustion and malice clear from the scrunching of his forehead and tick in his cheek muscle.

“Oh hello, where have you been?” Bucky snaps, glaring down at you as you use the door as a shield from his scrutinising eyes. Here it comes, the moment you’d prepared for all week. You don’t think you’ll go back to dating apps, too many weird me—

“You know how worried I was when you didn't answer me all week?”

Huh. “Huh?”

“‘Huh?’ Are you joking? You ghosted me, left me scared to death on a mission halfway across the globe and all you can say to me is huh!” His blue eyes glisten and you look at them closer. There was no anger there, only concern and fear culminating in swirls across his blue orbs, rearing its head in rage across Bucky’s face.

“Bucky I—” you try but you can’t find the words, each syllable sticks in your throat, balling up until it feels like you can no longer breathe. The week of bottled-up emotions spills forth at the sight of him — at the revelation that he was utterly terrified. Tears fall from your eyes before you know it, your lip wobbling as you keep trying to speak.

Bucky’s shoulders tense at the sight of tiny tears falling over your full cheeks, guilt replacing his earlier pain,

“Fuck c’mere baby” he pulls you close, bending at an almost uncomfortable angle just to hold you as close as humanly possible.

“I'm so sorry for being so annoyed but you have to see why I was so scared something had happened to you. You left me on read for an entire week and blanked my calls. That isn’t you, you know how scary that was for me?” He whispers so softly, backing you up to sit on your bed.

In his arms, surrounded by his warmth and scent the week you had fell from your mouth like alphabet soup, from the gym to Sharon to how hard it was to ignore your phone knowing that Bucky would’ve been calling you every single day but you did it to protect your own heart. Nothing was kept a secret.

“I’ll kill her,” he growls when you finish, muscles tightening even more around you.

“Buck.”

“Right…sorry, I won't kill her” He lied between his teeth, well sort of. He wouldn’t actually kill Sharon but he knew you'd be upset if he did anything to her which he was indeed planning to do but to save you any more pain for the evening, to keep that teeny tiny smile on your face he lied.

“What makes her think she has any fucking right to speak on other people’s appearance anyway?”

“She wasn't lying…” it came out in the tiniest little voice, maybe your way of silently hoping he didn't hear it and he wouldn’t have if it weren't for his super soldier ears.

Gripping onto your wrists Bucky flipped your world in an instant, the breath leaving your lungs as your back makes contact with the bed, your wrists caught on either side of your head.

“Are you lying to me doll?” He says, raising a brow at you.

“No…”

“You are! You're lying right to my face,” he argues, pressing your wrists further into the mattress below. Your eyes fall shut as his face inches closer to yours.

“Look at me princess,” he waits until you open both eyes again, looking up at him as if he strung the stars in the sky “There is not a single thing that I'd change about you and I mean that. I fell in love with you the way you are now, you aren't some bitch that gets off on making fun of others. I fell head over damn heels for you because you are you.”

His eyes sparkle with adoration, his hands running up and down your body softly. The juxtaposition of metal on one side and warmth on the other sends shivers up your spine.

“I love you,” he breathes, leaning down again till your lips graze his. A teasing smile pulled on the pink corners of his mouth, a similar glint in his eyes, “you know that right?”

“Yes,” you nod, pushing up to close the distance between your mouths but he pulls away.

“I don't think you do,”

“I do Buck I promise.”

“Well…” he began, the glint in his eyes dulling as want engulfed the colour, “let me make sure.”

Bucky takes his time. He has to knowing that you're feeling small. Slowly his lips slot with yours, ushering out sweet little sounds to replace the broken ones that still thrum fresh in his mind.

“I love you,” he says again, capturing your hitched gasp with his tongue as he pushes it past the seam of your mouth, the tip flicking against your own to entice it to mingle. Slowly but surely the tension drips from your shoulders, your arms moving from his grip to trail up over his rigid stomach and chest. They sink below the shoulder pads of his jacket, pushing it off his broad frame and onto the floor beside the bed. Your hands paw at the exposed skin on his arm, fingers squeezing, nails scraping over the corded muscle.

“All of yours…all of it.”

Each time the seal of your mouths broke you chase them, planting kisses teeming with nothing but raw desire onto kiss-bitten lips. The words that Sharon said are long gone from your mind now, replaced by the man in front of you. Everything you smell, taste, touch and see — it's all him.

The brunette slips off his glove; his warm and cold, metal hand grips your hips, pulling you up into his lap with a squeak.

“You feel that?” He grunts, moving from your mouth down your face to your neck. His lips suck and his teeth nibble, marking you, proving to anyone around that dare dispute his love for you again. With undeniable strength he grinds you down into a sizeable bulge poking from his tight jeans, he hisses at the contact, letting a hand fall to your ass with a small spank.

Your arousal seeps through your thin panties making them stick to your dainty folds; your clit buzzes at the delicious scratch the metal of his zip brings you — a gasp catching in your throat every time your neglected nub catches the pull tab.

As much as he worshiped the way you dry-humped his cock, soaking the front of his jeans. Bucky is desperate. After a week of no contact, not even a tiny emoji heart never mind a raunchy photo, he needs something — anything. And he's going to get it.

“Get on the bed” he demands, pushing at you ever so slightly. “Panties off.”

You do as you are told, fingers frantically hooking into the waistband of your underwear, rolling the material over your thick thighs until they hook around a single ankle.

“Spread those legs for me baby, lemme see that sweet little cunt.”

You hesitate for a second, your legs twitching to open but knees knocking again as you close them. Blown pupils snap onto your face his jaw clenched hard and his nostrils flared. Before you can react his calloused hands settle gently, luring you into a false sense of security.

They soothe down your thighs as his blue eyes study you. Inch by inch his dull nails tap over your beautifully wide thighs until he's back at your kneecaps. With a soft unassuming smile, bucky pushes your legs wide, a rush of oxygen leaving you as your sopping folds are exposed to the cool air of the room. He doesn't give you a chance to breathe before a warm hand smacks over your wet folds, your body jerks, an unabashed moan flying from your parted lips.

“Don't fucking deny me this” he growls, fire roaring in his eyes. “You ghosted me for a week, now you're gonna lie there all pretty and let me eat this sweet fucking cunt.”

You nod, biting your lip. At the first presence of him between your legs, his hot breath billowing over your labia, your eyes roll into the back of your skull. Over each fold, ridge and crevice his breath fans, a shiver rolling over your spine each time; without warning he lays his tongue flat and wide, licking a strip from hole to clit. His tongue disappears and he does it again, guttural sounds falling from him at your taste mixing with the sharp trills you let out.

“Sing for me baby, let me know how good I'm making that pretty pussy feel” He delves in like a man starved, devouring your cunt as though it were his first and last ever meal on earth. He'd die happily if it were.

You were a mess, a mess of pleading cries. Your legs shake against his powerful hold, your hands grip his unruly brunette locks. Letting his hands drop from your thighs he stops his slurping to lay a soft, sweet peck on your raw clit. He smiles up at you, his face glistening with your juices visible thanks to the city lights peeking in through your open windows. Your mind wandered, wondering if the people in the building across could see the way Bucky fucked his tongue into you, curling the long muscle up to press against that ridged spot on your upper walls — he hit it with ease every time.

Using your distraction as an advantage bucky moves a hand to join his mouth, sliding his fingers in alongside his tongue for a second before he pulls his tongue from you. He moves, looming over you with a massive shit-eating grin at how much he unravelled you. you should've been embarrassed at how wet his face was; slick ran from his stubbled upper lip over and below his chin. You had done that to him and he wore it proudly. His fingers push deeper and curl out, coaxing the coils in your stomach to snap.

“Come on baby I know you feel it” he speeds up, the sound of your messy pussy almost as loud as your harsh breaths and whimpers.

“Buckyyy” you squeal, gripping at anything you can.

“That's it, baby…you're squeezing around my fingers, are you gonna cum?”

You nod but it's not enough for your man. He dips, nipping at a pebbled nipple and that's all it takes for those tightly coiled ropes to pull taut and snap. A sound you've never heard from yourself erupts from your lungs, your fingers clutching at bucky, the sheets, anything. Stars peppered your vision, blocking out the smug image of your boyfriend, blood rushing in your ears muffling his words of praise.

“Come back to me baby, that's it, good girl. such a good girl” Bucky coos, his fingers slipping out to rub lazily at your clit. He keeps going until you jerk harshly in his hold.

“You did so well, such a good fucking girl cumming like that for me” He praises, kissing your cheek and then your mouth, a smirk pulling at his lips when you moan at your taste.

You flash him a big dopey smile in return, your eyes hazy and your plump little cheeks flushed. You look gorgeous; Bucky had seen many things in his long drawn-out life but nothing could ever compare to how you looked fucked out beneath him.

He would stay like this forever…if his cock wasn't aching for release.

He stands, fiddling with his belt and fly until it comes loose. He wastes no time in pushing them both past his round ass and onto the floor, his cock springing free. His shirt goes next, thrown somewhere in your small room letting you get the full experience of what Bucky had to offer you. Layers of corded muscle ripple beneath his silky but scarred skin, his chest peppered in tiny curly hairs that sink below his sternum and over his abs where they begin to thicken until they finish, well trimmed at the base of his thick, heavy cock.

His eyes never stray from your body as he takes himself in his hand, pumping once, twice, his thumb catching the precum leaking from his tip. He kneels back between your welcoming legs, rubbing his slick thumb over your lips. A hushed chuckle vibrates in his chest as you suck the thumb into your mouth, eagerly licking his taste from the digit.

“Such a dirty girl,” you giggle, pulling back until his thumb slips out of your mouth with a pop. “Do you think you can handle one more hm? Can you let me fuck that little hole?”

“yes Buck” you smile, your eyes falling shut as he kisses you again.

“good girl” he growls, moving your legs over his own before grabbing a pillow to squish under your hips. With one hand he pushes the head of his length through your mess, dipping into your hole before running back up over your clit. He does it a few times, occasionally slapping his cock against you, praising each tiny sound you let out.

“Please Buck” You toss your head back, grinding your hips up to meet nothing. At this rate, you were going to come to nothing more than his teasing.

“Please what?” Oh he's a piece of shit. He knows what you want because he wants it too. He waits for a beat, enjoying your huffs of frustration. “Tell me and I'll do it.”

With the last of your sanity, you cry out, “fuck me buck ple—ah”

You slap a hand over your mouth as he spears into you, stretching you like he does time and time again. It never gets any easier with a size like Bucky’s; his tip kissing your cervix with each thrust and your walls sing at the almost painful stretch.

Bucky’s thrusts are delightfully slow, letting you feel each drag and push, each rigid vein on his pulsing cock. There is no fucking involved, he's making love, making sure you know that he would spend eternity wrapped up in your body no matter what size you are. The deep coloured marks along your neck and between your thighs would attest to that.

“Fuck” he moans, mouth gaping. “Don't think ill last long princess” His vibranium fingers fall to your soft belly, skating over the smooth skin to your full hip.

He squeezes hard enough to leave marks, “fucking mine.”

His thrusts speed up, his head snapping back and eyes rolling. His balls bounce rhythmically against your ass, the bulbous head of his cock smashing into the end of your cunt where a dull ache forms — a warning of future hurt when you wake tomorrow. You don't care, not when his free hand dips between you both, pulling back the hood of your sensitive nub and flicking it over and over.

He feels the way you tighten around him, holding him in a vice grip, “hold it princess, just a little longer come on”

“I can't Bucky please” you whimper in response.

“Yes, you can baby—oh fuck I'm close” his weight falls atop yours, smothering you in him. His hips stutter, his balls pulling up towards his body.

“Cum now, soak my big fucking dick.”

The slamming of the headboard ceases when his thrusts slow to shallow grinding, his mouth swallows any sounds you let out.

“Such a good fucking girl for me—shit” he sighs, slips from you with a hiss.

“Buck—”

“Shh pretty girl you're alright” he holds you close for a while, holding you tight to his broad body. Tears fall from your cheeks but he swipes them away. You don't know why you ever doubted Bucky, he's the only constant in your life.

“I love you” He whispers as the blood rushing in your ears settles, running through your veins in exhaustion.

“I love you too”

“Don't you ever listen to those idiots again, because I will show you over and over what you mean to me” Bucky promises with a kiss on the crown of your head.

You smile, laying your own lazy kiss over your thumping heart. You like the sound of that.

I DO NOT give permission to have my work copied, translated or reposted. If you see my work anywhere else except this page I have not given consent for it to be used.

Comments, Reblogs, Likes and Asks are always appreciated, however if you like this fic please consider reblogging to help it reach a wider audience. They let me know that you are enjoying what I read and give me motivation to write more.

Thanks for reading~

[wonsroyalty]

it's okay, i'm okay : ̗̀➛이희승

i don't want him anyway, girl, take him..

✧heeseung x f!reader

genre/warnings: 3.8k, i don’t want to give too much away :0 but angst, relationship, cheating, shouting, sex, fighting, mentions of wishing death. this in no way shape or form represents heeseung, it's purely fictional! italics are flashback scenes!!!

a/n: i’m obsessed with this song omg + i listened to white ferrari (it’s my cry song 😕) at one point while writing this so theres a few references AND i was listening to the new tyler album so if it’s not sad enough it’s because i was so excited 😭😭 ooo and the favourite song choice is from those playlists that enha made at the start of the romance untold era 🔥🔥 for @sofsofenso my no.1 fan, mwah 😽 i hope you like it !!

masterlist

"I. Love. You. So. Fucking. Much." he kissed you between each word.

Your chest was heavy as you held his weight on your stomach but you managed to laugh at his actions.

"We'll be together forever right?" you held your pinky out.

"Forever and ever!" he crossed his own with yours.

Heeseung Lee wasn’t dead but you truly wished he was.

Your naive 11-year-old heart truly believed that you'd be with him forever. He was your first everything.

You were that cheesy couple in the group that everyone believed would get married and have kids and stay together till you were old and grey.

Too bad, considering your luck was always terrible and you had attracted the devil's spawn.

The fleeting moments of you sneaking him into your room, the lingering touches you shared and the overall thought of his existence skated around the interior of your brain.

You desperately wanted to get rid of them but they brought a sense of comfort that only he could fill.

flashback!-

"I think you might be my soulmate.." he trailed off.

"Hee!" you scolded him. "Wait until after we meet your parents."

You smoothed down your black skirt, checking your outfit in the mirror one last time.

He helped you into his red leather jacket before pulling you into his embrace.

"Heeseung!"

"Okay, okay baby." he pulled away. "Let me get a picture before we go,"

The flash of his polaroid camera captured your smitten expression as he kissed your cheek.

His parents loved you, they claimed that their son had a glow around him whenever he was with you.

"Oh my, sorry. I can't focus when I look into your eyes, pretty." Heeseung whispered.

You lightly hit his chest. "I was telling you to look at this."

"Wait, new lockscreen and it's still me!" he got up and did a little dance.

"Yeah, but that not what I- "

He picked you up and twirled you around before attacking you with tickles.

"Stop, stop!"

"Tell me how much you love me and I'll stop." he cackled.

"I love you, so much, Hee." you collapsed onto his bed in a fit of giggles.

He flopped down next to you and pulled you into his chest.

"You really are my soulmate."

What a bunch of crap.

"Yn.. don't look but she's.. over there." Winter glared in the direction of the girl who was partly responsible for the end of your relationship.

flashback!-

Keeho rested an arm around your shoulder as he showed you around the party.

"You're so drunk already." You laughed at him. “Again.”

It was common for Keeho to get heavily drunk at pre’s and every time he said he would stop but just didn’t follow through.

"AM not." he pouted.

The two of you walked over to your friends.

"Where's your man?" Sungchan laughed behind his cup.

"We're not always together." you grumbled.

His comment did make you curious though as you had both made your way to the party separately.

Your grandfather was sick and you wanted to visit him in the hospital before making your way to Keeho's 19th, so you had told Heeseung he could meet you whenever he got there.

Chenle told you that he'd seen him in the kitchen earlier so they all followed you there.

"Heeseung! What the fuck!" you shouted.

Yunjin was pressed up against your boyfriend who had a hand in her hair. They were about an inch away from kissing but judging by the gloss on his lips, you could tell that they already had.

He gently pushed her away with a laugh.

"Baby, hey." he waved to your friends too.

"What is your problem?!"

You pushed him away as he got closer to you.

He grabbed your arm and pulled you out of the kitchen.

"Guys.." Winter called after you.

His feet stopped once you were inside a bathroom.

"I've never seen you that mad before, pretty." he laughed.

"Let me out."

"No way... you're actually jealous."

Your jaw dropped.

"I'm not jealous, I'm breaking up with you."

"No, you're not." His face dropped. “Your emotions are high right now because your grandfather is sick. Don’t let that cloud your judgement.”

All you could do was look away because you believed his words.

"Come on, let's talk about this." he attempted to kiss you.

"Get off! You've clearly kissed someone else tonight and you expect me to want to stay with you despite you cheating."

This wasn't even the first time you'd caught him “cheating” on you.

He laughed in your face.

"This isn't Yunjin's lip combo." he joked.

"Well, it's someone's isn't it?" you frowned.

"So, you're gonna throw away 9 years because you don't trust me?" he calmed down.

Spolier! He'd convinced you to stay with him once again!

You remember the disappointed looks from all of your friends when you walked out with his arm around you.

They weren’t the only people who began to warn you about Heeseung.

Every new person you’d interacted with told you that he was bad news but you reassured them that he was just getting used to university.

He seemed to switch as soon as you’d gotten to uni, badmouthing you to his friends, staying out late, missing dates, ignoring you and each time you’d take him back.

You even took him back when you walked into the lunch area and caught him kissing your seat-mate from Politics.

Your best friends didn’t speak to you for a week after that one.

But you’d become desensitised to the feeling you got when you’d catch him. Taking him back immediately saved you from having to argue with him and you were tired.

Tired from the stress of your degree and having to deal with Heeseung.

Everywhere you went, you received looks of pity. No one envied you for being in a relationship with Heeseung, they all felt sorry for you.

You continued to defend him and every time he’d act out and chip off a piece of your heart, leaving you embarrassed and scared.

“Hee is my soulmate.” you reiterated.

Heeseung was all you ever wanted.

He was all you’d ever known.

Hee was your first everything.

Letting him go, would be losing a part of yourself and you weren’t quite sure if you were capable of doing that yet.

But four months later at the same house you'd been pushed to your limit.

flashback!-

“Great to see that you aren’t as drunk as last time.” Chenle poked at Keeho.

“I’m on lookout, Jiung smashed my dining room table last time.” He rolled his eyes.

“Yn!” someone turned you around.

“Hey, Yunjin.” you all sighed.

“Where’s Heeseung?” she pouted.

You really didn’t know and you were tired of people asking you that.

“I don’t know, go find him if you want.” you shrugged.

You had every reason to be mad at him.

It was your 10-year anniversary and you hadn’t done anything to celebrate together.

The party was his idea of “having a fun anniversary”.

“Yunjin, don’t come over to kill the vibe.” Sungchan groaned.

“Fine.” she grumbled.

On her way past you, she pretended to trip in order to dump her drink down your front.

“Shit.” you ran off to a bathroom in order to get the ice out of your bra, not even stopping to hear Winter scold Yunjin.

Most of them were locked so you opted for the one in Keeho’s bedroom.

On the verge of tears, you attempted to calm yourself down and get a shirt from his walk in wardrobe.

You threw on a jersey that matched with your jeans and were on your way out when someone came into the main area of the room.

“Finally, I’ve been looking for you for ages.” a girl giggled.

‘What is Yunjin doing here?’

“Well, I’m a busy man.”

‘Heeseung?! What kind of a sick joke was this?’

“Ugh don’t remind me. I asked Yn where you were and she literally said she didn’t care.”

‘I didn’t say that??’

“What?” Heeseung sounded confused.

“Enough about her, I’m right here. And we have all the time in the world.”

You could hear her kiss him.

The same lips that had spent countless hours pressed against your own.

The same lips that spoke promises of fulfilment and expressed their gratitude towards you.

The same lips that whispered words of encouragement when it was just the two of you, late at night while you gave yourself to him.

You felt disgusted.

Heeseung Lee wasn’t dead, but you truly wished he was. You wanted him to suffer an unspeakable fate for hurting you but every time you thought of him, you couldn’t bear the thought of having to live without him.

The remaining fragments of your heart fell into the palm of your hand. There was nothing to fight for anymore.

You should’ve moved long before the moans reached your ear but you were frozen in shock.

‘Is this what people warned me of.’ you panicked. ‘I should’ve never let it get this far.”

Your feet didn’t wait and moved involuntarily as you gave away your hiding spot.

You needed to see it for yourself.

The tears that you’d been holding in for months fell down your cheeks.

“I can’t do this- not today.”

Pushing past them you ran downstairs and out the doors, attracting the attention of your friends.

“Yn? What, wait!” Heeseung shouted, running after you as he slipped his clothes back on.

He grabbed your arm pulling you back into his embrace.

You shoved him away violently this time.

“Baby, I’m sorry.”

“You can’t keep saying you’re sorry and then acting out and embarrassing me every. single. time. I’m fed up Heeseung, I am done with you for good. The pain I feel just from loving you is a burden that I shouldn’t have to face anymore. I love you so much, Hee- Heeseung.” You cried as you pushed him away again. “I care so much, but it’s clear that my best just wasn’t enough for you. I’m sure that- that in another life we’d be happy.. but in this one I just don’t think that’s possible.”

“Yn, no. I’ll fix this.. I’ll fix us and I- I’ll change my ways. Just- please.” he trembled. “I wanted- I want to spend my life with you.. I can’t lose you. You can’t leave me. You’re all I’ve ever known.”

“Well that’s not true,” you sobbed. “I don’t trust you anymore.”

“Baby, why.” he grabbed your hands. “Why don’t you trust me anymore? What do I have to do to get you to trust me again.. I’ll do anything for you. I love you..”

You could see your friends in your peripheral vision watching in concern. Waiting to intervene.

“Can I ask you something?” you stared him in the eye. “I need you to answer honestly.”

“Anything!” he pleaded, tears running down his face. “Ask me anything.”

“Why did you do it time after time?” you watched him deny his acts.

“Sieun told me. You were with Yunjin, Aya, Kate. You even tried it on my Winter and she’s my best friend, Mia, Yeji, Aeri.. I can’t.” The tears fell again.

“None of them compare to you.. Baby, please don’t leave.” he tried getting closer to you. “When I look at you all I see is my soulmate. I care for you still and I will, forever.”

“Well, I look at you… and I see nothing.”

For once, he didn’t even try to fight back.

The rest of the night was a blur.

Sungchan punched him and Winter took you home as you cried for days to come.

You waited by the phone for a text or even a call with an apology but days passed then weeks which turned into months.

There was an odd sense of comfort in knowing that he knew he was in the wrong but all you wanted to do was have him hold you and tell you that everything would be alright.

Yunjin waited for her coffee to be made as she looked down at her phone.

"I.. You know what.. I don't care." you leaned back in your chair.

You didn’t know if she was still dating him, and you didn’t want to.

Chenle gasped.

"Are you being real right now?" He pressed. "This is new territory."

You nodded.

Winter suddenly began to look uncomfortable.

"Coming.. over.. here." she muttered out.

"Yn!" Yunjin screeched. “You’re going to Keeho’s party tonight right?”

“Yeah.. Surprised that you are too, you know.”

She pointed at herself confused.

“I didn’t know you were friends with Keeho.” you pointed.

“Oh, I’m not. I’m someone’s plus one.” she looked away bashfully.

“That’s not a problem.” you shrugged it off. “We’re all there to get wasted anyway.”

She mistook your lack of anger as friendship.

“Well, hope I see you later.” she waved, taking off as her order was called up.

“I don’t.” Chenle groaned.

You looked at the time on your phone.

“Cute lockscreen.” Winter giggled.

It was a picture of you, her, Chenle, Sungchan and Keeho on holiday together.

That was the summer after you and Heeseung broke up.

flashback!-

“It is so hot here.” Winter fanned herself.

“That’s because you’re stood out on the balcony.” Sungchan laughed.

Everyone else lounged around your hotel room.

You were still a mess.

They were trying to distract you from anything and everything and while you appreciated the thought, you just wanted Heeseung back.

Your phone was connected to Keeho’s speaker, blasting some songs that you weren’t paying attention to.

A familiar intro snapped you out of your trance and you immediately reached for your phone.

“No- No, Yn give me that.” Chenle snatched the phone out of your hands.

You’d pressed onto Heeseung’s contact and were in the process of typing out ‘I miss you…’

You remembered what Heeseung told you the first time. “Sincerity is scary by the 1975. Whenever I hear the song, I think of you.” he shrugged. “I guess that’s why it’s my favourite.”

All it took was one song, his favourite song, and you fell back into the rhythm that they were trying to get you out of.

“Come on.” Keeho smiled as he helped you up. “Let’s go out, it’s not every day that you get to be in Hawaii!

Now two years had passed.

You were in the final year of your Bachelor’s degree, with employment lined up for you to work under a United Nations representative as you studied for your Masters.

Winter was going off to Paris to work as a designer for a luxury brand, Chenle was already earning 6 figures as an accountant while studying, Keeho and Sungchan were both planning a gap year before going into business and engineering respectively.

Your best friends, all going their separate ways. You couldn’t bear the thought.

You loved them like no other and having to deal with life’s problems alone didn’t seem too great.

Together you’d created a calendar to show whenever someone was free and had planned several group holidays to come.

Spending winter in Paris with Winter, spring break in the Philippines with Keeho and Sungchan and several mini trips in summer with Chenle.

“Cheers!” Keeho shouted.

“What are we cheering to?” you laughed.

“Us… duh!”

You’d all settled on the conservatory sofa, away from the noise and people at the party.

“We have 5 months left, don’t get sappy.” Sungchan smiled.

“Well if you think about it, it’ll be over in no time.” Winter looked deep in thought. “We’ve been friends for 19 years now and those flew by.”

19 years..

It didn’t take long for you all to realise that you really didn’t have a lot of time left in your bubble.

Having to face the real world without your found family was difficult.

“I don’t want to leave you guys.” Chenle cried into your side as you all hugged each other.

“Please don’t be a stranger guys,” Keeho sobbed. “Weekly group facetime calls, weekend trips..”

“I want postcards.” you wailed. “From your world trip.”

“You’ll all get them.” Sungchan bawled.

“Remember in nursery when- when Chenle started that paint fight and we all got scolded by the teacher.” Winter laughed with a sniffle.

Laughter broke out across the group.

You had the picture on your childhood bedroom wall. The four-year-old versions of yourselves covered head to toe and looking guilty.

Time really does fly by.

“I love you guys.”

The moment was cut short when Jiung stumbled into the room.

“Hey!”

“Not me!”

Chenle dove out of the way and you ended up covered in Jiung’s drink.

“Why does everyone put ice in their drinks!” you wined. “I’m going to steal a shirt, Keeho.”

You left the group as they arranged a ride home for Jiung and looked for a change of clothes in Keeho’s wardrobe.

Slipping a shirt on, you left his room but realised you’d wanted to use the bathroom.

There was another down the hall anyway.

You were in the process of washing your hands when you noticed the song seeping through the gap under the door.

“Sincerity is scary by the 1975.”

But you didn’t have an urge to text him.

The door flung open.

‘Why!’ you groaned.

“Ba- Yn..” he tilted his head. “You look better.”

“Please leave, Heeseung.”

You hated how he looked even better.

“Why are you looking at me like that..” you whined.

You hated how your whole being shut down as soon as you were close to him. The past two years went out of the window.

“Like what?” he whispered.

“You know we can’t..” you trailed off.

He took several steps closer to you and you hesitated to breathe.

“We’re not doing anything.” his eyes were very much focused on your lips.

Winter’s voice rang out in your head.

“Don’t tell the guys.. but if you ever end up in the same place as him, I think you should get closure. It’ll help you move on.”

You let him kiss you.

When he pulled away you brought him back, kissing his lips with a hunger you’d never had before.

He pulled you up by the waist and placed you on the bathroom counter, fingers immediately making their way under your skirt.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“One last time.” you confirmed before kissing him again with even more passion.

“Fuck, you’re so wet.” he pulled down your underwear and began to lap at your cunt.

Your hands grasped at his now red hair, as your head fell back against the mirror with a gasp.

He knew you like the back of his hand and you were ashamed to reach your climax so fast as he worked your insides with precision and memory.

“Fuck.. Hee- Heeseung, I’m gonna cum.” you moaned out.

“Cum for me, pretty. You did so well,” he praised as he rubbed your clit.

The nickname and intensity of your orgasm did a number on you.

You felt lightheaded as he kissed you breathlessly before reaching into his pocket to pull out a condom.

‘Thank God, he got the message. One last time.’ you thought. It felt too intimate to let him fuck you raw.

Your fingers made light work of discarding his belt and jeans so you could pull his boxers down teasingly slowly.

“Baby, please..” he whined.

You slid off the counter and onto your knees, immediately taking him into your mouth.

Your muscles moved like clockwork, memory working overtime as you pushed his buttons the way he always loved.

“Not yet..” he whimpered.

He pulled your head off his dick and helped you stand up then bent you over the counter.

You watched in the mirror as he rolled the condom on and then rubbed his length on the slick of your release.

“Heeseung,” you whined as he nudged your clit with his tip.

“All in one?” he asked you.

You nodded.

He sheathed himself into you in one go.

Feeling as though you could cum then and there, you slumped onto the surface in front of you.

Heeseung grabbed your hair and forced you to watch him in the mirror.

Once you made eye contact, you became fully aware of the situation you were in.

You cried out as he slapped your ass before slamming into you from behind.

The moans leaving your lips and whines leaving his would be heard by everyone if the music wasn’t so loud.

He knew exactly what to do and you didn’t even have to tell him what pace to go at, he remembered.

“Hee! Right there.” you cried out. “R- Right there.”

“I’m so close.” he cried. “Shit..”

“Me too.” you held your hand out.

Heeseung grabbed your outstretched hand as you came together.

Silence overcame you both as he threw the condom into the bin and helped clean you up.

He tried to kiss you again.

You looked away.

It was clear that he had just cried but so had you.

The tension and emotion you had for each other was too strong.

“I’m sorry.” he croaked out. “I’m so sorry.”

Your arms pulled him into your embrace.

“It’s okay.”

He pulled back slightly and kissed you again.

This time it was light and if you weren’t paying attention, it would’ve felt as though he was never there.

You wiped his tears away before your own.

“Do you ever think about what life would be like for us, if things were different..?” he asked.

Someone burst into the room.

“You bitch!” Yunjin shouted at you.

It wasn’t hard to assume that you’d just had sex with the smell lingering in the room and the mirror fogged up.

“Huh?” you looked at Heeseung to explain.

“Wait, Yn- ”

You laughed in pain.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

You’d just helped him do what broke your heart in the first place.

Instead of sadness or anger you just felt done.

“We were just talking.” you lied.

You weren’t covering for him. You knew that he needed the closure as much as you did but ultimately you were trying to save your own skin.

Yunjin looked furious.

“You can have him.” she seethed. “I should’ve known that he’d never get over you. But I didn’t think that you’d try to get at him.”

“Girl, take him. He’s yours.” you put your hands up, signalling that you were finished with whatever was going on. “I had him in the first place, I don’t want him anymore.”

You felt bad talking about Heeseung like he was an object while he was right in front of you but you pushed that aside.

“No-!” she frowned.

“I don’t want him anyway,” you turned to leave. “Girl take him.”

Yunjin didn’t even try to fight it.

She seemed shocked that you’d given up so easily.

“Heeseung,” you started. “To answer your question, I did. But I learned not to expect much from you.”

Heeseung Lee wasn’t dead, but you no longer cared enough to wish he was.

THE END.

[huellitaa]

𓏲˳˚⊹ 🧸 become obsessed with yourself.

you are stupid. i said it. there. you are stupid.

let me get this straight. you are out here listening to these people who make you insecure. you are listening and actually giving a shit about people who put you down, make you feel unworthy, inferior, less of the absolute goddess that you are. you people please, you go above and beyond to help people & change yourself for people who would never do the same and for what. for people to like you? honey nobodys gonna like you. you dont even like yourself.

listen ml you need to get your priorities straight. sit down for a sec. like. just sit and genuinely ask yourself "what do i get out of this? how does this serve me?". go on, ask yourself. all these people who constantly think theyre better than you, that they can walk all over you, the ones that dont care a bit for you with their actions even if their words say otherwise, all these habits that only make you feel more low, more insecure, and dont align with where you wanna go in any way, shape or form. honey how in the hell does any of this serve you ???😭😭

i am sick to death of seeing the word selfish everywhere the moment somebody steps up and is brave enough to try and better themselves. the amount of times ive gotten "youre so selfish" or "youve changed" or "you werent like this before" jst because i got out of the most severe depression of my life where i came close to being unalive so many times is riDICULOUS and just shows how normalised insecurity and people pleasing is nowadays.

you see, people are always trying to follow the trend, follow the leader, follow everyone else nowadays. nobody actually honours what they want & that is a reflection of their own insecurity and traumas and emotions they are too scared to face. do you really want that for yourself? youve got such big dreams, such big potential, but what on earth do you do to fulfill them?

i dont think you realise just how limitless you actually are. you can do anything. we are all born the same. its only those with the courage to get up and try who will reach what they want and achieve greater things.

GET OBSESSED WITH YOURSELF. i am so DRAINED and TIRED of caring about what people think. i like something? im gonna do it. i dont care. fuck people pleasing. what are they gonna do when youre rich and famous and successful and thriving? YOU ARE THE ONLY VALIDATION YOU NEED. life is so much easier when you genuinely could not care less, like you just dont give a single shit. you are the only person who knows you inside out and will be there with you 24/7 365. it infuriates me how self hatred is so normalised nowadays. like what the actual fuck, why would you wanna spend your entire life hating the only person whos gonna be with you every second without fail, when you are perfectly capable of reversing that???? its ridiculous.

get up. get obsessed with yourself. the only validation you should be chasing is your own. pull yourself together girl. this is ridiculous. you are so much more than this. start acting like it. be ur own biggest fan. be ur own bestest friend. everything you need is already within you. u got this. 💕

all my love 💓✨💗💘🎀💖

[rirabeko]

Some of Baji's mischaracterization that gives me the ICK

It's 2024 and there are people out there who still can't understand Baji's character and mischaracterize him heavily, mostly because of the Bajifuyu ship.

DISCLAIMER: You can ship whoever you want. I'm just tired of seeing my favourite character constantly being mischaracterized because of toxic shippers. Also I'm not a shipper myself, I do not romanticize any of the relationships I mention below.

The biggest issue with Baji's character is the fact that Bajifuyu shippers (and sometimes just the fandom in general) constantly ignore Kazutora's role in Baji's life, meanwhile Kazutora made a huge impact on Baji's character. You can clearly see it not just in the anime or in the manga, but in the spin-off too.

Baji and Kazutora were that duo, they were a literal separated team within Toman. They met naturally, become friends instantly and spent most of their time together (many times without Toman). It's accepted by the fandom, that Kazutora's first real friend was Baji, but also Baji's first close friend was Kazutora.

Obviously Mikey and Baji were close as kids, but after Baji moved to a different place they weren't that close. I bet this is the reason why Baji didn't know about Shinichiro's bike shop, since when they met regularly Baji was a little kid and Shinichiro was a teenager without a bike shop. It also shows that Mikey and Baji aren't that close, they are more like childhood buddies than close friends.

I can talk about this for hours but now I only wrote it as a small disclaimer, before I get into my points, so let's go.

I am sick of it when:

they call Baji stupid (he literally outsmarted Kisaki, being smart not equals only book smart)

people headcanon him as a mean, aggressive, abusive bf (he is canonly no.1 best lover and he literally died because he has a heart of gold, let this bs go pls)

they can't understand the reason behind his suicide and make it a ship war (ICK)

people can't accept the fact Baji loves his friends differently, and not everyone is his bestie (it doesn't mean he does not love them, or prefers someone over the other but love can be different towards different people and it's absolutely normal!)

they make his character all about Bajifuyu (he is an individual, stop bringing up Chifuyu EVERYTIME when it comes to Baji. His character is much more than a guy in a dominant-submissive fanmade yaoi ship people like dragging him into!)

they make Chifuyu the good, perfect friend while constantly dragging Baji down and made him the bad guy in their relationship (I could write a whole essay just about this being a bullshit)

when they romanticize Bajifuyu (Baji canonly sees Chifuyu as a younger brother figure said by Baji's mom, but there are people out there who still believes unironically that they are in love... WHY?)

they ignore that Baji is very caring and affectionate not just towards Chifuyu, he is like this because these are his own personality traits. He behaves like this with everyone who's close to him. (Mikey, Kazutora, Ryuusei and just Toman in general)

people say Chifuyu was the only one who understood Baji's feelings and aims (the literal reason Baji died was because no one really understood his goals and behaviour, not even Chifuyu)

they romanticize Chifuyu's obsessiveness towards Baji (if Chifuyu was a girl, he would be cancelled for this behaviour immediately, but the double standard won again)

people make his death an opportunity to romanticize Bajifuyu (biggest ICK)

they say Baji is only distant with Chifuyu beacuse he is a tsundere (there are so many situations when Chifuyu truly annoys Baji, e.g. he said it many times that Chifuyu's infatuation really disturbs him and asked Chifuyu to stop)

Bajifuyu shippers ignore and hate Kazutora just because he disturbs their ship

they say Baji was a bad influence to Kazutora (Kazutora hung out with gangs even before he met Baji, he was already a part of the underworld. the reason Kazutora turned out that way was his abusive father and his horrible childhood in general. Baji literally saved him, and he could finally be himself around Baji without any judgement or harassment)

they ignore or even DENY Bajitora's bond because of Bajifuyu

they accept Bajifuyu, Kazufuyu or even the Bajitrio but HATE Bajitora (the biggest bullshit ever)

they can't recognise the fanservice of Bajifuyu and calls them canon because of the clear fanservice acts

people think Bajitora is one sided (more Baji sided) meanwhile Tora loves Baji more than his own life and shows it many times how much he loves Baji and how much Baji means to him

they accept that Chifuyu never changed his hairstyle after Baji made it for him (and obviously they romanticize it) but they are hating because Kazutora looked exactly like Baji in bad toman timeline

people ignore Bajitora and always forgets that they are very close to each other in every timeline. the new panels Wakui drew were also about Kazutora putting Chifuyu to his place after Chifuyu completly ignored Tora and disturbed his time with his best friend. (we all know Kazutora is very possessive with Baji for obvious reasons and does not tolerate being disrespected by someone)

The list could go on and on but these are the main problems I still see in this fandom when it comes to Baji's character.

I'm tired of seeing this amazingly well-written character turns into a boring, abusive, mean guy by the fandom who is only an abuser in a toxic fanmade yaoi ship.

SIDE NOTE:

To all the people who dislike him/call him mean and aggressive because he beat Chifuyu up:

This anime is based on a manga which takes place in the early 2000's gangster world in Japan. He is the captain of the 1st division, he is the leader, and his role is not just to be the strongest in the division but also to manage his team, bc this is also what a leader does. If someone is disrespectful, breaks the rules and shows a bad example to the others he has to punish them. In this world this is how things go. This won't make him a bad person, or an aggressive jerk. Baji can be very calm and collected when it comes to leading his division. He is a very good leader, who takes care of his teammates, so no surprise he is really loved by his division. 

Also when he beat Chifuyu up before joining Valhalla: he hated himself for doing that. But he had to, he had no other choice. And Chifuyu had every right to stand up against Baji and tell him he's not doing it. But since Chifuyu never questions Baji's decisions as the captain of the first division he agreed with this one too, and also because he wanted to help him. Chifuyu knew exactly what he was doing when he let Baji doing this to him, and he went along with it. Stop bringing this up everytime and use it against Baji.

[mioons]

“i don’t think i could stand to be — where you don’t see me”

pairing. hyung line x fem. reader

genre. fluff, est. relationship wc. 658 warnings. skinship + jealous enha + not proofread (don’t we love it)

— where they think not being your centre of attention is the worst feeling ever. so he goes to fix that. extra: i feel alpha after i write about jealous guys 🐺

LEE HEESEUNG would be annoyed to say the least. he wouldn’t hide the fact he was annoyed either. the moment he saw some guy trying to get all over you, he hurriedly rushed to take his spot right beside you, snaking an arm around your waist, squeezing it.

“hey baby, who’s this guy you’re talking to?” he asked, looking at the guy with a death glare though his tone sounded so friendly.

“oh nothing, he just wanted my number cause we’re in the same class,” you replied, looking up at him through your eyelashes.

“you still need her number pal?” heeseung would ask. the guy immediately shook his head and ran off in a fury, “good thing he knows his place hm?”

SIM JAEYUN would be trying his utmost best to steer your attention away from some unknown guy who didn’t even deserve an ounce of your attention. kissing your cheek while you were talking to the guy, mumbling sweet nothings into your ear; making you all flustered you couldn’t even hold a proper sentence. making sure that guy knew that you already had someone. aka him.

“you smell so sweet baby, like that rose i gotcha the other day,” he would murmur against your neck, his eyes glaring at the guy who was trying to hit you up.

immediately, the guy suddenly said he “had plans” and rushed off, leaving him alone with you.

“why’d you do that?” you chuckle and roll your eyes playfully, running your fingers through his locks.

“just doing what a boyfriend should do.”

PARK JONGSEONG hates it. he hates seeing another guy talk to you. that thought alone made him sick to his stomach. if he had a choice he’d go right up to the guy and give him a bruise; a warning.

he’s stand behind you like a guard dog protecting its owner— a bodyguard protecting his principal. his hand never leaves your waist, gripping it firmly to show who you were with but not too hard to hurt you. no he could never hurt an angel such as yourself.

you couldn’t see jay’s expression but it was one of annoyance and vex. can’t this guy just go away so jay could have you all to himself?

if knives could shoot out of eyes the guy would be dead by now. seeing how jay was so intimidatingly staring at the guy, he scurried away and left.

“why’d he leave so suddenly?” you ask as you tilted your head upwards to look at your boyfriend.

“mm not sure baby, you’re too cute for anyone to resist.”

PARK SUNGHOON would be the most petty guy in the world. the moment he saw another guy getting close to you, his blood boiled. why are you talking to another guy when you have him? the park sunghoon?

the moment you go up to him, he rolls his eyes at you and scoffs, his arms folding themselves in front of his chest.

“back from talking to your other boyfriend i see?” he remarks and turns his head to the right, looking away from you. you tilt your head, your brows furrowing as you try to get him to face you, “hoon, was it about that guy i was just talking to?”

he pauses for a moment before nodding his head and turning his head to face you, his arms unfolding themselves and going to cup your cheeks, “am i not enough for you pretty girl?”

you pout and rush forward to hide away your reddening face into his chest, the cool leather fabric rubbing against your skin—making you feel comforted since it belonged to your boyfriend.

“you know i’d never leave you for another, in fact i think you’ll be the one to leave me for someone else,” you chuckled before pulling your face away and resting your chin on his chest to look up at him.

and to sunghoon that was the only reassurance he needed.

luvlyhee 2024

[shutupineedtothink]

Trial order and why Lilia, not Agatha, is last (not counting Rio)

Kay, so I got another off-the-wall theory for you, this time around the order of the trials and why Lilia, not Agatha, is actually going to be last (if we don't count Rio). It goes back to maiden mother crone and some of the trauma/generational trauma stuff I already talked about in a previous post. As with The Road, continue at your own peril.

Right so I couldn't get this idea of maiden mother crone, intergenerational trauma, dealing with the long history of violence toward witches thing out of my head that the show is doing. And I think we've all been assuming that Lilia's trial will be next, saving Agatha and probably Rio for last, because those are standard main character of a TV show rules.

But the more I think about it, the more weight I feel like Lilia's journey carries for this overall theme of trauma toward witches and the history of witches, etc. She seems to have the most intense connection to the pain of witches past, like old-world witch stuff, and she's the one who's brought up multiple times that witches aren't really as they've been portrayed, there's all these negative stereotypes, etc etc. And she's sick of it. She's lived through it for the longest of all of them (again, leaving whatever Rio is out of it).

Idk, something that big, addressing the long history of violence toward witches and witch stereotypes, that feels like you have to deal with it last. That's a culmination of all the witch references, pop culture and otherwise, the show has been making, of which there are MANY.

So I thought ok, for funzies, let's assume Lilia's last, which puts our trial order as follows: Jen -> Alice -> Agatha -> Lilia (and I guess true last would be Rio but I'll get there in a second).

Assuming that order, something else pinged for me: maiden mother crone. Another massive theme in the show, portraying these generations of witches and women in general, and again, for reasons I can't explain, it really feels like it has weight to me. Like they're doing something with it.

So leaving Jen aside for a second, don't worry I'll come back to her, that makes Alice our maiden. Her role, particularly in the context of her trial, is the role of daughter. She's also the youngest of the witches, as far as I can tell. She's even coded as kind of the rebellious one, the young angry one who still hasn't quite accepted her heritage, until after her trial, she does.

Agatha is the mother. We are really going for the mother/child relationship with her and Teen, and of course dealing with her son's death and whatever part she played in it. I would assume her trial will be about that, but we could also be saving that for the end. The mother is also the connector generation between maiden and crone, so maybe there's something there about Agatha fully stepping into the leader role of the coven, and accepting these women around her, idk.

Lilia, the eldest, is our crone. She carries the true history and memory of generations of witches with her, she has lived the longest through the most trials. She is the most experienced in the craft and takes it the most seriously. The journey is hers to end.

Except -- we have two other players left. Jen, who kicks off the trials, and Rio, who I'm assuming doesn't really have a trial but will be there at the end... because, you know. 💀

So why would Jen be first? What comes before the maiden?

And then she said it herself.

"I never fully identified as a witch. I am an 11th-generation root worker and midwife."

This one line almost puts her in a similar category to Rio, at least thematically. She's a witch but also more, neither and both. And she's a midwife, someone who helps facilitate birth. Someone who, at her best, supports and sustains life. Someone who allows the first phase of life, the maiden, to come into being.

And guess who that leaves us with at the end, the opposite bookend to Jen's life-giving power -- the mistress of death herself, Rio. The one to which all life must eventually return.

The trials aren't just about elements, or moon phases, or even different witch specialties, they're taking us through the stages of a witch herself. The stages of ALL women really (whether you are an actual mother with children or not, the mother phase is mid-life). Linking us all together, generation after generation.

So in this theory, the trials go like this:

Jen -> Alice -> Agatha -> Lilia -> Rio

Birth -> Maiden -> Mother -> Crone -> Death

Even the moon phases line up. Full moon is birth, a full-term pregnancy and then birth. Waxing moon, growth, renewal, hope, promise -- the maiden. Half moon, mid-life, no longer maiden, not yet crone, the in-between -- the mother. Waning moon, the last quarter of life -- crone. New moon, darkness, returning to the void -- death. They're playing fast and loose with the moon phase order, so I am too.

I can probably fudge the elements here too, but it's a little harder mostly because I don't know what Agatha's element is. I heard someone say spirit, but idk.

Anyway, what do you think? Am I on to something here? Batshit crazy? Would love to hear your thoughts in comments. :)

[sweetbans29]

Eyes On You - CC

Pairing: Caitlin Clark x Reader

Summary: You catch Caitlin's eye during a game (based off of THIS request)

Warnings: fluff, flirting, ever so slightly suggestive

Word Count: 3.2k

Sweetbans Masterlist

AN: Okay but tell me you haven't gone somewhere and actually imagined this happened because you would be lying...

It is a Tuesday afternoon when your friends practically beg you to go to the women's basketball game.

"Come on, it will be fun," one of your friends says. You shake your head no without looking up from your biology paper.

"I need to finish this paper, it is due Friday and I am nowhere near close to done," you say, typing a sentence only to delete it immediately after. For some reason, this research paper is just not coming together.

"We already got you a ticket, you are going." Your roommate states knowing the real reason you don't want to go and it has nothing to do with your paper.

The truth is there is a girl on the team who you have been crushing on for a while now. The two of you are in the same business marketing class. She caught your eye pretty early on. The two of you ended up sitting next to each other and would make small talk whenever you got to class. It was never anything major but it was always the highlight of your day. You would get back to your room and immediately tell your roommate about your little conversation with the star athlete.

That was the thing, when you were in class she wasn't the superstar, she was just Caitlin. She would make you laugh with some silly little comment and you would talk to her like she wasn't the biggest person at the school. She made you feel seen and you made her feel heard.

You close your laptop and give your roommate the death stare. She knew you would say no but got you a ticket anyway - knowing you would never go to the game without being forced. This is your roommate's push to finally show your interest outside of your small talk in class. If you were to ask her, she was sick of hearing you always talk about Caitlin and never taking action to show her you actually liked her.

You give in, knowing your roommate isn't going to budge and will literally drag you there with her bare hands.

The group of you head back to your apartment and get ready. You opt for a simple look - jeans and a Hawkeye hoodie. Your friends on the other hand were dressed to impress. You check yourself out in the mirror and question if you should change. You decided against changing and instead grabbed a Hawkeye ballcap, hoping to blend in with the crowd and not be seen by your favorite player.

All of you decided to walk to the game, it wasn't more than 20 minutes away from your apartment. The closer you got to the stadium, the more nervous you felt. You have no idea why you are nervous, it is not like she is going to see you.

When you get there, you follow behind your group of friends. It is all kind of overwhelming - the crowd and how many people are here and how decked out in gear they are.

You are too caught up in the scene to realize that your group is being ushered to your seats. This is your first Iowa women's basketball game and you didn't realize how crazy your school went for this team. You know that there has been a lot of traction around Caitlin Clark and how she is changing the game for women. But what you are seeing, is truly amazing the effect she is having on people.

When you all get to your seats, you are mortified. At no point did your roommate or any of your other friends mention that you were sitting courtside. Having the perfect view of the court is nice when it comes to watching the game but not when it comes to hiding from your marketing crush.

You sit and glare at your roommate, who ignores you quite easily as she is in conversation with one of the guys you came with.

You pull your ball cap down and wish you could sink through your chair. This will be fine. You will be fine. There is no way she is going to notice you when she is focused on the game. You keep telling yourself this.

The team makes its way onto the court - the crowd goes wild. You watch as they come jogging out, starting to warm up. Your eyes scan the crowd for no.22. You see a few other girls that are familiar from classes and make a mental note to cheer them on. When you finally find Caitlin, your heart skips a beat.

She looks so good. This is 100% her in her element. The once so laid-back girl, now locked in and ready for what the next 2 hours hold. You are mesmerized by how calm she looks - like the thousands of fans here shouting her name are nonexistent.

Your eyes remain on her while they warm up. When their warm-ups come off and they take the court for the beginning of the game, something shifts in her.

You turn over to ask one of your friends a question about the team, missing the first glance that Caitlin gets of you sitting courtside for her game. She turns over to Kate, who is standing right next to her.

"That's her," is all Caitlin says and gives a little point to you. Kate follows her point to a girl who looks like she doesn't want to be seen. That's hard to do when you are literally sitting on the court.

Your attention goes back to the game as the girls go up for the tip-off. When the Hawkeyes take it, you feel yourself getting into the game. No one really knew you grew up playing in middle school and high school. You were never good enough to play in college but you enjoyed the sport. You left that part of you when you left high school.

It's not even 2 minutes into the game when you feel eyes on you. You turn to see your friends staring at you. You look back at them confused. Your roommate uses her head to signal to something on the court. You look and are surprised to see Caitlin looking right at you.

You feel a heat creep into your cheeks as you just stare at her. See it would have been a good idea to smile or nod. Hell, even wave but you just sat there staring at her with a blank expression.

She just smiles and lets out a little chuckle as she turns back to the game. She gets the ball and shoots a logo three no more than 10 seconds after you made a fool of yourself. When she turns to the crowd to celebrate, she points directly at you and then holds up a three with her other hand. Your roommate elbows your side as you hide your face.

This was everything you were terrified of, being seen.

"It looks like she has someone to play for," one of your friends gives you a little nudge.

"Guys there is no need to make this bigger than it is, she could be pointing to anyone over here, it isn't a big deal," you say in hopes that you will also believe your lies.

Your roommate scoffs. "You keep telling that to yourself sweetheart, she knows, we know and by the looks of it, the team also knows," she says as she nods over to the girls on the court.

All of your heads turn to see Caitlin, pointing to you again but this time talking to more girls on her team. They all look at you with smiles then break from their huddle and head back to their spots on the court.

Caitlin is running straight in your direction.

"Watch," you say referring to how you are not the center of attention to anyone.

Caitlin doesn't stop where she is supposed to be posted but rather runs straight to you with her hand out. Your hand comes out to give her a high five.

"Glad you could finally make it to one of my games," she says with a little smirk. "Only halfway through the season, better late than never." She gives you a wink before heading back to her post.

You feel like you could pass out. There is no way she just came up to you, mid-game, to be a little flirt.

"Looks like your girl Caitlin now has someone to dedicate her plays to," one of your friends teases you.

"Oh shut up," you say but that doesn't take away from the butterflies that build in the pit of your stomach.

Everyone turns back to the game and as you watch your team fight to keep the lead.

It seems like in every other play, Caitlin is turning her head to give you a smile or a smirk. You want time to stop so you can walk up to her and tell her to get her head in the game. There is no way she should be this distracted when the score is as close as it is.

The next play has a girl from the other team, pushing Caitlin causing her to fall on her backside right in front of you. You lean down to stop her from rolling into the chairs, your hand coming to her lower back and right arm as she slides right into you. When your hand touches her skin, you accidentally shock her - sending a little electrical current running through both of you.

One of her teammates comes to help her up and a foul is called. Before she goes to throw her free throws she turns to you, saying, "Thanks, babe."

Your friends, yet again, turn to look at you and you just wave them off.

The buzzer goes off as halftime commences. You are scrolling on your phone when someone approaches you.

"Hi, I was asked to come give this to you," the woman says as she hands you jersey. You give her a confused look, not taking it, but rather just looking at the article of clothing she is holding.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what you are talking about," you say, genuinely confused.

"I was told by one of the players to give this to you to wear for the rest of the game," she says, signaling you to take the jersey. It is your roommate who takes it from the woman and lets her know you will put it on. The woman walks away and your roommate full-on turns to face you.

"You are putting on this jersey," she says, throwing it at you. You hear her mumble, "Just letting the poor woman stand there when she has better things to do. All you had to do was take the jersey." She seems annoyed at how naive you are being.

You look at the jersey that was just given to you - Clark 22 printed on the back. You slip it over your hoodie and slip your hat back on. You aren't going to deny the feeling you get when you first slip it on. And it is not like you are the only one wearing the number 22, there is a stand full of fans sporting the number as your marketing crush is the school's star.

When the team heads back out at the end of halftime, Caitlin's eyes go straight to you, making sure you got her little gift. She is pleased to see you wearing it.

As the third quarter begins, the team comes out hot, putting up 2 threes in the first minute. You are cheering them on louder than before.

After the next play, Caitlin comes your way.

"Much better," is all she says as she gives you another wink. You just smile at her, bringing your bottom lip in between your teeth. Caitlin's eyes go from yours, down to your lips. The smile she once wore, was now replaced with something between annoyance and longing. Every fiber of her being is telling her to walk up to you and pull that pretty little lip of yours out from your teeth and tell you that your lips are only for her to bite.

She finally looks away, realizing how much you are distracting her from the game. Kate runs up to Caitlin and whispers something into her ear, Caitlin nods and heads to grab water from the bench as the other team calls a time-out.

By the time the fourth quarter rolls around, you feel like you belong courtside. Your friends are still giving you a hard time whenever Caitlin looks your way or comes over to make a little comment to you. The game is nearing its end when Caitlin comes over to pass in the ball after a foul. She is standing right in front of you, so close you could touch her if you wanted.

She takes a small step back, her leg brushing up against yours. She steps up to the line and leans forward just enough to stick her ass out in your direction. This whole time, she has been the one in control. All that control went out the window when you bit your lip causing the super start to internally lose it. Her standing where she was, right in front of you, was no accident - she wanted you in the palm of her hand, not the other way around.

And boy did she have you. You sit there and just admire her body. Checking out her legs and how they are perfectly shaped. How her arms are beautifully toned and how she looks all around is incredible.

The game ends and the Hawkeyes take the win. The team rushes onto the court and begins celebrating with those who finished out the quarter.

You and your friends stand, stretching your legs. You had no intention of staying to see Caitlin after the game, thinking the team would go out to celebrate. You plan on giving Cait back her jersey the next class you two have together.

Your back is facing the court as you are waiting for your friends to grab their stuff when you feel a tug on your arm. You spin around and come face to face with none other than Miss Caitlin Clark.

She has a smile on her face and without warning, she grabs your waist and kisses you. Time stops and all the people in the background fade away. Your hands come up to her face as they cup her cheeks. You feel her bring your body closer to hers as she deepens the kiss. She gives your bottom lip a little bite as you break apart.

You stand there speechless. Dreaming of this kiss since the beginning of the semester, never in a million years imagined it would happen like this.

The most radiant smile is on her face. She leans in closer to you.

"My number is on the inside of this jersey. Call me, will you?" She asks as she looks at you for a response.

"Of course," is all you can say, still in shock about what has just happened.

"Good," she says. "I'll be waiting." She lets you go and gives your friends a wave before heading back to the team.

The whole walk home your friends can't stop talking about what had just unfolded before them. Some of them are as shocked as you are, while others are already planning your wedding.

When you get back to your room, you shoot Caitlin a text so she has your number.

[CC: I'm glad you didn't take long to shoot me a message}

{CC: Are you busy tomorrow? Want to work on our marketing paper if you haven't finished it yet?]

[You: That sounds great, I am quite behind 🤣]

[CC: Well I don't know if I will be much help, but I would rather do it with you than alone]

[You: I'm for it, meet at noon?]

She sends you her address. You like it and put your phone down to head to bed. Before you do, you hear your phone go off one more time. Grabbing it, you see one last message from Caitlin.

[CC: Sleep tight babe]

The next morning you wake up and go for a run. You needed to do something to help with the nerves that began to build just thinking about seeing Caitlin today.

You get back, shower, then get ready to meet her at her place. You make sure to stick her jersey in your bag to return to her and head out the door.

It only takes you about 15 minutes to walk to her apartment. When you get there you knock on the door.

She opens it with a huge smile, "Hi."

She lets you, opening her arms for a hug which you gladly shuffle into. It surpassed the length that friends would hug. As you pull away you decide to give her cheek a little peck.

After doing so is the first time you see her blush. You smile at her and continue to walk into her apartment.

The two of you decide to work on her couch - both struggling to get through this paper. You took frequent breaks talking about when you both started liking each other and more about your lives outside of marketing.

As you take another break, you grab your phone and decide to look her up only to find edits of you and her from the night before.

Your cheeks heat up immediately as you hide your face in your hands.

"What?" She says trying to look over at your screen. You hand her your phone and she laughs a little, followed by an 'awww'.

"I can't believe there are people out there who are making full-on edits of us." You say with a little groan - the spotlight is not your thing.

"They are cute," she says as she keeps scrolling through your phone. "Look at this one!"

You lean into her and look at what she is talking about. It is a clip of you before halftime, wearing your Hawkeye sweatshirt then jumps to after halftime when you are wearing Caitlin's jersey.

"I am sure glad I gave you my jersey," she says with a little smirk.

"That reminds me, I brought it back for you," you say, moving to grab it from your bag. She grabs your arm and brings you back into her.

"That one is for you to wear to the rest of my games," she says like it is a known fact. You decide to tease her a bit.

"And what makes you think I want to go watch you play again?" You ask.

She gives you a little pout - which literally melts you.

"Because you are my new good luck charm," she says and leans in closer to you. Your breathing becomes uneasy.

"But you don't need luck," you say just above a whisper. Your eyes going in between hers and her lips.

"You're right..." she says, also looking at your lips. Her eyes make their way back to yours. "I don't need luck, but I need you."

She leans in and kisses you. This kiss is much more reserved than the one she planted on you last night. There was no rush or urgency in this kiss, it was quite pleasant.

You inhale and bring your forehead to hers.

"I am all yours."

AN: I really like how this came out! Let me know what you think! And as always, thank you for your love and support 🤍

[darkestspring]

Can we ✨PLEASE✨ get more Jaehaerys and Jaehaera with reader (and Aegon)?? 🥺😍🥰

Like the twins being Aegon’s accomplices in keeping other men away from reader. Or the twins helping Aegon to get back into the readers good graces. You know they’d be the best wingman&wingwoman (wingkids?? lol) 😊☺️😁

-🌺

It became wholly apparent to everyone with seeing eyes that Aegon and his wife were in the midst of a fight. It was the way Aegon desperately tried to get her attention and get her to st least look at him, having already discarded his anger but she refused to even look at him. always ignoring him and acting like he didn't exist in her vicinity.

the twins could really only watch it happen, not sure who they were supposed to side with. They did love their father but.... they weren't sure if their mother had ever been wrong before. she was always right! their mother was the best, after all!

"I don't like it." Jaehaerys muttered to Jaehaera as he watched their mother ignore their father while conversing with Tyland Lannister. "Uncle Aemond said that if this keep up, Mama will divorce Papa, whatever that means but it can't be good."

"Mama doesn't like lions so she won't leave Papa for that weird uncle." Jaehaera spoke as if her words were fact and to her they were. "Mama loves dragons! So, it'll be fine but we can scare that weird uncle if you want."

"Okay!" Jaehaerys liked that idea!

"Mama, i want to show you something!" Jaehaera appeared practically out of thin air and you stopped in the middle of your discussion with Tyland to look down at your daughter.

"I'll be right back." You smiled at Tyland politely as you let jaehaera drag you off and Jaehaerys took your place, staring up at Tyland with dead eyes just like his Papa taught him and speaking ominously.

"Mama says men with lions will ultimately die an early death," He said before turning away and disappearing.

Tyland stared at the spot where the prince had stood, white as a a ghost. Had he just been cursed? It felt like he had.

You looked majorly unamused as you were guided towards Aegon, leave it to your daughter to get you to reconciliate with your husband.

"Aegon." You greeted him dryly but it was better than ignoring him so he let it go.

"My heart." He reached out and held your hand, considering it a victory that you hadn't shrugged him off. "I am sorry for my harsh words, I shouldn't have been so cruel, especially towards you. I adore you, you encompass the other half of my soul."

You huffed, looking to the side in an attempt to not melt and forgive him too soon. "I was hurt by your words."

"I know, my love. I said such horrible, untrue things. It wasn't fair. Please forgive your court fool?" He looked at you and you snorted before humming.

You looked to the side as Tyalnd ran past, looking sick. Huh... what's up with him, you wondered.

"Mama and Papa made up!" Jaehaera gravitated towards Jaehaerys' side eagerly and you leaned into Aegon softly.

Aegon gave the twin a thumbs up when you weren't look.

The plan was a success after all. And here you thought Aegon wasn't a good dad.

[hauntedwitch04]

Wrong time, right person

Azriel x reader

Words: about 3.3k words

Warnings: smut, smut, Iforgot to say smut, and Azzy himself ;)

Author’s note: Hi loves! I finally managed to write some more after the crazy week I had. Hope you like it, your witch Becky

Requests are open I Ask

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KINKTOBER ...........-..........KINKTOBER TAGLIST 2023

DAY 3: Sex pollen

It's an easy mission they said.

Touch and go, they won't even know you passed by they said.

Assholes. Liars. Bastards. Especially liars though.

This is all I can think of as the Shadowsinger and I find ourselves running through the trees being chased by the guards of the lord we had gone to spy on. Someone must have warned of our arrival, because a few minutes after arriving on the spot, we were already surrounded by enemies. We fought to the end, but were forced to retreat into the woods, seeking safety in escaping through that labyrinth of logs, hoping that those stupid enforcers would not be able to follow us.

It seems like hours that we are running when we finally decide to stop, in the vicinity of a cave, so that we can find refuge from the darkness and our pursuers.

"We finally lost those assholes." My companion comments, sitting back against the cave wall, leaning his head against the rock and showing his neck, leaving it exposed to my gaze.

That simple gesture kindles a fire in me that burns brightly, and I feel compelled to look away. I close my head between my legs and feel Azriel's gaze on me as he approaches. I feel him rest a hand on my shoulder, and I can't help but moan at that simple contact. I feel my cheeks get hot, but he doesn't flinch and asks me worriedly, "Hey, are you okay?" I can't bring myself to look at his face so I nod slightly still with my head between my legs and mutter a nonsensical apology. He still tries for a moment to wrest the truth from my lips, but I don't even flinch for a second. Azriel, seeing then that I did not intend to explain anything, stands up.

"I'm going to gather some wood for the fire, or we'll freeze to death tonight." He says, as he approaches the exit of the cave. I glimpse from below my knees the color of the sky, which is now turning blue.

"Okay, I'll stay here." I tell him in a whisper loud enough for him to hear me. I guess he nods, before walking out of our shelter, leaving me to think about why I took that action earlier. Ever since we escaped from the building I feel a strange sensation permeating my body, but I hadn't given it too much thought before since my priority was to run away from the guards, but it's as if after all that effort that feeling has expanded to the nth degree. It almost feels as if my body no longer belongs to me: I feel a wet sensation between my panties, while the fabric of my T-shirt brushing against the skin of my breasts sends shivers down my spine as my nipples harden against my bra. I squeeze my thighs together trying to ease that sensation, but it all proves futile. I feel a wave of embarrassment rise through my body again, thinking that this is all due only to a small gesture from the Shadowsinger.

Eventually I decide to lie down and try to get some sleep hoping that with a good dose of rest the next day I would wake up feeling better than I am now. I lie down with some difficulty on the floor only to fall unconscious in the arms of Morpheus after a few seconds.

But all is in vain, because in the middle of the night I suddenly wake up all sweaty. I sit up while with one hand I hold my chest. I feel the fire from before writhing in my gut, and on instinct my other hand goes to my center automatically, but realizing my gesture I immediately freeze.

Azriel was sitting in front of the fire, and seeing me feeling so sick he immediately approaches me, touching my forehead to feel if I had a fever. Immediately he retracts his hand feeling how hot I am, and makes me lie of me.

"You try to lie to me one more time about feeling good, and I swear I will never make you go on a mission with me again, and I will make sure Rhysand doesn't either." Says Azriel, as he removes part of my suit, to let the cold night wind cool me down a little. I again find myself letting escape a moan of pleasure as I feel that cool night breeze brush against my warm skin. I feel my nipples becoming turgid as I somehow try to get away from the Shadowsinger's constant touch, which is only making the situation I am in worse.

"I would say now is not the time to lecture me Az." I reply as I try to catch my breath. The Illyrian looks conflicted, but finally stands up and looks me straight in the eye.

"I'll try to do something. You stay here, and in case you give a yell, I'll be back here in less than a second." Says Azriel before disappearing into the night.

I stay looking at the place where he disappeared for a few minutes, trying to distract myself from the feeling of pain and the impossibility of having what my body desires, but finally I give in and begin to slowly run the fingers of my right hand over my center. I immediately feel the pain lessen, but like a drug, this never seems to be enough and I need more and more. My other hand wanders down my body until it rests on my breast and I begin to stimulate one of my nipples. My right hand I run it under my pants and for the first time my fingers come in contact with the wet lips of my pussy.

I remain in that limbo situation for what feels like an eternity experiencing enough pleasure to not die of pain and at the same time not enough to be completely well.

After what seems like hours, I hear Azriel's heavy footsteps getting closer. Quickly I try to look presentable, but immediately the lack of that little antidote causes me more pain than I felt before. I feel twinges in my abdomen that make me bend over, but despite this I look up at the man in front of me, and I cannot help but curse Mother for creating such a perfect being: he has not slept in days, he is drenched in sweat and tired, and yet he continues to be the most attractive person I have ever seen.

He stops to catch his breath, and only then do I realize that he no longer has the cape he was wearing before, in fact now his muscular arms are clearly evident, thanks in part to the tank top he was wearing.

"Where did your cloak go?" I ask, trying to distract myself in a very unsatisfactory way.

"I had to give it to Suriel, to get him to help me understand what you have." He says casually as he approaches me. At that gesture I try to pull away, but he doesn't let me, resting his hands on my shoulders. He then places his lips on my forehead to test whether I still have a fever. That gesture again unleashes a fire capable of burning whole woods in my stomach, and I groan, almost in pain, pushing him away from me.

"Did I hurt you?" Azriel asks worriedly, and I wave him off, so as not to worry him, but he doesn't seem convinced.

"What did Suriel tell you?" I ask, trying to change the subject.

"Well, as we were running away you spilled a jar of powders on yourself as we were going through that sorceress's store, remember?" Azriel says, looking at the ground, as if ashamed. I nod, remembering very well that damned jar, which made me sneeze for several minutes.

"You didn't read the label on that jar, did you?" He continues vaguely, so much so that nervous and without patience, I force him to look at me before answering him.

"Of course I didn't have time to look at it Az, go straight to the point." I say impatiently. His cheeks turn red, and he stammers something under his breath that I can't understand at first, so I ask him to repeat it. He raises his eyes and fixes his in mine, before repeating what he had tried to say before.

"It was sex pollen, the one that spilled on you." He says finally, and I feel the blood freeze in my veins, still in shock from the revelation he threw at me. "And according to Suriel, the only way to keep you from dying right now is to...well you know, go along with what your instincts are asking you to do."

"Thank you for explaining in such a nice way that I have to masturbate Az, really very nice." I say almost angry at him, even though I know I'm not really. I'm partly angry at myself for putting myself in that situation, but I can't do anything about it now, and now I'm also in danger of dying.

"Hey, I'm trying my best." He replies, scratching the back of his neck with his right hand, looking embarrassed.

"I know, I know Az, it's just-" I pause for a moment, trying to find a way to say it. I take a big breath and keep talking. "I've already tried touching myself, alone, down there, but it didn't do much good." I confess in a low voice, hoping he won't hear it, but unfortunately Shadowsinger's hearing is too acute to miss my confession. He freezes for a moment as if he is about to reason out what to do, then speaks again.

"I know." Azriel says in a guilty tone.

"What do you mean you know?" I ask shocked as I look at him, not understanding what he was referring to.

"Well the Suriel may or may not have told me that you would not be healed this way. "He continues as he watches the fire casting beams of light on the walls of the cave we are in. I stop again, and begin to reflect on all that I knew about these powders as I feel the pain getting worse and worse. By now I can feel my panties completely wet, as every single contact with what's around me unleashes a series of shivers that reaches to my core.

"I thought that was enough...well you get it. In all the books dealing with pollen with potential danger they say that's enough, be satisfied." I try to explain, as I draw a groan caused by my shifting which resulted in clenching my thighs together.

"I thought so too, but he said this doesn't count if-" He freezes as if he cannot find the words. I, growing more and more impatient, ask him aloud to continue.

"Az just doesn't seem like the time to be shy." I urge him to speak.

"He said it's not enough when you're in close proximity to your mate." He blurts out, standing up sharply. I squint my eyes not believing what my ears have just heard, but I immediately understand that feeling that has long been building in my heart toward my mate. Well I would say more than friend. I feel something forming in my chest that takes shape through a golden thread extending from my sternum to that of Azriel, who is currently turned his back to me as he looks out of the cave as if in the same there is the answer to this problem. Immediately I feel that silly happiness I felt at having found my mate, and that he was the man I actually loved all my life already disintegrating under the idea that he didn't want all that.

"You don't have to." I whisper, in the grip of ever-worsening cramps, but right now they seem like nothing more than mild pain compared to what my heart was feeling.

"You don't understand, if we don't do this, you will die and I won't let you die." He counters by turning around and dropping to his knees at my height looking me straight in the eye.

"I don't want your pity." I reply harshly as I try to get out of his sight, unable to do much given my condition, because I don't want him to see my suffering and the pain his rejection has triggered in me.

"No, I don't want my mate, the woman I've loved all my life to die and I'm pissed off at Mother because I didn't want it to happen like this between us the first time. I wanted to do everything right, take you to dinner, confess under the stars and then make love to you in my bed between the sheets I had specially chosen your favorite color, not on the floor in a stupid cave after risking our lives! When I knew you were my mate I wanted nothing more than to thank Mother, fate or whoever, but now I hate them because they had to pass the anger they vent on me to you, and I don't want to see you suffer because of me." He blurts out as he begins to walk around the cave again, then finishes his speech by looking at me. A strange light sparkles in his eyes, they look like the eyes of someone who loves to the point of being sick, to the point of suffering, and that love right now is directed at me. I can't believe his words, but that connection makes me feel that everything he just said is the truth, and immediately the happiness I lost a few moments ago returns, along with hope.

"We can still do it." I confess in a whisper and he immediately turns to me, his eyebrows furrowed over his beautiful eyes. "We can do it once we get home. We'll tell Rhys they can go screw him and his missions, and we'll take some time to figure this out and get used to it, and we can do everything you just said, because believe me I want to do all that with you."

"But?" He asks as he approaches.

"But now all I need is you fucking me as hard as you can in this shitty place so that I can stop dying and talk to you without having to moan every time." I say, as I grab his shirt with one hand, since he was now close enough to me, and kiss him with all the passion in my body.

I feel like I can finally breathe again as my lips on his, and I can already feel the pollen fade as the urge to feel Azriel inside me increases without measure.

"As my lady wishes." Whispers the Illiryan on my lips as we pull away from that breathless kiss. I immediately feel his lips graze my neck, to start biting and sucking on it as if his life depended on it. Every single movement of his lips and tongue made me touch the sky with one finger as I moaned his name as if I were a priestess intent on making a prayer and he the deity I believe in.

His lips then move from my neck to my breasts, where he begins to suck on my nipples like a hungry child. I bring my hands into his hair and pull them every time his tongue touches one of my sensitive spots.

"Baby doll, if you pull my hair one more time, I don't think I'll be able to keep myself from fucking you so hard I'll leave your silhouette on the floor of this place." He says pulling away for a moment to kiss my lips again.

My hands move down, and I begin to open his pants, while he begins to open mine.

"All words, I want to see some action." I reply, trying not to give away how much his words had affected me. He smirks, realizing that he actually made a mark with what he said, just brushing against my panties and feeling how wet they are.

"You will regret saying what you just said baby doll." Az replies, as with a quick gesture he enters of me. I didn't even notice that he had moved both my and his panties, but right now I don't care.

Feeling his cock inside me is an otherworldly experience. I can feel the walls of my pussy tighten around his sizable member as he tries to stay as still as possible to get me used to his size.

"Tell me if it hurts, or if you feel like you can't take it anymore, okay?" He asks softly, as he kisses my sweaty forehead. I feel the cramps from the sex pollen return, and I groan before I answer him.

"Az, I can't take it anymore, either you move or I swear I'm going to flip you over and start doing what I need to do on my own." I say, trying to move my hips slightly and create some friction, but he stops me, resting his hips on mine and giving that silly little smile that makes him so sexy.

"Oh, I can't wait to see you ride my cock, but I'd say leave that experience for another time. Tonight is just for you, and for your pleasure." He comments and then begins to move.

Immediately I feel every single part of the universe fall into place as he gradually increases his speed. My body seems to be persecuted everywhere with shivers of pleasure as his lips rest lightly on my breasts again. Between his mouth, his cock, and the sex pollen in my body my orgasm seems to come with a speed I never expected.

"Please Az, don't stop." I say groaning, feeling the pleasure grow more and more every second.

"Oh baby I could never deprive myself of the feeling of my cock against your cervix. You're going to come, aren't you?" She whispers back as I try to nod. "Then we'll come together love."

"Yes, please Az fill me." I continue, and I feel her muscles tense even more under my touch.

"Honey don't challenge me, you know I could fuck you so hard you wouldn't walk tomorrow even if you prayed to Mother." He counters by increasing his speed.

"It would certainly be worth it." I answer as I now feel I am on the edge of oblivion, just one thrust would be enough to sink into pleasure. I hold my breath for a moment as I feel him move for the last time before my body begins to move in convulsions of pleasure, and my vision becomes totally blurred.

I feel him releasing all his semen inside me shortly after coming, and I feel him lying on top of me, relaxing.

We stay like that for a few minutes before he starts laughing. I look at him not understanding why he is laughing until he explains himself.

"God, I guess in the end I will have Rhys to thank for this mission." Whispers Az.

"Actually it wasn't that bad." I comment, laughing in turn.

"Let's say it had its upsides." He replies with a wink. "But don't think it's over here, wait until you get home, and when I'm done with you the only thing you'll remember is my name."

Yes I would say we definitely have Rhys to thank.

TAGLIST

@horneybeach1 @peachyxrosie @whoreforblackhill @forsiriussake @ash04w3 @l3viathanpup @ohemgeewhat @123345566 @kidsaproblem @lust4lucille @lisamanban123 @alina02 @shodowbane09 @supernatural-lvr

[colourstreakgryffin]

Teen!Reader finding Alastor all beaten and bruised after the finale and getting worried, insisting in patching him up, etc, while Alastor during the entire time is having a moment of realization like "oh, this kid ACTUALLY cares about me"

(This is platonic obviously, reader sees him like a weird older brother/father figure and looks up to him idk)

I love it. Simple, enjoyable and to be honest, we’ll just pretend Alastor had his sick solo in the finale before we showed up and I suppose Al will be quite unhinged and aggressive in this state so goddamn. Also, my second time writing about the finale

Platonic! Alastor- Reaching Out

“You son of a bitch, I am trying to help you!” You growl out, now half-wrestling with the Radio Demon himself, after his lose battle against Adam. Whilst Adam has been finally defeated at Lucifer’s hand then killed at Niffty’s knife. It’s clear as crystal that Alastor isn’t taking his own defeat well at all. He’s aggressive, completely lost his usual charismatic, well-mannered demeanour, he’s breaking down and barking at you to back off as you’re still trying to pry his own hands off the visible red bleeding wound over his chest

You’ve found this retreating deer out of pure luck and now, you’re acting on your compassion for him to try make the process of healing less painful for him

You’re the only Hazbin Hotel staff member that actually treated Alastor more than an annoyance standing there. He isn’t the best guy at there, never. No, but he isn’t as bad as Vaggie or Husk claim he is. However, right now, he’s boiling your blood with how much he is refusing to let you even touch him, despite the fact he needs to be patched up. He’s low on power, his cane is snapped in half, he’s limited and requires help

“I don’t need your help, Leitora!” Alastor barks back in possibly the most unhinged way you’ve ever seen, basically backing into a wall. He can’t even notice how worried you actually are, how you’re getting frustrated because you’re worried and you’re the only one who has been looking for and have found Alastor whilst everybody else is celebrating the victory over Adam. You’re the one looking for and now looking out for the man you actually find quite nice. He isn’t as patronising to you, for whatever reason, Alastor’s decent and it’s almost like he wants to be some type of figure in your life with how he behaves

“Stay still before you bleed yourself to unconsciousness, you narcissistic edible piece of shit!” You only say this so cruelly, sharp and half loud as to put Alastor into his place, prove to him you’re not backing down whilst you finally win the half wrestling session you have with the weakened and distressed Overlord, already beginning to check around for the entire length of the wound and use what little excess fabric your current clothing has to make a makeshift bandage for this wound

This is surprising, you’re possibly two times his age. A teenager, if not 15-16 at the oldest upon your human death and you’re acting more mature than the biologically 34 year old. Alastor just stayed quiet, tall fluffy deer-like ears still pinned back and suffering through the intense pain. He wouldn’t admit that he is quite grateful that somebody is around but at the same time, he doesn’t want to get attached to any soul

It took him a proper glance at the cute young sinner he found it fun to playfully tease, mock and behave like a clingy overprotective big brother to piss off, that they genuinely care for him. That they aren’t lying or pretending as to get something out of him like he suspects everybody in the Hotel, including Charlie, is

This is so much different than he suspected, he was believing he’d be going back to his radio tower to vent out his rage at being smacked in the face of such a pathetic opponent

Ending up being the pathetic opponent. He hates showing his weakness and he can barely keep himself from snapping but he also can feel his racking nerves ease up a bit at this strong, confident yet sweet and compassionate kid trying to take care of him when they have no actual requirement to do so

Alastor takes a few more seconds to think and speak, not even realising he was sat down by you as he was thinking frantically about how his own mischievous and mocking behaviour as some type of surrogate brother for you was more than just something down to see your reactions for his own amusement, he does feel some type of family-based affections for you

Now, that affection has been bumped up even more. He definitely owes you a lot for caring about him like some surrogate little sibling when all he does for you is annoy you. He doesn’t even know that you actually look up to him like some type of family figure… so, the familiar feelings are mutual

“Fuck… can you just be careful with the coat? This is my treasure”

(A/N: Real quick. Leitora means ‘Reader’ in Portuguese, this’ll be our name for any none anime posts. There’s two versions; Leitora as the feminine version and Leitor as the masculine version. You can use either for us! I got this from Google Translate)

[starlightkun]

❧ word count: 26.1k ❧ genre: angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, paranormal/supernatural au, ghost!jisung ❧ warnings: mentions of death, prominent side character dies early in the fic, depictions of grieving, family member of the reader is sick (it’s dementia-like, though the disease is never named in the fic), family tension/drama (reader has some family members that are not very nice to her), reader has some sleep/physical health issues at one point, reader is just really going through it in this fic for a while ❧ extra info: the reader’s mom in this has early-onset memory issues; i didn’t name a specific disease because im not a medical expert of any kind and didn’t want to misrepresent any real-life illness in this fic. i combined both my own experiences with my own family members who have had these kinds of illnesses and some research, but i am not an expert and the representation in this fic may not be entirely accurate! ❧ author’s note: i don’t think i’ve done a spooky fic like this before? but this one was super fun! also i will say it takes a little bit for jisung to show up, so please be patient when you don’t see him in the first few scenes, he’ll be there, i promise! ❧ sequel

That night, the rain was still pounding against the windows. Your mom had gone to bed a while ago, but your mind was restless. Something had happened again as you were helping your mom get ready for bed. Your stepdad’s reading glasses, which were on the nightstand on his side of their bed, as they had been since he passed, had fallen off with seemingly no rhyme or reason. Not wanting your mom to get spooked about the house again, you reassured her that you had just bumped into the furniture—her back was turned when they fell—but it left you with an uneasy feeling.

“Hi, Hyukjun.” You picked up the phone call from your stepdad as you headed back towards your office building from the restaurant you’d taken your lunch break at.

“Hi, sweetheart. How are you?” His warm, familiar voice was on the other end as always, though there was something different about it, something you couldn’t quite put your finger on from the quality of your phone speaker. Your steps slowed thoughtfully as you listened more attentively, a pit growing in your stomach.

“I’m good,” you answered shortly, suspicion creeping over you. “How are you two?”

It wasn’t that you didn’t appreciate hearing from your stepdad, you were on good terms with him. Your father passed when you were a little girl, and your mom continued to raise you on her own, not even considering any romantic prospects until you graduated high school. She and Hyukjun only dated for six months before marrying and had been happily married since. Hyukjun was a mild-mannered divorcee with three adult sons of his own, all of whom were at least a decade older than you, and none of which you were exceptionally close with. When your mom had been diagnosed only five years into their marriage, he began taking care of her—no question and no complaints. With her condition, you were fairly certain that you visited them more than Hyukjun’s own kids did, despite all of them living nearby to your knowledge.

He at least didn’t beat around the bush anymore. “She’s getting worse, Y/N.”

“How bad?”

“She thinks the house is haunted,” he admitted. “And I…”

“What?” You prompted him.

“She’s been asking for you. I know you’re busy, but if you could visit soon, I think it’d really help her.”

“Yeah, I have some time this weekend,” you agreed immediately. “I’ll be there.”

“Thanks.”

You were arriving at the building then, slowing to a stop outside as you prepared to hang up. “My break is ending, Hyukjun, I’ve got to go.”

“Of course,” he acquiesced. “Hey, I love you.”

“I love you too.” You looked up at the gray storm clouds gathering in the sky above you. “And tell Mom I love her, and I’ll be there soon.”

“I will. Have a good rest of your day at work, sweetheart.”

“Right. Bye.”

When your mom and Hyukjun got married, you already had a lease on a small place closer to your job in the city, so your mom sold your childhood home and moved in with Hyukjun. Despite the small twinge of sadness at her selling your childhood home, the place where you, your mom, and dad had all been together, you were happy that she was no longer there by herself. Their home was a quaint two-story, two-bedroom townhome, with well-tended flowerbeds and a porch swing out front. A long time ago, you knew that this house had been your stepbrothers’ childhood home, the three of them sharing what was now the guest room, Hyukjun and his ex-wife occupying the primary bedroom that was now his and your mother’s. Hyukjun had been divorced for many years before he met your mom, you didn’t know the exact number off the top of your head—you weren’t sure if you had ever been told.

The snapdragons were in bloom, stalks of purples and blues and pinks, and you squatted down next to one. Feeling a bit like a child, you gently squeezed the sides of one flower to make the “mouth” of the dragon open, like Hyukjun had shown you one of the first times you’d met, the very first time you ever went to his house. The front door opened, and you looked up to see your stepdad stepping out of the house. You stood up, walking up the three short steps from the sidewalk to meet him on their porch.

“I saw you coming up the street,” he explained, gesturing to the front window. “It’s good to see you, Y/N.”

“Hi, Hyukjun.” You hugged him. “Good to see you too.”

“I just wanted to give you a heads up. She’s calm, but she’s not exactly… here,” he explained. “I didn’t want you to be caught off-guard.”

You nodded in understanding. “Okay. Thanks for letting me know.”

Following your stepdad into the house, he guided you towards the living room at the back of the house.

“Hon?” He poked his head into the living room.

Your mom looked up from where she had been reading a book in an armchair, her face breaking into a gentle smile. “Oh, Sangwoo, you’re back.”

“Yes, I picked Y/N up, just like you asked.” Your stepdad stepped aside to let her see you.

You pushed aside the alarms going off in your mind to give your mother as calm of a smile as you could, approaching her with your hand outstretched. “Hi, Mom, it’s Y/N.”

“Y/N, hi, sweetie.” She beamed at you, taking your hand that was offered and squeezing it tight. “How was school?”

“It was good, I had a good day,” you answered brightly. Looking down at the book in her lap, you asked, “What are you reading?”

Your mother had been a Literature teacher for all her life, before her diagnosis forced her to retire many years before she ever wanted to. She would read to you at any opportunity when you were a kid, especially at bedtime. It was always easiest to get her talking now about whatever book she was reading, no matter where her mind was.

“Oh, I’ll tell you about it later. First, do you have homework?”

“No, Mom, nothing today.”

Hyukjun cleared his throat then. “You must be hungry, Y/N. Would you like something to eat?”

“Yes, yes, go get a snack.” Your mother insisted.

“Okay,” you acquiesced, giving her hand another tight squeeze. “I’ll be right back after my snack. I want to hear about your book.”

In their kitchen, you turned on your stepdad with wide eyes. “She’s not just mixing up your names anymore, she thinks you are my dad!”

“Sometimes…” Hyukjun nodded, leaning against a kitchen counter. “Not always. She has her lucid days still.”

In the bright kitchen lighting, you could see a certain tiredness in Hyukjun that was new, a pallor in his skin, a hitch in his breaths, a lag in his movements, none of which used to be there.

“What’s wrong?” You asked, eyes locking on his. “With you? You were going to tell me something on the phone, and you didn’t. Tell me.”

He sighed, the sound dragging out into a wheeze and then a hacking cough that he covered in his elbow, and you winced just watching him. When he’d caught his breath again, he answered, “They found a tumor, in my lung. I have maybe six months, Y/N.”

“That’s it?!” You blurted out. “I-I mean, even with chemo, or radiation, or whatever?”

“I’m not—”

“It’s not treatable?”

He cast a sidelong glance down the hall, at the room where your mother was. “Someone needs to take care of her. I need to be here, and after I’m gone, our savings will go towards her care. We can’t spend it all on something that might give me another few months.”

“Another few months with her! With us!” You grabbed his arm, knowing how desperate you sounded. “What about your kids? Do they know what you’re doing?”

“No.” His voice was heavy, but determined. “I know you all don’t talk… but don’t tell them, please.”

His face wavered in your vision as your eyes filled with tears. You tried to swallow them down, but a couple spilled over. “Let me move in, and help. I want to take care of both of you. Please.”

“What about your job?”

“I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about me. You’ve done enough for me, for us. Let me do something for you.”

“Thank you.”

Your work agreed to let you move into a part-time remote position. Most days you were able to get all your done, early even. Not only was Hyukjun there, but a memory care aide named Nayoung came by for an hour three days a week to assist as well.

It had been a month since you moved into the primary bedroom on the second floor, the bedroom that used to be your mom and stepdad’s. You found out that they moved their things into the guest room on the first floor two months ago, when your mom hurt herself on the stairs. It had only been a skinned knee, but Hyukjun didn’t want to risk something worse.

That night you laid in bed with your laptop open, desperately trying to finish up a report that was due the next day. Today had been rougher, your mom needing constant redirection and reorientation, not to mention the conversation that you had with your stepdad earlier this evening. Usually after your mom went to sleep, the two of you would watch a movie or a couple episodes of a show, or just have a drink and chat. It was a nice, slow, easy part of your day with just the two of you. But this time as you rooted around the for the fresh tub of ice cream that you had just bought from the store, and called to him over your shoulder asking if he wanted a bowl, you saw him waiting for you with papers in his hand.

One of the errands he’d sent you on today, in addition to groceries, the post office, and the pharmacy, had been to an attorney’s office. You’d known that, you weren’t stupid. There, you had been handed a large envelope with the law firm’s name embossed on it, and your stepdad’s name typed on a label under that. You didn’t inquire as to the contents of the envelope from the receptionist, nor your stepdad when you delivered it to him upon returning home. It was none of your business. But at the kitchen table that night, he showed you the documents that he had drawn up.

Once he passed, you would own his house, the one that you lived in now, as a life estate pur autre vie. For the life of another. Until your mother passed, you would own his house, and could stay here and take care of her. Then, once she passed, the house would go to his sons, your stepbrothers, as he’d always intended.

You sighed and deleted the sentence you’d just written. “Stupid, stupid,” you muttered to yourself. Looking at the time, you let out another sigh and rubbed your face in exasperation. “I’m never going to fucking finish this.”

Setting the laptop aside, you pushed your covers off yourself and got out of bed. Keeping your footsteps light, you crept downstairs and into the kitchen to get yourself a glass of water. After drinking a whole glass in the kitchen, you refilled it to bring it back up to bedroom with you. Halfway up the stairs, the sconce on the wall next to your head flickered on, making you pause. You’d left all the lights off on your way down. Peering behind the frosted glass cover, you reached your hand back there and tightened the bulb. The light stopped flickering, and you looked around at the empty, dark staircase again. Shrugging to yourself, you finished your journey to your room.

Cutting up your mom’s breakfast into small pieces, you hummed a song that had been stuck in your head. The sound of something clattering startled your peaceful reverie, and your head snapped up immediately. You darted around the kitchen counter to get your eyes on where your mom was sitting at the kitchen table.

“You okay, Mom?” You asked, eyes searching her for any signs of injury or distress.

“Oh, I’m fine, sweetie,” she reassured you, pointing at a point on the floor further away from her. You saw that a silver utensil was gleaming up from the tile. “I dropped my fork, that’s all.”

“I’ll grab you another one when I bring your food in, don’t worry about it,” you reassured her. “Leave it, I’ll pick it up in a sec.”

Returning to the kitchen, you finished cutting her food, then prepared yours and Hyukjun’s plates. Carrying all three of them in, along with your mom’s clean fork, you cocked your head when you saw the fork sitting on the closest edge of the table to the kitchen. Looking at Hyukjun, who had joined your mom at the table in the interim, you said, “You didn’t have to pick up the fork, Hyukjun, I was going to grab it.”

His face betrayed his momentary confusion, looking between the food you just set in front of him, then to the fork on the edge of the table. “That was there when I came in. I didn’t move it.”

As you set your mom’s food down for her, you asked, “Mom, did you get the fork?”

But her eyes had a familiar far-out appearance, and you knew she wasn’t going to be able to answer you. You shook your head at yourself, putting your own plate down and grabbing the dirty fork off the table. Dropping it in the kitchen sink, you then returned to the table to take your seat next to your mother and across from Hyukjun.

You weren’t sure why you were awake at first. Everything seemed quiet, but something didn’t feel right. Sitting up in bed, you checked the time on your phone. 2:48 a.m. You desperately wanted to go back to sleep, but you couldn’t shake the uneasiness in your mind, and so you pushed the covers off of you.

As soon as you were at the top of the stairs, you could hear voices downstairs, your mother’s and your stepdad’s. Your stepdad was clearly trying to keep his voice down, but your mom wasn’t, and she sounded distressed.

“Sangwoo, I’m telling you something’s wrong with this house! We need to go! Where’s Y/N?!” She demanded of him.

“She’s fine, she’s sleeping. Please, tell me what’s wrong with the house, and we can try to fix it,” he pleaded with her quietly.

You finally made it to the hallway just outside their bedroom, taking in the scene of your mom’s wild, scared eyes and Hyukjun’s desperate concern. “Mom, I’m here, I’m okay.”

“Y/N!” She let out a gasp of relief as soon as she saw you. “Oh, you’re okay.”

“Yes, Mom, I’m okay.” You offered her your hand, and she grabbed it tightly. “What’s wrong? Why are you up?”

“I’ve been trying to tell your dad—” She gestured to Hyukjun pointedly. “But this house isn’t right.”

“What do you mean?”

“It just isn’t right,” she repeated insistently. “What happened to our old house? We need to go back there!”

You looked at Hyukjun desperately, at a loss for words to explain that she sold it years ago. Thankfully, he took over.

“It’s late, hon. We can’t go all the way back to the old house this late at night, especially not with Y/N. It’s not safe,” he persuaded her gently.

She seemed to relax a little at this. “Oh. Right. It’s late.”

“Can you read me something, Mom?” You requested sweetly.

This finally brought a smile to her features, and she nodded, her grasp on your hand turning tender. “Oh, of course, Y/N. I’m sorry I woke you, sweetie.”

“It’s alright, Mom,” you reassured her, leading her back into their bedroom. “Everything’s alright.”

Hyukjun’s funeral was quaint. It was kept to family and close friends, and organized mostly by his sons and ex-wife. You didn’t mind, your mother was in no shape to organize a funeral, and you were more than happy to step aside and support her through this while they dealt with the details.

Today of all days was one of your mother’s better days, possibly one of the best that she’s had in a while, and you didn’t know if that was better or worse. Better, you decided, so she could say goodbye to him properly. After the small funeral was the wake, held at Hyukjun’s home—which was now your home, you realized—and was a more open-door affair. Your mom’s memory care aide, Nayoung, came as well, which you were glad for. While your stepbrothers and their mother played host more than you, greeting guests as they showed up, chatting and reminiscing with them about all their shared memories of Hyukjun from years or even decades ago, it was still your residence, and you couldn’t bring yourself to just stay in a corner. Hyukjun had been your family too, for however brief a period of your life.

You were alone in the kitchen getting refreshments for yourself, your mom, and Nayoung when you sensed that you weren’t by yourself. Turning around, you did in fact see your stepbrothers entering the kitchen, followed by their mother.

You offered them all a small, polite smile. “Hi.”

“Glad we caught you, Y/N,” the oldest brother flashed you a grin. “You got a sec?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“We know it must be really tough for you, taking care of your mom by yourself now,” their mother said, her voice coated in an over-the-top sugary sweet sympathy.

You shrugged noncommittally. “Nayoung helps.”

The youngest jumped in, “We just wanted you to know that you and your mom can take as much time as you need to move out.”

“Of course, of course,” their mother agreed. “You know, a week or two.”

They all nodded and murmured in agreement, focusing the same overeager, empty, sympathetic faces on you that made you feel like you were surrounded by some kind of predator that wanted to empathize you to death. Steeling your nerves, you met all of their eyes in turn as you went to answer.

“We’re not moving out.” You informed them firmly. “Hyukjun left the house to me to keep taking care of my mom. After… it’s all yours.”

“And we’re supposed to believe you’ll just give it to us?” The youngest scoffed, immediately dropping his kind, caring act. All of their faces were somewhere between disbelief and anger.

“No, he set it up that way. You can get your copies of the papers from his attorney, Mr. Shin.” You brought out the business card for the attorney who drafted the papers. You’d tucked it into your wallet absentmindedly when it’d been given to you on your initial errand from Hyukjun, and you were glad you hadn’t had the time to clean out your wallet since. You set the business card down on the counter between you.

The oldest snatched up the card. “There’s no way…”

“We’re going to fight this. No way the house is yours,” the youngest swore.

The middle son spoke finally, his gaze hard as he glared at you. He practically snarled, “You’re not his family, you’ve never been.”

“It was good seeing you all again,” you said, no emotion in your voice. Abandoning your three glasses, you scooted around the counter, then around them, heading towards the kitchen door that they had been blocking the whole time. “Please have all communications about the property go through Mr. Shin. He’ll be able to answer your questions better than I can.”

Crying at a wake was normal. Encouraged even. But you weren’t amongst loved ones, remembering someone you’d lost. You were alone, sitting at the top of the stairs in the dark, crying into your arms to muffle your sobs as you tried to compose yourself from the confrontation you’d just survived. Barely. Your hands were balled into fists to keep them from shaking.

“Are you okay?” A quiet voice caught your attention, gentle, then hushed as he seemed to be speaking to himself, “Why are you asking that? Stupid, stupid.”

You picked your head up out of your arms, quickly wiping the tears that had been streaming down your cheeks as you spotted a young man at the bottom of the stairs. He had dark hair and was dressed in a pair of black pants, a white shirt, and what looked like a black cardigan over the shirt. You didn’t recognize him from the wake, but you hadn’t greeted everyone, nor did you know all the mourners personally. Many were either family friends of Hyukjun’s from before he met your mother, old colleagues, or distant relations.

Sniffling and trying to right your clothes, you offered him as much of a smile you could muster, “I’m sorry, it’s uhm, been a long day.”

He froze, his eyes locking on yours and going wide. The man looked behind him, as if expecting you to have been addressing somebody else, and upon seeing an empty hallway, he turned back to you and hesitantly replied, “That’s… okay. Are you alright?”

“Oh, as alright as I can be, I suppose,” you admitted, dabbing at your eyes with your sleeve again. You weren’t sure why you were telling this random man that, but he had spotted you sobbing at a wake, so there wasn’t much of a point in covering that fact up. “Were you looking for the bathroom or…?”

“No, just stretching my legs.” He pushed his hands into the pockets of his cardigan. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” You nodded. “I don’t think I saw you at the funeral. How did you know my stepdad? Family friend?”

“Yeah, I was around when his kids were growing up.”

“Oh, are you a childhood friend of his sons or something?”

“Friend is a stretch, I think,” he chuckled.

You couldn’t help but laugh bitterly as well, adding a polite but hollow, “I’m sure they appreciate you coming out to pay your respects.”

As he shifted on his feet, the shadows on his face lessened, letting you see his features better. You furrowed your brow with interest.

“How old are you? I mean—You don’t look older than me, you must’ve been much younger than them growing up.”

“I-I mean, we weren’t very close,” he stammered, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

Feeling bad about putting him on the spot in this sort of scenario, you offered him a sympathetic smile. “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that. I didn’t grow up with my stepbrothers, so I guess it’s a bit hard for me to imagine them having friends—Oh!”

As soon as the words were out of your mouth, you slapped a hand over it, wishing you hadn’t said them, especially not to some stranger, who for all you know could turn right around and repeat it to your stepbrothers. That would be the last thing you needed, to give them another reason to hate you, and by extension, your mother.

“That didn’t come out right!” You desperately tried to backpedal, holding your hands out in front of you. “I-I meant that I haven’t met a lot of their friends, since our parents got together later in life, and—”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he reassured you calmly, taking a couple hesitant steps up the stairs. You scooted over to make room for him to sit next to you on the top step. He pressed himself against the banister, leaving plenty of space between you two. “I didn’t mean to, but I heard some of what they said to you in the kitchen.”

“I would normally be upset at you for eavesdropping, but I’m kind of glad that somebody else heard some of the shit they said to me this time,” you chuckled cynically.

“‘This time?’” He repeated questioningly. “Are they always like that to you?”

“I don’t see them that often. I think the first time I met the middle son was at the wedding, actually,” you said. “They started spending more holidays with their mom instead of Hyukjun when my mom… after her diagnosis.”

“Oh.”

“God, sorry, you don’t need to be hearing all this shit.” You shook your head at yourself. “I mean, I don’t even know your name.”

“I’m Jisung.”

“Y/N.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s true. You and your mom are his family, too.”

You messed with the sleeves of your shirt as you stared at the bottom step, gnawing on your bottom lip, ignoring the metallic taste of blood when you broke skin. Finally, once you’d swallowed down the lump in your throat, you replied with a tight, “Thanks. And I mean, I understand why they would be upset. Their dad just died and two people who are essentially strangers to them are now living in their childhood home. Of course they feel weird about it.”

“That’s... gracious.”

“It’s true. And like I said, their dad died, they deserve some grace.” From elsewhere in the house, you could hear your mom calling your name, and immediately jumped to your feet. “Sorry, I’ve got to go.”

“I understand.” Jisung nodded to you. “It was nice talking to you, Y/N.”

“Yeah, you too. Thanks for listening, Jisung.” You waved to him over your shoulder as you rushed down the stairs and off in the direction of your mother’s voice.

The next day, you had habitually started preparing three plates of breakfast before you caught yourself. In the first couple days after his passing, it was painfully in the foreground of your mind with everything you did, but this was the first time you’d found yourself going about a daily task and it had slipped your mind. You left the full plate of food in the kitchen to clean up later, and took just yours and your mom’s plates to the kitchen table.

“Do you want to go on a walk after breakfast?” You proposed as you ate.

It was something that Hyukjun and your mom did every morning. Sometimes you joined them, but usually you took the opportunity to clean up around the house or get work done in the quiet. Your mother had no trouble ambulating, it was her mind that was going faster than anything else. With Hyukjun no longer here to walk with her, you didn’t want her to lose that precious time going out, or the exercise. Not to mention, you needed to get out of the house again.

“Oh, I’d love to, sweetie,” she agreed with a smile, one that you noticed didn’t reach her eyes.

“After we’re done, I’ll clean up while you get ready.”

As you scooped the extra food into a plastic container at the end of breakfast, you realized the lid that you’d grabbed was the wrong size. Opening the cabinet that contained all the plastic containers, you squatted down with a sigh, mentally preparing yourself to ransack through the absolute mess that greeted you down there. Hyukjun normally kept it meticulously organized, all containers accompanied by their proper lids, but in your rush to clean up after everyone left the wake late last night, you had effectively ruined all of it.

You tried to just look under a haphazard stack of plastic containers, and they of course all came crashing out onto the kitchen floor. You groaned, plopping down onto your butt as you got ready to have to put them all back. But as you went to pick up the first one, an overwhelming, crushing feeling of loneliness and sorrow hit you like a bus, and you covered your face as you started sobbing. The hot tears stung your eyes, every shaking breath you took hurt your chest, and even the task of putting the tupperware back seemed impossible and monumental now.

Rubbing one of your eyes, you inhaled and forced yourself to grab just one container to put back. “Come on, don’t have time for this.”

Slowly, you put the containers away, until there was one lid left that had slid much further away from you. You crawled over to it, realizing the shape seemed familiar as you held it in your hands. Standing back up, you fitted it over the container of leftovers you had perfectly.

“Huh.” Your sobs petered out as you looked down at it curiously. “That could’ve been easier.”

Throwing open the front door, you grunted as you hauled your heavy grocery bags into the home.

“Y/N? Is that you?” Nayoung’s voice called out. She had increased the frequency and duration of her visits since Hyukjun’s passing, and today you took the opportunity to do some much-needed restocking of the kitchen during her stay.

“Yeah!” You yelled back.

“Do you need any help?”

“No, I’m fine!” You hopped on one foot as you tried to wedge your other foot behind the door to close it. “Just—Shit!”

The door suddenly came loose, slamming closed even harder than you had opened it. Nayoung came around the corner with wide eyes, looking rather startled.

“Is everything okay?” She asked, taking a couple bags from your hands, looking you over inquisitively.

You looked between your still-raised foot and the door, a bit dumbfounded. You swore you hadn’t kicked it that hard. This wasn’t actually your house, after all.

“Yeah, Nayoung, I’m okay,” you reassured her, leading the way into the kitchen. “Do you have a window open? There must be a cross-breeze or something.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

It was pouring rain outside, the sky dull and gray, occasionally lit up with flashes of lightning. The constant pounding downpour was interspersed with cracks of thunder that would rattle frames on the walls. The weather was so bad that Nayoung couldn’t even make it out, leaving just you and your mom all day. It wasn’t so bad, today was a better day for her. She was calm at least, despite the weather, absorbed in her books for most of the day. Maybe a little too absorbed, as it was hard to tear her away for meals or snacks. But you could get your work done and do chores around the house uninterrupted, and once you finished your own to-do list, you were able to sit down in the living room with her and read as well.

After a particularly bright flash of lightning, followed by a boom of thunder that made you feel like you were in a low-level earthquake rather than a thunderstorm, the lights went out entirely. You heard the telltale clatter of your mom dropping her book in surprise as she gasped.

“Mom?” You called out to her, both to check on her and so she knew that you were still there.

“I’m okay, sweetie,” she promised. “I just got startled and dropped my book.”

“Stay there,” you directed her, pulling out your phone and turning on your flashlight. You could see that her book had skidded some distance away from her, out of arm’s reach. “I’ll check the breaker. Don’t get up, I don’t want you tripping over anything.”

“Alright. Be safe.”

Opening the utility closet in the laundry room, you threw your hands up in exasperation as you looked over the circuit breaker. You had no fucking clue what you were doing. Right as you had turned on your phone, fully intent on searching the internet for what the fuck you were supposed to do now, the power came back on all on its own.

“Well, there we go!” You called out through the house, starting back towards your mom. “I’m a genius!”

Upon your return to the living room, you stopped when you noticed one key difference: The book was no longer on the floor. It was on the side table next to your mom. There was no way your mom could’ve moved fast enough to have gotten the book and then sat back down in the time since the lights turned back on.

You sighed gently. “I told you not to get up, Mom.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then how’d the book get there?” You pointed to the book knowingly.

“I didn’t—” She looked at it curiously, then at where it used to be on the floor. “Oh… I guess I must’ve… Sorry, sweetie.”

You walked over to rest a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Mom. I’m sorry if I seemed upset with you. I just don’t want you getting hurt.”

She patted your hand. “I know, Y/N. You’re doing a good job.”

The rain was still pounding against the windows that night. Your mom had gone to bed a while ago, but your mind was restless. Something had happened again as you were helping your mom get ready for bed. Hyukjun’s reading glasses, which were on the nightstand on his side of their bed, as they had been since he passed, had fallen off with seemingly no rhyme or reason. Not wanting your mom to get spooked about the house again, you reassured her that you had just bumped into the furniture—her back was turned when they fell—but it left you with an uneasy feeling.

You’d pocketed the glasses instead of replacing them on the nightstand, and were staring at them on the kitchen counter now, fondly remembering the way he used to peer at you over the lenses as he read the newspaper in the morning and you made sarcastic quips about whatever headlines were on the pages facing you.

“Hyukjun?” You said his name into the empty air, uncertainty making your voice waver. After a beat of silence, you hissed, “Of course you weren’t going to get a reply, stupid, stupid.”

Trying to gather yourself, you moved to open the freezer, securing the tub of ice cream from inside it. Sitting at the kitchen table with two spoons, you set one in front of Hyukjun’s spot across from you. Glumly spooning some ice cream into your mouth, you barely tasted it as you stared at his empty chair.

“I miss you,” you said softly, not expecting an answer this time. “A lot. It’s not fair. I know that’s what your sons think, it’s not fair that it was you and not her. But… it’s not fair that we only got… so little time with you.”

You sniffled against the oncoming tears, eating another spoonful.

“I wish… I wish my mom had met you earlier, I wish you didn’t leave us so soon, I wish we got more time…” You looked down at the tub in front of you, your appetite gone. “And I wish I wasn’t eating your favorite ice cream by myself.”

You stood back up, taking both spoons with you into the kitchen. Dropping them into the sink to deal with in the morning, you put the ice cream away and shut off the kitchen lights. You left his glasses on the kitchen counter, deciding you would put them back in your mother’s room tomorrow. As you headed up the stairs, you paused at the top step, a memory of Hyukjun’s wake coming back to you. The nice guy who sat with you and listened to you. You really wished you could have somebody to talk to again.

Something in you made you look over your shoulder then, back down at the bottom step. You swore a darker shape was standing there, unclear in the night. Your heart rate spiked.

“Hyukjun…?” You whispered, hesitantly going down one more step to try to make out what you were seeing better. The shadow seemed to back up one step at the same time you did that, and another name came to your mind.

“Jisung?”

The figure moved closer, a beam of moonlight illuminating half of his shocked face. “You remember me?”

You should’ve yelled. You should’ve shouted at him to get out, called the police, any number of things ahead of what you actually did. Getting even closer, you nodded slowly. “Of course I remember you, Jisung.”

He was still staring at you in disbelief. “And you can see me? Again?”

“Yes,” you confirmed, standing on the step right above him. “You’re a ghost.”

It was meant to be a question, but it came out like a statement, like you had known all along, just saying common knowledge.

He swallowed. “Yes.”

You peered at the space around and behind him. “Is my stepdad here?”

“No.” He shook his head. “He wanted to stay, for your mom. I told him if he stayed, he could get stuck. He decided to go.”

“Go… where?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted.

“What about…” You looked up into his dark eyes hopefully. “Is my dad here?”

“It’s just me,” he answered quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m glad he’s not… stuck. Either of them.” You breathed out, a mixture of relief and disappointment in your chest. Remembering what he told you at the wake, you asked, “You used to live here?”

“Before your stepdad bought it, yeah.”

You recalled the surprise on his face both tonight and at the wake when you addressed him. “You’re not used to being seen, are you?”

“No, I’m not. You’re the first person who’s seen me since…” He trailed off, biting the inside of his cheek as he seemed to be picking his words. “Since I’ve been like this.”

You nodded slowly, understanding what he meant. “Have you been… helping? Picking up my mom’s book? And closing the door? And the tupperware lid and the fork?”

Jisung nodded fervently. “I didn’t mean to scare you, or make you sad. I’m sorry. I just wanted to help you.”

“What about Hyukjun’s glasses today? Did you knock those off?”

He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “It was an accident… They were really close to the edge, I didn’t want them to fall off and break. So I tried to move them away from the edge, but there was this thunder, and I dropped them.”

You couldn’t help but burst into laughter at the mental image of a ghost getting spooked by thunder, slapping a hand over your mouth as you giggled. Jisung wasn’t laughing, but he did have a soft smile on his features as he looked at you.

“Sorry, sorry,” you were still chuckling as you tried to compose yourself.

“It’s okay…” He assured you. “I’m sorry for dropping them.”

“You didn’t break them, it’s fine.” You looked at him thoughtfully. He was wearing the same thing he was wearing when you met him at the wake, dark pants, dark shoes, a white button-up, and dark cardigan. You tilted your head curiously. “Are you sure my mom hasn’t seen you? She swears the house is haunted, you know.”

“I think she can tell that something is… off, sometimes. But no, she’s never seen me.”

“I’m guessing you have no clue why I can see you right now?” You surmised. “They don’t exactly give you a ghost handbook, do they?”

Jisung shook his head. “No, I don’t know.”

“Thank you again, by the way. For being so nice to me at the wake.”

“They really shouldn’t have been talking to you like that.” He frowned. “They have no clue… He loved you and your mom so much. You two are his family, too.”

You chuckled sadly. “So did you actually hear all of it, then?”

“I was already in there when they went in after you,” he confirmed. “I thought you might… I could create a distraction in another room if it got bad.”

“Do you do that a lot? Follow me around?”

His eyes widened as he clearly began to panic, shaking his head fervently. “N-Not like that! Only like, in normal places! I mean, like, there’s not a lot to do when you’re a ghost stuck in a house, and I think you’re cool—Oh god, I meant, uhm, I mostly stay on the first floor, promise!”

You couldn’t help but giggle again as he had missed the light teasing in your tone. “Mostly?”

Jisung visibly gulped. “I woke you up one time, when your mom was having a really bad time in the middle of the night and your stepdad couldn’t calm her down. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“Jisung, it’s okay,” you tried your best to be reassuring, even as you let out choked laughter. “I don’t expect you to sit in a corner for eternity. Thanks for staying in normal places.”

“Thanks for not being creeped out…” He muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.

You let out a yawn, covering your mouth with your hand. After it passed, you gave Jisung a sheepish smile. “If I go to sleep right now… will I still be able to see you in the morning?”

“You… want to?”

“Yeah.” You smiled and shrugged. “Better than just talking to my mother, Nayoung, and myself like I usually do every day.”

The corners of his lips twitched as he went to nod. “I’ll try to be here in the morning. You should go to sleep.”

“Alright. Goodnight, Jisung.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

Halfway up the stairs, you turned back around to see him still standing at the bottom, watching you. You threw back a teasing, “Promise you’ll stay on the first floor?”

“Cross my heart.” He made an X over the left side of his chest.

“Not sure how much that’s worth coming from a ghost,” you grinned. “But I guess it’s the thought that counts.”

In the morning, you sat with your feet dangling over the edge of your bed for an extra few seconds, very calmly contemplating your sanity. You had been spending the majority of your time in this house, talking to nobody else except your mother and Nayoung, who came five days a week for three hours at a time, your only other regular human interaction coming in the form of emails or the occasional phone calls with your co-workers. Was it really so unlikely that your brain was inventing someone new for you to talk to? How could you even determine if he was real or not? Did that even really matter?

With a sigh, you got to your feet and shuffled into your bathroom. Your mom had always been an early riser, something that hadn’t changed now, and you had to take care of your own morning routine before she woke up. While the shift in your schedule initially took some getting used to, the daily alone time that you got to devote to your own self-care was something you treasured, and helped you start your day in a good headspace.

Coming out of your bedroom refreshed and in clean clothes, you meandered down the stairs, listening for any signs of life in the rest of the house. If your mom was up, she would at least be moving around her room, if not elsewhere in the house. And then there was the possibility of seeing the ghost again.

Right as you reached the bottom of the stairs, your mom’s bedroom door opened, and she poked her head out. You smiled and walked over to her.

“Morning, Mom.”

“Hi, sweetie.” She took your arm, looking around the hallway.

“You okay?”

“Did he go out?”

You tilted your head, keeping your tone light as you asked, “…He?”

“Hyukjun,” she answered. “He usually leaves a note.”

You bit your lip and nodded. “Yeah, he had some errands, said he’ll be back soon. You can get on him about forgetting your note when he gets back.”

Her features relaxed, and she rubbed your back. “Thanks, Y/N. Don’t know what we’d do without you.”

There was a knock on the front door then, and you went to go open it up for Nayoung. As she helped your mom with the rest of her morning, you headed towards the kitchen to start on breakfast. A figure was already at the kitchen table, however, his back to you as he sat in the fourth chair that had always been empty for as long as you’d been in the house. Jisung turned around when he heard your footsteps, giving you a small wave.

“Morning,” you smiled and nodded, hoping you didn’t look too put-off. You weren’t sure if you would’ve been more surprised if he was here or not.

“Good morning.” His eyes followed you as you continued into the kitchen. From his seat, he could still see you over the kitchen counter. His hands were folded politely in his lap, and he watched you as you started pulling out ingredients for breakfast.

“So, what do you do all night?” You questioned. “Do you sleep?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I read, or look at the moon, or think.”

“I think I’d hate being alone with my thoughts for eternity.” You shook your head, bringing down plates from the cabinet.

“It’s not so bad.” Jisung shrugged. “I wasn’t much of a talker before anyway.”

“An introvert?”

“Yes.” He tilted his head curiously. “You don’t normally cook for Nayoung.”

You looked down at the plates in your hand and realized that you had grabbed three instead of the normal two. Nayoung always ate breakfast before coming over, so you just had to make food for you and your mom. You’d done this before, accidentally making a serving for Hyukjun out of habit, but you knew that wasn’t what happened this time.

Putting the extra plate back, you said, “No, I was… I think I was about to make you a plate. Felt like I had a guest over.”

Surprisingly, this made Jisung crack a smile. “I appreciate it. Your food always looks good.”

“I don’t think it’s anything special.” You shrugged, turning on the stove. “I learned to cook from my mother, we just did it to survive. Hyukjun was a much better cook than either of us.”

“To survive?”

“After my dad passed…” You pursed your lips as you tried to think of how to phrase it, pushing around food in the pan. “She sort of closed up. My mom gave me a good life growing up, don’t get me wrong. But it’s hard being a single parent, and she never really made any friends, she spent all her time taking care of me or working. Then when I moved out, she closed up even more. I was kind of afraid she’d close all the way up, until she met Hyukjun.”

“I see…”

You heard footsteps coming from down the hall, and halted your conversation. Nayoung and your mom entered the kitchen dining area just a few moments later, paying Jisung no mind, clearly not seeing him at all.

“Y/N, were you on the phone?” Your mother asked as Nayoung guided her to her usual seat.

Nayoung took Hyukjun’s old place beside her.

“Oh, yeah, work call,” you fibbed. “Something urgent, couldn’t wait until I clocked in, I guess.”

“That’s inconsiderate.”

You chuckled, then looked to the aide. “Coffee, Nayoung?”

“If you’re making some, please.”

“Was just about to start a pot.”

Sitting down at the full table with your food and coffee in front of you, your mother to your left, Nayoung across from you, and Jisung to your right, you couldn’t help but smile, an odd sense of peace settling in your chest that hadn’t been there in quite some time.

That night, after your mother went to sleep, you traipsed into the kitchen, opening up the freezer. Turning to Jisung with the carton of ice cream in your hand, you said, “I don’t suppose you could help me with this?”

“Unfortunately not,” he chuckled.

“Figured I would ask,” you sighed, grabbing a spoon. “Come on, I’m thinking a movie?”

Curled up in the corner of the couch under a blanket, you had just opened the ice cream when you realized you left the remote on the coffee table out of your reach. Jisung was still standing, seeming unsure of where to sit.

“Can you pass me the remote?” You requested, stretching an arm out towards it but ultimately not reaching it.

“Oh, sure, sure.” He picked it up with ease just like you would, handing it off to you.

“Thanks.” You turned the TV on. He was still standing, so you gestured to the rest of the empty couch. “Sit, Jisung.”

“Right,” he mumbled, taking a seat next to you.

“You haven’t seriously been standing there like that this whole time, have you?”

“I… sit sometimes, yeah.”

“Good.” You patted his arm—or you tried to pat his arm, but instead your hand hit the back of the couch, a cold shiver running up your arm starting at your fingertips. You jerked your hand back in alarm, eyes going wide. “Shit! Sorry! Did I just like, smack your lung or something?”

Jisung laughed hard, his nose scrunching up and his hand flying up to cover his mouth as he giggled. “I’ve never thought of it like that. I don’t—I don’t think so, no.”

“It didn’t like, hurt, did it?”

“No. Feels a little weird, like… Ah, I don’t know how to describe it if you’re still corporeal. But it doesn’t hurt.”

“Okay good,” you breathed out. Looking down at the remote in your hand, you frowned thoughtfully. “How come you could grab this just fine, but I just go through you?”

“It used to happen with objects, too,” he informed you, reaching his hand out towards the coffee table. The ghost moved it down, his hand effortlessly gliding through the table just like yours had gone through him a few moments earlier. “I can control it now. But for some reason, people, I still can’t.”

“That sounds… lonely.”

Jisung shrugged, offering you a sort of sad smile. “Hey, I just spent a few decades not being seen or heard by anybody either. I’ll take what I can get.”

“Alright, what are we feeling?” You hummed as you pulled up the streaming service. “Ghost movie?”

He gave you a skeptical look. “You hate horror movies. You made Hyukjun turn all the lights in the house on when he put ‘Saw’ on.”

“Aw come on, no laugh? Not even a chuckle? Ironic scoff?” You wrinkled your nose at him.

“I’m laughing on the inside.”

“I was very brave for watching it all, though, wouldn’t you agree?” You grinned, grabbing a big spoonful of ice cream.

Jisung’s amused smile was apparent that time. “Very. If I had gold stars to give out, you’d get one.”

“Okay, what about ‘The Batman’? The one with Robert Pattinson, I literally don’t care about the other ones.”

“I’m not sure who that is, but sure.”

“Jisung, I’m about to change your afterlife. Possibly for the worse.”

From when you woke up to when you went to sleep, if you were at home, Jisung was usually around. You found that you didn’t mind his presence, if anything it was comforting, he made the house feel less empty than it would be with just you and your mother—and occasionally Nayoung. You had to catch yourself from talking to him when your mom or Nayoung were within earshot, or looking too obviously at where he was standing or sitting when they were in the room. Your evenings that you used to spend with Hyukjun were now spent with the ghost, watching shows or movies, showing him your favorite music, or just talking.

This morning, as your mom bathed herself and Nayoung waited for her in her bedroom, just in case, you had some extra time. Which you were glad for, as you knew you were moving slow, feeling more like a zombie than a functioning human being as you prepared breakfast. You yawned, covering your mouth with the back of your hand before gripping the tomato again and continuing your cuts.

“So what—”

“Y/N!” Jisung’s cry of warning came before you registered your tomato juice-slickened fingers slipping down the food and under the blade.

You looked down to see crimson red welling up and joining the tomato’s seeds at the same time you felt coldness on your hands. Jisung had tried to grab you, both too late, and in an ill-fated attempt even if he hadn’t been, as his hands went right through yours. You belatedly hissed as your sleep-slogged mind finally registered the pain, made extra by the sting of tomato juice in the cuts. Jisung swore under his breath as he grabbed a kitchen towel instead, wrapping it around your fingers and pressing hard as his other hand knocked the knife out of your uninjured fingers that were still lamely holding it. He reached over to turn the sink on, and pulled you over there by the grip he had on the towel. He couldn’t move your hand under the water once he took the towel off, though, staring at you pointedly.

“Right,” you mumbled, putting your fingers under the stream of the faucet to rinse the cuts clean of tomato guts. “Thanks, Jisung.”

“What—” He was cut off by the doorbell ringing.

You hurriedly ripped off a wad of paper towels to press to your cut, calling out to Nayoung, “I’ll get it!”

You knew Jisung was following you, not bothering to keep his sighs quiet as you peered through the peephole first—habit. A pit formed in your stomach when you recognized the man standing on your doorstep immediately.

Forcing your features into a pleasantly neutral expression, you opened the door just enough to greet your eldest stepbrother. “Good morning, Seohyuk.”

He fixed you with the same wide, dazzling grin that he always had, one that made you think he should be doing real estate instead of whatever his real job was—investment broker or something. He was in a suit, looking like he had stopped by on his way to work. You bit back the urge to look down at your own lounge clothes and hair still damp from your shower.

“Y/N! Good morning!” He was still beaming. “Looking beautiful as always.”

“Can I help you?” You asked politely, stepping onto the porch and forcing him to back up a step off the welcome mat, keeping one hand on the door handle.

He then seemed to have noticed your hand. “Are you alright? Did you hurt yourself?”

“Nicked myself with a knife in the kitchen just now. I’m fine,” you shrugged off his concerns. “Why are you here?”

“Oh my god! We should go in and get that washed out!” His hands fluttered over you with feigned worry, trying to usher you back into the house, put you stayed put, firmly shutting the front door behind you.

“I already washed it out,” you informed him flatly. “What do you want?”

The expressiveness immediately dropped off his face, and a cool, suave smirk overtook it as he sized you up. “Alright. Big girl can handle herself.”

“We’re both adults, Seohyuk, I’d appreciate it if you can act like one and get to your point.”

“Funny, my dad never seemed to think you were one,” he sneered. “You were the little princess he never got to have.”

“If this is all you came for, I’m going back inside,” you sighed, reaching for the handle again.

“I came to inspect the property.” He finally gave you his reason, holding his chin up. “As is my right, to make sure you’re not letting it go to ruins. So you have to let me in.”

Right, as if the house could’ve fallen to the wayside and become dilapidated in a week. You turned back to him, meeting his gaze head-on. It was easier like this, just one of them. Especially Seohyuk, he didn’t have a temper like his younger brothers, nor did his words cut as deep as his mom’s, he was just… a jerk. You could deal with a jerk.

“And, as I’m sure you saw when you continued reading the papers, you have to give me at least twenty-four hours’ notice before conducting any inspection of the property. So, I will see you in twenty-four hours.” You grabbed the door handle again. “Goodbye, Seohyuk.”

You didn’t wait for his response, rushing inside and slamming the door shut behind you. You locked it up as quick as you could, not wanting to take any chances.

“You’re not seriously going to let him come in here?!” Jisung blurted out, wide eyes focused on you. Of course he heard everything again.

As you opened your mouth to answer, Nayoung stepped out your mom’s room hesitantly, worried eyes focused on you. You turned to her instead, offering her a reassuring smile.

“Is there anything I can do, Y/N?” She asked quietly. You didn’t want to know how much she had heard.

“I’ll try to arrange it so the inspection is during your time. If she’s up for it tomorrow, could you take my mom on a walk? I need to be here, and she really shouldn’t be.”

The aide nodded quickly. “Of course, yes.”

Back in the kitchen, Jisung pulled the first aid kit down, and you applied your own bandages to the cuts on your fingers. You could feel his eyes boring holes into your hair as you bowed your head to pay extra close attention to your injuries.

“Y/N—”

“What did you want me to do, Jisung?” You hissed, not meaning for it to come out as venomous as it did. “They’re entitled to inspect the premises, it’s technically also kind of their house. I would’ve been in bigger shit if I told him no!”

The ghost was quiet, and when you finally looked up, you saw the hurt on his own face. You sighed, throwing away the bloody paper towels and bandage wrappers. Rolling out your shoulders and your neck to relieve the tension that had built up there, you loosely wrapped your arms around yourself.

“I’m sorry,” you said quietly. “I’m not mad at you, none of this is your fault. I’m just… stressed, and I slept like shit last night. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“It’s okay, Y/N,” he reassured you. “I just… hate the idea of you and that guy being in this house by yourselves, you know? I don’t trust him.”

“Oh, we won’t be alone.”

“I know I’ll be here, but that’s not the same as having someone who could actually do something.”

“I know you’ll be here, and that’s reassuring,” you replied, an amused smile playing at your lips. “But that’s not entirely what I meant.”

“Mr. Shin, thank you for coming on such short notice,” you greeted the attorney with a polite bow, welcoming him into the house.

Mr. Shin was an older man, around Hyukjun’s age, with salt and pepper hair, who hastily returned the bow. He wore a simple black suit, white dress shirt, and black tie, thick-framed glasses perched on his nose, and he held his black briefcase tightly to his side. He was exactly as you pictured him from speaking to him on the phone yesterday—when you picked up Hyukjun’s papers, you’d only dealt with his secretary.

“Of course, Ms. Y/L/N, it’s my duty,” he replied briskly. “Your stepbrother has not arrived yet, has he?”

“No, I’m expecting Seohyuk in a few minutes.”

“Good, good.”

“Would you like some coffee? Or tea?”

“No, thank you, I couldn’t intrude.” He shook his head fervently. “Your mother isn’t home, is she?”

“She stepped out for a walk just before you arrived. She doesn’t need to be here, does she?”

“No, no, not at all.” He seemed relieved at this news, if anything.

The doorbell rang then, and you smiled at the lawyer. “That should be him.”

Looking out the peephole first, it was in fact Seohyuk. You opened the door wider than yesterday, offering him a polite smile. “Good morning, Seohyuk.”

“Alright, Y/N, it’s been twenty-four hours, let me in.” He skipped pleasantries entirely, a glare already on his features.

“Of course.” You obliged gracefully, opening the door all the way for him.

He obviously hadn’t seen anybody else, as he faltered upon stepping inside and spotting Mr. Shin in the entryway. It was as if a magic spell had been cast on him, Seohyuk straightened up, adjusting his own tie and throwing on his charming smile, offering a hand out to him. “Kim Seohyuk, nice to meet you.”

Mr. Shin once again bowed formally, ignoring the hand in front of him. “Attorney Shin. I’m the lawyer in charge of your father’s estate, and I’ll be overseeing this inspection.”

“Great. Yeah, I’m glad Y/N remembered to call you like we talked about,” Seohyuk lied through his teeth, keeping his voice casual. “She’s been a little all over the place with taking care of her mom by herself since Dad passed, so I offered to, but she insisted she would do it since she only works part-time now.”

You clenched your jaw to not call him a piss-poor liar to his face. Or punch him in the face. His ‘she’s a mess, but we love her’ tone really irked you. Jisung had been lurking in the corner the whole time with his arms crossed over his chest and chose now to mimic choking Seohyuk—it took everything in you not to burst out laughing, but it successfully dissolved the anger that had been bubbling in your veins.

Mr. Shin either didn’t believe him or didn’t care, as he simply nodded and then looked to the both of you. “If there are no questions, we will begin in the kitchen.”

The inspection was uneventful—you passed with flying colors, of course—and at the end, you got to see both Mr. Shin and Seohyuk out at the front door simultaneously.

“I will be making note of this in the estate’s file, of course,” Mr. Shin said in closing. “So as to not intrude on Ms. Y/L/N and her mother too much, inspections are limited to once per year, as you know.”

“What?!” Seohyuk’s jaw dropped. “Th-That’s per person, right? Like, if my brothers wanted an inspection—”

“I’m afraid not, Mr. Kim. One inspection of the property per year. Unless good cause is shown.”

“Good cause? Like what?”

“If there is some damage externally that would lead you to believe Ms. Y/L/N has caused similar damage internally, or if she posted pictures to her social media of the inside that showed some damage. Something like that.”

You had to cover your mouth to keep from laughing in Seohyuk’s face as his jaw gaped open like a dead fish. After composing yourself, you gave the both of them a cheerful wave. “So I guess I’ll see you two next year.”

“And hopefully not any sooner!” Mr. Shin confirmed, bowing deeply once more.

You closed the door with a satisfying click. Turning back around to Jisung, you finally burst into laughter with him. He pumped his fist victoriously. “Gone until next year!”

Holding your hand up, you cheered, “Whoo! Come on, ghost five!”

Jisung whooshed his hand through yours, and the chill zipping up your arm only served to make you more excited. Finally, a win in all this.

3:16 a.m.

You glared at your bedside clock like it was doing this to you personally. Rolling onto your other side, you let out a disgruntled sigh. No matter how comfortable you were, how exhausted your bones and your brain were, you couldn’t fucking sleep. Sitting up, you threw your covers off of you and padded out of your room.

In the kitchen, you drank a glass of water, but couldn’t bring yourself to go back upstairs to your room. You wandered into the living room, plopping into your usual corner of the couch and pulling your knees to your chest. Turning your phone on, you once again glared at the time like it was invented to hurt you in particular.

3:20 a.m.

You could be doing something better right now, reading a book, laying very still with your eyes closed, meditating, anything but scrolling on your phone.

3:49 a.m.

Had you ever gotten a good night’s sleep in your life? You couldn’t remember in that moment. Your eyes stung looking at the screen, they stung when you closed them, but you blinked it away.

4:17 a.m.

“Y/N?” Jisung stepped into the living room. “Why are you still up?”

“Mm, Jisung, hey,” you greeted him dully, setting your phone aside on the arm of the couch. “I’m surprised it took you this long to find me.”

“I figured you were just getting a glass of water or something. I didn’t want to bother you. But you’ve been out here for almost an hour now.”

You sighed, resting your chin on your knees. “Can’t sleep.”

“Is something wrong?”

“I slept for a couple hours, but then I woke up and I just... couldn’t go back to sleep,” you sighed.

“Staring at that screen isn’t going to help you get back to sleep.” He frowned.

That made you chuckle. “And how do you know that?”

“Your mom used to get on your stepdad about using screens too close to bedtime,” he confessed. “Something about the light keeping your brain awake.”

You smiled as you could imagine that perfectly. “Yeah, that sounds like her.”

“Can I do anything to help? Do you want like, hot chocolate? Or…” He trailed off as he was clearly wracking his brain for another option.

“You want to keep me off my phone?”

He nodded.

You stood up, your fingers tapping over the spines on the bookcases before you grabbed one. You offered it out to Jisung. “Read to me.”

Jisung gently took the book from you, then nodded to the couch. “Sure. Lay down.”

“I’m not sleeping on the couch,” you snorted, taking your phone back off the arm and heading for the stairs. Tilting your head indicatively, you said, “Come on, you get to go to the second floor.”

His footsteps were quiet behind you, squeaking some of the same steps that you did as he followed you up the stairs. You opened the door to your bedroom, stepping in first and holding it open to gesture him in as he had stopped uncertainly by the threshold. Closing the door behind him, you then sat down on your bed again.

“Here.” You patted the empty side of the bed for him.

Jisung shuffled over, sitting up against the headboard with his long legs stretched out on top of your sheets. With amusement, you noted that he was no longer wearing his dark shoes, only black socks. You laid back down under your covers again, pulling your blankets up to your chin.

He clicked the lamp on his side of the bed on, and seemed to have read the title for the first time then. “Poems?”

“My mom used to read to me every night, way past the normal age that you stop doing that stuff I’m pretty sure. And whenever I got nightmares, or couldn’t sleep, I’d climb into her bed. It didn’t matter if I woke her up at two in the morning, she’d grab one of the five or ten books that were always on her nightstand and start reading to me until I fell asleep,” you explained, readjusting your pillow under your head. “That was one of my favorites. I figured it was worth a shot.”

Jisung opened the book to the first poem and began reading. His voice was soft and steady, deep and soothing. Despite your want to keep watching him and the focused look on his face as he read, his dark eyes following the words on the page, your own eventually fluttered shut against your will.

When you woke up, Jisung was no longer in your room. The book was resting on the nightstand on that side of the bed, and the lamp was off. Upon entering the kitchen, you saw Jisung standing at the humming microwave. He perked up when you walked in, despite the confused look on your face.

“Good morning!” He said brightly, then gestured to the microwave. “I’m making you hot chocolate. I heard the shower.”

“And if my mother had walked in and saw the hot chocolate making itself?” You asked dryly, still rubbing sleep out of your eyes. Your shower didn’t do much to wake you up this morning.

Jisung visually deflated, looking around guiltily. “Oh. Right…”

“It’s sweet, Jisung, thank you,” you added with a smile, watching his shoulders relax. “You’re very sweet. I just don’t want to give my mom a heart attack.”

“Of course.” He was smiling again too. “Sorry.”

Sitting halfway down the stairs with Jisung, you stared blankly at the front door. Dinner had been difficult for your mom tonight, and with no Nayoung at that meal, you had to do it all on your own. She was asleep now, and you held your head in your hands. Jisung was quietly sitting beside you, resting his elbows on his knees as his laced and unlaced his fingers in front of him. This was probably one of the best parts about having Jisung around. Despite being practically omnipresent at this point, if you didn’t want to talk, he didn’t talk. If you wanted to chat, he would talk to you about anything, but if you wanted utter silence, he would let you sit in utter silence—he just wouldn’t let you do it alone.

You felt nearly suffocated by the house in that moment, but you couldn’t leave your mom alone.

“Can you go outside?” You lifted your head to ask Jisung.

“Not very far,” he answered as if you were asking any other piece of trivia about him and his predicament.

“The porch swing?”

“Yes, I can go there.”

“Do you want to? Now? With me?”

He chuckled softly. “When have I ever told you no?”

It was a warm night, which you were glad for as you were only in your sleep shorts and a t-shirt as you sat on the wooden porch swing with Jisung. Holding the chain next to your head with one hand, you peered out at the nighttime around you, glad to be out of those walls finally.

“Pretty moon,” you commented, looking up at the silver half-moon above you.

“Mhm,” Jisung hummed his agreement.

“And stars,” you added, taking in the twinkling dots all around the moon.

“Mhm.”

“Pretty stars,” you clarified.

“Mhm.”

Looking at Jisung out of the corner of your eye, you kept the same tone of voice as you said, “Pretty garbage can.”

“Mhm.”

“Jisung?”

“Mhm?”

“You’re not listening to me.”

“Huh?”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Uhm… nothing.” He coughed. “Pretty moon.”

“Mhm.” You hummed back in the same sing-songy tone that he had. “I wish I could touch you.”

“Huh?” He spluttered out.

“Just feels like a nice moment to rest my head in your lap, don’t you think?” You looked over at him, meeting his dark eyes.

He looked down at his legs, then around him in what you would almost call an attempt to avoid your gaze. “Well… we could put one of the pillows on the swing where my lap is, and you can rest your head there and pretend it’s me.”

“That won’t be uncomfortable for you?”

“No, I’ll be fine,” he promised. “Just make sure it’s not too far over here, I don’t want to make you cold.”

After you settled onto your back with your head on a pillow, right on the edge of where Jisung’s thigh started, you could see Jisung and the porch roof directly above you. The corner of his mouth twitched as he looked down at you, and you smiled back up at him.

“Can you push the porch swing?” You requested.

“Sure,” he agreed, and you felt the swing gently push off backwards then sail forward.

You rolled your head to the side to be able to look at the moon again.

“Can I ask…” You poked your tongue on the inside of your cheek. “How did you die? If you want to tell me, you don’t have to.”

Jisung sighed. “I don’t know. I went to sleep one night and when I woke up, I wasn’t in my body anymore.”

You felt your eyes widen involuntarily. “Seriously? You weren’t sick or anything?”

“I felt fine,” he confirmed. “I didn’t even realize until I couldn’t grab the handle to open my bedroom door and leave. My hand just went through it. When I turned back around to my bed, I saw myself lying there. I thought I was still dreaming.”

“God... I’m sorry, Jisung.”

He shrugged, his fingers messing with the edges of the pillow that your head was on. “It could’ve been worse. It didn’t hurt, I wasn’t dreading the end or anything.”

You reached for his face, despite knowing that it wouldn’t work, holding your hand up as if you were cupping his cheek, hovering right on the edge of where your skin passed through each other. “Does that... I always feel cold when I try to touch you. Is this warm? To you?”

“I never notice that I’m cold until I touch you.” He hesitantly put his hand over yours. “Like when you’ve been outside during winter for so long that you don’t even feel temperature anymore. And then you step inside again and you can suddenly feel just how cold you are because everything else is so warm.”

“Is it… I don’t know, nice?”

“It’s… a lot,” he admitted. “It’s not bad, but I can never warm up.”

“Oh.” You took your hand back, resting it on your stomach.

“It’s late,” he said quietly. “Are you tired?”

“No, but I should probably head to bed.” You sat up reluctantly.

Only a few minutes after saying your goodnights, you were at the bottom of the stairs again, searching for Jisung. You found him in the living room.

“Can you read to me?” You asked, fidgeting with the sleeves of your shirt.

He chose a book off the shelves and followed you upstairs wordlessly. Back under your covers again, you listened to the sound of his fingers running over the edges of the pages, folding back the cover of the book before he started reading. It wasn’t the same book of poems as last time, instead you fondly recognized it as one of your favorite books from when you started reading novels as a kid, about a young girl who went on a grand fantasy adventure with all sorts of magical creatures. In the back of your mind, you thought to yourself that you were a little disappointed that you’d be asleep before the end, when she finally came home to her mother in the real world. That had always been your favorite part.

“Do cameras work on you?” You asked Jisung as you kneeled by one of the flowerbeds at the front of the house. It was early in the morning, and you made sure to keep one headphone in your ear so that any passerby who did happen by on morning walks or jogs would hopefully just think that you were on a phone call.

“Don’t know,” he shrugged, sitting on the porch swing. “I think I would’ve found out if I was in the background of any Kim family photos over the years.”

Curious, you took out your phone, opening up the camera and pointing it at him. The sun hadn’t fully risen yet, but in the low light you could see the porch swing just fine, seemingly rocking along on its own on your screen. Taking just one picture, you paused your weeding to look at it from your camera roll. Again, you definitely couldn’t see Jisung sitting on the porch swing like you could with your own two eyes, but there was something going on in the picture this time. The air seemed to shimmer and distort in the vague shape of a person sitting in the photo, exactly where he was in real life. You zoomed in on the fuzzy edges that nearly turned into shadow, squinting as you tried to make out whether the distortion was in the image file itself or part of Jisung somehow.

“Well?” Jisung questioned, tilting his head.

“I got... something.” You stood up, walking over to show him. “It’s not what I see when I look at you. I see, like, a person.”

“Oh.” His face fell as he looked over the photo of the strange figure.

“I think it’s cool,” you tried to cheer him up. “Very mysterious, you know.”

He gave you a half-hearted smile. “Thanks, Y/N.”

“I get why you’re bummed, though. It’s probably been a while since you’ve seen yourself, right? I never see your shadow or your reflection. Can you?”

“No, I can’t.” He shook his head. “It’s… I have my dad’s nose, and my mom’s smile. I just thought that even if I couldn’t see them anymore, it’d be nice to see the parts of them that are in me.”

You blinked back the tears that were pricking at your eyes. “I know what you mean. My dad’s mom was alive when I was younger, and she always said I looked just like him. I used to sit on my bathroom counter in front of the mirror with an old picture of him from when he was a kid for hours to try to see it too.”

“Do you look like him?” He asked quietly.

“Don’t you see it? I look just like my mom,” you laughed and shook your head.

Jisung chuckled softly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, I know. I wasn’t going to spoil your connection to your dad for you.”

“It makes me happy to know that my grandmother saw my dad when she looked at me anyway.” You permanently deleted the photo you’d taken of Jisung. “I’m sure you have something else from your parents that you don’t need a mirror for, though. Like, for me, when I laugh really, really hard, I start wheezing—it’s honestly an awful sound—and clutch my sides and stomp my left foot. My dad would laugh with his whole body like that too. I didn’t even know until my mom pointed it out a few years ago out of the blue. I sneeze like Hyukjun now, too. Don’t even know how I picked that up in such a short time. I was dusting the other day and when I sneezed, I realized it sounded just like him.”

“Really?” He laughed, a real one this time.

“Yeah,” you smiled fondly at the memory. “I’m sure you’ve got lots of pieces of your family in you other than your nose and your eyes, Jisung.”

The ghost held your gaze, his dark eyes that you tried to imagine belonging to some ambiguous father of his that you could never recall, smiling up at you with a smile that matched a memory of his mother you didn’t have. Even if you would never know them, you remembered them in that moment for him.

You chewed on your bottom lip as you leafed through the large tome of local genealogies in front of you. At first you were worried that Mr. Shin would have questions for you as to why you wanted information on the deed of the house, primarily who had owned it before your stepdad bought it. But instead, he simply had his paralegal fetch the information from the previous title search they’d done when drafting the documents for Hyukjun. You took the list of names with you to the local library, where they kept an archive of all sorts of birth, death, and marriage records, including genealogies of local families.

Kim Hyukjun had purchased the home from a husband and wife, the Parks, decades before you were even born. The Parks were the first owners, and despite neither of their names being Jisung, you figured he must be related to them in some way to have lived there before Hyukjun bought it; their son, a nephew, grandson, something.

You finally found a married couple whose names matched, and eagerly read on for their children. They had one child, a son, Park Jisung—deceased.

“Found you,” you whispered to yourself, tapping the name in the book. Taking a picture of all the relevant information, you shut the book and returned it to its place before taking down another one, death certificates.

Finally landing on Jisung’s, you read with bated breath and a morbid curiosity. It started with all the normal stuff—name, age, date of birth, address—and you skimmed on, trying to find the thing that you really wanted to know. But as you got to the end, and desperately re-read again from the beginning, more carefully this time, you realized there was no cause of death listed. They must not have requested an autopsy. As your chest deflated, you shook your head at yourself. What would knowing even change now? You took a quick note of the cemetery listed before shutting the book.

The information—or lack thereof—that you’d gotten from the library was still on your mind when you returned to the house. Nayoung was sitting at the kitchen table, and looked up from her phone when you came in.

“Ah, Y/N, how were your errands?” She asked, clearly noticing your empty hands.

“Fine,” you gave a non-committal answer. “Where’s my mom?”

“She’s taking a nap in her room. She’s been asleep for about fifteen minutes or so.”

“Good.” You glanced at the time on the stove. “You can head out for the day. Thank you, Nayoung.”

“I’ll see you all tomorrow, then.” She stood up and flashed you one more bright smile before showing herself out.

A few moments later, you heard the sound of the front door locking after her, then Jisung entered the room from that direction. He stopped next to you.

“So where’d you go today?” He asked curiously. “You didn’t pick anything up…”

You sighed, taking a seat at the kitchen table. “Library. They didn’t have what I needed.”

“What book were you looking for?”

You grimaced at yourself, picking at your nails uncomfortably as you braced yourself to tell the truth. “I wasn’t checking out a book. I was… I was looking up stuff in the archives, about you.”

Jisung’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Me?”

“I’m sorry, I was nosy and shouldn’t have done that without talking to you first,” you apologized. “I’m sorry.”

“Y/N, you’ve got a ghost living in your house,” he reminded you frankly. “Normal personal boundaries aren’t really applicable here.”

“I… guess that’s one way to look at it.”

“And I mean, all you did was look in the archives, right?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s fine.” Jisung sat in his chair next to yours, leaning forward towards you eagerly. “What did you find out?”

You chewed your lip nervously. “Not much. I know your full name is Park Jisung. Your parents didn’t have an autopsy done, so we still don’t know why you… passed. I know where they buried… you, though.”

He kept looking at you expectantly, waiting for you to say more. But that was all you had. When he realized that you were done, his face fell, and he let out a breath, sitting back in his chair.

“Oh.” He nodded slowly.

“I’m sorry, Jisung.” You instinctively reached for his hand that was resting on the table. You did a double-take when your hand didn’t impact with the wooden tabletop under him, though, but with him.

Jisung’s hand was cool to the touch, but solid, yours didn’t just slip right through it like usual. You stared down at your hands as you readjusted your grip in disbelief.

Your ghost was similarly bewildered, eyes locked on your hands as he squeezed yours back. “Are you…”

“Yeah, I can actually touch you!” You laughed in amazement.

He looked up from your hand to your eyes, lifting his other hand towards your face. “Can I…?”

You nodded, not trusting yourself to speak, or even breathe, in that moment.

Jisung’s fingertips gently caressed your cheek, his eyes filled with wonder as he murmured, “You’re so warm…”

“Are you… you know, cold? Is it like before?”

“No, it’s-it’s nice,” he said, clasping your hand with both of his now. “Thank you. For letting me…”

“Oh, sure, yeah,” you cleared your throat awkwardly, looking around the kitchen.

“It’s funny, it’s one of those things you take for granted until you can’t do it anymore.”

“What?”

“Touch people.” He squeezed your hand softly. “I used to complain when my mom would kiss me, or my friends would give me hugs. Now… I can’t believe I’m holding someone’s hand again.”

You patted his arm, at a loss for words, but hoping that you could give him some kind of comfort in the moment. It sounded like a heartbreakingly lonely existence. You couldn’t imagine what you would do if you could never hug your mom again, or even bump into strangers on the train—small things that reminded you that you were real, that you took up space.

You felt your heart truly shatter when Jisung leaned over, pressing his forehead to your linked hands, and you saw his shoulders shake with quiet sobs.

“Oh, Jisung,” you whispered, scooting your chair closer to gently stroke his dark hair. “It’s okay…”

Tonight had been rough. This was the third night in a row that you had gone in circles trying to calm your mother down from a frightened state, afraid that every creak of the house settling, gust of the air conditioning rustling a curtain, or wind blowing a tree branch outside was a ghost. Despite being aware that your house was actually inhabited by a ghost, you knew it wasn’t Jisung doing any of those things.

You had finally gotten her back to sleep at almost one in the morning, and shut her bedroom door behind you with a sigh. Shuffling into the kitchen, you stopped in the middle of the room, rubbing a hand over your face as you just stared blankly at the countertop. You couldn’t even remember what you had come in here for.

“Hey,” Jisung called for your attention softly, his quiet footsteps approaching from behind you. “Did you want water? Hot chocolate?”

“Ugh, I don’t even know,” you groaned, turning around and burying your face in his shoulder. “I’m so fucking tired, Jisung.”

“Then let’s get you to bed,” he suggested, trying to usher you out of the kitchen, but you didn’t budge.

Looking up at him, you sniffled, “This is the third night this has happened… I don’t know if I can… What if I can’t—What if—What am I—What if I can’t do it by myself? What if I can’t take care of her like she needs on my own? She’s only going to get worse and I’m… Oh God, I’m tired.”

Tears streamed down your cheeks now as you felt an exhaustion from deep within. You felt it in every fiber of your being, in your bones, deep in your chest. You couldn’t remember a time when you didn’t feel worn out like this.

Jisung’s eyes widened as his hands frantically fluttered over your arms and shoulders, clearly unsure of where to settle as he went to try to comfort you. “Ah, Y/N, oh, no. Oh, God, I’m so sorry that you feel so tired. You’re doing so good.” He squeezed your shoulders. “You’re not alone. I know it can feel like that, but you’ve got Nayoung, too. Your stepdad left a fund to pay for your mom’s care, right? You can use that to have Nayoung here more if you need her to, can’t you? I’ve heard her ask if you want to adjust her schedule…”

“Yeah, she has,” you nodded, the admission only making you cry harder. “I just—I don’t want to think about needing more help, about needing Nayoung more, because that really means that she’s getting worse. But I can’t—She needs more than me.”

“I’m so sorry, Y/N,” Jisung said, his own eyes shining in the dim light. “I wish I could make everything better for you.”

You gave him a shaky smile, the best you could muster in the moment, patting one of his hands that were still holding you by the shoulders. “I know. Thank you, just having you here to listen to me means a lot.”

He wiped at your tears with his thumbs, his hands shaking slightly as he gently cradled your face. “Let me help you however I can—you know, without freaking your mom out. You can take care of your mom and I’ll take care of you. Please.”

It was all you could do to nod your head in his hands. He let out a breath of relief.

“Come on, let’s get you back to bed.” He wrapped an arm around your shoulders, guiding you out of the kitchen successfully this time.

At the top of the stairs, you stopped and grabbed his hand, pleading, “Don’t leave me, Jisung.”

He chuckled lightly, lacing his fingers with yours. “Where could I even go? I’m stuck here.”

“I mean, you always leave after I fall asleep,” you explained. “Don’t go this time.”

He nodded, using the index finger of the hand that was holding yours to trace an X over his heart, pulling your hand along with it. “I won’t leave you.”

You fell asleep curled up under your covers, Jisung reading a book of short stories to you, one of his hands resting on your head, fingers gently carding through your hair—a silent reminder of his promise that he would still be there in the morning.

When you woke up, you felt terrible. Not only because of how poorly you had slept lately, but all of your joints and muscles ached, your sinuses felt like they were stuffed up with concrete, your throat was scratchy and sore, and it felt like someone had turned the thermostat up to a million degrees. You winced as you rolled over and threw the covers off of you, already feeling that your sheets and clothes were damp with sweat. Groaning and clutching your head, you involuntarily coughed, having to prop yourself up on your elbow to avoid choking on your own mucus. Gross.

“You’re sick,” Jisung said from the other side of the bed, his voice sympathetic. You’d forgotten that he was even there, actually.

Sitting up, you tried to look as normal as possible, shaking your head. “No, just had something in my throat.”

You winced at the sound of your own voice; it sounded almost as bad as you felt.

“Y/N, you sound awful,” he pointed out. “And you were tossing and turning all night.”

“I’m fine—”

“Y/N.” He was giving you what could only be called a stern pout. “We just talked about this last night.”

You opened your mouth to argue again, but faltered at the intensity of his gaze. Letting the tension fall from your shoulders, you grabbed your phone off your nightstand. “I’ll see if Nayoung or another aide can stay all day.”

Jisung finally smiled at that, standing up and moving to leave the room. “I’ll make you breakfast before your mom wakes up.”

You watched him walk to your door, and instead of grabbing the handle to open it, walked right through it. That must be why you were never woken by the sound of the door when he would leave in the middle of the night before.

Once Nayoung arrived, you hauled yourself out of bed and to the doctor’s office. As soon as you got back, you trudged right back upstairs. From the living room, you could hear the sounds of your mother and the aide chatting. In your room, you shrugged off your jacket and had just grabbed the hem of your shirt when Jisung appeared through the door.

“So what did—”

“Ah!” You yelped, yanking your shirt back down and whirling around to stare at him incredulously.

“Sorry! Sorry!” Jisung sputtered out, covering his eyes.

“Knock! I know you can!” You yelled, gesturing at the door with exasperation. “What is wrong with you?!”

“I didn’t think—I’m sorry!” He fully backed up and out of your room through a solid wall, still covering his eyes.

A few moments later, you heard soft footsteps accompanied by creaks on the stairs. Nayoung’s voice came next, “Y/N? Are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah, Nayoung, I’m fine,” you called back. “Just stubbed my toe getting dressed.”

“Alright…” She didn’t sound like she believed you, but apparently wasn’t going to press the issue. “I have another visit to make today, so another aide from the service will be here in the afternoon to take over from me. Her name is Hyesoo.”

“Okay, thanks for letting me know.”

“I’ll say goodbye when I leave.”

“Thanks.”

You heard her retreat down the stairs, and finished getting changed in peace. Sitting down on your bed, you then heard a soft knock at your bedroom door.

“Come in,” you replied, crossing your arms over your chest.

Jisung stepped through the door, averting his eyes to his feet guiltily. “Sorry...”

“Forget about it, Jisung,” you sighed, flopping all the way under your covers. “I’m too sick to be mad at you.”

“What did the doctor say?” He asked, perching on the edge of your bed.

“It’s just a cold, but he said that all the stress I’m under isn’t helping,” you huffed, fluffing up your pillow under your head. “He gave me some meds, they’re in my bag.”

Jisung picked up your tote bag from where you’d dropped it by your nightstand, handing it to you. “I’ll get you some water to take them with.”

After he’d left the room, you set two of the bottles on your nightstand, and tucked the third in the drawer. Your ghost came back soon with a glass of water, and you eyed him suspiciously as he gave it to you.

“Nobody saw the floating glass of water?” You questioned, sitting up to be able to properly take a sip.

“Your mom and Nayoung were in the backyard,” he confirmed, watching you knock back the pills. “Are you hungry?”

You shook your head, shuffling back under the covers. “Sleepy. That doctor’s visit took a lot out of me.”

“Take a nap.”

“Will you wake me up before Nayoung goes?”

“Sure. But sleep right now.”

You were faintly aware of Jisung’s cool hand resting on your head as you let yourself get swept away by sleep.

Blinking your eyes open, you were greeted by the inky blackness of your ghost’s eyes first. Jisung was laying on top of the covers on the other half of your bed, cheek resting on his hand as he gazed at you. You rubbed the sleep out of your eyes as you rolled onto your back, suddenly feeling much warmer under the intensity of his eyes.

“The other aide just arrived, Nayoung is getting ready to leave,” he informed you quietly.

“Mm,” you grunted in acknowledgment. “Thanks.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Still feel like shit,” you admitted. “The doctor did say the meds wouldn’t start working until the second or third dose.”

You heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and both you and Jisung went quiet. There was a soft knock at your door.

“Y/N?” Nayoung said your name quietly.

“Yes, Nayoung?” You replied.

“I’m heading out. Hyesoo and your mom are in the living room. There’s an extra serving of lunch, would you like me to bring it up for you?”

You were hungry now, and against your instincts, agreed, “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not. I’ll warm it up for you, give me a few minutes.”

You stared up at the ceiling bitterly, trying to swallow down the uncomfortable, shameful bile rising up in your body. You don’t have to do everything yourself, you can accept people’s kindness, you can let people help you. This was exactly what you were getting upset with Hyukjun for doing, putting others before himself at the detriment of his own health. If you didn’t take care of yourself, your mom wouldn’t have any family left to take care of her—only Hyukjun’s fund to pay for more aides.

“Y/N, I’m setting it down outside your room,” Nayoung’s voice was back outside your door, startling you. You hadn’t even heard the stairs this time. “I made you some tea, too. I hope you feel better. See you tomorrow.”

You were out of your bed and opening the door before Jisung could. Nayoung was still on the top step, and looked over her shoulder, clearly a little startled. You looked down at the plate of food and steaming mug of tea, recognizing it as Hyukjun’s favorite coffee cup. Tears suddenly filled your eyes, but you didn’t move to hug her, knowing that she’d be visiting more elderly and possibly immunocompromised patients today. Instead, you stayed put in the doorway, giving her a small smile.

“Thank you, Nayoung.” You couldn’t string together any more words than that, but she seemed to get it anyway.

She beamed back at you, her young features holding a gentle understanding and wisdom. “You’re welcome. Rest well, Y/N.”

After getting ready for sleep that evening, you were sitting with your feet hanging over the side of the bed, taking your next doses of medications. You took the two on the nightstand, then pulled open the drawer to fish out the one that you had put away earlier. The nap you’d taken earlier had thrown off your sleeping pattern, you weren’t near tired enough despite the time.

“Y/N?” Jisung lightly touched your shoulder. “Everything okay?”

You were staring at the orange pill bottle in your hands, gnawing on your bottom lip. “What if I can’t see you?”

“What?”

“He gave me stuff to help me sleep.” You looked up from the bottle to your ghost. “But what if I take it and I can’t see you anymore?”

Jisung sat down next to you, shoulder-to-shoulder, and took the bottle from you. He turned it over in his hands as he spoke, “You could see me before you started having problems sleeping, right?”

You thought about this for a moment, then slowly nodded, relieved.

“And even if you took these and couldn’t see me anymore for some reason—I would rather you be well than see me,” he said, pushing the bottle back into your hand and wrapping your fingers around it. He held your eye contact sincerely. “Okay?”

You swallowed the lump in your throat and nodded. “Okay…”

Jisung watched silently as you opened the bottle, shook one out into your palm, closed the bottle back up, and knocked the tablet back with some water. He stood up to move to his usual spot against the headboard, grabbing the book that was sitting on the nightstand. You crawled under the covers, watching him open the book to where he left off.

“Jisung?”

“Yes?” He turned his gaze from the pages to you.

“Will you—” You sniffled, rubbing at one of your eyes as you yawned. “Will you just lay with me?”

“Oh. Sure.” He closed the book back up and set it aside, then laid down on top of the covers facing you. “Do you want the lamp off?”

“Mhm… please…”

He reached behind him to turn the light off, plunging the room into darkness. You could barely make out the outline of him from a strip of moonlight filtering in from a gap between the curtains. Your eyes were getting heavier, and you desperately fought to keep them open, just in case this was the last time you could see him.

“Goodnight, Y/N,” Jisung murmured. He crossed his finger over his heart. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Goodnight, Jisung,” you managed to mumble back as your eyes fluttered shut.

When you woke up, you were face-to-face with Jisung, his eyes shut this time, eyelashes resting delicately on his cheeks. You would’ve almost felt bad for what you were about to do, but you didn’t think that ghosts actually needed sleep, so you threw your arms around his neck, burying your face in his chest.

“Y/N?!” Jisung squeaked, freezing up under you. “What’s—”

“I can see you!” You cheered victoriously, your voice muffled by his shirt.

He let out a sigh of relief, one of his hands tentatively patting your back. “And a good morning to you, too.”

It was a couple weeks later, and you were all better. Just in time for winter, too. You let out a huff as you heaved your groceries up the porch steps, your breath coming out as a puff in the cold air. Unlocking the front door, you grinned when it was immediately opened for you, Jisung on the other side. He closed it behind you, taking your hat off you and brushing stray snowflakes from your hair, his brow furrowed in concentration. You mouthed a ‘thank you’ to him, well aware of the sounds of your mother and her new evening aide, Hyesoo, in the kitchen already. He just smiled and murmured “You’re welcome” back.

“Oh, Y/N, back already, dear?” Hyesoo greeted you brightly as you walked into the kitchen. The two of them were playing cards at the kitchen table. Hyesoo was an older woman, closer to your mom and Hyukjun in age, but insisted on you calling her by her first name nevertheless.

“Yep, just had one stop to make today!” You informed them, putting your bags onto the kitchen counters. “I think the snow kept everyone away, too.”

“It was snowing?” Your mom questioned, the disapproval clear in her tone. “You didn’t walk all the way there, did you?”

“I wore all my layers, Mom, promise,” you chuckled, beginning to unpack the groceries. “And my snow boots!”

“I’ll put those away,” Hyesoo insisted, setting her cards down and standing up. “You go warm up, we’ve got a fire going in the living room.”

“Well, I do have some work to get done before dinner...” You said sheepishly. “Thanks, Hyesoo!”

You took the stairs two at a time up to your room to get your laptop, then ran back down to sit in front of the fire with it. Opening up your email first, you were unsurprised when a familiar figure sat down beside you, holding his hands out towards the flames. You hummed to yourself as you answered a couple emails, marking some under your to-do list to deal with later, getting the easier ones out of the way first.

“Ugh, not him again,” Jisung complained from next to you, having been reading them over your shoulder. “Decline!”

You elbowed him with an eyeroll, whispering under your breath, “He’s my boss, I can’t decline a meeting with him.”

“He’s not technically your boss.”

“Okay, supervisor. Still, I can’t decline a meeting with him.”

“They’re never about anything important.”

“Yeah, that’s every meeting ever.”

“He’s just doing it to talk to you. It’s an abuse of power.”

“We’re working on a project together and he’s actually in the office and I’m not. He gives me updates. It’s helpful.”

Jisung made a ‘hrrmph’ sound, pulling his knees to his chest as he opted to stare into the fire instead. You looked at him out of the corner of your eye, mild amusement on your features.

“What? Are you jealous or something?” You teased. “He’s like, married with three kids. Have I not mentioned that? He just doesn’t know how to use computers so he makes everything a video call meeting.”

“Oh.”

“Jealous, jealous...” You said in a sing-song voice. “I already spend almost 24/7 with you, what more could you want?”

You had meant it to be rhetorical, but you swore Jisung’s mouth opened, about to answer, when Hyesoo walked in.

“Hey, I’m going to start on dinner, unless you had something planned?” She pointed to the kitchen over her shoulder.

“No, no, go for it,” you waved her off. “I have to take a call anyway. If I’m late, start without me.”

“Weren’t you just on one?”

So you hadn’t been as quiet as you’d hoped.

“Yeah, different department,” you fibbed quickly, getting to your feet and bringing your laptop with you.

You could hear the soft footfalls of Jisung following you, and at the top of the stairs, you turned around to put a hand on his chest, satisfied that Hyesoo wouldn’t be able to see you here. Jisung pouted, looking down at the hand you had on his chest.

“Work call,” you whispered, gently pushing him back. “Wait downstairs. Please.”

He nodded, not looking very happy about it, but descended the stairs anyway. It’s not like there was anything that happened on your work calls that Jisung couldn’t hear, but you didn’t want to risk a floating object in the background, you looking over at Jisung, or otherwise reacting to him in any way during one of your work calls. It was just easier to concentrate without him there.

The call with your supervisor once again really could’ve been an email, but you didn’t mind catching up with him after you got through the two or three minutes of real work conversation that you had. He was a younger guy, and had been one of the people that you were friendlier with when you actually worked in the office full-time. He filled you in on how his three kids were doing, as well as his wife, who you would always chat with at office social events. He asked about how your mom was doing, and you did inform him that she needed aides in two shifts now, to which he reminded you that if you needed to adjust your schedule or workload, that could be discussed. You appreciated that, but if your workload was any lighter, you wouldn’t be employed, and you needed money. The fund from Hyukjun paid for your mother’s medical care, but you still needed to cover the rest of your living expenses like food, utility bills, incidentals, and yourself.

“And you know those staff dinners that get put on your calendar aren’t just to say we invited everyone,” your supervisor added. “You really are wanted there. We know it’s difficult with your mom, but everyone still talks about you.”

You smiled to yourself. “Thanks. Her evening aide is going to be staying the night a few days a week now, so I might be able to make it out one of these days.”

“No pressure, Y/N. Just wanted to let you know,” he leaned back in his own office chair, and seemed to take a glance at the time for the first time in a while. “Sorry, I’ve kept you for a while.”

“It’s fine, Mr. Choi,” you reassured him. “I always enjoy our chats. Give your family my best, will you?”

“Oh! I’m late for dinner!” He suddenly shot up straight in his chair. “Thanks, Y/N. I’ll talk to you soon!”

“Goodbye, Mr. Choi,” you chuckled, hanging up the call.

Closing your laptop, you went back downstairs to the kitchen to see your mom sat at the table, reading a book. Jisung was sitting in his chair across from her, and turned around expectantly at the sound of your feet. You poked your head into the kitchen to check on Hyesoo, who looked like she was still cooking.

“Hi, Mom,” you announced your presence to your mother, coming around the table to her seat.

She looked up at you with a smile, her eyes clearly focusing on you. You wrapped your arms around her shoulders from behind, resting your cheek on the top of her head. She held onto your arms with one of her hands, squeezing gently.

“What are you reading?” You asked, trying to glean any information from the pages that were opened in front of you.

“Oh, this was Hyukjun’s favorite book,” she explained, closing it on her finger to let you see the cover. “I was thinking about him today…”

“I think I read that in a Lit class I took in undergrad,” you commented. “I never knew it was his favorite.”

“Funny enough, it was your father’s favorite too.”

“Here I spent my whole life thinking ‘Goodnight, Moon’ was Dad’s favorite book,” you snickered, referencing the answer he had given you when you were a kid, one of the many children’s books you had at the time.

“Well, he didn’t really want to tell you about this sort of book when you were that little, I think.”

“Can you let me know when you’re done with that book?” You requested. “I think I’d like to reread it.”

“Of course.”

Hyesoo came into the dining area then with three plates, and you let your mom go to take your seat. Your mother set her book aside as dinner was set in front of her.

“Did you look at the mail today, Y/N?” Your mom asked.

“I skimmed it, threw out the junk,” you shrugged, taking a bite of your food. “Why? Did you?”

Your mom must’ve had a very good day today. She usually didn’t bother with things like the mail at all.

“Did you see that Seohyuk’s getting married?”

“Yeah, again,” you snorted. This was marriage number three, if you were up to date on your stepbrother lore. “I’m surprised we even got an invite.”

“Y/N.” Your mother said your name sternly.

“Sorry,” you mumbled. Clearing your throat, you kept your tone more neutral as you said, “Yeah, I saw. Good for them.”

“What do you think?”

“About what? I just said good for them?”

“Going.”

You looked at her incredulously. “Like, to the wedding?”

“He’s family, Y/N.”

“Hyukjun was family,” you didn’t mean to snap at your mom like you did, your voice filling with vitriol. “They’re just three assholes that Hyukjun had the misfortune of being related to. We don’t owe them shit.”

“Y/N!” Your mother gaped at you.

Hyesoo and Jisung had both been silently watching the two of you go back and forth, and you suddenly became aware of the presence of two others in the room again. You took a deep breath in, looking over at the aide.

“Sorry,” you muttered, pushing your chair back from the table. “Good food. I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Y/N, sweetie, can we—”

You ignored your mom’s pleas to talk, scraping off your plate into the garbage and putting your dishes in the dishwasher before storming upstairs. Flopping onto your back on your bed, you stared up at your ceiling fan.

When you heard a knock on your door some time later, you rolled your eyes, but called out to Jisung anyway, “Come in!”

Your door handle turned and opened, revealing not Jisung, and not even your mother, but Hyesoo. She paused at the doorway, obviously aware that you hadn’t been expecting her.

“May I come in?” She requested.

You sat up straight on your bed, nodding. “Sure.”

Hyesoo came and sat beside you, leaving a polite distance between the two of you. “I don’t want to overstep, Y/N… But I imagine there’s some stuff that has happened between you and your stepbrothers that your mom doesn’t know about?”

“Yeah, lots,” you scoffed. “They hate us. They’ve always been rude to me, but ever since Hyukjun left us the house… it’s just gotten worse.”

“When’s the last time you saw or talked to one of them?”

You breathed out. “Uh… probably when Seohyuk came to inspect the property a few months ago now. Mom didn’t even know it happened, Nayoung took her for a walk.”

“Hyukjun was family to you, right? That’s what you just said.”

“Doesn’t meant his shithead sons have to be my family,” you retorted. “They said to me, at his wake, that my mom and I weren’t his family. Like, how awful do you have to be?”

“Hyukjun saw you as his family. His wife’s daughter,” she said slowly. “Do you think, your mom might see Hyukjun’s sons the same way? I’m not saying you have to. But consider your mom’s feelings for a moment.”

You took a deep inhale, trying to separate your thoughts from your own swirling emotions in that moment. “I… I didn’t think of that.”

It was then that you saw she had something in her hands, and she held out two small pictures to you. One was the wedding invite, a picture of Seohyuk and his fiancée smiling on the front. The other was of a young man around Seohyuk’s age, the image grainy, as it was clearly older and taken on film. It was undeniable who this was, though—Hyukjun.

“Your mom was showing me some photo albums earlier, when she saw the wedding invite,” Hyesoo explained. “She didn’t say it, but don’t you think he looks so much like his dad?”

You swallowed the anger in your throat, eyes tracing over the two photos, the similar smiles, the way their crow’s feet crinkled, their noses, cheekbones, and jawlines. It was hard not to see Hyukjun in his eldest son now.

“Yeah, he does,” you agreed.

“Nobody is saying you have to go to the wedding and be best friends with your stepbrothers,” she said. “Or at least, I'm not saying that. But it might be a good idea to think about why your mom would want to go. Those ‘assholes’ are living, breathing pieces of Hyukjun that are still walking around. They’re his sons, and maybe she wants to feel connected to him by connecting with them.”

“He was such a good guy,” you reached for the picture of Hyukjun, holding it between your fingers. “How did he raise three absolute fucking jerks?”

“A mystery we’ll never be able to solve.” Hyesoo clicked her tongue. “I’m about to help your mom get ready for bed, do you want to talk to her before?”

You sighed and nodded. “Yeah, let me do that.”

She handed you the wedding invite as well, standing up from your bed. “She’s in her room. Let me know when you’re done.”

Steeling your nerves, you knocked lightly on your mom’s bedroom door. “Mom? It’s Y/N.”

“Come in, sweetie.”

You opened the door quietly, immediately spotting her sitting on the corner of her bed, as if she had been waiting for you. Sitting down next to her, you took her hand, squeezing it.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” you started. “I should’ve listened to you instead of being rude and talking to you like that. I was only thinking about my feelings about Seohyuk and them, and not yours. Can you tell me more about why you want to go to the wedding?”

“I-I know you and your stepbrothers haven’t gotten along, sweetie,” she prefaced her reasoning. “But… When I think about the fact that Hyukjun won’t get to see this… Even if he did see the first two, you know.”

The both of you snickered a little at that, bumping your shoulders together affectionately. You held the two pictures out to her just like Hyesoo had done to you.

“I get what you’re saying, Mom,” you leaned your head against hers, looking at the nearly identical visages of Seohyuk and Hyukjun. “I miss him too. If this will make you feel closer to him, or that you’re honoring him or something like that, then we should go. I’ll support you.”

“Thank you, Y/N.” She ran a thumb over the picture of Hyukjun.

“What do you want to do for your birthday?” You asked Jisung, searching the table for your next puzzle piece. Your mom had gone to sleep and the two of you were putting together a jigsaw puzzle in your relaxing time before your own bedtime.

Jisung dropped his own puzzle piece that he had been trying to place, staring at you from across the coffee table. “My what?!”

“Your birthday. It’s next week.” You finally fished an edge piece out. “When I looked up the genealogy stuff, it had your birthday on there.”

“I mean, I figured that’s how you knew, but I didn’t think you’d actually—I don’t know, I’m surprised.”

“What? It’s probably been a while since you’ve celebrated it, right?” You put your puzzle piece down. “We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to, I just figured it might be nice.”

“No, I-I’d like that,” he smiled softly. “Just don’t get me a cake with an accurate number of candles in it, please.”

“I think that’d get more candle wax on it than frosting.” You wrinkled your nose, making him roll his eyes. “Are you telling me I have to plan it? I asked you what you want to do.”

“Just you remembering is enough to make my birthday feel special this year, Y/N.” Jisung reached across the table to grab your hand. “I don’t really care what else happens. But I’ll think of something, promise.”

One week later, and Jisung’s birthday lined up with a night that Hyesoo was staying over, so you couldn’t use the living room, as she slept on the couch whenever she stayed. So the two of you retreated to your bedroom after dinner. Closing the door behind you, you turned to Jisung with your arms crossed, narrowing your eyes at him.

“You still haven’t told me what you want to do for your birthday,” you reminded him, tapping your foot. “And your birthday’s almost over.”

“I know what I want,” he reassured you. “But you need to change into your pajamas first, so—”

And with that, he stepped back and through the wall, out of your room. You begrudgingly changed from your casual daywear into your pajamas, then called for him to come back in. Your ghost popped back in immediately, heading towards his side of the bed. You watched him suspiciously as he sat down and grabbed the book on the nightstand. Instead of turning on his lamp as he would usually do, though, he reached over to the lamp on your side of the bed and clicked it on, then offered the book out towards you.

“I want you to read to me tonight,” he requested.

“That’s it?” You frowned.

“That’s it,” he confirmed. “You can sing me ‘Happy Birthday’ too, if it’ll make you feel better.”

You took the book from him and sat down against the headboard, pulling your covers over your lap. Jisung laid down on top of the blankets, looking up at you, waiting. You sighed and shook your head, fondly brushing some of his hair out of his face.

“Happy Birthday, Jisung,” you said, opening the book to where he had left off when he’d been reading to you.

“I can’t believe you’re actually going,” Jisung grumbled, handing you a lid to the plastic container.

“Me neither,” you sighed your agreement, snapping the container shut.

Today was finally the day of Seohyuk’s wedding. You, your mom, and Nayoung had just finished up lunch, and the aide would be helping her get ready while you got yourself dressed. Your ghost had made his distaste of the situation plenty clear.

“You couldn’t just send money and a card?”

“My mom wanted to go, and she doesn’t have another daughter to go with her,” you put the leftovers into the fridge. “I would’ve looked like a bitch sending her with an aide while I stayed home. And felt like a bitch.”

“Can’t believe that guy has even found three people who wanted to marry him.”

You laughed heartily at that. “Me neither. It’s got to be the money. Investment brokers make good money, right?”

“To fuck if I know,” your ghost snorted.

“Anyway, stay here while I get ready.”

Jisung saluted you, making you chuckle a little as you left the kitchen. The dress code was cocktail, unfortunately for you, meaning that you had to dress in the nicest outfit you’d worn since Hyukjun’s funeral. Most of your day-to-day wear was lounge clothes lately. After putting on your outfit, and doing your hair and makeup as well, you did a final once-over in the mirror, honestly a bit surprised at yourself.

Walking back downstairs, you could tell that Nayoung was still helping your mom in her room, so you looked around instead for Jisung. You saw his dark head of hair sitting on the couch in the living room, and started that way. He turned upon hearing your footsteps, jaw actually dropping when he spotted you.

“You’re going to catch flies like that,” you teased, pushing his chin back up as you stopped in front of him.

He looked up at you with wide eyes instead. “Woah…”

“Good woah?”

Jisung nodded, standing up and offering you a hand. You gently placed yours atop it, and he lifted it to twirl you around, making a giggle bubble out of you.

“Great woah,” he confirmed. “So not fair you look like this for that asshole’s wedding.”

“It’s not for him,” you scoffed. “It’s for me.”

“Still… I think the bride is going to get jealous.”

“Oh my God.” You rolled your eyes, putting your hand over his mouth insistently, despite you being the only person in the house that could hear him. “You’re awful, you know that?”

He was obviously grinning behind your hand, eyes crinkling up with a mischievous twinkle. You sighed and dropped your hand from his mouth.

“So not fair to be that cute when I’m trying to be mad at you,” you huffed, pinching one of his cheeks.

“Ow,” he pouted, covering the reddened skin once you’d let go.

You heard your mom’s bedroom door open, and her and Nayoung came out a moment later. You walked over to give her a hug.

“Mom, that dress is so pretty,” you complimented her.

“Oh, Y/N,” she cupped your cheek. “You look so beautiful, sweetie.”

“You’re really beautiful, Y/N,” Nayoung added quietly.

“Oh, thank you,” you brushed down your outfit. “Thank you for your help, Nayoung. We should be good to go, I think.”

“Yes, yes, we need to get going!” Your mom clapped her hands together. “Don’t want to be late!”

After putting your mom to bed following the reception, you crept out of her room with your heels in hand. Jisung was at the bottom of the stairs, clearly waiting for you. He held his hands out to take your shoes from you, following you upstairs.

“So how was the wedding?” He asked, stopping outside your door to let you get changed inside in peace.

“Oh, it wasn’t bad, actually,” you answered him as you got undressed. “I think everyone was on their best behavior because it was a wedding, you know?”

“That’s good.”

“Seohyuk’s wife is actually really nice,” you informed him, chuckling in disbelief. “I hope he treats her right. And if not, I hope she’s got a good pre-nup.”

“Did your mom have a good time?”

“Oh yeah, she tore up the dance floor.”

“Really?”

“Yup.” Finally in your pajamas, you called out, “You can come in.”

Jisung materialized through the door, and went to put your shoes away for you that he was still holding. “I’m glad you two had a good time.”

“Me too.” You plopped into bed, feeling the exhaustion of the night hitting you all at once. “I’m almost glad that I went.”

“Almost?”

“I’m still thinking about how I could’ve spent all night in my pajamas instead of getting hit on by Seohyuk’s best man.”

“Seriously?”

“Mhm…” You yawned and pulled your blankets up over you as Jisung sat down against the headboard and robotically grabbed the book on the nightstand.

“Was ‘fuck off’ not clear enough for him?”

“Didn’t tell him to fuck off,” you shrugged.

“What?!”

You winced and rubbed your ear. “Loud…”

“Sorry, sorry,” he quieted his voice down again.

“I was bored, and he wasn’t a jerk about it or anything,” you explained simply, closing your eyes and pushing your cheek against your pillow. “Still would’ve rather been here in my pajamas with you, though.”

“Oh. Okay…” Jisung took a deep breath, opening the book up to pick up where he’d left off in the story.

You were putting leftovers from dinner away some nights later as Hyesoo dispensed your mom’s medications for the upcoming week. You knew your worry was written all over your face. Your mom had been having so many good days—so many lucid days—lately, but today was bad. She asked you why you weren’t at school multiple times, refused to eat, and had another fit over the house being haunted. You were putting her plate of food away right now, entirely untouched.

“It was stupid,” you sighed. “For me to think she was getting better. I know her diagnosis—she’s only going to get worse.”

“There will be ups and downs, Y/N,” the aide reminded you gently. “The important thing is to not blame yourself for any of it.”

You sighed. “You’re right. Thanks, Hyesoo.”

“You don’t have work to do after this, do you?”

“A little bit. You’re staying the night, right?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Good, good.”

“You know, I’ve been doing this for a while, dear,” she said kindly, shaking out a few pills. “And while I don’t know everything, I do know you can’t run yourself into the ground trying to take care of them. Or else there will be nothing left of you, and then how will you take care of her?”

“I know, it was hard to focus on work today, that’s all.”

“I mean—I’ve been with you all for some time now, and when was the last time you hung out with your own friends? Or went on a date? You’re a beautiful young lady, you’re doing the world a disservice staying cooped up in here all the time.”

You laughed and shook your head. “Really—”

“I’m being serious! Just think about it, dear. I promise, taking some time to keep living your life now won’t be the end of the world. This way, you’ll have a support system when you need it.”

You nodded in understanding, putting the leftovers away with robotic movements as your brain continued turning over her words.

Just about a week after that conversation with Hyesoo and you were fixing your hair in the mirror when a gentle knock came at your bedroom door. You called out to the person as you continued messing with your hair. “Come in!”

Jisung phased through your door. “Dinner’s ready, are you—”

He stopped his words as he seemed to take in what you were wearing, tilting his head with a curious frown. “You got changed?”

“I’m going out for dinner,” you told him, leaning over to focus on putting your earrings in.

“Out? Like, a work thing?”

“No, I’ve got a date.”

“What? With who?” He sputtered, then collected himself a little. “I mean—This is the first I’ve heard of it. How did you meet them?”

“His name’s Dongmin. I met him at the wedding last week.”

“Wait, don’t tell me he’s the best man you were talking about?”

“He gave me his number.” You shrugged. “So?”

“I thought you didn’t even like him?”

“What does it matter to you?” You crossed your arms.

“What do you—? Of course I care if you’re going on a date with some creepy guy who you don’t like.” Jisung ran a hand through his hair.

“I reached out to him, Jisung.” You didn’t know why you were getting so defensive, why you felt so on edge at the moment.

He crossed his arms. “Why did you hide it from me?”

“I didn’t hide it from you,” you scoffed. “I don’t have to tell you everything.”

“Yeah, but this is—”

“What? This is what?”

He held his hands up in surrender, looking away from you. “Never mind. Hope you have fun.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t passive aggressive,” you snorted, grabbing your phone. “You’re just pissed because I’m the only person you can talk to all day but I get to actually leave this stupid house and hang out with people other than you.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jisung glared back at you, raising his voice to match yours. It was quite possibly the most venomous you’d heard the normally soft-spoken ghost be towards you. “You leave the house all the time, you always talk to your mom or her aides. I don’t give a shit.”

You checked the time on your phone, setting your jaw. “I need to go. I don’t have time for you to keep avoiding what you’re actually trying to say.”

“Oh, right, I’m the only one avoiding,” he retorted sarcastically.

“Lalala! Not listening! Too busy avoiding!” You said in a purposefully childish, loud, and sing-songy voice, plugging one ear as you threw your door open and slammed it shut behind you.

The lights in the house were dark when you got back. Good, you didn’t want to face Hyesoo like this. It was already going to be bad enough risking running into Jisung. Hopefully he was still pissed at you and would stay scarce. Taking a deep breath to dampen your sobs for a few moments, you unlocked the front door and opened it as quietly as you could. No paranormal force on the other side opened it for you this time. Hyesoo’s light snores could be heard from the living room, but other than the sleeping aide, the house was eerily silent. You locked up behind you and started up the stairs, but couldn’t even bring yourself to make it all the way to your room. You all but collapsed at the top step, letting your tears stream freely again as you cried quietly into your hands, hunched over your knees.

That was a fucking disaster.

“Y/N?”

You opened your eyes back up at the soft, familiar voice. Jisung was at the bottom of the stairs, hands in the pockets of his cardigan.

“Oh, Jisung, hey.” You didn’t bother wiping your tears this time as you greeted him. He hesitantly shifted his weight from one foot to another. You patted the spot next to you for him. “Déjà vu, huh?”

He sat down next to you on the top step, deep frown on his features. “What happened?”

“Ugh, guy was an asshole,” you sniffed. “Like, I thought he was really nice and everything, but as soon as he realized I wasn’t going home with him, he turned into a jerk.”

“He didn’t…”

“No, he just said a bunch of rude stuff. Called me a bitch, a whore who was just using him for his money or whatever.”

“Y/N—”

“All that, I didn’t really care about,” you admitted, curling your hands into fists and digging your nails into your palms as his words came back to you. “It was what he said about my mom that really pissed me off. Essentially said I should just put her up in a home and get on with my life. I about threw a punch in the middle of the restaurant.”

Jisung let out a light chuckle at that, but the humor in his features didn’t last long. He scooted closer to you, tentatively wrapping an arm around your shoulders. “I’m sorry it didn’t go well for you.”

You shrugged, leaning against him and resting your head on his shoulder. “I don’t know what I expected, really. He was Seohyuk’s friend, of course he was going to be an asshole.”

Jisung wasn’t warm, but you found his cool embrace comforting enough, the steady pressure of his arm encircling you, his sturdy body supporting you as he let you lean against him.

“I’m sorry, for getting upset at you earlier,” he apologized quietly. “You didn’t have to tell me where you were going, and I shouldn’t have reacted like that.”

“I wasn’t being very fair either,” you replied. “I’m sorry too.”

“But… Why did you go out with that guy? I mean, if he had been nice, would you have… Would he…” Jisung stopped, apparently frustrated at not knowing how to phrase what he wanted to ask. “Why not me? I know that sounds so pathetic, but that’s all I wanted to ask you before.”

You squeezed your eyes shut tighter, biting your bottom lip against the emotions rushing up in your chest at his words. “Jisung…”

“I’m not… imagining all this, right? I mean, there’s something here, Y/N. A-A connection.”

“What kind of relationship can you even have with a ghost?” You asked sadly.

“Maybe the kind you need now.” He grabbed one of your hands, holding it tightly in your laps between you.

“I’m going to get older, Jisung,” you reminded him calmly, despite each word piercing your chest like a knife. “Not to mention—I won’t be here forever. Like, in this house. I don’t own it. I’ll have to leave once she… I’ll have to go. I can’t stay here.”

“Does everything worthwhile in life have to last forever?” He murmured, his voice practically begging now. “Tell me you didn’t think about me while you were on that date…”

Your breath hitched in your throat. “I can’t…”

“You did? Think about me?”

“The whole time,” you admitted. “Even when it was going okay, I was thinking about you.”

“Y/N…”

You looked up from your entwined hands, realizing that you were gripping onto him maybe even harder than he was you. Meeting his dark gaze, you blinked away a few more stray tears.

You finally let out a shaky breath and nodded. “Until it’s over, you and me.”

A smile overtook his features as he rested his forehead against yours. Readjusting your hand to cover the back of his, you moved his index finger to his chest, tracing an X over his heart. Your ghost watched your movements fondly, echoing, “Until it’s over, you and me.”

“Do you have anything left here that’s yours? Hair in a locket under a floorboard or something?” You questioned, looking around your room.

“What? No,” Jisung scoffed.

“Figured I’d ask.”

The two of you were brainstorming. Jisung really wanted to be able to go somewhere out of the house with you, but the best ideas you had of course came from popular ghost media.

“Your stepdad kept a lot of the original house fixtures when he bought it. Maybe one of those,” your ghost suggested.

“I’m not carrying a faucet around in my purse,” you replied frankly. “Not to mention, I’m not allowed to damage the house while I live here. My stepbrothers could sue me for anything that’s not exactly how it was when Hyukjun left it.”

“What about…” Jisung walked through the closed door, and you could hear the squeak of the stairs as he went down them. A few moments later, he went back up them, then came through the door again. He held out something in his closed fist towards you.

You stretched out your hand palm-up, and he opened up his fingers to drop a small piece of metal into it. It had some weight to it, and you turned it over in your hand to get a better look at it. It looked like a knob to a cabinet or drawer, in the shape of an eight-pointed starburst. It wasn’t familiar to you at all, it didn’t look like he had taken it off any place in the house that you could tell.

You looked up at him with a furrowed brow. “Where…?”

“It’s one of the original knobs that was on the cabinets in the kitchen,” he explained. “Your stepdad’s first wife wanted them all replaced when she moved in. He put them in a box in the laundry room closet and they haven’t been touched since. I doubt your stepbrothers even know about them. She probably thought he got rid of them.”

“These were on the cabinets when you lived here?”

“Yep.”

You pocketed the cabinet knob. “Can’t hurt to try.”

Once you’d given your mom and Nayoung your goodbyes, you headed for the front door. Jisung was right behind you, looking positively giddy as he watched you put your shoes on.

Patting your pocket again to reassure yourself that the cabinet knob was in there, you stepped down from the porch and onto the walkway. After nodding politely to a jogger going by, you looked around hesitantly at the empty space on either side of you.

“Jisung?” You said quietly.

“I’m here.” He appeared next to you, beaming down at you. “I’m here.”

The two of you had never gone past the porch swing, not even down to the flowerbeds you had continued to tend to. You grabbed his arm to pull him down with you as you squatted in front of the snapdragons that had just come back into bloom. Pride and bittersweet nostalgia welled up in your chest as you looked at the flowers that used to be Hyukjun’s hobby.

“Do you know the secret with these?” You asked Jisung.

“No?” He replied, tilting his head.

You reached out to gently squeeze the sides of a pink flower, making the dragon’s “mouth” open and close. “You can make their mouths open and shut.”

Jisung watched you fondly, then tried it on another bloom. He giggled. “That’s kind of fun, actually.”

Standing back up, you continued to the end of the house’s short walkway, stopping on the sidewalk.

“This is the furthest I’ve been in… a while,” he said, eyes shining.

“We’re still in the lay lines of the property…” You kept your hopes guarded. “I don’t want to call it a success yet.”

Walking down the sidewalk, you kept your eye on Jisung the further you got from the house, waiting for him to hit some invisible barrier and disappear entirely, or at least flicker or something else to indicate that he was losing his connection to the house. But he looked… normal. Fine.

When you were a full three blocks away from the house, Jisung grabbed your hand, lacing his fingers with yours.

“Would you stop looking at me like I’m going to die again?” He joked.

“Sorry, sorry,” you sighed. “I just… can’t believe it. How do you feel?”

“Fine. Great!” He grinned.

You'd never seen Jisung in direct sunlight before, only ever the lights of the house, sunbeams that filtered in through curtains and windows, or moonlight at night. You were surprised at how… normal he looked. His skin had a lifelike rosy tint to it in places, his hair shone and reflected a dark brown at some angles, and he didn’t have any sort of ghostly pallor to him. The only thing that didn’t change were his eyes, still as dark and enrapturing as ever, his pupils melting into his irises.

“So where are we going?” He asked, swinging your linked hands.

“You’ll see.” You squeezed his hand before letting it go, hearing the sounds of other people around the corner that you were about to turn.

The destination you had in mind wasn’t very far, which was good, because your shoulder was getting tired carrying your tote bag. Veering off the sidewalk at a seemingly random place, you walked through a gap between two bushes. Jisung followed you diligently, keeping whatever questions he had to himself. The path underfoot was overgrown with grass and clover, only a path to a keen observer, or those who already knew it was there.

Finally, you ducked around a large tree and emerged at a clearing in front of a small pond. Jisung looked around in wonder as you proudly put your hands on your hips.

“Hyukjun and I came out here a couple times, when he and my mom first got together,” you explained. “Bonding stuff. I’m happy I remembered where it was.”

“I think…” Jisung slowly turned around in a circle, still taking it all in. “I think my friends and I used to swim here in the summer. And when the pond would freeze in the winter, we’d skate…”

He walked over to the largest tree nearby, fingers tracing over the bark that had endless initials carved in it, until he squatted down by the base. “Yeah. I didn’t recognize the streets when we were walking over here, but…”

You joined him by the tree, watching as he pointed out a cluster of initials, seven in total, ending on PJS. “There you all are,” you said quietly. “I didn’t even know this was here.”

“They’re probably all old men now,” Jisung chuckled, a laugh that you could tell was forced.

You reached for his hand, holding it with both of yours. “It’s okay to be sad that you didn’t get to grow old with your best friends, Jisung. I know you’re the one that passed away, but have you mourned them yet? All your friends and family that you didn’t get to see grow old?”

“Damn it.” He shook his head. “I didn’t want to make you all sad on our first real date.”

“I’m dating a ghost,” you pointed out, running your thumb over the back of his hand. “I think a little doom and gloom comes with the territory.”

“To answer your question, I haven’t thought about it like that,” he sighed. “I always felt bad that I left them, that they had to mourn me. But I never… grieved the fact that I lost them too.”

“I don’t want to make you sad on our date, either,” you panicked a little at the shadow that had fallen over his features, moving to wrap an arm around his shoulders and hug him. “I’m sorry!”

Jisung laughed a real laugh this time, hugging you back. “It’s okay, Y/N. It’s better than feeling guilty for something I had no control over.”

“Well, that’s true.”

“I honestly hadn’t even thought about coming here with them in so long… Really, it’s nice to remember them all again.”

You let go of him to reach into your tote, pulling out the large picnic blanket you’d brought with you. “How about instead of the both of us making each other sad, you tell me a bunch of fun stories about your friends while I enjoy the picnic food I packed?”

He pecked your forehead, taking the blanket from your hand. “Deal.”

The pond had become one of yours and Jisung’s favorite spots to go when you could find time between work and your mom. The two of you could get out of the house together without risking you getting some very strange looks in public. Sometimes you brought a picnic, sometimes books or a crossword puzzle or deck of cards or just laid on your blanket and tried to find shapes in the clouds. Every so often, you’d get someone coming by walking their dog, or a gaggle of kids cutting through from one of their backyards to another, but nobody ever paid you much more attention past a ‘hello’ or ‘lovely afternoon, isn’t it?’

After submitting a big project at work, you finally had some free time again. As long as your mom was having a good day today. She’d been more sensitive to you leaving the house lately on her bad days, and while the aides promised that she always calmed down eventually, you hated causing her so much stress if it was avoidable—errands were one thing, but a date with your ghost boyfriend that already haunted your residence could take a raincheck.

You looked in the living room first, then the dining area and kitchen, and frowned thoughtfully when you couldn’t find your mother and Nayoung. Turning around, you were greeted by Jisung, who pointed to the backyard knowingly.

“They’re in the back drinking lemonade,” he informed you. “She’s having a good day.”

“Oh, good. Thanks, Jisung,” you let out a breath of relief, giving him a kiss on the cheek as you passed by on your way back into the living room.

Opening up the door that led onto the back porch, you immediately spotted your mom and Nayoung sitting beside each other on two rocking chairs, a pitcher of lemonade between them as they overlooked the small backyard. Their conversation stopped when they heard the door open, both of them turning to look at you over their sunglasses.

You held your hands up defensively. “Woah, I feel like I just interrupted something…”

“Yes, you can go, sweetie,” your mom said knowingly.

“What?”

“You finished your work and are checking on me to see if you can go out.” She took a sip of her lemonade, pushing her sunglasses back up and settling back into her chair again. “I’m telling you I’m fine, and you can go.”

“Nayoung?” You turned to the aide. “Everything okay—?”

“We’re fine, Y/N!” Nayoung waved you off with a smile. “Really!”

“Alright, alright.” You surrendered, backing up towards the door again. “I’ll be back before Hyesoo gets here.”

“What day is it, Nayoung?” Your mom asked.

“Wednesday.”

“You know, my memory isn’t the best, remind me, when does Hyesoo stay the night?”

“Mondays and Wednesdays.”

“Hm.” Your mom tsked. “Interesting…”

Nayoung didn’t add anything further, but giggled as she took another sip of her lemonade.

“You two are nuisances,” you scoffed and shook your head, finally heading back inside.

You beelined for your bedroom, finding your ghost already sitting on your bed clearly waiting for you.

“Oh yeah, she’s having a great day,” you snorted in lieu of a greeting, grabbing your usual tote bag. “That new medication her doctor put her on is doing wonders. I might have to have him cut her off.”

“I think she’s a lot of fun,” Jisung snickered. “Earlier, when you were on that work call, she was telling Nayoung about your third-grade science fair—”

“Ahh!” You cut him off by planting two hands over his mouth, eyes going wide with mortification. “Of all the things she remembers, that’s what sticks around?! Are you kidding?”

His shoulders were shaking as he let out muffled laughter behind your hands, and he eventually collapsed backwards onto your bed. Your hands dropped from his face as you stayed upright, allowing his laughs to echo freely in your room.

“If you’re going to keep making fun of me, we’re not going out.” You crossed your arms. “I’ll bury your cabinet knobs in the backyard, and your soul will really be stuck here forever.”

“You’ve got to stop being so cute when you pout, and I’ll stop teasing you.” He was still chuckling as he sat up and reached for you with two hands. With an eyeroll, you let him pull you into his lap and wrap his arms around your waist.

“This isn’t fair, I can’t find out embarrassing stuff about you unless you tell me,” you huffed, well aware you that you were still pouting.

“I always answer your questions. You just don’t ask me that stuff.”

“Well now I will.”

“Anything else you need to pout about?”

You let out a deep breath, your face relaxing a little bit. “No. Done for now I think.”

He cupped your cheek, leaning in to press his mouth to yours. Like everything else, Jisung’s lips were cool as they meshed with yours. Not uncomfortably so, he wasn’t quite an icicle, just unlike any human you’d kissed before. You put your hand over his on your cheek, remembering when even that used to be a far-away impossibility.

You left him with one more kiss on the tip of his nose before asking, “Are you ready to go? Mom and Nayoung gave me the okay.”

He started playing with your fingers, eyes focused downwards as he spoke. “I actually wanted to ask if we could maybe go somewhere else today?”

“Sure. Where were you thinking?”

“I don’t want to be a bummer or anything but…”

“What is it?”

His throat bobbed up and down as he swallowed. “You wrote down the cemetery, right? When you went to library and looked up the genealogies and stuff about me. You said you wrote down where my parents buried me?”

“Yeah, I still have it,” you confirmed, cradling the back of his head as you patiently waited for him to finish asking what you knew he wanted to ask you.

It took him a few inhales and exhales to ask, “Can we go?”

“Of course.”

This was officially the furthest you and Jisung had gone from the house together. He’d gone with you on errands a couple times before—the post office, library, things within walking distance—but you had to get on a train for this. You were a little nervous that he might not be able to go this far, even with the cabinet knob safely tied onto a leather cord and tucked under your shirt. So far, the only limit you’d discovered to his leaving the house was time—six hours or so seemed to be the magic number. You’d found that out on a particularly lazy day, when you were looking up at clouds together and suddenly his lap disappeared from beneath your head. He’d apparently popped back up in the foyer with the first headache he’d experienced in decades. Since then, you’d been more careful to keep an eye on the time when you brought him with you.

But he sat comfortably through the whole ten-minute train ride at your side as if he were any other passenger. The car that you were in wasn’t full, meaning that you had a row to yourself, leaving an empty seat next to you for Jisung. After arriving at your stop, you had another five-minute walk until you finally arrived at the cemetery.

“This is where my parents are from,” Jisung stated as you passed under the metal archway at the entrance. “That’s probably why they didn’t choose somewhere back in town.”

A winding path went through the center of the land, smaller pathways breaking off into other areas. It was a big cemetery, gently rolling hills dotted with headstones, grave markers, elegantly carved statues, all sorts of tributes to loved ones. The two of you took a meandering pace, eyes scanning all the names for just one. You looked around the property warily, now extra aware of being a public nuisance somewhere so sacred. You especially didn’t want to risk disturbing any mourners who might be here. But you couldn’t spot anybody except yourself and Jisung, maybe because it was the middle of the day in the middle of the work week.

“There,” Jisung announced, his gaze locked on something in the distance, while you had been looking at markers much closer. He grabbed your hand and pulled you with him as he rushed across the cemetery.

You stopped in front of a simply shaped granite headstone with a carved border. The name at the top read ‘PARK JISUNG’ and under it, a birthdate and death date that were familiar to you. It was the epitaph that was new to you, however.

‘THERE WILL ALWAYS BE LOVE

CROSS OUR HEARTS’

Jisung reached a finger out, tracing over each letter in ‘LOVE.’ He said, “I always wanted to know what they wrote. What they said about me. How they wanted to remember me forever.”

“It’s lovely. They love you a lot,” you replied quietly, resting a hand on his back.

He looked over at you hopefully. “You’re talking in present tense. Are they…?”

“The records I looked at didn’t list them as deceased when I was looking for information about you, but I don’t know how often it’s updated,” you informed him. “I didn’t look any further into them, I was only trying to find out what happened to you.”

“Do you think two more headstones could fit there?” He gestured to the empty space beside his own.

You took the seemingly random question in stride, genuinely contemplating it. “Probably, yeah. Or one big one would fit better, like the couples that get buried together.”

Jisung had a satisfied smile on his face as he nodded. “Yeah, one big one. That’s it.”

It dawned on you then what he was thinking—his parents had most likely reserved the plot next to his for themselves once they passed, and since it was still empty, they were still alive.

“Thank you.” He took your hand, lacing your fingers together. “For coming out here with me. This must be the weirdest date you’ve been on.”

“Visiting my boyfriend’s own grave with him?” You tilted your head back and forth contemplatively, a teasing lilt in your tone. “Mm, yeah, definitely up there. But I’m glad that you wanted to do this with me, Jisung. I can’t imagine what this feels like for you.”

“I’m ready to go,” he declared, looking up at the blue sky above you. “It’s such a nice day, isn’t it?”

“It is,” you agreed, fondly admiring his little one-eyed squint against the sunlight.

Back home that night, you shook one of your sleeping meds from the bottle, setting it down on your nightstand as you went about getting ready for bed. Your ghost was already sat against the headboard, his legs covered by your blankets, hands folded over the book in his lap as he waited for you. Finally ready, you knocked back the tablet with a gulp of water and climbed under your covers. Jisung rested one hand on your head, thumb stroking over your forehead, but after an abnormally long period of silence, you opened one eye to peer up at him.

He was just gazing down at you tenderly, and you fought the instinct to cover your face, instead reaching over to tap the cover of his closed book.

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing something?” You complained in jest.

“Sorry, I was just thinking,” he responded, still not moving to open the book.

“What about?”

“My epitaph. ‘There will always be love.’”

“It’s nice.” You bit back a yawn.

“Yeah. I was thinking about how they probably meant it like their love for me will persist, and proof that I was here and was loved and loved others when I was alive will persist.”

“I like that, Jisung. I think that’s what they meant.”

“And… there was no way they could’ve known this when they picked it, but I was thinking…” Your ghost paused, dark eyes enrapturing you in that moment that you didn’t even think about breathing. “About how even after I died, you somehow found me.”

You grabbed the book from his lap, reaching behind you to blindly put it on your nightstand. Jisung immediately understood, turning his lamp off and leaving the room in darkness as he slipped the rest of the way under the covers. You buried your face in his neck, tangling your fingers in the hair at the back of his head as you simultaneously pressed yourself into him and pulled him as close as possible. He wrapped his arms around you tightly, digging his fingers into you hard enough to make you feel real, which you were glad for.

“I’m going to bring you with me,” you choked out past the tears rising in your eyes. “When it’s time for me to leave. I’ll bring all the cabinet knobs, a chunk of the foundation, whatever will make it work. Fuck my stepbrothers—I’ll pay whatever damages. If you want—”

“Of course I do.” He didn’t even let you finish that thought, and you could hear the tremble in his voice. “But we’ve never been able to get around the time…”

“I’ll figure it out for us, Jisung.” You pulled back just enough to show him as you drew an X over the left side of your chest. “Cross my heart.”

He took your hand from your heart, kissing the back of your fingers tenderly. “We knew it was going to be like this. We promised.”

“We said ‘until it’s over,’” you argued. “I don’t want it to be over yet.”

“It’s not,” he agreed. “But I don’t think it’ll be our choice when it is. Not everything worthwhile has to last forever.”

“Jisung—”

“We’ll try everything,” he assured you, squeezing your hand. “I’m not giving up on you, Y/N. You and me, until you hand the keys over and close the front door behind you.”

“You’ll be coming with me when I do that, Park Jisung,” you declared, your voice cracking over his name.

He wrapped both arms around you again, tucking you under his chin. “Of course.”

⤷ sequel | masterlist

[bluebasie]

Giyuu Tomioka's kindness deserves some more recognition!!

Am I the only one who hates when people interpret Giyuu Tomioka from KNY as some kind of unfeeling and mean person with the personality of a rock when so many scenes with him clearly show how much of a thoughtful, kind, and empathetic character he is??

His introduction scene is already an example of this when he (a person who has been slaying demons for 8 years and has a deep hatred for them) decides to spare a demon just because he saw Tanjiro and Nezuko’s bond and decided to give them a chance. I’m sure most everyone in the KNY fandom recognizes this, but I don’t think some people REALLY understand the implications of this action. The moment he decides to spare Nezuko he essentially becomes a traitor to the demon slayer corps which, by the rules or the corps, qualifies him for execution. Tomioka quite literally gave up his life and pride to spare a pair of siblings he didn't know just to give them a fair chance in a world that is clearly unfair. There's also the fact that after knocking Nezuko out in the first episode, even though he didn't have to, he put Nezuko’s robe back on to keep her warm, wiped the blood off of her face, and gave her a muzzle. Keep in mind though that demons can't get sick from the cold or anything and the cut would have healed itself. Tomioka put the robe on and wiped the blood purely for her comfort. 

Going back to the fact that Tomioka put his whole life on the line for these siblings, It’s not like he just abandoned them when they got caught. He fully stood with them when the Kamado siblings were brought before the hashira. Again this moment was actually HUGE even though his status as a ‘traitor’ lasted only two episodes. In the moment of the trial he essentially knew there was a good chance he would be executed but also, he knew that his pride/reputation was gone from his peers. (Pride was very important in Japan during this time period) One could argue that Tomioka already wasn't regarded well among the hashira but at least he was at least a little respected, but, as a traitor, you lose ALL respect. One could also argue that Tomioka didn't really care about his life and honestly, I could agree to that statement but there is one thing that overrules both of these points. His loyalty towards Ubuyashiki. It's well known that the Master is well regarded among the hashira and even the master being disappointed in one of them would be terrible for them. Imagine how bad it must be for one of the Hashira if Ubuyashiki had a full on disdain towards one of them. Tomioka was fully ready to take the chance of being deemed a traitor by Ubuyashiki by coming to the Hashira meeting to vouch for Tanjiro instead of running away or something. 

Then there is how Tomioka acted as a child. There isn't much shown about how he was before spiraling into a more isolated lifestyle after sabito’s death but from what we can see, His parents died when he was really young and he grew up with his older sister, Tsukato. His sister hid him from a demon when they were attacked to spare him and overcome by guilt, he blamed himself for her death and believed he should have died. This is one of the first examples of his self-deprecating thoughts after losing a person close to him and we can see them again when Sabito dies and also when Tanjirou ‘dies’. This shows how hard losses hit him to the point of causing himself to devoid himself of emotion because of the sheer amount of sadness his relationship's deaths brought him. The fact that he still wears Sabito and Tsukato’s haoris together as a memento for 8 years just solidifies it for me

There's also a few scenes post war that i’d like to mention such as the scene where Tomioka openly cries over Tanjiros death and exclaims that he’s failed him before apologizing to Nezuko. This scene also shows his tendency to put burdens unto himself in order to let others be happy. He also rejects help from the kakushi to sit beside Tanjiro and only after he confirms Tanjiro is alright does he allow himself to relax. Then there is the mention from the fan book that while Giyuu was in a coma after the war Nezuko fixed Tomioka’s haori that was previously shred to pieces during the war because she knew his haori meant a lot to him. Once he woke up and found out that she had fixed his haori and visited him every night, he was so moved that he sent a large multitude of gifts to her. It is also shown that after the war he allows himself to be happier and smile more. He is VERY clearly not emotionless.

The last thing I want to mention is his relationships over the manga with his fellow hashira. His friendship with shinobu may seem one-sided, Tomioka definitely cares for her wellbeing which can be seen when he asks Tanjiro about her during the Soba scene and in the fanbook where the hashira opinions of each other shows that he notices her fake smile. Tomioka knew shinobu’s sister Kanae so I’m sure he relates to shinobu about their common grief towards their deceased older sisters. Then There is the Uzui family which befriended Tomioka after the war and after Uzui’s first child was born, Giyuu was allowed to hold them. This could mean that after the war Tomioka opened up more, so the Uzui’s were able to notice Tomioka’s thoughtfulness. Then of course there are the Shinazugawa scenes. The infamous ohagi scene, where Giyuu gets so happy that he knows Sanemi’s favorite food so then he can like him rather than hate him that he flashes one of the three smiles he ever shows in the manga. There’s also the small speech he gives Kiriya at the final pillar meeting where he talks about how his father would be proud of him and how grateful they are to the Ubuyashiki family which ended up bringing Kiriya to tears before sharing another smile with Sanemi.

It is very clear that Giyuu Tomioka cares heavily for Justice and for those he is close to the point where his main character story is about his guilt to those he failed and about his feelings and connections with others so please please please stop portraying him as insensitive, mean, and emotionless!!!

Tanjiro, Nezuko, and Giyuu are Siblings fr

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk :)

Had to add this pic lol