#they literally only denied being emo due to emo being labeled as “dangerous” by news headlines and associating their music as dangerous

[i-eat-mass-blog]

everytime someone says "mcr isn't emo" an angel loses its wings

[bts-love-sweat-tears]

Change of Heart (Follower Celebration Fic #3)

Title: Change of Heart

Pairing:  Jungkook x reader

Type: shifter!au, wolf!au, angst with a happy ending, Friday Night Lights meets Teen Wolf? Idk.

Word Count: 1,894

Rating: PG    

Warnings: mentions of depression post-bad breakup, language

A/N:   The third of five for my 200 follower celebration! Requested by a lovely anon. This literally wrote itself- I think you can tell sometimes when it flows easier. It was in the notebook that I carry around so I had a fun time deciphering my own handwriting lol. I was tempted to leave it open-ended and ambiguous as I am oft to do, but anon requested happy so I hope you love it. Except for the soulmate thing, it actually has very little to do with shifters.

A/N Update: Crap there are so many typos I’m sorry. Brain and fingers while typing don’t communicate well. Working on edits now, but was excited to get it out <3 

How could you even express what Jungkook meant to you? Until now, you had always kind of taken him for granted. Being with him was like breathing. You didn’t think about it until it lost its usual ease. Clearly, you were now in the emotional equivalent of a head cold. Kook was literally the boy next door, and the two of you had been inseparable since the day his parents had dragged him along to welcome the new neighbors; apple pie still steaming in their hands.

If your parents were surprised by the small-town niceties, you couldn’t say. Kook and you had been in the midst of a stare-down, some kind of weird kindergarten dominance battle. Later in life, you would realize just how dumb it was to stare down a wolf-shifter, but at the time you hadn’t even realized what he was, let alone the finer points of inter-species etiquette. And it didn’t much matter, since had caved first, and bounded over to wrap you in a hug. Most of your childhood memories from that time were filled with warmth, whether from the hugs or the pie you couldn’t say for certain.

You thought that warmth would continue forever, and for a long time, it did. Your childhood adventures with Kook were filled with pillow forts, catching fireflies, and watching Ironman approximately ten thousand times. But then puberty hit you both like a train, and in very different ways. His shifts started, and he shot up and bulked up, while you filled out in different places, both of you mutually pimply and suddenly awkward.

Childhood warmth morphed into a flame. Pleasant in small amounts but dangerous if left unchecked. So you tried your hardest to keep a lid on your growing feelings. Jungkook had long ago explained that shifters get one mate for life, usually another shifter, so that the person wouldn’t be destroyed by the other not reciprocating their feelings. He had explained that while “mate” implied something physical, it was actually so much more than that-two halves of the same soul residing in different bodies. Not someone to fuck with, literally or metaphorically.  The way he had talked about it at the time made it seem like something far off, like college, marriage, or having kids, so the two of you worked hard in tiptoeing around what that might mean for your friendship. Instead, the two of you continued as you always had, and if his parents shot the two of you knowing looks, neither of you acknowledged it.

As high school dragged on, the two of you became busier, him with varsity football and you with drama club. Your friend groups diverged, but you both still made the time to hang out on the weekend and nerd out together, your friendship never losing that special spark.

Until he started dating a fellow wolf shifter from a nearby school. You presumed it to be serious, since shifters didn’t really date casually due to the soul bond. You were never really the jealous type, and Jungkook’s new and improved bunny smile helped you to welcome his girlfriend into your friendship.  She “got” him in ways that you never could, and not just because she was a wolf. Toned, tall, and golden, you were fairly certain that she could run both literal and metaphorical laps around you. It didn’t hurt that she was cool and genuinely gorgeous. Why even worry about competing when it was clearly impossible? And toxic?

But you would be lying if you denied the smaller, less secure part of yourself that felt jealous and displaced. Jungkook still tried to make time for your more occasional Friday night hangouts, but she kept taking up more and more of his headspace. When not actively talking about her, he was checking his phone incessantly. Maybe you were being petty, but you still wanted him to be present in your life as well.

Slowly but surely, you started staying later at theater rehearsals and investing more time into other friendships. Correspondingly, Jungkook’s text messages slowed to a trickle. The two of you still ate lunch together most days, but it had become less intense than it had once been. Occasionally, he still gave you those signature one-armed hugs that you secretly loved, his chin resting on the crown of your much lower head. Years ago, he had given you an overly vague description of pack dynamics, and the need for physical affection, which confused you now. Shouldn’t he be getting said attentions from his soulmate?A small part of you was flattered that his new relationship hadn’t completely displaced you from his pack. “Bros before….” whatever, as the expression went.

You convinced yourself it was innocent, particularly since you had started dating an equally nerdy lighting tech you had met through drama club. If his affinity for the MCU replicated someone else’s, you couldn’t say. If his penchant for video games reminded you of a childhood friend, well, everyone loved video games. Nothing to see there. If when kissing him, you envisioned someone else’s face, well you would never let on. It was never as serious as Kook’s relationship seemed to be.

Though all parties involved knew the inevitable outcome of the blossoming relationship between the two shifters, you had never actually heard Jungkook use the word “soulmate” in reference to his girlfriend. Because of books and movies, people tended to think of it as insta-love, but that wasn’t (usually) how it worked in real life. For as as much as their inner wolves guided them, they were people as well: emotions, ambitions, tics and traits as much as anyone else.  Even in the “wild” (though you often snorted at the dramatic image this conjured), there were trial periods, rituals,  and rites of passage. But from the outside, the two of them were the complementary faces of a coin, peas in a pod, tied by the strings of fate, and any other metaphor that someone wanted to use. Maybe it was one of those things Jungkook just knew,without the need to put a label on it.

Or so you thought. Clearly, you didn’t know as much about the natural world (or matters of the heart) as you had thought. Most of your knowledge you’d gleaned from NatGeo or Discovery Channel documentaries- you were a suburban kid like any other. Your knowledge of romance came from novels with Fabio or one of his five thousand lookalikes on the cover, CW shows, and your admittedly very lackluster current relationship.  When Kook had found out  he had growled slightly, and immediately tried to mask it with a cough. But you’d known him long enough to not fall for his bullshit. You were indignant though-you’d been supportive of his relationship, so why couldn’t he support yours? Sometimes, when the two of you walked down the hallway holding hands, Kook would shoot daggers with his eyes, which you would studiously ignore. But the guy was either oblivious or braver than you gave him credit for.

All these pointed looks and tension should have painted a sign for you (in neon letters) that all was NOT well in paradise, but you were working so hard to suppress what you felt for your childhood friend that it surprised you as much as anyone else when Kook’s girlfriend broke up with him. “Broke up” was giving her more than she deserved-she had simply taken off one day. Wolf shifters tended to the transient side (Kook’s family being the exception), and one day when another pack was passing through, she decided to run off with the alpha. You didn’t know if she’d found “the one” or was just flighty. And you certainly weren’t interested in the politics of the shifter world, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out the bump in status she would get from a high school kid to an established alpha. But you couldn’t spare her a second thought- your best friend was destroyed. Suddenly, the golden jock of the school was acting like one of the emo kids: dark circles from lack of sleep, appetite wrecked, small things irritating him, or at other times, complete indifference when he should have been irritated.

You didn’t know if Kook had it in him to love anyone else- maybe that part of him had left with her.  And it wasn’t particularly at the forefront of your mind, but you were genuinely worried about your friend. With the fall play winding down and winter finals fast approaching, you had extra time on your hands that you were supposed to be using to study. Instead, you spent every waking moment with Kook…and some decidedly not wakeful moments. It was around this time that your own boyfriend broke up with you, citing your emotional unavailability. You felt bad for wasting his time, but you also felt free. It was a relief, honestly, to be over and done with it.

All of the distance between you evaporated in a few weeks, if that. You watched Deadpool and Ant Man, played Overwatch, and tried to distract your friend from his heartbreak. Often, he would fall asleep, head resting on your lap, tears dripping from the corner of his eyes, even in sleep. But his parents had told you later that was the only time he was seemingly at ease enough to sleep at all.

You knew there were things unsaid, but it wasn’t the time-not when he was emotionally vulnerable. You didn’t want to feel predatory, and it was during this time, things started to fall into place for you. Your own feelings began to crystallize, and you realized that it didn’t matter in what way you had him, but that he needed to be in your life. Even if romantic love never materialized, there were other kinds of love that were just as deep and important. And you realized that you loved him, in that way too. Everything else-it was a distraction. It was thoughts like this that strengthened your resolve when things seemed particularly bleak.

Over time, everything you gave to him, he gave back tenfold. He slowly began to smile again, and sleep through the night. But the two of you continued to come and go from school together, one doing homework and waiting for the other if at practice or rehearsal. He never dated again while in high school, and you both ended up going to the local university. You for the in-state tuition breaks and well-rated course of study that you wanted, and him….well, you weren’t sure why, but if the ways his parents smirked was any indication, you might have had an inkling. After a mandatory first year spent in the dorms, the two of you got an apartment near the campus. And though neither of you were ones for lengthy confessions you had an understanding: you were soulmates in whatever way a damaged wolf shifter and human could be.  Never alone and always taking care of each other. Which was why, you were so shocked when, one average day like any other, he got down on one knee, and offered you a small velvet box, telling you that his heart was in your hands,  as it had always been and would always be.