#this family is wildly codependent and i love it so much

[batfam-stuff-posts-0]

Bruce: Tim and Damian did what?

Jason: Well, Alfred said they weren't allowed to see Dick because he was still recovering from last night, and the only way they could stay was if they were injured.

Bruce: And?

Jason: So they punched each other in the face and told him they were injured.

Bruce:

Jason

Steph: I gotta admire their dedication

[cosmicalls]

if you like dead poets society, you may like these!

just for fun: a little list of movies, shows, and books i like that i feel have something in common with dps. hopefully you'll find something you'd like, too!

not in any particular order. just the order that i thought of them in really

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A Separate Peace

by John Knowles - published 1959

a coming-of-age novel set at an all-boys new england boarding school. follows two boys, Gene and Finny, and their experiences during the summer and winter sessions of 1942. talks a bit about WWII and what role the boys may have to play in that, but it stays pretty focused on the school and the emotions involved during this time in one's life. all the growth and transformation and oddly homoerotic, perhaps very codependent, friendship of a bildungsroman that we love to look for.

one of my personal favorite books, even considering that it was assigned reading. i truly believe many of you would like it and i know for a fact some of you can vouch for me

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower

by Stephen Chbosky - published 1999 movie adaptation: dir. Stephen Chbosky - released 2012

follows Charlie and his general struggles of high school and with being, well, a wallflower. from goodreads: "Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it puts him on a strange course through uncharted territory. The world of first dates and mixed tapes, family dramas and new friends. The world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that the perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite."

very emotional. that's all! i preferred the movie, but i liked the format of the book being completely in letters that Charlie was writing. they're both good! (if you watch the movie, the english teacher's name is Mr. Anderson. so do with that information what you will...!)

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Matilda

by Roald Dahl - published 1988 movie adaptation: dir. Danny DeVito - released 1996 musical adaptation: dir. Matthew Warchus - released 2022

a young girl with an aptitude for reading discovers she has telekinetic abilities at the same time she begins attending school. unfortunately, the principal is an extremely harsh woman, and none of the students seem to enjoy it there. Matilda uses her courage and newfound powers to change her environment for the better, both at school and in her abrasive home.

such a good movie, a childhood favorite. the musical has a great soundtrack too!

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Good Will Hunting

dir. Gus Van Sant - released 1997

a janitor is recognized as a mathematical genius by an MIT professor, and he goes on an emotional journey to embrace his intellect. starring Robin Williams, our dearly beloved inspiration, as the therapist Will goes to see for much of the film.

i only saw it once and my description is lacking but ooh it hurt...... just trust me on this one

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A Series of Unfortunate Events

by Lemony Snicket - published 1999-2006 tv series adaptation: aired 2017-2019

JUST HEAR ME OUT ON THIS ONE okay. it's about a trio of siblings, orphaned, who are shuttled from one parental unit to another while being followed by a man after their immense wealth. they quickly discover they are in the midst of an intellectual conflict in a secret organization. they must rely on only each other, seeing as all the adults around them are wildly incompetent and/or unhelpful. and it is filled to the brim with literary references!!

both versions have really fun and witty narration, and the tv adaptation is extremely faithful. i don't know how else to describe it without going overboard so i'll settle for not descriptive enough! just trust me. yes it is a kids' series and yes it is one of my favorites ever. it's the vibes of it all

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If We Were Villains

by M.L. Rio - published 2017

about a group of Shakespeare theater students at a very pretentious arts school who find themselves in a very high-tension dynamic following a disaster that occurs after their halloween performance of Macbeth. lots and lots of Shakespeare, lots of dramatics, and the book itself is divided into five acts.

i finished this in about two nights and it was extremely creatively inspiring. it was a bit predictable, but that's not a bad thing. it still had me clutching my pearls and dropping my jaw

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"The Artist of the Beautiful"

by Nathaniel Hawthorne - published 1844

a romantic era short story about a man who feels utterly trapped by his occupation. he would rather concern himself with the delicate beauty of nature, and he attempts to realize this in his passion project - much to the disdain of the people around him.

a bit of a sneak sorry. i just think it's just in line with neil's whole thing you know. it's a lot of long and flowery sentences but it works really well i promise

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The Breakfast Club

dir. John Hughes - released 1985

the letterboxd synopsis really says it all: "They only met once, but it changed their lives forever. | Five high school students from different walks of life endure a Saturday detention under a power-hungry principal. The disparate group includes rebel John, princess Claire, outcast Allison, brainy Brian and Andrew, the jock. Each has a chance to tell his or her story, making the others see them a little differently – and when the day ends, they question whether school will ever be the same."

i don't have much to add and to be honest! kind of a stretch for this list! but i have faith

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obviously there are other shows and movies with the dead poets society leads, but i wanted to sort of branch out a bit for the bulk of this list. i will still list the ones i had in mind though

House M.D. (2004-2012) - tv series about genius diagnostician Dr. Gregory House and his team at a hospital in new jersey. Robert Sean Leonard stars as House's best friend and head of oncology Dr. James Wilson. very comedic but also very heartwrenching.

Tape (2001) - three friends meet at a motel room and dredge up and argue over unpleasant events of the past. starring Ethan Hawke and Robert Sean Leonard.

Before Sunrise (1995) - from letterboxd: "A young man and woman meet on a train in Europe, and wind up spending one evening together in Vienna. Unfortunately, both know that this will probably be their only night together." Ethan Hawke plays one half of the lead duo.

and yeah there's a LOT more but those are the ones i've seen and sincerely recommend. not to say others aren't good but this is a (very) curated list you see.

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phew that's not as many as i thought i had in my back pocket but it's still pretty good. plus, there's some things i havent read/watched yet that perhaps would have made it but alas! such is life

absolutely add to the list if you'd like!! let's all share our favorite stories

[yippeeometer]

Got any angsty thoughts on New York or Louisiana?

*completely fine if not, have a good day/night!*

i do my best to weave angst into this however my heart fulleth of silliness like golden rays of sun doth peek through clouds of my mind

LOUISI:

im willing to throw it out there that this man has RAGE built up inside him. the history of louisiana is very much just it being dogged on and completely devalued over centuries the FRUSTRATION must be immense

bc is theres one thing that has united the usa and russia over the centuries its been the agreement that the swamps r pretty much worthless. there is rage building in that man to protect his home and culture against the opinions of others. there is rage building to protect himself

pweaseee girlies i love the version of loui thats still openly selfish in order to defend himself. like its clear he will only do what he wants to do. and what he wants depends on how important he feels in ur eyes.

so ur either being ignored in everything you ask from him or hes constantly there trying to feel special to you. no inbetween

codependence as his motto lets be real. the history of religion in louisiana being sooooo deep and prevalent bc hes a person that needs to believe someone is taking care of him. so hes drawn to people who seem to have control over others (like florida) so he will be defended.

however also because of the inevitability of being passed on to someone else and sold for nothing, the willingness to try anything because theres always a chance what he knows could be taken away. therefore he is attracted to people who act wildly (like florida) to make him feel like hes doing something with himself.

NY:

ok so its a history of isolation and losing urself huh

theres always been some power pushing him down. despite being one of the og13 states, his version of the revolution was tainted by british martial control of nyc. before that controlled by the dutch, after that completely swept away by the power of the city. therefore not developing an identity independent of this glorious idea of a major city

and the culture changes r so frequent and so insane that mans the 3rd gen kid to end all 3rd gen kids. i read in an essay that if america is the melting pot of the world then nyc is the melting pot of america. which has got to make ur imposter syndrome so insane if you have so much of everything that u can't relate to anything, which makes u nothing i guess

because. hes in the ne but the city is too loud to relate to the new england country life. hes in the og13 but goddamn i hate these bitches.

oh hes soooo in denial ab being neurodivergent i fear. hey man where did u get that self loathing and desire to be normal from its super hot. oh your family thats so hot.

like im sure he could think of things to relate to illi about, ot ways to use his upstate side to relate to others. but thats so hard when you dont know jack shit about social interaction. and its so hard to know shit when being mean is sooooo much easier

[scoops404]

you’ve probably (?) answered this before, but how do you land on whose pov to tell a story from? is it from the jump when the idea first pops up, or does it take some writing from both ends sometimes?

(i ask because i just reread hits different, and now i’m rereading deep in the dream, and it’s occurring to me that i think a dream pov for either of those would have been a wild fucking ride. i’m desperate to get inside his head so often in both, but i also think it would be so hard to write!! plus the pov shift happening in two fools is so interesting :D)

and thank you for writing amazing and wonderful stories again and again <3

Great question!! I know I'm going to yap on about this at length, so I'll put it under the cut (very happy to host follow up questions!)

For me, the best way to figure out who's point of view to tell it from is "Who's POV would make this more interesting?" I usually know pretty quickly who is telling the story and then things jump from there. With "Two Fools", the prompt was (from Dizzy):

"a/b/o but george never got heats before he moved to the US. sort of like a girl who has just never had a regular cycle. so he suddenly moves in with dream and sapnap and finds himself in omega puberty and it's scary and possibly dangerous (bc he was told he'd be infertile since no heats) and dream helps him through it."

Which, 1) I ran wildly with this prompt and it's no longer even really relevant to the current story i'm telling (oops) and 2) this is very clearly intended to be from George POV from the get go, BUT -- I thought, wouldn't it be kinda interesting to see how this is effecting Dream? Isn't it kind of fascinating to see someone you love go through something hard and try to understand it? Maybe not, maybe it's more interesting to be in the head of the person experiencing it, but my writer brain went brrrrrrr. And then!!! When I was trying to figure out where to go in the second half and how to come back from [spoilers purposes won't say too much] the low point of the end of chapter 5, I had the idea to switch to George POV and really get the tea from him directly. One of the hardest things in writing Anagnorisis was getting Dream's POV across and so deciding to change perspective in a heavy miscommunication trope fic like Two Fools was a move towards helping the audience realize where we all went wrong AND working to resolve it. Stay tuned.

"Deep in Dream" is Dream's story. He's the main character. But I wanted to tell the story purposefully from the eyes of someone from the outside. The hardest part of this story (okay i'm exaggerating) was getting George, our viewpoint character, to be where the action was taking place. Thank goodness they are so codependent in this fic. I wanted Dream to feel like Achilles in this fic (I think i had just re-read Song of Achilles before starting this and Alison had commented at the time that it very much had those vibes when I was writing it). Dream is the hero and the leader and that's very much the *point* of the story, but he's viewed through the lens of the man who is very much in love with him. Fascinating to write! I really believe the story would be more boring from Dream POV. Although a dual POV might have been interesting here, I ultimately decided against it.

You also referenced "Hits Different" - now that was could have gone either way, but I decided to go with George because 1) he's more of the victim in the beginning and 2) It's more interesting to *not* see Dream struggling with football expectations and his family situation until it's way too late -- I liked how surprised the reader is the first time they fight it out and then the first time the fighting turns sexy. we have very little to go on at that point on why Dream is doing all this because George doesn't pay much attention to football outside of what people tell him. We get a surprise reveal about Dream's dad and then about his sister and then we get George to figure out who his sister is first. Kinda fun! (also, would have had to do more football research if it were from Dream POV entirely so there's that)

I do seem to choose to write from George's POV for the most part. The other dual POV fic I wrote (well, Dream has two chapters, maybe three?) is I've Never Fallen from Quite this High, which is a fun fic. We did need to be in George's POV mostly, but I loooooved the developing friendship between Dream and Kate and some of my favorite parts were writing them bantering together. It was fun playing with lines of dialogue that Kate said to both of them. "Life changing sex" was one of those that the audience knew the significance of it before the character did.

CUNT (continuously unraveling new thoughts) and Curse and Cure are from Dream's POV and I think I write him just... sporadic? His train of thought jumps around a bit more. It's honestly easier for me to write about him than to write him.

As far as figuring out who's POV it should be -- sometimes it's just who you start thinking of first. Or who you take the idea to in order to get excited about it and the brainstorming session that happens. Sometimes it *has* to be one of them for a specific reason -- like Curse and Cure only works with Dream as the one who accidentally starts writing fanfiction for his own SMP because Dream himself is a writer and wrote fanfiction at one point. George isn't really a writer and we know that, so it's a stretch to consider that happening to him.

I find talks about POV very interesting. One thing you won't see in my fics (and no shade) is shifting POV in the narrative. I don't write omniscient, I write very clearly in 3rd person limited. I like to stick to one person's thoughts and live there. I find it chaotic and distracting when I'm reading too many different people's thoughts -- makes it hard to keep track of what's actually happening (only exception for this is the second half of "Malibu Rising" by Taylor Jenkins Reid which is a phenomenal book)

You can also just tailor the plot to the character, once you've chosen. You need to figure out pretty early on who the main character is, but then the rest of the plot stuff evolves from there, i'd say.

Once again, thanks for the ask! Happy to answer any more specific questions you might have

[scifihobbit]

Yuletide Letter 2023

I’ve been participating in Yuletide incredibly sporadically since 2009. I love it here! It's such a fun look at what we as fandom care about and such an incredible labor of love from everyone involved.

I'm scifihobbit over on AO3 as well. I am very open to treats. Thanks for reading my letter! (I didn't get this posted in time to include it with my sign-up, but maybe you found it anyway.) We all know the mantra, optional details are entirely optional, so, if you even see this letter, don't feel beholden to it, just use it as a jumping off point if you're so inclined.

I enjoy yuletide for so many different reasons. The gift work isn't the end-all be-all of it. (It's about the friends we made along the way!) So, if you're feeling anxious, know that I'm going to have a great time no matter what, so, have fun with it!

Things I'm a sucker for in general

Character studies

World-building

“There was only one bed”

Found families

Angst with a happy ending

Hurt/Comfort

Broken characters finding ways to heal each other in general

Using smarm to hide wildly low self-esteem

Extremely close, to the point of being unhealthily codependent, friendships

Playing with genre conventions. (i.e. Something that couldn’t be easily shelved in a bookstore that insists on having a literary fiction section and a sci-fi/fantasy section and a thriller section etc.)

Canon compliance. (This is not to say that I wouldn't enjoy a story that takes canon in an unexpected or unusual direction. Like I said, throw genre conventions out the window, but I would love the story to have emanated from somewhere in canon.)

Queers and queerness and queering

DNWs:

PWP (I'm not particularly prudish, I just like me some plot, or meandering conversation.)

AUs

1st person narration

2nd person narration

Major character death (that isn’t canonical)

mpreg (well.... Lower Decks pulled it off, but, in general.)

A/B/O

Non-canon unrequested romantic relationships

Rape/non-con

Fandom: Star Trek: Lower Decks (Cartoon) Characters: (any combination) Kayshon Samanthan Rutherford Shaxs Dr. T'ana

Request: It is hard to explain how much I adore this show. I was raised on Star Trek and this show never disappoints. Every episode leaves me with a smile plastered on my face basically the entire time. I love the entire crew (and especially the main 4), so I've just requested a FEW of my favorites, but feel free to write about anyone on the Cerritos and mix and match! A few prompts/ideas for my requested characters below. (But really, all of these prompts/ideas could apply to just about any of the crew. I just want to know more about them!)

Kayshon: I am still not over the concept of Kayshon! I love him as an addition to the crew so much. The Universal Translator is a constant source of fascination for me, so of course I love the Tamarians and their whole deal. Anything you want to do to explore that would be amazing. I'm also curious about how Kayshon navigates life on the ship and in Starfleet in general. (I love the little moment where Ransom uses a Tamarian phrase and Kayshon is touched.) What does he miss about Tamarian culture? What is he surprised and delighted by on the Cerritos? How does he spend his free time?

Rutherford: My perfect cinnamon roll of an engineer dealing with more trauma than any everyman ever should! I love his energy and optimism and eagerness, and am of course fascinated by his backstory. (If you want to explore that more you should absolutely feel free! But, also, it is a giant can of worms and if you would prefer not to touch it, completely understandable.) Despite what we've learned about Billups, I won't ever be able to stop shipping Rutherford with him at least a little bit, so, if you want to explore that, be my guest. (At the very least Rutherford has a competency crush on Billups and it is adorable.) Whatever engineering adventures you want to send him on I am thrilled to follow. Whatever downtime activities you want to drop him in I'm delighted to read.

Shaxs: I love Shaxs as grumpy mentor to all the floundering ensigns. I love his one-up-manship with Kira. I'm curious to know about his time in the resistance and what brought him to Starfleet. I'd love to see him interacting with other members of the crew (lower deckers or not.) His speech to Boimler about how security's there to protect the crew's emotional well-being too was so wonderful and I'd be delighted to see more of those "missions."

T'Ana: I love a grumpy doctor! (Bones is my fav. I'll be a Pulaski defender for life.) I want to know everything about T'Ana's backstory and what she gets up to in her off hours. What was her time at the academy like? So Caitians used to hunt Betazoids?? Does she indulge in some "most dangerous game" time in the holodeck? Who are her heroes in Starfleet? Who inspired her to be where she is? (Even if she'd never admit it.) What are her friendships with the rest of the crew like? Just give me T'ana content!

More Feelings: I asked for Lower Decks last year, too. So you can check out my 2022 Yuletide letter if you want even more of my giddy delight. Also, my Star Trek and LWD tags are overflowing on this blog.

In general, Vulcans are not my jam. And I find Jennifer kind of irritating... I'm usually annoyed by the mirror universe and section 31, but if there's any place they could be properly skewered, it's in Lower Decks. My Star Trek knowledge runs deep, but I'll admit I gave up on Discovery around the beginning of season 4, didn't finish Prodigy, and have never seen The Animated Series.

Also, since Star Trek essentially invented the AU, there is certainly some wiggle room here around my AU DNW.

Fandom: Severance (TV) Characters: Irving Bailiff Burt Goodman

Request: Irving and Burt ran away with my entire heart and I want so much more about them. This was one of those rare delightful times where I started shipping something not believing the show was going to go there, and then it did!

I would be happy to read about some of their innie's stolen moments. It would be interesting to know more about their life on the outside. (How did Irving take up painting? What kind of solace does he find in it? Why did either of them decide to go through with being "severed"?)

More Feelings: This show is just so good. I love all its weird mysteries (the goats? the green house?) Its aesthetic. The found family of the MDR division. This is another show where I'm incredibly fond of all the characters, so if you want to bring in more of them, please, feel free! I would love to see Irving talking to someone else in MDR about his relationship with/burgeoning feelings for Burt. Feel free to go wild hypothesizing what might have happened after the terrible-awful-no-good-very-bad cliffhanger of season one, or set things firmly within season one.

Fandom: Oppenheimer (Movie 2023) Characters: Leslie Groves J Robert Oppenheimer

Request: Leslie's fascination with Oppenheimer was so interesting to me. I did not expect to come away from this movie with warm feelings about the military general played by Matt Damon, but man, did I.

Anything you want to write exploring their relationship (platonic or romantic) I'd love to read. They're just such an extreme set of opposites that their begrudging admiration of each other is so interesting. Their dynamic is endlessly compelling. I love how intrigued Leslie is by Oppenheimer. I find Leslie's pragmatism vs. Oppenheimer's naivete fascinating.

What was day-to-day life for them like at Los Alamos? Did they ever run into each other years later? (I'm going to be honest, I know next-to-nothing about the actual history around these people, so feel free to play it fast and loose. But also, if you're the sort of writer who likes to get lost in the nitty-gritty, don't let me stop you!)

(Do I think they had "the world might end" sex before the first test? Yes. Yes I do.)

More Feelings: Are you detecting the theme of incredibly driven, rather geeky people being drawn to each other despite/because of their differences in these requests? (I might have just noticed it myself...) I've had a soft spot for Cillian Murphy for a long time now and he was stunning in this movie. Everyone was. It was incredibly well acted and I just feel like the scenes between Groves and Oppenheimer crackled. (Well, most of the movie did.) Again, thanks for reading this letter! Have so much fun! Happy Yuletide!

[forabeatofadrum]

Trope Grading game

Thank you @artsyunderstudy for the tag. This is fun.

Rules: How much do these tropes affect your decision to click on a fic?

-10 -> very dissuaded

0 - don’t care either way

+10 -> very enticed

nope -> if it’s a hard no and you’d never click on a fic with that tag or or you even have the tag blocked or you’d insta click out of the fic if it wasn’t tagged

Bonus points for explaining the rating and whether it’s conditional.

Age gap: -10

Define age gap. I don't think I will actively look for it, regardless of age gap, but what kind of age gap does matter. Obviously, I am not fond of, for example, one of them being 16 and the other being 26, but one being 26 and the other 36? Sure. As I always say, it's not about the amount of years, but whether people are in a similar moment in life.

Codependency: +5

Okay, yeah, remember how fiction is all about exploring themes that would be a big no no in real life? This is one of them. I am such a sucker for fics that explore codependency, especially since it can be quite toxic or it can stem from, for example, of inadequacy which... give me ANGST.

Or also, what happens when people seem to be different in how much of themselves they want to give? Like, with Klaine, I am a big "Kurt needs to learn how to let people in and Blaine needs to learn to care for himself" truther.

Obsession/Possessiveness, jealousy: +3

Kinda same thing as what I wrote above, but somehow I am less interested in it. I like to explore it if it stems from some internal conflict. As Ashton said, Simon's jealousy come from his own insecurities and I eat that shit up, but I would never think it's a cutesy thing.

Opposites (grumpy/sunshine etc): +5

Yeah, sure. I like the idea that people compliment each other, but I also like the idea of having a lot in common. So I do like it, but I am not nuts about it.

Enemies to lovers, Enemies with benefits: +5

"I don't really care for enemies to lovers" I say, as I ship Snowbaz and Firstprince and Zimbits.

I mean, it depends on what constitutes as enemies. If "enemies to lovers" is just being used as a way to have two terrible people forcibly end up together, then no thanks. It needs to make sense. It needs to show how people and the relationships evolve.

Enemies with benefits.... meh. Not really? Feels kinda weird to group these two categories together, since they're wildly different and I am just not into this one. Mostly. Sure. I mean, I do flail over Restoration Ecology by @captain-aralias. I cannot shut the fuck up about that fic and Simon thinks of Baz as his enemy so you know.

Friends with benefits: -5

No thanks. Not opposed to it, but just not for me.

Sex to feelings: still figuring it out

Can I redirect you to this long ass reply that I wrote about how my entire feelings with smut is *cha cha real smooth* super weird at the moment and also the main reason I am not into friends/enemies with benefits but how I am slowly, like, accepting (it makes sense if you read the post) that I do like smut when there's feelings?

Fake dating/relationship: -5

Honestly, I never got this trope. I don't hate it. I don't think it's a bad thing, I just never liked it that much and I didn't get the appeal and it's been done.

Friends to lovers: +10

OH YEAH. I am a big "date your best friend" believer. I think friendship can be a great foundation for romantic love and my angst loving ass also likes the whole "but will this ruin it?" stuff, although that has been a bit overdone, but also, two cakes principle.

Found Family: +10

I AM SUCH A BITCH FOR FOUND FAMILY WHY ELSE DO YOU THINK I ALWAYS TRY TO GIVE MY CHARACTERS A GROUP OF FRIENDS IN FICS.

There are so many goddamn good fanfics with this trope BUT the first one that comes to mind is like a handprint on my heart by @alphacrone, like this fic wrecked me to no end (affectionate).

Hurt/Comfort: +10

YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

Love Triangle: -10

Fucking hate this. Sorry. I do. Well, not sorry, actually, because I think the media's obsession with love triangles is so fucking tiring anyway and I often find the dilemma to be widely stupid and not fun to read. This is why I am a big fan of shows like Sense8, The Legend of Korra, and Ted Lasso who ended their big love triangle stories in an unexpected way. More of that please, but then technically speaking it wouldn't be a love triangle.

Poly, open relationships: -5

Offline, in real life, I am not opposed to poly stuff, and in media I am all for more poly rep, but I am just one of those people who cannot multiship for life. So it depends on whether the ship/character in question is already poly, if that makes sense. I know I just said I like how Ted Lasso just fucking did nothing, but give me that good Roy/Jamie/Keeley shit, but for the love of God stay away from Klaine or Snowbaz with someone else.

Mistaken/hidden identity: 0

Hm, I wrote an entire fic about catfishing and how it's a messed up way to start a relationship since you don't really know the person in question. I think it can be interesting, and even comedic, but it really depends on how the fake identity came to be.

Monsterfucking: none

No thanks, but again, this has more to do with me not liking smut. Mostly. Again, I made a whole ass post about it. Idk, if you're just starting to figure out what you like, monsterfucking feels too daunting. Nope.

Pregnancy: none

No thanks. Mpreg is a big no for me and also just pregnancy in general is meh. Don't like it. Like many things on this list, I am not, like "morally opposed" to it, I just do not vibe with it at all.

Second Chance: +100000

BUT I DO FUCKING VIBE WITH THIS I AM SO FUCKING DOWN FOR THE REUNION FIC TROPE I ALWAYS SAY IT'S MY FAVOURITE. As much as I think it is a good thing for couples to work shit through as a couple, I am such a bitch for the idea of people finding themselves and growing as a person without the idea of being tied to someone AND then they fall in love with these improved versions of the other and also relearn to love the person they used to be. God yeah, I love this crap. Sign me up.

There are a lot of *chef's kiss* reunion fics in the world, but I need to give a shout out to the Woods verse by @flowerfan2, which I need to reread soon because I recently fell into the Into the Woods 2022 rabbit hole.

Slowburn: +7

I say I like it, but I am also impatient. But yeah, it is definitely something I would click on.

Soulmates: 0

Hm. Mixed bag, mostly since, like fake dating, it has become such a been there done that thing in my head. Oh, the world becomes colourful! Oh, you can write on your body and it shows up on the other's body. Oh, tattoos of your lover's first words! Oh, red string! (I keep saying I do want to write a soulmate fic where I fuck with these ideas, but idk how yet.)

So I don't actively click on it, but that being said, I love fics that throw what we know of soulmate fics out of the window or give their own spin to it. The Check, Please! fandom has some really good ones, especially with the angst potential of Jack "dying" in 2009. A really good one is i'll see you with your laughter lines, also written by @alphacrone. If you want a less angsty one, Those Tangled Olive Threads of Fate by @mcbangle is a hilarious way to fuck with the "red string" trope.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I am fucking tired now. I should sleep. And I am lazy because of it so I will tag everyone who wants to do it.

[teaandinanity]

Tropes Game

Rules

How much do these tropes affect your decision to click on a fic?

-10 → very dissuaded 0 → don’t care either way 10 →  very enticed nope → if it’s a hard no and you’d never click on a fic with that tag or or you even have the tag blocked or you’d insta click out of the fic if it wasn’t tagged.

Bonus points for explaining the rating and whether it’s conditional.

yoinked from bendingsignpost because I went OwO and placed under a cut because it wasn’t short to start with and as per usual I have talked way too much

TROPES:

Age gap: I'm gonna give this a 5 in favor because I am HUGELY into mayfly-december romance and the normal flavor of age gap usually won't send me screaming into the hills unless there's other factors (and tags) sending it spelunking into squicksville.

Codependency: 5 in favor when it is unhinged fantasy soulmates shit. I also really enjoy fiction where characters have matching baggage and trauma that interlocks. If it's set in the real world this gets creepy very quickly.

Enemies to lovers: 5 again because I like it when it's done in a specific way - where there's plenty of interaction and respect before any feelings crop up and once they do one or both parties are enraged about it - but I so often see this as allo bullshit where I just want to scream 'STOP KISSING HIM HE'S A FUCKING REPUBLICAN.'

Enemies with benefits: -10, I am insufficiently allo for this.

Fake dating/relationship: 1. This tag by itself is like a sprinkle of pepper. It's nice but I'm not ordering dinner based on that.

Found family: 5. I quite like it but I will generally not read things purely on the strength of this tag.

Friends to lovers: This depends ENTIRELY on the characters in question. My default for this is honestly probably like -3 in isolation but a friend and I have OCs who fit this (hi Tina!) and that is like 10/10 A+ love it EXACTLY my shit. Obviously. Since OCs. Anyway if there's a bunch of hesitation to take the step because of course they love you but do they LOVE you and speaking up will change things and what if it's not GOOD change and-- that's the good stuff. I just want characters to suffer and this is often too simple and fluffy for me.

Friends with benefits: -10 unless it's paired with one-sided or mutual pining. I am not allo enough for this.

Hurt/comfort: 10. Gimme. Make 'em earn that happy ending. Make the stoic ones display vulnerability and I will be fully helmo.gif about it.

Love triangle: -10. Hate it. HATE. I actually skipped one of my fave fics in one of the fandoms I'm in for Literal Months because it had two pairings tagged for the PoV character and I was like 'absolutely the fuck not' until friends told me 'no really you'll like it it's not A Triangle.'

Mistaken/hidden identity: 7 I think? Not an automatic read but I do enjoy it substantially.

Monster-fucking relationship: 9 hell yeah like I'm into monster-fucking but then you add RELATIONSHIP where they probably have misunderstandings and feels? Yes absolutely.

Obsession, possessiveness, etc.: 10, as long as it's not presented as normal and fluffy. Like. Healthy people don't do this. It's just that I do not want characters to be healthy I want them to be INTERESTING and obsessed with each other.

Opposites (like grumpy×sunshine, etc): 5 I guess? But it definitely gets a multiplier if they Get Each Other better than anyone else in spite of that surface opposites thing.

Poly: Varies wildly. If I'm really into the characters individually and also their dynamics as a group, this can be a major plus - like, there have absolutely been things I've read where I was like 'WHY are you two getting het married when Character C is right there and you both have two hands' - but at the same time I hate love triangles and all other affection geometry so this is not a COMMON experience. More typically, I am here for my OTP and in that case this can make it down to Nope. It's very hard to figure out what this tag would be in isolation because it's SO heavily dependent on other factors!

Pregnancy: This can honestly run the gamut from Nope to +5, because I have read it and thought it was sweet and read it and thought it was hot and irl the idea of being pregnant makes me want to give myself a DIY hysterectomy. So yeah.

Second chance: -8. This is not a Noope but it is a hard sell. I've skipped fics I wound up really liking due to a 'getting back together' tag. I think one of them I skipped more than five times in sort-by-kudos and then other people's bookmarks and browsing the author's works (because I loved their other fic) before I finally said 'FINE I will try the green eggs and ham.'

Sex to feelings: Normally? -10 or a hard Nope. If one of them is pining and the other is an oblivious moron who just doesn't KNOW they're pining yet? That's excellent and I will eat it with a spoon directly out of the carton. But like. I am not allo enough for this without feelings. SOMEONE better be having them or I'm gonna back right out of that.

Slow burn: 10, yes please, give me Yearning.

Soulmates: I'm gonna give this like an 8 because I LOVE it in theory but I have also seen it done badly (as a shortcut that removes the need for buildup or communication of any kind, for example) like. A lot.

Arranged marriage: There's a range but this probably averages out to like -2. Mostly because as an aro-ace person this sounds like a horror movie and even if the rest of the tags pinky promise it's gonna be soft and end happily part of my hindbrain does not believe them and is just facing the sky to more fully unhinge its jaw and shriek, AAAAAAH!

[juniperhillpatient]

Same anon as before I think slasher I watched the X trilogy recently and I really liked those movies so something with a similar vibe

Nice ♥️ I haven’t seen Maxxine yet (no spoilers please & thank u!) but I loooved X & Pearl, especially Pearl it was such a fantastic sympathetic villain character introspective.

I’m sure if you’re a horror fan you’ll have seen the OG Texas Chainsaw, the aesthetic for which served clear inspiration for X. If not that’s a must see of course.

Hopefully slightly less obvious recommendations though here we go - I think American Mary is another pretty good exploration of a complex & occasionally awful but very sympathetic violent young woman as the protagonist. Katherine Isabelle is also a goddess. Trigger warnings for graphic onscreen sexual assault & drugging & lots of body horror & medical horror.

Another good one that’s more basic & campy & comedic than X Pearl or American Mary but still super fun is Superhost. This is more of a horror comedy. I was trying to think of my favorite leading lady slasher girlies that shine though & the villainess in this movie is just super super fun & I love her. I just feel like if you love onscreen crazy deranged women this movie is gonna be a good time.

If you haven’t seen the Hostel trilogy I highly recommend it. And I think the second one specifically will cater to you if you like strong female leads. The protagonist, Beth, & the villain she has a kinda homoerotic thing going with, Axelle, give a very Killing Eve vibe. The first movie is lacking compelling leading ladies but it’s still really good & offers an interesting discussion on class & exploitation that appeals to me while still also just being a very fun gory time. The third movie is forgettable nothing special about it I like it just fine as an expansion of the lore because the lore of these movies & the evil secret society at the center is compelling. Anyway I bring up the discussion on class because I think X & Pearl & I imagine Maxxine too are in constant discussion with the audience. It’s fun when movies are more than just a basic slasher although they can be that too, it’s just fun if a movie’s got a self aware analytical meaningful lens you can enjoy too if you like me enjoy being pretentious about slashers.

Rob Zombie isn’t for everyone but the House of 1000 Corpses trilogy while deviating wildly from the above mention of analytical & meaningful discussion - is SUPER fun simply for the lore & characters. I adore the Firefly family & their evil codependent us against the world vibe & there’s something delightful about movies that aren’t trying to do anything other than show you some really fun characters with really fun dynamics. Also again if you enjoy evil violent women you’re under obligation by law to love my best friend Baby Firefly.

If you haven’t seen Abigail yet that’s another super fun violent slasher where the lady leads get to shine. And there’s a ballerina vampire & a heist aspect. Melissa Berera & Katherine Newton are there. You can’t lose.

This is more so simply a brutal gory but also thoughtful & thought provoking movie - Eden Lake. This movie fucked with my head. Watch it for a bad unrelenting bleak & brutal time.

If part of what appeals to you about X is the compelling group dynamic you might really like The Rental. Go into this movie blind if you can because…. It’s just one of those movies that’s so much better if you don’t know in advance where it’s going. What sells this movie is the cast & not even just my best friend Alison Brie, everyone in this movie is sooo good & the chemistry & occasional awkwardness just brings it all so to life. It’s a really really good movie mostly because the characters whether awful or not feel incredibly real so when the plot picks up IT feels incredibly real.

Anyway this list is kinda all over the place but hopefully that gives you a good variety to pick from! Thanks for asking me about horror movies 🍿 And if you find something fun you’ll have to let me know!

[muninnhuginn]

Ask game: The Locked Tomb

thanks for asking and sorry in advance. this is so 'it depends' >_<

my favorite female character

Gonna be pretty boring with this one but Harrow. She's got some many layers of denial going on there (okay tbf so do a lot of the characters but shh) but she knows what she's good at and her particular mix of pride and bluffing is so fun. and it's neat how her psychosis interacts with those traits (thinking specifically of her interactions with Ortus in htn in terms of using him as a measure of what's real whilst not letting on to anyone else her 'weakness')

my favorite male character

Palamedes. I will admit there are probably more layers to John Gaius than Pal overall in terms of the whole... dubious ethics in STEM deal, but personality-wise I definitely prefer Pal to John

my favorite book/season/etc

Harrow the Ninth. I like the unreality vibes and non-linear timeline. It reminds me of fic in a good way. The sense of humour in htn also leans the closest to my own sense of humour (aka, whenever it highlights the absurdity of situations) though I will admit the memes take a knock to my personal rating. Harrow narration and humour also focuses a lot more on what interests me personally than Gideon or Nona. (Also, nothing else has been able to replicate the rush I got in htn when we got [redacted] POV. And that could only be pulled off by holding off for so long)

my favorite ship

Locked Tomb has a specific blend of the platonic and romantic which makes it kinda hard to choose any one as a ship more than a dynamic to study? Like, Griddlehark I probably like more as a concept than what's on paper. Ianthe/Harrow is intriguing but ultimately not endgame for either party and both of them are well aware of that. G1deon/Wake/Pyrrha is almost entirely told in implications, same with Mercymorn/John/Augustus (we do get to see more of them in action but we're missing so much about their past it's like looking at an incomplete jigsaw puzzle). Then there's whatever's going on with devotion and miscommunication with both campal and the tridentarii where they're so codependent but have such wildly different approaches (and in the case of the tridentarii, they're working at complete cross purposes with each other without even seeming to realise it)

uhhh tldr; I'm not sure I can decide on a favourite dynamic never mind a favourite ship. I'm partial to the 'playing house' 'family' in nona though because it never could have lasted. it may not have been 'real', but they scraped out some brief happiness for themselves in the time they had

a character I’d die defending

uh, none of them. I can like them all plenty, but their flaws are generally what make them interesting and I'm not connected enough to the fandom to have been subject to all the worst takes yet

a character I just can’t sympathize with

John Gaius. I can understand theoretically how he was essentially radicalised and has had millennia to convince himself his self-justification and recollection of events places him "in the right". And it's clear that the amount of effort he puts into convincing himself and everyone else that he was right means that he recognises on some level just how much he chose to destroy in the pursuit of what he'd call "saving people". But at the same time, I don't ever see him showing any form of repentance. And, like, I know characters don't *need* redemption arcs etc etc, but like. He's had his descent arc now. It's done. I'm about as sympathetic to him as Yagami Light.

a character I grew to love

I can't choose here. The thing with this series is in the first book I didn't truly feel like I "knew" the characters beyond Gideon and somewhat Harrow. But then htn and ntn both returned to characters and provided so much more context to them that I know that whenever I get around to my reread gtn alone is going to kill me with its implications. Will give shout-outs to both Ianthe and Camilla though

my anti otp

More trainwreck fascination here, but John/Alecto is very... in a series of incredibly unhealthy relationships these two give the impression they're heads and shoulders above the rest in toxicity (which is saying something considering the dios apates). I want to know more.

[felixwriting]

Space Pirates (name still undecided) WIP Intro

What Is It?

Title: TBD

Genre: Dark romance, horror, sci-fi, fantasy (a whole mess of things)

Status: 150k into a first draft and I'm not even halfway through the plot

Summary: 10 years ago the Monroe family home was burned to the ground when the pirate Zephyr and his crew raided it and stole their eldest children, 16-year-old Sirena Monroe and 18-year-old Tobias Monroe and the teenagers were assumed dead when no ransom was asked. Today, Felicity and Rosalia Monroe, the twins who were left behind, find their family home cursed and those within it trapped in time, doomed to fade into shadows if the curse isn't undone. With the advice and help of a witch, they disguise themselves and find a crew willing to take them to Pluto, a place no one goes. The Captian and first mate of this ship are faces that the twins had thought they would never see again and, as they soon realize, a lot can change in 10 years.

How It's Written: I'm weaving together Felicity and Rosalia's quest and Tobias and Sirena's 10 years in alternating POV chapters. So there would be a Sirena chapter taking place at the start of 10 years ago, then a Felicity chapter in the now, then Tobias in 10 years ago, then Rosalia in the now, then the cycle starts again. I'm hoping this will create a sharp contrast between the Sirena and Tobias that we first meet at the start of their story and the Sirena and Tobias that we meet at the start of Felicity and Rosalia's story and as the story progresses you'll see how these characters came to be as they are. That said, I prefer to write chronologically so I've only written from Sirena and Tobias's POV so far.

What The Fuck: Yes, Sirena and Tobias are siblings, yes they fall in love. This is an incest dark romance story about a pair of siblings who are wildly codependent. Their relationship is not healthy and it's portrayed in a romantic light, but if they were real people they would need therapy and I would be horrified by them. Luckily, they are fictional. I will slap some warnings on the story so no one will go in without knowing what it's about, but. Yeah. Also, both Sirena and Tobias kill people and Sirena eats people, if the ONLY thing you're objecting to is the incest idk what to tell ya.

Main Characters

Sirena De Ville (prev Monroe): Pirate Captain of the Kraken Rose, known as the Siren of the Void, reputation for being cannibalistic and unhinged. Her moral compass is inscrutable to anyone but her and Tobias (and Holly on most days). Beneath it all, Sirena is kind of awkward, having had very little social interaction and even less normal social interaction since she was 9 and her parents all but abandoned her and Tobias. She tends to feel her emotions at a blinding intensity or not at all with little in between. She has been doing witchcraft in secret with Tobias since she was 13. She views Holly as her truest and closest friend (besides Tobias) and Tamzin as a mother. She does NOT view Zephyr as a father no matter how often he tries to be her dad and does, in fact, hate his guts and want him dead.

Tobias De Ville (prev Monroe): First mate of the Kraken Rose, known as Sirena's right arm and the only one able to control her. He doesn't actually control her at all and enjoys how batshit she is. He is seen as the more reasonable of the pair mainly because he is a generally quiet person. Has been doing witchcraft with Sirena since he was 15. The list of people he truly trusts is very small, though he doesn't treat people with any sign of distrust. He views Holly as a close and true friend, second only to Sirena, and he views Tamzin as a mother. He hates Zephyr about as much as Sirena does. Lets Sirena do the talking because he somehow has less social skills than she does, and that's not a very high bar.

Felicity Monroe: Angry, openly distrustful of most, not a fan of her parents no matter how much they started trying to be better after Sirena and Tobias were taken. She has a perfect memory, having never forgotten a single moment in her life, and this has given her a lot of depression, frustration, and anger at the world and the people around her. She is, on the surface, a deeply bitter person who hides how much she can care about others for fear of being hurt. She is afraid all of the time, though you would never guess that by interacting with her.

Rosalia Monroe: Cheerful, considered naive by most because of her optimistic outlook on most things. He is genderless, though they don't mind presenting as a lady because he likes dresses. She is a bit silly and wildly charismatic, though they have no friends to show for it because, like his twin, she is terrified of making deeper connections with people. They also have a keen interest in engineering and the construction of starships, much to her parents' delight.

Other Important Characters

Holly Graves: Habitual thief and former rich kid who was abducted by Zephyr a few years before Tobias and Sirena. She quickly forms a close friendship with the pair, realizing quickly that they probably come from a similar background.

Zephyr Crescent: All around terrible person and Captain of the Serpant's Revenge before Sirena and Tobias took the ship from him and renamed it. There is a curse on him and he has learned how to manipulate it to keep others under his control. When he sees Sirena bite a man's ear off he decides that he wants her to be his heir. Sirena, quite frankly, does not want to be anyone's heir, but Zephyr doesn't care what anyone else wants.

[inkedintothepaper]

Oak Twins Analysis

Sparrow and Lark love each other but are so phenomenally different from each other now, which is a huge difference from how they existed in season one. The two were so in sync that they came together to become the lord of chaos. But now, the twins are wildly separate. And it seems they don’t know how to deal with that due to their codependency. This has partially led to Lark’s resentment of his father for not attempting to remedy this in the twins youth, but has also led to Sparrow’s resentment of Lark.

Sparrow loves his twin, this much is indisputably true. Yet Sparrow blames Lark for the Doodler and for the family breaking apart. But because of his love and codependency on his brother, Sparrow bottles up his feelings and doesn’t fully process his trauma. And we move forward in the timeline, you can draw parallels between past Lark and past Sparrow with Normal.

Normally Ly Oak-Swallows-García is a “mixed up mascot who doesn’t know who he is anymore.” This is a direct parallel with Lark and Sparrow, both individually and as a whole.

Lark, after the rogue card was drawn, is a very “mixed up” character. His father, someone he loves, has become someone he hates. He doesn’t know how to feel about his situation. This is extra variable of the card doesn’t make it better. Especially after summoning the doodler. Doing that caused him to be even more “mixed up.”

Sparrow, on the other hand, is the “mascot.” Now, this may be a reach, but Sparrow’s love wolf tendencies are representative of the Oak’s love for what seems to be everything. He’s the figurehead, given how he’s the twin with children. He’s a mascot in the way that as the family changed it’s dynamics, Sparrow changed how he existed.

Both twins “[don’t] know who [they are] anymore” after the doodler. Before the realms and the doodler, they were simply Lark And Sparrow. They were together all the time, and that was a big part of their identity (looping back to the codependency). But after the doodler, the two started drifting apart. Now they are Lark and Sparrow. They are no longer a unit, they’re such different people that it’s a shock from how they were during the first season. The two don’t know who they are in what is not only a doodlerized world, but also a world where they are so fundamentally different that they no longer function as a single being.

This plays into Sparrow’s treatment of Normal. Sparrow looks at Normal and sees himself and his twin when the two were younger. And he’s scared. Because life fucked him and his brother over completely and he doesn’t want his son to go through that. This fear clouds his mind every time he looks at his son, leading to his complex feelings about Normal.

Anyways that’s just what I think.

[happi-tree]

feel free 2 ignore this bestie but i need to know what's so great abt the frog show!! not in a like. derogatory way but like a what makes u like it sm!!! what r its chief appeals!! etc etc

Oh jeez, what a question!!! Like, there are so many reasons as to why I adore this show so much. Buckle up, buttercup, because this one is,,, long lmao

First off, I am an absolute sucker for fantastical interdimensional travel stories of any sort and Amphibia is a wonderful example! The world of Amphibia is just so wildly different from the main character's human-world reality in all these charming and wacky and intriguing ways, and the worldbuilding that you get to see is so clever and fun! There's also the whole quintessential "hero's journey" and all that it entails - the characters might return home eventually, but will it really register in their hearts as "home" after all they've seen and done? This trope makes for a bittersweet type of story that I just really really enjoy, and Amphibia is pulling it off beautifully.

Secondly, I adore how seriously this show takes its interpersonal dynamics. The catalyst of the entire show - what allows its events to occur in the first place - is a rather unhealthy, imbalanced, codependent friendship between three middle schoolers, and the show lets you know how off-kilter the dynamics are from practically the very beginning. However, this relationship is far from stagnant - a core (ha) theme of Amphibia is change, and it really shows in how clearly yet subtly you can see the girls' dynamics with each other shift as they learn to grow independent of one another and eventually find their way back to each other. It's messy and sometimes it feels like the characters take one step backward for every step they take forward, and that's what makes it so believable! I also really appreciate how believable they are as child characters - they don't think things through all the time and they have emotional outbursts and they see firsthand the consequences of their actions, which is just! Really nice to see! Of course, this doesn't even cover the many other relationships in the show - Anne coming into her own and learning responsibility by being thrust into suddenly becoming an older sister, the wonderfully chaotic uncle-niece relationship that is Sasha and Grime, the role model and mentor Marcy finds in Andrias, Anne being a member of not one but three families (counting Marcy and Sasha, of course) and her struggles in trying to choose between them... it's. Quite a bit.

Thirdly, the aforementioned theme of change! It's present throughout nearly every aspect of the show. The characters grow and change and build themselves into better people, not only through being thrown into circumstances but also through actively making the choice to get up and to improve. The landscape itself grows and changes alongside them, reflecting the choices that they make! Everything is in a constant state of flux and metamorphosis, and while some things are beyond the control of the characters, they learn to utilize those situations as a proponent of positive change which is just. Really neat! This show also deals a lot with letting go and with grief in general, in many, many forms. And I think that's a theme that will carry through until the final episode, if the titles are anything to go by (I am excited but I am also deeply afraid).

Also, not something I can relate to on a personal level, but that I adore about this show wholeheartedly: the Asian representation! Anne is the daughter of two Thai immigrants, and Thai influences and elements are very intentionally and lovingly baked into the core of the show. As someone who had little to no exposure to Thai culture beforehand, it was wonderful to see! Marcy is also confirmed to be Taiwanese, and while there aren't many nods to Taiwanese culture (that I could parse out, at least), it's absolutely lovely to see that 2/3 of our human protagonists are POC! There's this great line from Anne where she says that she could understand what her parents went through adjusting to life in the States now that she's experienced the culture shock of being treated as an outsider in Amphibia, and it just. It lives rent-free in my brain. And, without going into spoiler territory, there's also an interesting narrative dealing with colonialism, and if the show is going where I think it is,,, yeah. Yeah.

Shoutout as well to the music (Anne's theme can and has made me cry), the design of all the different environments in both worlds, the balancing of humor with heavier themes, the use of symbolism (which could be a whole essay on its own), the constant use of the rule of three, and the animation itself (blue moments my absolute beloveds!).

Well, this was very long-winded, but hopefully it suffices! As you can tell this show has been taking up quite a bit of my cognitive ability atm haha.

[downtonabbeyrevisited]

Season Two Episode Two

Following a typically chaotic opener, Episode Two of Season Two strikes a far more sombre tone. The arrival of Henry Lang as Robert’s valet brings the first of this episode’s three plot points that address the impact of WW1 on the mental health of its soldiers. There is nothing funny to say about either shell-shock or suicidal ideation both of which are vast, complex issues that, for my money, Downton Abbey isn’t the vehicle explore in (because they require more time and depth than the pace of the plot in Season Two affords) and it certainly isn’t my place to make light of them in this rather irreverent corner of the internet. So I’m going to have a go at treading a fine line here. Forgive me if I stumble. 

Lang is clearly in the grips of something awful and yet in an attempt to avoid the indignity of having maids in the dining room, he is bumped up to footman duty. He struggles throughout, culminating in him depositing his cargo on Edith’s dress. Mrs O’Brein has firmly taken Lang under her wing, recognising that he is struggling and offers him assurance and comfort that she has never gifted to Thomas. 

Across the Village, Lieutenant Edward Courtenay is in the hospital having been blinded by gas. The use of gas (both chlorine and mustard) had a devastating impact on soldiers in WW1 but was also the root of the development of Zyklon B. Frtiz Haber, a German Jewish chemist, enabled chlorine gas to be used a weapon in WW1 and his research was later developed into the Zyklon process which was used by the Nazis to murder millions, including his own family. This is only one of a dizzying number of appalling ironies to be found in the World Wars but as I said last episode, I’m not a military historian so I’m going to leave it there. Edward had plans to return to the country after his graduation from Oxford to pursue the simple life (although one gets the feeling that his idea of the pursuit of a simple life will still be one that is very well upholstered). Thomas has taken it upon himself to read Edward’s letters to him and  together with Sybil is helping him to adjust to living life with a different set of parameters. But growing pressure on the hospital’s limited capacity means that he is to be transferred elsewhere. All three voice their dissent at varying volumes to Major Clarkson who falls back on the very real backlog of wounded men. After Edward has died, Major Clarkson, Isobel and Sybil talk about a renewed need for the Abbey to become a convalescent home, an idea that has been bubbling under the surface for a while now. Meanwhile, Thomas has been left on his own to process both Edward’s death and the implications of witnessing a lack of support given by his own physician to those with depression.  

The usually reliably jovial Mrs Patmore also has a more somber episode with her pursuit for the truth about the death of her nephew Archie. Robert finds that he has been shot for cowardice. Not only does this mean that her family is in mourning but they will now have to navigate the stigma and undue shame that came with having a relative die in this way. So entrenched in British life was the derision levelled at those who were shot for cowardice or desertion that it was only in 2006 that pardons were offered by Britain for 309 of those that were executed by firing squad during WW1. I know I said I’d leave it there with the military history, but that felt like an important bit of context. 

We are now in 1917 and Matthew is still in the same trench that he was in 1916 (a detail I hadn’t actually noticed until I got the screen cap for this) so it looks like his strategy of downing tools mid-fight and continuously popping back to Blighty for important plot developments isn’t really paying dividends. Perhaps the addition of William to the ranks will help him? William certainly seems to think so and if the speed at which he moves through the various stages of his ‘relationship’ with Daisy is any indication of his tactical prowess, the British Front will not only be well within Germany’s borders but will be breathing down Russia’s neck in a fortnight. In any other episode, this would certainly get the award for oddest relationship dynamic but Sir Richard Carlisle exists. 

Sir Richard makes his debut at Downton, having been introduced in name only in the previous episode. He and Mary met at Cliveden which is a regular haunt of mine, giving me hope that one day I too will from a strategic alliance with a newspaper magnate. He may know how to talk his way around a boardroom but he is lacking in the sartorial department. Whilst Sir Richard manages to avoid catching fire in his tweed, Lavinia is not free from the heat as he threatens her with his connection to her uncle. He may not know much about navigating the niceties of Downton, but at least he has cottoned on to the fact that any major disagreement should occur under a specific tree. Whilst Mary’s signature move is weeping into her gloves, Sir Richard’s is grabbing women by the forearm. A female friend of mine told me that one of her favourite things about the pandemic and the compulsion to keep 2m away from anyone (and not just emotionally) is that she has not been ’steered’ by a male hand on her lower back since 2019. It turns out that she can enter and exit rooms just fine on her own and I get the impression that Lavinia could get the gist of Sir Richard’s rage without the vice like grip of a man probably about twice her age. 

Twinned with the ’tree of emotional conflict’, the ‘platform of romantic uncertainty’ provides the backdrop for Sir Richard’s proposal of marriage to Mary which is a declaration that really feels like it should come with a series of well-formatted charts. Mary’s heart, however, is still very much with Cousin Matthew. After being counselled by Carson in a type of conversation I cannot imagine her ever having with her father, she is on the verge of coming clean with Matthew. But in the second round of Lavinia vs. Mary, Lavinia declares that she ‘could not go on living’ without Matthew and Mary winds her neck in. 

Also having a romantic entanglement this episode is Edith. Drake, previously of dropsy fame, has lost his farm hands and Edith turns up to offer her help in a wildly unsuitable trouser and heeled boot combo. But she soon gets down to it by pulling up a tree stump and flirting in a barn whilst a rather lovely border collie looks on (I’m currently trying to talk myself out of getting a border collie and this incident has done nothing to help things). After showing Drake that she can drink from a bottle like literally every single other human on the planet, the two share a kiss and some highly awkward dialogue that only slightly resembles ‘Carry on Downton’. 

Whilst Edith is more than happy to crack on in a barn, Mr Molesley is much more backwards about coming forwards. Apparently having predicted the creation of ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society’, he figures that a book is the perfect kindling for romance when you exist in a glossy depiction of the past. Sadly neither Elizabeth nor her German garden can lure Anna from Bates who is fast shaping up to be schrodinger’s boyfriend. Anna proceeds to make some odd analogy where she compares Mr Bates to her moon-based child, revealing a rather unhealthy amount of codependency in that particular relationship. 

Romantic declaration of the moment 

Again, it feels like anyone but Sybil and Branson should get this but I am an agent of chaos and here we are. Branson defends Sybil’s will to work and has ample opportunity to see her shine in her chosen field. The admission that she will not be returning to her old life is a little chink of light that Branson basks in. 

Expressive eyebrow of the week 

I nominate Carson’s entire face when he realises that he has taken on too much and goes an impressive shade of red. As Carson frets about spoons, sauce, and something I can’t quite fathom, he starts to resemble a man who is re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Carson’s battle to get a cork out of a bottle and knocking into chairs is a warm up to his rather dramatic collapse which is accompanied by a pretty disturbing groan. Sybil springs to action and he is soon efficiently ensconced in his own quarters. 

Wait, what? 

“I got a lot done on the train” Clearly Richard was on a train that was unencumbered with the wifi issues that plague the Pendolino.  

“It takes a good deal more than that to shock me.” Mary’s shock-o-meter is a pretty odd instrument. It is unresponsive to corpses of diplomats but goes into absolute meltdown at the notion that she might have to live in a cottage. 

“Let's hope my reputation will survive it.” I’ve not checked (and I categorically never will) but I would put money on the fact that someone has created a rarepair out of this. 

“How can Matthew have chosen that little blonde piece?” Is Lavinia blonde? Women’s hair is not really my forte but I would have thought she was more akin to Tim Minchin than 1998 Justin Timberlake. 

“I believe in this war. I believe in what we are fighting for.” William seems to have a better grip on what all of this is about than I ever did in high school history. The ‘A’ that eluded me is heading his way. 

“I thought he might've died for love of you.” How I love snipey Thomas. It’s good to have him back. To borrow a quote from Bottas (another man who is currently living a life in which his destiny is his own demise) ‘traditions’. 

“Fold it in, don’t slap it” The more season two goes on, the more I think that Moira is just an amalgamation of some choice elements of Julian’s kingdom. 

[recurring-polynya]

What’s your opinion on pre-canon Renruki?

I think that they already had a romantic or almost romantic relationship back in the Academy, maybe even back in Rukongai, and the reason it wasn’t explicit is because firstly it would have spoiled the endgame couples, and secondly it’s a shonen, so it’s implied.

I think they fooled around when they were orphans in Inuzuri. They grew up together, they were always together in their “teenage” years (however adolescence works for souls😅), I think it’s not impossible that they had their first experience, if just their first kiss and make out session, with each other. When they joined the Academy, they spent less time together due to their different courses, and I think Rukia’s sad expression when Renji leaves for the mission in the real world depicts that (along with worry for him, and maybe even jealousy for his achievements compared to hers). By then I think they were quite intimate, they fooled around sometimes (with the little time they had) and knew the other’s and their own feelings, but never said anything like “I love you”, or talked seriously about the depth of their relationship. If they were “just friends”, as some antis like to claim, they wouldn’t have been so heartbroken, have so many regrets and felt so guilty during their separation. And why that separation in the first place? It’s not a matter of class difference, because Rukia did talk to people of inferior status, like her Squad mates. What’s actually forbidden to people from different classes is relationships. If Renruki was just a friendship, there would have been no problem, but their bond was beyond that. Rukia wanted Renji to tell her to stay with him, but his feelings of inferiority and belief that Rukia deserved better (maybe even better than him) prevented him to do it. Their separation doesn’t feel like an end to a friendship to me, it feels like a breakup. They avoided each other because it hurt so much, and they couldn’t bear to have any relationship other than a romantic one, which was impossible once she became a Kuchiki.

After the Soul Society arc, they got back together. They were physically too comfortable around each other to be just friends, like when he basically hugged her to encourage her to go back to Soul Society when Orihime is kidnapped (and maybe he was also comforting her), or when, during the fight with the Fullbringers, he casually placed her head resting on his thigh. By then they were secretly dating, in my opinion. In the last arc they were always together, it’s so easy imagining them as a couple.

What do you think? Is my interpretation far fetched? I’d like to hear your theories about their feelings, when they blossomed, when they confessed, if they had something going on during their Academy years…

Thank you if you decide to answer!🤍

Well, as you say, Bleach is a shounen, and also I don’t think Kubo was particularly interested in including romance in the story, so I don’t think there is a correct or incorrect interpretation. It’s left to the reader to imagine what they like. I don’t think “spoiling the endgame” has anything to do with anything.

I don’t think your interpretation is “too far-fetched,” although I don’t happen to agree with it. There’s very little to go on in canon, people can fill in the gaps in whatever way makes them happy/makes sense to them. I have exactly 0 interest in arguing with people on the internet about stuff like this. I enjoy reading fanfiction that has wildly different interpretations from my own, I generally love to hear a variety of ideas, although I generally prefer the format of a narrative over Tumblr posts (funny, since I do seem to write a lot of them).

Anyway, here are a bunch of opinions. This is way, way too long, so I'm gonna throw it under a cut.

That being said, you have some really amatonormative ideas in there that I do take issue with. Friendships absolutely can be as deep and important as romantic relationships. I categorically reject the idea that a romantic bond is stronger than a friendship one or that acts of physical affection necessarily imply a romantic relationship. I actually have no beef at all with people who want to read Rukia and Renji’s story as a very strong friendship. I do think it was still reasonable for Renji to avoid her during their separation, even if his goal wasn’t romance. He wanted to see her live a better life, and didn’t want to drag her down. Yeah, sure, if he just wanted to be a casual workplace friend, he probably could have joined Squad 13 and seen her once in a while. But, especially in the early days, it would have been a bad look for Rukia to continue socializing with people deeply below her station, and I feel in my heart that Byakuya would have forbidden her from seeing Renji if he found out she was hanging out with someone from her Inuzuri days, even if it was just casual. Yeah, there exist people who say Rukia and Renji are "just friends" for the sake of other preferred ships, but also, like, so what? Who cares? That’s a lot better than making Renji out to be a bad person or trashing his character. To be honest, I am generally happy to read a fanfic that had some other Renji or Rukia pairing if it actually contained some solid Renruki best friend content (I have found a few 369 fics that do this, and maybe also in the little bit of RenIchi content I have read, so, uh, good job, my gays. This is sometimes touched on in ByaRen fics, but usually not as much as I want, althought I also tend to hold these to a high bar, because if I have to deal with Byakuya in my fanfics, they should have to deal with the Rukia-Renji friendship 😂)

Anyway, you asked for my interpretation, so here it is . These are all just, like, my opinions, man:

Life in Inuzuri just really, really, really sucks, and Rukia and Renji both have a lot of trauma and emotional hang-ups from that time. I think they forged a deep emotional connection during this time that was probably a little too codependent to actually be healthy. They had no models of healthy families or relationships. I also think they were incredibly close to Fujimaru, Kosaburou, and Mameji, and that even if they wanted to have a romantic relationship, they wouldn’t have, at the risk of ruining the more important bonds of the larger group.

In my fanfic, in their last days in Inuzuri, I do have them fool around for a brief period. It coincides with the deterioration of the bond with their last surviving friend, leading to his death. I did this for trauma reasons, because that’s how writers are.

“Communication” is probably the most important theme in my writing, and a thing I bring up all the time is that young Rukia and Renji had a thousand ways of communicating survival-based things between each other, and 0 ways of communicating how they felt about each other.

I did a post on this recently, but their whole gang was incredibly powerless in Inuzuri. They lived on the fringes of society and stole scraps to survive. I think that their number one duty to one another was to survive. In the anime, Rukia swears that she will never leave Inuzuri, that she will always stay with her friends. I think the reason she does an about-face is not just because their friends are gone, but because she realizes that she will lose Renji next, and the only way to prevent that is for both of them to get stronger. Neither of them actually wants to become a soul reaper. They do it for each other.

I think that Renji would have remained in Inuzuri and tried to make a life as best they could, but Rukia knew this was futile, and where Rukia goes, Renji follows.

I think they purposely maintained distance at the Academy. Just as in Inuzuri, their primary duty to one another is to survive and thrive. They were rejected and mocked for their low origins, and hanging out together would have made this worse. I think it hurt Rukia that Renji made new friends, but on the other hand, they were exactly the sort of people who would help him get a leg up in the Gotei. Rukia’s Academy days were very painful because she saw Renji succeeding, just as she wanted, but leaving her behind in the process. Conversely, Renji got super focused on doing well, with the idea that he could pull Rukia up behind him, except for the part where he never actually told her that.

I feel like I’m in the minority here, but so much fanfic focuses on Rukia and/or Renji being “wrong” in the scene where he tells her to go to the Kuchiki, but I disagree! Everything they have done is in order to get to a better life! It is Renji’s duty to encourage her to leave him behind. He doesn’t want to be an anchor holding her down. Likewise, Rukia knows that if she doesn’t go, she’s just gonna be a burden on him. Their relationship has always been about each of them surviving separately over having happiness together. Up to now, they’ve always managed to find each other again, although this kinda looks like it might be it for them. Do these kids need to go to therapy? Yes! Did they do anything wrong? No!

I think about this a lot, but even if Rukia had turned down the adoption (which… I’m not actually sure she could have), even the offer would have ruined their relationship. Imagine that Renji asks her to stay, and she does. Maybe they even get together at this point. Every rough patch, every time there’s money troubles, this spectre of “Rukia could have been a Kuchiki” is going to hang over them. In fiction, there is often an idea of sacrifice being a one-time romantic gesture, but in my real life experience, this sort of thing hangs around like an unwanted ghost. I can, in fact, envision a scenario where this is exactly how Aizen manages to get his hooks in Renji, by offering Rukia an unseated spot in Squad 5, even though she “isn’t really good enough to deserve it” and “taking care of them.”

I am really fascinated with Rukia’s crush on Kaien/Miyako. Bold proclamation here, but I think there is something developmentally healthy about young people having crushes on the older people in their lives, provided that said older people treat them with respect and dignity and don’t take advantage of it in any way. Crushes are, by their nature of being unreciprocated, a safe way for young folks to imagine the sort of people and relationships they want to have in their lives. I headcanon Rukia as bisexual, and maybe also a little bit genderfluid, and she had these two extremely cool people in her life, whom she maybe wanted to be and maybe wanted to kiss and maybe to have a marriage like that some day. I… like to think that their role in her life healed some of her trauma before their death caused even more.

Fully into headcanons now, but I like to think that Renji had a parallel experience, with, of all people, Ikkaku and Yumichika. Like him, they came from the ass-end of Rukongai, but they stuck together instead of bowing to the social mores of the Seireitei. It is critical to note that they were able to do this through strength. This is literally not a thing that Renji and Rukia could have done, but at the same time, Renji sees this as the kind of relationship he wants to have with a partner. He doesn’t want to look after Rukia and protect her, he wants to fight back-to-back with her and then make out afterwards. He’s still convinced that he needs to go through the proper class channels to see Rukia again, but without their influence, I don’t think he ever would have been able to say “fuck it” and turn on his captain during the Soul Society Arc.

Meeting Ichigo and dealing with his unreasonable need to protect everyone he cares about, personally, was also a huge blow to Rukia and Renji’s “I cannot allow the other person to take any risks for my sake” hang-up. Ichigo has his own traumas, which are entirely different from Renruki’s, but the one thing he had was growing up in a loving family. (Isshin has his problems, but I feel strongly that he always made his kids feel like his love was unconditional). I’m not saying that making friends with a shounen protagonist is a good replacement for therapy, but it does have healing properties.

Entirely off-topic, but I feel like Ichigo is incredibly selfish in the way of Terry Pratchett’s witches: “All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine!

Where were we? Oh, yeah. I honestly think that it is unknowable when in canon Rukia and Renji confessed. I already covered this pretty thoroughly in this post. I hate the idea that they were secretly dating. Renji worked incredibly hard to get his post and I think that both his job and Byakuya’s respect are very important to him. I do not think he would put either of those things at risk like that, nor would Rukia want him to. I tend to prefer a slow-burn approached, and I honestly think they got together during the 17-mo timeskip at the earliest, and more likely post-canon entirely, although I think them confessing in the Royal Realm is the spiciest possible outcome, so that’s what most of my fanfic cleaves to.

[jeogiyall]

Growing Pains; Song Mingi

Word count; 21.5k

Genre; Mingi X Reader, Hongjoong X Reader, Childhood Best Friends to Lovers, College AU, Angst, Fluff but Barely

Request: “ hey can I please request a college au with #11 and #17 with mingi from ateez! can it also be long and really angsty but with a comforting ending?? love your work by the way ❤ “

Additional; Featured Ateez, Rebound Hongjoong

Warnings; General Angst, Depicts Depression, Honestly Just Really Sad lol

A/N; this took me so freaking long to write, i’m really sorry to whoever requested it dhkdsfsdaf!! i hope you enjoy it! i haven’t been to college yet so this is all based off of books i’ve read or stories that i’ve been told. if anything is inaccurate i’m sorry, i’ll be learning about really soon lol. if you you like this fic please leave a like or some kind words! love you all, happy reading!

It was a summer day when the local neighborhood bullies pushed you off of your barbie themed bike for the umpteenth time. You remember scraping your knee, dropping your strawberry ice cream cone, then seeing the older boys approach you with malicious grins. But before they could fully reach you there was someone else, someone with limbs that were a bit too long and knees that were raw like yours. Any other day you would’ve found it unbelievably embarrassing that this bozo thinks he can handle this situation any better than you. As if you haven’t been handling this for years. 

But with him it was different. He somehow scared off the crude boys, then offered his hand to hoist you from the pavement while looking sadly at your discarded ice cream cone.

“I’m sorry about your ice cream.” You remember his voice being creaky, like it was always about to break (which it did, frequently,) “I’ll make you some whenever it snows! Th-that’s the only way that I know how to make it, but it’s really good I promise!” He was excited, almost like a puppy. Some part of you thought that it was cute, the bigger part knew he was probably just pitying you. Pitying you the same way that everyone does when you tell them of your constant bullying, only to forget about it in a week and leave you to the wolves. 

“Oh it’s okay, um…”

“Mingi.”

“Mingi!” You repeated the syllables, allowing their taste to form on your tongue. It’s sweet, like an orange soda and going to bed too late, “It’s okay Mingi, you don’t have to pretend like it matters.” Where you thought that his features would fade into relief they pull taught with sadness. He almost looked offended.

“You’re (Y/n,) right?” You nod shortly, eyes welling with tears for no apparent reason, “I-I’m not pretending. It matters.” Something about the way he gazes at you makes you think he’s been wanting to say that for a long time. 

“N-not really, they’re just mean sometimes. Besides, even if it did matter no one can stop it. No one’s ever stopped it.” It felt like you’d crossed a line. Cut the cake before you were supposed to, put out words you were meant to swallow down. Tears were really about to start falling, until Mingi took your skinned palms into his own larger ones. The clench of familiarity in your chest is enough to snuff out the stinging.

“I’ll stop it. I’ll do everything in my power to stop it.” He rubbed his thumb over the top of your hand, and it felt so nice. The gentle touch of someone who could be a friend. The notion that someone wanted you. It felt so nice and foreign and familiar all at once. So you nodded.

“Okay.” He squeezed your hand excitedly then surged forward, but stopped just before his arms could take home on your shoulders. You notice that he smells nice, like oranges and cinnamon.

“Can I hug you?” And just like that he’s made his way into the walls that you’ve already managed to build up.

“Okay.”

The boy holds true to his promise when two weeks later the boys approach you in the hallway, all cheery smiles and cold eyes. It’s a common exchange, they show up and tell you that you look nice today or some other fake compliment before demanding that you give them all of your lunch money. Which sounds stupid, until it’s two in the afternoon and you haven’t eaten all day and you won’t get to for another half hour.

But before anything can happen, Mingi is at your side and talking about his advanced math class. You watch as the boys slowly disperse at your friends silly rambling until it’s just the two of you. A deep breath floods your lungs as he softly punches your bicep in a way that’s starting to feel normal.

“Told you so. Do you want to come over for ice cream after school?” It’s silly how the words fill you with warmth, but you don’t even care. Because what you have here is so secure, and you know that it always will be.

And it always is. Mingi’s friendship is solid throughout your entire life, even when you started high school and nearly everything was shaky. Even when he grew out of the awkward limbs and squeaky voice, and all of the girls at your school wanted his attention. Day after day, Mingi would reject their proposals with a simple “I’m busy,” when the truth of the matter was that he would be sitting with you. Alone. In his basement, watching Star Wars on VHS tapes while eating strawberry ice cream and popcorn.

You remember turning to him one night, eyes drinking in the sight of his side profile illuminated by an exploding death star. He smiled widely, clapping his hands the way that he always does at that part. A deep sigh resounded through your chest, causing the boy to look at you with furrowed brows. For what must have been the millionth time, your eyes locked with his. Words weren’t even necessary for comfort.

“Why did you want to be friends with me? No one has ever cared about me too much, so why did you? I didn’t have anyone, why did you want to be my someone?” Your question sounds small, voice wavering gently.

“Maybe I needed someone too.” The response was so quick. Like he had pondered it before. As if he knew every doubt that you were having, and knew that you didn’t need to have them. 

From that night on, Mingi was more than your best friend. More than someone who you spent everyday with. No, he became your partner in almost everything. He took you to the school dance, stood beside you at every sports game, spent long nights trying to decipher math problems. No one was surprised when you two started applying to the same colleges, you weren’t even sure that you’d survive living without him. Judging by the pattering of his heart each time you entered a room, Mingi thought so too.

Over the years of close proximity and healthy doses of codependency, Mingi’s feelings towards you had progressed slightly past friendship. Not that he didn’t still think of you in that way, obviously. It’s just that whenever you fell asleep on his chest halfway through star wars marathons he’d have to will his heart to beat a tiny bit slower, or when his family brought you along to the beach he had to remind himself that it was rude to stare. The shift in his feelings started about three months into your sophomore year together, while stuffing your face with greasy fast food burgers after a wildly unimpressive football game. Neither of you ever cared about school sports too much, yet you were present every single week. When Mingi asked why, you claimed it was to get him out of the house. He’s pretty sure it was so that you’d have an excuse to get burgers afterwards, though. 

The boy distinctly remembers looking up over his boat of fries to see you with full cheeks, one strand of hair sticking to your slightly sweaty forehead. He remembers the bustling sounds of the diner going silent as his eyes drank in the sight of you for what felt like the first time ever. He remembers thinking that he wouldn’t know how to live life if it weren’t for you. Thinking that life wouldn’t be worth living if it weren’t for you.

“What?” You had questioned, nearly spitting out bits of cheeseburger onto your friends fries. If Mingi wasn’t so infatuated in that moment, he would have been disgusted. 

“You’re gross.” He laughed, one hand moving to nudge your shoulder. From that moment on, Mingi thought of you as just a little bit more than a friend. Just a little bit more than a movie marathon partner, just a little bit more than someone to spend late nights with. A little bit more than someone who helped move you into a college dorm, too. 

“Who on this forsaken earth thought that loft beds were a good idea?” You heave, flinging yourself onto the elevated mattress. It’s far from comfortable, and you’ve had to carry countless boxes up two flights of stairs due to the lack of an elevator, and the hallway smells distinctly of burnt microwave popcorn, but you have never in your life felt more free. High school was absolute torture, and while you did have Mingi to lean on you were still terribly lonely for those four years. Every other girl had a group to sit with, or someone to drag along to the bathroom with them in the middle of class. Having only one friend typically meant having absolutely no classes with them. 

But you’re here now, hundreds of miles away from the tattered building where you used to go to school. The only person on the entire campus that even knows your name at this point is Mingi, which in turn means he’s the only person that knows about your habit of loneliness. You intend to keep it that way, too. Every shy kid hears it from their parents, ‘College will be so good for you,’ ‘You’re really gonna come out of your shell in college,’ but those words meant more to you than an empty promise. In the last few months when you were so terribly lonely that all you had was Mingi and writing until your fingertips fell off, those words were your lifeline.

“Probably someone that didn’t get enough hugs as a kid.” Your friend responds while dropping the final box, which is filled with nothing but fuzzy sock, onto the pile that’s accumulating on the desk that’s squeezed under your cursed bed, “Looks like the last of it.” You nod, cheek brushing gently against the uncovered mattress. It creaks loudly when you shift, which is something you’re sure that you’ll never get used to.

“Are you sure that you don’t want help unpacking?” You barely look up while asking the question, nuzzling even closer into the awful bed. It takes a certain level of shamelessness to sleep on a fully uncovered mattress while a random stranger could walk in and drop all of their stuff on the floor, but you swear to the stars that you’re about there. Mingi appears to be the same way, taking to resting against your yet-to-arrive roommates desk.

“Yea I’m sure, my roommate’s this absolute giant, Yunho I think? He promised to help, so I’m all good.” A hollow laugh leaves your throat, aching with sleepiness. Mingi’s eyes soften ever so slightly before casting to your dirty tile floor.

 “Sounds nice.” There’s a nod, then a groan, then shuffling on everyone's part before Mingi is standing in your doorway and casting a soft gaze to your sleepy form.

“I’ll see you at dinner tonight.” A low humph resounds as your answer, but Mingi knows there’s no weight. You’re going to lay on that loft bed, sleeping like a rock until someone bothers to wake you up.

The someone just so happens to be Mingi, five hours later in a fresh hoodie that has your universities name embroidered across the chest. First you notice the perfectly made bed across the room, then the lack of another girl, then the scrent of oranges mixed with cinnamon, then finally Mingi nudging your shoulder from the ground while holding a Styrofoam bowl of hot food. 

“D-did I miss dinner?” Your eyes squint harshly, the way they always do when someone’s just woken you up. 

“Yea.”

“Sorry.” Mingis heart clenches tightly at your slurred speech, then again at your fluttering eyelids.

“S’okay, I brought you food.” His voice sounds warm, low. Like the Mingi that you’ve always known. You sit up and accept the to go bowl he’s passing up before patting the empty spot next to you. Within seconds the boy is next to you and offering utensils along with his arm around your shoulder, “It’s ramen.”

“Really?” The boy nods, fluffy brown hair falling onto his forehead as you excitedly rip the lid off. The smell of spicy ramen wafts through your otherwise empty dorm, and while it’s not the same as what Mingis mom would make from scratch on Winter days it still fills your belly with an immeasurable warmth, “Have I ever mentioned that you’re my favorite person?” Your shoulders relax thanks to a mouthful of slick curly noodles, Mingi can feel each individual muscle give way beneath his touch.

“Once or twice.” 

The two of you spend that night curled up on your bed sharing bites of the warm soup, and even once it’s done and the bowl is disposed of it still feels like old times. His arm is resting around you, the conversation is happening effortlessly, laughter is bouncing from every last tile. It doesn’t exactly fit in with your ‘new school, new me’  narrative, but that’s okay. You can always spend one night in comfort seeing as the following nights will be spent doing thousands of things out of your comfort zone.

When the time comes for him to walk back to his own dorm building, it’s well past dark outside, your clock ticking dangerously close to midnight from its perch on the (useless) nightstand. The boy hugs you in the doorway, making you pinky promise to not sleep through lunch tomorrow. 

“I won’t, I promise! Please don’t tell me that I left you sitting alone!” He exhales a short laugh at your furrowing eyebrows, his hand taking home on your shoulder in an attempt to squeeze out your tension.

“Not at all, Yunho has like a ton of friends. They’re funny, too.” 

“Really?” Mingi squeezes your shoulder one last before nodding. 

“Really.” 

He walks home in silence, the beginnings of an Autumn breeze kissing his cheeks. Upon arriving at the dorm Yunho spins around in his desk chair, smirking at the younger boy as if he knows something that Mingi doesn’t. 

“Where’d you go after dinner? We were gonna invite you to Wooyoung and Sans apartment.” Yunho leans back in the chair, it’s legs teetering precariously in a way that would debilitate elementary teachers.

“Oh, thanks! Maybe next time, I had to check on a friend.” Yunho quirks an eyebrow as Mingi begins to climb into his bed, kicking his shoes off at the base of the wobbly ladder.

“A girlfriend?” The question should be shocking, Yunho doesn’t even know that you exist for crying out loud, but he is so used to it. After being your best friend and caring for you as deeply as he does, he is so used to it.

“Nope, why do you ask.” The older boy simply shrugs, grounding his chair and picking up a stubby pencil. 

“Just an inkling. Lots of girls came up to you in line, you seemed less than interested.” Mingi ponders his response, because what do you even say to that? He doesn’t have a girlfriend, he’s not interested in anyone, he only has you to worry about. You, with your laugh that defines his childhood. You, with eyes that shoot wide anytime you’re worried about accidentally offending someone. You, who wants to make a new person in the coming year; and you, who Mingi wants to convince that you don’t have to change.

“Nope, she’s just a friend.” He decides, the words falling flat in the cramped room.

“Whatever you say.” 

Mingi lays sleeplessly in his bed for hours, his head pounding with the thought of how hard your connection with him is becoming. He loves you in more ways than one, but he doesn’t love the ache in his chest whenever he has to leave you. He doesn’t love that way that the weight of your touch haunts him for days, when for you it’s probably just something easy and meaningless. He doesn’t love being less to you than you are to him. 

But he does love you, in a way that’s impenetrable and everlasting. That alone is almost enough to make everything worthwhile. Almost.

*

It turns out the whole ‘new school new me’ thing is much harder than you previously anticipated. Naïve senior you thought that maybe you could meet new people through your roommate, but that didn’t exactly work out. It’s been two weeks and all you know about her is that she’s a junior, and that she really doesn’t want to be staying in a dorm. 

So, that’s obviously not going the way that you’d hoped. There is another person though, and he’s been a great help in meeting new people. He is a roommate, ironically enough. Just not your own.

Jeong Yunho, sophomore, fading blue hair, cheeks that look like freshly baked bread, brown eyes that sparkle a little bit when you ask about his major (biology, which is something that you know far too much about after a brief stop by Mingis dorm,) and a head that hits damn near every doorway it passes through. He has to duck to get into the cafeteria. But he’s sweet, like the guy who you could ask for help with homework. And he has so many friends, who are all terribly boisterous, that just eating lunch is like going out of your comfort zone.

Which is enough for you, but apparently not Mingi.

It’s a classic Friday night marathon, you already cuddled up on your bed with Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire pulled up on your laptop. The only thing left to accomplish is getting Mingi next to you and watching the movies, but that doesn’t seem to be the plan that your friend has. When he opens the door to your dorm you immediately notice the lack of Harry Potter pajama pants and popcorn. Instead he’s opted for movie night chic, with jeans that have something written on the left thigh and a white t-shirt that hangs off his lithe torso. His caramel brown hair is pushed back in a way that you’re not used to seeing, but it looks good. Attractive, even. There’s something about seeing him all dressed up and handsome while you’re in measly shorts and a platform 9 3/4 t-shirt that makes your cheeks go hot.

“I didn’t tell you before because I knew that you would say no, but Hongjoong and Seonghwa are having a party tonight and we’re going. Surprise!” Your mouth drops open at Mingi’s form of greeting. Before you can even process what’s been said he’s shaking the rail of your loft bed and chanting ‘Get up! Get up!’ 

“What about Harry Potter night?” You question dumbly while shimmying down your ladder. Obviously Harry Potter night has been discarded in favor of a house party, you don’t need Mingi to say anything to gather that much information, “Seonghwa is okay with a party in their apartment?” Mingi laughs gently, a soft shake of his shoulders and glittering eyes. It’s the only familiar thing about your interaction thus far. 

“The boys said that it’ll hardly be a party, probably too few people and too many wine coolers. Maybe some jazz, Seonghwa’s pretentious like that y’know?” He opens your closet door for you and starts to wrack through the few dresses in the very back. You’d never had much of a reason to buy any dresses. 

“Believe me, I know.” Seonghwa was one of the first of Yunho’s friends that you’d met, and while he wasn’t an ass about it he was definitely a little pretentious. It’s probably hard to be an art major for three years and not be pretentious, “Do I have to wear a dress?”

“You don’t have to, but-” 

Long story short, you find yourself sitting on a suede couch clad in a red plaid mini dress that you only bought for a neighborhood Christmas party in your sophomore year and your one pair of worn leather boots. It’s a tight fitting thing, meant to be worn over turtlenecks and with tights, but Mingi insisted that it would look good alone. He’s not wrong either, ever since you set foot into the surprisingly swanky off campus housing your lunch mates have been showering you in compliments. It started with Wooyoung wolf whistling and asking for your phone number, then Hongjoong asking if he could’ve complimented you in a way that was any weirder, then San giving you a stemless wine glass and announcing ‘A sparkling cider for the lady,’ in the most offensive British accent you’ve ever heard. It was for sure a strange form of flattery, but flattery nonetheless. 

“I’m sorry about Wooyoung, he apparently hasn’t been house trained yet.” Hongjoong jokes while settling you onto his plush, red hair briefly sweeping in front of his attentive brown eyes, “Though we can’t really blame him because of the whole sports medicine thing.” You hear a brief ‘I heard that!’ waft from the kitchen, where Yunho and Seonghwa have gathered the majority of the boys. It makes Hongjoong giggle a little bit, and the sound is so clear and gentle that you find yourself giggling too.

“I guess we can’t.” Your eyes move to take in the living room, which is filled with your lunchmates and some extra people who you don’t know in the slightest. First there’s San, your fellow literature major who just switched from middle school education. Then Yeosang, a quiet sophomore who majors in political science. He usually only talks at lunch to tell his table mates that they sound ridiculous, but every once in a while he'll indulge their antics. Lastly there’s Jongho, the only other freshman in the room with you that you know of. You’ve only just finished your second week but everyone’s already expecting him to be the star student of the music program for the next four years. 

Everything about this situation reads anxiety. Mingi is already in a different room, you’ve barely held a conversation with any of these guys before, someone in the corner is definitely getting a little too drunk into a ficus tree in the corner of the room. But you aren’t nervous. A little tense maybe but who wouldn’t be? You certainly aren’t nervous the way that high school you would’ve been nervous.

“He’s not wrong, you know.” Your eyebrows shoot up with a quiet ‘hm?’ behind your lips. It’s mostly because you think you’ve missed something that Hongjoong said.

“Not wrong about what?” He looks at you with his brown eyes and a lopsided grin, and when you look back it feels like he’s asking for permission to unravel you.

“That you look pretty.” 

It’s not his words that take you off guard, or how he pinches your cheeks afterwards, or even him getting off of the couch and bouncing into the kitchen like a kid coming down the stairs. Your heart barely announces a flutter, your cheeks barely give way to heat. He was probably tipsy. It’s just that no one has ever noticed you in that way. No one other than Mingi has ever really called you pretty.

So it leaves an impression, to say the least.

Quickly after Hongjoong leaves, San takes his place, Jongho sitting on the floor and nuzzling into the older boy's legs. The three of you talk for hours, Jongho sharing your disdain for grumpy roommates (he says that Yeosang throws pillows at him when he starts practicing) and San for Beowulf. He does mention that your creative writing class is fun, to which you agree. Fun, but ever so stifling for creativity. 

It’s a simple kind of conversation, the kind that doesn’t tell anything too personal but still gives insight into the people having it. San throws in a few anecdotes about him and Wooyoung in high school, Jongho shows you a bruise he got from fumbling up the ladder to his loft bed. You even include a few of the controversial star wars opinions that you and Mingi came up with at three in the morning so many years ago. It’s simple, weightless.

When Mingi walks you back to your dorm that night he pauses outside of the door, one hand brushing a stray strand of hair away from your eyes.

“Hongjoong asked me about you.” He says, a smile playing onto his lips. Something about the way that it doesn’t fully reach his brown eyes makes it seem sad.

“Really?” The memory of Hongjoongs hands on your face, his cute voice burning the words ‘you look pretty’ into the back of your mind, “W-What did he ask?”

“Just basic stuff. How long we’ve known each other, your major...” He wants to add ‘whether or not we’re dating,’ because that’s the question that struck him the most. Mingi doesn’t know Hongjoong too well, but he knows that the older boy is sweet and respectable. If Mingi explained all of this mess to him, Hongjoong probably wouldn’t think twice, just go about his day and be friendly as always. But Mingi didn’t explain it, he said that you guys are just friends and that it’s never been anything more than that. Hongjoong smiled in a way that made Mingi’s chest ache and thanked him before bouncing off to entertain Seonghwa. He remembers feeling taken aback, then like he should go talk to the pretty girl that’s been eyeing him in calculus, “I can’t do movie night next week. I-I have a date.”

And it’s something about those words that manages to crawl into your body and find a home in your heart, then pump throughout your entire bloodstream. You shouldn’t be upset. You have no reason to be upset. Mingi is your best friend, and you were stuttering about Hongjoong mere seconds ago, and you shouldn’t be upset right now.

“Oh, okay... Just don’t forget about me.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but Mingi looks at you like you’re the moon. With care glimmering in his irises and adoration adorning the glow of his cheeks. You think to yourself that there’s something special in the air, then that you shouldn’t be upset.

You have no reason to be upset.

“I couldn’t if I tried.”

*

The next time that you see Mingi is at lunch on Monday, but he doesn’t take his normal seat next to you. He can’t when you’re already sandwiched between Jongho and San, who are talking in intense detail about their terrible morning classes. Sometimes you can join in, seeing as you and San share classes, but for the most part they just banter. Hongjoong is taking up the seat in front of you, his chin resting on his palm while he nods attentively to everything the younger boys are saying. He reminds Jongho that he needs to be getting sleep, and that life doesn’t happen in practice rooms. He tells San to eat his food whenever the boy gets a little bit too excited. He even asks about your day, to which you respond with something simple and lame. When you mention being tired he gives you the rest of his coffee.

Mingi comes to the table nearly twelve minutes after you do, and it’s not really a big deal that he can’t take his usual seat. There’s a chair between Wooyoung and Yunho at the end of the table, which is perfectly fine. The two of you know each other well enough that a simple look can be translated to ‘It’s okay, we’ll see each other later.’ Which is perfectly fine. You both have a lunch that is perfectly fine.

The week continues on like that, though. Missing each other by a hair's breadth. On Wednesday his intro to statistical methods test goes so late that he misses your scheduled coffee run, then when you tried to surprise him in his dorm later that night, Yunho had to inform you that he was holed up in the library with some of the people in his calculus class (Yunho let you come in and made hot chocolate in the Keurig, so overall the night wasn’t too bad.) Then on Thursday you skipped lunch, opting instead to finish the assigned Beowulf reading at the last possible minute. You hated every minute of it, but not as much as you would’ve hated failing your second ever quiz. San sent you a picture of himself and Hongjoong pouting around your empty chair and Mingi in the background laughing at something that Wooyoung had done to Seonghwa. 

Friday night feels more lonely than you had expected. Your bed is empty without the taller boy sitting in it beside you. The movie gets cut off halfway through when your roommate stumbles in and announces that she’s going to sleep, which is the most she’s ever said to you at one time. You turn off your laptop and fall into the uncomfortable bed that you’re slowly getting used to. This is okay. You remind yourself that you shouldn’t be upset and that this is okay. 

Right as sleep is about to wash over the room your phone lights up with a message from Mingi. It’s a picture of his hand cradling the chin of a golden retriever puppy, and beneath he’s written ‘we found these dogs in the courtyard. sleep well :)’ 

After reading the message three times over and staring at the image for ten minutes you start to believe your words. This is okay.

You shouldn’t be upset and this is okay.

*

Your high school had three classes per semester then one free period for a study hall. Mingi would always make this huge deal out of lining up your study halls, claiming that he needed help with his English classes. In reality you were the person that needed help with classes, namely math and science, but he’d always insist that it was because of whatever book he had for assigned reading in the upcoming class. 

There was this one semester, though, where you had four classes. Anatomy, geometry, personal finance, and then your absolute saving grace. Creative writing. 

It was a true blessing, honestly. Since every other class was absolute torture, and you didn’t really have any Mingi time to take the edge off of your day, that class was your favorite part of nearly every day. You would kind of use it as an escape, just sit in the isolated corner desk, tap the toe of your then fresh leather boots, and write about any and everything that came to mind. The teacher liked one of your stories so much that he framed it. 

Seeing as that was your only experience when you saw ‘Introduction To Creative Writing’ on your schedule you were ecstatic. You thought that you’d just get to sit and write anything that you wanted. Needless to say, it is nothing at all like your high school class. The teacher speaks too quickly and assigns nearly a million readings. He waited four weeks to let the students do any actual writing, a fact that San was most grateful for. You, however, were dying.

You think the assignment is kind of stupid, too. Focus on a setting, no characters. Just the setting. It took a while for you to get it just right, but after about a week of staying up past midnight you wrote something that was actually good enough to read. It was nearly two pages about Florence Italy, going in depth about the winding roads. You commented that they were the kind of streets that lent way to deep discussion. The kind that begged for secrets to be shared.

All in all, you were quite proud of it. You even considered showing it to Mingi, until it came back with a bright red C sketched on the front. It was covered top to bottom in red ink markings, none of which were comments about your grammar. No, these notes were personal. This sentence is lifeless. Your tone shift is unnecessary. I’m not sure that this is actually in Italy. 

San asked about your grade on the way to your European literature class that day, right as you’re reading over the harshest note of them all. He says that he got an A minus, which makes perfect sense. San isn’t lifeless, he doesn’t do unnecessary things. 

“My grade is fine.” You choke out, eyes endlessly tracing over the red notation. 

‘This feels lonely.’ 

In a way, you suppose that it is. 

*

“So you did this every single Friday night?” Yunho questions while sandwiching his way onto Mingi’s bed. It would probably be normal to be upset that your movie is being infiltrated by your friends roommate and Hongjoong, but you’re just so grateful for the movie night to actually happen that it doesn’t matter.

“Sounds about right.” You’re about to comment that you’ve skipped the past two weeks, but the words twinge with resentment right as they’re about to come out. So you swallow them down while scooching into Mingi’s side. Hongjoong immediately fills the new space beside you, his hands occupied with fuzzy blankets that have various patterns. One has corgi’s and hearts printed from corner to corner.

“I don’t know if that’s lame or endearing.” The older boy comments while spreading the blanket you’d been eyeing across your lap. Yunho laughs while taking in a mouthful of microwave popcorn, and you think to yourself that this isn’t so bad. Having a movie night with more people than usual is better than having none at all. There’s more snacks and extra blankets now, so you don’t have to burrow into Mingi’s comforter halfway through and tangle your legs together. Because you’ve never wanted to do that before, it just happened out of habit and necessity. Definitely habit and necessity. Definitely. 

There’s also not much difference in the essence of movie night. Someone still interrupts serious scenes to crack a joke, you still tell Mingi that he’s breathing too loud, by the time the credits are rolling you still find grease stains on the underside of Mingis comforter. It’s from all of the years of him using the plush blanket in place of a napkin, and the years of you telling him that he’s going to stain it.

Mingi walks you back to your dorm that night. When he stops in front of the door and lets out a deep exhale it almost feels like you haven’t skipped the past two weeks. It almost feels normal.

“I’m glad that at least one of us has a cool roommate.” He comments idly, eyes raking over your growing smile.

“With cool friends.” There’s a gentle laugh, and you’re not exactly sure why. Nothing is funny, just familiar. Maybe a bit tense, though you suppose you don’t know the reason for that either.

“Yea. Cool friends.” Mingis feet shuffle, brown hair flopping onto the bridge of his nose as his gaze takes purchase on the floor. He smells like oranges and cinnamon. He always has. You think that he looks nice like this, with the flickering hall lights illuminating his face. This is probably what Mingi was always meant to look like. Real, and handsome, and grown, “I think we should switch movie nights to once a month.”

And if this whole thing was a little tense before, like an ornament hanging on by it’s hook around one green needle from a Christmas tree, it’s worse now. It’s broken shards of glass all over your living room floor, willing and ready to pierce your foot and stain the carpet. It’s the gaping hole in your Christmas tree. It’s your mom's favorite Santa no longer having a head.

“O-oh... Once a month?” Mingi nods gently. It almost looks like he doesn’t want to be nodding, but he is. He is, and it’s pulling your heartstrings like an orchestra. 

“Yea, I just figured that’d be easier since we’re so busy. Y’know, with classes and friends...” You wonder if he’s going to say something else. Like dates with girls from his calculus class. He never does, but you can feel it.

“I know, I-I’m like... Super busy with all of my f-friends.” A heartless laugh leaves you, and Mingi replies with a smile that doesn’t quite crinkle his eyes, “But yea. Once a month, once a month. Once a month totally works for me.” He takes a step towards you.

“Look, (y/n-)” You think that he’s about to comfort you, which of course would be welcome. Comfort from your very best friend is always welcome. It’s just that a small part of you is worried that he’s going to take it back. You’re worried that he’s going to tell you that it’s whatever and you can have movie night every week until you die and that he’s going to live life in college dragged down by your stupid, lonely self. You’re worried that he’s going to drop it, and that you’ll never live it down.

“It’s fine, I’ll see you tomorrow at lunch, yea?” Before the boy can even fully nod, which makes you sick to your stomach for no apparent reason, you’re scrambling desperately for the doorknob to your dorm. You think that you may hear him say goodbye, or wait, or something. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Everything matters. You just want to be inside. 

When you get inside your roommate is sitting on her bed with earbuds in, though they don’t appear to be playing anything. She looks at you with furrowed eyebrows, and you can’t really blame her. In the rush to get away from Mingi you probably ended up looking a bit frazzled. 

“Um... Are you okay?” She questions, her mouth making a perfect circle. You nod fervently while bringing your palms up to pull at your cheeks. They’re wet. You’re not sure when they turned wet. 

“I’m fine. It’s okay.” 

Sometimes you say something so many times that it doesn’t sound real anymore. I’m okay, this is okay. I’m okay, this is okay, This is okay, this is okay. Okay, okay, okay...

If your roommate hears you sniffling and shaking while alone in bed that night, she makes no comment. It’s the first thing she’s given you to be grateful about all year. 

*

One of your biggest concerns before starting college was walking to classes alone. All throughout high school Mingi would walk with you across the tiny campus, somehow managing to drown out the crowded hallways with laughter and tips for quizzes. When you were taking discrete mathematics he’d walk backwards down the hallway while showing you flashcards. 

Obviously you knew that wouldn’t be feasible in college. You might not have known many things before coming here, but you knew that vastly different majors would lead to vastly different classes. You knew that Mingi wasn’t going to wake up at eight am every Wednesday to walk you to your lectures. Knowing didn’t seem to make the actual act of it any easier in your brain.

But after just one week you started to look forward to the trek to your classes. At first it was because you could listen to the assigned readings in the amount of time it took you to get from your door to your desk, however that hasn’t been necessary since your social calendar became suddenly clear. You just do the readings at night in your loft bed, which hasn’t gotten any comfier, then use the walk as a time to relax. To think without impositions, even though they’d find their way to you most mornings. 

Today your imposition is dressed in jeans with painting above the knee and a sweater that’s too big, tufts of red hair sticking out from beneath his black beanie.

“What are you doing out so early?” Hongjoong asks while jogging to take up the spot next to you, pulling on the strap of your bookbag as he arrives. When you fully look at his face you can see a dusting of pink across his nose. You think it’s from the light fall wind.

“I could ask the same thing of you.” You think that he looks pretty like this, with inklings of the rising sun taking purchase on his face. You almost think that anyone would look pretty like this.

“I’m out for a walk. Also grabbing muffins from the campus cafe, we’re out of food and Seonghwa’s mgonna be hungry.” His voice sounds groggy with sleep, like maybe he hasn’t been awake long. The notion conjures an image in your head of Hongjoong detangling himself from bed and trekking out to campus all so that his friend would surely have something to eat. It makes this whole exchange just a little bit easier, “Your turn.”

“I have an eight am class.” The boys eyebrows knit together as he looks at his darkened phone screen.

“It’s seven fifteen.” 

“... I don’t like my roommate?” At that wimpy explanation he laughs, a gentle laugh that was made for morning, then hooks his arm through your own. The weight is something that you’ll have to grow used to.

“You kids are gonna drive me insane, I swear it.” His free hand pinches your cheek which is growing increasingly warmer. You hope that you two will continue walking like this, quiet and unbothered and maybe a little bit childish.

“Hongjoong?” You question as he begins to pull you down a brick paved road that you’ve yet to travel.

“Hm?” He answers like nothing about this is strange. 

“My class is the other way.” The boy giggles at your concern, wanting to reach out and run his thumb over the crease in between your eyebrows. Something about your demeanor, which isn’t far off from a stray kitten, clues him in that you wouldn’t respond well. 

“We’re taking a detour.” 

“If you don’t tell me where we’re going I’ll pull out my pepper spray.” This sentiment is the first thing all morning that’s made him stop in his tracks, casting a puzzled look to your bulky bookbag.

“Do you actually have pepper spray in there?” You can feel a smile edging on your lips as your eyes click with his, and while you know that he’s not giving you butterflies or sparks it does feel like something. Like the first gulp of soup on a cold day, or the sound of orange leaves crunching beneath your sneakers. 

“Tell me where we’re going and you won’t have to find out.” Obviously, you don’t have any. It’s been in your cart on Amazon for forever but you’re not one hundred percent sure about how to order things to a dorm, and you figure that your first package shouldn’t be a literal weapon. 

“We’re getting coffee, and you are terrifying.” The comment lights your cheeks with fire as you scurry to catch up with him once again.

“Well you’re the only person that thinks so.” The boy walks so quickly that your feet are nearly going in double time, face puffing with cold air while you speak.

“I doubt that.” You notice that his face is pink again, though you’re not too sure that it’s from the cold this time.

“You’re probably the only person who thinks anything of me.” Hongjoong stutters like he’s going to stop walking again but you tug on his arm once more and he’s back in full swing. 

“That’s so not true. Yunho thinks you’re sweet, San says you’re a wonderful writer, Mingi clearly thinks that you’re amazing.” That last statement finds a crawl in your chest and begins to fill your lungs with pink daisies. Amazing. Mingi clearly thinks you’re amazing. 

“Sure.” You answer with twiddly fingertips and a thumping heart. Luckily you’re standing in front of the campus cafe before you can think too hard on it.

Hongjoong orders two salted caramel hot chocolates, a black coffee, and three blueberry muffins. When you asked why he didn’t get you a coffee as promised he told you that the coffee here is ass and Seonghwa only drinks it because he’s starved for energy. You don’t have the heart to tell him that the frappuccino you order has so much cream and sugary syrups in it that you could barely even call it coffee, and it tastes pretty darn good. It’s not a big deal. Hot chocolate is good too.

“This is really good.” You offer later while walking through the campus quad. There’s not many people out this early, just a girl you’ve seen in your lecture once or twice and two boys playing checkers on the grass. Hongjoong keeps stepping on the crunchy orange leaves then smiling like a little kid. It makes you think that he’s growing on you, then that you thought that you’d be doing this kind of stuff with Mingi. 

You don’t really know why you can’t let yourself enjoy this. You’re in the quad with Hongjoong, waiting out the clock until your class starts, and this precious sweet boy is playing in the fall leaves. This should be a perfect morning, but you can’t help feeling sad. Feeling incomplete. 

“I know, right?” He answers, bouncing over to you wearing a bright expression, “Now get up pretty girl, we’re playing in the leaves.” 

“I have a lecture.” He takes your hot chocolate and places it on the empty seat next to you before slotting his hand into your own. His skin is soft, like blankets fresh out of the dryer.

“And before that you’re going to have some fun, let’s go!” He’s smiling at you expectantly, so what are you supposed to do other than drop your hot chocolate and join him?

Your first impression is that he plays with people in the way that a puppy would play with another puppy. He’s quite fond of kicking up piles of leaves just to see how tall they’ll go, then you kick them up further and he gets flustered. He then proceeds to throw leaves in your face, then picks them out of your hair before you can get mad enough to throw them back. You think that this is a lot of fun, then that your trusty boots make a nice sound when the leaves crunch under them.

There’s this one time when you try to kick up the leaves and your leg slips out from beneath you, which sends you flailing backwards into the leaf pile. Hongjoong rushes over immediately, his face half concerned but mostly lit with laughter. He asks if you’re okay, though it’s through indecipherable wheezing so you can’t really hear him. The boy is laughing so hard that he ends up laying next to you, red hair and sparkling eyes mingling with the orange leaves seamlessly. You think that he looks like a photograph. 

If you show up to your lecture ten minutes late and with crushed leaves sprinkled through your hair, no one mentions it. 

*

Movie night with Wooyoung and San is fun. The popcorn is a little bit burnt, courtesy of San, but their couch is far more comfortable and blankets far fuzzier. Sans burning a candle that smells like cookies, and you feel like nothing could be more accurate to him. 

“This is nice, I’ve been meaning to rewatch Harry Potter.” Wooyoung comments while sinking in between you and San on the couch. He’s cradling a bowl of slightly browned popcorn and shoving it into his mouth as if there’s nothing wrong. 

“Yea, definitely. I like spending nights in.” You’re about to tell them that you considered this a night out, but then you think that’s terribly sad and that you’d sound really lame. So you nod instead.

They’re pleasant movie guests, San makes funny comments every once in a while. Wooyoung starts to fidget about halfway through the first movie so he spends the first portion of the second one making a fresh batch of popcorn. It doesn’t burn this time. Him and San spend almost the entire movie tossing popcorn across the room and into each others mouths.  Overall it’s not such a bad night.

When all is said and done and you’re helping them pick up misfire popcorn kernels, the boys get to talking. They ask you what Mingi’s up to that he couldn’t make it to a Friday movie night. You’re going to tell them the truth, that Mingi’s out on a different date with a different girl from a different class. You’re going to tell them, but the words taste so terribly bitter on the way up.

“Um... I’m not sure. Probably homework.” Wooyoung tosses an unpopped kernel so that it hits you square in the forehead. You simply giggle before throwing it into your trash bag.

“We should’ve invited him! Him and Yunho, it could’ve been a whole thing!” San shouts from the kitchen. It makes your skin prick up with goosebumps. Because while you are definitely lonely, and you definitely miss Mingi, you’re not sure that you could handle his response. You’re not sure that you could handle asking Mingi to come to one of your most prized traditions and him saying no. Him saying no because he’s out with another girl and giving her his undivided attention, because that is how he is, and you couldn’t handle hearing him saying no to you. He never used to say no to you.

“I had fun with just you guys, though!” They tackle you in a bear hug, and it feels nice. It really does, it’s just that you still have that nagging feeling in your gut. Like your professor is right. Like you’re alone.

*

Your next ‘Introduction To Creative Writing’ assignment is about characters. The rubric clearly states that it should just be about the people and nothing else. Points will actually be deducted if you mention a setting.

So you wrote two characters, a boy and a girl. The boy finds the girl too bland so he asks if she’ll share a secret with him. She thinks for a long time while the boy studies her face, and he loves every corner of it. Finally, she leans in to whisper something. You don’t tell the audience what she’s said, but you do tell them that it makes the boy laugh. Then he kisses her cheek and they laugh some more, until time dies out and the stars no longer shine. You liked it from the moment that you started writing it, and by the end it was something that you were genuinely quite proud of.

Apparently pride wasn’t enough to get you a much higher grade. It’s passed back looking exactly like the last one, a bright red C and thousands of red notations. You flip to the rubric in the back to see that everything is marked straight down the middle. 

You didn’t mention a setting, but you didn’t make the setting irrelevant.

Your characters didn’t interact with the setting, but they barely interacted with each other.

You included characters, but they were not lively and enjoyable.

And you’re not quite sure why everything you write is so dead. You’re not a person who feels dead, you’re funny and full of life. You have things to say that are important so you write them into stories rather than speaking them out loud. You’re good at this, so why are you getting C’s? Why is an old man with a beard that touches his belly button saying that you aren’t good at this? 

When you get back to your dorm you rip the paper to shreds and cry alone in your loft bed. Mingi texts you to ask when you’ll be at dinner, you tell him that you’re too busy with homework. He asks if he should bring you something, but you lie that it’s all covered. You’re not entirely sure that you could handle seeing him right now. 

When your roommate comes in she seems a little drunk. She clambers over to her bed then finally looks up to you. It’s not your finest moment, cheeks streaked with mascara and shreds of paper all around you.

“You okay?” She slurs out. You think that it’s a dumb question, because obviously you aren’t, but at least she’s trying. Trying is good.

“I’m fine” Right as the words come out you know that they sound fake, but you don’t know what else to do. Normally when you feel like this Mingi is just a phone call away. Every time you’ve tried to call him in the past week it’s gone to voicemail. When a week has really torn you down like this one you’d always have a movie night to look forward to. Mingi made it clear that he wasn’t too keen on that anymore. You usually have your shoulder to cry on. Now you don’t even think you’ll be able to keep yourself together if you see him.

And it’s hard for a lot of reasons. Because you need Mingi but Mingi doesn’t need you. Because everything feels so wrong unless you’re desperately trying to salvage your longest friendship. Because maybe this friendship meant a little bit more than just that, but you’ve realized entirely too late.

*

You usually wake up at seven thirty in the morning. It’s not because you want to, or because your roommate is too loud climbing into her bed at night, or because the sun comes into your dorm weirdly. You just go to sleep late, because you can’t force your brain to stop, then wake up early. Because out of all of the things that are going wrong, why wouldn’t you also get less than four hours of sleep every night?

But it’s not all bad. Every other morning you meet Hongjoong in the quad. Sometimes it’s with a book, sometimes with your latest creative writing assignment. He’ll read them and make comments. He always says that it’s good, and it’s fun to believe him for a little while. 

This morning you come to him empty handed, just like he said to last time. There’s supposed to be a surprise. You couldn’t bring yourself to tell him that you don’t like surprises. 

“Good morning, pretty lady!” He’s always so chipper in the mornings, with his eyes crinkling happily around the edges and bright red hair bouncing. Today he’s wearing a puffy coat that’s nearly ready to swallow him whole paired with jeans that have a painting sprawling up the calf. You had recently found out that he and Seonghwa were responsible for the illustrations on everyone's clothes. Mingi gave them his favorite jeans after two lunches spent in the cafeteria.

“Good morning.” You were clearly finding it hard to be as excited.

“Did you read the student newsletter yesterday?” Cold air puffs from his lips along with the words, and his face lights up when you shake your head no. The collar of his coat is brushing his cheeks, “So it’s really a surprise then!”

He’s so precious and childlike in that moment that you decide there’s no harm in indulging him.

“What’s really a surprise?” He’s already started walking so you have to do a half jog to catch up, once you’re at his side he starts to skip so that you have to jog even further. This happens every once in a while whenever your friend is feeling extra punchy. You often find it hard to match that energy, but something about this early November morning has you more present than ever.

“Catch up to me and I’ll let you know.” He reaches into his pocket and appears to pull something out, then hang it over his head. You know there’s nothing in his hand. It’s empty and you know that, nevertheless you chase after him. The boy laughs loudly before sprinting away. Once you’ve caught him you start jumping for the mythical gift hanging over his head, which he finds unreasonably funny. The sound rings off the brick path beneath your feet, and it’s like the sun is finally rising. You think that’s the kind of person that Hongjoong is, the kind that would bring the sun up just to make someone else smile. 

When you open his clenched hand he slips it into yours, fingers curling ever so gently around your own. His skin feels soft, it makes you wonder what kind of lotion he’s using.

“I caught up.” Your voice sounds small. Hongjoong thinks it’s bright, “What’s my surprise?”

“There are puppies in the quad, I think they’re up for adoption. I figured you’d like to see them.” He’s perfect. On paper Hongjoong should be the perfect boyfriend. He takes you to see puppies, buys you hot chocolate, makes you play in leaf piles, you’re pretty sure he’s redone his entire sleep schedule just so that you two can keep up with these morning strolls. You so badly want Hongjoong to be perfect.

But there’s just something off. Maybe it’s because his one hand can’t fully engulf both of yours, or because he doesn’t tower over you with what feels like two extra feet. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t smell like orange zest and freshly ground cinnamon. 

Maybe it’s because he’s not Song Mingi.

“I would like to see them.” You respond, squeezing onto the boy's hands. Hongjoong is perfect, but he’s just not right, “I’d like that very much.”

*

You’re not quite sure how it happened, but San seemed to notice that your Fridays were becoming more and more lonely. After that one Harry Potter movie night you did with him and Wooyoung in their shared apartment you’ve not really done anything. Hongjoong invited you to another house party, and you were going to go, but when you reached for the handle to exit your dorm you just couldn’t bring yourself to do it. Something about going and knowing that Mingi would be there, probably with his date of the week, made your mouth taste sour. So you stayed home instead, sitting in your bed and struggling with a creative writing assignment. You’d occasionally snack on some granola bars that Mingi stashed in the bottom of your closet when he moved you in.

Those were your plans for tonight, but San grabbed you just before class ended. He told you that Wooyoung was planning dinner but the recipe serves four so he figured that they could invite you and save the rest as leftovers. You agreed, fully expecting that you’d chicken out at the last second and stay home, yet here you are. Standing in their kitchen while sipping on a shirley temple that San mixed up for you, Wooyoung is occasionally stirring the simmering pot on the stove. San invited Hongjoong at the very last second so those two are sitting at the kitchen table and trying to talk each other's ears off. You find your way into the empty seat beside Hongjoong and let his hand rest on your thigh. He rubs gentle circles on your jeans, and it nearly gives you butterflies.

“Dinner is almost done, would you guys mind grabbing some drinks from the garage.” The two boys nod before scurrying towards the front door and shared garage. Wooyoung takes the seat across from you, “Do you think you’re gonna date him?”

“Who?” You ask, probably in a less defensive way than he’d anticipated.

“Hongjoong.” Wooyoung doesn’t look as playful as usual, the childlike glint gone from his eyes. If anything the boy appears worried, probably for his friend Hongjoong. Part of you wants him to be worried for you. You’ve barely eaten anything except for granola bars in the past week because you don’t want to risk running into Mingi in the cafeteria. Your five hours of sleep every night has been slowly dwindling down to four. Mingi has moved movie night twice this month. You still can’t get a good grade on a creative writing assignment. 

“I don’t know.” You think that you probably are. You think that you mostly want to.

“But you aren’t going to date Mingi?” It feels like the air around you is made of cotton, your mouth has gone completely dry.

You don’t know why you’re upset. You shouldn’t be upset.

“No.” There are tears threatening to spill from your eyes. You hope that if you breathe deeply enough then you can will them to stop, “I suppose I won’t.”

The dinner turns out lovely, but you can barely take a bite. You can barely even say another word for the rest of the night. You just tell  them thank you, it was lovely, then go home to finish your creative writing assignment. The professor is probably going to write a note that it’s lonely. That’s okay, though. It is lonely, because that’s what you are. Terribly, and irrevocably lonely.

*

A week after the dinner party you and San are partnered together on a creative writing assignment. The main goal is to learn how to work collaboratively with another author, not that you even considered yourself that, and it’s coming along nicely. There are just a few things that need to be cleaned up before it’s due, which prodded San to invite you out to coffee. At least you thought that’s what it was about, but when he takes his seat at the table there’s no laptop tucked beneath his arm.

“A-are we not working on the project?” You question softly, hands hovering idly over your keyboard. 

“I wasn’t planning to, but you... You can if you want to, I guess.” He drops his bags and heavy coat in the vacant seat before flipping through his wallet, “You ordered yet?” You shake your head no, you didn’t want him to show up and have you already be halfway done with your drink and then deal with the awkward conversation of how you showed up thirty minutes early because other than meeting Hongjoong in the morning this is the only thing on your social calendar for a week. After that you have movie night, “I’ll get you something. Coffee or tea?” 

“Coffee.” When the boy returns to the table, it’s with two steaming mugs, perfect for the frost bitten weather outside. Yours smells like vanilla and nutmeg.

“It’s the shop special I think.” He smiles gently, dimples on parade for the entire campus to see. You think that San has a nice smile, the kind that takes over his face, along with yours before you can even stop it.

“It’s nice, thank you.” Things are quiet for a second while San is putting away his wallet, and for some reason you’re confused. If you’re not going to work on the project then why on earth did he make the time to get coffee? 

“(Y/n?)” He asks softly, raising your attention from the untouched mug of coffee to where his hand is on the lid of your laptop, “Are you okay?”

“Yea, I’m good.” The words sound dismissive before they’ve even left your mouth, “Why did you ask to get coffee?” Sans eyebrows raise and he feels a small tug on his heart. He doesn’t understand why he wouldn’t want to spend time with you.

“Because I have free time and I wanted to spend it with you.” You’re not sure why, but it’s hard to hear that. Maybe because you’ve been hiding from life for as long as you can remember, or because you’ve had nothing but free time for a month and you’ve wanted to spend all of it with the one person that will hardly return your texts, or maybe because sometimes those words are hard to hear. 

“Oh.” You take a sip of the coffee, it makes your stomach feel warm for the first time in a long time, “Thank you.” San cracks his knuckles while offering up a gentle smile.

“No need to thank me, we’re friends.” 

“I guess that’s why I’m thanking you. I don’t have a lot of friends, if you hadn’t noticed.” The boy is looking at you with attentive eyes, and it feels like there’s something lodged in the back of your throat. It tastes like vanilla and nutmeg and thousands of wasted opportunities, “I used to have Mingi, but he’s so busy with all of the classes and... Dates, that we don’t really talk much. I’m grateful that I have you.” When San smiles it’s sweet and genuine and you feel like you are finally doing the whole college thing. The thing where you make growth.

“I’m grateful to have you too, you’re a sweet kid.” If you weren’t so touched you would remind him that he’s only one year older, “I don’t think any of Mingi’s dates have much substance, honestly.” Something about the way he says it makes you think that he’s not talking about the girls themselves. It makes your heart flip.

“How come?” As soon as the words leave your mouth you pray that they don't sound eager. San lets out a heavy sigh and you think that maybe your prayer worked.

“He just isn’t really satisfied with anything. There have been girls eyeing him since his first time in the cafeteria, but he didn’t care much for it. Now he’s decided to take them up on their offers, and yet he still doesn’t seem to care for it. We’ve all asked him what’s up but he won’t say much. Just that it’s not what he’s looking for.” There’s a pointed gaze that says a million things. Mingi hasn’t found what he’s looking for. Mingi is just as lost as you are. Maybe Mingi couldn’t find what he was looking for because it’s always been there. Maybe Mingi needs you as much as you need him.

“Oh. I didn’t know.” You leave the cafe that day with a smile on your face and hope fluttering around in your heart, and for the first time in a long time you think that maybe you can be happy.

*

You’ve been planning this night since the moment you stepped out of the campus cafe with San. It’s probably a little bit cheesy, with all of the contraband candles and what not, but Mingi always said that you went a little overboard on movie nights. Now you’re standing in the center of your empty dorm room, illuminated by tea light candles, wearing the dress that you wore when Mingi dragged you to your first ‘party,’ and your heart all the way in your throat. Because tonight is the night. Tonight you’re going to tell Mingi how you feel about him, and you’re not going to listen to the little voice in your head that says this is probably stupid, and that Mingi showing up over half an hour late is a bad sign. That voice is annoying and has made you wait too long for too many things.

So when Mingi walks into your dorm with rosy cheeks and windblown hair, you let your heart stutter. When his jaw drops open, you let yourself laugh, and when he takes a step forward, you do too.

“What’s this about?” He questions with a familiar deep voice that leaves warmth blossoming in your chest. 

“I just...” Your eyes lock onto the freckle on his neck before flashing back up to eyes. They’re sparkling in the flickering candle light, “I’ve missed you. Really badly, Mingi. I miss you in the mornings when I walk to class, I miss you at lunch when I get my granola bars from the closet, I miss you when I’m with my friends, I-I... I miss you on Friday nights. I spend all of my time missing you, and I don’t want to anymore. I’m tired of hiding how I feel about things, like I think that my creative writing assignments are stupid, and I hate everyone in sports medicine except for Wooyoung, and I miss you. A-and I think that I might love you, so I wanted to-” Mingi takes two steps forward, coming dangerously close to closing your distance, and you think that he’s about to kiss you. You think that you’re ready for him to kiss you. You’re heart is beating faster, then faster, then faster-

“Why are you doing this?” And then it stops dead. You honestly think that you might be dead. This feels worse than being dead.

“Um, d-doing- Doing what? I’m not doing anything, I thought you were-” You’re rambling and it’s so awful, Mingi knows it’s awful. His hands are massaging his temples as if this is insanely stressful. It kind of is, but you can’t figure out why he would think so.

“Why are you telling me that you love me? After not seeing each other for almost a month, why are you telling me that?” Clearly, this is not the way that you expected tonight to go. Several of the candles by your desk has burnt out, you feel like you’re about to cry, “I haven’t been lonely, (Y/n,) because I have a-” You feel tears tugging on your eyelids so hard that it hurts. Before you can think about it, and before you can hear whatever he has to say, your index finger is in between his eyes and you’re staring at him like you want to throw something out a window.

“Don’t say that.” It’s probably the most assertive you’ve ever been with him, “I just don’t understand why you’re fighting me on this.” Mingi takes a deep breath before running his hands through his hair. You wonder when he picked up on that habit, which person got to see this before you did. He looks handsome. You hate it. 

“I don’t understand why you get to want this now. I don’t understand how I have waited and waited for you to love me back for years, and once I’m finally done with letting you break my heart you get to decide that you want this. I don’t understand how that’s fair.” There are tears gathering in the corners of his eyes, but they’re different from the ones that you’ve seen before. They’re not like the ones he sheds over movies, these tears are angry and unwilling. 

“Mingi I-“ 

“Don’t say that you didn’t know. I know that you didn’t know, because you never wanted to know. You were too scared to know, but I was never scared. I’ve always known that we were right, and you were always scared.” It feels like your heart is trying to crawl up your throat in the worst way possible. Like it’s a spider that you swallowed. 

“Mingi that's not what-“ 

“But I can’t be with you (Y/n,) because I’m done with you being scared. I’ve been done with you being scared for years, and I'm finally okay with being done with you. Let me be okay, (Y/n.)'' There are now tears behind your eyes as well, but it’s not angry. It’s sad, because he’s right. You are really scared, it took months for you to work up the courage to admit to even yourself that you love Mingi.

“What are you saying?” The words are choked and staccato, tears spilling freely onto your cheeks. A brief look at his tear streaked face tells you that he’s known this answer for forever. 

“I’m saying that I can’t be with you right now. I just… Can’t.”

He leaves before he can see you sink to the tiled floor, or hide your face in your hands, or cry off all of the mascara you had put on just for tonight. Just so that you could bat your eyelashes at him and give him love until the sun came up. Just so that you could give him your love like flowers and a candle lit room.

But you don’t get to do that. You put on mascara for no reason. Mingi doesn’t want your love, he doesn’t want your candle lit room. He gave your flowers back, and they’re just going to sit on your nightstand until time takes her toll on them. Until they wilt and wither and all of the petals fall onto the floor. You don’t know if you’ll have the strength to sweep them up.

It’s not clear when you start crying, but it is clear that you never stop. You cry for hours and hours until you finally pull yourself off the floor and into your bed. The candles burn themselves into darkness. The room smells a bit like ash. Your blankets are warm. Your chest aches. Mingi is gone. You are scared and you’re alone. You probably always will be.

* 

You’re not sure when food lost its taste. When your room lost its color. When your legs became too heavy to move. When sleep became extinct. When it was easier to be in the library than it was to be in your own room. When every single one of your grades sky rocketed to an A while creative writing sat heavily at a C. You can’t watch Star Wars anymore without wanting to throw up. Strawberry ice cream tastes like poison.

You’d fallen asleep on a desk in the back of the library twice before Yunho found you. He wasn’t exactly sure what to do seeing as it was the middle of the day and no one had heard from you for a week and a half except for San, but he figured that leaving a hot coffee by your sleepy head seemed to suffice. If you were tired enough to fall asleep in the library it was probably much needed.

He thought that he’d just forget about that encounter, sweep it quietly under the rug and hope that you started getting more sleep. It was going well enough, until he arrived here. One week later, ten minutes before midnight, you in the same exact position as last time. There were tear tracks in your makeup and black smudged beneath your eyes. He could see the assignment peeking out from beneath your folded arms, ‘Study In Relationships,’ no doubt for creative writing. There are only two words that aren’t covered in black scribbles. You let a gentle snore, and he knows that it’s time to wake you up. To talk to you.

“(Y/n?)” He whispers while gently nudging your shoulder. You grumble ever so slightly before snatching the unfinished assignment back to rest beneath your head. Another small grunt leaves your lips before he calls out your name again, shaking you with a bit more force than the last time. Your eyes flutter open gently and take in the tan walls and fluorescent lighting before you fully register that Yunho is there. 

“Hey,” Your voice is gruff around the edges, and you know that if you say too much everything is going to fall apart, “good to see you.” His eyes take you in, sweatpants with countless stains, a hoodie that has a little hole forming in the armpit, your hair disheveled and greasy. He knew that something bad had happened when Mingi came back to the dorm about two weeks ago with tear filled eyes and an unwillingness to talk. You stopped showing up to any of the meals after that, even Hongjoong couldn’t get a hold of you. The blue haired boy would be lying if he said he didn’t worry for you in passing, but all of those concerns were brought to a forefront at the sight of you now. You look, and he means this in the nicest way possible, like a disaster. 

“Yea, i-it’s good to see you too.” His hands fiddle with the hem of his sweatshirt, busying themselves so that he doesn’t start to pack up for you, “The library is closing.” Your eyebrows furrow as you suddenly remember where you are. 

“Oh. I-I’ll get this cleaned up then.” You don’t know why, but asking him to help feels wrong. You’d like help, but something about his pitying eyes makes you feel small. The same way that you did when those boys pushed you off of your hot pink bike. Like he’s pitying you, except now there’s no lanky kid to save you.

Yunho ends up offering the smallest amount of help possible, just slipping your pencil into your bookbag, before helping you stand. The room swims for a minute before you can walk.

“Can I walk you back to your dorm?” You don’t know how to tell him that most nights you don’t go back to the dorms after the library kicks you out. Most nights you plop down on a bench in the quad and slave over your creative writing journal. Most nights you don’t crawl back into your room until four in the morning, when your roommate is dead asleep and can’t ask you if you’re okay, “Just don’t want you walking back alone in the dark.”

And really, what are you supposed to say?

“Yea, that’s fine.” The two of you walk in silence for a wall, nothing except for the rhythm of padding feet and rustling tree branches. Early winter air nips the tops of your ears while Yunho shivers beside you. You hear him miss a step and you feel yourself choke on a thousand words. 

“We’ve missed you.” You don’t respond with the question that you desperately want to ask. You don’t ask if everyone misses you. If a certain boy that smells of cinnamon and eyes that glimmer like childhood misses you. 

“Yea. I’ve missed you guys too.” The silhouette of your dorm building is slowly coming into view, you think that it looks different when the world is still awake. Some windows are still lit, people are drawing curtains shut. Normally when you come home everything is dark and unbelievably cold. This isn’t anything special, but it’s a whole lot better than that, “This is me.” You say tersely while slowing to a stop in front of the looming building.

“Yep.” You can tell that he wants to ask you something. Maybe it’s why you were asleep in the library, or why depression wears you like a necktie, or why he hasn’t seen you in the cafeteria for a month in a half. He wants to ask you something, but the way his lips close around the consonant tells you that he won’t.

You get halfway into the door before something tugs at your heart strings, “Yunho?” You call out, turning halfway over your shoulder to see his eyes trained on you. They look sad. You think that it makes sense why, “Thank you.” 

He nods curtly, and you know that he’s not sure why you’re thanking him. It’s okay though, because at least you know that he misses you. Before tonight, you thought no one missed you.

Sleep is as rare as ever that night, yet the thing that lulls you to sleep is the same as always. Floppy brown hair, clapping hands, a bad CGI explosion playing off of a crackly VHS tape. He smells like cinnamon and orange rinds, yet when you inhale it’s nothing but your dusty dorm room.

*

The end of the semester means wrapping up many loose ends. You pack up every coat and Christmas themed clothing item in your closet, notably avoiding the dress that you wore for Mingi. You meet Hongjoong for coffee and exchange presents, a pair of customized jeans for you and a twenty five dollar visa gift card for him. He smiled really wide when you told him that it was to make up for all of the coffees and meaningless conversation. You drop the level two creative writing class that was on your schedule. San makes a plan to meet up over the holiday and you agree wholeheartedly. Finals week isn’t all too bad seeing as you’re already getting less than four hours of sleep a night and funneling every bit of brain power into school. The only thing that’s left for you to do is turning in your creative writing assignment, which is both the easiest task and the one that you want to do least. 

The classroom is dead empty when you enter, not even your white bearded professor in sight. You scurry down the steps with the short story in hand, a meaningless piece about two strangers who share misty mornings. You hate it, just like you’ve grown to hate almost everything that you create, but it’s an assignment. It meets the bare minimum for what’s required on your rubric. You finished it.

“Miss (Y/n?)” Your body freezes in the middle of the final step before stuttering slowly back to normal. It probably looks stupid but you barely have the will to care, seeing as the thing that you were most dreading was happening. Your creative writing professor is standing at the top of the classroom with his long beard and judgmental eyes, and you are standing in front of his desk with shaky knees. 

“O-oh, hi! I was just turning in-”

“Why aren’t you enrolled in my class next semester?” You take in a breath, the air as thick as soup. You don’t know how to answer his question. You don’t want to answer his question. Answering his question feels like letting go of a piece of yourself.

“Oh, I-I dropped it. It’s just that I have other classes I need to take, a-and I’m not all that good so…” Your professor nods before furrowing his bushy eyebrows and starting slowly down the stairs. Each of his forward steps causes your heart to thump. 

“Who said that you aren’t good?” He questions, continuing down the steps. You clench the assignment in your hands and watch as the paper creases beneath your thumbs. When you look at the pages they’re clear, nothing but your words and margins, but when you think about what it’ll look like in a week you want to cry. It’ll be marked in red, with a fat red ‘C’ circled on the title page.

“I-I just, I never thought, Y-you said-” The professor is now standing in front of you with folded hands, his expression of confusion shifted into concern.

“I never said that you aren’t good.” You  breathe in again, the air thin enough to actually intake this time around. 

“You didn’t?” He shakes his head before pulling the crinkled assignment out of your hands.

“No, you show great promise as a writer! Your writing is… lacking, but it’s only in one area that can be easily improved upon. No great writers start out great, but all great authors show their flaws at one point.” Tears prickle the back of your eyelids, and it feels like there’s a little hand grappling onto whatever you thought you’d have to let go. 

“Miss (Y/n,) I’m trying to say that failure is okay. Getting less than a ‘B’ on your paper is okay, but you can’t stop trying.” He’s right, a part of you has known for a while that he’s right. Just because you got a bad grade in this class doesn’t mean that you’re bad at writing. Just because Mingi said no doesn’t mean that you’ll never feel deeply again. It just means that you need to keep trying.

“Oh, um… Thank you.” You’re not sure what else to say. There honestly isn’t much else to say, so you give him a short nod and head towards the stairs. You think that you’re going to head back to the dorm and cry on your bed, which is stripped of its duvet and most of the pillows. You think that you’re going to ask if you can have this class added back to your schedule. You think that you might speak with Hongjoong more often once your break is over. 

And sure enough, your spring semester begins with Hongjoong walking you across campus and to your second level creative writing class. The month away seems to have done good for the both of you, Hongjoong returning with dozens more customized clothing items and you with slowly disappearing eye bags. His hair is also faded into a lighter pink shade, which you think suits him quite well. 

Your walk to class is uneventful, riddled with small talk and basic catching up. Near the end he slips his arm beneath your book bag and around your waist, which feels nice enough. His arms are stronger than you expected. The half embrace is not unwelcome. When you two are standing outside of the quickly filling classroom he takes your hands into his own for a brief moment before asking if you’re free for coffee after class. You want to make up an excuse for why you can’t go, because you know that this isn’t just two friends going for coffee, but when you look at Hongjoong there are sparkles in his eyes. Pink hair tickles his cheekbone as he smiles warmly at you, and you find yourself thinking that his confidence right now is commendable. You also find yourself saying yes, you can definitely get coffee with. 

It’s a fun outing. He cracks a few jokes, you talk about class. He asks if you have any assignments and you say not yet. When he orders an iced coffee you ask if he’s trying to get frostbite, to which he laughs and pokes out his tongue. You think that he looks cute. You think that all of this is kind of cute. 

You also think that when you’re with Hongjoong, and he’s making you laugh and holding your waist, it’s very easy to forget about how badly you miss Mingi. 

*

When you agreed to re-enroll in your creative writing class you and your professor exchanged a number of emails. First about how you could improve your grade, then about how to improve your writing, then countless of other questions with ambiguous answers before the two of you finally settled on having weekly meetings. It would be sort of like he were your personal advisor, but only for writing. You would come into his office once a week to discuss your current project and he would read it over, ask if you had concerns, usually give some feedback. 

Within the first week it was clear what your most reoccurring critique would be. It was a mantra echoed many times, ‘To write life you have to live it.’ He said that your writing was good, pretty, but the characters lacked life. Then he asked if you could try to spend a little more time with people. It didn’t have to be much, but he was convinced that a bit more people time would improve your writing greatly. 

It’s been a month or so since that first meeting, and you weren’t sure if you agreed yet. You were spending almost everyday with Hongjoong, sometimes Seonghwa as well. You were definitely more tired each time you came home, but you also smiled more. Laughed more, too. They would often ask you for help with silly things, like the time that Hongjoong called you at midnight because he needed help touching up his hair, Seonghwa often asked you to mix his paints. It often felt like you were their third roommate, but it was okay. You had fun. 

Yet you didn’t see much improvement in your writing. There were still notes in red ink on your paper. You weren’t sure of the remedy you should apply, but more people time seemed like it wouldn’t hurt. So you set up daily lunches with Yeosang and Jongho, which was an interesting dynamic to say the least. Jongho would sit down most days and chug an entire reusable cup of green tea with soy milk before getting lunch, to which Yeosang would furrow his eyebrows and comment ‘I don’t know how he drinks that.’ Usually the younger boy would talk animatedly with you about classes then he’d ask if Yeosang had anything going on. Your dark haired friend would look up from his half inhaled plate of food with deep set eye bags and say that he had at least three papers to write. One time you asked if he was okay, but he just laughed and blamed it on his major. After that your writing seemed to improve greatly, at least according to your professor. He told you that it was starting to come alive much quicker. The only thing he had left to say was that your more gentle characters needed work. He said that they needed to be more than just gentle.

Running into Yunho in the library after that meeting was pure coincidence. You were headed to the back to start cracking down on some of your more challenging classes, namely entrance level biology, yet when you dropped your bag on your usual study table you noticed someone was already there. 

“Oh, I’m sorry! I’ll just-”

“(Y/n?)” He asked while turning to face you. It suddenly hit you that the last time Yunho had seen you was while you were at your absolute worst. Not sleeping, or eating, or talking to anyone but yourself. You don’t know if he’s going to let that version of you go. You only know how badly you want him to. 

“Yea, it’s me.” The words tug on your vocal chords so you cough lightly in an attempt to clear them, “How are you doing?” He twirls the blue gel pen in his hand for a moment before responding.

“I’m okay. The usual kind of busy, my room’s been messy lately. Just normal stuff.” Quiet settles over your conversation so that you’re left standing awkwardly in front of his neatly organized table. You’re not sure why you can’t bring yourself to speak, but you are sure that it has something to do with the fleeting thoughts of the boy that Yunho’s sharing that messy room with, “What’re you working on?” He asks, motioning with his gel pen to the stuffed folder in your hands.

“O-oh just some biology stuff, I have a quiz next week so…” Before you can say otherwise he’s clearing off a spot on the table and telling you to pull up a chair. He helps you with pretty much every half finished assignment. He even adds extra cheat codes onto your flash cards in crisp blue ink. As you’re leaving the library to get dinner with Hongjoong he tells you to meet him back here after your quiz.

“After all, I’d like to know how my best student is doing.” Weekly study sessions honestly come about naturally. He insists that he’s beyond happy to help, and you’re beyond happy to observe him. Listening to him talk is your favorite part. He’ll ramble on about a lab or being worried that someones going to steal his bike from in front of the dorms. He tells you that he thinks Hongjoong will ask you out, you tell him that you know. He says that your handwriting is pretty, you thank him. When he talks about things that make him angry his words are gentle and calculated, so as not to hurt people that aren’t even present. Needless to say, the red ink marks are few and far between after factoring this newfound knowledge into your pieces.

But you think that it’s a bit more than that too. For the first time in… Ever, you think, you’re happy. Not in a fleeting way that depends on strawberry ice cream eaten on Friday nights. You’re happy in a way that’s hard to tumble, and you’re happy in a way that’s without Mingi. You never thought that you would be happy without Mingi. All throughout high school you feared this very thing, having to live without him and be okay with it. Now that you’re doing it, it’s not all that scary.

You still see Mingi around campus from time to time, in curls of chestnut hair and broad shoulders. Sometimes when you’re walking to class with Hongjoong you can hear his laugh bouncing from the surrounding buildings. Part of you wonders if you’re just conjuring him up. Part of you wonders when it’ll stop. 

Hongjoong does ask you out, just like Wooyoung, and Yunho, and everyone predicted. You say yes. You laugh with your friends until your sides hurt. You share kisses with your boyfriend. You start to feel excited about life in a way that you never have, and a part of you honestly wonders if this whole thing with Mingi was just a growing pain. Something that needed to happen in order for you to change.

The aching of your chest at night says otherwise. But believing as much is easier to stomach.

*

You’re relaxing at Seonghwa and Hongjoong’s house when a nerve is struck. You'd been sitting at the table chatting with Seonghwa while Hongjoong made himself something for lunch. It was really an accident, you had just been telling Seonghwa about your study session with Yunho when he got onto the topic about an awkward study date he had been on recently. You laughed as he recounted it and assured him that a study date was a cute first date.

“I’m sure it’s not as cute as whatever you and Hongjoong did.” And that’s when it happens. The chord is played, the line is written, and Hongjoong was looking at you with wide, apologetic eyes, “Y-you did have a good first date, right?” Your boyfriend said nothing, just bit his lower lip and returned his attention to the stove, “You’ve been dating for a month, you had to have had a first date. Right?”

“I’m sure that we will.” The tension that followed your meek statement was painstaking. First Hongjoong inhaled sharply through his nose, then Seonghwas mouth pressed into a thin line while his eyebrows raised. He muttered some nonsense about needing to get started on his painting for realism class. Apparently he was in such a rush to leave that he forgot that he wasn’t even taking a realism class, “Look, Joong we don’t have to-”

“Do you want a cutesy first date?” He asked, turning away from his food once again so that his eyes could bore into your own. You weren’t sure if his voice was stern in that moment or sincere, either way it was maddeningly effective.

“I mean… It would be nice.” He raised an eyebrow and nodded with his tongue in his cheek before returning to his food. Once it’s done and the fragrance is drifting from his workplace and towards the table, he takes the seat across from you. You’re about to say something but then he presses a swift kiss onto your lips.

“Then you, my darling, are getting just that.” 

A cutesy first date, with your sweet boyfriend who brings you tons of joy. It sounds great in theory, except for the fact that it’s been a week since your conversation and he still refuses to tell you when or where the date will be. Some may say that it’s romantic, but you say that it’s stressful. Pretty much every time that you leave your dorm room you end up seeing Hongjoong, so pretty much every time that you leave the dorm room you’re fully dressed and ready to go out. You’re starting to think that he’s finding joy in your suffering. It’s not too drastic of a belief, seeing as every time that you open your dorm room in a new outfit he giggles and whispers ‘cute.’ 

The miniature cat and mouse game finally comes to an end about a week and a half later, when he texts you Friday morning that you should wear something cute today and to be ready for pick up at five thirty. Though, the suffering doesn’t really end because in reality you spend the entire day raking through your closet for anything that could possibly make a cute outfit. There’s the cursed red plaid dress that you wore to that house party and awful confession oh so many months ago. You figured that was a no go, but honestly what else did you even have? There’s a uniform skirt that you bought while thrifting with Hongjoong, but you weren’t sure what shirt to wear with it. Your favorite jeans were in the wash so those obviously weren’t an option. It looked like it was going to have to be that dumb little dress.

But it’s not so bad, you manage to pair it with a black cardigan and the pair of leather boots that your mom got you for Christmas to replace the old ones. You also do more makeup than last time, so it really doesn’t look all that similar. When you look in the mirror before answering Hongjoongs knock you’re barely even thinking about the last night that you wore the dress. You’re thinking about tonight… Mostly about tonight.

You open the door to see your boyfriend wearing a black button up and blue hair that catches you off guard. His hands are shoved cutely into his pockets, you can see his thumbs twiddling from inside his jean pockets. The moment that his eyes take in your frame his face breaks out into a wide smile. It’s a familiar smile at this point, he wears it around you constantly.

“You look amazing.” He says beneath his breath. You watch with twinkling eyes as he examines every one of your features, your smiles growing with each passing moment.

“You’re not too bad yourself.” You're not sure what to do past this point. He’s said that you look nice, you’ve internally fawned over his new hair that looks so incredibly soft, you’ve looked each other once or twice and smiled. You don’t know if you’re supposed to kiss him now, or hold his hand, or what. This is all quite new, “Um, should we get going?” He looks back at your face with a jump, as though your question had pulled him out of something. You’re going to ask what, but you aren’t quite sure how to get the words out. 

“Yes, yea! I-I’ll lead the way.” After five minutes of walking around your familiar campus you arrive at the shuttle. You’ve only taken it once or twice in your time here, mainly to get to Hongjoong’s house at the edge of campus, but you do know that on weekends it will take you into the nearby city. There’s only one seat left by the time that you get on, so of course Hongjoong let’s you have it and opts to stand instead. 

“You can sit if you want to.” He immediately shuts down your offer with a quick peck to your lips and a sweet giggle that you’ve grown to adore. 

“It’s our first date, I can’t have you thinking that I’m anything less than a gentleman.” If he weren’t so endearing you’d point out that you’ve been together for over a month. But he is endearing, so you only laugh and take hold of his hand. 

The date ends up being pretty much perfect. He takes you to a small cat cafe that’s tucked away on the downtown streets of the city, something that you didn’t even know existed until this very night. The inside is fully decorated in light pink with white lighting that highlights your adorable boyfriends features. He’s so sweet the whole time, smiling and letting the cats curl up in lap. The two of you share a piece of cake, he smears a little bit of the stiff frosting onto your nose. It’s cute. Sweet. You return to the dorm room with hot cheeks and a bashful grin.

“I had a lot of fun.” You say to him while leaning up against the doorframe of your dorm room. He smiles, but it’s different from the smile that you usually see. He’s usually so confident and sure of himself, but in this fleeting moment you can see unsureness in his features. It’s almost like he didn’t think you’d like the date.

“Yea?” You nod as quickly as he can ask. It’s not clear why, but you feel the need to assure him that you enjoyed your time together, “I’m glad. We could do something like this every week, you know?” 

The response isn’t as quick this time, or as adamant. You want to say yes. You had fun tonight, you enjoy spending time with Hongjoong, you want to say yes. But there’s something holding you back. It’s gentle, tugging on your heartstrings like a haunting winter melody. It tastes of strawberry ice cream, and smells of Song Mingi’s basement. You still remember the first time that he proposed a weekly movie night, all those years ago. You still remember how wanted it made you feel. At times you wonder if anyone will make you feel as wanted as Mingi did.

You’re starting to wonder that now, even as Hongjoong catches his thumb beneath your chin so as to tilt your chin up. The thoughts don't waver until your eyes meet, and you think that you’re probably right. No one will make you feel as wanted as Mingi; but Hongjoong does make you feel wanted. It’s not as overwhelming as Mingi. It’s not as safe as Mingi. It’s not as fateful as Migni. But it is there.

“What do you think? About the weekly thing, I mean. Like how does that sound?” Mingi was everything to you. In many ways he is still, but he’s also gone. Hongjoong is most things, but at least he’s here.

“It sounds lovely.”

*

You’ve spent a lot of time thinking in the past few weeks, pretty much ever since Hongjoong started with the dates. It’s mostly when you come back to your dorm after them and lay belly up on your loft bed, eyes glazing over the ceiling tiles that you’re pretending to count. Sometimes you think about Hongjoong, the way that his smile overpowers his face. The way that he laughs whenever he flusters you. The way he takes time out of his week to plan these cute little dates with you. Sometimes you think about Hongjoong. But most of the time you don’t. 

Most of the time you find your thoughts wandering far out of reach, and most of the time they wander straight into Song Mingi. It starts with thinking that you miss his presence, the way that he jumps to help anyone with anything. The way that his eyes shine each time you call out his name. You miss the way that he gives hugs, all warm and inviting. Some nights if you focus hard enough you can even remember the way that he smells. Orange zest and cinnamon.

If you’re honest with yourself, you know that this isn’t fair to Hongjoong. You like him well enough, but he adores you. He calls you darling and kisses you as though the action is sacred. He always walks you home after every date even though his own house is so far away. In theory, he is perfect. You’ve been dating for close to two months, you should be fully head over heels by now. But you can’t give that to him, and you know it. You also know that you can’t be alone again.

“Darling?” Hongjoong questions, pulling you away from your thoughts and back into the present. The two of you are cuddled into a far corner of the couch, midday sun pouring through the tall windows and landing across your boyfriend's face. You were watching the light dance in his eyes and talking about your latest creative writing meeting, but then he started talking about having another dinner party at the house. He said that it’d be like the one that he and Seonghwa hosted at the beginning of the school year, where you came with Mingi. It’s kind of funny honestly, because he regards that as one of the nights where he first started to like you. You regard it as one of the nights where Mingi first started to hate you, “Is everything okay?”

You should tell him no, because that’s the truth. You’re not okay. You don’t know if you’ll ever get over Mingi. You don’t think that you’ll ever love Hongjoong the way that he so clearly loves you. You shouldn’t lie to him. You should tell him no.

You also shouldn’t be alone again, right?

“Yea! I’m just tired. That’s all.”

*

In retrospect, you should’ve asked Hongjoong to not invite Mingi to this house party. It would’ve sounded odd, sure. As far he knew you and Mingi were still friendly. Had you requested that Mingi wouldn’t be invited you probably would’ve ended up having to rehash the entirety of your history. It would probably leave your boyfriend questioning whether or not you still had feelings for Mingi, a question that you’d have to lie through your teeth to answer. It would’ve been a little bit awkward, sure. But at least you wouldn’t be where you are now.

You fall gracelessly onto Hongjoongs unmade double bed, hands flying up to cover your flustered face. Mingi arrived at the off campus house nearly two hours after all of the other guests. There was an small window where you thought that you were safe, in which you took time to talk with San and Wooyoung while grazing over the cheese board that Seonghwa had set out. You felt like a true adult in that narrow window, the kind that works a nine to five job and deals with their problems. Then Mingi arrived. Two hours late.

You watched carefully as his eyes bounced around the room. They landed first on Yunho, who engulfed the boy in a warm hug before returning to his previous conversation. Then they traveled to the sectional couch in the living room where Seonghwa sat with Yeosang. He offered them a short greeting while walking through the living room, face crinkling with laughter at something that Yeosang had said. You find it comforting that after so much time apart his laughter hasn’t changed. He filtered naturally out of the conversation before moving to stand beside the tv. You watched his eyes move deftly across the open floor plan and began to wonder what he’s looking for so eagerly. Maybe it’s the girl from his math class. Maybe it’s someone entirely different. His gaze wandered and wandered, covering every corner that it could reach before finally landing. Before finally landing on you.

His eyes were piercing yet kind, stripping away the facade that you had previously believed. You aren’t an adult. You’re a little girl that got pushed off of her barbie bike and had to have a lanky preteen come to her rescue. You’re the idiot who lit dozens of tea light candles in her dorm room just to be turned away. It feels like you’re being stripped of your skin, but it also feels like you’re being reminded of yourself.

“Are you okay?” Jongho asked. You were so occupied with Mingi that you didn’t even realize he had joined. His question was sobering though, pulling you back to the harsh reality that you are okay. And you’re okay without Mingi.

“Yea, I’m fine.” You tore your focus back to the group in front of you, who were all staring at you. They clearly didn’t buy your answer, and you didn’t blame them too much. Anyone who didn’t know you could see that you were distressed, so clearly three of your close friends could tell, “I-I just realized that I have a paper due tonight. I’m gonna go finish it in Hongjoong’s room.” 

You now find yourself praying that Hongjoong won’t try to come and find you. You don’t know how to lie about this to him. You don’t know how to look him in the eyes and make up a reason for why you freaked out and left the party. By some terrible coincidence the door handle starts to jiggle. You want to say that you think through all of the possibilities of what you’ll say to him, but in reality there’s only one option of what you’ll say. The truth. If Hongjoong were to come into his room right now and ask what’s wrong you would have to tell him the truth. That you love Mingi.

“Hey honey, I had a paper to finish and-” The person that comes through the narrow doorway is much taller than your boyfriend. His shoulders are broader. The slope of his nose goes down further. Even from here you can smell brown sugar and oranges, “Oh. It’s you.” He looks handsome as ever. His cheeks may be a bit slimmer, the bags beneath his eyes are a bit deeper, but he still looks like Mingi. His face is still your childhood.

“Yea. It’s me.” Silence falls over the room, squeezing tightly around the chords of your throat to the point where you think that they’re going to break, “I-I just saw you come in here and-”

“I have a paper.” He swallows harshly, hands shoving into his pockets as his eyes stay glued to the floor. You find that bit funny, seeing as when you were outside he wanted to look nowhere but you.

“Right. A paper. I’ll leave you to that, then.” He’s moving to leave, and in that moment you know nothing. You’re not entirely sure what your name is, or where left is in relation to right, but you do know one thing. You don’t want Mingi to leave. You don’t want him to leave. He’s barely been here for two minutes. You haven’t said a single thing that you wanted to say. He can’t leave.

“Wait!” The boy stops in his tracks before turning. His eyes finally meet yours again, they’re  questioning and so gentle that you almost think things could go back to normal, “I don’t have a paper due tonight. Well, I do but I did it two days ago. It’s just that when I saw you I-I… I panicked. Probably because we haven’t seen each other in months. Probably because I really, really, miss you.” Your eyes are slowly becoming tearful, but you really don’t want them to be. You’ve shed so many tears over this relationship. You should be able to do this. The fact that he’s not saying anything doesn’t make it any easier, but still. You should be able to do this, “You don’t have to say anything, I guess, but I-I’m glad that I said it. You were my best friend, I’ll always think of you in that way. I know that we’ve both said… Things, and I get that you might not be able to move past that, but I’m willing to. If it means that we can be friends again, I’m willing to.” Your eyes somehow became glued to your twiddling thumbs over the course of your speech. You don’t think that you’re going to move them, until you feel a pair of strong arms embracing you. He smells so good, like he always does. This one hug feels like all of the comfort that you’ve craved for the last six months. Like the comfort that only Mingi can bring you.

“I’ll move past it. I-I’ve missed you too.” His voice is low, crackling like a fresh log that’s been thrown into the fireplace. You spend the following two hours in Hongjoongs room. You’re curled up on the bed and he’s in front of the disheveled desk. It’s dodgy, you know that it is, but something about really being here with Mingi makes you forget about all of that mess. It’s much easier to forget about it. You eventually return to the party, floating in between conversations with all of your friends. It’s nice to not have to avoid Mingi. At one point Hongjoong joins your conversation with Mingi, San, and Wooyoung. He puts an arm around your waist, which you should enjoy. You would like to enjoy it, but your mind is slightly preoccupied. 

“Where’d you go earlier, darling?” He whispers into your ear halfway through a drawn out story that San is sharing. He’s always been awful at telling stories, but he gets so excited that everyone lets it slide. 

“Oh! I just had a paper that I needed to finish, so I went and did that in your room.” He wants to ask why you had to do that with Mingi, but then the other boy starts to laugh and he knows the answer. Based entirely off of the way that you look at him, Hongjoong knows. 

Once everyone has left and you’ve all shared your goodbyes, Hongjoong suggests that the two of you clean up the living room together. It was an hour or so of silence before he brought up the elephant in the room. 

“I’m not it for you. Am I?” You don’t know why you thought he’d be angry with you. Probably because he’d have every reason to be so. But this is Hongjoong. You could single handedly send the world into ruin and Hongjoong still wouldn’t get mad at you. 

“I really want you to be.” You’ve stopped cleaning now, hands lying limp over the small stain that you were previously scrubbing off of the couch. Getting dumped isn’t going at all how you always thought that it would. It doesn’t feel like your heart is being trampled. You don’t have the compulsive urge to cry. No, none of that. It just feels like you’re explaining away a weight that’s been on your chest for months, “Does that make sense?”

“I think that you wish you wanted me. I think that you wanted me more than you wanted to be alone.” He’s started to play with the strings of his hoodie in a hopeless attempt to calm his raging heart, “But you’re not alone anymore, are you?” You could pretend that you don’t know what he’s talking about. You could deny it, but in reality there’s no point to any of that. It would only prolong all of this, so you nod, “Yeah. Thought so.”

When you say goodbye to him he hugs you tighter than usual, you think for a minute that he’s going to tell you something else. He doesn’t. Just kisses your forehead and says to get home safely. You do, it’s a mere twenty minutes before you’re tiptoeing into your dorm room and up the ladder to your bed. It almost gets to the point where you pretend to count ceiling tiles, but then your phone buzzes from beneath your pillow. It’s a text from Mingi, a short and sweet message.

‘I’m glad to be your friend:)’ 

It’s probably stupid, seeing as the night ended on a terribly sour note, but those few words and that silly emoticon makes it feel like this entire year has been worth it. Because you have Mingi again, and there’s no way that you’ll lose him this time around.

*

After the breakup with Hongjoong, you were slightly worried that no one would want to be friends with you anymore. It would certainly be a fair decision on their part, seeing as you were beyond awful as a girlfriend. You thought that in Hongjoong’s healing, he would end up telling some of the worst things that you did to some of the people whose opinions matter the most. You’re not sure why you thought that, perhaps because it’s what you would’ve done if someone did this to you.

You’re more immature than he is, though. Hongjoong handles his feelings with grace. His words are unbelievably careful whenever he shares them, or at least that’s what Seonghwa says. He also says that he misses having you around to mix his paints and clean his brushes. You had told him that you were just glad that he still likes you, even if the wounds were only a month old.

There was also the ever present worry that Mingi would ask why you and Hongjoong split. You’ve thought of plenty of fake reasons, like saying that the two of you didn’t really click. Or you could keep it simple and say that it just wasn’t the right time for either of you. The options were endless, but there was the problem of Mingi being able to read you like an open book. He would surely know that you’re lying, possibly before you even opened your mouth. The main risk involved was whether or not he’d pester you for the truth. 

That constant fear was not helpful for a regrowing relationship, to say the least. You’ve hung out a number of times since reuniting, but he would always ask you about what you did in the months that you spent apart. Obviously, mentioning the end of first semester was strictly off limits. The rest of the time you spent with Hongjoong, so that left very little room for conversation. You would mostly end up talking about your creative writing meetings, which was fine. It was just sparse.

But this weekend would be different. The two of you had made plans nearly two weeks ago to carpool home together after spring midterms for the long weekend. Your immediate response was to panic, because what on earth would the two of you talk about for the hours that it took to drive home? How would you possibly avoid talking about any of your life for the past four months for that long? But as the days drew closer you realized that maybe it wasn’t such a big deal. The two of you used to go on fun drives constantly, and most of the time you’d barely talk at all. This would be fine. You could manage this.

He picks you up an hour after the exams are concluded, and much to your gratitude there’s music already blaring from each of the speakers. He motions through the window for you to put your bags in the backseat, which you do before sliding into the front seat of his car. 

“Hey.” He’s looking at you with a soft smile when he says this, the gentleness of his face juxtaposed against the disney channel music blaring from the speakers is enough to make you laugh. So you do, the sound falling from your lips in a way that reminds Mingi of how dearly he missed it.

“Hi.” You stare at him for a minute, and he stares back. You find yourself thinking that all of this is mighty odd. Just two months ago you didn’t think that you’d ever have the strength to talk about Mingi again, now the two of you are sitting in the same car, “We’re listening to High School Musical?” He laughs too, passing his phone into your lap while shaking his head of brown curls.

“For now yes, you can change it if you’d like.” If you didn’t know him then you would’ve missed the twinkle in his eyes which indicated that he was going to continue, “Only if it’s Hannah Montana, though.” 

The ride was full with playful banter and off key high notes. Each time Mingi would go to hit one he’d tilt his head back ever so slightly, the brake lights of the car in front of you catching on the delicate lines of his adams apple as he did so. You would laugh until you had to clench your stomach then chastise him for not keeping his eyes on the road. He never once tried to ask about what you’ve been up to, or ask about Hongjoong. In a way, you almost forgot about it for the long hours that it took to drive into your hometown. Mingi seemed to have that effect, like walking through a museum of all of the things that he made you feel for the beginning of your lifetime. Comforted. Carefree. Joyful.

The car slows down then turns, and even if you weren’t looking up you’d know exactly where this car was headed. It’s the place that you spent every late friday night, the place where burgers couldn’t be served without a milkshake on the side, the place where Mingi first knew that he would always love you no matter how hard he ran from it. The chrome on the outside of the diner looks exactly the same, and when you peer through the windows it’s even more familiar. Red cushioned seats, a jukebox in the corner, salt and pepper in mismatched porcelain dispensers on each table. It feels like you’re coming from a football game with sweaty hair and a quickly beating heart. It feels like you’re still a kid.

“Are you hungry?” You ask teasingly as Mingi turns off the car and undoes his seatbelt. He runs a hand through his hair, laughing lowly.

“More like thirsty, milkshakes on me?” You know how this is going to end. You know what paying for food and offering up rides indicates. You know that this could crash and burn and leave you utterly devastated for months. But you also know that you’ve changed. That you’re finally done living a loveless life in honor of your own comfort. You think that he’s changed too, less bitter now. You’re both finished with hurting each other, so maybe it could end up hurting exactly the way that it did last time. Maybe it’ll end up working out. The fact of the matter is that you’ll never know what falling feels like unless you jump.

“Milkshakes on you.” You respond with a purely happy smile. He smiles too, the kind that breaks across his entire face until it can’t possibly get any bigger. You’ve missed that smile so much, “Hongjoong and I broke up by the way. I’m sure that you already knew that, but I wanted to tell you myself.” He nods once, then purses his lips, then begins to play with his own fingertips. It’s too early for you to get a read on him, but you do think that he already knew. You also think that he’s trying to hide his happiness.

“Thank you for telling me.” He pinches his lips shut and swallows before continuing, “Are you okay?” He reaches out to hold your hand before he can even think about it, but it doesn’t seem to make you uncomfortable. You take his hand and squeeze it gently then slowly set it back down to lay on his thigh.

“I’m fine. I’ll be even better once I get a milkshake.” 

Conversation flows more naturally after that, the both of you talking about nothing and everything at the same time. He tells you about the time that Yunho made a hotdog explode in their microwave. You share one of your many anecdotes from lunch with Yeosang and Jongho. He asks about what you’ve been writing lately and so you tell him briefly about your work in progress and the meetings with your teacher. The entire time while you’re talking he beams at you with pride. You had always loved writing so much.

You finish your milkshakes and he tips the waitress extra. You drive the remainder of the way to your house, Hannah Montana still blaring from his speakers. It’s unbelievably stupid and childish, but at the same time it’s absolutely perfect. He pulls into your driveway and lets out a heavy sigh, hands smacking against the steering wheel.

“Well. You’re home!” He doesn’t really want you to go, despite having driven all this way specifically to watch you leave. Something about the look in your eyes, and the fact that it’s directed straight at him, makes him think that you don’t want to leave either. 

“I’m home.” You unbuckle your seatbelt and get out of the car before Mingi can even think of another thing to say. He maneuvers a bit in his seat so that he can see you as your picking up your stuff and think of something to say, “Thanks for the ride, I’ll-”

“Do you want to start up movie nights again?” He wasn’t exactly planning on asking you that, but he was planning to ask if you could spend more time together. It’s been so long without you that he wants to spend as much time with you as possible, “In my room, on Saturdays. And I’ll never stand you up or reschedule at the last minute.” Your heart is hammering, you don’t even bother to pretend that you don’t know why. The boy in front of you is stammering and over explaining and turning red in the face, and you are terribly in love with him.  

“I’d like that very much.” With that simple agreement, it feels as though the entire world has been set back into place.

*

You didn’t realize how much junk a dorm room could accumulate in the span of a year until it was time to clean all of it out. There were schedules to peel off of the walls, clothes to dig out from the back of the closet, phone chargers that had fallen behind night stands. It’s weird to look at it now, with all of the homeliness and personality stripped away. Next year there will be two entirely different people sleeping in the loft beds, which you admittedly grew used to. Maybe they’ll be strangers. Maybe they’ll be best friends.

“That’s the last box.” Mingi enters the emptied room right as your eyes move to the empty bed that had been adjacent to yours for the entire year. Your roommate had left early this morning, her things had been packed for weeks already. The two of you never grew any closer to one another, but you didn’t mind. Coexisting with her felt like one of your many growth challenges throughout this year, “You missing your roommate?” Mingi asked with a cocked eyebrow, making you realize that you’re still staring at her stripped bed.

“No, not really.” Your voice comes out so matter of fact that it makes Migni giggle a little bit. He thinks that it’s nice to see you, who was once so meek and quiet, being adamant about not caring for someone, “I’m grateful for her though. I didn’t think that I’d be able to live with a stranger before this year. I didn’t think I’d be able to do lots of things before this year.” You finally move your eyes to the boy standing at your side to see that he’s staring at you with a proud smile. It makes your chest swell with warmth in a way that you don’t even fight against, “What?” You can’t help but break out into a smile as you gaze even longer at his.

“Nothing, I’m just really proud of us. Who we’ve become, especially you.” His pinky finger brushes up against your own, for a moment you can feel his hand aching to hold your own. You open up your palm and lace your fingers into his, moving with certainty and purpose, “I like who you are now, you’re a lot bolder. Happier.” Your body flushes with heat, heart pattering so erratically that you’re sure he can hear it. You hope that he does. 

“I-I like you now too.” Your voice wavers as his hand travels to your wrist, pulling you gently so that you’re facing each other. His face looks stern, like this moment is do or die, yet his eyes sparkle with the same childlike twinkle as always. You watch his eyes travel from your own to your lips in a mere second, breath hitching in the back of your throat. You’ve waited for this for such a long time, but as his nose brushes ever so gently against yours you find yourself thinking that it was worth it, “May I?” The question is whisper, your breath ghosting against Mingi’s plump lips. You place your hand on his chest so that his heart is thumping beneath your hand. 

“Yes.” You hook your free hand beneath his chin and bring his face closer to yours so that your lips are finally touching. It’s nothing but a gentle brush at first, both of you timid and overly careful, but as soon as you try to pull away his hands are on your waist and pulling you closer than you thought was possible. He kisses you with fever, hands gripping you as though he’s scared that you might melt away. You bury your fists into his shirt, trying desperately to let him know that he never has to worry about that again. 

He pulls away after sometime, hands moving to hold your face as he rests his forehead on yours. He says nothing, only brushes his thumb against your cheek and smiles. In the quiet moments, you can make out the blurred lines of a future, one that’s spent in a modest apartment that’s decorated with all of the junk that Mingi just hauled downstairs for you. You can see late nights spent writing at a desk that’s full of his trinkets. You can see weekly movie nights on the couch with blankets and twinkling fairy lights. You can see a life that’s lived with love and passion, a life where pains are forgotten and growth is left in their place.

When he smiles at you and goes in for a second kiss, your eyes flutter closed. Yet you still see it all so clearly. You can see a future, and you can see it with Mingi by your side.

[kewltie]

one of the great mysteries in hogwart is izuku's strange and intimate relationship with an older slytherin boy!dabi where he's constantly on the precipice of falling to dark side and izuku is perpetually in the light and how some ppl no matter how hard you try you cant be save and how sometimes the ppl we love are capable of terrible things. this 'verse always been endgame bkdk; it started that way and will end that way, but dabi and izuku's friendship deeply fascinates me esp dabi's intense unrequited love for izuku that keeps him from completely burning the wizarding world to the ground and dance on its ashes.

dabi comes from a long line of purebloods who are wildly known to be wizards who fought against the dark so when he was discovered to have an inclination to the dark arts... dabi went from being precious first born heir to the black sheep of the family that nobody talk about. the wizarding world has a v v clear distinction between light and dark magic especially because the dark arts been repeatedly abused and misused by terrible ppl throughout history so it has a deep and troubling connotation even though magic itself is neither good or bad because it's just magic. dark and light is just a division of it; it's ppl that created 'bad' magic and link it to the dark arts but it's easier to just denounced an entire system of magic then to say, 'ah, it's really all our faults; we're corrupted magic with our selfish ways.' magic is true neutral. But because there's such a heavy society bias/prejudice against dark arts in any form that any sign of it is consider taboo, cursed, and propensity to turn evil for the user so when dabi shown to have a talent for it his father turned his back to him in order to protect his family's honor.

dabi felt abandoned by his family and the wizarding kind so he seek to burn it to the ground; his anger and hate simmers within him and for many years he nurtured them till one day he can fully unleashed upon the world but then he met izuku and for once in his life he hesitated.

izuku was born a squib, had no single drop of magic in him even as he sees everyone else around him able to do wonderful things. despite feeling like he's worthless, he didn't resent them or their magic. izuku only becomes deeply fascinated with it and all the potential it could be. so all this means that when he does finally received magic from AM (a long winded story that i will get into another day), izuku who spent most of his life a magicless in a world full of it, knows what it like to be isolated, scorn, and feels as 'others' instead as one of them but that make it all the more for him to change it for the better so nobody would ever feel as isolated and helpless like he once did.

so dabi and his ability to wield the dark arts as though it's an extension of himself?? izuku finds it interesting, something he wants to understand and study and dabi as someone who knows what it likes to be outcast because they're diff and doesnt fit in the society's neat lil box saw this boy extending a hand toward him and first he spurned it but then izuku kept persisting and never judge him and never make him feel like he’s dirt, wrong, and that he’s alone… so yea he becomes deeply attached to izuku. their friendship started because they both feels terribly alone in a world that doesn't quite understand them and even when izuku has the ability to fit in, he sees how the wizarding world in its isolation has deep muggle/dark magic prejudice and there are cracks in this 'perfect society’ so while izuku is determines to change it for the better, dabi wants to burn it all to the ground.

While they bonded over their diffs but at the same time izuku recognizing though he has been mistreated in the past (his father a muggleborn and he was a squib), this world isn't all bad. there are good ppl in it too! and he got (new) friends to prove it. just because the wizarding world been set in its ornery way for hundred of yrs and STILL HAVEN'T adapted to modern time yet, doesnt mean it's stuck in bias forever; it can be change, it will be change because izuku will do it. izuku wants to see it change because he sees the potential it could be just like he sees what dabi could be if he wasn't drowning in his own hate and anger so much. he clings to their friendship in hopes that one day dabi will see the light and just stop going down this dark and dangerous path.

dabi loves izuku. it is the most unselfish thing he ever done because he expects nothing from izuku. not his love, not his friendship, not even his kindness because dabi knows what he's about to do will only hurt izuku so it's better that he doesn't have izuku because he'll only lose him later but he also cant seem to part way with izuku because this wretched thing call love has long holds him hostage and he's fully aware that either his revenge going to burn him out first or this tired and terrible love is going to eat him alive. something got to give and it's dabi either way

izuku loves dabi very much because he feels a kindred spirit with him and they understands each other the best even more than katsuki who is his soulmate bc katsuki comes from a place of prilvage and could never understand izuku’s feelings the way dabi could but,,, it's not the same love that burn within dabi. it's not romantic but it's strong enough that izuku can't stay away from dabi for long; always coming back to him. they have this not so much toxic but it's definitely codependent and dysfunctional because they both make it v v v clear what their intentions are and how they both deeply disapproved of the others standing and is firm in their own set of beliefs but they cant let each other go.

for dabi he's already paved his path on this treacherous and dark road and he's not turning back for anything or anyone; it's him or this fucking terrible society, but if there's one thing he can save as it all burn is izuku and that's all he wants; izuku to be untouched and free. So while dabi's decision is cemented in stone, izuku has a harder time knowing what to do when it comes to his relationship with dabi because how far is too much? how far can he watch dabi ruin himself hurt others before izuku say enough is enough, i cant do this anymore; i cant support you. sometimes the ppl we love is capable of doing terrible things and when they do act upon it we have to ask ourselves is this something we're willing to compromise our morals, our character for? is love enough to stay. is love enough to change/stop them from doing something terrible that they may regret later? then if izuku does have enough, what would dabi do? is he so secured in his revenge and goals that he is willing to let izuku go? can he bear the thought of izuku cutting himself off from dabi permanently? does that not make him waver even a lil bit? does it not make him rethink?

the way their relationship pushed and pulled with dueling mentalities and goals and the way they both so drawn to each other but yet also stands firmly on opposing sides; it's interesting to see how it all unfold in the end or... not depending on how far they're willing to go for each other