#this was such a throwback? such a sweet message to get too

[averlym]

hi hi hi! not sure if youre still taking requests but.. could i get some parrward? I adore your art style and im so glad youve been alive and active again!! I remember I found your acc back in 2019-2020 and I got curious looking at my old acc and I had SO many of your posts liked- and here we are now! Hope life is treating you well ! :)

hihihi!!! some parrward for you <33 i hope life is treating you well too!

[accio-victuuri]

one photo, multiple cpns. 📸

thank you wyb for sharing that photo with us. taken in xiamen, the evening > early morning of GRA nominee gala. it was a memorable and tiring day for him and it makes me somft thinking that in between the chaos, he was still able to take a moment and shoot photos. that he had some peace & quiet in that very busy few days.

the moon is a common cpf symbolism and this is an example of why, with all the photos wyb probably has on his phone — he decided to share this. it’s not even current per se. he is someone who would preferably post something related to his hobbies like what he did with the “helmet selfie” or him climbing a volcano in inner mongolia. so this may not be as uncommon, but definitely different from his usual or expected post. and the fact that how the moon looks in the photo is so similar to what zz posted back in 11/19. him sharing this close to that photo, i can’t help but think that he is deliberately matching that. like what they did back in the moon festival.

they are so sweet, these are probably leftovers, from all the photos they sent to each other. also how it seems like a reminder to them that no matter how far apart they are, they are still under the same moon. the white and red also gets me! i know lwj is blue but he is also white and wwx is red. perfect match! 🤍

we seem to be at the bottom of the pond, from one moon to another… 🌙

• CPFs are now talking about the whole 2019 throwback to this place and how it recreates the ideal life painting. ( I already explained that connection here. ) YBO sharing this additional photo of Bobo by the beach just adds to that visual.

i can’t help but notice too that at the time xz painted in 2019, “wyb” was wearing something casual and was clearly a young man. in wyb’s recreation, he is all grown up and in a suit. years passed and things may have changed, but being together is still their “ideal life”

it sort of echoes what ZZ did last 11/19. Referencing 2018 ( japan cpn, a fandom fave ) so WYB is here showing off and seemingly saying that this is him giving a nod to 2019 ( ideal life painting which is also a fandom fave ).

• The kadian for posting time 18:27 which means Yibo Love Wife. The wife being ZZ in this case, I know most of us don’t approve of the whole wife thing but it is what it is.

or you can go full galaxy brain CPN, 1827 days. from 11/19 2018 to 11/20 23. That’s 5 years. We have been clowning about the 5th year anniversary so….

• Both of their studio can’t do anything but repost and boast about their laobans! 😂😂😂

• WYB’s message and reminder of the temperature dropping is more for XZ than us. OR it could be that they are together and WYB decided to send this out + remind people to keep warm. 🤍

Some are also pointing out that he is going to Macau soon for the IQIYI event this saturday, it’s not cold there like in Beijing. So it’s a message to someone who will be staying in Beijing.

• Just to drive it home that these two have been matching more than usual this year. for the few times they share something personal on weibo. So it’s not only this time, as what i always say, there is a pattern.

Those who pay attention will notice. 👀👀👀

-END.

[thevviitchinghour]

PAC - msgs from Hurricane Nicole

I'm in florida before anyone gets mad at me, I'm also shocked at how striking these messages are.

PILE ONE

Keep pushing and manifesting because you guys are on the verge of bringing peace into your lives. For those of you trying to manifest justice it is beginning to ground itself into the physical realm. Be aware that the situation may erupt in a way you did not expect. This is nothing to feel bad about though, you simply pushed for the scales to be balanced. So expect just that. Stop dumping out your cup the moment it refills, like take a moment and chill out. A lot of you need to relax more and allow others to nurture YOU. Okay you need a fucking breakfast in bed or some shit. The way you are always there for others. You are more than a shoulder to cry on and a soothing voice. Remember to be grateful, because when you forget to be grateful and be active in your life & pay attention to the good you are fumbling your own manifestations. Like dumping paint on your canvas and just smearing it all over these intricate creations and desires and self expressions. Journal more often, be on top of self care, you might get to have a mani pedi soon!

PILE TWO You guys are really masterful artists and creators, perhaps you've putting an abundance of energy into creating something. Or cultivating some type of success, I feel like something is being hidden from this pile, it's going to soon be revealed to you. You might be frustrated about the delays but the point of these delays is for you to be present in the moment and just fucking enjoy yourself. Listen to throwbacks, look at old pictures and laugh, you might have an old friend or acquaintance reach out soon. It's always good to reconnect, but remember that just because you knew them doesn't mean they need full access back into your life. Slater was my shit in highschool, and I just feel like you guys need to draw more inspiration from your inner teen. You had tons of ideas and concepts that you threw away because you thought it wasn't good enough or you just forgot about them as a whole. Get to know your teen self again, have fun, go play in the woods, skate, go do something you haven't done in years and cherish the entirety of it. Your inspiration comes from your experiences, you rely too much on your intuition. While your intuition is an extension of you and you are an extension of spirit you are literally an amazing force of creative energy and hope for others. Get to know yourself again. I heard " Feels amazing"

PILE THREE This is a warning for you my Pile Three's. You are fucking up your own blessings with your messy nonsense. The manipulation, the lies, the confusion you orchestrate. End it now, "break that curse for sweet relief". Before you do something you can't take back. Communicate with people, you don't always have to treat people like this to get what you desire. Keep fighting for your desires, but stop harming people in the process. Those of you manifesting love or a long term relationship may be shooting yourself in the foot with ur flightiness. Ur so picky but you don't even fit your own standards. Like you would flip the fuck out if someone was on the shit you're on towards you. I don't care if it pisses you off, you know it's true. If you desire freedom then carve a path full of freedom for yourself. Quit playing these weird games where you are skirting between lines and stay in your own fucking line. A new beginning is coming your way, don't be the fool that falls off of the cliff and lands on his ass.

[chaithetics]

Bear nonnie here! how are you? how has your health been? it's been a while (forgot my tumblr password lel)

here to report that I re-read porce and the shark, iconic really. I also saw the most recent season of Fargo, which was very good, Juno temple was stellar, I reccommend (rip it tho because the coen brother's are zionists), that also send me back into my strangers thing phase #throwback, (also rip it tho because of the nasty zionist cast). I remember why Joe Keery was a crush of mine, Steve Harrington and Gator Tillman are attractive in veryyyyyy different ways.

but Arian you remain #1 in my heart

what have media have you been liking recently?

Omg hello Bear Nonnie!!! How are you? I've missed you! So great to chat with you again haha!

My health hasn't been the greatest lately, I've been having a pretty miserable lupus flare up. I've had some of the rashes as well which don't make me feel super hot honestly. I hope you've been well?! So easy to happen!

Thank you!!! I'm so glad it's holding up haha, I need to finish some more pieces for that series. I have so many ideas and characters I want to write for atm, it's tough trying to balance it all with the rest of adulting.

Juno Temple has great comedic timing, I've only seen the Fargo film but I saw a clip of her accent and I was so surprised at how good it was. I didn't know that about the Coen brothers, that's so disappointing, I know Joel Coen signed the open letter supporting Jonathan Glazer's speech at the oscars. So hopefully that means he's re-evaluated, reflected on earlier comments and taken time to educate himself more on what's happening and has been been happening since the Nakba. Ethan Coen didn't sign that letter though. I'm not really a Coen brothers stan, I've only seen a couple of projects of theirs but it's still always disappointing to know that there's other human beings with awful, zionist beliefs. Especially when they're people with platforms most of us don't have. Joe Keery's character in Fargo does seem verrrryyy different for him!

Arian is our number one man! That's not a phone in his pocket, it's my heart!

I recently finished Fallout! I really enjoyed it! I love Ella Purnell and it was so cool to see Moisés Arias in a big project like this after watching Hannah Montana as a kid. I really enjoyed the story, all the social commentary, and the characters. I really want to write some fics for Lucy, Norm, and Maximus! ALSO MAX'S ACTOR IS GIVING YOUNG DENZEL WASHINGTON?!?!?!?! Somebody PLEASE beg me to write some fallout fics so I feel like I can procrastinate with that!

Other than that I've mainly been watching films! I watched Ava DuVernay's latest film 'Origin' last week. It had your fav Jon Bernthal in it! He played a very sweet wholesome guy! I enjoyed the film, I think there were a few holes in it/the thesis but it was an ambitious experiment. I really loved Monkey Man with Dev Patel! Seeing all the hype and love he's getting is making me very happy. I saw Skins way too young... I saw Past Lives and American Fiction for the first time recently and really enjoyed them as well. My friend and I are trying to see Challengers and Abigail at the cinemas but the times aren't lining up. I've been doing a bit of an Oscar Isaac marathon as well. I've been trying to get my book reading up and more 'international' cinema! What media have you been consuming since you sent this in? I'm so stoked for The Bear S3! I think we're getting it next month sometime?

Absolutely adore you Bear Nonnie! Hope you're having the best day! I always enjoy replying to your asks. Send another one in when you get a chance and I'm always happy to message about films! ❤️❤️❤️

(Someone please tell me to write Fallout fanfic now pls)

[kittenofdoom]

Wrote a long ass message in Discord and hit the character limit talking about Weezer and figured I may as well put it here too in case anyone wanted to read it, anyway: My personal Weezer essentials, Blue and Pinkerton are the obvious mandatory introductory listens, aside from those, all the color albums (blue, green, red, white, black, teal kind of but not really) are a must-listen as well. Even Black, although it's widely considered the weakest one, it'll give you a better idea of what type of Weezer music you like or dislike. Teal you can take or leave, it's just covers. White is probably my favorite of all the color albums, if you had to pick just one (other than Blue) then pick White.

Make Believe is one people consider really mediocre but I think it's a hidden gem, simple but sweet! If you listened to the radio in the early 2000s, you've probably heard the track Beverly Hills, which is from this album. Beverly Hills isn't super indicative of the rest of the album, so I recommend giving Make Believe a chance even if you don't like that song.

Raditude is probably their most widely hated album and I love it on its own but also out of sheer spite. It's relatively inoffensive, has a few catchy tunes, and also a few finished versions of Rivers Cuomo's Alone demos (Which I also recommend).

Hurley is a bit of a hidden gem too, a lot of people dismiss it because it is honestly kind of odd, seeing as the cover is an extreme closeup of Jorge Garcia's face and the album is named after his character on Lost. The album is super good if you can get past the weirdness, Also skip Where's My Sex, it's a joke song where the joke is he's singing about socks but he's replaced the word socks with sex. Bad song. Only listen to it if you wanna cringe.

Everything Will Be Alright In The End (EWBAITE for short) is just good. Full stop lol.

Pacific Daydream is a favorite of mine. But it's also pretty polarizing, people love it or hate it, no in between. If you like Black Album or think Black Album is just ok you will probably like PD but if you don't like Black at all you probably won't like PD either.

OK Human is a bit different seeing as it's almost entirely orchestral but all around super good!

Van Weezer is supposed to be an 80s throwback but honestly if you didn't tell me I'd think it was just Weezer being Weezer. Good album, but it mostly just sounds like normal rock music, not very unique but good at what it does. Aside from the song Blue Dream, which is a butchered version of a fan favorite demo (ballad of the briny) where they inserted the riff of crazy train into it for no reason, it's solid!

SZNZ is… So good. When it started with SZNZ: Spring I thought it was pretty good, and was excited to see what direction the rest of the albums would go in. Each album after that, I've liked progressively more, with SZNZ: Autumn being my absolute favorite. I'm really hoping I'll like SZNZ: Winter just as much if not more than Autumn! TLDR: Blue and Pinkerton are essentials, other highlights are the color albums (White especially), Make Believe, Raditude, Hurley, Everything Will Be Alright In The End, Pacific Daydream, OK Human, Van Weezer, and SZNZ: Autumn

[kyupidos]

08/??/23’s delivery 🏹✉️ twisted wonderland

when they textヽ( ･∀･)ﾉ_θ彡☆Σ(ノ `Д´)ノ,ヽ( ･∀･)ﾉ_θ彡☆Σ(ノ `Д´)ノ ;; summary. ‘when you’re not with them in the real world, how do they talk to you online?’

characters. ignihyde , diasomnia : idia shroud , ortho shroud , malleus draconia , silver , sebek zigvolt , lilia vanrouge ( separate ) ;; platonic . 🖇️ tags. reader is gender neutral ( you/your ), reader may or may not be yuu ( up to the reader ), idk what social media app they’re using, lighthearted character slander, kinda long, crack fluff

📡 _a/n. finally updating after * checks watch * two or so weeks!! haven’t done a romantic in a while..should probably change that.

idia

— now, i decided to base these thoughts on their respective valentine’s day cards..and oh boy is idia a LOSER!! respectfully. maybe. this man is going full discordian mode when he texts you and honestly when he texts in general.

— you know that one friend who sends one text message and all of a sudden you have to spend an hour and a half trying to decipher their message because it has three grammatical errors, twenty six misspells and eight random letters mixed in there? even though it was a five word message?

— that’s him. ESPECIALLY when he’s texting you while he’s gaming, unless he chooses to voice call ( a blessing sent from heaven if you don’t want to struggle when communicating with him ).

— he’s just a fast typer, he defends himself while you wipe a single tear from your eye trying to figure out how “btw can you bring me some sweets?” turns into “n btwcan u like brjgn me sm swts n. stuff thxxx” ( but worse, because..it’s idia and he’s probably gaming if he’s asking you this question. also i purposefully avoided looking at my screen for that ).

ortho

— now i imagine his texts are significantly more normal and relaxed..unlike his BROTHER!! his texts to you are far more polite and he uses big words often, which is such bot behavior tbh. i know he struggles with captchas.

— but overall, he is indeed a relatively normal typer, a sweetheart as usual. i also imagine that he talks in more simplistic sentences as well, and doesn’t really do run-on, if that makes sense. it makes his text messages a little longer if he’s typing paragraph style, but otherwise he’s doing just fine getting the message across.

— now he is naturally curious and relatively attentive too, so he’s probably going to ask you about your own texting style. actually, he might try to implement your texting style into his, if he’s interested enough. it’ll probably only last for a week or so though, before he’s back to his usual kindergarten homework texting style.

malleus

— social media? nah..he’s “texting” you through carrier pigeon. be sure to keep your window open, because whenever he feels like it, he’s going to send you a scroll type of letter that details whatever message he’s trying to convey at the time, and it’s a throwback. a throwback to like..the medieval era.

— whenever he does send these letters, his dictionary of words is sophisticated and informative, not a single itty bitty detail left out. it sort of feels like he’s sending the prologue of a book to you, when he does this. i can imagine him writing it all down with a pure black quill pen, too. and i bet that the first letter to the first word of each letter is also in cursive and enlarged like in those fantasy books, for some odd reason.

— and he’ll send the longest message as well, and you might think that he’s describing to you the entire plot of a trilogy where each part is the length of the dictionary, but no, it’s to describe how upset he is that he had to eat an entire cake by himself, or that he’s sick or something. he’s like me when i’m writing an english essay..except he does it with no purpose to it.

— when you do inevitably send him a reply, he gets all excited too. even if he sends a letter that starts with “Dear friend, I write to you to tell you a tale of a most quizzical recent events that has affected me of late, that has stumped me to no end..” and all you reply with is a scroll and a carrier pigeon as well, and he opens it up only to see an enlarged “K.” in the middle with your signature at the bottom. yeah, he’s completely fine with that. makes him happy.

silver

— someone else who is normal with their texts, on the normal scale would probably be ranked by ortho, if not normaler. he’s just your average texter i suppose, other than the fact that every now and then he adds this really long descriptive word that you have to look up in the dictionary to understand, and it’s completely unexpected.

— he’ll send you a message, and it’ll go “also, did you see the others in class today? i found it odd, they were more lackadaisical than usual.” like. for no reason whatsoever. random big word. not too bad though, so points for him. also, i imagine him to type in all lowercase just like me. i don’t know, i just see him doing it.

— on that note of random things i see him doing, and also random things in general, i see him texting you, and then randomly telling you this fun little fact he happens to know about whatever the topic is. “would you like to stop be the equestrian club? a domestic horse can run up to thirty miles per hour, you know.”

sebek

— hard to say if he’s using a phone, or if he’s talking to you via carrier pigeon like malleus..but i’m leaning towards him using a phone. actually, he might do both, and it depends on how mood how you receive the message. but, let’s just talk about how he tends to talks to you on social media for now.

— but still, no matter whether it’s social media or carrier pigeon, he’s a relatively dry person sadly. when he texts you, it’s rather simplistic, though unlike ortho he does tend to do run-ons. i think the only thing saving him from being totally dry is the fact that he actually uses emojis. his favorite emojis..are probably “😡” and “👍”, and you can take a guess when and why he uses them.

— his messages might actually come off as a little mean every now and then, but i doubt he’ll even realize it 99% percent of the time unless you tell him, and he’ll try his best not to text like that again, but it’s hard for him to stray from his usual texting style..introduce him to tone tags, those are probably a life saver for him.

— he does forget to use them every now and then though, so he haphazardly adds them after he sends the message. don’t worry though, he’s learning and figuring things out! slowly but surely, slowly but surely. doing his best.

lilia

— the old man himself! unlike malleus and sebek, he is of course 100% using a phone. though nonetheless, that old age is not subtle at all, even if he is gaming..not like he’s trying to be, the idea of being subtle probably doesn’t even come to him. surprisingly, other than his old man text tone, he’s a relatively normal texter.

— and by relatively normal, i mean normal for when you’re talking to your grandpa who was there for when the telegraph was still a popular use of communication. except..he was there for forms of communication much, much earlier than that.

— he regularly uses somewhat outdated words and then right next to said outdated word is like, the latest social media lingo that was created like a week ago. a very scary combination of i do say so myself. he could be gaming with you and all of a sudden through the chat logs he’ll text you something along the lines of, “Though, i must say..his ass is NOT making it😂😂”. a jumpscare almost every time.

[yuuana]

Music May 2023 #6: Ten - Birthday release: October 2022 genre: Kpop

Welcome to part two of two in the 2022 Birthday Song Adventure! Look, it's been a long week and that's the best I can do right now. Pretend we're having a fun and exciting adventure? For me? ^^;

So I'd noted yesterday's "Birthday" was the second of two. By the time of this "Birthday"s official release, Ten had already previewed a version of both it and a possible choreography as part of his time co-hosting/mentoring the show Great Dance Crew in China almost six months earlier - Leader TEN special stage "Birthday" - which both showcased his power as a dancer and ended up being far tamer than the official release choreography. But we'll get back to that in a minute. Perhaps unsurprisingly, between having two completely different writing teams and being written for very different artists, the songs don't sound anything alike. So the fact that they still end up having a sameness in underlying message - you're someone special, so let's make today all about you like it's your birthday - amuses me to no end. But where Red Velvet's song is a bass-heavy, brassy bubblegum pop party song, Ten's is a much slower, sensual groove that flows smoothly between his standard tone and falsetto with the same seeming ease as his dance moves.

Ten is rather famous for being a top-tier dancer in multiple styles, including contemporary and bboying, so it's hardly a surprise that the video spends most of its run time focused on him dancing. The sensual sounds of the song are complimented with a very physical dance routine that perhaps only a handful of dancers in the world could hope to match as Ten shows off his high level of mastery over his own body. What's easily missed by people who may not know better is the number of subtle ways he's playing with gender expression, combining costume elements that are both masculine-coded and feminine-coded to create styles that are entirely Ten. The stacked bangles, the veils, but also the bolero jacket and various chains. It's a whole sensual feast and I keep getting lost in it because the way he dance is, as always, art in motion.

"Birthday" is Ten's fourth SM Station single and available now wherever you prefer to do your Kpop streaming.

*This is another instance of genre being a bit of a thing - I settled on Kpop because TEN's most known for being an SM artist, but most of his activity is with WayV, NCT's Chinese subunit (he himself is Chinese diaspora via Thailand), while the song itself is entirely in English. Which is not unheard of in Kpop! But it is still a thing, so.... Want to sponsor a song selection? You sweet angel! For the low, low price of one (1) KoFi, I'll write up the song of your choice. ANY song of your choice. Yes, even that one that's been played to death. Yes, your obscure faves too. Sponsor a current CB for the next open Music Monday slot or sponsor a throwback for a Thursday feature! DW | Twitter | Mastodon | Ko-fi | Patreon | Discord | Twitch

[darlingpwease]

Oh damn, seriously?? That's so cool!!!

just so that it would fit our work, my my <3

Hmmm.... maybe.... possibly.... with u sayin it, I can't help but wanna go with it.... /pos <333

Hopefully in the future I won't fret over it too much like I do now then <//333

Felt this, throwback to slime!reader; all I was thinking was to set up the scene as quick as I could so that I could hurry and write the porn hehehehee

Aaaaa I'd keep it to just one fic, but be it a big work or small one, a work that has multiple parts or just one,,, I can't help but do it even if my brain is dead ×_×

You are literally so sweet??? God damn???? I feel like I should be the one giving you all these sweet nicknames. Sugar??? Honey??? Sweetheart??? What about sugarplum?? Sweet cheeks??? /t /hj

AWWWW,, lovable Dove, there's no need to be sorry, I swear <333 you seem to put in much more heart than I expected tho,, and it's so adorable absjwksksk for you to do that when people send asks,,, I feel like I should appreciate every message more now <3333 /gen /pos bubba, take ur time,, I can happily wait even more now that ik this <33333 /pos /gen /affectionate /all positive things <3333

-panna cotta

yes, sweet cheeks<3 inspiration is too short to waste it on rejections of the idea. of course, only you can determine if you need to use these things or not, but at least you are absolutely free — the concept of "author's perception" and changing the canon in order to create the right environment are too relative

author's freedom!!! <333 we still use the materials of the canon and rely on it, but considering that Toge is not a properly formed character (fact?), he can be twisted as we/you want

'fret' shhdhdgd ferret <3 /j /pos

at least your work will be worked out and realistic, so that's also very good, my my <3

I am. I am when always. I don't like to write a long intro if it's 'just porn', but I can't skip it, and I hate when the foreplay gets longer than the main part, so make the main part even bigger, — and huge monsters turn out whose main and only idea is breeding for breeding's sake. why can't we get right to the most interesting part??? you don't understand, you HAVE to suffer enough before you get your porn </3333 /j

hhhhh sounds cute but suffering</3 cutie <3333

no you <333333

only the sweetest should get sweet nicknames!!! who is the sweetest of us, honey parfait??? /t /pos

love you so much gosh <///333

nooooo don't say such things, it's a common thing </3333 /pos /affectionate

I was just worried that I was too slow and it looks like I'm ignoring, although I just need a lot of time to form sentences from words and take a long time to pick them up. I'm not very good at english, so it's always a long sitting and searching for the meaning of a word to make sure that at least 70% of my thoughts sound correct and understandable <//33

you know, I quickly understand what you're writing, but then I sit down for an answer — my head is empty not because there are only babygirls, but... just empty /hj

[altsvu]

left in the dark

pairing: jj x kate callahan x bau!fem!reader, aaron hotchner x bau!fem!reader

wc: 1.6k

summary: you find out you’re pregnant with Hotch’s baby (in the most unexpected way) and you go to JJ and Kate about it since they’re also pregnant, but their only advice is to tell Hotch about it.

tw: pregnancy, fluff, mentions of blood/injury, breeding kink??

a/n: at first this was super hard for me to write, mostly because this is different than what i’m used to, but i think it turned out okay! enjoy my lovelies!!

criminal minds masterlist! ✯ taglist!

✯✯✯✯

“JJ! When were you gonna tell me?”

“I don’t know, I just wanted to wait till things played out.”

You smiled. “Well, I’m super happy for you regardless.”

“Thank you.” JJ smiled, pulling you into a hug. “So, how are things going with you and Hotch?”

You bit your lip. Hotch was the sweetest to you. He took you to romantic dates on off days and you always checked up on each via text messages and FaceTime when one of you were away.

Not to mention that your sex life was immaculate.

“Things are going pretty well, to be honest. We’re actually going to rent out the AMC movie theater in Arlington this weekend and watch our favorite throwback movies.”

“Oh, that sounds super romantic, I’m actually super glad that you two finally decided to get together after he was pining for you for years.”

You snorted. “We were both pining for each other. For a very very long time.”

“Yeah, the team had their suspicions.” JJ agreed. “You ready to head to the jet?”

You nodded and followed JJ out to the tarmac.

✯✯✯✯

You and Hotch had to go check out the crime scene, and it was a gruesome one. A family of 5 were bludgeoned in their home late at night, and the wife... well she had multiple knife cuts on her abdomen.

Out of nowhere, you felt sick to your stomach. This was unusual, especially for you since you got used to seeing many different types of crime scenes. You tried your hardest to breathe calmly but you felt yourself about to throw up.

“... he hurts them before finally killing them. Y/N? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I just probably ate something bad-“ you couldn’t even finish your sentence when you found yourself running outside and throwing up. You wiped your mouth and took deep breaths, trying to process what just happened.

“Sweetheart?” Hotch whispered. You turned around and he held you by your arms. “What’s going on? This is very unlike you.”

“I- I don’t know what’s going on.” you replied. “This never happens.”

He pulled you into a hug. “Do you want me to take you back to the field office?” He murmured into your hair.

“No, you don’t have to. I’ll be okay.”

You caught Hotch still staring you down with a concerned look on his face.

“Damn it Aaron. Don’t worry about me. I don’t want to be the reason we don’t find this unsub in a timely manner.”

“Okay, you’re right. But can you please let me know if you don’t feel well?”

“Yes sir.” You smiled, pressing a kiss on his cheek and walking back to the crime scene.

✯✯✯✯

When you got back to the field office, Hotch had to talk to the field agent on the case in his office, and you had to go to the conference room to look over some case files.

Hunger then struck over you, so you headed to the vending machine you noticed earlier to find a snack to hold you over until lunch. The options that were there weren’t appealing to you, so it looked like you weren’t gonna be eating for about a few more hours. To your luck, Kate and JJ were in the conference room when you got back.

“Girls, I swear I’m gonna die if I don’t have anything in my system.”

“You want some saltines? It’s all I have.” JJ asked.

“Oh yes, please.” You nodded. JJ handed you a fresh pack.

You were so indulged in them that you almost finished the pack. JJ and Kate caught on

extremely fast.

“Are you pregnant too?” Spencer asked, walking in.

“What? What makes you think I’m pregnant?”

Kate sat next to you. “Well, for starters, you’re eating saltines.”

“Because I didn’t want anything at the vending machine.”

“There’s a pattern here. Kate ate saltines, I caught JJ eating saltines, and now you’re eating them.”

You sighed, putting the rest of the pack down. “Look, pretty boy, I think I would know if I were pregnant.”

“If you say so,” Reid answered with a smile on his face.

The rest of the team came in, and all thoughts of you being pregnant dissipated.

✯✯✯✯

Over the next few days, you had some of the same symptoms and you started to wonder if you were actually pregnant. You wanted to buy a test but it would be hard to do so when your job came first.

Soon enough, the case was closed and you were heading back home. Everyone on the jet was asleep except you and Hotch.

“Hey,” he said softly. “How you feeling?”

“Like eating a 5 course meal and throwing it back up.” you moaned, curling up closer to him for comfort.

“I’ll take you home and cook you a nice meal, okay?”

You nodded, mumbling “I love you” and he kissed your lips in response.

Finally getting home, Hotch did as he promised and you spent the night cuddling and comforting each other.

The next morning you felt yourself throwing up again so you decided it was time to get a pregnancy test. Hotch had already left to go back to Quantico to do some paperwork but the rest of the team was off. You dragged yourself to a nearby store to get a test and took it immediately.

Two lines.

How would Hotch react?

He always talked about having kids, in fact he almost got turned on at the thought of you with a baby bump. But the only thing was that he wanted things to be planned out.

You figured he was pretty busy at the moment so you called JJ and Kate and asked to come over to one of their homes. Ultimately, JJ invited you and Kate over.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Kate asked when you arrived.

“I’m pregnant.” You whispered. Both of the women hugged you and congratulated you. They then sat you down at JJ’s dining room table.

“Does Hotch know?”

You bit your lip. “That’s the thing. He doesn’t really know yet. I don’t really know what to do.”

“Well I think the best thing to do is tell him. There’s no way that he would get mad. He loves you too much.” JJ suggested.

You nodded in agreement.

“Also, he’s gonna find out soon enough, so it would be better to just let him know so he expects it,” Kate added.

“You ladies are so right. I’ll let you know how things go!”

✯✯✯✯

When you got back home, Hotch was at the couch watching a show, but it looked more like he was about to fall asleep.

“Hi baby,” you murmured against his skin after ridding yourself of your outerwear and shoes.

“Y/N...” he whispered. He sat up and held you by your waist. “I missed you when I came in.”

“Yeah, I just went over JJ’s for a bit.”

Hotch nodded. There was a bit of silence between you two.

“You look like there’s something bothering you.” he then said.

You shut your eyes, trying to think of the right way to tell him. “Aaron, I’m pregnant.” you said so very quietly.

His eyes widened in excitement. “Y/N! Oh my gosh, I’m ecstatic! This is amazing!”

You smiled and laughed in joy with him as one of his hands sneaked under your shirt and rubbed your belly. He was now sitting upright with you on his lap.

“God, I don’t think you know how long I’ve thought about this.” Hotch hummed, kissing your bare skin. “All those times filling you up with my seed in the bedroom paid off big time. I can’t wait to see your belly grow and grow.”

You leaned down and kissed his lips. “Mmm, I can’t wait either.”

✯✯✯✯

It was just a matter of time before the rest of the team found out. You did not hear the end of it from Spencer when he figured that he was right the whole time.

Hotch, on the other hand, didn’t waste any time serenading and whispering sweet nothings about how you looked so beautiful with your ever growing baby bump to you every day after work, even sometimes during work too. He’d always say that he was just super excited that you were pregnant with his baby every time you asked.

Your pregnancy was so special to the team that Kate and JJ threw a surprise baby shower, in which everyone found out you and Hotch were having a little girl.

In a few short months, your due date was inching closer and closer, and Hotch was there by your side through everything, from when your water broke in the briefing room to when you were being rushed to a hospital room to have the baby delivered.

And finally.

You welcomed a baby girl into the world.

“She’s so beautiful. Just like you.” Hotch smiled and kissed your lips after you were able to hold your baby again.

You nodded in agreement, tears escaping your eyes. You thought about what your life was going to be like now, since you had a precious little one to take care of.

During your maternity leave, each member of the team came to visit you at home, some bearing small gifts for your baby.

“Hey,” Hotch came up to you one night after putting your baby to bed. He tucked your hair behind your ear and kissed the skin behind it. “Can I tell you something?”

“Mhmm, anything.”

“I’m really glad that we have a baby to take care of. I’ve wanted this for such a long time, and having it with you just makes it even better.”

You smiled in response. “Yeah?”

“Oh yeah. I love you so much, Y/F/N Y/L/N.”

✯✯✯✯

taglist: @storiesofsvu @averyhotchner @ssaic-jareau @blackbeautifulqueen @virgo-gf @mstrinnyb @mrshadeelgibson @ssahotchswifemain @anxiousblanketqueen @hotchsbabygirl @willowrose99 @ssa-sarahsunshine @deiondraaa

[nep2unes]

✧ overarching theme: “do you hear the tunes of your soul? they’re calling to you. persistently singing to you in waves, begging for you to make a change. are you going to listen and answer or will you sit in despair?” 

 CHANNELED PLAYLIST— shuffle 4 times for a message! or feel free to just let it play and see what comes up. 

✧ signs channeled: rainbows, sunshine, jhene aiko, butterflies, candy, sweet tooth, red roses, smelling sweet scents out of no where, inner child healing, releasing, crows, blue, yellow, 222, 32, lot’s of 2′s and 3′s, fire energy, air energy, researching archangels, archangel michael, archangel azriel, blushing, akon, 2000′s throwback playlist, clubbing, partying, golf, mushrooms, hot flashes on certain parts of your body, long hair, rose quartz, clear quartz

boundaries are needed at this time. you do not need anyone in your life that will question these things. they’re simply not meant to be in your life so keep it pushing dawg! 

stop seeking instant gratification through technology my love. when you start having anxiety. do something you used to love to do as a child! you’ll feel wayyyy lighter! 

please stop going back and forth on your intuition. it’s correct. don’t second guess yourself. that’s self-doubt and there’s no room for it when you’re trying to create this new life for yourself. 

whatever makes you uncomfortable and anxious, chase it. that's where change and peace lies. 

a good chunk of y’all have some secret admirers. they’re watching you at the moment. they’re drawn to you heavily but also very nervous to approach you so give 'em a break!  if you know who this is, focus your energy on yourself and your responsibilities. they’re going to come forward as soon as you practice detachment. 

decisions, decisions, decisions! use discernment and allow your intuition to guide you. 10 times out of 10, you already know what you need to do. the answers are already within you. ALSO don’t allow any outside influences affect these choices you have to make because these are divinely aligned opportunities (life-changing)! 

please take care of yourself. you’re taking on a lot at this time and burden is getting a little too heavy for you. it’s not because you can’t handle it, it’s just cause you’re neglecting yourself. do something fun! let loose! get some rest! anything that will lift your spirits up.

if any situations trigger you, work through it by using healthy alternatives. hint: this so called “healthy alternative” has crossed your mind but you’re just a stubborn mfer and ignored it. but do it! it’s worth the try, if it doesn't work then there's a plethora of other options out there for you. 

reach out to your loved ones. the support is there for a reason and it doesn’t make you weak. they’ll understand. in fact, this is gonna help you more than anything. 

balance is key. tap into your intuition but stay grounded as well. it’s easy to lose yourself in one thing. 

for those who want confirmation, yes, you passed the test! congrats my love. take this time to celebrate with yourself and your guides. you came a long way. you deserve this. 

validate your feelings! your guides are proud that you are finally acknowledging all your thoughts; the good AND the icky ones BUT don't just analyze them. allow yourself to feel them as well. 

it’s ok to stand your ground. you’re protected regardless. you got a whole army of people on earth as well as in the spiritual realm that got your back. you're never alone. 

practice gratitude at this time because this will raise your vibration heavily and allow you to manifest easier. you're a master manifestor, just don’t forget to give back. 

remember that being the truest version of yourself is key to healing yourself and others. 

influence the energy in the room rather than absorbing it.

recognize your strength. you’ve powered through before so do it again but this time through the change because it is simply inevitable.

FINAL ADVICE: the cycle that you’re in now, it’s time to end. it’s time to clean house and let go of anything that isn’t benefiting you at the moment. blessings lie ahead. that’s why you’re so uncomfortable. a new chapter awaits and it’s full of abundance, opportunities, offers, etc. that are going to benefit you long term. so leave it all behind. this clean slate is necessary. you’re holding back because you’re scared of leaving your comfort zone but trust me when i say this, this new cycle is going to change your life forever. only if you allow it. you have the upper hand so believe it, let go, and don’t look back. 

MUCH LOVE, NEP2UNES <3

[wroteasongabouther]

can’t stand to see you lonely: part 3

a/n: we love a little throwback with this gif, my heart 😭 again, i can’t thank you all enough for the love you’ve shown my writing it’s truly the sweetest thing and i’m happy you guys are liking the story so far! this was is the longest part so far with a lot happening, so happy reading! remember to leave some feedback and reblog cause it’s always appreciated.

and as always, thanks to the lovely jess @arrogantstyles​ and jill @havethetimeofyourstyles​ for beta reading ❤️

word count: 19k

warnings: mentions of a partner cheating (f*** mark), minor mention of drugs (aka weed lol), alcohol consumption (tequila anyone?), and serious! sexual! tense!

fic page // let’s chat // cstsyl playlist

Y/N didn’t realize she had left Harry’s apartment the other day with his hoodie on until the next morning when she had woken up to the sweet smell of faint lavender and laundry soap. She didn’t return the hoodie, though. In fact, she shamelessly slept in the hoodie for three more nights; it was just really comfortable, she tries to convince herself that’s the only reason she’s wearing it to bed each night. It wasn’t because the smell that calmed her, reminding her of that dimpled smile and dazzling green eyes that would wander into her dreams every night now and then. And it was especially not because she found herself falling for those same pair of eyes, no, not a shred of feelings besides friendship there.

“You’re not fooling anyone,” Sammy deadpans.

“What are you talking about now?” Y/N questions, keeping her eyes on her phone as she texts back Harry.

“You and your little affair,” Sammy quips back. His choice of words causes Y/N’s head to quickly snap up and look at her friend. He’s giving her a bored look, a smug little smile on his face that makes Y/N narrow her eyes.

“I am not having an affair, Sammy, so let’s not start that rumour around the office, please,” Y/N says to him in a hushed voice. “Plus, Mark hasn’t bothered to call or text me in almost a week now. So, I’m pretty sure the next time we do talk it will be to end things officially,” Y/N explains, her voice falling flat as she feels her heart rate pick up just thinking of her and Mark breaking up. Regardless of the fact he’s hurt her feelings, annoyed her and so on - it’s still a break up, and they really freaking suck.

“I sure hope so,” Sammy says. “You know I’m team Harry all the way,” he gives Y/N a wicked smile which she only rolls her eyes at.

There were no teams to be on, she thinks. She was just becoming friends with Harry, and yeah, she found him ridiculously attractive and really sweet too, but she wasn’t dumping Mark for him or anything. If she was dumping Mark it was because of how their relationship turned out, without Harry’s help, and how neither of them are benefitting from being together anymore. Hell, they didn’t even have sex last time he was in the city. It also didn’t have to do with the fact that Y/N would be nervous that Harry could hear them. Nope that thought didn’t cross her mind not even once - Y/N finds herself biting on her bottom lip as she’s deep in thought and trying to convince herself certain things.

Her phone buzzes where she left it on her desk brings her back to reality. She picks it up and swipes up as the face ID recognizes her, opening up the messages, between her and Harry, that she was previously on. Y/N can’t help it as a chuckle leaves her lips. She notices how Sammy leans back in his chair and raises a brow at her, but she chooses to ignore him and instead keeps watching the gif Harry sent on loop over and over again.

It was a cartoon Santa, dabbing. Yes, Harry used a gif that had to do with a trend from the world's youth. Y/N never would have guessed Harry even knew what dabbing was. She holds back another chuckle and looks up a gif to respond to his. She goes for one that’s a cartoon of Rudolph, his nose lighting up like a strobe light as he dances on two legs. It’s silly, but she’s enjoying this back and forth texting of stupid Christmas themed gifs. It’s been going on for about five minutes and she doesn’t even know why or how it started, but she loves it.

How’s work so far today? Harry texts after sending a gif of the Olaf the snowman from Frozen, dancing in the field of flowers. Y/N tilts her head to the side and leans further back in her seat, stretching her legs under her desk. The work that was on her desk was long forgotten when her and Harry began texting earlier.

It’s good, I finally have a few moments of downtime at my desk. We had like four clients in this morning for some fittings for the many Christmas parties going on next week. Y/N sends that off before typing, How’s your day? Write anything good yet?

Glad it’s less busy now, don’t let me distract you with all these amazing Christmas gifs though. And I’ve got a few things written while at the cafe, finally found the right melody for another song I was working on last week. Harry types out to Y/N, biting on the nail of his thumb after hitting send. He’s been leaning on the guitar in his lap for the past twenty minutes. That melody was found, but pushed away after he got into texting Y/N.

Not too distracting, although I think Sammy is jealous no one’s sending him any silly gifs. A second text shows up only seconds later, Harry’s sometimes surprised at how fast Y/N can type. And that’s good though! Will I ever get to hear you play in person besides through the wall our apartments share?

Harry smiles over his thumb at the first text but then is biting at his nail again as he reads over the second bubble a few times. He isn’t too surprised that she can hear him play from her apartment, but he is surprised she’s asking to hear him play. He doesn’t think he’s all that great of a guitar player. It’s kind of hard to think when he’s best mates with one of the best guitar players in the industry; Mitch could outplay him any day. Harry stops biting on his nail and hovers his thumbs over his keyboard. Although he’s usually too nervous to just sit and play for someone, he finds himself imagining playing for Y/N.

Tell Sammy I’ll send him some gifs too if he wants. And as for playing for you, maybe... if you catch me on a good day. Y/N shakes her head at his response, somehow not too shocked that’s what he says. She recalls him not telling her what popular songs he had written, how his cheeks grew a shade of pink at the mere idea of Y/N knowing of his work. So, she’ll take her odds and pray that someday soon she gets Harry on a good day and hears him play something.

“Y/N,” Amanda’s voice calling her name causes Y/N to jump, sitting straight up in her seat and nearly dropping her phone. She shuts off the screen and feels the vibration from her Apple watch, a notification reading that it was time to head into the conference room to interview new interns with Amanda. Y/N looks over her shoulder to see Amanda standing behind her with her eyebrows raised and her lifeline of a notebook in hand. “You alright?” She asks, slight concern in her tone.

“Yeah,” Y/N clears her throat and stands from her desk, wobbling on her heeled boots as she gathers up her laptop and cell phone. “I’m all good, ready to find us some new interns,” she states with a smile.

Amanda gives her a look as if doubting her, but then nods as Y/N steps in front of her and they move into the conference room. It’s not until their third candidate that Y/N thought of her boyfriend. Her watch buzzes, flashing up at text from Mark, then one from Sammy right away. She ignores them and tries to focus on listening to yet another fashion student talk about their love for the industry and the company. She was once just like them, sitting on the other side of this conference table and grinning ear to ear from just being in the building. She still felt excited to come into work every day and she feels very grateful to still feel that way. So, therefore she doesn’t hate sitting there for a few hours and having a handful of first impressions with girls that she once was. But, in the back of her mind she’s wondering what Mark could have texted her. It’s been five days since the phone call she ended up hanging up on him. What could he possibly have to say?

“Thank you for coming in today,” Amanda says with a smile to their last interview of the day. The small blonde stands up as the two of them do, and reaches across the table to shake both of their hands before saying short goodbyes and letting one of the receptionists walk them out.

“I think I liked her the best,” Y/N comments, writing a quick note beside her resume.

“I agree. We’ll email back and forth a bit more about it. I’ve got another phone meeting with a few clients for the new year first,” Amanda explains as she’s reading over her planner before snapping it shut.

“Sounds like fun,” Y/N nods before walking separate ways from Amanda and heading back to her desk. As she gets closer, she can't help but notice the oversized bouquet of flowers on her desk. Her eyebrows pinch together as she slows her steps, taking in the beautiful pinks and oranges in the bouquet before reaching for the card that stuck out of it. Sammy pops up then, right by Y/N’s side almost breathing down her neck.

“Did you not get my text? These showed up like halfway through your interviews,” Sammy states, trying to read the card before Y/N can. She shields it’s away from his eyes and looks at him over her shoulder. “Sorry,” he apologizes and takes a step back.

Y/N reads the printed out note and finds herself sighing as she reads it over again. I’m sorry - Mark. Y/N shakes her head and rolls her lips into her mouth, staring at the bouquet again. That’s it, just sorry? She thinks, but then remembers that he had texted her too. Maybe there’s something more there but Y/N finds herself doubting it.

“Who’s it from?” Sammy questions. Y/N ignores him and pulls out her phone from her back pocket. She unlocks it and taps on her messages app, having to back out of her conversation with Harry in order to open up Mark’s text from earlier.

Did you get the flowers? The company sent me a notification saying someone signed for them. Y/N rolls her eyes at his careless text message; not an ounce of emotion behind any of his words, through text or on the note. She doesn’t find herself smiling at the flowers, thinking how it’s a nice gesture, but instead finding it ridiculous that her boyfriend missed the whole point of the fight and just thinks some random bouquet of flowers will fix everything that she’s feeling. Is he even bothered by the fact they fought and haven’t spoken in five days? She wonders as she shuts off her phone screen without responding.

“Mark sent them,” Y/N finally tells Sammy, turning around to hand him the card. After he grabs it, and Y/N turns back around and places a hand on either side of the vase. She turns on her heels and walks around her desk to the left, moving Sammy’s chair out of the way and placing them on his desk instead. “You can have them, they look better on your desk,” she stays in a flat tone of voice, feeling indifferent about if she should just throw them out or not.

“Are you going to break up with him?” Sammy asks, his voice is quiet and soft - sounding like a caring friend instead of a gossiping coworker.

Y/N bites down on her bottom lip and nods, “yeah, I think I am going to. I just don’t know how, breaking up with someone on the phone feels so shallow and I would hate to be broken up with over the phone.” She explains, turning back around to look at Sammy again. He’s frowning, a look of pity in his eyes.

“But it’s unfair to you both to keep this relationship going on like this, Y/N,” Sammy says, letting out a deep sigh and tosses the card in the garbage bin by Y/N’s desk. “You’ll know what to do, you always do,” Sammy adds on with a smile.

Y/N tries to mirror her friends smile but feels it fall flat on her lips. She’s doubting herself, doubting her choices with Mark these past four months, and she keeps doubting herself all day till she’s walking into her apartment. She closes her door and slips out of her coat. Y/N sighs and pulls out her phone while walking to her bedroom, taking a seat on the end of her bed before pulling up Mark’s contact.

Her fingers hover over the call icon, her heart beating a million miles an hour as she imagines how this phone call is going to go. Should she really break up with him over the phone? She thinks, yet again doubting herself. This was really the only way to do it, seeing as he won’t be in the city for who knows how long. Y/N didn’t want to be in this relationship anymore, especially since it started to feel less like a relationship as the days went on this past month. Y/N inhales deeply just as her phone begins to ring, Mark’s contact picture of him kissing her cheek fills the screen in her hand. Y/N exhales before tapping the green icon on the phone and bringing it to her ear.

“Hi,” Y/N says softly into the phone.

“Hey, you didn’t answer my text earlier,” Mark starts off the conversation with a hard tone of voice as if he’s annoyed. Y/N licks her lips and nods, even though Mark can’t see her.

“Yeah, um, sorry, work got busy,” she lies. She had the time to text him back, she just didn’t know what to say as her thoughts were clouded with how to break up with him.

“Did you get them?” Mark asks.

“The flowers? Yeah, I did,” Y/N sighs. She’s racking her brain on how to do this. How do you break up with someone over a phone call? She shakes her head and brings a hand to her forehead, pushing her fingers through the roots of her hair. “Mark, we need to talk,” she says, feeling that’s the best she can do - the good ol’ classic line.

“Yeah, we do,” Mark agrees with a sigh from him now. Y/N listens as it’s like something shuffles on the other end of the phone, as if Mark switches his phone from one ear to the other. “Look, Y/N, you’re a wonderful girl, truly, you are. But we’re not really benefiting from this, are we?” Mark says, snapping Y/N out of her thoughts as her brows pinch together.

“Are you breaking up with me?” Y/N questions.

“Uh, yeah-”

“No, no, I’m breaking up with you. I have thought long and hard about this for days now, and I don’t think we should be together anymore, Mark,” Y/N blurts out quickly, feeling as though her moment that she’s been talking herself up to all day was being taken away from her. She releases the grip she had on her hair and stares straight ahead at the painting on her wall, waiting for Mark to say something.

He lets out a long breath, “then I guess this is a lot easier for the both of us then, huh?” He says. Y/N shakes her head in disbelief.

“I guess so,” she mumbles.

“I’ll uh, I’ll send my assistant over soon for any of my things I’ve left at your apartment. She’ll bring the few things of yours that are at my place too. Are you available tomorrow?” Mark explains, asking the question so casually too. In fact, he sounds like he’s distracted with something on his end of the call too.

“Have you had this planned for a while now or something?” She asks, her eyebrows only pull together tighter in confusion. How can he act so unbothered only seconds after breaking up with her? She thinks. Sure, it’s a mutual break up, but she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t bothered by it still.

“Uh, no,” Mark mutters, not sounding convincing at all. Y/N rolls her eyes and shakes her head at herself - how did she even date this guy?

“You know what, whatever,” Y/N breathes out as her eyes close and she runs a hand through her hair, “I’ll be home from work around five in the evening tomorrow for your assistant to come by. Tell her to be on time, please,” she tells Mark.

“Alright,” he says. There’s a couple beats of silence between them, and she doesn’t feel upset over it at all. In fact she feels at peace with this breakup. She supposes that they didn’t date for long, and they never said I love you to each other and really didn’t spend too much time with one another the past two months. Maybe that’s why she’s not bothered by this break up at all.

“Well, it was fun, Mark,” Y/N says, “I wish you the best,” she adds.

“You too, Y/N,” he replies. And with that, Y/N brings the phone from her ear and ends the call. Staring at the screen that was on Mark’s contact info for a few minutes as she lets herself fall into her thoughts.

That was a lot easier than she imagined it to be earlier today. Y/N falls back on her bed, her hair fanning out around her as she holds her phone to her stomach and stares up at the ceiling. Did he have this planned though? She finds herself thinking. She imagines that he sent those flowers earlier to butter her up, maybe, before he called to break her heart only hours later. And having already made plans for his assistant to go through his apartment and bring her things to her. Maybe he already had gathered her things beforehand, meaning over a week ago he would have packed it up - only to come over to her house and fight with her for days on end before making her drive him to the airport. Y/N just shakes her head as her thoughts run wild.

Y/N knows exactly what she needs to do to get out of this overthinking stage that she’s got herself into. She gets up from her bed and opens her closet, her figure skates sitting on the bottom of the closet leaning nicely against each other. She finds an empty tote bag and tosses them inside, then quickly gets dressed into a pair of light blue skinny jeans, a plain white turtleneck long sleeve, and then layering by putting on a dark grey crew neck that has ‘LA’ in white writing across the front.

After making sure she has her wallet, phone and keys, she puts on a black puffer jacket and heads out her front door. Harry’s walking out of the elevator just as Y/N is locking up, he’s got a Starbucks hot drink in hand and a smile on his face.

“Hey,” Harry says, but then his eyebrows pinch together as he realizes the time, “where are you off to?” He wonders. Y/N brushes her hair from her face and lets out a small sigh.

“It’s, like, two weeks till Christmas and I haven’t gone skating yet, so I just got up and grabbed my skates to go out,” she explains, lifting her shoulder that her tote bag was hanging off. Her skates are poking out the top slightly, Harry notices the white figure skates with a pair of matching light pink guards on the bottom.  

“Oh, fun,” Harry nods, meeting her eyes again.

Y/N doesn’t even think twice before she’s asking, “did you want to come with me?”

Harry smiles, causing Y/N to mirror him, before he takes a few moments to nod in response. “I would love to, yeah,” Harry clears his throat, noticing how overly excited he may have sounded. “I should dress a bit warmer, though, it’s supposed to snow tonight,” he tells her, motioning to his apartment door down the hall.

“Good call,” Y/N says, following him to his doorway. Harry holds open his door for her after unlocking it, then letting it close softly behind them as he takes off the lighter jacket he had on. Y/N smiles at the decorations around his apartment, loving how the glow from the lights of his tree filled up the space around them before he can turn on any lights.

“I don’t have my own skates, suppose I’m not a real New Yorker like that,” Harry states as he opens the closet beside his front door and starts ruffling around in order to find where his scarfs were hiding.

“That’s fine,” Y/N says with a soft chuckle, turning around to watch as he sticks his head into the closet and pushes things around. “They have rentals at Bryant Park,” she tells him.

“I’ve never been,” Harry admits. He finally gets a hold of the long burgundy scarf with a brown leaf pattern on it, his mum had gifted it to him a few years back. Harry pushes the doors of his closet closed and puts the scarf down for a moment, hanging it on the door handle before he grabs his long black coat to slip it on. Once he’s got that on, he wraps the scarf around his neck, fixing the collar of his coat and the scarf so it’s comfortable.

“You’ve really never been to Bryant Park?” Y/N asks surprisingly. It wasn’t Central Park by any means, but anyone who lived in the Manhattan area typically had walked through Bryant Park.

“Nope,” Harry says, grabbing for his forgotten Starbucks drink, bringing it to his lips for a quick sip. He looks up at Y/N to find her smiling at him. “What?” Harry questions.

“Nothing, I’m just excited for you to see Bryant Park. It’s beautiful during the Winter,” she states.

“Well then, let’s not waste any time, come on,” Harry nods his head to the door and gives her a smile while holding it open for her. She thanks him, waits for him to lock the doors before they fall into step with one another to the elevator. Harry beats her to hitting the button, literally leaning in front of her in order to push the down button before she can. Y/N shakes her head at him, smiling.

“So how was your time at the cafe earlier?” Y/N asks Harry, waiting for the elevator to arrive.

“It was good,” Harry says, tilting his head to the side so he can look at Y/N, “wrote another song about love,” he adds with a smile. Y/N chuckles and raises her eyebrows.

“Never would have guessed,” she teases him.

The whole walk to Bryant Park, all Harry can think about is when the hell was the last time he skated? That and how good Y/N looked, which is a thought that’s always going through his head, to be honest. But he’s stressing himself out, hoping and praying that some sort of muscle memory clicks in and he doesn’t embarrass himself in front of Y/N. God, maybe he should have just saved himself the embarrassing situation and declined her invitation. Harry knew the moment he looked into her eyes there was something a bit off with her; how her smile didn’t quite reach its full potential - so the moment she asked if he wanted to come along with her, he didn’t even think twice before saying yes. The girl has her own figure skates, Harry wouldn’t doubt it if she’s about to skate circles around him.

“All black outfit,” Y/N comments as she watches Harry pick out a pair of black skates in his size, “I don’t think I’ve seen you wear all black before,” she adds with a smile.

“I used to only wear all black,” he admits, “back in uni, I really didn’t venture out in fashion and only wore black jeans and black t-shirts basically all year,” he explains to Y/N, letting her lead the way to the area for skaters to sit on the many benches and do up their skates.

“I truthfully can’t even imagine that,” Y/N replies, taking a seat on the bench right by the open door to the ice rink. She looks out at the about forty people on the ice, lit up by the many Christmas lights hanging over it and a few light posts in each corner too, as the sun has fully set now. The city around them is still hustling and bustling as it always is, which makes her smile.

“It was a tragedy, but I got older and realized that fashion can be fun, especially after moving to New York, seeing what people wear out for some innocent ice skating,” he mentions, taking in Y/N’s fashion forward outfit. The style was very trendy these days, he had noticed - online and in the streets.

“I would be an abomination of a former FIT student if I just walked around New York City in leggings and a hoodie,” Y/N states, “if I’m going somewhere, with someone, I always feel the need to look good.”

“And you do, by the way, look good,” Harry says, his words coming out quick and in a bit of a stumble. Y/N can feel the blush creeping onto her cheeks. She says a quiet ‘thank you’ before she begins to lace up her skates.

Y/N has her skates done up before Harry, so she has an extra minute to take out her phone and open her Instagram app. She checks out her newest comments, liking a few, before she finds herself aimlessly scrolling through her feed and liking some posts there. Checking up on Harry, she notices he’s almost done doing up his skates, so she stands up and grabs her tote bag that now holds her skate guards and chunky black boots.

“Did you want to lock anything up?” Y/N asks Harry, motioning to the small lockers to their left.

He shakes his head, “no thank you,” he says before his attention is back on tying his skates. Y/N smiles at how his tongue pokes out just slightly passed his lips before she turns around and walks over to lock up her tote bag, making sure everything but her phone is inside.

Once the small locker door is closed, she walks over to the wall of the ice rink and opens her Instagram again, putting on a quick filter that makes it look like it’s being filmed with an old film camera before she pans her camera around while holding down the button on the screen. As she turns to face where Harry is, she cuts off the video and double checks he’s not in it. With having so many followers, she always makes sure that her friends and family are comfortable with being posted before doing so. Y/N adds a quick caption of ‘first skate this season’ with a white heart emoji before she posts it to her story, then she slips the phone into her back pocket and walks over to where Harry sat waiting for her.

“Ready?” Harry asks, smiling up at her.

“Yup,” she nods, smiling back at him. Harry nods, muttering ‘alright’ under his breath, and then stands up on wobbling legs. Y/N chuckles and reaches for his elbow, helping him stand up straight. “You’ve skated before, right?” She asks, realizing now that she only assumed that he had.

“Uh, it’s been a few years,” Harry admits, flashing another nervous smile her way. All he can think about is her hand on his arm, and how she hasn’t let go of him yet. Harry hadn’t even thought about the potential arm holding, or hand holding maybe, they could get into here. She has a boyfriend, he reminds himself over and over again as he watches her lips tug up as she smiles back at him again.

“Alright, we’ll take it slow then,” she assures him, pulling at his arm gently to get them moving forward on their skates.

Y/N takes the first step onto the shining ice, letting her blades slide over the top slowly before she takes a sharp turn and is in front of Harry in an instant. His eyebrows fly up his forehead as his eyes fall down to her skates again, noticing how worn out they look now, her left foot lifting up as she sticks the toe of her skate blade into the ice - her whole stance made her look like some sort of professional. Harry’s head snaps up and he meets her gaze, lips now smirking at his stunned expression.

“You’ve been skating a lot before then, hm?” Harry gulps, looking back down at his feet as he inches slowly to the ice.

“Since I was a kid,” Y/N reveals. He’ll touch more on it later, but first he wants to get himself onto the ice and get this embarrassment over with. Harry sighs and starts to place his right foot into the ice, letting out a deep breath as he does but just as quickly as he makes the move he’s slipping. Harry sucks in a sharp breath, ready to fall before he even has both feet on the ice. But both of Y/N’s arms fly out and grab a hold of his forearms, causing him to wrap each of his hands around her much smaller forearms.

Harry shakes his head and just decides to get it over with, pushing both skates onto the ice in a quick motion. Y/N is fully prepared for his sudden movement and skates backwards, checking over her shoulder quickly to make sure she doesn’t get in anyone's way. She keeps a tight grip on Harry’s arms and smiles as she looks up at him and sees the stressed out look on his face.

“You’re doing great,” Y/N assures him, her voice causing Harry to look down and meet her soft eyes. “We can move a bit closer to the wall so you can hang onto it for the first bit?” She suggests, motioning to the wall beside them.

“Probably for the best,” Harry agrees, nodding his head and finally taking his eyes off Y/N’s in order to make his way to the wall. The few movements on his part aren’t as hard as he thought they’d be to get over to the wall. He thinks his muscle memory for skating will click in soon, hopefully.

Y/N takes it slow beside Harry, waiting for him to get comfortable enough to only need one hand on the wall before she lets go of his arm. She already misses the warmth from his touch. Not even one day into her and Mark’s break up and she’s already feeling touch deprived. To be fair, her and Mark hadn’t so much as given each other a few quick pecks and barely snuggling on the couch the last couple days they were together. Y/N shakes her head slightly at her thoughts of Mark.

“So how did you get into skating?” Harry asks after a few moments of them finding a slow pace.

“Um,” Y/N pauses as she thinks of how to explain how her parents didn’t want to spend much time with her, so they stuck her into many different hobbies to fill the void. “I was into a lot of the typical little girl hobbies, dancing, gymnastics, art, but figure skating was something that just really stuck with me as I grew up. Probably in connection with my obsession with the holidays, and the winter season,” Y/N explains, noticing already how Harry’s pace on his skates is picking up.

“Are you, like, really good?” Harry questions. Y/N chuckles and looks away from the ice below them to meet his gaze before he’s glancing down at his skates again in order to keep upright.

“Yup,” Y/N nods, rolling her lips into her mouth to hide her grin.

“So humble,” Harry jokes with a chuckle. “You could probably skate circles around me, huh? Do those little twirly things too?”

“I could do a few spins, yes,” Y/N says and nods her head. “I’ll let you get used to the ice first before I throw out any big moves,” she adds, looking down at how Harry’s feet were moving on the ice. Every minute he is getting better, soon enough he’ll let go of that wall and be able to skate in slow laps around the rink with her.

“How very considerate of you,” Harry notes, causing the both of them to chuckle again.

They do another two laps with Harry’s hand just inches away from the wall, hovering over it just in case he made the wrong move. But then soon enough, they’re mixed in with the other skaters and making strong, smooth strides across the ice. Y/N is laughing at something Harry says about how he must look like Bambi on ice, head thrown back and eyes crinkled up, when Harry just about falls. She catches him gasping and opens her eyes quickly before catching his hand in hers.

“You okay?” She asks, clear concern in her voice as she moves in order to meet his eyes. Harry knows this isn’t the first time they’ve sort of held hands, but it still feels like her skin is too warm for his cold touch and butterflies erupt in his stomach as she cards their fingers together so effortlessly. Damn Styles grow some balls and don’t let her make all the first moves, he thinks to himself.

“‘M alright,” Harry mumbles and nods, completely losing focus on the world around them as they float across the ice looking into each other's eyes and holding hands.

Y/N licks her lips, blinking up at Harry in what feels like an innocent way but realizes the moment his gaze drops to her lips that maybe it isn’t. Clearing her throat, she squeezes Harry’s hand and then slowly lets go. Harry can’t help but feel disappointed by how short they’d held hands for, he was hoping it would at least last a whole lap around the rink. Y/N shivers and sticks both of her hands into her coat pockets, playing off letting go of his hand with being cold, but in reality touching Harry’s skin made her feel like she was on fire.

“Tell me what your favourite colour is,” Harry blabs out loud suddenly.

Y/N furrows her brows and looks up at Harry. He’s no longer watching the ice with each stride of his skates, instead his posture is completely at ease almost as he seems much more confident on the ice now. Something tells Y/N that Harry is stupidly good at pretty much anything and if he doesn’t get it right the first time it would only take a few more before he masters it.

“It changes almost every other day,” Y/N admits, biting down on her bottom lip - which causes Harry’s eyes to flicker down to her lips yet again. “Lately it’s been green,” she exclaims, as she speaks Harry’s gaze falls back to her eyes.

“Like my eyes?” Harry teases, batting his eyelashes.

There’s suddenly a group of teenagers in their way, causing their conversation to pause as they have to maneuver around the few bodies. Harry finds that he doesn’t struggle at all with the quick movements he has to make with his skates in order to get around them. He smiles to himself, proud of how fast he’s picked up skating again. Maybe he’ll try the little twirly spin around Y/N to impress her. Too bad she’s much more talented on skates and is picking up speed before making a quick turn and is now skating backwards in front of Harry with her eyes narrowed and a tight smile on her lips.

“Firstly, that was a poor set up to try and get a compliment out of me, I’ll just tell you that your eyes are very pretty,” Y/N states. Harry smiles at her words, those pesky butterflies back in his stomach once again. “And second, my favourite green is more like a dark, rich, forest green,” she explains, quickly looking over her shoulder as they turn the corner of the rink. Harry notices how effortlessly she picks up her skates and crosses them over each other to smoothly take the turn.

“Like a Christmas tree?” Harry wonders.

Y/N smiles and nods, “exactly, like a Christmas tree,” she says, a beat of silence between them before she asks, “what’s your favourite colour?”

“Pink,” Harry answers without missing a beat. It’s been his favourite for years now, since he was just a young lad.

“Like my lips?” Y/N teases, her voice dropping down into a low and soft tone that causes a fire to spark in the pit of Harry’s stomach. His eyes drop to her lips at the mention of them, which Y/N notices and smirks at him before she’s turning on her skates and facing forward again. They both don’t say anything as they skate around the other turn of the rink, avoiding an older couple that has slowed down in front of them. Y/N still has a smug look on her face when Harry glances to his left where she skates beside him. Obviously, yes, exactly like the shade of your lips, Harry thinks and wishes he had the guts to say aloud.

“More like,” Harry pauses and then smiles, “like the Pink Panther,” Harry jokes.

“You know what, fair enough,” Y/N chuckles and shrugs her shoulder.

The two of them continue to ask each other more random favourites, getting the basics down with favourite foods, favourite alcoholic drinks, and favourite word too, of course. In fact, they are just skating at a leisurely pace for quite some time. Y/N notices that the number of people on the rink dwindles down to a mere twenty and she lifts her Apple watch up, so it lights up and shows her the time. Bryant Park should be closing within an hour or two, depending if they’re on holiday hours yet, meaning that Harry and her have spent nearly two hours out on the ice together.

“I think it’s time you bust out some of those fancy figure skating moves,” Harry suddenly says unprovoked. Y/N furrows her brows and shakes her head, watching a young couple, just a few people ahead of them, holding hands, like how she wishes her and Harry could have been this entire time. But it’s too soon, she thinks.

“I don’t know,” Y/N mutters under her breath, her eyes still on the couple as they’re laughing together - much like how her and Harry have been. Did these strangers around them think they were a couple?

“Fine,” Harry huffs and starts to skate a bit faster to be a few strides ahead of Y/N before he comes to a wobbly stop a bit more into the middle of the rink out of everyone's way. Y/N comes to a much smoother stop in front of him. “I’ll give it a shot then, how hard can it be to spin around a few times.”

Famous last words, Y/N thinks as Harry tries to whip his body around to try and attempt to do a spin. She can already see how he’s lifting the toe of his left skate, the small ridges getting caught on the ice while his body is still trying to spin around. Y/N’s eyes widen as she suddenly tries to stop him, her hands just barely getting a hold of his arms before he can fall. But his weight is too much and her skates slip out from under her. A small screech escapes her mouth as the two of them begin their fall to the ice - for surprisingly the first time tonight. Harry turns them both so he gets the worst of the fall, moving Y/N so she falls more on top of him rather than on the ice. Y/N notices and quickly moves her hand to the back of his head to ensure he doesn’t smack it against the hard surface. Her fingers card through his hair, while her other hand is clenching into a fist around the fabric of his coat.

“Shit,” Harry groans as the bodies fall to the ice. Thankfully, he tries to sit up a bit during the fall, so he doesn’t hit his head but instead he feels immediately pain shot up his elbow and backside.

“Oh my god,” Y/N gasps, blinking several times as she takes in what had happened. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?” She asks Harry in a rush of words.

“I’m okay,” he nods, which causes Y/N to realize her hand is still brushing through his hair. She rubs his scalp a few times with her thumb before removing her hand and quickly lifting her body off of Harry’s. “I’ll probably have a bruised ass, but I guess that’s karma,” he tries to joke.

Y/N frowns and smacks his arm gently, “don’t pull that shit again, oh my god, I thought we were going to end our night in the ER.”

Harry chuckles and sits up, taking in how Y/N has sat up on her knees with both her hands resting on her thighs. Her hair is a bit of a mess and her eyes wide and wild with emotion - but otherwise she looks alright. Thankfully, Harry did good and kept her safe in their fall.

“Just need a few ice packs and maybe a joint before bed to ease the pain,” Harry says, only half joking.

“Wait,” Y/N’s eyebrows pinch together, “do you smoke weed?” She asks. To be honest, she couldn’t imagine Harry as some pothead. Not that there was a true look to a ‘pothead’ these days. Hell, she’s had her fair share of joints and edibles while in college. Even afterwards too, Sammy loved to roll a joint or two towards the end of their wine nights.

Harry shrugs and begins to get up from the ice slowly. “Not really. It makes me a bit sleepy, truthfully,” he tells her.

“I get that,” Y/N nods, “I don’t smoke often, but when I do, I typically fall asleep within the hour after smoking. It annoys the crap out of Sammy.” She tells Harry truthfully. Harry nods as well, only a little bit surprised to learn that Y/N didn’t say no to drugs in her youth. Not that he was judging, far from it really cause he had no room to judge, but he just simply didn’t imagine her consuming anything more than a bottle or two of wine.

The two of them get up off the ice now, finally getting back on their feet. A sigh leaves Y/N lips as she brushes her hands on her jeans. “I think you falling is our cue to get out of here,” she suggests, skating slowly backwards towards the doorway where the benches were.

“You’re probably right,” Harry agrees and begins to follow her, trying not to whine with his movements as a sharp pain stings his bottom with each stride of his skates.

Y/N leaves Harry to sit on the bench they had used before and goes over to unlock her locker and get her tote bag. Harry’s lucky no one stole his shoes he had just left under the bench with no care in the world, she thinks as she walks back over and sits beside him. She unties her skates and is slipping on her boots before Harry can even untie one of his skates. Y/N puts the guards on her skates and places them into her tote bag before turning to look at Harry, noticing the pained look in his face as he bends forward to work on the laces of his other skate.

“Did you need help?” She asks him.

“No,” Harry pauses to hiss in pain, “I’m fine,” he adds, but Y/N just rolls her eyes and scoots over on the bench till she’s nearly pressing right up against Harry’s side, leaning down in order to work on his laces.

Harry watches her nimble fingers untie and loosen the laces, noticing how her hair falls as she bends down further. A faint smell of roses hits him with the movement of her hair as she pushes it back away from her line of sight. Harry looks away, glancing around them to see if anyone’s watching them because from any other view it may look like Y/N is giving him-

“There you go,” Y/N says with a smile and sits up again. Harry looks at his skates to see them completely loosened and ready for him to slip off easily.

“Thanks,” Harry says quietly with a smile.

After Harry has his trusty not-so-white vans on, they walk over to return his rentals and make their way out of the ice rink area of Bryant Park. Harry notices the shops around the park, the painted white frames and clean windows were rather pleasing to look at while the inside glows with soft yellow lights. He wonders what they sell, but notices Y/N hiding a yawn behind her hand and decides it’s probably best they just head home. Also, his ass really did hurt with each step he took.

“Would you like to get a hot cocoa before we walk home?” Harry suggests, pointing to the small shack that was open and looks like it serves hot drinks and a few treats maybe.

“I would love that,” Y/N answers with a bright smile.

Her heart can’t help but burst at the thought that Harry knows her so well already. Not even a month of knowing one another and he already is so much better than Mark ever was. He would never go skating with her or buy her a nice warm drink afterwards either. It’s a good thing he’s not your boyfriend anymore, Y/N finds herself reminding herself, which causes her heart to pitter patter in her chest again. This time thinking about how maybe Harry could maybe be her boyfriend, one day.

“Hi,” Y/N gives the small brunette at her front door a tight smile.

She’s almost thirty minutes later than Mark said she would be. But to be fair, the subway was later than usual on her way home so Y/N had only just gotten home ten minutes ago. She had texted Mark to let him know and relay the message to his assistant, but he didn’t answer, no surprise there. So, in hindsight it wasn’t the biggest deal that his pretty little assistant was late.

What the big deal was the way she just strolled into Y/N’s apartment and set the box of her things on the couch. Y/N is standing by her door still in disbelief, mouth hanging open and eyes wide at the girls behaviour. When she turns around and gives Y/N a funny look while pointing around at her Christmas decor.

“It looks like Mrs Claus threw up in here,” she says.

“Thanks,” Y/N mutters and walks over to where she stood by the couch. Mark’s assistant steps back, pulling out her phone and tapping away at the screen as she seems bored to be here. “I’ll go get Mark’s things,” Y/N says, but then just as she’s about to walk away her eyes catch something red near the top of the box of her things that Mark had packed up.

She pushes her favourite Eagles shirt out of the way and hooks one finger around the lacy red fabric. The Victoria’s Secret label sticks out of the barely there red thong that’s hanging off her index finger. Y/N doesn’t recognize the underwear, she thinks as her head begins to spin. How the fuck did a pair of woman's underwear get into this box of things Mark packed up? Why would he have a red thong at his apartment that wasn’t Y/N’s? What the actual fuck? Another round of questions are about to spew in Y/N’s head as her heart beats out of her chest but then suddenly Mark’s assistant is reaching for the lacy fabric and taking it out of Y/N’s grasp.

“Oh, those are mine. Must’ve slipped in by accident,” she stammers out the words. Y/N’s head is spinning, her heart is beating out of her chest, as she puts the pieces together.

“Really? A thong just slipped into the box?” Y/N urges, narrowing her eyes at the young brunette standing in her living room. “How long have you been fucking my boyfriend?” Y/N asks and raises her voice, the anger filling her whole body now.

“Ex boyfriend,” the brunette has the guts to utter out.

“Answer the damn question,” Y/N snaps back at her.

Her face is turning red, to match the stupid thong in her hands, “uh, it’s none of your business-”

“Just tell me!” Y/N shouts, feeling like she deserves some truth in this moment. Mark’s assistant visibly gulps, avoiding Y/N’s eyes and looks all around the room.

“Like, a few months,” she mutters under her breath, still not meeting Y/N’s burning gaze.

Her whole body is shaking with the anger coursing through her. She should have known. How could she be such an idiot? She thinks while shaking her head. Of course, Mark was cheating on her during the entirety of their relationship. They were only dating for four months, meaning that for at least half of it, he was busy screwing his fucking assistant - how unbelievably cliche of him, but also how unbelievably naive of her to not guess. Y/N brings a hand to her forehand and rubs at her temple as a headache begins.

“Can I just get Mark’s stuff and go-”

“Get. Out.” Y/N spits out the words, glaring at the brunette who has the audacity to be so nonchalant about being the other woman.

“What about his things?” Mark’s assistant all but winces out the words, her dark eyebrows pulling together.

“Tell Mark to eat a dick,” Y/N sneers, taking a step towards the girl which causes her to step back. She can’t deny the bit of joy she feels at the sight of fear in the girls eyes. “And get out of my apartment, now!” Y/N shouts at the woman.

“Whatever,” she mumbles, turning around and walking to the front door.

Y/N is hot on her heels, making sure to slam to door shut behind her. The moment she’s left to herself, her apartment falling silent around her, she feels the pain settle in. Mark cheated on her with his assistant that he then had the nerve to let come over to her apartment. The realization of how embarrassing this whole situation is hits her, along with the hurt too. Regardless if it was a mutual break up, being cheated on does not feel good. Y/N sniffles, bringing a hand to her mouth as she suddenly is holding back sobs. Tears fall down her cheeks while her brain runs wild thinking of how many times Mark could have fucked his assistant and then just waltzed into her apartment and then they-

Her thoughts are cut short as she’s bolting to her bathroom, throwing the door open and bending down in front of the toilet. She lifts the seat and empties her stomach into the bowl. After a moment she’s coughing, lifting her head out of the toilet and reaching for the lever to flush away any contents that were in her stomach. Y/N grabs the hand towel to her right and brings it to her mouth, wiping away the bit of drool at her lips.

Y/N can feel the vibration from her cell phone after a moment of sitting on the bathroom floor, zoned out on the shower and thinking about how stupid she could have been to trust Mark. She lets out a short sigh and reaches into her back pocket to find her buzzing phone. Her eyes roll on instinct of seeing Mark’s contact photo taking up her screen. A part of her wants to answer, to yell and to scream at him. But a bigger part of her feels sick to her stomach again and just tired, honestly. So, she ignores the call and opens her phone to her contacts and deletes Mark all together. She goes into her photos and does a quick sweep of any photos of them together. It was something she was going to do eventually anyways, but after the news of him being a cheating piece of shit she couldn’t waste another second before getting rid of anything involving Mark.

Mark is a fucking asshole. His precious little assistant came by to drop off my few things and one of her thongs was in the box, so she spilled the beans that she had been sleeping with Mark for months. Meaning that piece of absolute trash was cheating on me like the entire time we were together. Y/N types out the message to Sammy, making sure that he knows the drama first - but also just simply because he’s her best friend.

Sammy is typing back a response as Y/N stands up from her spot by the toilet, flushing it again due to her spitting a few times into the bowl, and then she quickly washes her hands and looks up at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes are red, her hairs a bit frizzy and out of place from the perfect curls she had earlier today, and her makeup is ruined. She decides to wash her face, drying it with a clean towel as her phone vibrates on the counter.

Are you fucking kidding me?! I’m going to kill him. Please tell me we have a murder plan, I know where we can hide the body. Did you want to talk about it? I can come over and bring a big bottle of tequila? Sammy sends each sentence as a separate text, adding a few choice emojis too. The knife is used many times. His enthusiasm makes Y/N chuckle but then she’s frowning again while walking out of the bathroom and to her bedroom.

Honestly, I just want to curl up in bed and cry it out some more while listening to some sad music. But I’ll keep you updated on any murder plans I think up. Y/N sends back her texts before throwing her phone down on her bed.

Letting out another sigh, Y/N strips out of her tight fitting pants and puts on a pair of grey sweatpants. Next, she takes off the collared button up shirt she had worn tucked into her pants today, hanging it back up in her closet to prevent it from getting wrinkled. Her eyes wander around her bedroom, a certain article of clothing was on her mind to put on and snuggle into bed with. Y/N smiles as she sees Harry’s black hoodie on the top of her laundry hamper. To be honest, it needed to be washed, but she needed the comfort of his oversized clothing more. So, she tugs it on, puts her hair into a messy topknot bun, and tugs down the hood before lifting the blanket and getting into bed.

Not even three songs into her ‘depressed? yeah, me too’ playlist of sad songs, there was a knock on Y/N’s front door. At first she thinks of ignoring whoever it is, but then her music is cut off as a phone call comes through. It’s Mark’s number, regardless that she just deleted his contact, she still knew his phone number. Y/N groans and gets out of bed. Her heart is pounding in her chest as she imagines Mark or that little assistant of his having the balls to come to her apartment again and demand for his few things he had left around here. Y/N narrows her eyes and unlocks her door, ready to glare at her sad excuse for an ex boyfriend - but her face instantly softens at the sight of Harry standing there.

“Nice jumper,” Harry comments. A smile on his lips as he takes in how Y/N looks in his clothing, days after he had lent it to her. But that smile vanishes when he notices the redness in her eyes and her pouting lips. “What’s wrong?” Harry asks, his voice full of worry as he fights back reaching for her and bringing her in for a hug.

Y/N sniffles, “um, I thought you were Mark, sorry,” she says in a quiet voice.

“Oh, sorry, is he coming over?” Harry questions. Suppose it made more sense for her boyfriend to comfort her during a bad day, he thinks although it tears him up inside that it can’t be him.

“No, no, he’s in Arizona, or somewhere. I don’t even know,” Y/N sighs, her voice sounding brittle, like it’s about to crack at any second, as she tries to keep herself composed in front of Harry. “I don’t really care actually, we broke up,” she reveals, her gaze down at the floor. Harry’s wearing those dirty white vans again, she wonders if he wears anything else.

They broke up, holy shit don’t freak out Styles, keep it together, Harry’s thoughts are all jumbled up at the news of Y/N and her boyfriends break up, which she is clearly very upset over, judging by her appearance and how she’s sniffling every second - bringing the sleeve of his Columbia jumper to her face to wipe her nose. Harry frowns and adjusts his weight from one foot to the other.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Y/N,” Harry says softly, “break ups can really suck,” he adds - knowing from experience just how terrible break ups can leave a person feeling.

“Yeah,” Y/N breathes out and looks up at Harry now, “but he’s kind of a trash human so it’s for the best, honestly,” she tells him, letting out a breathy chuckle while shaking her head. She shouldn’t be crying so damn much over the guy, she thinks.

“Oh, well then, fuck that guy,” Harry agrees with a nod of his head.

Y/N lets out a genuine chuckle at his words. She brings a hand, that is covered by the cuff of Harry’s hoodie, to her forehead to swipe back any crazy wispy hairs that are in her face. “So, what brought you to knock on my door?” She asks, smiling as Harry realizes he had gotten distracted by her state and forgot why he knocked at all.

“Right,” Harry chuckles, “um, a few friends of mine are in this band, it’s nothing crazy they just play at the pub a few blocks away. And I was wondering if you weren’t busy if you wanted to come with, thought it could be fun. But if you’re not in the mood to leave your home I understand,” Harry explains to her.

“No, I would love to come with,” Y/N insists. She lets out another chuckle and motions to her current appearance. “Just not looking like this, and as long as you promise there will be liquor involved in this Saturday night out.”

“I’ll buy you as many drinks as you need,” Harry promises with a smile.

“Then count me in,” Y/N says, mirroring his big dimpled smile. “Just give me some time to get ready?”

“You’ve got plenty of time, we don’t have to leave for another hour and a half,” he tells her. “I’ll let you get to it,” he adds, throwing a thumb over his shoulder as he takes a step away from her doorway.

“Oh, I’ll wash the sweater and give it to you soon, by the way,” Y/N says, lifting both her arms before letting them fall to her sides. Harry just shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head.

“Keep it as long as you need, it’s no problem, honestly,” Harry tells her while flashing a grin her way, hoping that it makes her feel even a little bit better. And it does, his casual response to her wearing his hoodie and then those dimples - it had her stomach fluttering. She gives Harry a small timid smile, tucking her chin down slightly into the collar of the hoodie as she watches his walk backwards down the hall to his door. “I’ll come knocking again in a bit,” Harry adds before he’s out of her sight and she’s closing her front door shut once again.

Y/N absentmindedly brings her hand to her mouth, biting on her nails as she stares off at her Christmas tree - though the lights are blurry due to her zoning out. You can do this, Y/N thinks and begins to give herself a pep talk of getting out of the sad break up phase and going out with Harry and his friends. Oh my god, Y/N’s eyes widen at her thoughts, what am I going to wear?

Y/N felt overdressed.

After twenty minutes of ripping apart her closet and tearing items out of her dresser drawers, she was truly tempted to just keep on Harry’s hoodie, pair it with some good jeans and some red heeled boots and call it a day. But that would be weird, showing up to hang out and meet Harry’s friends while dressed in his clothing. She was sure they were already going to assume things with him just bringing her along. Y/N didn’t need them thinking they had sex before too.

The thought had made Y/N blush like crazy as she tore off the stupidly comfortable hoodie and grabbed a silky white top that plunged low in the neckline, tying off just at her belly button, and then had long flowy sleeves. Pairing this with her trusted pair of light blue jeans, and for accessories: some chunky gold hoop earrings and layered gold necklaces to fill up the amount of skin she was showing at her chest. To top it all off, she slipped into her go-to black Balenciaga boots and long brown jacket to keep warm. After heading into the bathroom quickly, she brushed her hair through again and restyled the curls, put on a touch of light makeup, and then made sure to stick her lip gloss in her small black purse just as Harry was knocking on her door again.

Harry was dressed in a grey t-shirt with a large yellow smiley face, brown trousers and a blue and cream plaid jacket that quite literally made chills wash over Y/N’s body when she saw the whole fit - but that jacket, it made her head spin with some rather inappropriate thoughts. She’s a fashion major, can’t blame her for thinking clothing can make someone even more attractive. But even then she should have gotten the vibe of this evening and changed into something more casual.

But she didn’t, so now as she’s walking into a dive bar a few blocks away from the apartment building, she feels very out of place. Everyone’s wearing t-shirts and jeans, it smelt like cheap beer and cigarettes, and was definitely not the place to wear a silky white top that cost about five-hundred-dollars.

“You alright?” Harry's voice is soft and closer, as he steps directly behind Y/N after walking into the bar.

He notices how she crossed her arms at her chest and seemed to tense up almost immediately after walking in. Y/N shivers at the feeling of Harry’s breath falling over her exposed neck, having pushed her hair to lay on her left shoulder while he stood over her right. Y/N is still looking around the bar, trying to put together who may be Harry’s group of friends in this crowded bar.

“Y/N?” Harry tries again, this time placing a delicate hand on the small of her back - barely touching her, that he’s not even sure she’s noticed through her thick jacket. But she does, and she feels dizzy at the sweet gesture.

“Yeah,” she sighs, blinking a few times before looking to her right shoulder at Harry. He’s lips are so close, she thinks while trying her best to keep her eyes on his eyes. “Just feeling a little overdressed,” Y/N admits with a tight smile.

Harry shakes his head, “you look fine, better than fine actually. You look amazing,” Harry watches as Y/N’s eyes flicker to his lips for just a split second. He smiles but clears his throat, finding that they’re both blushing at his comment now. “As any FIT student in New York City should, of course,” he adds on to try and make his compliment a little less obvious.

“Thanks, Harry,” Y/N smiles.

When Harry saw Y/N for the second time that evening, it was like day and night from the hour before when she answered her door in his hoodie. She looked incredible, and was so out of his league. Dressed like she was going to a photoshoot, hair flowing down her back perfectly, and accessories that made him visibly gulp - he was a sucker for some gold jewelry on a girl, it was a weird weakness of his. And now, standing in the dim lighting of this dingy dive bar, she did look a little out of place, but in the best way possible, like she shined too bright to be in just a dark and depressing place.

“This way,” Harry says, leading the way to where he notices his friends are sitting at a table. They thankfully got his texts about him bringing Y/N with him and had two seats open for the both of them.

“Should we stop at the bar and get a drink?” Y/N asks. She’s honestly unsure how the service works at a place like this. To be honest, she hadn’t been in too many dive bars in her years.

Harry stops, looks behind him at her, and shakes his head. “We have a waitress that works basically every night my friends play, so she’ll come by and get our drinks for us,” he explains to Y/N. She nods, giving him a tight smile, and Harry can’t help but notice how she’s still got her arms crossed at her chest. Is she uncomfortable here? Maybe he can make some shit excuse after the first few songs and get her home.

Harry notices as he’s turned towards Y/N just how much attention is on her. He’s not surprised, seeing how he already realized how much she sticks out in a place like this, but he doesn’t quite enjoy seeing every male’s - and a few girls too - eyes in this place on the girl he’s brought with him. So, he makes the quick decision of holding out his hand for Y/N to take. She looks at Harry’s outstretched hand and feels her breath get caught in her throat. Playing it off, she smiles and reaches forward, watching as his much larger hand envelopes hers and tugs gently to get them moving again. Y/N’s stomach is already full of butterflies and her head is spinning at them holding hands for all of ninety seconds it takes to get to his table full of friends - she needs a drink, stat.

Harry lets go of Y/N’s hand as he approaches his friend's usual table and has to bring his arms up in order to hug Adam, who’s throwing himself into Harry at the sight of him. Harry huffs out a laugh, making a comment about how drunk Adam must be already, to which he responds by smacking Harry’s back a few times and laughing with him. Y/N can’t help it as the corners of her lips turn up into a small smile at the sight of Harry engulfed in a hug by a man bigger than him. As she’s watching their interaction, she notices how everyone else is watching her. Y/N’s smile falls right away and she finds herself crossing her arms at her chest again.

“Everyone,” Harry speaks a bit louder in order to get everyone's attention as he turns around and holds his arm out to Y/N, which she takes as her singal to step forward for an introduction and smiles timidly at the group of four others at the table. “This is Y/N, Y/N, this is everyone,” Harry announces, smiling at his friends - catching Mitch’s smug look in return.

“Hi,” Y/N says, her voice that soft and gentle tone that he had grown to like, quite a lot, actually.

“I’m Tom,” he’s the first to speak up, offering a hand to Y/N to shake, which she turns just a bit to her left in order to properly greet Harry’s friend. Tom’s got bleached hair that’s not styled and laying flat on his forehead, his roots are a dark brown that match the mustache and bit of bread he’s got. Y/N notices the few different necklaces around his neck while he’s wearing a simple outfit of a black long sleeve and black jeans.

“Jenny,” the woman sitting to Tom's left reaches over the table in order to shake Y/N’s hand. She’s also got bleached hair, and a dazzling smile too. Y/N notices the equally dazzling ring on her finger and she glances down at Tom’s hands to see a wedding band, assuming they are married due to them sitting so closely.

“Mitch,” a long haired young man speaks up just as Y/N and Jenny drop their hands. Y/N meets his gaze and blinks a few times, feeling slightly intimidated by him. Regardless of how he seems like the scrawniest at the table, his eyes just sort of bring Y/N to a stop, but she recovers swiftly and gives him a smile, returning the wave he gives her as it’s too far of a reach to shake hands. Mitch raises a brow at Harry, to which Harry is quick to return. Catching the interaction, Y/N imagines they are the closest of the group. Suppose he’s just a bit protective of his friend bringing a random girl around, Y/N thinks to herself before her attention is grasped by the last person sitting at the table.

“And I’m Adam, the only name you need to remember, obviously,” says the man who had hugged Harry upon their arrival. He’s smiling so widely there’s crinkles near his eyes, which make Y/N feel all warm inside as she stares into his big brown eyes. He’s got a full bread, like Mitch, and matching brown hair that looks like it may need a bit of a trim but he styles it well. Y/N likes his button up shirt that’s a dark navy with little white stars all around it, paired with some plain black jeans.

“It’s really lovely to meet you all,” Y/N says after shaking Adam’s hand, “thank you for letting me come crash your night,” she adds with another timid smile.

“Nonsense, it’s nothing special,” Jenny assures her, waving her hand too before wrapping it around her half full glass of what Y/N assumed was alcohol - or hoped, because she really didn’t want to be the only one drinking tonight.

“Ouch,” Adam scoffs jokingly, “guess your husbands best mates playing is nothing special then, huh?”

“Yeah, I’m hurt, Jenny,” Mitch nods, bringing his glass up to his lips to take a sip of the dark yellow foaming liquid in his tall glass - beer, okay, sweet, so we’re all drinking, good, Y/N thinks. She also notices that Mitch is the only one with an American accent. She wonders how this group all became friends, being from different parts of the world, where did they all connect?

Harry chuckles and shakes his head at his friends, looking to Y/N to find her smiling at his mates too. He places a hand on her elbow, causing her to look at him. He nods his head to the open seats on the other side of the table for them. Y/N rolls her lips into her mouth and begins to walk around the table, stepping behind Tom and Jenny’s chairs before stopping at the first one on Jenny’s right. Y/N catches Mitch’s stare, now ignoring the conversation at the table to instead watch Harry and her, but she’s quick to look away from his intense gaze and focus on taking her jacket off. Just as she tosses her jacket over the back of her chair, fixing her top in a discreet manner too, a red headed woman steps up in between her and Harry who is also slipping out of his jacket.

“Hey, Harry,” the woman greets him in a sultry tone. If Harry notices the obvious show she puts into her voice, he doesn’t act like it.

“Hey, Amy,” he says quickly, looking at his chair as he pulls it out and takes a seat.

“Running a bit behind your friends tonight, huh? What took you so long?” She asks. Seems she's rather observant of Harry’s presence, Y/N thinks, while she takes her seat and looks anywhere but to her right where the red head - fake red dye too, it was so obvious - back was mere inches away from her.

“I love your top, it’s so stylish,” Jenny comments, causing Y/N to look to her left at Jenny’s dazzling smile again.

“Thank you,” Y/N says, “this may not be the place to wear it, seems more like a casual band tee kind of place,” she notes, narrowing her eyes while looking around at the bar around them. Noticing now just how many neon signs there were in the dark space. The biggest was on the wall behind the small stage, which every table was facing. The bar was at the back of the bar and there were booths lining the wall closest to the door, then a couple of pool tables and gambling machines in the far right of the bar. Y/N had spent too much time in high maintenance bougie bars to find any of this remotely normal - but she didn’t hate it.

“Rubbish, you look hot, definitely got people in here questioning their wardrobe,” Jenny states, gaining Y/N’s attention again, “hell, next time I��m stepping it up to match this energy,” she adds, waving her hands at Y/N’s outfit. 

Y/N chuckles and shakes her head, “well thanks, but you look incredible already! There’s no need.”

“Y/N,” Harry interrupts the girls suddenly.

Y/N lets out a small breath before turning to face what she’s been ignoring. The flirtatious red head and Mitch’s strong stare. Y/N raises her eyebrows at Harry. She completely ignores how the waitress now stood facing both their chairs, but she did notice how her hand was resting on the back of Harry’s.

“What are you drinking tonight?” Harry asks her, lips turning up into a smile. He can’t help himself, he finds himself smiling so much around her he’s sure he has wrinkles already.

“Oh,” Y/N says, finally looking at the waitress now. Her dark makeup made her blue eyes pop, it was a bit smudged but Y/N assumes she’s too busy working to notice. The waitress, Amy - Y/N reads her name tag, pinned on her tight black v neck shirt that has the bar's name on it - is staring at her, clearly forcing a smile while waiting for Y/N’s answer. “I’ll have tequila and soda water, bring a few lime slices on the side too,” Y/N orders, knowing exactly how Upper East Side she sounds, “please,” she adds with a forced smile that she mirrors from Amy.

“Coming right up,” Amy nods before turning away, not without a lingering gaze on Harry though.

Her obvious fake customer voice was rather annoying, Y/N thinks as her eyes follow her walking back to the bar. She takes note of the crowd around the bar, many waving at the one bartender stationed behind the bar. He looks older and is struggling to keep up with the rush of people. When Y/N turns back around, to face the table again, she catches Harry eyes on her. She scrunches up her nose at him and he chuckles before their attention is taken away by Adam’s deep voice.

“So, Y/N, you're this bloke’s neighbour, huh?” He questions, nodding his head to Harry. Y/N smiles and nods, sitting back in her chair while folding her hands between her thighs.

“Yeah, we just met in passing and ended up becoming friends,” she states, catching Harry nodding in the corner of her eye while he rests an arm on the table and faces towards her as he leans slightly into Mitch. To which Mitch responds by pushing his shoulder gently, making Harry’s smile widen at how he manages to bother his friend so easily.

“Give us the tea. How shit of a neighbour is he?” Adam asks, causing everyone at the table to chuckle.

“Hey,” Harry playfully whines at his friends.

“He’s fine, great even,” Y/N tells them, earning another smile from Harry as he watches her.

“Surprising considering he’s a shit roommate,” Mitch comments after taking another long sip of his beer. Harry turns in his chair and glares at Mitch, earning a smirk from him in return.

“I am not,” Harry grumbles.

“When were you two roommates?” Y/N asks, finding herself bringing a hand up to adjust her necklaces. Anything to keep her nervous hands busy. Suppose making new friends wasn’t her biggest strength, it was a rather nerve wracking experience to be honest.

“We just room together when we travel for any work stuff,” Harry answers, meeting her eyes for only a brief second before he’s looking back at Mitch. “Mitch here just likes his beauty sleep, while I have a pretty set morning routine I like to stick to,” Harry explains, looking back at Y/N as he finishes talking.

“Yeah, that starts at like six in the morning like a crazy person,” Mitch huffs jokingly.

“Six is way too early,” Y/N agrees, nodding along with Mitch. “At least give the man till nine,” she adds.

“He’s just being dramatic,” Harry states. Mitch mumbles something under his breath before taking another sip of his beer. Sounded a bit like “say’s the drama queen himself” but Y/N isn’t sure. Regardless, the interaction makes her smile. Just as she’s about to make another comment, Amy returns with hers and Harry’s drinks. Setting his down first with a smile before turning to Y/N and placing the glass of tequila and a small dish of limes too.

“Thank you,” Y/N says. Doesn’t matter if she thought Amy had an attitude problem, Y/N had manners.

“Anything else for the table? Another refill for you boys before you head up on stage?” Amy asks, ignoring Y/N completely and instead turning her back on her and looking at Mitch and Adam. Y/N notices how she leans her body into Harry a bit, her arm resting on the back of his chair again. If Harry notices, he’s oblivious to her motives. It almost makes Y/N laugh at how Harry’s ignoring her. 

“Please,” Mitch nods, lifting his glass to finish off the rest of his beer. Y/N tries to hide her facial expression as she is impressed with how Mitch manages to gulp down the beer so fast, instead bringing her focus to her own drink - which she was looking forward to downing herself honestly.

She picks up a lime wedge and squeezes it over her glass, watching the juices squirt out and into her glass. After she stirs it with her straw, she brings it to her lips and gulps back nearly half of it. Y/N suddenly feels her phone buzzing in her jean pocket. She sits up slightly in order to slide it out of her pocket and looks at the screen. It’s Mark’s number again. Rolling her lips into her mouth, she declines the call and sets her phone screen down on the table before grabbing ahold of her drink again and having another sip. He sure has some nerve to continue to call numerous times, Y/N thinks as she zones out from whatever Harry and his friends were talking about.

“Y/N grew up in the city, actually,” Harry states. Y/N raises her eyebrows and looks around the table to see everyone’s looking at her now. She’s missed what they were talking about prior so she just spit balls it here and smiles.

“Um, yeah, born and raised,” she nods, “I noticed you all have quite a jumble of accents, where are you all from?” Y/N asks, looking towards Tom and Jenny as they begin to explain where they were separately from before meeting in London.

Harry watches Y/N while his friends speak, mostly because he already knows everything there is about their lives, but also because he likes watching Y/N. Taking in her small mannerisms like how she talks with her hands quite a lot, and how she rubs her ankles together under the table as she listens to Adam talk about his wife and kids back home. They all chat amongst themselves, making jokes and laughing too, for nearly thirty minute before Mitch and Adam are whisked away to the stage. Harry feels his chest bursting as he sits back and watches Y/N interact with his friends as if they are her own. He smiles when she looks his way, her cheeks howling as she sucks on the straw of her second drink - nearly finishing it while staring at him. Harry has to break the gaze as his thoughts run a different less innocent route, causing him to readjust how he’s sitting and clearing his throat just as the lead singer of the band introduces them.

“So, why aren’t you in the band?” Y/N asks as the beginning chords of their opening song play out. She’s leaning her elbow on the table, resting her head in the palm of her hand while turning her head to Harry - shutting out Jenny and Tom completely but they’re too busy watching the band to care.

“Bold of you to assume I have enough talent to be in a band,” Harry says with a smirk. Y/N rolls her eyes and reaches for her glass, bringing the straw between her lips and finishing off the tequila and soda water with three squeezed lime slices in it - Harry watched her prepare her drink both times, finding himself intrigued by her drink of choice.

“You are definitely talented enough,” Y/N says, “from the bit I’ve heard through the walls, you’re great with a guitar and I’m assuming I’m right considering that your job revolves around music.”

“Well, they already have a guitar player,” Harry notes, nodding his head towards Mitch who’s strumming away on his guitar. “And he’s one of the best in the business so if I did have any talent, he wipes me out without a question,” Harry insists.

Y/N is about to respond but then the band is starting to really get into the song. She turns her head, sitting up straight again, and watches the band perform. They’re really good, she thinks and starts to bob her head along to the song. Harry tries to not be obvious, but he stares at her for a few moments before facing the stage to watch his mates as well. He smiles as he watches her get into the music, nodding along with the bass line and tapping her foot to the drums. They’re performing one of Harry’s songs. He had written it a couple years back when he had finally settled into New York, hence the title ‘Ever Since New York’. He didn’t sell the song to any big artist, instead he kept it within his personal folder and when Mitch asked if his and Adam’s band could borrow it Harry said yes. It was one of the few personal songs he would let his friends borrow, others were too much of him to let someone else sing.

Y/N is seriously enjoying herself. The tequila has hit her, settling into her body with a constant buzz, and this band was so good. She’s shamelessly swaying her body in her chair and nodding her head back and forth with the beat. To be fair, so was everyone else at the table. Jenny matched her energy perfectly, even throwing an arm around her shoulders as the course of their third song picked up - Jenny knew the lyrics and sang along, causing the two of them to erupt into laughter afterwards. After Jenny turns her attention back to her husband, Y/N looks at Harry and notices him lightly singing along while bobbing his head too. She smiles and ends up watching him instead of the band for maybe a little too long. He turns his head and catches her stare, raising a brow but she just shakes her head and leans closer to him to ensure he can hear her before speaking.

“They’re really good,” she compliments, “like a lot better than some of the mainstream artists I’ve seen recently,” she adds on just as the band finishes up another song.

“Yeah, they are,” Harry nods in agreement, “but the bands really just a hobby for all of them since they are all involved within the industry already.”

“Oh, that’s sick though,” Y/N says, “not everyone’s hobby includes filling up a dive bar in New York City every weekend with people singing along to your songs,” she exclaims. She had looked around the room earlier during the last song to see it wasn’t just the bandmates' friends that knew the words to their songs. Majority of the people in the bar were singing too, clearly being regulars to their sets.

Amy arrives at their table again, setting down everyone's refills in a rush, thankfully being too busy to stop and flirt with Harry. Is that jealousy, Y/N? She questions herself in her head. She ignores her thoughts and brings her new drink to her lips, not even bothering with the lime slices this time as she’s feeling a bit drunk now and honestly could care less. As the band opens their next song with some strong drums and an incredible electric guitar melody, the crowd goes a bit crazy. Y/N furrows her brows and looks at the people at her table, Tom and Jenny are also hollering at the band while Harry is chuckling. He meets her eyes before echoing the crowd and cheering on his friends. Y/N’s eyes widen and she huffs out a laugh before she grabs her phone quickly and opens her Instagram.

Just in time, she opens her Instagram stories as the song picks up and the small crowd that had formed overtime at the front of the stage starts to dance around. Everyone is cheering and singing along, causing Y/N’s jaw to drop in pure amazement. She holds down the button to record and gets a quick ten second video of the band rocking out while the bar sings and goes nuts as the bass line played by Adam kicks in and their drummer flings his body around to play one of the most addicting beats they’ve played so far. Y/N shakes her head and swipes a filter on before tapping on the screen, turning to face Harry - who’s already watching her, of course.

“Does the band have an Instagram?” She asks. To which Harry just shrugs in response, because he really isn’t too sure - he’s not hugely into social media himself.

“They do!” Jenny says with excitement, Y/N turns in her seat and grins at Jenny as she spells out the bands Instagram handle. “I keep trying to get them to stay active on it but they barely do,” she states.

Y/N slips her drink that she holds in one hand and taps ‘post to story’ on her phone that in her other hand. “Well, they might get, like, a few notifications flood in since I tagged them in my story,” Y/N tells her.

“Oh yeah?” Jenny questions. “Are you big on Insta?”

“It’s kind of grown over the years, I just hit half a million last week actually,” Y/N states. Her words cause both Jenny and Tom’s jaws to drop. Suppose it’s quite a big number, Y/N thinks.

“That’s insane, oh my god,” Jenny says, “is social media like your job then?” She asks. Y/N notices how both Tom and Harry are more interested in hearing about her Instagram than the band’s next song, to be fair it is a slower tune, but still it shocks her a bit.

“Um, not really,” Y/N licks her lips, “I have a career at a fashion studio in the city, we style the city’s elite and some celebrities, do their personal shopping and all that. But the social media thing is really just a little add on, I guess,” Y/N explains, pausing a few times as she feels a bit nervous telling them about her following. Some people saw it as a clout thing, asking for shoutouts and tags so her followers would get their follower count up. While others thought it was childish and weird that she was kind of like an influencer in a way.

“Wow,” Harry says, his voice gets Y/N’s attention as she looks towards him now, “how didn’t I know this?” He questions with a chuckle.

“I don’t know,” Y/N shrugs, “it’s really just like a hobby, barely even that.”

“Like how the band is for Mitch and Adam,” Harry nods.

Y/N smiles and nods with him, “exactly.”

“You’re definitely the coolest girl Harry knows, by the way,” Jenny states, bringing Y/N’s attention back to her left where she sat. Y/N laughs and brushes her hair back over her shoulders.

“I don’t know about that,” Y/N disagrees and shakes her head, reaching for her drink again to take a few sips.

“No, you definitely are,” Harry corrects her, having a sip of his own drink as well. Y/N puts down her glass and smiles, shrugging her shoulders and leaning back into her seat.

“I mean, if you say so,” she says in a joking tone. Jenny, Tom and Harry all chuckle, which makes Y/N laugh along with them. The band is talking to the crowd now, mentioning that their weekly gig will not be happening next week due to the holidays. Then they’re explaining something about their next and final song, thanking the crowd before the song starts up.

“This was their first song as a band,” Tom tells Y/N. She smiles and nods, appreciating the insight from him.

The song is catchy, still fitting the bands vibe but definitely isn’t as good as some of the other songs they had played already. Y/N decides to take a final snap of the band on stage on her Instagram story. Mitch’s head is down, his hair falling forward that she can barely tell that it’s him, while Adam is grinning at the crowd which makes Y/N smile as she swipes on a filter to lighten the picture some and types out ‘new fave band alert’ as her caption, finding a red siren gif quickly before posting it to her story. As the song comes to an end the bar erupts into a roar of cheers. Y/N brings her hands to her mouth and hollers along with the bar, grinning as she watches the four boys of the band come together and bow. As they bend down Harry whistles, having both his hands at his mouth, to show his support to his friends.

Y/N widens her eyes and turns quickly to look at Harry, surprised by the loud whistle that came from him. He matches her look, widening his eyes and playing dumb as he slowly lowers his hands from his face. Y/N laughs, slapping a hand on his arm and leaning back, immensely entertained by his actions. Harry laughs along with Y/N till they both calm down and shake their heads. Just as Y/N is about to say something her phone starts to buzz on the table from an incoming call. She looks down at the screen and sees it’s Mark - again.

“Ugh,” Y/N groans and hits decline, unlocking her phone to go to her phone app. “How the hell do you block a phone number?” She asks aloud to no one in particular.

“Is it Mark?” Harry questions in a low voice, leaning towards Y/N to keep his words between them. Y/N frowns but nods her head once. The tequila in her system starts to mess with her, her screen becoming fuzzy as she thinks about all the crap she learnt about Mark earlier today. And now he was ruining her fun out with Harry and his friends.

“Where’s the bathroom?” Y/N asks, turning to Jenny since she would know the location of the women's bathroom over Harry.

“Down the hall in the back corner over there,” she points in that direction and before anyone else can say something Y/N is on her feet with her phone in hand and heading to the bathroom.

Harry looks over his shoulder as he monitors Y/N’s move across the bar. He’s worried about her, obviously, but he’s also watching to make sure no douche bag makes a grab for her. Although he is sure that she could handle it herself. As he turns back to the table he sees both Tom and Jenny staring at him. Harry furrows his brows and brings his drink to his lips, having the final sip of his third drink tonight. Jenny just shakes her head and looks down at her phone, he’s pretty sure she’s looking up Y/N’s Instagram. Tom’s still staring at Harry though.

“What?” Harry finally asks, setting his glass down with the few other empty ones at the centre of the table.

“So,” Tom pauses, “what’s going on here?” He questions, being annoyingly vague.

“What do you mean?” Harry asks, trying his hardest to not roll his eyes.

“Well you just show up with this bombshell of a woman, who is beyond anything you could’ve described her as by the way, and we’re all just supposed to forget she’s in a relationship?” Tom questions, tilting his head just slightly to the side as he stares down Harry.

“Firstly, I’m insulted you don’t think we could just be friends,” Harry says, he’s about to continue but Mitch and Adam join the table again. They get a round of ‘good job’ from everyone before Mitch is turning to Harry and furrowing his brows.

“What were you saying before?” He asks.

“That it is just possible for Y/N and I to be friends, but also not that it’s any of your guys business cause it’s not even mine, but her and her boyfriend broke up, like, recently,” Harry informs his friends, dragging his fingertip along the condensation of his empty glass in front of him. He feels silly, having to explain himself for simply bringing along a friend to hangout tonight. But he can’t deny it feels good to know that she is single now. Only to feel bad a second later as he knows that Y/N must be hurting, judging by her drowning herself in tequila drinks and getting upset over Mark calling her.

“Well, shit,” Mitch breathes out. Harry lifts his gaze to find his best mate with his usual smug look on his face. “What are you waiting for then, loverboy, make a move,” Mitch coaxes him.

“Did you not hear me when I said they broke up recently? As in maybe I should just let that settle for a while before I try and make any sort of move,” Harry says.

“Well if you don’t eventually and you let this one go, then you’re a bloody idiot,” Adam resorts, “Y/N is a prize, one evening knowing her and I understand your little crush, H,” he adds with a smile.

“Trust me,” Harry huffs out a breath and shakes his head a bit, “I’m well aware. But seriously guys, I’m just going to let it play out and not force anything. I’m happy to just be her friend, honestly,” he explains. Everyone nods, seeming to understand where Harry is at now with Y/N. Perfect timing, Amy shows up with refills for everyone to get the attention of the group off Harry.

“So, Harry,” Amy says after setting down everyone glasses, turning her body away from Jenny and the empty chair for Y/N to completely face him - her boobs practically in his face. He gives her a polite smile, leaning back in his chair in order to get some distance from her. “Who’s this new girl you brought with you? A cousin or something?” She asks, her body seeming to lean even further towards him as she speaks.

Harry opens his mouth, ready to let Amy know her ridiculous assumptions were wrong. When he hears Y/N’s voice from behind where Amy stood. “Classy,” she mutters under her breath.

Amy rolls her eyes rather dramatically before she turns away from Harry and looks at Y/N as she’s pulling out her chair and returning to her seat. “What did you say?” Amy asks, her voice rather snarky in Y/N’s opinion.

“I said, wow you’re hair colour, it’s like, so classy, I love it,” Y/N resorts, putting on a smile just as fake as her words.

Amy’s lips part, her eyes narrowing at Y/N’s bored stare. Whatever bitchy response she has lined up for Y/N is cut short as Amy’s name is being yelled by the bartender. Her gaze falls behind Y/N, looking at who had called for her, before she meets Y/N’s eyes again. She glares again, huffs out a short breath, and then is nearly stomping away from the table like a child who didn’t get the Barbie doll she wanted to play with - or rather the Ken doll. Y/N’s lips turn up slightly into a smug smile as a feeling of pride flushes over her.

“Yup, it’s official,” Jenny says, bringing Y/N back to reality as she looks away to her left. Jenny is grinning as she brings an arm around Y/N’s shoulder, pulling her into her side. “You’re one hundred percent the coolest girl Harry knows,” she states, earning a round of laughter from the group.

“You handled Amy like a pro,” Adam notes, then jutting his chin towards Harry, “H is always too nice to let her know how annoying she’s being.”

Y/N smiles and looks at Harry in the corner of her eye, noticing the slight tint of pink upon his cheeks. She flips her hair over her shoulder and shrugs, “I grew up dealing with the snobby Upper East Side kids, Amy is harmless, believe me,” Y/N ensures the group before grabbing for her drink and sucking back a few good gulps.

The group around the table begins to talk about the performance, compliments and praises to Mitch and Adam all around of course. Even a few strangers come up to give them a pat on the back and ask for a picture. They’re like royalty in this dingy little bar.

Y/N is enjoying sitting back and simply being around people, letting herself push away any thoughts of Mark. She had blocked his number while she waited in line for the washroom, then responded to Sammy’s million texts asking where she was and with who - when she told him she was with Harry he just replied with ‘#TeamHarry for the win’, which she rolled her eyes at but ended up smiling down at her phone and texting him a thumbs up back.

When Y/N finished with her business in the rather dirty washroom - the sink barely even worked, it was not ideal - and she saw Amy at the table beside Harry again, Y/N let her jealousy fly. Then when Amy started leaning so far into Harry that her boobs nearly touched his chest, Y/N just couldn’t help it. It was like her vision turned red suddenly, her chest swelling up as she tried to bite down on her tongue. But she couldn’t, she was too annoyed by Amy’s less than classy actions towards her customer.

“Hey,” Harry’s low voice snaps Y/N out of her own world. She blinks and focuses on him, feeling herself melt at the sight of his smile. “Are you okay?” He asks, more than likely referring to her quick departure to the bathroom after Mark called.

“Yeah,” she assures him with a smile and a nod. “I blocked his number, I don’t want to hear his excuses. I could really care less,” she explains to Harry. He nods in response and is about to say something else, about how Mark is a real idiot for whatever he did to hurt her. But Y/N sits up, places a hand on his arm that was resting on the table between then, and gives him another smile. “But enough about him, seriously, I’m feeling a little drunk and having way too much fun here with you to be bothered anymore,” Y/N tells him.

“Alright,” Harry smiles, peering at Y/N as his heart beats wildly in his chest. He’s pretty sure his skin’s tingling from where her hand rests. But it doesn’t last long before she moves, reaching for her glass - that she then raises into the air.

“I would like to make a toast,” Y/N announces to the table, gaining everyone’s attention and smiles, “to Mitch and Adam’s absolutely amazing performance, new friends, and to having a lovely holiday season,” Y/N beams as Harry and his friends cheer in agreement and everyone lifts their glasses into the air.

The group ends up buying shots after, then another round of drinks, and then more shots. Y/N is laughing so much her stomach hurts. She hasn’t been this happy while enjoying others' company in far too long, outside of work of course. Harry makes another joke, teasing Adam, but Adam dishes it back right away. Y/N finds herself letting her hand slip to Harry’s thigh as she throws her head back with laughter at Adam’s absurd comment. Everyone else is too focused on the banter to notice, but Harry does of course. He’s breath hitches in his throat as he feels her delicate fingers spread over his thigh. He gulps, unsure if he wants to break whatever drunken trance that Y/N may be in. Does she realize that she’s put her hand on his thigh? He wonders. But his thoughts are quickly answered as she caresses her thumb along his pants before lifting her hand slowly off of him altogether.

Y/N’s leaning on her elbow again, her chin propped up in the palm of her hand as she looks at Harry. He’s so hot, her drunk self thinks as she watches his Adam's apple bob up and down for a second time since she had placed her hand on his thigh. It happened by accident to be honest, but she wasn’t sorry about it. God, she was just itching to touch Harry. His thigh, his arm, maybe rub gentle circles on the back of his neck as he talked amongst his friends, but she wanted to touch his lips more than anything. She couldn’t stop looking at his pretty pink lips as he replies to whatever whoever said to him.

Harry catches Y/N’s glossy eyes staring at him in the corner of his eye. He rolls his lips into his mouth to stop himself from smiling. He likes how she can’t seem to keep her eyes off of him, because he does the same thing maybe a little too often. Harry turns his head and meets her gaze, giving her a smirk as she playfully narrows her eyes at him. Her cheeks are rosy from the amount of liquor she’s consumed, while her eyes truly are a bit glossed over from her being more than tipsy. She’s so hot, he thinks, as his eyes shamelessly roam over her appearance. Even hours later at this shitty bar and she still looks breathtaking. Harry’s gaze lingers a little too long on her chest, admiring the way the top fit her breasts; was she wearing a bra? Oh how he wishes he could find out.

Y/N adjusts her position in her chair, letting her left arm fall into her lap while she lays her right arm beside Harry’s. She is liking this game they seem to be playing with their eyes. She sits up straight, knowingly sticking out her chest just a bit as she watches Harry’s eyes fall to her breasts. But she keeps it classy, of course, unlike some people. Y/N lets out a breathy sigh as she looks at Harry’s hand mere inches away from her right hand. Those rings, she thinks, they could do some real damage. Her thighs clench involuntarily, her mind falling into a fog as she imagines them leaving red marks on her bare bottom or how cool they would feel against her throat.

“I really like your rings, have I told you that before?” Y/N’s voice is hoarse, but she doesn’t care as her pinky reaches over to touch the large gold ‘S’ that rests on his pinky. The metal is cool to her touch, just as she imagines. Feeling brave - thanks to her good friend, tequila - she lifts her hand slightly in order to comfortably drag her fingertip over the ‘S’ shape a couple times.

“No, you-” Harry clears his throat, feeling it become dry at the sight of her doe eyes staring at his fingers. His mind goes somewhere dirty, thinking of somewhere else his fingers could go. Tangled in her hair, wrapped around her throat, inside of her. Harry licks his lips before he speaks again, “you haven’t, but thank you.”

“Which is your favourite?” Y/N questions, her finger still lazily tracing the ring on his pinky finger.

“Quite like the inicals,” Harry answers, smirking as she glances up to peer at him through her lashes. She mirrors his smug look easily.

“A very narcissistic answer,” Y/N hums, teasing him. Harry playfully narrows his eyes at her, which she returns but ends up giggling after a moment as he sticks out his tongue at her. These inappropriate thoughts have got to just slide away for a moment, Y/N thinks with a deep breath.

“We’re going to head out,” Tom announces to the table suddenly, helping Jenny out of her chair. Jenny’s beautiful dazzling smile is on her husband as he helps her into her coat. They’ve both had quite a bit to drink too and Harry notes how Jenny latches onto Tom’s side after they’re in their coats.

“I’m still shocked you two both came out tonight,” Harry says.

“We paid big bucks for this babysitter, so they better keep it together for at least another four hours,” Tom exclaims with a wink. Jenny gasps and smacks her husband on the chest as she realizes what Tom is insinuating.

“Don’t go acting like you last longer than ten minutes, bud,” Mitch taunts jokingly to his friend. Everyone laughs as Tom glares at Mitch across the table. Y/N covers her mouth with her hands, finally bringing her finger away from where it laid on Harry’s ‘S’ ring, in order to cover her chuckles.

“It was so lovely to meet you, Y/N,” Jenny gushes, letting go of Tom in order to put her arms around Y/N and hugging her tightly.

Y/N smiles into her bleached hair, squeezing her back just as tightly, “you too, Jenny,” she says.

“Don’t let H keep hiding you away now,” she says, pointing a stern finger at the two of them. Harry laughs and shakes his head at his friend.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Jenny,” he tells her.

Then they’re all saying goodbye to the couple as they walk out of the half empty bar. Y/N glances around the place, noticing how it feels less scary now. Maybe it was the tequila that helped, or how comfortable she felt around Harry and his friends. A yawn suddenly makes it’s way past Y/N’s lips, she brings the back of her hand to cover it but ends up squinting her eyes closed as her whole body feels drained. She meets Harry eyes after the yawning stops, he shows her a small soft smile that makes her return it right back.

“Ready to go home?” He asks. She contemplates it for a moment, because she truthfully doesn’t want the night to end. But she decides to not fight it and nods to Harry.

Harry does practically the same thing as Tom just had. He announces his and Y/N’s departure, helps her into her coat, and lets her say her goodbyes as Adam opens his arms up for a big warm hug. Mitch only nods, waving to them both before Harry leads the way out of the bar. The cold night air blasts Y/N’s hair back, the sharp wind taking her by surprise as she blinks back tears from the cold. She puts both her hands into her coat pockets and zips it up all the way, snuggling into the warmth it will provide her on their walk home.

“I feel like Mitch doesn’t like me much,” Y/N admits after a few minutes of comfortable silence between her and Harry.

“What?” Harry shakes his head, eyebrows pinched together. “No, that’s just how he is. He’s quiet and looks all moody. Give him some time, he’ll warm up, promise.”

“I think he’s just protective of you,” Y/N says, looking up at Harry after they cross the road, “thinks I’m a threat or something.”

Harry chuckles and shakes his head again,“well, it’s definitely not like that with Mitch and I, plus he’s seeing someone. Her name’s Sarah, she plays drums on a lot of tracks we write.”

“If you say so,” Y/N sighs. She looks around at the sights before them. A few other mildly drunk people wander the streets, and she notices a few homeless people too, that tore Y/N’s heart apart, as they were bunkering down in the alleyways. Harry keeps pace with Y/N the whole walk home, letting her control the speed they walked and what they talked about. She would jump from subject to subject the entire time, but Harry thought it was kinda cute that she was so drunk she didn’t even realize how quickly she changed the topic.

And all too soon, they’re in the elevator in their apartment building. Harry presses the number six button and joins Y/N on the back wall. They both lean into the railing, comfortable silence falling between them once again. But it was obviously their thoughts were anything but silent. The elevator doors open on their floor, and Harry lets her walk out first as always.

“Well this is me,” Y/N says dramatically as she approaches her apartment door. Harry chuckles under his breath, shaking his head slightly and letting his eyes fall to the floor for a second before meeting Y/N’s stare again. “I really did have a great time tonight, Harry,” she tells him.

“I’m glad, I did too,” he agrees.

Y/N wants to kiss him. She really really really does. But they’re both a little drunk, and she literally just broke up with Mark yesterday - or maybe technically two days ago now since it’s past midnight. But it didn’t matter, she didn’t want to be that girl. Plus she wanted to really get to know Harry and take this slow and see where it went. That didn’t stop her gaze from falling to his pretty pink lips though. Harry’s thoughts are running laps too. He wants to kiss her. But he knows she’s more than likely still hasn’t recovered fully emotionally from her break up Mark, hell not even ten hours ago she was crying because of her shitty ex boyfriend. Didn’t mean he couldn’t stop thinking about kissing her though, especially when her gaze falls to his lips.

Just as quickly as they seemed to fall into some dream like state as thoughts of kissing each other float around them, they snap back to reality. Y/N blinks a few times and takes a step back, bumping into her front door. Harry clears his throat and steps back as well, towards his own front door.

“Polar Express,” Y/N says suddenly, earning a look of confusion from Harry. “We’re watching the Polar Express tomorrow, and you’re going to play me something on that guitar of yours.”

Harry lets out a chuckle and gives Y/N a smirk, “yeah, we’ll see about that.”

“You will,” she singsongs as she focuses on unlocking her door. It takes a few extra tries to get the key in but once she does she unlocks it and opens the door.

“Goodnight, Y/N,” Harry smiles.

“Goodnight, H,” Y/N says softly, smiling as well, as she leans against her door to look back at him. Harry’s smile deepens at her using his nickname. She must’ve picked it up from his friends using it earlier during their time at the bar.

She gives him one last look over, knowing very well that she’s going to dream about him in that cream and blue plaid jacket - and maybe only wearing that jacket - before she shuts her door and presses her back against it as it closes. Today was a lot. But she’s beyond grateful that Harry invited her out, introducing her to his wildly unique group of wonderful friends, and letting her get a little bit drunk too. Her chest flares up as she remembers their close moment at the bar, her touching his rings, placing her hand on his thigh-

“Oh god,” Y/N all but moans out as her thoughts go right back to the place they were at before.

She shakes her head and heads to her bedroom. Harry wouldn’t be able to hear a vibration from the other side of the wall, would he? Y/N shrugs and opens her bedside table drawer to grab her vibrator, knowing just how much she needed it tonight as she imagined Harry’s hand between her thighs. Fuck, she’s so screwed, she thinks, biting her lip as she realizes, she really really really likes Harry.

>> part four <<

thanks for reading, please reblog/leave some feedback if you enjoyed it! until next week 😘

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[kireijae]

i.o.u- l.dh

summary: a late night adventure with Haechan, your older brother’s best friend, leads you to confront your feelings for him.

genre: non idol au, fluff, tiny bit of angst if you squint, technically a college au as well, also kind of comedy but i’m not very funny

word count: 4,029

warnings: swearing and there’s a slightly steamy makeout scene, also like the implied use of weed but it’s a v small one i promise.

a/n: eee my first hyuckie imagine! i worked really hard on this so i hope you all like iittt! please leave feedback if you can! also this was edited at 10:55pm and i’m exhausted so there are probably mistakes-

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

Your eyes scanned the street from your place on the sidewalk. The streets glistened under the streetlights with the rainwater that had fallen earlier. The cool breeze was refreshing against your skin, unlike the musty air you’d been swamped with in the party upstairs. The smoke and the presence of so many strangers had nearly left you gasping for air.

You checked your phone for any messages from your brother, eager to get as far away from the party as possible, but as soon as your phone unlocked you heard a honk from the street, which pulled your head up.

There was a black car pulled up right ahead, your heart picked up its pace when the tinted window sunk down low enough to reveal Haechan. His hair was a light brown, somehow still shiny even though you’d seen him with at least three different hair colours in the past two months. His skin was glowing too- even under the subpar car light.

“Y/n!” he had to yell to be heard over the scraping sound of the cars, “Taeil sent me to pick you up!”

You dropped your shoulders from their tensed position, pushing down your feelings and stepping forward to open the car door and get inside. The car smelled like Haechan: men’s shower gel and a faint woodsy scent.

“Where’s my brother?” you turned to him, genuine confusion curved into your brows.

“What? Am I not good enough?” Haechan asked, placing a hand on his chest and feigning offence.

You shook your head at him, used to his antics by now. He’d been best friends with your brother since preschool, always there at family gatherings and lazing around your house on most weekends.

“Well, when I asked my brother to come pick me up I sort of expected him to pick me up,” you said it slowly, matching his teasing with your own. Things with him always fell into a rhythm like this, after the initial anxiety of being around someone you had feelings for left, snarky comments bounced back and forth like a ping pong ball between the two of you. 

“Okay, fair point,” he said, starting the car, “He’s still busy with that essay. Apparently it’s due in like twenty minutes or something. So, since I’m such a good friend I offered to pick you up.”

“Haechan, before I left you were the reason he wasn’t doing any work,” you scoffed, refusing to let his ego inflate- even for a minute.

“That’s not true! He was on a break!” he whined, eyes wide at the accusation but his gaze still directed towards the road.

“For three hours?”

“Yes,” he said, matter of factly with a nod of his head, “Rest is important.”

“Whatever,” you said, “Just take me home.” 

“I actually have to do something else for Taeil, too,” he didn’t take his eyes off the road, they were glinting from the neon signs that lined the buildings on the street outside. The streetlights made the skin of his hands glow in passing, creating a hypnotic rhythm of light and dark over his skin.

“Can you not drop me off first?” you knew the answer even before you asked- he was going to make you go with him. And you were going to give in.

“Please?!” he whined again, plush bottom lip drooping in a pout, “It’s pretty far and I hate being alone!”

Sighing, you asked, “Where is it?”

“Johnny’s house…” He trailed off, expecting an outburst to come from you at the distance you’d have to drive.

You couldn’t believe you were considering this. Johnny’s house was on the other side of the city and you were already tired out from the party you’d spent only half an hour at. But, something in you wanted to stay. The thought of spending some time with someone outside your friend group seemed refreshing and the fact that it was Haechan was even more enticing.

You turned your head to look out the tinted window at the buildings passing by you in a blur, “Fine,” you sighed, “but you owe me.”

He grinned, his full cheeks jutting out further, and made a sharp turn in the opposite direction of your apartment. Your body swayed at the sudden change in direction and you held onto the side of the seat instinctually. Haechan was a good driver- but a slightly wreckless one at that.

After a few moments he turned on the radio, tossing you his phone, “Put some music on.”

Looking through his phone, you weren’t surprised at the extensive collection of music he had on his Spotify- most of the songs were new ones you hadn’t heard of before. Others were old throwback songs from the 2000’s and your mouth turned up into a smile at the sight of Shinee’s ‘Replay.’

You pressed play and leaned back in your seat, grin even bigger now. You waited for his reaction, which came in the form of a wave of laughter. 

“Oh, fuck,” he said, barely able to speak from laughter, “Remember when Lucas danced to this at your sleepover party?”

“Of course I remember that, he ruined the song for me forever,” you laughed along with him.

Your smile turned into a grimace at his next question though, “What ever happened to Lucas- actually to that whole group of friends? I never see them anymore.”

“Drifted apart,” you mumbled. You truly wished there was more to say than that. You wished you could say you tried to stay in touch when you went to university but couldn’t; or that something huge had happened that couldn’t be fixed. That wasn’t the truth, though. You hadn’t done anything- nothing that made them leave and nothing that made them stay.

Haechan sensed the tension around the topic and let the conversation fade, hoping the sense of unease would dissipate with it.

When the next song was over, Haechan came to a stop at a gas station, “Want anything?” he asked, pulling up the handbrake and taking the keys out of the ignition. The car practically fell down to the road beneath it as the power was turned off.

“I don’t have any money on me,” you raised your empty hands.

“So you don’t want any of those gross gummy bears you like? Or a soda?” he raised his perfectly shaped eyebrow at you, “I’ll buy them for you.”

“I’ll take the gummy bears if they have any,” you said gratefully, and he got out of the car and went into the shop.

You thought about your earlier conversation with Haechan- about how much you missed your friends. The way they’d joke around with you and tease you lightheartedly about anything and everything. A year ago you would have nearly exploded at the idea of being alone with Haechan at all- let alone for this long- and they would have teased you about it for weeks. Somehow though, those friendships faded. You went to a different university to them, you paid attention to your studies and spent more time at home than you ever had. The only contact you had with other people being with fellow students between lectures and at home with your brother and his friends.

“I got you the biggest packet they had,” came Haechan’s voice through the open window, “and the peach soda you like.”

You smiled at him, thankful that he’d brought you out of your thoughts and thankful for the snacks, “I could kiss you.” 

“Mm? Then by all means please do,” his signature shit eating grin was plastered on his face. 

Your cheeks heated up visibly at that, though you hoped the poor lighting in the car hid the fact. You hit him in the chest with the back of your hand and he doubled over in fake agony, the canned coffee he bought falling to the ground.

“Awh,” he groaned, continuing his act. 

“Oh please,” you said, rolling your eyes, “Just start the car, Hyuck.” 

“I can’t. My pride- it’s bruised,” he held onto his stomach and shook his head, eyes screwed shut.

Before you could stop yourself you leaned over and pressed your lips to his cold cheek in a hasty kiss.

“There,” you tried your hardest not to show your surprise at your own actions, “Better?”

He perked up, back pin straight, eyes wide and a huge smile on his face, “Very much so, yes.”

Before you could do anything, he started the car. A smirk struggled its way onto his face despite his efforts to stop it and his cheeks became a beautiful pink colour. His sudden shyness made yours deflate slightly and you felt your heart and cheeks warm at the thought of your effect on him.

“Hey,” he said suddenly after a few moments, “Hand me one of those gummies.”

He held out his hand, the skin pulled tightly over his slender, outstretched fingers. When you didn’t make a move to place one of the sweets in his hand, he made a grabbing motion with his fingers. That brought you out of your weird staring stupor and prompted you to grab a few gummy bears from the packet to place in his hand, hoping he hadn’t noticed your weird hand staring moment.

He shoved all six of the sweets into his mouth at once, face scrunching up in disgust, “These really are terrible,” his words distorted by the gummies in his mouth.

“Then why’d you ask for them?” you looked over to him, your mouth pulled into a smile and your brows furrowed at his actions. Your cheeks were starting to hurt- they always did after spending so much time with him.

“I forgot they were that bad,” when he came to a stop at a red light he shook his body as if it would rid his mouth of the flavour. 

The rest of the drive to Johnny’s house was filled with more laughter and sneaky comments thrown back and forth. There were fewer cars on the road the longer you drove and the movement of the car seemed to calm you.

In the driveway of Johnny’s parents’ house, Haechan turned to you once again, “Are you gonna come in?” 

You nodded and got out with him, you’d never actually been in Johnny’s house- since most of them still lived with their parents, Taeil’s friends usually came over to your shared apartment.

Johnny opened the door even before you got to it and ushered both of you inside, you assumed Haechan and texted him when you stopped.

“You guys have to be quiet,” he said, without even a ‘hello’, “My mom and dad are sleeping and they were in a shitty mood earlier.”

“Hey,” you asked quietly, grabbing Johnny’s attention, “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Right through that door,” he pointed behind you and you went in.

You went to the sink to wash your hands, they were sticky from the sweets you’d had in the car. Along with the sound of the water spilling into the sink, you heard Johnny and Haechan’s voices through the thin walls- so much for being quiet.

“You two finally together or something?” 

“Huh? No. Listen-”

“Dude, you’ve had a crush on them since forever, how have neither of you said anything?”

Your eyes widened at those words and you felt the blood in your face sink down to your heart. You turned off the tap and put your cold hands on your neck, before wiping them on a towel.

“Listen,” his voice was as stern as it could be, though it broke a bit at the end of the word, “Did you find Taeil’s textbook: yes or no?”

You heard a chuckle that had to be Johnny’s, “Alright I’ll go get it- by the way-”

His sentence was interrupted by you coming out of the bathroom.

“Did I interrupt something?” you asked in a tone that you hoped came off as joking. 

“I need a favour,” Johnny said, ignoring your words and leaving the room for a few seconds to find the textbook Haechan had been so adamant about getting. He came back, textbook in one hand along and a dark piece of material in the other, “Jaehyun left his hoodie here, can you get it to him, please?”

You yawned, taking the textbook when he handed it to you, “Why can’t you do it?”

“My parents won’t let me use the car after I locked the keys inside it last week,” he rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment as he said it, words falling pathetically to the carpeted floor.

“And why can’t Jaehyun come get his own damn-” you were cut off by Haechan.

“Okay we’ll do it, but-” he took the black hoodie from Johnny, who was looking up at Haechan with his head still bowed. He pointed a finger at him, “-you owe me,” then pointed the same finger at you, “And I owe you.”

“Twice!” you said as he pulled you by the hand towards the front door. You both said your goodbyes to a smiling Johnny and got back in Hyuck’s car. Little raindrops had appeared on the windscreen since you’d gone inside.

“I swear after this I’ll take you home,” you smiled at him at that, letting him know it didn’t bother you. 

The car began moving again, 90’s RnB playing softly in the background and soon the rain got heavier, bulbous drops hitting the car. Jaehyun’s apartment was only a few minutes away from Johnny’s, in a highrise building lined with silver, glittering windows. 

“His parents are loaded,” said Haechan when he noticed your eyes trying to see the top of the building through the rain clouds above.

“Please tell me he’s not on the top floor,” you whined as Haechan parked the car.

He got out before you and you heard a satisfied sigh echo through the undercover parking.

“I’m so fucking good at this,” he said, hands on his hips, standing behind the car. 

You got out and shut the door, walking over skeptically to see what he was talking about. 

“Perfect,” he said, gesturing to his car in the parking space.

He was right- the car was perfectly in the centre of the two white lines. You huffed out a laugh at him and his ego, handing him the hoodie he’d apparently forgotten about, “Alright, I get it , you can park a car. Can we go inside now?”

“Hey, you’re lucky you get to witness a master operating that vehicle! Maybe observing me will help you actually pass next time,” he leaned his head over to you while he was walking, his tone was cocky and he had a sly smile on his face.

You flicked him on the forehead between the fluffy strands of hair that lay there and he yelped while you said, “Fuck off that test is rigged.” 

“First of all- not true. Second- why the fuck did you flick me?!” he yelled before you came to the automated glass door of the lobby.

In front of you stood two marble pillars in the middle of the room that twisted all the way up to the ceiling. Beyond them was a chandelier, jewels dangling over a seating area, where lush white couches stood. They looked as if no one had ever laid a hand on them on them and the plants that littered the room looked so real you had to touch one to be sure of the material. 

“You were being an ass,” you answered simply after taking in the room.

You followed Hyuck over to the elevator, the sound of your footsteps seemed to have a mind of their own, you swore you could hear them walking up the walls and across the ceiling.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, a group of people around the same age as you stampeded into the lobby and then the elevator. All of them dressed in glittering clothes and bright, shining makeup. One of them had eyelids full of pastel glitter and another had a coat made out of fluffy white feathers. 

You all crowded into the elevator, you and Haechan unfortunately squeezed right into the back corner of the metal box.

“What floor are you two headed to?” asked a man who was in the highest heels you’d ever seen in your life.

“The top floor!” Haechan basically had to throw his voice over the glittering heads of the other people.

You groaned at his words and felt the elevator start moving. When you’d asked to get picked up from a party you hadn’t expected to be shoved between Haechan and a girl with rhinestones on every inch of her dress instead. You’d left the party to get away from people, not to get pressed up against them.

You felt a tap on your shoulder and turned to the girl. “You two dating?” she asked, blue eyes lingering on Haechan’s face.

“Uh n-” you began, but Hyuck spoke over you.

“Not yet- I’m working on that,” he said smoothly and winked at you, which made your heart begin to push against your chest rather violently. 

“Too bad,” she said as the doors to the elevator slide open to the fourth floor, “you’re cute.” She winked at you and walked out with the rest of the group, their heels and accessories clinking down the hallway. 

You stood in shock from having been flirted with twice in the span of thirty seconds, not realising that you were still pressed against Haechan. 

“Y/n~” he said in a sing-song voice, dragging your eyes away from the spot you’d been staring at.

“Sorry!” you said a bit too loudly, moving to dart off him. Hyuck, however, held you to his side, only stepping forward to press the button for the top floor again with his index finger, holding Jaehyun’s now crinkled hoodie with his other fingers.

“Just needed to press the button again- it resets sometimes,” he said, stepping back into his place, “You okay?”

“Were you being serious? About ‘working on’ dating me?” the words came out quickly. Your voice was smaller than you thought it would be and it carried an air of surprise- which it shouldn’t have, since you’d heard him and Johnny talking earlier, but it felt more real now.

His brown eyes glided across your face, he seemed to be exploring every option he could in his mind. Lips pulled close to his teeth and eyes wide, before he leaned in and kissed you. 

He tasted like the canned coffee he’d had and mint and the second you tasted that combination on his lips you couldn’t pull away. He placed his hands on your waist and pulled you flush against him, your arms flung over his shoulders. The kiss heated up fast, his hands gripping at you to try to pull you even closer, your fingers threading through his hair, shaky sighs and satisfied hums filling the elevator. 

Just as you both pulled away for air, the doors opened on the floor seven levels down from where Jaehyun’s apartment was. An old couple appeared immediately and stepped into the elevator. You took a step to the side to get away from Hyuck, but stood on the hoodie Haechan had apparently dropped. You picked it up, holding it in front of you with both hands.

“I told you it was the wrong floor,” said the woman, closing her eyes in annoyance.

You tried your best to look presentable as they bickered, straightening your shirt and wiping at your mouth with the back of your hand. Hyuck did the same, combing his hands through his hair and adjusting his jeans. Once the reality of the situation sunk in for the both of you, it became hard to even look at each other without laughing. You had to pretend to yawn in order to hide your smile and Haechan pulled his lips between his teeth to literally bite his own smile back. 

Once the couple got out on their floor (still one below the top), you and Hyuck fell into laughter, with him literally falling to the floor on hands and knees. You leaned against the mirrored wall of the elevator and laughed in silent breaths and funny hiccoughing sounds. Soon, the door opened and you gathered yourself as much as you could before you helped Haechan up off the floor. Halfway down the rows of apartment doors you and Haechan had calmed down, the mix of embarrassment, tension and perhaps a bit of tiredness having died down. 

The hallway was carpeted and filled with the muffled sound of music coming from one of the residents on the floor. Your heart nearly dropped when Haechan stopped in front of the door from which you were sure the music was coming. 

He pulled out his phone and, not letting go of your hand which he had been holding onto since you helped him up, texted Jaehyun. A few seconds later, the door opened to Jaehyun, who seemed half asleep as he leaned on the doorframe. You were glad the mood of the apartment seemed to be the opposite of a houseparty. 

“Yeah?” he blinked slowly, eyes slightly red.

Haechan snorted at Jaehyun’s state- because he was most definitely in one- “Johnny asked us to bring you this,” he pointed to the hoodie- which was now completely crinkled and had a dirt mark on it- which you held out to him.

Jaehyun took the hoodie, not even looking at it. He looked between the two of you, his gaze falling down to your intertwined hands, “Fuck you, Haechan,” he said, head tilting back in annoyance, “Now I owe Johnny ₩10,000.”

“What?!” Haechan’s jaw dropped

“I have a bet with Johnny,” he said, yawning halfway through and leaning his head on the doorframe, “And I just lost.”

“How long have you had this bet?!” Haechan sounded genuinely betrayed.

“About 15 minutes,” he said nonchalantly, moving his hair out of his face, only for it to fall right back where it was.

That had you confused, “What was the bet?”

“That you two would get your shit together by the time you got here,” Hyuck scoffed and looked away in disbelief, tongue in his cheek, “Oh and I think Taeil owes Taeyong money now, too.”

Right then, your phone chimed with a message from the gambling brother in question and you opened it while the two boys argued about Hyuck himself not being in on any of the bets.

the youngest: hey, can u guys bring milk? its finished :/

you: sighs alright 

you: btw apparently you owe taeyong money now xx :)

You locked your phone before you could see his reaction and slid it back into your pocket. You turned to Hyuck again and sighed, “Taeil needs milk,” you stated incredulously.

He raised his eyebrows, “Okay now he owes both of us. And this isn’t over- next time there’s a bet I want in,” he said frowning at the older boy like a little kid.

The two of you said goodbye to Jaehyun, who kicked the door closed behind him, and returned to the car once again.

“Were we both really that obvious?” you asked as you clipped in your seatbelt.

“I don’t know about you but I was really good at hiding it,” his smug- and obviously sarcastic- tone made you cackle.

“Yeah that’s why Johnny knew you’ve liked me ‘since forever,’” you said, quoting the words you’d heard through the bathroom wall. 

His eyes widened so much you thought they’d come tumbling out of their sockets, “You heard that?” his gaze was switching rapidly between you and the road now.

You smirked at him and nodded simply.

“By the way,” Haechan’s voice was a bit croaky now, after all it was nearing 3am, “You will go out with me right? Like tomorrow night?” 

“Of course,you owe me two actually,” you didn’t have the energy to tease him further, your eyelids were practically dragging themselves across your eyes.

The last thing you saw before you fell asleep was Haechan’s flushed cheeks and the giant smile on his face.

i just remembered you asked for a tag o-O @infnteen sorry for the late one!

if anyone else wants to be tagged in my works please lmk!:)

if you enjoyed this, buy me a ko-fi!

© copyright jewelledtae 2021, all rights reserved

[221bshrlocked]

Pedro game night. Again, no telephone gif (those lacking are making this game harder 😆)

But maybe he's gotten a radio message? I'm just soft for this man too and throwing this at you 😅💜

😂😂 you're honestly so imaginative like I love the dedication right now.

This soft, poetic man doesn't know what to do when you radio in randomly and tell him that you're not strong enough to say this in person so you're choosing to do it when you're far enough that it will take time to get back. He doesn't know what's happening but then you start telling him that you've felt this deep attraction to him ever since you landed on this god-forsaken moon. Ezra finds himself torn between not giving in to whatever emotions he's been feeling towards you because attachments are never a good thing but it's difficult to not humor the idea for a second...and that was expressionless face slowly breaks out in a huge smile because he realizes too late that you've stopped talking and that you were telling him that you'll understand if he doesn't feel the same way and before he can't reevaluate this whole situation, he's responding to your message ad he shuts his eyes and focuses on everything you revealed to him so far and-

"Little bird, come back to me. I must confess I am truly taken aback by your sweet words but...but I have hidden more in my own heart since I first beheld you. Come back..."

Listen, I am not as familiar with this character as I'd like to be but I this definitely was fun to think of!!!!!

[accio-victuuri]

A Love Story in 3 parts.

Disclaimer : Everything is fake. Or is it? 👀

Why the month of June is always very interesting. basically an excuse to try making a timeline of 1 month spanning three years before I attempt to do the 2017-2020 timeline. the keyword there is ATTEMPT.

﹌﹌Part I:  June 2018 ﹌﹌

This is a popular guess on the month that they actually got together— as far as acknowledging that they’re NOT bros. Keep in mind that these two supposedly first met on 3/14/2017 with no interactions or even eye contact ( as per Web). After that, they meet again 4/2018 as CQL started shooting. 

That’s two months of interaction. We have different timelines in our head with them, so you can interpret this as A.) they hit it off really quickly that’s why it only took a little time for their feelings to go THERE. B.) they are lying liars who lie and have been in contact from 2017-2018.

• 6.2.2018 - Shooting of LWJ and WWX in the rain.  • 6.3.2018 - Produce 101 Performance! Yes, the same one where GG was a mentor and they acted like they didn’t know each other. Famous for moments such as:

Glancing at each other even if separated by people. +  Sharing an earpiece. GG smiling while watching Web Dance.

Here is the whole episode 

• 6.3.2018 - TTXS episode airing where Web gives love clues, where he says it depends on how he feels. Also that when he’s 40, he wants a kid and a dog. 

• 6.9.2018 - GG’s interview with him showing how much of a Libra he is. 

• 6.10.2018 - TTXS episode airing where Cheng Xiao is a guest and she proceeds to be Web’s good bro by exposing him ; saying he’s a Monk. 

• 6.11.2018 - Interview with Popular highlight, Web mentions GG for the first time while looking THIS good. The Audacity. Honestly. 🤦🏻‍♀‍

He talked about how long GG’s lines are compared to him, especially when they highlight it on their script books. 

• 6.14.2018 - Shooting of Cold Pond Cave scene ; Then clinging to each other amidst the cold water. If you watched the new BTS from fansites, there is a 🔞scene here. Pertaining to the M*gnum W*ng. 

• 6.16.2018 - Shooting guns at each other and dancing to Black Pink’s Ddu Ddu.

• { VERY IMPORTANT DATE} 6.18.2018 is when they shot this scene. GG is looking all wet, with mud on his face but Web just says he still looks handsome with no make up on. Also, CAN WE TAKE A SECOND AND WEEP at how GG looks at Web here. His eyes. Wow. He clearly adores Web at this point.

• They also shot WWX handing Zongzi to LWJ.

• Later that day, they ate together. They were photographed by paps who thought Web was going out with a girl. The produced and director of CQL was also there.

• GG then posted this on Weibo on 20:18 “love you yibo” as a greeting for the Festival. Web took the picture, according to me. I’m the curtain.

• 6.19.2018 - The next day, Web is photographed at the airport with the same clothes. This is also the first appearance of his white Nike Bag. He had to go and film an episode of Happy Camp.

AND OUR BOI WAS ABSOLUTELY GLOWING IN THAT EPISODE. Watch it english subbed here. 

• 6.22.2018 - a supposedly important day too as they cued 622 a couple of times. This is a good read on that.

﹌﹌ Part II: June 2019 ﹌﹌

•  6.1.2019 - GG interview with cosmo where he sings Kepler.  • 6.2.2019 - Web attending Yuehua family concert • 6.15.2019 - Web in extreme youth press conference wearing a questionable spongebob shirt.

• {VERY IMPORTANT DATE} 6.19.2019 - First appearance of Web’s ox head necklace via a picture of him in an airport, at Chongqing. 

• 6.19.2019 - GG posts an ad for Qeelin on his instagram account. ( which is now non existent since it was hacked incase you didn’t know). Qeelin Bo is significant to BJYX, you can check it on my jewelry post. 

• 6.21-6.22 2019 - Web posted himself practicing skateboard. 

• 6.25.2019 - They both posted on their Weibo about their joint Bazaar Magazine cover. This was re-released and became bazaar’s #1 e-magazine issue.

• 6.27.2019 - They both post about the premiere of CQL! 💚❤️

• 6.28.2019 - Web posts himself as LWJ, saying rabbits are cute. 

• 6.30.2019 - Web attends Yuehua annual party as Spiderman (into the spider verse).

.

﹌﹌ Part III: June 2020 ﹌﹌

• 6.5.20 - GG posts after a long time of silence with a picture of blue sky. Captioning it with : “Blue skies and white clouds, what do you see?” more on the significance of blue sky and white clouds with BYX here.  • 6.9.20 - XZ studio posts a video about GG’s daily life, giving us a glimpse of what he was doing. • 6.12.20 - We finally get a selfie from GG! He mentions on his caption that his hair is getting long. There is a CPN on this that the shirt he is wearing is a couple shirt from trasher which matches Web’s. Also, as people match the scenery posts on this, it matches with Web’s filming locations. 

• 6.13.20 - GG Douyin update, making orange juice like a pro. CPN on this is that the place he is filming at is pretty similar to Web’s house. But let’s not go there. 

• 6.18.20 - Another artwork post from GG. 

• 6.20.20 - Himalaya releases a CF for their new endorser, Wang Yibis. THIS CF ANS EVERYTHING ABOUT IT KILLED US. Starting with Web’s post,  “Some words, even if I don’t say it, u guys will know. This is our tacit understanding. Love is like this. Accompanying everyday.”

and this parallel, >>   

• 6.21.20 - Web video doing an Ollie (skateboard trick). People were speculating where he actually is on this one. most probably just him enjoying his down time and probably Lele taking that video.  • 6.25.20 - GG posts an artwork of zongzi along with an actual one for dragon boat festival. People have analyzed the little drawings and noted one looks like him & the other as Web. 

• AND FINALLY, this year’s Dragon Boat Festival gave way to the crazy fake rumor of them getting “engaged” + buying a house and car. When this came out, it was such a sweet fanfic— but with how the fake rumors becoming true lately— this is now very scary 👀.

CPN is that they spent this year’s Dragon boat festival together because of this clue. (Let me copy my own post) -->> 

This started with GG’s post and the background being compared to one of Web’s cast-mate, Wang Hao Xuan.

What gets me is the caption saying, “stuff that happens at work is a secret”. / “someone became super talkative while eating zongzi” What? Why? Who do we know is quiet but becomes really talkative when with his GG? WANG YIBIS.

Post-shoot, The director attended SDOC 3 finals too! To support Web. Plus Web’s message for the wrap was sweet. I felt like they really took care of him and will not say anything that will bring him down.

@p-h03n1-x - added a few more details on the posts particularly : Web’s popular highlight interview, video of DD almost going to GG’s care and heading back to trailer together. 

BONUS THROWBACK 6.1.2017.

Both of them posted selfies on that day, talking about 6/1 but there’s no event to celebrate on China on that day. 

@choke-and-dye​ added an explanation for these: 

AND THAT’S IT <3 If you made it this far, Thank you. old time bxgs won’t see anything new in this post (probably) but I hope you still enjoyed it. Let’s see what happens on June 2021 and onwards. :)) Also, if it takes this long just to create one month, how long with it be for their whole timeline so far. LOL. T.T 

EDITED 11/10/2020 4:28 AM 

[kikuism]

Mariam!!!!!! You finished Monster 😭 omg I enjoyed reading your thoughts on the tags a lot :“) SO happy that you loved the series. Which scenes are your most favorite?

hi sel!!! i enjoyed monster so, so much. here are some scenes i loved!! in no particular order:

chapter 99, where grimmer breaks down comforting milosh.

this is the first time i cried during the manga. i.....i can't look at this scene for too long without wanting to cry again like...oh my god. the love i feel for mr. grimmer is so astronomical. the way he's been through literal hell and back and still has this much love and affection and gentleness in his heart for the children. look at the way he's holding him and hugging him.......god okay i need to step away for a moment. and johan was a cunt for doing this to this poor child.

chapter 71 where we get to see the nameless monster story in full. i love this so much. i’m such a sucker for stories in the text paralleling the events in the texts themselves, it's one of my favorite things ever. it's exactly the way a fairytale story should be....simple but eerie and the illustrations are so on point.

the library burning. tenma finally confronting johan.

tbh i still have no idea why johan did this, i guess he was just being an edge lord supreme, but go off. but the way he recounts his story to schuwald gave me chills. the way he refers to anna as his other self is really....that’s literal. that's literally how he views her—and himself. that one line just reveals so much about johan himself, and ties so seamlessly with the monster story—“so the monster split into two.” in other words, i’m obsessed. and these panels with tenma.....iconic?? Legendary??? it's just so .... tenma is the one who saved him, and now he's telling him to kill him.

tenma saving dieter. oh god.....i remember that panel of dieter’s bruises and felt so sick. god it's so unfathomable to me that people can hurt children like that. so tenma buying him the soccer ball and telling him tomorrow will be a good day got me so emotional.

tenma my beloved 😭🤍🤍🤍 omg he looks so young and unscathed here. throwback to when shit didn't really hit the fan yet

the reveal that nina in prague was actually johan all along hgjskfhfhfj girl i screamed. the way he was so shamelessly flirting with agent suk. but then again they are twins.....and johan calls her his other self. it makes so much sense. i am you and you are me.

all the scenes with eva and martin.....i loved martin so much oh my god. i wanted him and eva to be happy together. i still can't believe how he was brimming with so much character for someone we saw for such a short time. i loved how snappy and brisk they were to each other and how they came to care for one another over time. martin’s death really hurt.

johan and nina finally meeting. the reveal about the hazed memories....

my heart broke. i didn't want to feel this way about johan but, like. fuck. the way johan had internalized all of the horrible things anna had experienced and made himself believe they all happened to him....it takes i am you and you are me to a literal, heartbreaking level. and you can literally pinpoint the moment where nina’s heart just shatters. god, urasawa is such a master in drawing expressions. they are so subtle and shift so subtly but hit you like a punch.

to be honest, if there's one thing i’m not quite clear on in the manga, it's johan’s motivations. i’m still unsure why he committed all those murders, or what he was trying to get out of them. i’m chalking it down to monster being a story that isn't easy to understand on first reading. but no matter....the origin of how he is the way he is is still heheartbreaking.

this fucked me up. this whole time, we really thought that panel of 'nina' holding the book and saying 'welcome back' was nina.....but it makes no sense bc of the perspective. nina is recalling her memories in first person. but as the reader, we think we're seeing it from an omniscient perspective. it was johan she was seeing, dressed up as her. it's so genius. i was definitely tricked and completely fell for it. i didn't even bother to think of the perspective until this moment. and it ties back to johan dressing up as nina in prague.

tenma staying with this family. these scenes are so sweet. and look at the children :'))) their faces are shining with pure sweetness. my heart melts.

i definitely have more scenes but i’ve hit the image limit!! this manga is a true masterpiece.....i’m so glad i got to read it. i just adore the juxtaposition of these sweet, tender moments (almost all involving children) with the dark grittiness of the rest of the story. it's so superbly done, and really serves to highlight the message tenma imparts to the children he meets on his journey—tomorrow will be a happy day, and if you don't have good memories, make them. and then the reminders tenma himself receives from others—sometimes the best you can do is eat a meal and keep your chin up for tomorrow. eat and regain your strength. sharing meals with others is one of life's greatest joys. monster is a dark story but it's these moments that will stick with me. and the art is gorgeous, and so charming....urasawa’s panels are brimming with so much life and love. it's the work of a master.

next up on my list is 20th century boys! i’m a sucker for friendship groups 😌

[dameronology]

the story of us {poe dameron}

for @unstoppableforcce​ for the v.day fix exchange (organised by the lovely @sergeantkane​!) i hope you enjoy❤️

warnings: probably a few swear words, but other than that, it’s all g 

- jamie 

The galaxy didn’t stop for anything. Not even Valentine’s Day

And it sucked. It really sucked. Not because you and Poe ever went all out (who had the time?) but because it was one day that you should have spent together and you were both busy. It wasn’t his fault, nor was it yours. The Resistance was more demanding than ever and you both had to prioritise fighting the good fight. If you didn’t, neither of you would have had much of a galaxy to live in, let alone be together in. Despite that, Poe always made a point of reminding you how much he loved you on every regular day - it was more so in the things he did for you, like bringing you your favourite coffee every morning and leaving you little notes on the mirror in the refresher. 

Unbeknownst to you, however, he had a few things up his sleeve (in typical Dameron fashion). It had started in the morning when you’d woken up to find a picture of the two of you stuck to the mirror. It was one that Finn had taken not long before you’d begun dating; you’d both been tired from a mission, and he’d come to the mess hall to find you and Poe passed out on another. You were slumped against him, his arm strewn across your shoulder and both your mouths hanging open. Even though you hadn’t quite woken up properly, you couldn’t help but grin at the picture - even more so when you saw what was written on the back. 

Four years ago: the day I realised I liked you a lot more than I should have. 

You tucked the photo into the pocket of your jeans, barely able to hide your smile as you headed to work. 

The base itself had been decorated for the day - Leia’s doing, probably - with love heart banners strewn across the walls and colourful glitter poured in random places. You’d learnt about the latter apart when Rey had activated her lightsaber, only to get blasted in the face with a mouthful of pink and red hearts. Your joy, however, had been short lived when you’d realised that it was all over your shared office. How much did you want to bet that you’d still be finding it in the crevices of your desk next year? 

‘A wonderful start to the day.’ Rey muttered, dumping the laser sword onto the table. 

‘I am not cleaning that up.’ You teased. 

When you took a seat at your desk, you noticed another photo stuck to the monitor of your holopad. It was from a trip you and Poe had taken to Yavin-4 as friends. Everyone at the time had called bullshit on that part, and you both knew it too. It was at the end of said trip that he’d confessed his feelings for you, and you’d had your first kiss under the moonlight in the backyard of his childhood home. It sounded very romantic, but not moments later, there had been a clap of thunder and the heavens had opened on you. The picture was of you and him wrapped in a blanket by the fire, both drenched to the bone as you shivered together. Kes had taken the picture when neither of you were looking, and he’d managed to catch Poe peering down at you, brown eyes filled with adoration. It was definitely one of your favourite photos together. 

Peeling it off the monitor, you flipped it around to look at the message on the back. 

Three years and eight months ago: the day I realised I loved you (even though I didn’t say it for like...another six months. Thanks for being patient). 

‘Everything okay?’ Rey asked.

‘Yeah.’ You glanced up at her, forcing a smile. ‘Just kinda bummed that Poe’s been called out all day.’ 

‘I’m sorry.’ She placed a hand on your shoulder. ‘If it’s any comfort, I saw him sneaking around the base with armfuls of photos of you earlier.’ 

‘Sneaking?’ You snorted.

‘Okay, trying to sneak.’ 

‘Poe Dameron is a lot of things, but subtle is not one of them.’ You grinned.

The statement rung completely true: his inability to not get excited about everything and tell everyone about whatever his plans were meant that the entire base knew about his surprises before you did. When he’d proposed to you, he’d sworn to himself that he was only going to tell Finn in advance. Then, Poe had told Rey too in a moment of joy, and then Kare, and then Snap, and then Leia and before he knew it, he’d had to spend the entire day running around the place, making them promise to keep schtum. By some miracle, the message didn’t get back to you, and the whole thing did end up being a surprise. 

In fact, the third photo - one you’d found in your desk drawer - was from that day. Poe had tried to take a selfie with you, only for you to kiss him just as the camera went off. Your hand was resting on the side of his cheek, Shara’s ring glinting under the flash of the camera. The picture had been his holopad background ever since, and the message on the back was almost enough to made you cry. 

Two years ago: the day you promised to be with me forever, even though I’m a pain in the ass 

You found the fourth photo in one of your files, not long after your lunch break. It was paperwork from a mission that you’d been filing the night before, so he must have snuck it in whilst you were still asleep. It lead you to wonder how long he’d been planning the whole thing for - knowing him, it was probably months. He managed to pull something so sweet and so personal off each year, and this was probably your favourite one so far. The fact he’d managed to do something so thoughtful and so kind without even being there was a testament to Poe Dameron himself. 

The photo that fell out of your paperwork was from just over a year ago. It was one of you, Rey, Finn and Poe in one of your favourite cantinas. It had been after a successful mission, and the drinks were flowing all night, smiles hardly faltering until you all fell asleep. You were sat on Poe’s lap, his arms looped around your front and his head resting on your shoulder. The night was a little blurry - too much beer, perhaps - and you couldn’t even remember who had taken it. Either way, it was still one of your favourites, because it was your entire world contained to one single photo. The message on the back was just as Poe as the last three. 

Thirteen months ago: the day I realised I was with the greatest people in the galaxy (you take top spot, but Finn and Rey are pretty cool too) 

The rest of the ones that you found through out the day were all throwbacks to other important moments in your relationship. There was one of you in his hoodie, titled the day I realised you looked better in my clothes than I do and another of the two of you fixing his X-Wing, labelled the day I realised you know nothing about X-Wings. Both of your faces were smeared with grease, and you were in fits of giggles together about something. You hadn’t realised how lucky you were to have friends that enjoyed taking pictures. 

By the time dinner rolled around, you’d collected about twenty photos. The fact that you hadn’t seen Poe yet completely sucked, but his little stunt had kept you smiling all day. Even if he wasn’t with you physically, you knew he was thinking about you. Hell, he was always thinking about you, not just exclusively today. His ability to bring you up in every conversation and namedrop you to anyone who would listen was testament to that. 

As the day passed and the sky dimmed, you retired to your desk with some caff from the mess-hall and a pile of papers. Rey had long disappeared to do...Jedi stuff? Whatever the hell that deemed, you weren’t sure. It meant that you were left alone in the office, glancing between your files and the pile of photos you’d accumulated throughout the day with a soft smile. Your holopad occasionally beeped with messages, but it wasn’t until you heard Poe’s specified notification sound that you finally pushes aside your work to check them. 

Meet me in the hangar - bring the photos.

You grinned at the message - finally. 

Grabbing your jacket - actually, it was Poe’s - and tossing it over your shoulders, you flicked the lights in your office off and headed for the hangar. The hallways were pretty much empty by then; everybody else was either having dinner or spending the evening with their respective significant other.  It meant that you could easily sprint to where you needed to be, without having to worry about crashing into anyone or being reprimanded by a stingy commander. 

You met Poe halfway across the room, bodies colliding together as he wrapped his arms around you and lifted you in the air. He spun you around for a moment, before placing you firmly on the ground and crashing his lips onto yours. They were warm and soft and so familiar, a welcome contrast from the pain you’d been feeling all day from missing him. The little collection of photos had only reminded you of how much he meant to you (everything) and made the yearning even stronger. His grip on you barely faltered as he pulled away, pausing to admire you for a moment.

‘Happy Valentine’s day, baby.’ Poe grinned. 

‘Right back at you.’ You pressed a kiss to his jaw. ‘Is there a particular reason that we’re in the hangar?’

‘We’re going somewhere.’ His smile only grew wider. 

‘Aaaand where might that be?’ You quirked an eyebrow. 

‘It’s a surprise.’ He flung an arm around your shoulders, leading you towards the ships. ‘I know it’s a little late, but I spent most the afternoon begging the General to let me use the Falcon.’ 

‘How’d that go?’

‘Dreadfully.’ Poe snorted, pulling you closer into his side. ‘But she said yes.’

‘You’re kidding?’ 

You’d only been on the Millenium Falcon a few times, but it was hands down your favourite ship. There was so much history behind it - not just between you and Poe, but for the Resistance the Rebellion in general. You dreaded to think how much grovelling your husband had done on your behalf to make Leia agree to let the two of you borrow it, but it wasn’t something you were going to complain about. It was far better than being cramped into the one-person cockpit of his X-Wing; that was something you’d done many, many times and you always ended up with a back-ache. 

‘Am I allowed even a clue?’ You asked, following him up the ramp and into the ship.

‘You do know what a surprise is, right?’ Poe teased, leading you through the galley. 

You rolled your eyes, shaking your head with a smile. ‘You’re normally terrible at them.’

‘I think I pulled off today’s pretty well.’ He grinned at you. 

You both took a seat in the cockpit. Your eyes lingered on the dice hanging up by the window for a moment -- even though Leia had originally kept them on her person, she ended up returning them to the ship for safe-keeping and good luck. Your heart always stung a little when you looked at them, just because you knew the history behind them. They held the same sort of sentiment of the ring on your finger and all the photos you’d collected today: memories. Years and years of memories, some filled with love, and some bittersweet ones. You knew, however, that your story was going to have a happier ending. 

---

Poe didn’t fly for too long -- maybe forty five, fifty minutes. 

You’d spent most of the journey chatting about everything and nothing, as you often did. You gelled so well together that you could easily spend hours talking, and completely forget about the world around you. It was one of the things you loved about Poe, especially when there were times that you needed to forget your surroundings. He was always an escape, and in the best way possible. A reminder that, even though the galaxy could be dark, there was always good. He went out of his way to remind you to be hopeful, and to fight for the best. And, more often that not, he would reference the two of you finding each other in the Resistance as an example of it. 

‘Are you gonna tell me where we are now?’ You asked. 

‘Nope.’ Poe replied. ‘C’mon. It’s not too far of a walk.’

His arm returned to your shoulders as you exited the jet, boots met with wet ground - sand. 

Not just the sand, but the beach. 

The smell of sea salt hung in the air, clearing your senses of the stuffy, recycled air that surrounded the base. It was clear and crisp, hitting your skin with a welcomed iciness. You could hear the sound of the ocean in the distance, slowly to-and-froing, crashing against the land with a gentle whoosh, almost as if it were greeting you. 

‘C’mon.’ 

Poe suddenly grabbed you from behind, lifting you up in the air and catching your legs before they could hit the ground. He had one arm tucked under yours and the other under your knees, carrying with ease through the jungle and towards the sound of the sea. He held you close to his chest, brown eyes concentrating on the ground ahead of you so that he didn’t trip. He was always beautiful, but even more so under the moon-light of the evening, casting a silver glow over the two of you as he broke through the trees and out onto the plains of the sand, 

‘D’you know where we are now?’ He gently asked, placing you on the ground. His arm returned to your side, snaking around your waist and pulling you back towards him. 

‘Yeah.’ You smiled. ‘Four years ago, you crashed your X-Wing just over there.'

‘And you pulled me out the wreckage before the whole thing went up in flames.’ He continued the story. 

‘It was my first day and I had no idea what to do.’ You remembered it with a soft laugh. 

‘You saved my ass.’ He pressed a kiss to your temple. ‘And frankly, you’ve done it every day since.’

He turned so that he was facing you, one hand resting on your hip and the other on the back of your neck. For all his funny moments and grandeur, Poe Dameron could be soft as fuck. It was something that very few people every got to see, and mostly something that he saved for you, and only you. It was something you often witnessed under the covers of the dark, when it was just the two of you laying in bed together, softly murmuring about your day. 

‘I love you, Poe.’ You murmured. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t - ah fuck. 

‘I love you more.’ He gave you a watery grin. ‘I did give you those photos for a reason, though.’

‘Yeah?’

He fumbled around the backpack he’d brought, producing a book. It had a picture of you, him and BB-8 on the front, with The Story of Us scribbled across the front in his mildly terrible hand writing. He flipped it open, to show several empty pages. 

‘It’s dumb and cheesy as fuck, but I wanted somewhere to keep all those photos.’ He explained. ‘I know that we know our story, but it’s nice to look back at them, right?’

‘It is.’ You smiled. ‘Those photos made my whole day.’

‘I’m glad.’ He beamed back at you. ‘And we can keep adding to it. I’d like to think that this is only just the beginning.’