#wait until you befriend them; have fun with that | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fatuismooches · 2 years ago

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OH NY GOD THE CHILDHOOD CRUSH CONCEPT BUT WITH DOTTORE 😭😭IF THAT'S OKAY?? reader is the only one who was interested in his endeavors and helped, so probably they're just as bad as him so they're partners in crime 👉👈 he's gotta have done experiments on then but they were never painful, only for them fr

♡ 𝐃𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐡𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐂𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡 ♡

synopsis: When you were a child, there was a peculiar boy who seemed to never have any friends, alienated away from the others. Perhaps you could be his first one.

includes: dottore w/ gn! reader

notes: Yes yes yes, I love this! This is so very cute, thank you and I hope you enjoy this! The use of Dottore's real name, Zandik, is used mostly in this because, well... that's what he was called as a child. (And to be honest, if you're dating any of the Harbingers you have to be somewhat... you know. And I think pre-Fatui Dottore would be different when it comes to affection and such... so yea. Subby Dottore I guess?)

Childhood was something you cherished growing up in Sumeru. The pursuit of knowledge, the Akademiya, being a scholar, was something that was drilled into the heads of the young ones even from an early age. But when you were a child, you had the freedom to actually live, the ability to dream, to have fun, to run around and play freely without having to worry about all that boring stuff. So needless to say, you made sure to spend every second of your childhood the way you wanted as much as you could. You were going to have as much fun as possible! Perhaps that was why the rumors about the teal-haired boy did not make you waver in your pursuit to befriend him too much.

Despite the child being your neighbor, you didn’t really know much about Zandik, but what you did know was that Zandik’s mother was a kind woman. She always waved hi to you when you saw her and made small talk with you. Besides that, you never really thought about it further until your friends brought it up one day.

“That lady really seems to really like you, [Name].”

“Hmm? Oh yeah, she’s always nice to me. She even makes me Pita Pockets sometimes!”

“Her child is too creepy though,” your friend complained. You were taken aback by their statement.

“What do you mean?” you questioned.

“Zandik’s always just been weird. That’s why no one ever plays with him. I heard that he always wants to do these weird… um, experiments I think. There are other rumors too, but I just know the way he acts is just bizarre.”

“I feel bad for her,” another one of your friends chipped in. “It must be hard to deal with such a freak. Aren’t you his neighbor, anyway? Don’t you know this?”

You just frowned and shrugged your shoulders. You didn’t really like the way they spoke about Zandik. Surely he couldn’t be as bad as they made him out to be. Maybe he was just an introvert?

Then again, you barely ever saw Zandik before. He never played with anyone, never spoke to anyone, hell, you didn’t even know if he left his house. The most often you saw him was when you happened to be walking by and caught a glimpse of him through the windows. He always quickly moved away when he was spotted though.

“Well, it doesn’t matter. Just try to stay away from him, [Name].” You nodded your head, but your mind was already made up. You were determined to find out how bad Zandik actually was.

—

You did say you were going to befriend him, but you soon realized you were not sure how to go about it. You had never met someone like him before, so your choices were limited. The easiest thing you could think of was waiting near his room’s window. It was a bit embarrassing hiding behind a tree, seemingly waiting for nothing, but soon enough you saw him take a seat near the glass. You weren’t sure what he was doing, but he looked very focused on it, and you were a bit mesmerized for a second, as this was your first real look at him. But you soon snapped out of your daze and came out from behind the tree.

“Heyyyy!” You yelled, jumping up and down, attracting his attention. Zandik’s shoulders jumped for a second at the noise, and when he looked up, he was greeted by your figure on the ground. Your expression brightened when you noticed he saw you and began to wave your hands, mouthing something he couldn’t hear clearly.

Zandik was stunned. If he recalled correctly, you were the person who lived next door. He saw you occasionally but of course, did not care much about you. So why were you here? Were you standing there the whole time? What did you want? His active mind produced many questions, but in the end, he knew what you were. Your intentions could not be different from the other children.

The boy looked at you incredulously for a moment before getting up. Your smile grew wider, oh, was he going to open the window and say something? But then he pulled his curtains shut on you, blocking your sight into his room completely. Damn it.

Well, that failed terrifically, but it was a bit stupid now that you thought of it. You sat down against a tree and tried to think of your next plan, unaware of the now slightly drawn curtain and curious red eyes peeking out of it.

—

Any other ideas you tried had failed, and you were not sure what to do. You had become aware that he was closed off, unwilling to interact with you or any others. But this had only made you far more interested in him. So, you had only one plan left - to go directly to the person who could tell you all. And so you knocked on the front door of his house, revealing a familiar face.

“Oh? Hello, my dear! What a pleasant surprise to see you, [Name]. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Hi, ma’am. You see, I, um, have a request. I need help with something.”

“Well, I’ll certainly do my best to help you then,” Zandik’s mom affirmed.

“I want to see Zandik,” you said bluntly, shocking the woman for a second. “I want to befriend him and talk to him.”

“I-I see. It’s not every day another child comes and asks for my son. He is a… peculiar case, after all, and he doesn’t like speaking to other people. Are you sure about this?”

“Please, I really do want to be his friend,” you said resolutely. Her face softened and she relented.

“Alright, my dear. I know he usually frequents this spot…” the woman gave in and gave you directions to where Zandik apparently spent much of his time.

As you made your way there, you were a bit in awe of how he managed to find such a place. You never knew this route existed until now. Soon, after a bit of trekking, you found an opening that boasted lush grass and smooth stones, with trees surrounding it in a circle. It was quite pretty. And then that was when you saw Zandik in the middle, his teal hair matching the greenery. For a moment, you pondered over how to approach him, but you did not need to think long since he spoke first.

“How did you manage to find this place?” His voice echoed throughout the clearing, letting you know that you were spotted. You tentatively took a few more steps closer, his small body getting bigger.

“I asked your mom,” you began, “and she told me I could find you over here.” He let out a sigh.

“Admittedly, I did not expect you to go to such drastic lengths. You are more persistent than the lot of them,” Zandik acknowledged, though still not looking up from the rather complicated and thick book he was reading. Then, he snapped it shut and stood up.

“So, what is the reason for your tireless pursuit? Perhaps you’ve come to ridicule me? Or are you here to see whether the rumors are genuine? Do tell, I am truly curious as to what would warrant such an extended hunt.”

You were a bit stunned at that whole statement, but you only had one thing to reply with. “I mean… it’s none of those. I just want to become your friend.”

A moment of silence passed before a chuckle broke it. Then, full-out laughter rang out, echoing throughout the forest. It was almost maniacal, and you couldn’t lie that it kind of scared you a bit, but you bit your lip and remained calm.

“Aha, hehe, why, I have not heard that one yet. How creative. I must say, they are getting better at these.” After that little outburst, Zandik returned to his previous sitting position and became absorbed in his book again. You were honestly unsure of how to react to that. Did the other kids truly pick on him that much, for him to think another wanting to become his friend was a lie? You stood there unmoving until Zandik spoke again in a dismissive tone.

“You can go now. It was amusing while it lasted,” he said disinterestedly, waving his hand. You were dumbfounded but determined, so you answered back very simply.

“No. No, I won’t leave,” you declared so firmly that the boy stiffened.

“No?”

“Yes, in fact, I’m going to come over there right now. You know I wasn’t joking in the first place?” you said rather calmly, trying to seem as serious about this as possible, taking steps toward him.

He scowled, his attention drawn from his book once again. “No, you won’t. You won’t dare to come near me,” he stated just as firmly, having recalled how the other children wouldn’t even look at him. You grinned and picked up your pace until you were only a couple of footsteps away from him, and that was when he truly realized you were not joking. Zandik hastily tried to get up to avoid you but you dashed towards him, nearly tripping as you lowered yourself to a squatting position, becoming face to face with him.

You leaned in close to Zandik’s face, your nose almost touching his. His unique, red eyes held annoyance and a variety of other negative emotions, but there was something foreign in there too, which was the reason he didn’t pull away - confusion and curiosity. You smiled.

“Well now, hopefully you finally get it into that head of yours that you are now my friend. So, why don’t you tell me about what you’re reading?”

At first, he vehemently denied your friendly advances. He’d mock you, roll his eyes at you and such, or flat-out ignore you which was what he usually did. Zandik was honestly not very welcoming, which you began to expect at a certain point. But you persisted nonetheless. You followed him around no matter where he tried to go. You’d sit close to him but not too close. You’d speak sometimes and would either be met with silence or a sarcastic remark but you began to somewhat enjoy it. You’d stretch your neck to try and read the books he always brought with him in an attempt to better understand him. Though, the day he put the book on the ground so it could be read by both of you was the day you knew you won.

Zandik would always tell you not to come back, but you always came back of course. He’d roll his eyes and scoff at your tenacity, but you came to realize that he liked it. After all, he could very well just go to another hiding place, or arrive at a completely different time if he truly didn’t want to see you. He’d never admit it, but he warmed up to you. You also learned that Zandik really liked to talk. At first, when you would ask him questions about science, he wouldn’t respond but you could see him biting the inside of his lip, restraining himself from going on a tangent. It was the first time anyone had shown any real interest in him. Zandik would ramble on about many, many things, often transferring to a new topic in the blink of an eye. Even when he spoke about less-than-pleasant things, he looked to you all excitedly to hear your thoughts. When it came to those kinds of topics you satiated him with a smile, but you always voiced your thoughts as much as possible which pleased him greatly.

Eventually, you started to invite Zandik over to your house. His mom was positively ecstatic and encouraged this behavior. And yet you didn’t do what typical children did. He wanted to do experiments. Which did not really surprise you after everything was done and said. Despite being your age, he always spoke in such an… advanced way. It was hard to describe, but he always employed these big terms and used such proper grammar and language, something that was very uncharacteristic for a child. And experimented he did. Zandik’s experiments were not limited to mixing and combining different elements but also extended to you, somehow. He wanted a strand of your hair, your eyelash, a paper with your fingerprints all over it. What he used these for, you didn’t know.

Your own parents were scholars, so even though you didn’t see them very much, they left a multitude of advanced books and texts in the house. While you had never cared for them much, Zandik devoured them with ease. Even though you invited him to your house to talk and play together, there were times he’d just take one of the books and read for the whole time, shushing you whenever you tried to speak. You had to settle for simply sitting next to him and trying to follow along, which he… surprisingly did not mind. Under his breath, he’d mutter phrases like “Khaenri’ah” and “Visions” and “ruin machines” which frankly did not make much sense to you, but you always happily entertained him.

One day, Zandik wanted to go somewhere deep in the forest. You had played around there a couple of times, but you had never entered into the depths of it, heeding the warnings of danger from the adults. Naturally, you were a bit worried and scared, but you knew that Zandik would enter with or without you, for there was no length he wasn’t willing to go to cure his curiosity. Though he would not tell you why you were making this journey, you followed him nonetheless, until you reached an area with many damaged stones and pillars. As to how he found this location, you didn’t question it.

“There it is,” Zandik said almost breathlessly. You were confused at first but then you followed his line of sight, and then you saw it. A Ruin Guard sat on the ground, unmoving. Your jaw dropped as you had never seen one of them before, only hearing about their destructiveness from others and in books.

“So you came here to look at that?”

“Indeed. But we are not merely going to look. I’m going to investigate it.”

“Huh?! But what if it awakens and attacks us?” Even though the two of you were a good distance away, you could easily tell the Ruin Guard dwarfed your tiny bodies by a great amount.

“From what I’ve read and heard, it should be deactivated. There is no need to worry,” Zandik affirmed.

“What do you mean by ‘should be’- hey, wait up!” Before you could finish your sentence, your friend had already made his way toward the Ruin Guard. You scrambled to catch up with him and soon enough you two were close to the robot. Both of you stood there for a bit, just taking in the sight until Zandik couldn’t hold back and approached the Automaton, circling around it, clearly fascinated.

Clink.

The two of you stiffened at the sound.

“Zandik… did you hear that?” He did not respond, but soon enough your question was answered as the eye of the Ruin Guard beamed awake.

Zandik could only stare in amazement as the complex machine glowed and lit up back to life. You were momentarily shocked but you quickly regained your senses and grabbed his hand to get away from there, because you two would be dead in a couple of seconds if you didn’t move. You had to literally drag him because the machine had him in an astonished stupor.

“I thought you said it was DEAD?!?!” you practically screamed at him as the Ruin Guard lowered itself to shoot missiles at you both. You managed to hide the two of you behind a small stone wall as the projectiles hit that instead. “And snap out of it!!”

“I suppose I have miscalculated.”

“You suppose?” Your voice had quieted down so as to not bring back the attention of the robot, which was now walking around the area since it had lost sight of you. “We need to leave before it spots us again.”

“No,” he disagreed. “We’ll incapacitate it ourselves.” It took you a few seconds to process what Zandik said to you.

“Are you crazy? Ah, never mind that. I already knew you were from a long time ago. But this is something far from our level!”

“I believe that we would be able to disable it.”

“Trained adventurers have died from that thing,” you insisted.

“We aren’t adventurers. We are better than them.”

“We’re children,” you deadpanned.

“Two intelligent children,” Zandik corrected you. For a second you were shocked that he called you smart, as you did not expect that sudden compliment. You always considered him the brains and you were… the supporter from the sidelines. “Furthermore, I have a plan.”

You sighed and rubbed your temples. “Fine… what is it?”

“It is quite simple. First, you will hit the eye of the Ruin Guard twice to stun it, and while it’s knocked out, I will remove the core to deactivate it.”

“...Yeah. So simple, Zandik,” you said sarcastically. “And how do you suppose I manage to hit its eye? It’s extremely tall and my aim is nowhere that good.”

“I would not have brought up this idea if I did not think you were that incapable. You are quite useful to me,” he said straightforwardly. Boy, did Zandik have a very odd way of cheering you up.

“I… well, okay then. And you know how to get the core out of it?”

“I’ve read multiple passages of these machines in textbooks. I assume I have enough knowledge to do so.”

“I’m not going to even say anything. You owe me a play date after all of this,” you pouted. Zandik rolled his eyes begrudgingly.

“I suppose I can engage in your nonsensical childish activities when all of this is over. But just for an hour,” he proclaimed. You gleefully smiled, pleased to have won him over.

You didn’t care much for the Archons or Gods but you suppose they must have been watching over you because you eventually managed to stun it. Keyword: eventually - after whole minutes of running around dodging missiles and picking up random stones along the way, while Zandik sat there waiting for the right moment. You swear he was laughing at you. And true to his word, the young boy dismantled the machine’s core, rendering it unable to operate.

“Wow… I can’t believe we actually did that,” you mentioned, still in awe of it all.

“Of course we did. I would expect or accept nothing less. Now, come here. We have work to do.”

Somehow he had brought along small tools to try and dissemble the Ruin Guard. The red-eyed boy’s intelligence had always amazed you. Although it may seem boring to others, watching him fiddle was quite interesting for you. Zandik had also apparently appointed you as his assistant without informing you until now, so you always sat next to him. You made sure to keep an eye on what he did, for sometimes he would put his hand out and expect you to pass him a tool or screw without saying anything. At the end of the day, at least you could say the two of you had feats that no other child could claim to have accomplished.

It had gotten to the point where Zandik constantly wanted your presence around him, claiming that it would do you well to join him since you had nothing better to do. (He just didn’t want to admit he craved your attention and company.) You had accepted this with no complaints, having enjoyed spending time with him far more than your other friends. But you couldn’t deny that your friends were somewhat right about their thoughts towards Zandik - he cared little for others’ lives or feelings, was interested in things others would find disturbing, and even as a child you could tell he was not too right in the head. And yet his morals being concerningly low despite still being a kid, you could not bring yourself to care much. Heh, perhaps he was starting to influence you too.

Many years had passed since the two of you were little kids. Zandik had grown into a handsome, young, man. His mother was no longer in the picture, but the two of you were still together despite it all. And as much as you wanted to end your story off with a cliche everything was well, nothing could be farther from the truth. The atmosphere of your hometown had begun to grow tense. Why, you ask? Because of Zandik. The villagers had always not been the kindest to him, never fond of his rather strange ideas, though Zandik usually brushed it off with disinterest. But as he grew older, it seemed that the town’s dislike for him grew as well. And while you were a bit worried for him, you weren’t too concerned. You were sure the two of you would leave the place one day anyway. No way in your wildest dreams did you think you’d look outside your window and see people waving around pitchforks and clubs. And if that wasn’t bewildering enough, they were pointed toward Zandik.

You never scrambled to your feet and out the door so fast in your life, rushing to your dear friend’s side. His expression was unreadable when he saw you.

“Hey. Hey! What is this all about, huh?” you demanded to the crowd.

“He has to go. He is no longer a child, and so we no longer have any reason to have to harbor him here. He is a threat to this town,” someone spat.

“He’s never even hurt you,” you argued. “He never laid a hand on any of you. It was rather you who did that!” You think you heard Zandik whisper your name quietly.

“He’s a heretic,” another voice hissed. “He and his ideas do not belong here.” The clattering of pitchforks pitched in to agree. Zandik remained silent.

You gritted your teeth. You could see there was no point in arguing anymore. “Fine. Fine then. We didn’t even like it here anyway,” you fumed. In your spur of anger, you clasped your friend’s hand and practically dragged him in the opposite direction, blocking out the boos and mockery from the rest of the town.

Surprisingly, Zandik did not say a word throughout your little journey to who knew where, until you had to take a break from the sheer exhaustion. Embarrassingly, you had to release his hand that you had kept hostage the whole time, but Zandik seemed far less perturbed than you. Perhaps he saw it coming, with how assured his next statement was.

“We shall attend the Akademiya.” Out of all the possible things he could have said, you did not expect that one for some reason.

“The A-Akademiya?”

“Yes,” Zandik said quite simply.

“I mean, it’s not a bad idea but… the people there might be…” You did not finish your sentence, but you were referring to how the place could have a good amount of judgmental “scholars.”

He laughed bitterly. “After this morning, I highly doubt anything they do shall ever bother me.” You did not know what words would console him, so the only thing you offered was an agreeing nod and your silent presence.

“They did not exile you, [Name],” he said all of a sudden.

“It doesn’t matter. Getting rid of you would be the same thing as getting rid of me. I wouldn’t stay in a place where you aren’t,” you shrugged simply, placing your pinky over his own.

Zandik did not respond, but he didn’t move away.

—

The Akademiya was… an experience, for sure. It was many things all at once, the different Darshans and the beautiful architecture, the great looming trees. And the dorms were far nicer than you expected. At least they were spending their funds decently enough. So, the two of you settled into the scholarly life relatively easily. Zandik easily climbed to the top of his classes in no time, quickly garnering the attention of others and then losing it equally as fast when they encountered his prickly personality. There were always gossip and rumors floating about, many of which proclaimed Zandik to be a madman and a monster. And while he rarely ever showed any expression to these words, besides perhaps a roll of the eyes and chuckle or a scoff, you wondered if it really did bother him. As such, everyday life for you was being known as the normal person who hung out with the weirdo.

But, the years spent in the institution were ones you cherished deeply. You were close with your friend for many years, but perhaps staying together in such close quarters deepened the relationship. The two of you would sneak out after hours to do whatever Zandik demanded to be done. You were a bit iffier about breaking rules, but Zandik was firm on not letting anyone hold him back in his pursuit, so you began to think less of it. Many nights would pass by with the two of you staying up until unreasonable hours, whether it was studying together (or more like Zandik helping you study), or listening to him ramble on about his latest ideas and inventions. The strangest times were when he made you stay up despite not speaking at all. You would blink through bleary eyes as he remained silent, the only noise the clinking of bolts and nuts. In your heart, you liked to think he just liked your presence.

But the day you found out Zandik was to be expelled from the Akademiya was one you’d never forget. You knew he had a tendency to act without permission, to turn off others with his radical ideas, so perhaps you shouldn’t have been surprised. You also had some knowledge of what happened in his expeditions with the team - almost everyone did, considering what happened with that girl - and you knew deep down what her true cause of death was. And Zandik knew that you knew too; you could feel it unspoken in his eyes when the subject matter was brought up briefly. You knew you were too far gone when you accepted it. But still, him being expelled was still a shocker. Yet the only thing he bemoaned was losing his space to work.

“It is quite literally your last night in this dorm and you’re sad about losing your progress on your experiments?” Actually, now that you thought about it, it was quite a Zandik thing to think.

“It was the only good thing about this place,” he shrugged. “It is too bad. I shall have to find somewhere else now.”

“They’re going to exile you to the desert, aren’t they?” you frowned. “That’s what they do with the expelled and mad scholars, no?” He nodded in agreement.

“You can’t go. You won’t be able to continue your kind of research there,” you argued.

“And what do you propose? That we fight them?”

“Yes! I’ll fight them! I’d ambush them or something!” you knew you sounded crazy by now but you couldn’t help it. The idea of no longer being with your childhood friend was tearing you in half. “You know, the matra stationed there keeps an eye on all of the scholars who were exiled there, in order to keep them in check. Even if you managed to escape, it won’t be easy to survive in such conditions and they could find you,” you insisted.

“Good thing you’re so eager to fight,” he chuckled. You knew what he was thinking when he laughed like that. “I have a plan.”

You raised your eyebrow. “Oh really?”

“Did you really think I’d go in there without preparation?” he scoffed. “In due time, I shall find a way to contact you.”

You sighed. “Alright, just… let me know who I have to fight later,” you responded. “And…” you trailed off, not knowing if you should verbalize your true worried feelings. He seemed to notice, and he contemplated, trying to figure out what to say.

“You need not worry about me, [Name]. We both shall be fine.” The words felt foreign on his tongue, as they were things he would never say. But he did anyway.

And that was the last you saw of Zandik. But unbeknownst to either of you, he would be visited by a special man - the first Harbinger.

—

You stood outside on the small balcony, gazing down at Sumeru’s city. You had managed to nab one of the dorms with the platform, much to the dismay of the other scholars. The two of you always loved seeing them fume, as they had to take their star gazing elsewhere. Neither you nor Zandik had cared much for the stars, but admittedly it was just… nice to feel the wind blow.

Sleep had escaped you ever since Zandik left. Not hearing the usual metal clink and unscrewing noises, soft grunts, and occasional chair shifting from Dottore had left you unsettled and bothered. You had begun to think about whether you should continue to stay in the Akademiya. Zandik was no longer here, and the place crawled with rumors and gossip regarding him. You weren’t so popular anymore either, as the whispers even extended to you, his roommate who people began to question if you were truly innocent.

You had been feeling a bit lost in general since Zandik had been expelled. You were fully aware of the heinous things he had committed. You had come to terms that he was a criminal, and you were accomplice of sorts as well. Actually, the moment you decided to associate yourself with him was the moment you became not so good of a person. But that wasn’t what bothered you. What bothered you was Zandik’s absence.

Any normal person would have called you absolutely crazy for desiring such a madman’s presence. And you couldn’t blame them. They were right. Yet your heart could not let go of the man who you stuck with since childhood. You could not let go of the boy who scowled and doubted your intentions at first, the boy who eventually warmed up to you, the boy who demanded you be his test subject and assistant at the same time, the man who tutored you in science and maths and everything else, the man who stayed up to ungodly hours to tinker.

The man who you fell in love with.

The revelation was enough to make your knees weak, and suddenly the cold air was too much for your warming body. Quickly, you locked the doors to the balcony and stumbled onto your bed, rubbing your temples at this acknowledgment. Archons, how stupid were you? You were in love with someone whose character was… words you could not describe. Though you knew it all along. You just were scared to admit it. You internally cursed Zandik for doing this to you, as you knew you were too late to say anything. Not that you’d have a chance though, considering his whole outlook. He’d think that love was for fools only, a waste of time when he could pursue more fruitful endeavors. So all of this only caused you to miss him so terribly much more.

You missed his eyes - such a unique red that could only be compared to the one that flowed through living beings. You missed his hair - the softness that you only felt once, when you gently caressed the locks when you thought he was sleeping, but he grabbed your wrist so quickly it nearly scared the living daylights out of you. You missed his sharp and smart tongue that could put someone into their place in a matter of seconds. You missed everything about him.

But you shouldn’t sulk. No - you would not brood. If he was here, he’d probably be reprimanding you for being distracted when there was so much left to do. Sooner or later, you knew in your heart you would see him again and-

Knock-knock.

You bolted up at the series of knocks. Were you hearing things? Surely no one would be at your door this hour of the night. Did Zandik make you delusional now?

Knock-knock-knock.

Nope, you still had some of your sanity left. You swung your feet off the bed, about to head towards the door when a rather strange shadow blurred across the floor. It looked oddly like… a figure… at your balcony… Your heart pounded as you convinced your head to look up.

Zandik was on your balcony. How he managed to get up so many stories of the building, you had no clue. No longer did he don the Akademiya’s uniform, but clothes that were rather nice and expensive looking. It seemed your stupor lasted longer than his liking as he tapped impatiently on the glass door and pointed towards the lock.

Well, it seemed your reunion with him was happening sooner rather than later, that’s for sure. Quickly you scrambled to open the door and pull your beloved inside.

“Z-Zandik,” you sputtered, not believing your eyes. “I- what- how are you here? Did anyone see you? You have to leave, they’re going to catch you!” You fumbled over your words, fighting with the happiness of seeing your friend again but also concerned about him being caught. “What happened with the plan? What happened in the desert? What are you wearing? How did you-?”

Zandik quickly shut you up by tapping his newly gloved finger on your lips. “You must not speak so loudly. But you are correct, we do not have much time.”

“You’re r-right,” you agreed, lowering your tone. “But I just need at least some kind of explanation. Why and how did you come back…?”

“The Fatui has recruited me.”

“The Fatui?” you echoed softly, trying to remember what that was. A few seconds of thinking and remembering the daunting masked men and women who carried around weapons caused you to snap back to life. “The Fatui?!” you whisper-yelled. “Those scary people who always eyed us up when went into the forest and stuff?! I- ah, I won’t even question it anymore. Just… go on.” Zandik smirked at your halting.

“They have provided me with sufficient equipment and a space to work. We no longer have any reason to stay at this ignorant institution,” he declared. “And, from now on, I am to be called Dottore, a new Harbinger.”

“Dottore?” you repeated. “How clever,” you snorted at the irony of the name. “And… what do you mean by ‘we’?” your voice got quieter towards the end.

“I mean what I said. You shan’t stay here any longer.”

You already knew you were following him, but your chest twinged due to your recently newfound feelings. What if you somehow turned out to be a nuisance for him? Eternally distracted by this foolish love?

“Oh really? And what makes you think I’d follow you so easily?” You don’t think he was expecting you to say that. He cleared his throat.

“I’ve already made it clear to the Jester I shall not work without a competent assistant. There is only one person who has proven themselves to be capable. I will not settle for anyone else,” Zandik stated resolutely. “And,” he paused, uncharacteristically unsure of how to voice what he wanted to say next. He had always been a man who would proclaim the most damning ideas with no remorse. Yet he had trouble formulating his thoughts because of you.

“You are… infuriating,” he began, making you raise your eyebrow. How charming of him. “Since that day in the forest, I knew you were going to be vexing. You would not bend to anything I said, would not leave me alone no matter the methods I used. Infuriating,” he repeated.

“But,” he very cautiously raised his hand to hover near your cheek, just barely making contact, “I never thought I’d become so… accustomed to you. I remember your habits and likes just as much as I remember those formulas you hated so. It’s laughable to think that almost all of my memories have you there somehow.”

“You are irking, but without your presence, I am strangely irritated myself, which is far more of a hindrance than I would have ever anticipated. Without you, I find my mind wandering - it is like nothing I have experienced before,” he finally cupped your cheek with hesitance, as if he himself was in disbelief at his own actions.

“I have known you almost all my life, yet I seem to still need more time to truly figure you out. I am not merely speaking as a scholar, but as… me,” he finished. Now, that was the last thing you expected from a man such as him. But he quickly regained his composure as he asked you the final question.

“Now,” he concluded. “What say you?” For all his talk of bravado and confidence, his hesitant show of affection revealed all the vulnerability that you desired to see and gave you the answer you needed. You placed your own hand over his one on your cheek, maintaining eye contact with him as he stiffened at the feeling of your skin against his, even if it was clothed. You moved closer to Zandik, until your chests were nearly touching.

Zandik knew what you were going to do. Although the thought of such affection usually made him… ill and annoyed, he could not help but think that the feeling would be different if you were the one initiating. How would his body react? Would he enjoy it? Would he want to do it again?

You moved closer to his face, and without hesitation, you kissed him. Zandik was rigid, the foreign sensation of another’s lips against him was completely unfamiliar to him. But it seemed that the answer to his questions was a resounding ‘yes.’ You pulled away from him, trying to gauge his expression. You did not know too much about kissing, but you knew your newly found lover understood even less, which spurred you to continue.

Running your hands down his firm arms, you leaned in again to nip and suck at his neck, drawing out a shudder from Zandik. He felt intoxicated by you all at once. He would be sure to write some notes on this later… they would be needed for further… research and experimental trials. He nuzzled his face into your soft locks, silently encouraging you to continue your course of action, eager to indulge in it with as much excitement as he would indulge in forbidden knowledge.

But then you released him with a pop of your lips. “Well, let’s not get too carried away,” you teased. “Wouldn’t want your new subordinates seeing you like this, hmm?” you straightened his collar and smoothed out the wrinkles you created on his clothes. To say he felt bewildered and betrayed was an understatement.

“And if that wasn’t enough of an answer for you,” you changed your tone to a soft, honest one, “Wherever you go, I shall go too. I decided that a long time ago, Zandik.” There was no need for either of you to say the three words that many others longed for. You knew that the relationship you now had with him was far stronger than a few mere words could describe.

Zandik quickly regained his composure. He would be sure to pay you back for your little stunt later. “Well then, there is much to be done. We have not a moment to waste,” he grinned, halfway out onto the balcony. “Take my hand, and we will be off,” he extended his arm, his gloved hand awaiting your own.

Taking his hand meant abandoning this current life. It meant embracing a new life that was far from morally right, one that should surely lead you to be despised by many. It meant becoming a part of the Fatui for Archon’s sake, an organization that was far from reputable. Zandik and [Name] would become lost to the world, the names only being remembered by the two of you in loving, soft-spoken whispers. Others would only know Dottore and his loyal assistant. If you took his hand, there was no going back…

And yet with no hesitation, you placed your hand in his.

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #dottore x reader #il dottore x reader #dottore fluff #genshin impact il dottore #il dottore #fatui harbingers x reader #fatui x reader #dottore angst #zandik x reader #genshin impact dottore #genshin impact zandik

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tourturestarradio · 3 months ago

Text

𝐒𝐄𝐀 𝐒𝐈𝐃𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘

☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆

Pairing: Luffy, Zoro, Sanji (more added later) x Mermaid reader!

Prompt: After your family jewels were stolen you were determined to get them back joining you closest friend Monkey D. Luffy on his adventure to become the king of the pirates.

Warnings: none, this follows the live action!!

☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮

⋆｡°✩ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ┊ ˚★⋆｡�� ⋆ ┊ ┊ ┊ ⋆ ┊ ┊ ★⋆ ┊ ◦ ★⋆ ┊ . ˚ ˚★

𝐌𝐘 𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 was very strict about who I placed myself around, who I befriend, what part of the sea I'm on. It was so stressful sometimes, all the rules and regulations were annoying. I just wanted to swim around the ocean and make friends.

But I had none. Not a single one until today. One of the biggest rules was to never. EVER. Go to the surface, under any circumstances. But being the air head I was I went up anyway, I wanted to see what it was like!

Seeing the sunlight peel through the seawater I gulped nervously hearing loud voices, I carefully and slowly peeked up out of the water, the first thing I noticed was the odd smell, it was like nothing like what I smelled before.

I looked around hearing laughing "Luffy for the last time you aren't prepared enough to be a pirate yet." I looked at the two humans who talked, one was a tall man with red hair, a straw hat, and three scars on his eye.

There was a shorter boy with curly black hair and brown skin "yes I am!" I watched the two talk. well more like argue...

Until I saw the shorter boy turn and walk towards me I jumped and ducked my head under the water as the boy stormed over sitting down with a pout and his arms crossed.

Fun fact about me, my fins tend to glow when I'm flustered, shy, or scared/nervous. So even if i'm hiding most likely you'll still be able to spot me, so you can guess to my surprise when I peeked through my webbed fingers and saw the black haired boy staring dead at me.

I jumped and swam away. A human boy saw me! I'm so done for! He had called out to me "hey wait up!" I guess my fins were still glowing because he followed me down the dock.

I stopped and looked back poking my head out the water "how did you swim that fast!" I was too nervous to speak "u-um...I-I..." I gulped out of nervousness.

His eyes sparkled with curiosity "hey why are you glowing so bright?" I glanced at my fins "I..don't know" he backed up as bit pointing his thumb at his chest "wait. wait. wait let me introduce myself! I'm Monkey D. Luffy! And i'm gonna be king of the pirates!"

I giggled a bit at his behavior "I-I'm Y/n L/n...nice to meet you Luffy!" I smiled at him, his face to turn pink "h-hey you glow like me!" I smiled wider lightly pulling myself up out of the water "wah! you have gills!" He pointed out.

I nodded my head excitedly "mhm!"

I liked this boy Luffy he was very fun. And he didn't seem weirded out by my fish-like appearance. I mean if I hid my gills and covered my fins people wouldn't be able to tell I was half fish.

Well the way my eyes blinked would probably give it away and my (f/c) skin would look odd...and my tail. If only I had legs...

I stayed talking to Luffy for a long while "so what's your dream?" he asked me, staring at me with unblinking eyes and a big smile. I thought for a moment "hmm...maybe...no...ah!...uh no..." I shrugged "I don't know..." Luffy laid on his stomach his legs kicked up behind him.

"Well maybe you'll think of something" he hummed.

"Hm maybe you'll figure it out later..." I nodded in agreement, Luffy stared at me for a moment "so what are you?" he asked, "I'm a mermaid" Luffy peeked his head over into the water. I lifted my tail high enough for him to see it.

"Oo wah~ so cool!" he reached his hands out and touched it gliding his fingers along my scales. I shivered and pulled my tail back into the water "m'sorry my tail is sensitive" I stated.

Looking out at the sky Y/n noticed how it was now sundown "o-oh I gotta go! It was great talking to you Luffy!" ducking my head under the water I swam away hearing Luffy yelling out a loud "Goodbye!! I hope we see each other again!"

A smile grew on my face as I swam home.

The black haired boy ran over "Shanks! Shanks!" a red haired male looked over at Luffy with a raised brow "what's got you all pumped up huh?" Luffy pointed behind himself at the docks "there wassa girl! she-she had gills! and-and fins! she had a really cool tail!" one of Shanks crew mates heard him.

He laughed "does little Luffy got a crush?" Luffy lightly blushed while yelling "No! I-I've just never seen something like her before!" Shanks took a mental note of her description.

Shanks crew mates teased Luffy about the girl for the next couple of days, but he didn't care he still decided to visit his new friend. Y/n would swim to the surface both becoming close with each other.

A friendship blooming between the two.

Asking each other about their lives on land and in the sea, "so would you ever be able to come on land?" he asked.

Y/n's tail swayed back and forth "hm..well probably not for a long time." Y/n stated tapping her chin, Luffy frowned "why not?" Y/n rested her head on her palms "well there is a special necklace that merfolk are gifted. and it lets tails turn to legs or in some rare cases some merfolk can just turn their tail to legs on their own"

Luffy smiled "so cool!" Y/n tilted her head "so who was that red haired guy with the scars" Luffy glanced back at the girl "That's Shanks! He's a pirate too! and he's the captain" speak of the devil, the red haired male came over "Luffy! who're you chatting with?"

Luffy smiled and pointed to where his new fish friend was supposed to be, "to Y/n!" Y/n quickly ducked her head under the water out of fright, but sadly her fins began to glow. Shanks smirked "oi no need to be frightened" he stated, squatting down to where the mermaid was.

Y/n slowly peeked her head up muttering a small "hi..." Shanks smiled at her "hello so you're this Y/n Luffy has been yapping on about" her fins started to glow brighter, she nodded her head.

Suddenly she remembered she had a gift for Luffy, "oh Luffy! I got you a gift, m-my grandpa said it's always good to give a friend a gift."

Luffy perked up "is it food?" he asked, Y/n frowned "did you...did you want food?" "yeah!-" "he'll take the gift" Shanks interrupted Luffy.

Lifting her hand out of the water Y/n placed a closed oyster next to Luffy who eagarly snatched it up opening it.

Y/n grew nervous as Luffy didn't say anything, quickly she spoke "i-it's a b-bracelet. i-if you don't l-like it I can take it back. u-unless you do like it! I mean i-it's not all that g-great. ya'know what nevermind.I-" the rambling girl was hushed when she felt the boy hug her tightly while laughing.

His body almost fell into the water by how far he was leaning off the edge, Shanks picked up the gorgeous bracelet staring at it.

Luffy yanked it back putting it on excitedly, he lightly shook it around the soft clinks of the charms and sea glass making his smile grow wider.

Y/n looked up at the two "so do you like it?" he nodded his head "I love it!"

Shanks smiled at the two "looks like someone has a crush..." he laughed loudly, Y/n glowed "o-oh look at the time!" Luffy cheeks grew pink as he denied what Shanks said.

Y/n pulled herself up enough to sit on the docks most of her tail still in the water, she hugged the black haired boy "bye Luffy" he hugged her back his arms around her torso squeezing her tightly. Letting go Luffy waved goodbye "bye bye Y/n!" she sent one last smile to him and swam away.

✰ ✰ ✰

Swimming past other sea creatures I saw a shark swimming by, I giggled and swam over to it circling around it. It nudged me I smiled and swam away the shark following me. As I went deeper into the water the shark swam away, I saw my siblings swim up to me quickly "where have you been?" they asked me.

I blinked "um just swimming around, ya'know" my oldest brother swam up to me eyeing me his arms crossed, gulped feel my fins glow.

"Y/n..."

I started to sweat. Even if you couldn't tell. My other siblings swam closer looking at me with curiosity, "I-I...was just-"

"Y/n."

Without thinking I blurted out "I went to the surface!" all of them froze in place "you. did. What?!" my oldest brother shouted, I gulped "I-I went to the surface..." he pitched the bridge of his nose.

"Is that why you've been gone all those hours?" I slowly nodded, my other brothers smiled "so cool! I've never been to the surface!"

"I heard it was scary!"

"I heard the people smell weird"

"I heard-"

"Enough! If father finds out about this"

"Finds out about what?"

All of us hushed turning around to see our father, he looked at us with a raised brow. Thinking quickly one of my brothers spoke "your surprise gift!" all of us sighed with fake disappointment "oops..."

My father shook his head "alright, Y/n come follow me." I gulped nervously and followed after him. I tried to keep my fins from glowing, "is there something you need father?" he nodded but didn't say a word.

I followed him through our home far past any of our rooms. He put his hand up to the door a light purple glow emitting from his palm, I 'awed' at the sight the door opened. The room we entered was softly "Y/n i've never told your older brothers about this but....i'm trust you with this Y/n." pulling open a clam mouth he grabbed something.

Turning around I saw a beautiful light green necklace I reached out to touch it but my father pulled it away. "All of your brothers have one but they aren't to use them until they are ready." he stated I tilted my head in confusion "this necklace holds the power to turn your tail to legs" my eyes lit up as I smiled "r-really I thought-" "once you are old enough you may wear it as you please."

I was so giddy about wearing the necklace I started to space out but my father snapped his fingers in front of my face "Y/n listen to me. This necklace is important, it was your mothers. It is very important to our family" I frowned at the mention of the woman.

"One day you will get to wear it just as she did. she would be proud" I smiled and looked down "alright let's go, I don't want the boys getting suspicious about their gifts" I giggled and swam out the room my father follow close behind me before seemingly locking it again.

As the night went on I stayed awake wanting to go to that room again. An idea popping into my mind, maybe I could surprise Luffy tomorrow. Closing my eyes I fell asleep a warm feeling wrapping around my body.

☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮

A/n: this uploaded from my account on Wattpad/quotev!

#fem reader #one piece x reader #sub one piece #roronoa zoro #zoro x reader #one piece usopp #one piece #monkey d. luffy #one piece luffy #luffy x reader #one piece sanji #black leg sanji #sanji x reader #mermaid reader #fanfic

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munson-blurbs · 2 months ago

Note

Hello! I stumbled upon your “meet-cute post” and thought it was really cool, so here’s my request :)

I’m Lauren, my pronouns are she/her, and I’d like to be paired with Eddie Munson. I’m an INFP enneagram 4w5, I’m awkward, anxious, creative, quirky, caring and shy. I love listening to music of all sorts of genres, reading and thrifting.

I hope you have fun writing these requests and thank you for doing this 🩷

You meet Eddie while thrifting with your roommate, Robin!

CW: Eddie is initially a bit of a grump WC: 625 Divider credit to @hellfire--cult

“I’m telling you,” you said to your new roommate, Robin, as you opened the door to the thrift store. “They have the best stuff. I’ve already been here, like, five times.”

Robin laughed incredulously. “You’ve only lived in Hawkins for two weeks, and you’ve been here five times?”

“I didn’t ask to be judged,” you huffed, but a smile betrayed your feigned annoyance. Moving to a new town and starting a new job was definitely overwhelming, but it helped that you’d quickly befriended your roommate. “But yes. And now you get to see it for yourself.”

It was no surprise that you’d found a thrift store almost immediately after moving. Whether you were in your hometown or exploring somewhere new, you always managed to find a secondhand store to find one-of-kind trinkets. It felt like fitting the final piece of a puzzle.

So when Robin had made a comment that morning about wanting a bookshelf but not paying an arm and a leg for it, you knew exactly where to go.

You made a beeline for the furniture section without allowing yourself to browse the clothing aisles; you were here for Robin and her bookshelf, and you couldn’t be distracted.

Until you saw it: a record player, the wood a shiny cherry red, in near-pristine condition.

“I’ll be right back,” you mumbled, not waiting for Robin to acknowledge your absence.

You had a record collection back at the apartment of different albums you’d acquired over the years. Everything from Elvis to Johnny Cash to Madonna sat in a box that had yet to be unpacked. You ran your fingers over the corner where there was the tiniest chip, and imagined the sounds of music filling your room, melodic and harmonious—

“Son of a bitch!” A frustrated voice yanked you from your daydream.

You whipped around to see a guy, right around your age, standing behind you. He was scowling at you, his denim jacket-clad arms crossed in front of his chest.

“Um, sorry, is this—were you going to buy it?” Heat rushed through your body. Had you been too hasty in your excitement?

The man’s expression softened when he saw your nervousness. It was then that you realized how good-looking he was. His frizzy curls formed a halo around his face, juxtaposed by the faded devil emblem on his shirt.

“No. I mean, yeah, I was, but you—it’s yours,” he stammered. Cocking his head to the side, he studied you for a moment before asking, “do we know each other?”

You shook your head. “I just moved here. That’s why my roommate and I are shopping; we’re supposed to be getting new furniture. Well, she is,” you sheepishly amended. “I’m supposed to be helping her, not finding more stuff for myself.”

He laughed. “Listen, you take the record player. I’ll find one another time.”

“I really don’t need it.”

“Well, neither do I.” The corners of his mouth quirked up into a smile. “But it would be a shame if it went to the home of someone who was just going to let it sit in the corner. Or worse…” He raised his brows. “Someone who’ll use it to listen to disco.”

Your mouth dropped open in protest. “Don’t knock ABBA till you’ve tried them!”

“Oh, my God.” He scoffed and chewed on his lower lip in consideration. “All right, how about this: we split custody. That way she’s exposed to good music and,” he grimaced, “ABBA.”

You stuck out your hand. “Deal.”

He accepted your offer, shaking your hand. His grip was firm but gentle, and he let his fingers linger against yours for an extra beat.

“I’m Eddie, by the way.” He tucked his hands in his pockets. “You got a name, co-parent?”

#meet? cute.#eddie munson #eddie x reader #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fluff #eddie stranger things #stranger things fanfic #fanfic

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6esiree · 5 months ago

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Alastor x Reader x Lucifer

Randomly thinking about Lucifer going to a bar during what’s supposed to be his and Lilith’s anniversary, and he ends up befriending you, the bartender. He likes you but he doesn’t want to get into a relationship because he’s scared, so he just comes around like, once a week to see you, drink and talk and all that fun platonic, not so platonic kinda stuff. Lucifer is just lowkey flirting with you.

Charlie finds out about you somehow and she’s like, hey, why don’t you introduce them to me, to all of us at the hotel? She wants to meet the person who’s been making her dad’s days a little brighter. Lucifer is hesitant about doing that, maybe because introducing you to his daughter would probably give you the wrong idea, but he eventually acquiesces and brings it up to you.

Just to his luck, you accept, and he’s horrified to see everybody waiting for the two of you in the parlor, including Alastor. He brings out the worst in him, and the last thing he wants is for you to see an unsavory side of him. The interesting part is that Alastor doesn’t actually do anything to provoke Lucifer, at least not directly. He notices the longing looks the King of Hell shoots your way.

You try to shake Alastor’s hand, but instead, he slightly bends down and brings your knuckles in for a soft kiss. His lips linger long enough for Lucifer to see, and oh, it pisses him off. But what is he supposed to do about it, especially when you seem so moved by him, unused to the old-fashioned way of greeting when you manifested in Hell just recently? Your cheeks are flushed.

Alastor continues to chat you up, and you’re charmed by his persona. You honestly think his way of being is cute, like he’s out of a story book. Meanwhile, Lucifer lingers nearby, shooting Alastor displeased looks every time he turns in his direction to smile wickedly at him. At least you didn’t have to come back, and he’s relieved by that—until Charlie offered you a place at the hotel.

When you say yes, Lucifer instantly felt his heart plummet into his stomach. Alastor notices this, so when you move in, he immediately befriends you. He’s enjoying fucking around with Lucifer, but you actually end up growing on Alastor, so this whole situation backfires on him. He doesn’t realize it, though, mistaking his rapid heartbeat, sweaty palms, and bouts of jitters as an illness.

Alastor eventually consults Rosie about this, and she’s like, well, when did it start? He says around the time he met you, mentioning that these symptoms strangely only occurred with you. Rosie shrugs, suggesting that maybe he hadn’t fallen ill, just in love. Upon hearing this, Alastor immediately distances himself from you, but then he realizes it only makes him feel worse.

Idk, y’all. I’m just yapping while I’m stuck in the car, but I think it would be interesting to have these two pining for you. Lucifer can’t get mad at Alastor because you were supposed to be his friend, but Alastor? He doesn’t hesitate to fault Lucifer. By the time they both accept that they like you, though, they had accidentally pushed you away in the process.

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone’s done something similar to this already, but uhh, I don’t read fics with multiple ships. I just like the idea of Alastor using you to get on Lucifer’s nerves, but he accidentally falls in love with you. He’s like, damn… that’s crazy, anyway I’m going to blame Lucifer for my actions, LOL. Rosie would help Alastor throughout all of this, and Charlie would do the same with Lucifer.

#alastor x reader #alastor x you #lucifer x reader #lucifer x you #lucifer morningstar x reader #lucifer morningstar x you #hazbin hotel imagine #alastor x reader x lucifer #alastor imagine #lucifer imagine

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lovebugism · 2 years ago

Note

forgive me for what is likely a basic ass request but... steve has a crush on eddie's best friend? smut optional but encouraged :) (love, j.d. aka mypoisonedvine)

✶ ┄ LOVE YOU, ON PURPOSE (i)

part one | part two

summary: steve harrington took extra care to avoid the local freaks of hawkins. having shared custody of a fourteen-year-old forced him into a bitter friendship with one, he's steadfast in his refusal to befriend the other. that is, until you start working at the groove beside family video. steve claims he only fell for you because you tripped him. (17k)

pairing: steve harrington / eddie's bff!reader

tags: strangers to friends to lovers, mutual pining, protective eddie, canon divergence TW swearing, bullying, some smooching, talks of insecurities, reader is doubtful of steve's intentions because steve used to be a dick <3

a/n: this request has been sitting in my inbox for ages. ages, i tell you! i wrote the outline the day it was sent in and ended up turning the blurb request into a full on 30k+ word fic. i'm sorry for the wait j.d. (and to everyone else who's been waiting patiently for me to put this out). i quite literally put my heart, soul, pussy, and so, so many hours into this. please enjoy! feedback is always appreciated! xoxo

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Something happens and I'm head over heels.

It would be a total disservice to call you Eddie’s best friend.

It wouldn’t even feel right to call you his platonic soulmate or his sister from another dimension. Not when the two of you are essentially an extension of the same human being. It’s a twin flame on steroids — your mirrored souls make the rest of Hawkins believe in some sort of higher power. There’s no way it wasn’t destiny that placed the two of you together at exactly the right place, at exactly the right time.

Your entwined spirits could’ve been a beautiful thing.

It’s too bad you’re both total fucking freaks.

Unfortunately, being a couple of metalheads who spend their free time creating fantastical worlds in silly little board games hasn’t become cool yet — for some sad, strange reason. It leaves you and Eddie as the town’s token social pariahs. The kind of misfits you only spot when you care enough to look — laughing too loudly at the lunch table or sharing a cigarette in the alleyway between school buildings.

The kind of weirdos who get your attention without trying. The kind that people only look at when they need something to make fun of.

With that being said, everything Steve knew about you came from the people that hated you.

Tommy Hagan said that you and Eddie had been fucking since the seventh grade, that the two of you had gotten close between blowjobs and fingerbangs in the old chemistry classroom. No one’s quite sure where it came from, but they believed him without thinking twice. You and Eddie tried to squash the rumor for years before leaning into it full throttle.

“And these are the freaks,” Tommy announced when he approached your lunch table. He was giving Billy Hargrove a grand tour of the high school, or rather the shithole, and detoured like you and Eddie were some kind of sideshow attraction. Him and his goons ogled at you like zoo animals.

Steve idled some feet away, not as interested in the bit as the rest of them. He was even less interested in entertaining the new kid on the block thateveryone else seemed to be obsessed with.

“Hey, Tommy...” Eddie sing-songed through a mouthful of PB&J. You’d given him the other half of your sandwich, because you always give him the other half of your sandwich. “Hope you’re not comin’ back to ask for a handy again. I already turned you down, remember?”

A dumb grin took over the boy’s freckled face. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned over to the California boy. “I wouldn’t get too close to them. Don’t know where their hands have been, you know? If I had to guess, I think Punchy got Munson’s rocks off in the janitor’s closet before lunch period.”

Neither of you were particularly fazed by the laughter that erupted all at once and threatened to swallow you whole. Instead, you smiled with bits of grape jelly smeared on your chin. “I bet you think about it a lot, don’t you, Tommy?”

You really lived up to the nickname. Punchy. You weren’t entirely sure where it came from — your fierce temper, perhaps, or maybe your intense personality. Either way, it suited you.

Vicki Carmichael once said that you bit a guy on a date one time. Barry Jenkins, a tennis douchebag who thought the world revolved around him because his dad owned a string of local laundromats. He took you on a date in his mom’s Impala and assumed making out in the backseat gave him free rein to stick his hand up your skirt.

The asshole sported a red mark on his neck the next day.

When people asked you about it, you smiled with all your teeth in place of any real answer.

Carol Perkins loved to comment on the state of your wardrobe, telling anyone who would listen about the time she caught you rifling through the $1 bargain bins outside the thrift store. She liked to joke that you were stealing from them. “Because she can’t even afford a couple measly dollars. It’s kinda sad, honestly. I feel a little bad for her,” you overheard her saying once.

You were smoking a cigarette in the stall and watching through the crack of it while her and her friends touched up their lip gloss.

“Wait, really?” Tina wondered, stopping mid-swipe of mascara through her long lashes to gape at the girl beside her. Because, god forbid, they don’t have someone to make fun of.

Carol snapped bright pink bubblegum between her teeth. She looked offended, almost — manicured brows furrowed and shiny lips snarled — like the idea of her taking pity on you was insulting. “No,” she snapped in response.

You’re pretty sure it’s the only rumor about you that’s got any bit of truth to it. Or any rumor of hers, really. The thrift store was great and all, but you firmly believe that your best pieces come remanufactured straight from Eddie Munson’s closet.

So it isn’t any wonder why the two of you seem to dress so similarly — all leather jackets and distressed jeans and hand-me-down t-shirts that are either too big or too small. The both of you take little care in your appearance, wearing only what you feel good in. And sometimes that means wild hair and baggy clothes that swallow you whole.

To make it worse, you and Eddie even talk the same. You’re both loud and brash and have very little awareness of personal space. You aren’t scared to make a scene or use your voice when you think it’s being stifled. And when you love someone, they know it, because you won’t leave them the hell alone.

These are all the things that Steve hated about Eddie. So he hasn’t quite figured out why he’s so damn in love with you.

But he is.

Quite dreadfully so.

Head over heels and stumbling since the day he met you for a second time.

It was the spring of 1986 and The Groove had just opened up. Steve had heard murmurings of a record shop taking over the empty outlet adjacent to Family Video but had no idea it would nearly run them out of business. The shiny, new music store attracted all of their usual customers. People were more excited to buy new cassettes than rent movies they’d seen a thousand times already.

Steve didn’t mind, though. He liked it best when the store was empty. But all of his friends — a closeted lesbian, a basket case, and a couple of fourteen-year-olds — seemed to have the same affliction that was plaguing the rest of the town.

He tried not to be offended when Robin said she was going to spend her break next door and not with him in the closet-sized break room.

He failed.

Robin spent her half-hour and then some meeting you. She returned forty-five minutes later with a blushing face and a bleeding heart. Suddenly, there were two people in Steve’s life that couldn’t seem to shut up about you. As much as it annoyed him, he let her gush about you anyway, because that’s what best friends do, after all.

But Steve knew you once upon a time. Or he thought he did.

You were a loudmouthed metalhead who wore all black to blend in to Eddie’s shadow. You created fictional characters because it was easier than making friends with real people. You were strange and awkward and mean and gauche — the total opposite of this heavenly, mystical creature Robin was making you out to be.

But then it became this whole… thing.

With Robin and Eddie constantly talking over him about you, the rest of the kids were as confused as Steve was. And as they so often tend to do, the group decided to take matters into their own hands and make the short trek to meet you formally. Steve figured that their answer would be final. When those teenagers hate you, you know it. He learned that the hard way

They’re gone for a little over an hour and come back with a thousand stories and various tapes they say you gave to them for free.

Lucas has got a new Beastie Boys cassette and a proud smile on his face as he recounts the promise you’d made him about catching his next basketball game. “And she said she really liked my ranger,” he brags less than humbly, telling the older teens about how you’d heard stories about his track record in Hellfire campaigns. There’s a sudden suaveness to his voice as he bounces his brows up and down at them.

Max scrunches her face in disgust. She clutches a Kate Bush tape close to her chest, like it’s a prized possession she never wants to let go of. She rolls her eyes at her boyfriend (or maybe ex-boyfriend, but Steve can never keep up these days) and makes her own conversation with Robin. The two girls are the only ones with more than half a brain cell between them, or so they claim.

The redhead tells her that she plans on bringing her broken skateboard over to your store soon. She says the thing’s been wobbly for days, and Robin nods along like she knows all about it. “Well, apparently, she has some tools and knows how to fix it. Said the trucks just needed to be reinforced or some shit, I don’t know, I’m just glad it’s getting fixed.”

“Wait, why didn’t you tell me?” Steve asks her, confusion contorting his words along with his features. He crosses his arms and leans against the counter. “I could’ve fixed it.”

“You don’t know anything about skateboards,” Max monotones.

“Okay, but you don’t even know this girl! She’s a total stranger, Max. That’s dangerous.”

She rolls her eyes. “She’s nice, Steve. Way nicer than you—”

That makes him scoff.

“—And you’d know that if you got to know her.”

It’s Dustin’s turn to gush about you next. His opinion, for a reason Steve has never been able to place, arguably means the most to him. And the kid is just absolutely fucking beaming about you. He holds a Star Wars orchestral vinyl in his hand — the brand new one he’s been talking about for weeks but couldn’t afford.

He talks of the collection of DnD figurines you were painting behind the counter and the promise you made to make one for his bard come the next campaign.

Dustin gazes at Steve, wide-eyed and nodding like he’s as amazed by the revelation as Steve is. “She’s cool, Steve. Like… really cool.”

The boy thought that Robin just had a crush, that Eddie was just being Eddie and overdramatizing all of his stories about you. But you’re everything they said you’d be and then some. The kind of stranger you meet that takes your breath away, that makes you sad in the understanding that you’ll never see them again. Dustin is grateful you don’t have to be a stranger anymore.

You sounded… nice. More than nice. They painted you out to be a fucking angel, the way you took care of a bunch of kids you barely knew for the better part of an hour. You weren’t the freak everyone made you out to be all that time ago.

They talk a great deal about your looks, too. Dustin, mostly. Lucas had received a glare and a half-hearted punch on the arm from Max when he said how pretty you were — even though she ultimately agreed with him. The curly-headed boy uses too big words to describe the renaissance painting you are, all heavenly morose and beautifully strange.

“Hey,” Eddie scolds from the sidelines, mostly playful. “That’s my sister you’re talking about. Bring it down a few notches, ‘kay?”

Steve is silent for the rest of the day after that. He’s not pouting about it like Robin keeps saying he is, just reserved in his reminiscence.

He can’t tell if he’s intrigued or annoyed. They talk about you the way people used to talk about King Steve — with a borderline obsession for someone they don’t really know. And deep down, he knows he’s just jealous. Jealous that no one talks about him that way anymore. Jealous that none of the kids have ever talked about him that way.

It leaves him skeptical and wanting to see the real thing for himself.

Steve opts to meet you on his lunch break the next day with a tight chest and sweaty palms, like a part of him knew it was going to change the trajectory of his life for the foreseeable future.

The door dings with his arrival. The record store smells like earth and nostalgia, a bit like flipping through the pages of an old book. Vinyls sit in rows and in towers that rise to the ceilings. Colorful cassettes, of which there are thousands, have nooks and crannies of their own. Posters decorate the walls along with various patterned records — there’s hardly a blank spot in the entire store.

And when Steve sees you for the first time, he only sees the back of you.

You’re in all black, just like he imagined you’d be. A sliver of skin at your midriff is showing from where your too small shirt has ridden up your torso. And your hair is as wild as ever, though a little longer than he remembers. You’ve haphazardly pinned back the ornery strings with a sparkly pin, but it doesn’t do much to tame them.

A breeze of warm wistfulness washes over him at the sight of you. A reminder of a life that used to be his, that you were a part of only passively.

It’s your smile that does him in. Maybe because you’ve never looked at him with it. As far as Steve’s concerned, no one’s ever smiled at him the way you do, and you barely even know him. You hadn’t seen him in over a year and if you shared any words in the past, it wasn’t anything more than snarky one-liners. But here you are, looking at him with sunshine anyway.

“Hi,” you beam with the warmest grin he’s ever seen, swiveling in your chair to face him. “Welcome in.”

He’s too stunned by the sight of you to respond. He just stands in the doorway, all wide-eyed and gaping, like he’s the first to see an angel on earth. And it’s strange because you’re far from perfect.

You’re blousy and a little disheveled, like you’d been running late that morning. The lack of makeup allows your imperfections to shine through in a way that makes you somehow more alluring. And you’ve got paint splattered like freckles on your cheeks, the culprit being the figurines you’re painting behind the counter. If you know you’re dotted with shades of red, blue, and green, you don’t show it.

“Can I help you find anything?” you ask him, still kind even though he’s acting like a fucking weirdo. That’s supposed to be your thing, not his.

Steve grasps for something to say but comes up short. His lips part and then close again in an embarrassing pattern that resembles a fish out of water. It makes sense, though; it’s a bit how you’ve made him feel just now.

When he realizes he can’t make out anything intelligible, he shakes his head. “Uh… nope.”

He’s leaving before he even realizes he’s leaving. The door dings again and he’s on the other side of it, long legs carrying him the short distance to Family Video at record speed.

He swings and slams the egress shut in quick succession, as though the ghost of you had been chasing him. He leans against the glass pane and exhales a heaving sigh, eyes squeezing shut as he recoils at what he’d just done.

He always knew that King Steve had died some time ago, but this was a new low.

Robin watches from the front counter with wide eyes. “…Did you forget something?”

Steve sighs a big, hopeless sigh, then peeks his eyes open. “My dignity.”

“She’s cute, right?” she asks, already knowing the answer. Her brows bounce in time with the smirk on her painted lips.

“Yeah, she’s cute,” he answers, all mad because it’s obvious. “She’s fucking— she’s beautiful.”

“Aw. Look at you,” she sing-songs and tilts her head to her shoulder. “I think your heart grew three sizes today, Stevie.”

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

I never find out 'til I'm head over heels.

Steve, all caught up in his boyish misery, has no idea that he’s enraptured you in a similar way.

You hadn’t cared very much for the guy in high school. You didn’t really know him then, and you didn’t particularly want to. King Steve was rich. King Steve was pretty — too pretty. King Steve got attention from pretty cheerleaders and overaggressive douchebags alike.

King Steve didn’t need any affection from the local freakshow.

But, by some strange turn of events, he’d managed to make nice with your best friend.

The way Eddie talks about Steve, his words always dripping with a distant venom, it sounds like they still hate each other. Maybe they do. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to admit that they hang out far too often not to be friends.

If you were still in school, you probably would’ve judged him for it. Being friends with the boy whose buddies made your life hell certainly warranted some degree of ridicule. But now, having graduated and trying to move on from it all, you can’t find it in yourself to.

High school might as well have been a lifetime now. There’s no use in holding onto old ghosts.

If Eddie could let that shit go, so could you.

He drops by after school to keep you company like he always does when he doesn’t have a campaign to prep for. It’s his favorite pastime, perhaps a close second to Dungeons and Dragons. He gets to hang out with his best friend and swim in an ocean of music while he does it. As far as freaks go, Eddie Munson considers himself the luckiest.

He likes to hear you talk about everything new you’ve gotten in while he rifles through the old stuff that isn’t selling as well. You happily let him take what he wants for free. And what he doesn’t take, he doesn’t pay for either, because you cheat the system with your employee discount and then wipe the record from inventory. Just to be safe.

“I love having a criminal for a best friend,” he jokes every time, without fail.

Eddie stays by your side until the sun sets. He parts only to flip the sign at the door to closingfor you, then plops himself back on the counter again. His legs hang off the side of it, sneakers occasionally thudding against the wood when he kicks them back and forth too hard. He scans the back of an old Lynyrd Skynyrd vinyl and bobs his head to the rhythmic bass as the song fills the empty store. He’ll take this one home, he decides.

You keep on painting like you have been all day, breaking only to assist customers or stretch your aching spine. The forest dragon had been far more work than you expected — made of pretty purple leaves instead of scales and blowing blush-colored flowers instead of fire. The little piece of clay has resulted in a day of back-breaking work.

You’ll be damned if Eddie’s next campaign isn’t the most stellar looking one yet.

Focusing on that makes it easier not to bring up Steve.

You want to. You just don’t know how.

Eddie’s friends were Eddie’s, and you don’t get involved where it doesn’t concern you. Besides, you did sort of give him shit for hanging out with The Hair way back when. The last thing you want is him taking the piss out of you about it.

You don’t want to sound like you care too much. Even more, you don’t want it to be obvious that you’ve been thinking about the boy all day — making yourself sick as you stew in what could’ve run him out like he did.

“Saw your friend today,” you remark, feigning a sort of absentmindedness, as you swipe your brush along the petals of your dragon. “King Steve.”

“Oh, you met him?” Eddie wonders, more intrigued by your words than you expected he’d be. He says it like you didn’t already know the guy — like this new Steve was a totally different person you needed to be reacquainted with to really know.

“I wouldn’t say met him exactly. He just, like, popped in for half a second and ran out.”

With your back facing him, you don’t see the shit-eating grin that pulls at the corners of his mouth.

Eddie was waiting for Steve to crack and finally see you. He knew he’d bite after the way the kids had talked about you — Dustin, especially. Because even though he claims he doesn’t have favorites, he’s got a very obvious soft spot for the boy. And he knew Steve would like you because everyone likes you. When they’re not clouded by judgment and high school hierarchies, at least.

He’s still got no idea how a guy that trips all over himself at the sight of a pretty girl could’ve ruled Hawkins once upon a time.

“Fucking idiot,” Eddie laughs to himself, already gearing up for the shit he was going to give Steve the next time he saw him.

But you see the boy before Eddie does. Steve comes back the next day, an hour or more after opening, less frazzled than the day before. The nearly twenty-four hours he had to prepare himself for the angel he was going to see allowed him not to make a total fool of himself when he stepped into the store again.

And you wouldn’t say it out loud — hell, it’s not even something you want to admit to yourself — but you’d been hoping he’d stop by again.

You thought Robin would come by and drag him with her, or that Dustin and his friends would come around before Steve dropped them all home. Frankly, you didn’t really care what brought him back. You just wanted to see him again.

Steve’s different than the boy he used to be. Enough that it was obvious from a measly thirty-second interaction. He used to be a charmer who could talk his way out of anything. Not to you, of course, he wouldn’t have been caught dead talking to you. But then he stops by out of nowhere, in rare form, stumbling all over himself and looking like he didn’t recognize you at all.

You’re still trying to figure out if that was a good thing or not.

He’s mystified you in a way he probably isn’t used to. Most girls like the hair and the arms — the super buff, super strong arms that fit so nicely in his uniform — or the fact that he’s got money and a reputation that precedes him. But you’ve never given a shit about any of that.

You’re more enchanted by the way nothing could even begin to conceal the soft, shy boy that King Steve had apparently turned into.

The door chimes above his head when he enters. The scent of earthy nostalgia is already familiar to him — lavender, sage, and something deeper. Steve considers it progress when he plants himself a few feet away from the door this time. If he runs out again, he’ll have to make an embarrassingly longer escape.

You turn away from your nearly finished figurine to greet the new customer. The practiced smile unconsciously widens at the sight of him. “Hi!”

“Hey,” he smiles with a curt nod. He regrets the half-wave he gives you the second his hand shoots up.

“You gonna run off on me again?” you tease and swivel in your chair to face him completely.

You’re wearing a Hellfire shirt that’s just slightly too big for you. It probably belonged to Eddie before it belonged to you. And you wear a corset-looking thing over top of it, a sheer number with a lace embroidery and a ribbon that’s tied in a bow at your belly. It doesn’t cinch you in the slightest, though, more for decoration than practicality.

“No that was… I just—” Steve huffs out a laugh as he tries and fails to come up with an excuse. He figures anything is better than the truth — that he saw how pretty you were and his brain forgot how to work because he’s the lamest person on the planet.

So he chucks a thumb over his shoulder and fibs. “I left something back at Family Video. Had to run back.”

“It’s okay. I was just teasing,” you assure. “Uh— Are you looking for anything specific?”

“No. Not really. Just… new records to add to my collection, you know?”

“Oh, you collect vinyls?”

He doesn’t realize that’s what he’s just said until you repeat the words back to him.

He’s kind of just talking out of his ass and hoping something sticks. That line does, apparently, because you’re beaming at him instantly. He’s scared to say no because then you’ll stop smiling. And he can’t have that.

“Yep,” he answers with a nod. The stack of records collecting dust in his den has to count for something, right?

He can’t find it in himself to regret his little white lie when it has you lighting up like a christmas tree.

You toss your paintbrush down when you rush from behind the counter to meet him. You seem to have forgotten that you’d just dipped the thing in purple paint. The thing splatters shades of lilac all over the limestone bench. And, in your haste, you nearly smack yourself with the leaden slab as you raise it to pass by.

Steve’s eyes widen when you narrowly dodge the weighty thing — then jumps, startled by the dense thwap that echoes through the small store when it slams back down again. He’s almost worried that it might’ve busted the hinge.

You cower at the loud sound but move on with a commendable finesse, too focused on him to care about anything else.

“That’s so cool! I’ve always wanted to collect, but records are so expensive, it’s crazy,” you ramble as you walk up to him, totally unthinking in the way you grab his forearm and usher him to the back of the store.

Your sheer black skirt swishes at your ankles as you walk. The dainty fabric is patterned with sparkly stars and crescent moons. He notices you wear a pair of dark shorts underneath for modesty. Steve tries his best not to stare at your ass. He almost succeeds.

“We actually just got in a couple of Dio records — The Holy Diver, you know, the one that just came out. I’m pretty sure there’s only, like, a couple thousand of these things in the whole world — which is totally fucking bonkers if you think about it,” you explain in one breath, laughing, before stopping abruptly in your tracks. Steve nearly runs into you when you turn around to face him.

You laugh again, a sadder one, this time at yourself, as you bring your palm to your forehead. “Sorry. I don’t— I don’t even know if you like Dio. I mean, of course, you don’t, right? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… rambled like that.”

You’d just been so excited and Steve had just been so different that you forgot who you were talking to. Hawkins High Royalty, Prom King, Biggest Flirt and Life of the Party in the yearbook.

As far as you’re concerned, Eddie Munson is your only friend. He’s the only person in the whole world you can be yourself around and never get self-conscious about any of it.

But sometimes you have moments like this one with a total stranger. Moments where you lose yourself in the conversation and your own jumbled thoughts. Moments where you talk and talk and talk until something thumps you on the head and you realize how annoying you’re being. This time, it’s the musky smell of his cologne that knocks you back to Ms. Click’s history class. The crisp breeze of bitter nostalgia makes you shiver.

Steve can see the way you get so suddenly aware of yourself and how the cognizance of the moment makes you writhe. He tries to bat away the lingering insecurities with a smile.

“Love ‘em,” he responds with a nod. He raises his brows and scoffs, grins and crosses his arms over his chest. “I mean, Dio? God, they’re like… top ten bands of all time, at least. Maybe even five.”

That isn’t totally true. He doesn’t know much about the band to have an opinion, but he’s pretty sure he might’ve said he hated them once. That was only because Eddie wouldn’t stop talking about them, though. Steve could learn to like them, if it means so much to you.

That’s exactly how he justifies spending $60 on four records.

He tells himself that he’ll listen to them and think of you, that it’ll be a solid conversation starter the next time he sees you.

You had a whole damn rack dedicated to all your favorite bands — “I put it together myself,” you’d bragged with a proud smile. S it’s a wonder Steve didn’t walk out with the entire damn store. Because you just kept on smiling and talking, so happy to have someone to care about what you had to say, and he ate up every second of it.

He’ll have to work overtime to keep his pockets from hurting, but it’ll be worth it. Because he’ll get to keep talking to you and indulging in all the things you seem to love more than life itself.

You’re still rambling as you ring him up. Steve notices you haven’t stopped yourself like you did before. His lack of dismissal has made you more comfortable, it seems. He likes that.

“I think we’re also gonna get a couple cases of Def Leppard cassettes tomorrow, which is super sick. I think I might have to start collecting, honestly. Tapes are whole lot cheaper than records, you know,” you tell him as you scan and bag all his vinyls. “And it’s also, like, a fucking stellar album. I don’t think I’ve stopped listening to Photograph since it came out.”

“Photograph. Right. Love that one,” Steve nods with a kind smile as he props his elbows on the counter. He doesn’t particularly care that he’s not entirely sure what you’re talking about, or that he’s never actually heard the song. He’s starting to realize you could talk for hours and he wouldn’t get bored.

“Oh, is that your favorite too? Eddie’s more of a Foolin’ kinda guy.”

Despite the fact that he’s never heard the song or this album in his life, he nods anyway.

He sort of spent the first eighteen years of his life faking just about everything — it kind of came with being the King of Hawkins High. It’s a talent that hasn’t yet left him, it seems, lying through his teeth to impress people. It’s almost become a second nature to him.

“Foolin’s good, yeah, but I think Photograph is obviously better.”

“Obviously, right!” you exclaim with a sunshine-coated laugh. “That’s exactly what I told him! But he’s way too hard-headed to be wrong about anything, so…”

“Well, I’d like to put it on the record that I firmly agree with you,” Steve replies so smoothly that his tongue must be dripping with honey. It’s so easy for him to fall into King Steve mode — when he isn’t forgetting how to speak and running off, that is.

You’ve learned a lot Steve in the past half hour. He likes metal, but leans more toward rock. Particularly all the metal and rock that you like. He hasn’t once had a differing opinion than you, besides telling you he heard Eddie playing a Metallica song once that he didn’t particularly care for. The second you tell him it’s one of your favorites, he backtracks instantly, blaming the Munson boy for being too sloshed to play it properly.

And you don’t miss the way he’s looking at you just now either, with his chin toward his chest as he peers up at you with warm amber eyes. He’s the charmer that he always was. It makes you remember, again, just who you’re talking to.

“We have a lot in common, King Steve,” you lilt with a playful grin.

He deflates at the use of the old nickname. You see the light in his eyes flicker for a just moment before he’s ducking his gaze away from you completely. He tries to brush it off with a laugh. “Yeah, I’m not— I’m not really King Steve anymore…”

“No?”

“Nope. Just… Just Steve these days.”

When he looks back at you, he finds you nodding at him, almost in approval.

Most people are upset to find that he’s changed so much. They hate that he’s no longer the recklessly stupid dumbass they used to get drunk with.

Not you, though.

“Cool,” you mumble, smiling softly, as you hand him his bag and receipt.

“Uh, I’d love to, you know, come take a look at those tapes when you get ‘em in,” he says as he walks backward towards the door, finally making the brash offer he’s been thinking about this whole time. “Maybe I can bring lunch and we can—”

“Well, Hellfire’s been doing campaigns during lunch recently. And Gareth’s out sick, so I’ve been subbing for him, you know, so…” you interject awkwardly, shifting your weight on your feet. You hate to turn him down, but Eddie might just kill you if he has to get a substitute for the substitute.

“Oh…” he nods, softly puckering his plump pink lips that you can’t seem to stop staring at.

“But I don’t think they’re coming in until late, anyway,” you add quickly. “So, you can stop by at closing, if you want?”

“No, yeah, that’s cool. So cool,” he replies, a little more flustered than he’d been just moments before. He’s just happy that your rejection wasn’t a total refusal.

You try to bite back the wide grin threatening to take over your mouth. “Okay… I’ll catch you later, then, Just Steve.”

“See you,” he waves right before startling himself when he backs into the basket of clearance tapes sitting just beside the door. He barely catches the thing before it tips over completely. He flashes you a shaking smile afterward and finds you covering your mouth with your hand while you try not to laugh too loudly.

He wishes you’d just went ahead and laughed at him. He wouldn’t have even cared that you were laughing at him, if it meant he got to see you smile.

And even though he’d just gotten done making the biggest fool of himself, he walks back to work feeling like the coolest man alive. There’s a foreign strut in his step that hadn’t been there before he saw you. It doesn’t leave him when he realizes he’s gone slightly over his break and that Keith is manning the counter in his absence.

The man mumbles a monotoned goodbye to the customer he’d just checked out.

She turns around and Steve realizes he recognizes this girl — Mindy or Mandy or maybe Monica — from Mr. Kaminsky’s class way back when. She did all of his homework for him before and after letting him fuck her on her twin-sized bed in her all pink room. That’s when Steve was conquering girls like they were Mount Everest, way before Nancy, when King was a title he wore with pride.

But he’s still so stuck in his head with thoughts of you that he doesn’t even see Mindy-Mandy-Monica or the flirtatious wave she throws his way.

“You’re ten minutes late,” Keith scolds, with his dead tone and his deader eyes.

Steve only shrugs, uncaring if it came out of his paycheck because — “I just got a date with the hottest woman on the planet,” he boasts with a puffed out chest and too smug smile.

It doesn’t lessen Keith’s anger, just diverts it. Because he knows exactly who he’s talking about. And so does Robin, as she pops her head out from behind the man from where she sits at the computer. “No way,” they chorus in disbelief at his words.

Steve nods. “Yes way.”

“Eddie’s gonna kill you,” Robin remarks with the shake of her head.

He knows she’s right. He just doesn’t care.

Eddie’s always been protective of you. Everyone knows that. But the two of them were friends now — or somewhat good-natured acquaintances, at the very least. He would’ve been mad about a year or more ago, if King Steve had decided to suddenly woo his best friend.

But it’s different now. He’s different now. Eddie knows how much everything’s changed, it’s just a question of if he’s willing to rehash old wounds.

It’s a good thing Steve knows how to take a punch.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Don't take my heart, don't break my heart.

Steve finds you again the next day less happy than he’s gotten used to.

The record store is dim and the red sign at the entrance has been flipped to closed, but the door is left unlocked — for him. The warm scent is a distinct contrast to the frigid spring night, a cozy high hemp and lavender, but your absence is noticeable and terribly heavy.

Steve lingers in the doorway, his shadow looming like a giant before him from the moonlight streaming in from outside.

He calls for you in the emptiness.

“Uh… Punchy?”

He’s relieved when you answer. The “back here!” you shout to him is muffled and far away. He follows the sound of your voice, filled suddenly with a childlike consolation.

The yellow fairy lights dangling over his head guide him through the aisles of cassettes and closer to you. Through a cluttered backroom, Steve finds you standing just outside an opened door — left ajar, for him.

The smile you flash when you see him is as dim as the closed-down store. It lacks all the sunshine you usually look at him with, shades of stormy gray rather than the usual yellows.

A look of concern flashes across his features — furrowed brows and inquisitive twinkling eyes — as you take a drag from the lit cigarette caught between your pointer and middle finger. You muster your best grin, but it flickers like a shoddy radio signal.

“Punchy, huh?” you tease.

Steve’s brows pinch together as confusion floods his features. It takes him a moment to realize what he’d said and the nickname he’d used — and he doesn’t want to be dramatic or anything, but he kinda wants to die. It’s embarrassing, he thinks, to hold on to an old high school monicker. And, fuck, if you hate it half as bad as he hates being called king, he deserves a slap to the face right about now.

You laugh instead of ball your first. He’s able to smile meekly in relief. “Oh. Shit. Sorry, I… I don’t think I even realized it came out.”

“No, it’s okay,” you assure when you see him getting all apologetic. “Eddie still calls me that all the time, so… Old habits die hard, I guess.”

Steve tries to move on, but it’s hard to when you’re so obviously gloomy. He hates how reserved you’ve gone in your quiet, not talking up a storm like you had been the last time he saw you. Now you’re just… a storm. It’s a little like sitting next to a rumbling rain cloud.

The rumbling rain cloud beside him takes a drag of her cigarette.

“You okay?” he asks and sounds like he really cares.

You didn’t think King Steve was capable of caring about anything other than his hair, but he looks down at you like he can feel every blue bolt of your doom and gloom. He makes you feel seen in the void of your sadness despite all the years you spent being invisible to him.

“Uh, yeah. It’s just the tapes. They didn’t come in,” you answer with a shrug. Smokes leaves your mouth and lingers in white clouds in the air. “So I’m a little bummed.”

“Oh…” is all Steve says and his pink mouth forms a too pretty ‘o’ shape that you can’t draw your gaze from.

The following silence makes you momentarily cautious. Insecurity runs cold over you because no sane person gets this about upset over a broken promise of a couple cassettes. It’s stupid, you know it is, but you were really looking forward to them. It’s like promising a kid the most metal present ever and then snatching it out of their bare hands.

Now, over the course of a couple hours, you’ve managed to convince yourself you won’t remember happiness until you get those stupid tapes.

“Sorry,” you apologize to him for a reason he can’t place. You shift your weight on your feet and peer at him from beneath your lashes. “I know you were looking forward to them, too.”

You extend your hand and offer him the cigarette between your fingers like it’s an olive branch. He takes it from you with a distant smile, then opts to laze against the brick wall like you are. He stays a respectful distance on the other side of the entryway.

“It’s okay. They’ll come. If I’m being honest, you know, I was kinda more excited to see you.”

His admission is brazen and a tad bit brash, even for a certified ex-douchebag. It lacks all of the usual honey-coated flirtation that usually tints his tone when he’s talking to a pretty girl. Because he wasn’t trying to make you swoon — though he certainly wouldn’t have minded if you had. This wasn’t some romantic advance, just a proclamation of his own personal truth.

A flash of shock contorts your features. “Really?”

“Of course,” he answers, breathing out a laugh that exits along with the smoke in his lungs. “I love talking to you. You’re… You’re cool, you know? S— Super cool.”

His face screws up at his stuttering, and he shakes his head at how the words sound leaving his mouth. His cheeks glow cherry red beneath an orange street lamp.

“Super cool, huh?” you repeat with a giggle that’s bright enough to illuminate the velvet night. “I don’t think anyone’s ever called me that before.”

Steve scoffs when he passes the cigarette back to you. Because, lately, that’s all he’s been hearing about you. From Eddie, from Robin, from Dustin — every good thing a person could say about someone else, they all say about you.

He’s starting to understand why.

Because you’re sweet. Like, pure sugar poured on the tip of his tongue kind of sweet. You’re bright like sunshine and soft like summer rain. You’re a shot of pure espresso for a boy who thought his life was at a dead end. He’s not entirely sure how he ever could’ve thought you were some deep, dark, devil-worshipping freak.

“I don’t believe that,” he dismisses with the shake of his head.

You breathe out a sharp exhale and a puff of nicotine-coated smoke. “I’ve been the town pariah since I was eleven, Steve. Everyone thinks I’m some kinda delinquent who’s in a cult because I play a dumb board game. So, no. No one’s ever thought I was cool before.”

“Still?” Steve wonders with a twisted face. “You graduated, like, a year ago. Are... Are people really still on your ass about that?”

“A little,” you answer with a shrug, trying your best not to look as affected by it all as you feel.

Steve feels his chest swell with the fiery urge to protect you. The same one he gets when Dustin tells him about the assholes at school that are bothering him. He wants to defend you from the same sort of assholes that he used to be. The impulse is borderline primal, rooted somewhere deep and far within himself, because god knows he’s got a terrible track record when it comes to winning fights.

“Shit, Punchy… I’m— I’m sorry.”

You sputter out a laugh at the apology, louder when you realize he’s using the nickname again.

He can’t relate to any of this. The trials and tribulations of being persona non grata everywhere you went were certainly lost on him. Steve might’ve lost his touch somewhere down the road, but he’ll always be crown royalty — the kind of guy you think fondly of when your wonderyears are long gone. But you? You’re lucky if people don’t cross to the other side of the street when they spot you coming.

Perhaps that’s why his words warm you so much. Because, despite all that, he’s trying to make you feel better anyway.

You give him a tender smile and a dwindling cigarette.

“It’s okay. I mean, it’s whatever, you know? I think it’s because I still hang out with Eddie all the time. Like, people see us and remember what fucking freaks we used to be,” you say with a laugh, then start to ramble without thinking. “We saw Tommy Hagan at Melvald’s the other day, and he looked at us like we caused him severe PTSD or something, like, he looked terrified. I honestly felt a little bad.”

Steve smiles, wide-eyed, equal parts intrigued and unsettled by the reminiscent glimmer in your eye and the daunting giggle that spills from your lips.

“But I wouldn’t leave Eddie, you know?” you blurt, suddenly serious, like you’ve taken offense at the very thought. “Not even if it meant people stopped being so mean. ‘Cause I love him and everything… Even though he’s a pain in the ass.”

“Oh, he’s a total pain in the ass,” Steve agrees and flicks the butt of the cig between his fingers. “He loves you too, though. I can tell. The asshole never shuts up about you.”

“He talks about me?” you ask, voice fragile and pitched higher than normal.

Steve doesn’t like the way you say it. He hates how you look at him even more, with a scrunched up face and eyes that flicker with embers of shock. Like you don’t believe it, like you think yourself unworthy of it.

“You’re all he talks about,” the boy assures, feeling so suddenly brave and wanting to make you feel brave too. He hands the cigarette back to you. “I don’t blame him. If I were him, I’d never shut up about you either.”

The contorted look of confusion on your face untwists itself, and your features fall flat with disbelief. A smile pulls slow at your mouth. Your eyes glitter an orange gold beneath the streetlight. They flit over to the boy beside you just long enough to take the stick from him.

“Steve Harrington…” you lilt, almost scoldingly so.

It makes him smile. “What?”

“Stop flirting with me.”

“Well, that’s very presumptuous of you,” he retorts playfully. “Who’s to say I was flirting?”

“So you weren’t then?”

“Maybe a little,” he shrugs with a knowing, practiced smirk. “Can you blame me?”

You don’t seem impressed by his not-so-subtle attempt at flirting, and he isn��t at all used to that. The bravado and the puppy dog eyes are his one-two punch — any other time, he’d have a phone number tucked safely in his pocket by now. But you’re not biting.

“I’m so not your type,” you dismiss with the shake of your head.

“Yeah?” he challenges, shoving himself off the brick wall with his shoulder and making the short trek over to you. He plants himself next to you, leans with one sneaker crossed over the other, and smiles with a playful twinkle in his eye. “And what’s my type?”

“Nancy Wheeler,” you answer without missing a beat. “Pretty girls.”

“Well, I think you’re very pretty—”

“Not like her,” you interject with a foreign firmness that Steve hasn’t seen from you until now. You’re still smiling at him, though, still kind but looking like you don’t believe him. Like you think this must be some kind of sick joke that he’s taking too far.

You can entertain Steve. You like Steve. Mostly because he’s totally different from the douchebag you remember him being — the douchebag you were expecting him to be.

You find that he’s terribly clumsy and not overtly good with words. He says dumb jokes that don’t come out right and smiles in relief when they make you laugh anyway. He’s soft like peach fuzz or a fluffy cloud, mushy like warm chocolatey gooey goodness, and not at all like you remember him.

But then he does this. He morphs into something else, changes shape right in front of you. He smiles at you with little of his dumbassery behind it — all smirks and faux longing gazes with the intent of making you swoon at his feet. He grins down at you and all you see is the teenage boy who would’ve never looked at you that way four years ago. Hell, not even one.

It reminds you of who he is, who he used to be, and who you are now.

You haven’t changed so much since high school. You’ve matured a little, sure, but there was never an asshole exterior that you felt the need to outgrow. You’re still loud at times, unaware and ignorant of the world around you. You still play lightsabers outside Eddie’s trailer in between lengthy Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. You still pretend like the lingering glares from all the people you used to know don’t bother you.

They do, though. They always have.

You look at Steve and you see this butterfly — someone made of rainbow colors and mostly mature. He’s growing, and you’re stuck in the same cocoon you’ve been wrapped in since freshman year, still fumbling around and trying to figure out where you fit.

He’ll always be the pretty butterfly he always was, with his pretty little iridescent wings that catch the light and all the attention. He’ll feed off the applause he gets while you’re sitting on the sidelines. The girl who’s destined to stay bundled in her cocoon forever only hears all of his praise — never watches, never receives.

“You and I are completely different people, Steve Harrington,” you declare with a grin that tells him you’ve already made up your mind.

The boy doesn’t get it, though, why you seem so upset by the idea. Him and Robin were completely different people. Him and Dustin were, too. The two people he adored — tolerated — most in the entire world weren’t a single thing like him, and it was better that way.

You don’t seem to share a similar philosophy, though. You take a drag from your mostly gone cigarette and mourn what could have been; if only he had been the town freak or you had been born the pretty girl next door.

“That doesn’t have to be such a bad thing—”

He’s abruptly cut off by the sound of muffled rock music and the bright yellow headlights of Eddie Munson’s van. The two of you shield your eyes when he whips into the desolate parking lot and parks in front of you. The sudden intrusion feels like being blinding like the sun after you’ve found such comfort within each other in the dead of night.

The stifled Def Leppard song — or maybe Poison, Steve can never quite tell the difference — is brought to a sharp halt when the engine shuts off. The headlights dim. The metallic slam of the driver’s side door sounds so much louder in the darkness.

Eddie rounds the front of his van and eyes the two of you rather suspiciously. The boy inhales deeply, puffing out his chest and splaying his hands on his hips. “…What’s going on here?” he squints at you.

You give him a terribly manufactured sunshine smile and bat your lashes his way, like you’re pretending to be un-innocent. “Nothing…” you sing-song.

Eddie rolls his eyes at you, then turns his attention to Steve. They’re not really strangers anymore, but he still feels the need to treat him like an outsider anyway.

“Harrington,” he says in the place of any real greeting. “Don’t you have other shit to do? Like, I don’t know, a shift as the mannequin at the GAP or something?”

Steve can’t find it in himself to get self-conscious about his fitted-sweatshirt, khaki-slack combo when the insult comes from a guy in a decade-old leather jacket, unwashed t-shirt, and ripped jeans.

“Very funny,” the brunette monotones.

“I’ll see you around, yeah?” you ask when you turn and walk backwards towards Eddie, like there’s a gravitational pull dragging you to him.

You say it to be polite mostly, but you’re hoping for an affirmative — a promise that you’ll have another night like this one, where he sees you just to be seeing you. Hell, you’ll even take a nod if that’s all he’ll give you. And when he does, he gives you a tiny smile that almost makes you trip over yourself.

Fuck, you think to yourself, like your brain is talking to your heart. We just agreed not to do that.

Before you get in the van, you walk by Eddie and bring your cigarette up to his mouth. You coax the stick between his lips with your pointer and middle finger, opting to let him take the last couple of hits because he never turns down a free smoke.

The passenger door shuts once you’re tucked into the seat of it. The sound it makes punctuates your absence. Steve feels all of its emptiness.

He eyes Eddie from the distance, immediately noticing the darkened skepticism dancing in his dark eyes.

The boy’s always felt the need to protect you. When the entire town got spooked about stories of some satanic panic and started treating you like monsters, he wanted to shield you from the boogeyman everyone turned into.

Steve wasn’t one of them, the bad men. But Eddie loves you and it’s made him doubtful.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Steve feels the need to say, as though he’d been caught with his pants down and not just sharing an innocent cigarette with a friend.

Eddie takes the final few puffs of it and exhales rather dramatically, lips pursing to blow it in his direction though it’s too far away to hit him. The boy throws the filter to the concrete and extinguishes the ashes with the toe of his dirty sneakers.

He waits until the white smoke has fully dissipated to speak.

“Damn right, it isn’t.”

That’s all he says. He doesn’t even look at Steve when he says it, or when he rounds the van and hops into the driver’s seat next to you. Steve squints when the too bright headlights come alive again in time with the roaring engine and dated rock music. His tires screech when he speeds out of the back parking lot.

The tin can he drives nearly tips over when he turns too sharply onto Main Street.

Steve doesn’t get a chance to get a good look at you before you’re gone completely. It makes him all boyishly upset, knowing the hours without you will be most agonizing, but the empty feeling is eclipsed by the warm relief of not getting clock cleaned by Eddie Munson.

Damn right, it isn’t. Four words. That’s all he gets. But they’re daunting and coated with a lingering foreboding that feels almost like a threat.

So, by all accounts, Steve probably should’ve known there was no way Munson was ever going to back down that easily.

Eddie comes back the next day, a thundering storm cloud of the boy he usually is, head wild with curly hair and a million thoughts.

The door dings far too gently for such an aggressive arrival. Metal bangs against metal as the handle collides with the window pane. He stomps to the counter in several quick strides, dark eyes darting around the half-empty store — obviously searching for something.

Robin, manning the front counter, is entirely unable to be threatened by him. The all black, chunky metal rings, and crazy hair stopped being so intimidating when she found out you called him Eddie Spaghetti. Now, it’s all she can think about when she sees him.

Even as he stands ahead of her, obviously upset, all she sees is a very cartoonishly angry Eddie Spaghetti, and it takes everything in her not to laugh.

“Where’s Steve?” the boy finally wonders when he realizes the boy’s not in the front.

“Uh, he’s in the back, I think. Why?”

Eddie doesn’t humor her with an answer. He just storms past the counter and makes a b-line for the break room.

Robin watches him over her shoulder. “You’re not supposed to go back there!” she half-heartedly shouts, but makes no further effort to stop him from doing so.

He finds Steve working beneath the dim yellow light of the back room. There’s a warmed-up container of leftovers on the small round table on one side of the room and a stack of unorganized tapes on the counter on the other. Steve multitasks between both and hums something summery under his breath — The Beach Boys, maybe.

He’s too distracted to notice Eddie’s abrupt appearance. It’s the subtle click of the shut door that gets his attention.

Steve’s confused at first. His head snaps over his shoulder like a ghost must’ve closed the door on him. He realizes that it’s just Eddie, and he’s so innocently relieved that it’s almost humorous, then confused all over again. His brows pinch together and through the chicken tender jutting out his check, he mumbles: “You’re not supposed to be back here—”

“Yeah, I got that part,” Eddie interrupts in a monotone.

He swallows. It’s as thick as the tension that settles between the two of them, made heavier by the lengthy silence. He crosses his arms over his chest, stands up a little straighter, and bares his neck when he lifts his chin. “I want you to leave her alone.”

Steve scoffs and chews through his mouthful. “Leave who alone?”

“You know exactly who I’m talking about,” Eddie squints with an unusual sort of seriousness. “I don’t want you messing around with her anymore, man. I’m, fucking— I’m so fucking serious right now.”

The clarification makes Steve laugh. He shakes his head and goes back to piling the myriad of tapes into organized stacks on the counter. “We were just talking, Eddie. I don’t need the lecture, okay?”

“We both know it’s never just talking with you.”

“What? Are you in love with her or something?” he retorts, trying to make a joke of it.

Eddie, for the first time in his life, isn’t amused. “Oh, god, get over yourself, dude. I know what kinda guy you are, alright? I’m not gonna let you hurt her.”

His words hit Steve like a pot of boiling water. It prickles his skin, leaving blisters and burning red blotches in its wake. He’s all but on fire with his anger, less offended by the accusation than by the person it comes from.

Steve and Eddie aren’t friends by any means. They’re just two guys with shared custody of a bunch of teenagers, bonded in their want to keep them all safe. But through their lighthearted animosity, is a sort of understanding: neither of them are the assholes the entire town claims them to be. Eddie isn’t apart of some satanic cult. Steve isn’t a douchebag that uses women as accessories. And that’s just a silent agreement they’ve both come to on their own terms.

But now here they are, talking like it’s 1984 all over again and they’re strangers who hate each other’s guts.

“No. I’m not gonna hurt her. Because we’re just friends, Eddie.”

The boy just shakes his head. He scrunches his nose like he’s wincing, then laughs — a big, dramatic laugh that fills the tiny break room. He begins to pace, waving an accusatory ringed finger Steve’s way. “No, see… That’s the thing. I don’t think King Steve is capable of being ‘just friends’ with a pretty girl.”

Steve rolls his eyes with a heavy huff. He comes to the conclusion that Eddie’s just projecting and that there’s no use in arguing his case. He shoves a black VHS tape into its designated sleeve and slots it in with the rest of them, muttering under his breath, “I’m not King Steve anymore…”

“What?”

“I said, I’m not King Steve anymore!” he yells, a bit louder than he intended to.

He drives a tape onto the pile with an unexpected aggression. It hits the wall with a resounding thud. His arms flail wildly at his sides when he turns to face Eddie again. “God, you guys act like people can’t change! I’m not the asshole I used to be, alright? Jeez…”

Eddie exhales sharply through his nose in the place of any real reply. Deep down, he knows all that. He knows it’s all true because he would’ve never befriended him otherwise. Steve Harrington — the king, the rich kid, the douchebag — turned out to be a pretty damn good guy.

And maybe if Eddie didn’t love you so much, he’d be able to wrap his head around all that.

But does. So he can’t.

He saw you two together the night before, sharing a cigarette behind The Groove — albeit a little too close for his liking — and suddenly, it was junior year all over again.

You’re stressed out about the ACT and college acceptance rates, none of your clothes quite fit you, and you’re trying out bold things with your makeup that don’t quite fit you either. You grin wildly up at Eddie through the vibrant lipstick smeared on your lips, laughing at his half-hearted attempt to cheer you up.

And Steve is a senior, standing on the other side of the hallway — with his pretty clothes and prettier hair — and he lets all of his friends laugh at you. They make fun of your un-styled hair and the way your shirt makes your boobs look, and Steve doesn’t find any of it particularly funny but he lets them mock you anyway.

Eddie sees you together and forgets about the man Steve is now. All he sees is a boy who never stuck up for you, for either of you, who let his best friends make your lives hell because his reputation mattered more.

And it wasn’t like it was his job to defend you, because it wasn’t. Not really. It’s just that you would’ve done it for him, if the roles were reversed. Eddie, too. Neither of you would’ve let a lamb be led to the slaughter quite like that. It was the Hellfire motto, after all — to protect the little sheep from the creeping wolves.

That’s where the difference lies. It’s where the mistrust settles deep and where the root of all of Eddie’s worries lingers.

But Steve has done more to prove himself than Eddie likes to give him credit for.

He takes care of a bunch of kids like it’s his job. He runs Robin to and from school most days out of the week, on time each morning — which, for a guy who showed up late every day for four years, was definitely saying something. He even comes to Eddie’s shows when he’s not too busy working the graveyard shift, never minding that he sticks out in his collared shirt and slacks — a pretty boy amidst a crowd of freaks.

Fuck. Steve Harrington was a pretty alright dude.

But you’re better than alright. You’re better than good. Better than perfect.

If you got your heart broken, Eddie thinks he’d feel all of it times a thousand.

Steve’s been through his own kind of heartbreak, though. He’s slapped a bandaid over his own bleeding heart, and it’s made him soft. The good kind of soft — the kind where he sees a bug on its back and has to flip it over because it hurts too much to let it suffer. Eddie knows he’ll be that kind to you. Kinder, even.

“Yeah, you better hope so, Harrington,” the boy concludes with a slow nod of his wild head. He steals a chicken tender from the styrofoam box it sits in, like it’s some kind of power move, and waves it at him like a condemnatory point. “I hear you do anything — anything — to her… And your ass is grass.”

Eddie takes a hearty bite from the strip, then tosses it back into the container again. He spins on the ragged heel of his sneaker and stalks out of the break room, punctuating his absence with the slam of the door. The ancient thing gets lodged and doesn’t quite shut all the way, so he has to double back and shut it fully.

Steve is left dumbfounded, in more ways than one.

“…He just ate my chicken,” he mumbles to himself with a frown settled deep between his brows. But there’s a lingering tension in Eddie’s storming out — a tangible fog within his words that settles something heavy in the Family Video breakroom that doubles as storage.

It feels almost like a blessing.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Won't escape my attention...

The more time you spend with Steve, the more confident you get.

You visit him at work more often, caring less and less about bothering anybody when you realize they all wanted you there. You let yourself ramble in front of him, too, not stopping yourself nearly as often as you used to. Steve guesses you started to believe him somewhere around the millionth time he promised he liked hearing you talk.

You turn to glitter in his presence, becoming more unapologetically yourself and glowing with it — with all the things that used to make you insecure, things that King Steve would’ve made fun of you for some time ago. Everything you were scared made you too different, is why he liked you in the first place.

And Steve gets to watch it all play out right before his eyes. You inch slowly out of the protective shell you’ve built around yourself and bloom like springtime flowers. He’s grateful he gets to witness it, even more that you feel comfortable enough to do it all in front of him.

You’re hardly as timid as you usually are when you saunter into Family Video. Rather than tiptoeing in and apologizing for intruding, you burst through the front door with a beam and a high-pitched squeal. You’re as bright as every star in the galaxy combined; even dressed head-to-toe in black, you’re more blinding than the sun.

Eddie’s leather jacket, either stolen or unenthusiastically lent from the boy himself, swallows your upper half. You wear a piece of Metallica merchandise beneath it. The thing is cut up to your ribcage. The jagged edges in the fabric, likely from a dull pair of kitchen scissors, tells him the chop was intentional.

A leather skirt clings effortlessly onto you, revealing the pudge of your stomach and the curves of your hips. The thing is donned with two spiked belts and several chains hanging loosely at your waist.

Steve is dozing at the counter with his chin propped on his first when you walk in. He’s half-asleep until he sees you. The shot of espresso that walks in makes him instantly forget how tired he is.

“Guess what?” you ask with wide, sparkling eyes as you skip to the counter with your hands behind your back.

Steve always hated that question. Usually, it came from Dustin or Robin — or, god forbid, both of them — followed by a “No, seriously. Guess.” It left him with no choice but to humor them until they ultimately caved and told him something he couldn’t have guessed in a million years.

He isn’t so annoyed now, though. In fact, he smiles. “What?” he replies.

You pull your bottom lip between your teeth, as though in a futile attempt to conceal the wide grin on your face, and take your hands from behind your back. You flash him the cassette tape you hold in the palm of them, a blue and yellow thing with the angled Def Leppard logo printed on the cover.

“No way!” Steve finds himself exclaiming like he’s the number one fan of the rock and roll band. He isn’t; never has been, really. But he is a fan of you. All of his excitement, all of his bright and shining smiles — they’re all for you.

“They came in last night— when I was off, of course— and I opened this morning and there was a whole damn tower of these tapes! I’m the one who does the tape towers, okay? Plus, I’ve been doggin’ my manager for weeks about the things, so I can’t believe they came in and no one told me, you know?”

Steve gets lost in your rambling right along with you, nodding because he never wants you to stop talking. His twinkling gaze follows you back and forth as you pace in front of the counter. You gesticulate wildly with your hands, nearly elbowing a customer when they get too close to the line of fire.

“And she was all like ‘I can’t control when they come in,’ And I was like ‘well, you can’t control when I come in either, I’ll be taking a long lunch now, thank you’—” you recount, albeit at a slightly louder volume that shocks anyone who doesn’t know you. People shoot you lingering side eyes from over the aisles.

Steve doesn’t care. He’s even happier that you don’t seem to either. You feel comfortable enough with him now to stop caring about the rest. When you stop yourself, you do it because you’ve said everything you need to say, not because you feel like you’ve annoyed him in some way.

“Anyway,” you conclude with a sigh. “I wanted to run it to you personally because, besides Eddie, you’re the only person I know who cares as much as I do.”

You smile sweetly at him, peering at him through your lashes, so suddenly timid — no longer the boisterous girl lighting up the whole room. Steve notices that you do that a lot, go from loud and sunny to shy and glimmering. Eddie does it too, sometimes, but it’s not nearly as cute.

“My wallet’s in my locker,” he tells you when you hand him the tape. He cocks his thumb over his shoulder with his free hand. “Let me go grab it. I’ll be, like, two seconds—”

You reach over the counter and take him by the arm, wrapping chipped maroon nails around the crook of his elbow to keep him from straying too far. Shock coats his features at the suddenness of your touch and the way it makes him buzz.

You scoff. “Are you serious? I’m not gonna make you pay, you weirdo.”

“No?”

“Of course not! It’s a gift.”

“Well, gee, Punchy. Considered me flattered,” he concedes with a faltering smile.

You laugh at his half-hearted attempt to be charming.

He rests his crossed arms on the counter and leans over the top of it in an effort to be the slightest bit closer to you. He gazes up at you with honey eyes and raised brows and a big, dumb smile. “And, you know, flattery... it goes a long way with me.”

You arch an un-manicured brow at him. “Does it, now?”

“Yep. So much so, I’m willing to break a few rules and let you pick out a couple of movies. On the house.”

It’s dumb and it’s sweet and so terribly innocent. He wants to give you so much than that but he’s got about eighteen dollars to his name, so all he can do is offer you a few measly VHS tapes. It has you beaming like he just offered you the world.

“Steve Harrington,” you scold playfully. “I didn’t know you were so naughty.”

He falters. His resolve slips and, for no more than half a second, his brain forgets how to work.

He’s not quite sure how you manage to do that to him all the damn time. You make his brain shortcircuit and his belly quiver and his vision swim. He’s known you for a while now, long enough that the lovesickness should’ve well worn off.

Steve’s worried that there’s no cure for you, that he’s in it for the long haul now — upset stomachs, heart palpitations, and all.

“Well, I’m full of surprises,” he shrugs and sways on his feet. “What’s your poison, Punchy? Molly Ringwald? Robert Downey Jr.? The John Hughes type?”

You can tell he’s joking. You squint over at him and rest your elbows on the counter top your face-to-face.

The wintergreen mint on his breath makes your head swim.

Your rouge-tined lips are so close he can taste them — he wants to, desperately so.

You don’t miss the way his gaze flits to your mouth, lingering there for no longer than a blink.

“Try Night of the Living Dead,” you challenge.

“That is so dreadfully on brand for you,” he manages to reply without much stuttering. He’s surprised he’s able to get any words out at all, with the way his heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest.

“I’m nothing if not predictable.”

Steve doesn’t respond as he leaves the counter to get what you asked for. Silence is easier than saying that you’re the most surprising thing he’s ever met in his life.

When he returns, he brings the entire film franchise with him. All three movies are stacked in his arms and he scans the backs of them, hoping Keith won’t notice that they’re being rented free of charge.

“Have you ever seen them?” you wonder.

He shakes his head. “No. I saw one of them at a drive-in a long time ago, but I wasn’t exactly paying attention, if you know what I mean—” he answers with a soft laugh, quick to cut himself off. It was supposed to be a dumb joke, but both of you know what he was insinuating and it makes everything awkward.

Robin would’ve slapped him on the back of the head if she were around to hear it.

He would’ve deserved it.

“Well, you missed out,” you scold, not quite meeting his gaze. “They’re actually pretty good.”

“I’ll try and watch ‘em sometime then.”

“Tonight?” you offer suddenly.

Steve furrows his brows. “…Huh?”

“I mean, like— I don’t know… I thought maybe we could watch them tonight,” you stammer with your eyes turned down toward the counter, where you draw invisible patterns onto the granite with the tip of your finger. “Like, together… if you want.”

Steve is momentarily speechless. He’s spent weeks plotting how he was going to ask you out. It would come to him in waves. He’d feel like he’d concocted the most perfect, foolproof plan right before realizing there was no way in hell he could ever go through with it — all in the same fleeting thought.

But here you are, biting the bullet for the both of you.

He’s grateful. He thinks he’s dreaming.

“That sounds…” Steve trails off with the mindless nod of his head. “Yeah. No. Totally. That sounds… really cool.”

A wide smile pulls at the edges of your lips. You purse your mouth to the side in attempts to conceal it. “Cool,” you murmur all cool-ly, like his affirmation isn’t heaven to your ears.

“Uh, not to sound like a total douchebag or whatever, but my dad— he’s got this theater room and everything, and my parents are almost never home,” Steve rambles as he puts all three movies into a paper bag. Then his eyes go wide and his face glows cherry red. “Not like that! I didn’t mean it like— That sounded really weird… I’m sorry—”

You giggle at him, at the way he can pretend to be so suave, and then reveal all the marshmallow fluff he tries to keep hidden a moment later. “It’s okay, Steve. I got what you meant.”

He writes his address on a yellow sticky note with the Family Video logo printed in green at the very top. His handwriting is boyish and sloppy, the sign of a boy who never did care much about school. Some letters are connected, others far apart; some written too big, while others are too small. You find it endearing, but Steve knows it’s just because his hand was shaking something fierce.

He leaves his number written at the very bottom. Just for good measure.

“No funny business, alright, Harrington?” you joke, waving a ringed finger at him as you walk backward out of the store, heading back to your own job.

Steve bites back a smile. Once upon a time, he was all funny business. No girl was ever going to invite King Steve over and not expect some heavy petting. And he wants so badly to kiss you — fuck, he wants to kiss you all the time — but the want to spend innocent time with you eclipses all of those boyish feelings.

He yearns to be close to you. Like magnets. Or a moon and the ocean’s tide.

“No funny business,” he promises.

˗ˋˏ ♡ ˎˊ˗

You keep your distance with a system of touch.

It isn’t until you arrive at the front gates of the Harrington home you realize you’ve never been in the suburbs of Hawkins before.

You grew up on the very outskirts of town, where there were more trees than people or houses. The block was half rundown already and horribly secluded. The only interesting thing about it was the winding trail through the woods that led to the anterior of Forest Hills trailer park.

That’s where you spent the bulk of your time, practically living with Eddie and Wayne in their one-bedroom trailer, until you felt guilty enough to go back home for a day or two. Your parents would inevitably remind you why you ran off in the first place, and then the cycle would start all over again.

It was all just far enough away from Hawkins that you could pretend like the town’s bullshit didn’t exist. The freak from the wrong side of the tracks didn’t belong on Maple Street or Fairview Road or Laurel Avenue. That was for people who could afford new shoes every school year, who could go clothes shopping and not feel guilty about cutting into their food money, who were set up with trust funds before they were even born.

But here you are now, on Fairview Road, seven o’clock sharp, and standing in front of the biggest house you’d ever seen.

You ring the doorbell and flinch when it’s louder than expected. The chime is light and jaunty. You wonder if it’s been programmed for the change in season.

Steve answers no more than a couple seconds later. He swings both French doors open, arms spreading wide like the smile on his face.

He’s traded in his slacks for comfier jeans and his vest for a form-fitting sweatshirt he’s bunched at the elbows. You realize, then, that you’ve never seen him without the forest green Family Video jacket. It makes him look naked, almost, like a totally different person — no longer the dork who works a measly nine-to-five with his best friend and visits the freak next door on the off chance his manager won’t dock his pay for it.

The vest had humbled him to a certain extent. Now he just looks cool. Like the boy people would either praise or avoid like the plague, for fear of getting in King Steve’s path — just a little bit more mature looking now, with his chiseled jaw and scruffy chin.

It makes you feel a little stupid from where you stand on the porch ahead of him, wearing the same thing he’d seen you in earlier that day. He’s got no idea you spent the past couple of hours agonizing over what to wear. For the sake of not seeming crazy overzealous, you opted not to dress up. Now you’re scared he thinks you just didn’t care enough to.

But you do care. So goddamn much that’s it scary.

You never had to worry about what you wore or what you looked like before you left the house, about what you had too much of and what you lacked. Now, it’s all you can think about.

If Steve notices anything at all, he doesn’t show it. He just keeps on smiling at you, too happy to see you to care about what you’re wearing. He’s just glad that you showed up.

Truth be told, he had a six-pack and Robin’s number on speed dial on the off chance you canceled on him. He was preparing himself to wallow in self-pity and spend the rest of the night ranting to his best friend about the bleeding heart he had for you. Because, as far as he was concerned, you were far too good to be true.

You were beautiful and funny and kind and perfect. You treat him like you’ve known him for years, like he didn’t spend so many of them avoiding you in attempts to keep some measly title that didn’t mean shit. You were too perfect. Sometimes, Steve gets scared that he just made you up.

But whether you’re a dream come true or the real thing, you’re standing on his front porch anyway, with a smile and a bottle of grocery store wine.

He saves the beer in his fridge and the wallowing for another day.

Steve escorts you through his lavish living room and to the downstairs area that’s got a movie screen hanging on the walls and a couple of leather couches sitting in front of it. The coffee table in front of them holds a myriad of glass bowls — popcorn, various candies, and more popcorn.

“You planning on throwin’ a party down here, Harrington?” you tease with a soft chuckle, trying to conceal how your heart’s about to burst at the mere sight of it all.

“Well, I just— I didn’t know what you liked, and I didn’t— I wanted to make sure you had something to eat, you know,” the boy stammers out. He brings the palm of his hand to rub at the back of his neck. “So I just… I got… everything.”

“It’s a good thing a like everything then, huh?” you smile at him as you pluck a Red Vine from its dedicated bowl. You rip off an inch or two with your teeth and then talk as you chew: “I hope you’re prepared for all of this shit get eaten, Harrington. I can get quite ravenous.”

Steve nods to himself and tries not to smile too big. “Sounds entertaining… Maybe I’ll just watch you instead of the movie.”

It was supposed to be a joke.

But then you settled down next to him on the couch, keeping a respectful distance but sharing the same fuzzy blanket, and he has to physically force himself to drag his gaze away from you.

He was right about what he said before, you were far more entertaining than the black and white film projected ahead of him — grabbing handfuls of popcorn at a time and quoting the movie through the mouthful.

It’s a tad bit barbaric, the faintest bit off-putting, and otherworldly levels of endearing. It leaves him virtually unable to take his eyes off of you.

He didn’t think you could get more beautiful, but you keep on proving him wrong.

He’s starting to realize he doesn’t know shit.

You’re slowly coming to the same understanding.

You’ve heard stories about Steve. Usually from gossiping cheerleaders standing in circles at their lockers or whispering in the back of a classroom. Doomed as the freak and all but banished from the inner society of Hawkins High, you became an observer. You were so invisible that people sometimes didn’t realize they were talking right over you, sharing secrets they wouldn’t want someone else to get a hold of.

But apparently you were the exception. Because you weren’t a someone to them.

They talked about how kind he was, how well endowed, how they were meant to go on some stupid date but missed their reservation because Steve got a little too handsy beforehand, and how they spent the rest of the night with their hands shoved down each other’s pants at Lover’s Lake.

You were seeing, firsthand, how much he’d changed. How he made his promise of no funny business and how he was sticking to it — no teasing you about the whole thing with a knowing smirk and flirtatious honey eyes, no urging to close this distance between you, no tiny touches on your arm or thigh in the hopes of heavier petting.

He spends the entirety of the first movie perfectly respectful. Just like you’d asked him to be.

And it was nice, knowing that you weren’t wasting your evening with some asshole who was only spending time with you in the hopes of you putting out later. But it leaves you the faintest bit empty. Hungry. You long for his touch like a missed meal. Starving and feeling it all.

It’s not even heavy petting you want, you just want to feel him next to you — to press yourself into his side and to warm yourself with him like a blanket.

But you weren’t a pretty cheerleader or a girl dripping in expensive clothes and daddy’s money. You were the weirdo, the freak, the loudmouth nerd, Punchy — all names you wore proudly, like lit-up signs or steel armor.

Until now.

Now you think if you weren’t Punchy, if were you someone different, then maybe he’d want to touch you more.

The first hour and thirty-seven minutes of your favorite movie are strangely agonizing.

Your hands itch with the desire to touch the boy next to you, and they busy themselves with the bowls of candy and savory junk food splayed out on the table in front of you. It’s mindless more than it is anything. You’re absentminded binging does nothing more than half-distract you from the thoughts raging rivers in your skull.

You don’t even realize you’re doing it until your hand falls into an empty bowl of popcorn and finds nothing but kernels at the bottom of it.

It makes Steve laugh, thinking you were just too into the movie to notice — having no idea it was him taking up all your brain power.

He leaves to fix more snacks for you while you slip the second VHS into the movie player. He returns with a bowl of freshly popped popcorn and two beers after the wine bottle has been sufficiently emptied. When he plops down next to you again, it’s in the same spot he’d been sitting in all night — a couple of excruciating inches away.

Under the guise of sharing the popcorn in his lap, you make the too bold decision to slither in at his side. It’s innocent at first — your thighs just barely graze and your elbows bump when you dip your hands into the bowl. And it’s still innocent some thirty minutes later, when you find yourself resting your head on his shoulder with your legs curled up behind you.

Steve tenses when he feels your temple pressed against him, but only for a moment before he relaxes again. It makes him all suddenly warm and self-aware of every movement he makes. He tries not to breathe too heavy or shift too often, for fear it might jostle you too much. He doesn’t want to stop feeling you against him like this, even if it’s got his skin prickling with a searing form of anxiety.

“Don’t tell me you’re falling asleep,” he jokes.

“Of course not. It’s way too riveting,” you scoff, even though he can feel you cuddling further into him. Your cheek rubs against the soft cotton of his sweatshirt when you look up at him. He turns his head to peer down at you and his nose nearly grazes your forehead.

He finds you with a certain glint in your eye. It’s borderline playful, like it so often is, but coated with a sweetness that drips over him like honey. “You like it so far?” you wonder.

“Yeah,” the boy nods quickly. He couldn’t tell you what had happened the past two-and-a-half films, but he could tell you how your jaw tenses when you chew and how your smile curls just before you laugh out loud and how your eyes widen every time you quote the movie. “It’s really good. I like it.”

You beam at him before turning back to the projector again. You shift to get more comfortable against him. “Good.”

By the third movie, you’re somehow even closer.

Truth be told, Day of the Dead wasn’t your favorite in the trilogy, so it left your mind wandering to far off places — namely, the pretty boy sitting beside you. He goes to put the tape into the projector, feeling immediately cold without pressing into his side, and when he returns he tries his best not to beg you to cuddle against him again.

“My shoulder’s gettin’ real cold over here,” he tries to joke.

You see right through his beckoning, though. It makes you happy to know he wants it just as much as you do.

“Just say you wanna be next to me, Harrington,” you tease like you aren’t happily obliging him. You snuggle into his shoulder and rest your head against him while your arms curl around his bicep.

“I wanna be next to you,” he repeats, a playful smile on his lips though his gaze softens with sincerity. “Is that so bad?”

You shake your head against him in reply. Suddenly as mushy as the boy beside you, you turn to look up at him. “Not unless it’s bad that I wanna be next to you, too…”

“Nah. It’s not bad,” he assures in something short of a whisper. “Guess I’m just glad I’m not the only one that’s so far gone.”

He doesn’t elaborate on what he means by that. He doesn’t have to.

Perhaps it’s the admission that this boy is so far gone for you that gives you a sudden burst of confidence. Maybe it’s the comforting feeling of being seen, of knowing you’re no longer alone in your similar far gone-ness. Each feels like rays of sunshine to your skin and has you pressing your lips to his wanting ones without much thought.

The plump pink of his mouth are magnets for yours. They meet and lock together with little effort, almost destined to do it. It’s a soft, meager, and lingering little peck that sucks you both in a little too easily. It’s hard to pull away from him, but when you do, your lips click in protest.

Then there’s a look, then a deafening silence that says more words than either of you were capable of forming in that moment. His amber eyes dart between both of yours, asking a question without saying a goddamn thing. One that you answer with your own softening gaze.

And it’s almost better than the kiss itself, the swirling feeling in the pits of your stomach, the knowing of what’s about to happen.

A silent plea and a blink later and his lips are on yours again.

It’s an awkward mess of yearning mouths and tangled limbs as the both of you fight to find purchase on one another. Your fingers knot in the collar of his sweatshirt, pulling him impossibly closer, while his grip the bare skin of your waist from where your shirt had ridden up. His touch makes you buzz, like a static shock or a bolt of lightning.

Steve makes several observations when he feels you melt into him like honey on toast. He notices how you press yourself into him, like you won’t be satisfied until you’ve swallowed him whole, and how it has you kissing him like you’re scared he’ll pull away — like you’ll open your eyes and he won’t be real.

You’re as domineering against his mouth as you are in real life, still as all-consuming and overpowering as the girl he’s gotten so familiar with.

He doesn’t realize how you’ve settled so intently on top of him until his back meets the pillowy cushion of the leather couch. You don’t either, until he exhales a sharp gasp against your cupid’s bow. Then you part from him, for the first time in several minutes, breathing in the oxygen your lungs had just begun to scream for.

Steve finds you with kiss-bitten lips and glassy eyes that look upon him with a softness that he didn’t know existed until now. He smirks with his own swollen and pinker mouth like he isn’t glowing red beneath you.

“I thought you said no funny business,” he manages to tease through bated breaths.

You don’t bother to make up excuses for yourself. You’re already on top of him, all over him — you’ve already kissed him like you would’ve died if you hadn’t. Now, you’re straddling him, caging him between your legs and under your torso. You’ve settled on top of him with a comforting weightiness, like you’re building a home in the familiarity you’ve sought in him.

“I lied,” you mutter with a lazy shrug. A sly smile pulls slowly at your lips until you’re all but beaming sunbeams down at him. He revels in your warmth. “’S not my fault you’re so damn cute.”

It’s easier to blame it on him for all the reasons you’re attached to him like a magnet to his metal, your moth to his flame. You part his lips with your mouth, rut your tongue against his own, reveling in the foreign familiarity of it all, and then blame him for the way you can’t seem to stop any of it.

Steve doesn’t seem to mind, though. The way his hands find purchase on your hips, petting the warmed skin there and sometimes squeezing to pull you further down onto him, tells you that he has a similar yearning to melt with you. He lets you kiss him all slow, allows you to taste all of him, and doesn’t rush you in your process. It’s comforting, tender. Free.

He’s not used to being on his back like this. Usually, he’s the one taking control. It’s his mouth that does all the work. So, it’s strange to be under you and to have you above him. But it’s more pleasant in an even stranger way not to be rushed — not to have to do all the work. His mouth opens so obediently for you and finds an effortless rhythm with your lips and your tongue.

It’s the easiest thing he’s ever done in his life, kissing you.

He delights in every ounce of the warmth and unfamiliarity you press to his mouth, and tries to shove down feelings of unworthiness that simmer in his chest while you do so.

You don’t part until your mouths are numb and tingling with it.

Your lips are more vibrant in their color, aflame and swollen from being so ardently kissed and sucked and bitten. Neither of you mind making out like a couple of teenagers. It’s comforting to know that things won’t go further than a couple soft touches on burning skin. It was never supposed to be anything more than that, anyway. It was just about being close to each other.

You’ve almost succeeded in your effort to melt into the boy beneath you, when you hear the distant sound of a door opening and closing again. Muffled voices follow — unknown to you but obviously familiar to him.

You part from him without thinking, like you’re a couple of kids again who’ll get in trouble if your parents ever found out what you were doing down here. Steve groans at the loss of you and in annoyance at the sound of his parents. His heavy eyes fall shut and his head leans back to the couch cushions as he fights to swallow down all of his anger.

His parents never really come around these days. They’ve got a bigger home in the city, closer to his dad’s work, and they choose to stay there most days of the week — month.

They used to make excuses for why they left their only son behind. It’s five minutes from your dad’s firm. There’s more opportunity for your mom’s real estate business. Oh, don’t be so selfish, Steven, you’ll finally have the place to yourself. It’s a win-win for all of us.

Steve didn’t want their excuses. It was actually easier with them gone.

But they come around every now and again, whenever it’s most convenient for them, and treat their arrival like something that needs to be celebrated. Like they aren’t supposed to be with their child in the fucking first place. And they somehow manage to pick the most inconvenient times for him, like they know he’s in a bind and want to see him struggle to get out of it.

Usually, it’s when he’s in between paychecks — when they want to take him out to some fancy dinner he could barely afford anyway, but especially when he’s hardly making it until payday. Now, it’s when he’s got the prettiest girl he’s ever seen on top of him, and he’s all hot and half-hard. Steve doesn’t want to let them ruin the moment, as good as they are at it.

“It’s okay. They won’t come in here,” he assures when he feels you tense at the unexpected company. “My mom will go to the bedroom and my dad will go to his office. We’re good, I promise.”

You figure he’s right. The voices grow more and more distant. Heeled shoes click up and up the stairs while heavy stomps head the opposite way. But you’ve already been so woefully knocked out of your stupor that you’re scared it’s too late.

Your lips are numb and the credits are rolling and you’re on top of this beautiful boy and you have no idea how you got there.

It’s almost frightening, the way Steve had consumed you mind, body, and soul by just existing next to you. You become dreadfully hyperaware of the whole thing — of who you are, who he is, and what you’re doing. You lose all your softness and turn to ice, hardening and shrinking back into yourself.

“I should—” you start before clearing your throat when the words come out heavier than expected. “I should head out anyway.”

“Oh,” is all Steve can say. “Right.”

You stare down at him, chest still pressed against his, nose nearly touching the tip of his own. “I just— I have to open tomorrow and everything, so—”

“No. Yeah. Yeah, I— I get it.”

You make tricky work of untangling yourselves.

His legs twist with yours when you both try to rise from the couch at the same time. Then your ring gets stuck in the fabric of his shirt, but not before his belt buckle gets somehow caught in yours. It’s like fate is protesting the imminent parting, but neither of you are paying attention to the signs.

He walks you to your car and chuckles under his breath as you scurry to the front door.

You’re not-so-distantly terrified of running into his parents. They probably wouldn’t mind that he’s sneaking around with a girl, surely that they’re used to, but you’re almost certain they’re not used to girls like you. Girls with wild hair and leather skirts and chunky boots and too bold makeup.

You’re not the girl next door. You’re the girl parents warn their sons about. “Leave that girl alone,” they say. “She’s nothing but trouble.”

You tell him all of this on the short trek to your half-broken-down car when you catch him laughing at you about the whole thing. You say it in jest, lighthearted and trying to make a joke of it. But there’s an underlying melancholia to your tone that reveals every truth you’re trying to evade.

“They don’t care enough about me to give a shit about a girl I’m with, I promise,” he confesses with a laugh that sounds more like a sad scoff than anything else. His chocolate eyes turn gold beneath the yellow street light. He smirks at you. “Besides, I don’t know if I told you this or not, but my middle name is actually trouble, so… I think we might be a match made in heaven.”

You roll your eyes at his attempts to flirt with you, though his lack of finesse makes you smile. “You’re an idiot, Steve Actually Trouble Harrington.”

“You really know how to say goodbye, don’t ya?” he grins when you reach the curb where your tin can car sits.

“Yeah, I’m pro,” you shrug with a teasing glint in your eye, then you beam. “I’ll see you around, ‘kay?”

“Totally,” he nods, suddenly forlorn at having to leave you like he hadn’t just spent the past four hours with you.

Themetallic click of your car door opening sounds much louder in the emptiness of the suburbs. You glance at the boy right before you sink into the driver’s seat, feeling your heart swell with something short of yearning — anticipation.

You weren’t actually a professional at saying goodbye, you find, because you’re realizing how hard it is to leave him.

“Steve!” he hears you shout from across the lawn when he’s halfway up the drive.

He turns around, expecting to hear you tease him some more or tell him you were having car troubles. Neither would’ve shocked him. You’ve got a smart mouth and a shittier car. But you keep on surprising him, all but launching yourself into him before kissing him harder than he’s ever been kissed before.

Steve tenses against you at first, then relaxes again in record time. He sighs in the comfort of having your body pressed so intently into his and your arms wrapped around his neck to pull him somehow closer.

You feel the breath of his exhale fan against your cupid’s bow. It makes you smile, and he feels the expression contort against his lips. His hands rise to the widest part of your hips without thinking. It’s all muscle memory now.

And even though he’s spent the better part of an hour kissing you, this one is so obviously different. This wasn’t just to pass the time. This was more than just to feel him — it was to tell him something. He hears every word you don’t say, but rather press like a stamp to his mouth.

He’s breathless when you pull away. You meet his flushed face with a mischievous grin.

“What was that for?” he wonders breathlessly, but doesn’t waver with his hold on you. He quickly notices that yours doesn’t either.

You shrug in response. “‘Cause you’re pretty.”

“Yeah, well…” he tries to play off like he’s not blushing like crazy. “You’re pretty too.”

Your beam ebbs into a teasing, tightlipped smirk. “Stop flirting with me, Steve Harrington.”

You shove him away with a rougher hand than you realize before you walk away from him. Steve rubs at the ache in his chest with the palm of his hand.

Your playful teasing and your lingering kiss is the only thing Steve has to remember you by when you turn on your chunky heeled boot and head off down the driveway again. He’s frozen, mesmerized by the sight of you and reeling at how you manage to drive him crazy without trying.

Your eyes find him again just before you duck into your car, and you see him still looking at you — mouth agape and eyes wide like you’re some kind of rare find. You figure you must be, in some way. Girls like you aren’t supposed to like guys like him. Vice Versa. Tale as old as time.

The boy stays locked in his stupor until the sprinkles whir on. The spurts of freezing cold water spray all over him and his pretty hair and expensive sweatshirt and his vintage jeans. “Shit!” you hear him swear as he rushes for cover on his front porch.

He’s quickly soaked and freezing cold, but he smiles anyway when he hears the sound of your giggling behind him. It’s as animated as your personality and spills from your mouth like so many rays of sunshine, just a little too loud for the quiet midnight suburbs.

It’s perfect, he realizes. You’re perfect.

#published by bug #steve harrington x reader #stranger things x reader #stranger things imagine #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington smut #steve harrington fic #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #steve harrington #st oneshots #stevie oneshot #punchy x steve

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aspirationalpeony · 11 months ago

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Quit Playin' Games (With My Heart)

Summary: While you're trying to puzzle out the mysterious Ms. Schemmenti, Janine invites you to a dinner party--at Melissa's house. Board games, bonding, and lasagna... What could go wrong? (See author's note at the end for prompt credit.) Content Warnings: A brief paragraph discussing homophobia. AO3 Link

Does Melissa Schemmenti like you?

You've got everyone else figured out. Janine would befriend an electrical pole if it had a smiley face stapled to it; Jacob befriends anyone Janine befriends. Gregory stays a little aloof, but he's been warming up the more you show him your LEGO sets. Barbara--well, she sees you as another one of the kids, you think, but you know she appreciates your self-sufficiency, tolerates you with a smile when you're in the conversation. And Ava is... Ava.

Melissa? Who knows? She called you by the wrong name the first month you were at Abbott, knowingly, watching your face with a wry twist to her mouth, waiting for you to take the bait. When you didn't, you earned your name back. She started making dry comments to you, like "You got enough glitter glue there, Martha Stewart?" as you passed her in the hall, arms full of art supplies. She saw you struggling with the copy machine one day and said, "Here," giving it a swift kick that brought it wheezing to life, but followed up with, "Thought your generation was good with tech. What do we keep you around for, huh?"

After those backhands you'd be in a spin, wondering and confused; then later that day or the day after she'd say something else, like, "Hey, not bad, shortstop," when you got something off a high shelf for her (why shortstop when you’re taller than her? Reverse psychology?), or "Good job on lunch duty. They didn't kill ya," and you'd go warm all over and your confusion would deepen and all you would think was: does she like me or not?

You’re just not sure. So you try not to listen the day they’re all in the break room, talking about a party at Melissa’s house. You can’t help but overhear snatches—Janine insisting she’ll bring lasagna, Jacob saying he’ll do dessert, Melissa saying “oh, brother” and Barbara assuring her gently, a smile in her voice, “And I’ll bring the wine”—but you keep your head down over your lunch and turn the page of your lesson plan and ignore them until Janine realizes, suddenly, that the room isn’t empty, that you’re at the table just next to them, and burbles, “Hey, you should come, too!”

Your eyes go to Melissa right away. She glances up over her cat-eye glasses and her look is inscrutable.

“Oh,” you say, “um, I don’t know. I have, like, a thing—“

“C’mon, it’ll be fun!” Janine says. “We’ll eat some amazing food—“ she flicks a curl over her shoulder, playing at an Ava-like preen—“we’ll play board games, we’ll bond…”

“I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not intruding!” Janine looks imploringly at her friends. “Right?”

“Yeah,” Melissa says at last, still looking at you. Your heart thumps. “You should come.”

And that’s how you end up here: Melissa’s house. You crossed the welcome mat reading GO AWAY, a cheesecake in your hands, and tried not to make it obvious how badly you wanted to stare around yourself, scrutinize every photo and every piece of furniture, trying to get a window onto this woman you can’t figure out. Everyone’s piled onto the couch or onto chairs, plastic creaking under them as they lean forward to the table to swipe a snack or their glass of wine, and there’s an open box, a few stacks of cards.

“I found this amazing get-to-know-you game,” Janine declares, sliding down to sit on Mel’s carpeted floor. “So, you spin the spinner, right, and whatever it lands on, you take a card with the same color, and then you ask the question that’s on it, and everybody answers, and—“

“How do you win?” Melissa says. She’s holding a glass of wine, its rim printed with her pink lipstick. She’s got her hair in a ponytail that leaves lots of little curls hanging everywhere. She’s wearing a tank top. These details feel incredibly important; you try not to think about them.

“Oh, uh…” Janine frowns at the instruction booklet. “I don’t think you win.”

“What’s the point of a game if nobody wins?” Melissa leans over to the coffee table, grabs a grape off a serving plate, pops it into her mouth. She glances over at Barbara, who’s perched very straight-backed in a plastic-covered armchair, nursing a little bit of wine.

“I, for one,” Jacob says, “think competition is over-valued in our society. American individualism—"

“Just spin it, Janine,” Barbara says.

Beaming at the approval of her mentor, Janine spins. She plucks a blue card: “What’s your favorite sexual—“ her eyes widen. “Uh.”

“Oh, this just got interestin’,” Melissa says, and sits up straighter.

“Let me take another one.” Janine puts that card aside. “Have you ever had a threes—okay, no. Are they all like this?”

Gregory, a silent presence sitting stiffly alongside Janine, turns over a card from the green and red piles. He reads one: “How do you like your partner to style their pubic hair?” Then, the red: “Confess to a sexual fantasy you’ve had about… A member of the group.” The questions sound even more bizarre in his level voice, although his lifted eyebrows and widened eyes telegraph his discomfort. His gaze darts to Janine, then away.

“Janine, what’s the name of this game, please,” Barbara says, looking as though she’s one syllable from combustion.

Janine lifts the lid of the box. “Adult Dinner Party. But I thought, you know, adult dinner party, a classy kind of—oh.”

Jacob picks up a blue card gingerly and turns it over. “Have you ever had sex in a public place?”

“I have,” you say. Every face in the room turns toward you. Your cheeks heat. Your eyes flicker between each incredulous look. “What? We’re supposed to answer them, aren’t we?”

“This just got interestin’,” Melissa repeats. There’s a strange look on her face, not quite amusement; you wonder if it’s respect. “Me, too.”

“Melissa!” Barbara gasps.

“What? You never got fingered in a dark ride at an amusement park?”

Barbara stands up with her wine and walks out of the room, muttering to herself. Glances pass between the rest of you. The corner of Melissa’s mouth curves up. “Spin again,” she says.

The next few questions are mercifully tamer: do you think French kissing is overrated, what’s one thing you’ll never do for a partner? More wine is poured, Melissa going around and topping off each glass, saying to Gregory and Janine, “Lighten up a little, will you?” Eventually she comes to sit on the floor with everyone else, four people around the coffee table. She’s picked a spot right at your side, your knees bumping, thighs aligned.

“Is Barbara okay?” you ask. You can smell her perfume; it’s spicy and floral and it makes you feel tipsier than you are.

“Oh, she’ll be fine,” Melissa says. “You don’t wanna know how many of my parties she’s walked out of. Hey, Barb!” She bellows it close to your ear, making you wince; it’s followed by a twinge of peculiar affection that so much volume can come from one little woman. “Check the lasagna, will ya!”

There’s an indistinct answer from the other room, full of barely-contained irritation. Melissa slugs back another swallow of wine as Jacob flicks the spinner.

He draws a card and reads, “Have you ever kissed a member of the same sex? Oh, well—obviously.”

Gregory and Janine shake their heads.

Melissa says, “Listen, what happens in cheer squad stays in cheer squad, alright,” to scandalized gasps from her audience. She looks at you. “How about you? No girls, huh?”

You’re arrested by her green gaze so close, the wine on her breath, the question itself. You start to tell her, yes, plenty of girls, but you’re blushing again, embarrassed, all your bravado from earlier draining away into the floorboards.

“Here,” she says, and leans in. You register the thought Holy shit in the moment before her lips touch yours. Her nose brushes your cheek. Her mouth is very soft and a hot breath puffs over you in the instant before she delicately parts her lips and you feel the sweet flick of her tongue. She leans back again. “Now you’ve kissed a girl.”

“Melissa!” Janine says, outraged, bewildered.

“I bet Ava would have come, if she’d known it was this kind of party,” Jacob mumbles to the bowl of pretzels in front of him.

“I’m going to go check on Barbara,” Gregory says, his shellshocked eyes firmly on the ground as he gets up.

“Hey, I’ll come with you,” Janine says, all nerves, “maybe the lasagna needs more parm,” and scrambles up after him.

Melissa’s pouring herself the last of the wine. She’s smiling to herself. You don’t get it: what was that for? Was it bait, like your name, like the ribbing comments, trying to get a rise out of you? Or maybe just out of the people around you—trying to be the most shocking in the room? You stare, trying to read the look of satisfaction on her face.

"I'll--the bathroom," you say, and get to your feet. "'Scuse me."

You've got kind of an idea where it is. The problem, you realize, is that you have to cut through the kitchen to get there. It's savory-smelling, rich with tomato scent, and full of furious whispering that dies instantly as you cross the threshold; Janine, intently grating parmigiano into a bowl, gives you a guilty look as Gregory quickly parts from her side. Barbara is at the island counter, maybe only half-participating, but she looks at you, too, and you know they've told her.

You feel it all over again: these are people who've had years to get to know each other. Who are you to them? Not really a friend, just a colleague, half-acquaintance. You're the new invitee, the odd one out, and even though it was Melissa that kissed you, you'll be the one who gets the blame for the ruined party, the awkwardness now swamping Mel's rowhouse. Your gut clenches. "Excuse me," you repeat and dart past them to the bathroom.

You run cold water from the tap and stick your wrists underneath the faucet, like you've got heatstroke. You wet your hands and press them to your cheeks, your neck, your nape, trying to quiet your thumping heart. You look in the mirror: there's a glazed look in your eye; you're conscious your lips are tingling. Why'd she do that?

You've been played with by straight women before. Not always out of conscious cruelty: some women, you've realized, are hungry for a kind of attraction that doesn't have fear and imbalance, and they can't always have that with men. They want to be wanted by someone they think won't hurt them, and they pick you--never thinking about what it does to your heart; never imagining that desire for a woman can be real, that it can mean anything to anyone.

Is that Melissa? She said that thing about the cheer squad. If she likes women, too, why would she mess with you? If she thinks you're straight, is she just trying to shock, the way she did Barb with that dirty answer about fingering, needling at what she thinks are your reservations and limitations? Because that's what she does, what she's been doing. Poking and poking, trying to get a rise. Should you have shouted? Should you have cried? What would satisfy her?

"Melissa Ann Schemmenti," you hear Barb say from the kitchen, muffled on the other side of the door. You freeze a moment, heart pounding all over again, then turn the water down to a trickle and inch toward the door, leaning closer. All you can hear are bits and pieces of what must be a thunderous lecture: "That girl... Well, I won't... You know that... Sweet, but... Learn to behave."

There's a sulky rumble in Mel's voice in answer.

You're going to have to go out there eventually. You listen a few more seconds, but if there's footsteps of people dispersing, or more conversation as they linger, you can't hear it. You resign yourself, turn off the water, dry off your hands. You give your cheeks a last press with your cold fingers, trying to ground yourself. You'll go out there and pretend it didn't happen. You'll make it through the night and see what happens tomorrow. That's all you can do.

Of course, you go out into the kitchen, and everyone else is gone, and Melissa's there.

She's frowning deeply and scrupulously wrapping the parmigiano in plastic. She says something under her breath; you catch a Sicilian curse and a "kids don't know..." When she hears the bathroom door click, her head goes up, and there's a moment, her eyes meeting yours, where she looks as nervous as you feel. She looks back down at the cheese, tightly sealing and wrapping its edges, then crosses to the big stainless fridge to put it away.

"Guess I scared you back there," she says. There's a challenge in her voice. Suddenly, your fear and loneliness uncoil; they spool out into anger. It's one thing to mess with you in words. You could call that friendliness, call it teasing. It's not fair to mess with you like this.

"You didn't scare me," you say. Your voice is stronger than you expected. Not loud, but sure. "I've kissed more girls than a cheer squad."

"Huh, look at you," Melissa says, "big player."

"What is your problem with me?"

The question catches her in the act of moving to the oven. She looks sharply at you--then away. There's something strangely un-Melissa about the act. She fiddles with the oven dial, then leans her hip against the counter and folds her arms over her chest. "Hon, if I had a problem with you, you'd know."

"Then what the hell was that?" You catch yourself starting to cross your arms, to mirror her, and lower them to your sides, where your hands clench tightly.

"I kissed ya." She lifts her chin and looks at you. "What, you didn't like it?"

Your anger wobbles; the question stumps you. "It--that doesn't--look, you've been doing this all year. Pushing me around. I don't get it. I didn't do anything to you. Maybe you think I'm annoying, or stupid, or--"

"Pushing you around?" Mel moves closer. Her voice gets a little tighter, a little louder. Her eyes glitter with challenge. "I invited you to my house."

"Yeah, you invited Jacob and Janine to your house, too."

"I don't like them the way I like you," she says, and freezes. You have a sense she's blurted something she didn't mean to say. It's stopped her right in the tracks of what she might have made an argument, draining the confidence out of her posture.

Your heart is thundering in your ears again. You replay that delicate, barely-there kiss: her face leaning toward yours, spicy scent of her perfume, wine on her breath, her green eyes, her soft, hot mouth. Her tongue. "What?" you say.

Her mouth twists. There's something faintly absurd about it, how it turns a grown woman toddleresque, and you get another pang of that strange affection from before, when she yelled right in your ear. It's strong enough to filter through your anger.

She shifts from foot to foot. With her shoes off in her own home, she suddenly looks half her usual height. Fondness washes against you. "Look," she says, "I'm forget-about-it years older'n you and I don't have time to play games, so--"

"This isn't playing games?"

She ducks her chin toward her chest. It's another gesture that's strangely unlike her. You hear Barbara's voice in your head: Melissa Ann Schemmenti... Learn to behave.

You move closer again. Her eyes flick up to yours and there's a sulky defiance in them, even when they drop briefly to your lips.

"Is this..." You don't know how to ask it. How do you ask Melissa Schemmenti do you want me in her own kitchen? "Melissa, what do you want?"

"C'mere," she says. She takes your chin in her grasp and brings you closer and kisses you again.

Wine, perfume, her skin. This time, it's not some playful schoolgirl thing. You can feel intention behind the slow press of her lips against yours. She lets it linger for a second, two, then leans back, looking into your eyes.

Whatever she sees has her turning you, your back against the counter, a hard line of granite. This time, you lean forward into her kiss. Her body presses into yours, all hips, soft belly, breasts. Her hands bracket your body against the edge of the countertop. Her way of deepening the kiss is to nip your lower lip and make you gasp, so that her tongue can flick into your mouth, brushing against yours and sending tingling ripples through your whole body.

You cup her jaw. She’s so, so warm. You slide a hand back and brush some of those loose, careless locks of red hair behind her ear. You kiss her and kiss her; when your tongue teases against hers, deliberately now, she makes a sound like a whimper that you feel head to toe, like a current of lightning passing through you, dispersing into the ground.

“So,” she says, with you securely pinned, flushed, breathing hard, “what do you think?”

What do you think? You go back in for another kiss. She chuckles against your mouth and can barely kiss you back for her smug smile. This time, it’s your kiss, not hers, and you explore exactly how you want to: sucking and nibbling her lower lip, licking into her mouth, your hands dropping to her waist, pulling her against you. She melts into you, and there’s a thunderous sense of power and desire in you, tied to how her arms come up to loop around your neck, how her spine softens and her body sways into yours.

When you’ve got your breath back, you ask her, “Should we go back out there?” You know you have to, but you don’t know how you’ll manage it. You’re sure you have this moment written all over your face, glassy-eyed and out of breath. Melissa does, too: her lipstick is smeared. “Maybe in a few minutes?”

“I think,” she says, “I should kick all of ‘em outta here, and you’n’me keep the game and the lasagna, and we have some fun.” Her hand drops, intervening between your body and the counter so she can firmly grab your ass. You squeak. “Huh?”

“I—I think that would be pretty rude.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, yeah,” she says, though she doesn’t let go of your ass. “And they planned this whole thing for us, so…”

“Wait—” you lean back a little to get a clear picture of her face. “What?”

“Janine’s idea,” she says. “I found out after they invited you. They knew I thought you were cute—“

“You told them that?”

“Course I didn’t,” Melissa says, “I look like somebody who goes splashin’ their business everywhere? ‘Specially where Janine can hear it? I’ll tell you about what she did to me’n my sister some time. They figured it out on their own. I mighta been lookin’ at your ass at work.” She gives it a pinch.

“So the board game…” You frown.

“I think that was an accident for real.” Her face pinches in a frown. “‘Magine Janine tryin’ to get us to talk dirty to each other out there?” The frown vanishes and the leer she gives you makes you feel very, very naked. “We could talk dirty in here, if you wanna.”

“Okay,” you say, “I think we have to go serve dinner.” If you let her keep going, you don’t know if you’ll have the will to stop her. You hear the next thought in her voice: What? You never got fingered in a kitchen with all your coworkers right outside? “Wait—“ your brow creases. “Did Barbara seriously go along with this?”

Melissa clears her throat. “She didn’t know at first—and then, I wanted her here, y’know, in case, uh…”

“Things went badly?” you supply. Melissa pinks. You smile at the sweet strangeness of it. “Were you guys going to drink a bottle of wine so you could… Mope about me?”

“I wasn’t gonna mope about ya,” Mel says, “because I knew you weren’t gonna turn me down, and you’d be an idiot if you did, so.”

“I would,” you agree, and have to go back in for another kiss, two, three. “I would be an idiot,” you murmur against her.

“Okay,” she says when you can finally stop kissing her, “okay.” She gives your ass a slap that makes you gasp. Her eyes narrow, cataloguing that response, and her smirk, of course, resurfaces. “You take the lasagna out of the oven. I gotta fix my lipstick.” She steps away, and pauses. “You might wanna…” She gestures to her mouth.

You rub your tingling lips and your fingers come away with the pink of her lipstick. Your face heats.

“Or keep it,” Melissa says, “looks good on you,” and she gives a preening toss of her high ponytail as she turns away to the bathroom.

You watch her go, her hips swaying as she moves. You have a sense of the world tilted on its axis: all that teasing and game-playing—because she likes you? More than likes you—wants you? Janine inviting you, Jacob and Gregory playing along—because they really do care? Barbara scolding Melissa in this kitchen—because she wants her best friend to treat you right?

You find a napkin and scrub the lipstick off your mouth. Each step you take across the kitchen feels like levitation, an inch or two above the floor. You check the lasagna. There’s two: one big lasagna, and another small, plain one for Gregory. You lift each casserole dish out of the oven, and they smell better than ever in a house full of friends.

You cross to the doorway and peek out into the living room. “Lasagna’s ready,” you say to the four faces that turn to yours, and you know you’re smiling like an idiot, but you can’t help it.

Janine bounces up. “I can’t wait for you to tryyyy itttttt,” she sing-songs. “I learned from the best!”

Barbara passes you to find plates and ready the table. She gives your arm a little pat as she goes—the first time she’s ever touched you. You feel a Janine-like burst of effervescence at the thought that Melissa’s best friend approves.

Melissa reappears. She picks up a cutter for each lasagna, an armful of cloth napkins, another bottle of wine. Jacob and Gregory gather the glasses from the coffee table. You stick your hands back into the oven mitts to carry each dish in.

As everybody gets settled in, pulling out chairs, Janine proudly adding her bowl of grated parmigiano to the table (“just in case!” she burbles), you catch Melissa’s eye. She’s looking at you, a soft fondness in the gaze; the tender creases at the corners of her eyes make your chest squeeze around your heart, which feels three, four times as large as it was before.

“What do you think?” you ask the table. “Should we bring over the cards?”

Your friends laugh. Barbara shakes her head and rolls her eyes. Melissa Schemmenti, looking at you, smiles.

-- -- -- -- -- -- --

Author's Note:

My next fic was intended to be a sadder hurt/comfort fic, but I received the following prompt from @morgana-larkin:

I love your first fic and I wanted to know if you could do one more on the fun side. Where the whole group goes to either Melissa or reader’s place for game night and they all end up playing truth or dare while drunk and someone dares one of them to kiss the other. Then after everyone leaves the two of them end up admitting their feelings. Thank you!

I did make some tweaks to the premise to suit my storytelling style, which I hope is okay. I did my best to honor this fun and lovely prompt. Thank you so much!

#melissa schemmenti #melissa schemmenti x you #melissa schemmenti x reader

353 notes · View notes

wooahaes · 8 months ago

Text

feel me

pairing: non-idol!han x gn!reader, some non-idol!felix x gn!reader

genre: angst with a happy ending. slight fluff.

word count: ~21k

warnings: angst with a happy ending. mutual pining that’s fully believed to only be one-sided by both parties. temporary relationship with felix. heartbreak. no communication at one part after jisung ghosts reader for almost three weeks. big brother-figure chris having serious talks with reader. fluff in certain parts, though. food mentions. hyunjin is kinda ready to throw down at one point tbh.

daisy’s notes: title origin from the golden child song bc the lyrics kinda fit haha <3 anyway rewrite of this old thing!! also sorry felix but if u get the sequel fic i'm thinkin of... u will be happy <3

Most people looked at the friendship you had with Chris and assumed that he was your best friend. The two of you had grown up down the road from one another, after all, and that had been why you ended up befriending one another. His family all knew you by name and knew all of your favorites (because Chris had learned them first and made sure everyone knew them), and they all watched you follow Chris around like a duckling when you were small. Pictures of the two of you littered the walls of both your childhood home and his, all from vacations your families had taken together. Plus your parents always made enough food for Chris on any given day, since he always found his way over for dinner at the most random times. If anything, Chris was family to you now, the big brother you never had (and, occasionally when he was being a little overly affectionate, he was your big bother). Before college, Chris Bang was one-hundred-percent your best friend…

Until you met Han Jisung on the first day of freshman orientation.

Sure, the reason you came to this school was partially because you knew you’d have a friend in the area (you liked the literature program a lot more), but things changed the day you met Jisung. The two of you had been a little wary of the other people in your group, all bragging about how they wouldn’t let anyone stop them from the party life they were craving. On one hand, you kind of admired the tenacity that took… but on the other, they were the rowdy bunch out of all the groups that were around. Even though you weren’t much of a party person, your annoyance at the time firmly came from the fact you were sinking so much money into this school—even without the financial aid and scholarships you’d managed to get. Partying was fun, but denying everything in favor of it? You couldn’t wrap your head around it.

And, apparently, neither could Jisung. He’d been separated from his friends, all in the same orientation group without him, and looked a little lost. You quietly moved your chair over to him after you grew annoyed with two people hardcore flirting with one another and ignoring the poor orientation leader who was just trying to tell you all about the general education program. He’d looked up at you, and you introduced yourself to him quietly—trying not to catch the attention of your orientation leader. She was too busy waiting for the novelty of it all to die down for a minute so she could do her job, so… Why not take the chance to introduce yourself to him?

He’d gazed at you for a moment behind his glasses, pushing them up the bridge of his nose a moment later. “Han,” he’d said in a quiet voice. Then he cleared his throat, speaking a little louder, “I’m Han Jisung. Music management and music composition major.”

Already, you were impressed by him. Chris was in the music program himself, and you’d heard about how rigorous it could be at times—especially with the heavy course load that came from both programs. Chris had gone into it because he was… Well, he was Chris. Chris who was on the swim team and in the theater and the band and somehow found time to do community service, too. Jisung was a stranger to you in all the best ways, someone who already intrigued you. When you told him your own major, he had nodded along, no push to question your future career.

“Is that what you like?” He’d asked instead. “Books?”

It was one part of what you liked, at least. You nodded. “Do you love music?”

He’d smiled at you, and it was as if he’d become a different person for a moment. “It’s my passion,” he’d said, voice clear and bolder than before.

That had been what the two of you ended up talking about until your orientation leader managed to get control of the group again. She’d finally been given the go-ahead to give you a tour of campus, and you noticed that Jisung had decided to stick with you near the back of the group. He never said anything then, the two of you opting to listen to your leader instead, but you saw the tiny smile on his face when you were walking through the music floor of the arts building. Once you were released from your schedule for the day, he’d kept glancing at you, as if unsure of what he was about to do. Then he finally stepped up, holding up his phone.

“My friends and I are getting coffee off campus,” he said. “Do you want to come?”

That had been the moment that solidified the two of you as friends. You had happily agreed, exchanging numbers on the way as he told you about his friends. There was Felix, who he said was a sweetheart. Everyone loved Felix, and you’d eventually realize in time just how true that was. Hyunjin could be charismatic, although sometimes he could be a little sharp-tongued with people. Apparently, he and Jisung once hated each other before getting over their school rivalry—you’d never understand it, but everyone swore by it. And then there was Seungmin, who was witty and funny in all the best ways. The group seemed to accept you into their circle pretty quickly, and you honestly contributed that to Jisung…

Who you very quickly learned was incredibly funny in his own right. With the orientation group and with you alone, he’d been quieter. Polite and sweet as he could be. Yet you saw the way he loosened up over time when with his friends, genuinely funny and a bit louder with them. Maybe that was why you would end up clicking with him so well: he was versatile, conscious of the mood and finding a way to fit it well. You saw the way he seemed to naturally return to a quieter state when on his own, and you were happy to match that energy any day.

When you returned to your dorm that day, Chris had been waiting for you. He’d watched you part ways with your new friends and decided to celebrate by squeezing the life out of you.

“You’re making friends!” He giggled, and it suddenly reminded you of the loving way your step-mom always treated you. He swayed with you, never letting you go. “You’re growing up!”

This was definitely something he was reporting to your parents. Not that you cared: his family asked for you to look out for him, too, and you fully intended to follow through on the request. He’d already been giddy when you showed him your acceptance letter and announced you’d picked the school (he’d nearly squeezed the life out of you that day, too), gushing about how he’d have to introduce you to Minho and Changbin. That was why he’d been waiting for you that day, actually: the four of you were getting dinner together, Chris’s treat. The two of you had decided to call off any embarrassing stories (both of you had plenty of ammunition, the same way that both of his siblings had even more on you both), and you’d spent that dinner realizing just how much love you had for Chris.

That was why you had agreed to live with him come sophomore year. Regardless of whether he was being a brother figure or a bother figure, you’d agreed quickly when he gave you his clearly premeditated offer of taking the open room in his apartment. His old roommate had just moved out, and Chris apparently told him he “already had someone interested” when he brought the topic up to begin with. So he helped you carry your boxes into the apartment and the two of you enjoyed your takeout that night, giddy to be close once again. He’d invited Minho and Changbin over that night, too, to toast to your first day of living with Chris. It was at that point that you decided to introduce Jisung to them, inviting him over, too.

Things came together from there. Minho recognized Jisung from a photo that Felix had shown him while he (and Hyunjin) were sitting around before dance practice started. Seungmin ended up getting pulled into the group through association with the rest of you, and it was you and Seungmin who pulled Jeongin into this circle. He’d been in your general education classes, and he seemed to get along pretty well with Seungmin. Seungmin introduced you to Jeongin, and you introduced Jeongin to the group, and everyone seemed to fit together in this sweet way. Even with all of you having friends of your own, you always seemed to come back to one another when times were rough.

By some stroke of luck, Hyunjin and Seungmin ended up moving in a few doors down from you and Chris. Despite Seungmin’s very vocal complaints (always made with love… you were pretty sure, at least), both of them seemed glad to have familiar faces nearby. The two always seemed to drop in when Chris was making dinner, always telling some story about their own lives. You realized that your stories almost always had Jisung and Felix in them after Seungmin pointed it out to you one night.

When did you start spending so much time with Felix? Jisung was naturally there because he was your best friend (officially now: the two of you had matching beaded bracelets you’d made for one another just to rub it in). But Felix…

Chris had picked up on how quiet you’d grown that night. But he waited to bring the topic up until one Saturday when the two of you were alone. He’d passed you the bowl of popcorn he’d made once before throwing himself onto the other end of the couch. “So. You and Felix...”

You rolled your eyes. Your love life had always been pretty off-limits as a topic to anyone but Chris, and he was fully going to take advantage of that, wasn’t he? He’d given you a few much-needed days to figure out how you felt, and they were… Well, far from platonic. Felix was sweet as he could be, and you’d become so, so endeared to him when he started showing up to your apartment with baked goods. Everyone loved Felix, and you weren’t sure when your love for Felix became more than what it was before. Long before senior year, that was certain: every time you tried to pinpoint a beginning, you found yourself moving it further and further back to something else he’d done.

“I’m just curious!” Chris chuckled. “You always deny feeling anything for Jisung—I should have known it was Felix the entire time!”

Despite having the urge to, you didn’t roll your eyes that time. Your feelings for Jisung weren’t important. Not when he was your best friend, and having them would jeopardize that. Han Jisung did not love you the way you’d begun to love him, and you were more than happy to ignore that crush. It’d go away eventually once you stopped fantasizing about what a relationship with him would look like. And if it didn’t… Well, you’d figure that out when you came to it.

“You should go for it,” Chris said, shifting so he was slightly closer to you. “Felix is a good kid! He’s nothing like the last guy you dated—”

Oh, not this shit again. There was a reason you hadn’t dated in a while, and Chris was too aware of it. He’d been ready to get into a fist fight and call your friends as back-up. “Christopher—”

He ignored the use of your birth name, “I mean it. That guy was gross, and you deserve better than someone who thinks you should move in with them after a few weeks because living with a guy you aren’t dating is ‘weird.’”

That had only been part of the reason you dumped the guy. You’d never told Chris any other parts because you knew what he’d say. Your ex hated Jisung because of how close the two of you were, and you weren’t going to date some insecure loser who thought he could control who you hung out with. He’d always been “fine” with the rest of your friends (begrudgingly so), but he’d targeted Jisung for some reason. Jisung was always too close to you, or he was too soft when around other people, or he was “obviously” in love with you and you were too blind to see it. If you’d let him take Jisung out of your life, you knew he’d eventually move on to someone else. It’d be Jeongin, and then Felix, and then Hyunjin… It had taken a while for you to realize it and accept it, but it was just a gateway for him to control you and your life. When you ended things with him, you told him he needed to grow the fuck up because you’d never ask him to do the things he was pressuring you to do.

When you told Jisung that same day that you broke up with him, he’d watched you curiously for a minute. When you didn’t cry or say anything further, he smiled at you and asked if you wanted to celebrate. Jisung had treated you out for dinner that night, telling you about how he’d always thought you could do better. That guy hadn’t respected you enough to trust you, and all he could do was hope that he would eventually change for the better. It wasn’t your job to fix him, after all. You’d only left out the part where he said Jisung was in love with you: he didn’t need to know that, and you didn’t need to hear him laugh it off as the joke that it was.

“I mean it.” Chris had moved closer to you when you never spoke up again, one hand squeezing your shoulder. “Felix is like a little brother to me. I think if you want to ask him out… The two of you would work well together.”

Maybe he had a point. But… “I thought I was your sibling.”

He rolled his eyes, moving back into his spot at the end of the couch. “Ask Jisung for help. You said they’ve known each other since high school, right?”

They have. They ended up rooming together their freshman year, and you’d almost always be spending at least a little time with Felix whenever you went to spend time with Jisung. He’d always be studying or on his way out, but he always made a point of hanging back just long enough to say hi to you and chat for a moment. Chris had a point, then. If anyone could help you, it would probably be Jisung.

(You wouldn’t know that Chris regretted the suggestion once he saw the way Jisung looked at you. He’d held his feelings to his chest for three years, and the mask slipped once when he thought no one was looking. The soft way he smiled at you, the tender look in his eyes when he heard you laugh… Chris would have taken the moment back if he could.)

Which was why you ended up in the MinSung apartment a few days later, sitting in Jisung’s computer chair. When you asked him for help, he’d agreed all too easily, saying something about how Felix did keep calling you cute. While he claimed to not know for sure (which you suspected was a lie), he’d been up front with you when he said he thought Felix might feel something toward you. Feelings in their vaguest form, but still something to give you genuine hope.

Minho had waited until you left to step into the doorway of Jisung’s room. “You’re an idiot.”

Minho was the only person Jisung admitted his feelings about you to. He’d already picked up on it long ago, seeing the looks that everyone else seemed to not notice, and outright asked him about it. He never understood how no one, outside of himself, knew about the affection Jisung harbored for you. He’d never been all that subtle about it in Minho’s eyes, always so lovingly doting on you. He saw the way you clearly cared for Jisung, too. When he’d quietly asked Chris once whether you felt something for Jisung, he’d said you denied it every time. But while Minho had his dumb moments… He knew you were lying. You had the same loving look on your face whenever you looked at Jisung, dreamy-eyed and oh-so-tender when you engaged with him. You gave Jisung a safe place to hide when his anxiety was too much, always willing to leave with him and get him the space he needed.

Surprisingly, Hyunjin called him the next morning, just to tell him the same thing Minho had said: you’re an idiot. Hyunjin always somehow seemed to pick up on Jisung’s feelings, too, but eventually believed him after he denied it enough times. You were Jisung’s best friend: was it really fair for him to love you so much when all you ever saw him as was a friend?

It wasn’t. So he told Hyunjin to mind his business, causing the short-lived spat that the rest of the group heard about in the vaguest terms. Hyunjin had argued with him about it, saying that pushing you toward Felix was cruel to everyone involved. Jisung knew Felix liked you, though, and now he knew that you liked Felix. If Jisung was the only person to get hurt, he could live with it. Maybe he’d turn it into a song if he really needed to. It took a few days, but Hyunjin finally agreed to keep his mouth shut now that he’d spoken to Felix and confirmed that Felix genuinely did like you as more than a friend. If Jisung knew that you were genuine, then Hyunjin could live with it as long as Jisung took care of himself.

It wasn’t your fault that Jisung had fallen in love with you. He agreed to Hyunjin’s terms, and decided that he could live with the heartbreak if you were happy with Felix. Felix was a good person, always so loving and warm. He would treat you the way you deserved, loving you openly and affectionately. All it would cost Jisung was one heartbreak in exchange for your happiness.

And for you? He would do it without hesitation.

One month into the semester, Jisung had already done a few things for you. Jisung went out of his way to ensure that you and Felix would sit together when given the chance, casually finding ways to move next to Hyunjin every time. A few weeks later, he’d casually dropped the fact that you were wanting to get into gaming more when the group was together, and you’d been confused until you saw the way Felix lit up at the topic. He’d immediately offered to let you join him and his friends, talking about free MMOs that you could play. All too easily, you managed to make conversation with him, talking about how you lacked experience with stuff like that… but you did have a Stardew Valley farm with Chris that the two of you worked on whenever you both had free time.

“Oh, really?” His eyes had been twinkling, head resting in his hand. “Maybe we could make a farm together.”

All too easily, he’d given you butterflies. “I’d like that,” you said, heart racing ever-so-slightly now.

“Actually…” He averted his gaze for a moment, his pretty freckled cheeks turning red. “Our show is opening in a few weeks. If you want…” He paused, looking up to realize the others were still there, “I’d, um, I’d like it if all of you could come. I can reserve a couple tickets for opening night, but…”

You’d agreed, already planning to make sure your schedule was clear that day. The group had always planned to come support Felix on one of those nights, guaranteeing that he’d have his own section clapping loudly for him once he was taking his bow… but that quickly turned into something that would happen on a later night. You’d taken Felix up on the offer for an opening night ticket, and managed to convince Jisung to come with you. If Jisung was with you, you wouldn’t make a fool of yourself… and Jisung agreed, saying he’d watch the show twice to come with the others later. You had work the other day, after all: it all worked out in a way, right?

Right. Which was why he was standing in a flower shop with you, looking at premade bouquets. For the past five minutes, you’d been debating between a bouquet of sunflowers and yellow roses, frowning to yourself as you tried to pick which one best suited Felix. Jisung found himself staring at pale pink peonies. He’d looked up flower meanings once when thinking about you. If he was going to confess, he would have bought you a bouquet. Pink peonies meant something like deep appreciation, and he could easily spin it into his appreciation for you as his best friend. Would he ever be able to face you and not feel his heart flutter? Maybe one day he would, if he was lucky.

When he looked at you again, you were still deep in thought. He could hear you mumbling to yourself. Roses were too forward, too strong to be just a ‘friend’ thing—even if you were trying to impress Felix. And sunflowers felt… A little cliche knowing Felix. Everyone gave Felix sunflowers on his birthday if they were going to give him flowers. Jisung looked at the other bouquets, only to find one of yellow tulips. You looked up as he approached you with them in hand, the shyest smile on his face.

“You said you wanted to give Felix something pretty, so…” He held them up. “If roses feel too strong… Then why not these?” The paper crinkled underneath his grasp, and his heart was racing even now. This wasn’t meant to be romantic, so why couldn’t he calm down?

You’d lit up, accepting the bouquet with him. He felt the way your fingers brushed against his own when you accepted them, looking down at them. “Do you think he’ll like them”

“He’ll love anything you give him,” Jisung said, gaze softening. If it was from you, it’d be special. His hands rested over your own for a minute, and you met his gaze after a moment. “Hey… Would I lie to you?”

Other people might have. Some people might have tried to sabotage their best friend’s happiness, but Jisung could never do that to you. Not when you meant so much to him. He loved you too much to do anything that might hurt you, that would destroy your happiness. Even if he didn’t love you, you were still his best friend, and that meant he needed to treat you like one. Best friends didn’t destroy best friends like that.

“No,” you said, drawing the bouquet back. You smiled at it again. “Thanks, Jisung. If you wanna wait outside, you can. I’m gonna see if they can put a little ribbon around it when I pay—make it look cuter, y’know?”

His heart leapt at the idea. Of course you’d be cute like this. He wished that it could be him that you were buying flowers for, but he’d accept getting to see you this happy. “I’ll be waiting.”

The bell above the door jingled as he left the shop, taking a few steps away before leaning against the brick wall. With a sigh, he let his shoulders slump. This shouldn’t hurt so much, but the ache in his chest seemed to show no sign of going away. He could put aside his feelings for you, though, if it meant he could see you smile. The soft look in your eyes when he reassured you only made him feel more complicated inside. You weren’t his to give away, so why did it feel like he was losing a part of himself the more he went along with this plan? In the back of his head, a little voice kept telling him to find an excuse to go back to his apartment. A forgotten assignment that he’d overlooked, or reading he needed to do for class… But that meant abandoning you, even though Felix really wanted you to come see him tonight. Not Jisung. Jisung was coming to see him in a few days, so why bother staying?

Again, the bell chimed, and out you stepped, bouquet in hand. The brown paper that once had been wrapped around the flowers was exchanged for white tissue paper, all bound together with a bright, sparkly gold ribbon. It would fit Felix perfectly, all sunshine-y and pretty, and it was only now that Jisung realized you were wearing blue. Felix’s favorite color. Why hadn’t he noticed that before? If you were in red, then Jisung would have noticed right away, wouldn’t he? His mind wandered for a moment: would you have bought flowers for him if you were coming to see him perform? Hell, would you come alone to see him perform next semester? He had to perform solo as part of his degree plans—would you wait to come with the others, or would you be there every night if you could…? Instead, he just gently reminded you to loosen up your grip on the bouquet before you broke the stems.

“What if he hates them?” Your leg had been bouncing nervously the entire bus ride back to campus.

Jisung just gently pat your arm. “He won’t,” he said, voice as soft as it was in the flower shop. “It’s Felix. I don’t think he’d ever hate anyone for bringing him a gift. Do you?”

That seemed to get through to you, and the tension in your shoulders eased up considerably. A moment later, you nodded, meeting his gaze. “Right…” And then you leaned against him, completely unaware that his heart was now racing all over again. “Sorry. I’m just… I’m nervous, I guess.”

Jisung could tell. Everything about you now pointed to this need for tonight to go right. The fact you were not only wearing Felix’s favorite color, but also the way you had dressed up a little nicer, just to make an effort for him. The way you were fretting over the flowers still, even now (Jisung could see the way you kept looking at them and readjusting your hands, all too conscious now that you might break the stems). He’d have to be ignoring you completely to not see the way your leg had been bouncing before, or the way you kept toying with your sleeve, or the way you kept checking the time even though you both left extremely early to get to the shop.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he said, leaning his head against your own. “You’ll be fine.”

Despite the way he still wanted to go home, Jisung stuck by you the entire time. You needed him there to calm you, the way he depended on you sometimes, and he wouldn’t leave you to flounder. The two of you found seats a few rows back from the stage, settling in for whenever the show would begin. Jisung could see Chris sitting in the front row, beaming with pride at the whole affair. That was the nice thing about Chris: he always made a point of coming back to help wherever he could, including with productions like this. Plus, he was always there to support everyone, especially his friends. Dance showcases, theatrical performances, the art exhibits that Hyunjin’s pieces and Seungmin’s photography ended up in… Chris was there, always happy to congratulate on a job well done. Jisung didn’t need to be sitting next to him to see the way he glowed with pride every time Felix was on stage.

When the show was over, Jisung watched as you gravitated near the door the actors would eventually emerge from. He’d already passed the responsibility of congratulating Felix onto you for now (he’d tell him later) as he searched for where Chris had disappeared to in the crowd. Most likely, he’d disappeared into the back to go talk to the actors. Two years out of school, and Chris never seemed to care about the fact he wasn’t technically a part of the department anymore. Jisung admired his confidence, at least: it always felt like a line he shouldn’t cross, even though Felix always said his friends were welcome.

He’d decided to take refuge in the bathroom instead, just to calm himself down. Chris would come back out soon when the actors did, meaning Jisung could talk to him then. He’d started to fiddle with little things as he stared at himself in the mirror: fixing a stray hair that never seemed to stay in place, adjusting the collar of his shirt, checking to see how puffy his face was… All little things that he could pick himself apart for if he felt like it, and his mind kept straying to it rather than how happy you seemed to be. He saw how engrossed in Felix’s performance you were. Maybe he should leave to spare himself from seeing this any further. He’d done his part, hadn’t he? You would understand.

Except he didn’t leave, because Jisung was still your best friend. You wouldn’t abandon him now, so he had to do the same for you. The moment he stepped back into the theater, he saw the way you were beaming at Felix. He’d finally emerged, dressed casually again, and was happily talking to you while holding the bouquet. All he needed to do was look at Felix to know that he was smitten from the way he was smiling at you. Okay. He could deal with this. All he needed to do was find Chris and maybe he could manage.

But all it took was you looking up and waving Jisung over for him to cave, already drawn toward you like a magnet. He couldn’t just leave. Not when you were smiling at him like that. Jisung ended up rattling off some praise for Felix (genuine, because he wouldn’t half-heartedly give him praise just because you liked Felix and not him), and Felix had blushed over it. His gaze fell down to the flowers in his hands, and Felix smiled again.

“Aren’t they sweet?” The tissue paper rustled in Felix’s grasp, and he swayed toward you ever-so-slightly. “They’re so sweet.”

Jisung didn’t say that he was with you when you bought them, that he’d been the one to push them to you. “They have a really good eye for these things,” he said instead. “They fit you perfectly.”

“I know!” Felix looked up, beaming with pure joy. “They’ve never given a bad present before. I don’t really know how they do it.”

Jisung did. You kept a running list in your notes app of things that people said they liked, or things they said they wanted, or things that they needed that you constantly updated. Plus, you made a point to subtly ask about things close to holidays and birthdays, too. All the things you needed to give a good gift that people wanted and would appreciate. The only other person who knew about this was Chris, and that was because he’d caught you editing it. Even if Jisung hadn’t given you the tulips, he knew Felix would have loved the sunflowers or the roses.

“I think I saw Chris,” Jisung said after a moment of seeing the (admittedly cute) way you and Felix kept glancing at each other. He started to move away, “I’m gonna go say hi.”

“Oh, I can come too!” You were flustered, all too aware of how much of Felix’s time you’d taken for yourself. “I mean, I’m sure Felix is tired of me hogging him, y’know?”

“It’s fine,” Felix said, smiling still. “I like talking to you.”

While his attention was still on you, Jisung made a point to nod toward Felix. Stay right there. He knew you wanted to talk to Felix, after all. You’d relaxed a moment later, planting yourself right where you were as you turned back to Felix. He’d already begun asking you something about an MMO he’d gotten you into, and Jisung turned tail to make his way to Chris.

Jisung ended up leaving the arts building before you ever did, stepping out into the chilly night air. Chris was there to give you a ride home, after all: you didn’t need to ride the bus to Jisung’s apartment and then back to your own in the way you always insisted on doing. Chris had offered to drive him home, but Jisung waved him off. He needed the alone time to think, and the bus ride that took him home was the perfect time for it. He’d already begun writing lyrics in the notes app on his phone half-way there, and soon enough he’d put them into ink in his songwriting notebook. Just to get those feelings down while the wound was fresh and oozing ink.

You’d texted him that night to say that you were getting lunch with Felix that week. He had other shows most nights, but he’d make time for lunch with you anytime. He’d wondered for a moment until you finally said the magic word: Felix could do ‘evening dates’ with you another time. Yet you still texted him a moment later, asking if Felix meant date dates. All Jisung could say was that it might: he wasn’t Felix. He couldn’t tell you yes.

All he could tell you was that he was genuinely happy for you, even though the emotion never reached him in that moment.

When he woke up the next morning, he’d realized he fell asleep at his desk. His spine was aching at this point, and he realized that there was ink smudged on his hand and his cheek. He’d written down messy, clumsy lyrics that were nowhere near as good as he could make them. Jisung glanced over them again and again. The ink had smudged on the page, which meant he should copy them over to a fresh one after he showered. The melody would come to him while he washed off his regret anyway.

All of it was sloppy in the way a work in progress often was. But he had time to write it better.

A week later, you had curled up on Jisung’s bed while you were waiting for him to finish an assignment. The two of you had plans to go out to dinner, and you always ended up showing up a little too early. It never bothered Jisung, who was currently hard at work on a composition due for class soon. You admired him for a moment as he bobbed his head along to whatever he was working on, lips pressed tightly together in concentration. He’d already told you he wasn’t going to finish it tonight—but he just wanted a little more progress before he went anywhere with you. Which just left you to scroll through YouTube idly, eyeing the videos of ducks that kept popping onto your feed. All it took was one video from Felix for you to fall down this rabbit hole, and you were honestly fine with that. He made you happy.

Absent-mindedly, you started to reach toward Jisung’s desk. He always kept a stack of sticky notes on it, and you were hoping to blindly snag it without bothering Jisung. Yet he glanced up for half a second before pushing the cube over to you, offering a pen out to you without a word. You accepted it, thanking him out loud even though he was still entranced with whatever song he was working on. He hadn’t shared any of this one with you yet, but you weren’t going to push. He would show it to you when he was good and ready, and if he didn’t, then you just assumed it’d be more personal. All you did was roll onto your stomach, leaving your phone next to you as you began to doodle on the sticky notes. Jisung sometimes kept your silly little doodles, sticking them to his monitor before eventually throwing them out. There was still a pink one stuck to the corner of his screen with a little puppy on it, surrounded by little flowers. You’d started drawing tulips on this new sticky note without thinking, followed by other flowers that you remembered seeing in that shop.

Jisung pulled the headphones off his head, looking over at you. He was wearing glasses again today—a rare sight since he started wearing contacts—and the monitor reflected in them. “Sorry,” he said, watching you doodle for a moment longer. “I’m almost done, I promise.”

“It’s okay,” you didn’t look up, humming to yourself as you kept drawing. “Take your time. I don’t mind waiting.”

(When other people said such things, jisung always felt a little on edge. Did they really mean it, or were they just pacifying him? But when you did it, he never had to doubt you. You always gave him this little reassuring smile. You meant it, and that was something else he loved about you.)

“I mean it,” you said, just like you always did to try and reassure him further. “I’ll be right here when you’re done, okay?”

Sometimes that promise would end in you falling asleep on his bed, always after you had a particularly long or rough day. He never woke you up: he’d just pulled a blanket over you and went to sleep on the couch for the night. He always made it up to you by buying breakfast that following morning. You did the same for him, after all.

Jisung replaced his headphones, but left one side off so he could hear you. A clear sign that he was open to conversation now, less focused on the work at hand. His way of winding down without dropping the project entirely. “How,” he said, and then paused for just a second as he clicked something else, “was lunch with Felix?”

The heat traveled to your face immediately, and you averted your gaze. “It was nice.”

“Oh?” He swayed a little, turning his chair slightly. “So no wedding yet? I was practicing to be the flower girl, you know.”

You flipped him off, and he snorted.

“I wouldn’t make a good one?” He faked offense. “I think I’d be cute.”

“The cutest,” you rolled your eyes, yet still found yourself smiling. “Are you gonna show me the song you’re working on, or is this one another mystery?”

Jisung turned toward his computer again, not quite looking at you anymore. “It’s not ready yet.”

You looked up at him, the way he sounded a little distant piquing your curiosity. It wasn’t ready yet…? You shrugged it off. What reason would Jisung have to lie to you…? Maybe he didn’t want your opinions this time around. There was nothing wrong with that, to be fair: Chris and Changbin were both better for musical analysis. But he’d always valued your opinions on something that was so important to him, and you always tried to pay attention to his lyricism and compliment him where you could.

Yet you doodled a little rose in the corner of the note. “Okay,” you dragged out the word, rolling onto your side after a moment, just to face him for a second. “If you ever want to show me, I’ll be happy to listen.”

“I’ll let you know if I need you.” A moment later, he met your eyes and smiled—just to reassure you that he was fine.

With said reassurance, you returned to lying on your stomach and doodling. You stuck the sticky note with flowers onto the side of his desk, and started doodling paw prints and hearts onto the new note. “I think we should go out.”

“Huh?!”

Immediately, your heart leapt into your throat. Fuck, that’s not what you meant—why did he have to sound so bothered by it?! Was dating you really such a weird idea…? You just prayed he couldn’t see how flustered you’d become, tugging at the collar of your shirt. When did your skin start burning…? “Felix told me about this nice restaurant and I figured we could go scope it out,” you said quickly. At least this wasn’t a lie or anything: Felix did send you the name of a nice place for a future date.

“Shouldn’t you check it out with him?”

You rolled your eyes. “You know how I am.”

Maybe it was silly, but you had this thing about scoping places out if you knew where someone was taking you. You did the same thing whenever your family was in the area and wanted to check something new out, just so you knew that there was something on the menu that you’d like. If someone else was treating you, you always felt guilty if you didn’t like what they were paying for. Jisung asked you once why you didn’t just look up the menu online and pick from there.

You had looked at him that day. “Jisung. What if they don’t make it good? What if they add extra stuff I don’t like and it’s gross after I ask them to take it off?” You frowned, hugging yourself. “Then I feel bad for wasting my money, or my date’s money, or my parents' money…”

He hadn’t questioned you on it further and offered to be your test-date if you needed him. He’d never judge your taste, after all. If he was busy, you’d just drag Chris into going wherever with you—always offering to pay for him even though he had the better job out of the two of you. It was nice to go out with Jisung, though. He always seemed to know what you were going to pick off of the menu, the same way you knew his tastes. Speaking of…

“Jisungie?” You smiled at him, ready to sweeten the deal in a way he couldn’t refuse. “I’ll buy you cheesecake after.”

Immediately, you saw the way he pressed his lips together. You knew one of the ways to his heart and it was always through something sweet like cheesecake. A moment later, he melted, smiling as he turned back to save what he was working on. You left the sticky notes on his desk and hopped up, announcing you’d be waiting for him and made your way out. Minho had been curled up on the couch with a book, glancing up when you came in.

“Jisung and I are going to get dinner. Are you coming?”

Minho glanced over to where Jisung had emerged from his room, then shook his head. “I already ate.”

Whatever. The two of you would have fun on your own, then. Through the power of digital maps and following directions, you and Jisung managed to find the place easily enough. The two of you ended up seated in the corner, ordering quickly enough before you were left alone. With a sigh, you’d begun to swirl your straw in your drink, mind wandering a bit. Your date with Felix had been nice, but you always felt so fluttery with him. Being around Jisung was… easier. You didn’t feel the need to force any conversation with him, the two of you were content to have a minute of quiet if that was what you both needed. It was a weird change to feel around him, to be honest. In the past, being around Felix was always easy. Now that you knew he liked you back… It was different. You couldn’t help but wonder if things would be different if Jisung liked you back, if this were a date. Then you pushed the thought away: you needed to stop thinking things like that.

“What’s on your mind?” Jisung had peeked up at you from where he was scrolling through social media on his phone, frowning a little.

With a sigh, you knew he’d pick up on your mood. “I feel like I’m gonna turn into one of those people who only talks about dating.” You fiddled with the sleeve of your sweater—your favorite color this time. “But…”

“I’m listening,” he said. “Is everything okay?”

Why did he have to look at you so earnestly? Jisung had the prettiest eyes, especially when they looked so shiny—like boba pearls, someone once said. You nodded a moment later. “Just… I dunno. I like Felix, but I keep getting nervous with him.” You tapped your toes against the floor, a little restless already. “I mean… I know he likes me, but… I dunno. We haven’t kissed or anything.”

“Has he said anything?” Jisung ran a hand through his hair, fluffing it effortlessly. How the hell did he always do that…? “What are you two doing next?”

“We were gonna see a movie and then get food here,” you paused, looking up from where you’d started staring at your hands. “And maybe dessert, if he’s interested.”

“Was it your idea or his?”

“His, but—”

“Then I think you’re overthinking it,” Jisung said gently. “I think…” He trailed off for a moment, and then cleared his throat. “I think he likes you because you’re you. And… And, um,” he glanced down for just a second, “and if anyone doesn’t like you, then… I don’t think they deserve you.”

Your heart skipped a beat. How was he so sweet? He seemed so nervous now, the way he always seemed to get when he was a little more sentimental with you. Like he was treading lightly, so as to not say the wrong thing. You’d told him once that there was nothing he could say that would upset you, and so far that still rang true. You had your fair share of disagreements over the years, but Jisung was your best friend. If you had soulmates in this life, then Jisung was one of them. “Jisung…”

He just silently watched you for a moment, gauging your reaction as he carefully tried to find any signs that he’d slipped up.

You just buried your face in your hands a moment late, skin burning hot already. He’d melted your heart all too easily, dooming you to pine for him forever. No matter how far you went from him, no matter if you moved on, Jisung eternally had a piece of your heart and he didn’t even know it. Finally, you found the strength to speak, voice small: “I don’t deserve you.”

Your date with Felix was going well. The movie was fun, and dinner went great (especially going in knowing that you already liked some of the menu). He’d been gushing about video games and the movie, and now he was talking about a new recipe he was workshopping. His fingers were intertwined with yours as you walked aimlessly, no plan in place for where you were going next. You liked how warm Felix’s hands were, and the way he would run his thumb over your hand—just a tender little way of showing he was still there with you.

“Maybe… I could bake with you sometime?” You squeezed his hand a little. “If you want an assistant.”

He lit up at the suggestion, already beaming again with joy. “I’d love that! I could teach you whatever you don’t know.” He paused, cheeks flushing red. “I think… you’d be a cute assistant, too.”

Your heart leapt into your throat at that, face growing warmer at the thought. Felix was always so cute, so affectionate, and the way he giggled at your flustered face only made you more embarrassed. Yet your mind had started to drift to the walk you’d taken with Jisung after dinner that night, heading toward your usual place for dessert….

Only to be jostled from your thoughts as Felix’s shoulder bumped against yours, getting your attention back with ease. “You okay?” He paused, and then smiled as he squeezed your hand. “You wanna get ice cream?”

Ice cream sounded perfect. You’d been wanting to bring up dessert, but you weren’t sure if he had room for it after dinner and splitting popcorn with you earlier. Then your mind turned to the brownies you’d had with Jisung… “Actually… There’s this place I go sometimes—”

“With Jisung?” Felix asked. He didn’t seem jealous or bothered in the slightest. “I’ve actually been wanting to go there with you.”

You slowed to a stop. “You have?”

He nodded. “Yeah, but… I dunno. I guess I started thinking I was overstepping since that place was always you and Jisung. You guys always take us somewhere else if we’re all going, so…”

What?

Felix shrugged, and started walking again. You fell into step with him. He continued on after a moment, “You two are really close. I mean… I’ve been places with my friends that I haven’t gone with you all, y’know? Maybe we keep stuff for our friends sometimes.”

The shop had always been a place for you and Jisung, sure, but neither of you ever intended for it to be exclusively for you two. Minho had gone with the two of you once or twice, and so had Chris. Now that you were thinking about it, this place wasn’t even the place you two used to frequent. That place closed down a little over a year ago, and you’d found this place shortly after that. The two of you had gotten a to-go order that first time to try in his apartment and fell in love with the dessert there.

“It’s not our place,” you said after a moment. “If you want ice cream, we can get ice cream instead. I just started thinking about their brownies—”

Felix was already intrigued. “Do you wanna go?” He squeezed your hand a little, giddy at the idea. “We can split one, if you want?”

Perfect. “I’d love that,” you giggled. “They’re huge and they put a scoop of vanilla on top and drizzle it with caramel—you’ll love it.”

And he did: he fed you the first bite, just to be cheesy. His eyes always seemed to twinkle when he looked at you, so thoroughly endeared to you day after day. He’d hummed in bliss at his own first bite of the dessert before talking about how the salted caramel complimented the sweetness of the vanilla ice cream and the slight bitterness of whatever dark chocolate was in the brownie. It all came together beautifully, and all you could do was admire how pretty Felix was. He’d held your hand again after the two of you left, and held on tight for the entire walk home.

“May I…?”

You turned your cheek to him, and he pressed a kiss against it. His lips were soft against your cheek, lingering there for a few extra seconds before he drew away. He’d already started talking about planning your next date soon, leaving it there. He took a few steps back, waiting until you unlocked the door to your apartment before he waved and made his way in the opposite direction. You retreated into your apartment with the sappiest smile on your face, already on cloud nine. In the sanctuary of your apartment, you buried your face in your hands, trying to ignore how heavily your heart was thumping in your ears.

“Someone had a good time.”

Chris had stood near the entryway, two glasses in his hands. He must have been on his way back to the living room, and you waved him on as you slipped out of your shoes and into your house slippers. Right as you were ready to tell Chris a little about how your date had gone, you spotted Changbin on the couch. With a polite way, you decided to hold off. Chris could wait to hear things tomorrow, and you told him that as you made your way toward your room.

“Did he walk you back?” Chris called out, and you hung back long enough to nod. “You could have invited him in for a minute—”

“Oh, fuck no.” You loved Chris, and maybe it would have been polite, but he had too much dirt on you. The fact you’d managed to be friends with everyone this long without having all your embarrassing stories spilled was a miracle in itself. “I love you, but I don’t need you to embarrass both of us, Chris.”

Chris only burst into giggles, knowing that you were right and that Felix would have agreed with you in a heartbeat. “I wouldn’t do it too bad!”

Big brother energy. Big bother energy, too. You opened your bedroom door. “You absolutely would,” you called back. “Love you!”

Yet it was right as you were closing the door that you heard Changbin speak up, clearly not intending for you to hear: “I thought they were…” Then a pause, just for a second. “... What about Jisung?”

You shut your bedroom door as quietly as you could, praying that no one noticed you’d caught that. You pressed your back against it for a minute, wondering where you had slipped up. Were you that obvious? Did everyone but Jisung know that you liked him and he didn’t like you back? No. No, no one else could know, right? If they knew, they would have said something by now—especially with the fact that you and Felix weren’t hiding the fact you were dating. Speaking of…

You texted him to get home safe, tacking on a yellow heart after it. He attached a little heart to the message soon enough, and you smiled to yourself. He’d text you when he got home, the way he usually did. All you could do now was start getting ready for bed as you let your mind drift back to what Changbin had been saying. If Changbin knew, then there was no telling if he’d accidentally spill it. What if Jisung found out…? He’d look at you differently, wouldn’t he? Especially since you’d asked him to help you get with Felix. What if he connected the dots and figured out that you were dating Felix because you were trying to move on? What if Felix found out and he hated you for it…? A world in which Jisung and Felix hated you was one you didn’t want to live in, and your heart began to race at the thought. Shit. What if…? You wanted to reach for your phone, to call Jisung. But Jisung would ask some questions to help you calm down, and you weren’t sure if you could be vague enough to keep him from finding out.

Instead, you threw yourself into doing research for an essay. The less you thought about it all, the better off you’d be. The only thing that pulled you out of your thoughts was the text that popped up over an hour later from Felix. He’d sent you a picture of himself with a face mask on, dressed and ready for bed, and apologizing that he didn’t text you sooner. It was followed up with a “sleep well 💙we’ll talk tomorrow, yeah?” that left you smiling.

Felix was cute. He was sweet. He liked you, and you liked him. All you needed to do was push past your feelings for Jisung, and things would work out. Letting go was the hardest part of loving someone who wouldn’t love you back, and you needed to learn how to do it.

Maybe Felix could help you learn how to do that by loving you extra loud.

“You’re both slacking, you know!”

Jisung looked up at the sound of your voice carrying across the apartment. Barely milliseconds later, he heard Minho groan at you for pointing out the fact the apartment was a little unkempt. Fuck, you were here sooner than he thought—he’d seen your text over half an hour saying you were coming, but you were ‘taking your time’ for whatever reason. You’d given him a time, and even still he was surprised by how soon you’d showed up.

“I told you to text before you come!”

You’d stopped for a minute to turn to huff at him. “I did!”

“Text me, not just Jisung.” There was no venom in his words, purely Minho ribbing you, but Jisung jolted from his chair. Shit, his room was a mess still. Minho had to know, didn’t he? This was him giving him a chance to tidy before you came in. “He’s been in his room all day, by the way.”

“What?” You hadn’t moved. “Really? Is he behind, or…?”

Yes, keep distracting them, Jisung shoved trash into the small trash can next to his desk—all wrappers from snacks. The sticky notes from his monitor were neatly hidden away in the bottom drawer with all the others you’d left him. Minho was rattling something off about how he knew Jisung had been hard at work, although he’d barely checked on him since he seemed to be focused. He’d tie up the bag and take it out of his room later, after you left. He made up his bed as you asked something about one of Jisung’s classes, to which Minho said a curt “I don’t know, I’m not his mom,” which earned ribbing from you considering how Minho acted like a mom at times. A second later, your voice was a little louder, having stepped closer to his room.

He threw himself back into his chair, pulled his headphones on, and pretended to be hard at work. Don’t notice the fact he’s still panting a little—he was just… running. A marathon. Really. He heard your quick knock, followed by the creak of his bedroom door a moment later. When you waved your hand in front of his face, he pretended to jolt back, pushing his headphones around his neck as he looked up at you.

With a smile, you held up the takeout. “How much do you love me?”

More than you knew. No wonder you told him you weren’t sure you’d be there on time. He accepted the bag, already working to undo the knot. “I don’t deserve you.”

You pulled over the spare chair, pulling it over to his desk. “Minho said you’ve been busy all day. Everything okay?”

He nodded. “Just working on that paper on music history,” he set aside the plastic-wrapped utensils. “It’s due in a few days, but I’m behind on it, so…”

You frowned a little. “Okay, but… Have you eaten today?” When he didn’t move, you’d been given your answer. “Aw, Jisungie…”

“I’ve snacked?”

“That’s not the same thing,” you leaned against his desk. “I guess I came at a good time, then.”

He nodded, pulling the knot undone. He set your food aside. “I think Minho tried to check on me earlier. I don’t really remember.”

It wouldn’t be the first time, and both of you knew that. “Are you gonna share this time?”

He let out a groan. One time he ate all the steamed dumplings, and you’ve never let him live it down. “I always share,” he said, setting the container where both of you could reach it. “Take however many you want.”

“Not those,” you said, before pausing for a moment. “Well, yes those, but…” You pointed your chopsticks toward his computer. “Any of your work. I feel like I haven’t heard any of it this semester.”

“You’re usually with Felix,” he said, voice a little quieter. “I mean… You two are usually going out and doing things, you know?” He hoped you understood him: you couldn’t be around to hear things when you were out with him.

“Not the entire semester,” you frowned again. Then you sighed, balancing your food in your lap. “But you’re right.” Then you paused, brows drawing together. “Wait… Am I spending too much time with Felix?”

Jisung shook his head quickly. “No! No, you two are fine—I just meant—”

You reached out, squeezing his shoulder, “No, Jisung. I’m sorry.”

The way you sounded so genuinely upset only broke his heart a little. He didn’t mean to imply you shouldn’t be spending time with Felix—the two of you were dating after all. “Don’t feel bad about Felix—”

You stopped him there again. “No, I mean… I know we’re dating, but that’s no excuse to ignore you. I don’t want to be the kind of person who dumps their friends entirely, all just because I’m seeing someone. That’s not fair to you.”

His face grew warmer. Had you thought about this before…? You’d always been so conscious of your friendships when dating in the past. Sure, you spent more time with past partners, but he’d never felt neglected. No one did. “You aren’t dumping any of us. It’s okay.”

Yet that didn’t seem to stop you. “We should go out this weekend,” you said. “Like we usually do. I have to work Saturday morning, but my evening is yours.”

His? Jisung ignored the way his heart skipped a beat at that. It didn’t mean anything. “But what about Felix?”

You pressed your lips together. “If he doesn’t understand ‘best friend time,’ then he’s not the one.” You shrugged. “My partner shouldn't stop me from hanging out with friends. I’m never going to date anyone like that. I wouldn’t want anyone to put their life on pause entirely for me, you know?”

Jisung had always loved that about you. You loved your friends wholeheartedly, and you were always so, so loyal to them. In your past relationships, you’d always found time for friends. They understood whenever you prioritized the relationship during that initial phase, sure, but it always just felt… wrong to drop them entirely during that period. You needed to balance your time, after all.

Jisung swallowed his own pain. “How are you two?”

“You don’t want to hear about us.”

“I do,” he insisted. “You don’t have to share anything, but… You’re both still my friends. Jeongin said he saw you two on a date.”

You fumbled with your chopsticks, immediately growing flustered. “Oh my god. Felix kept telling me that he was positive it wasn’t him—I knew it was! Holy shit—”

“He didn’t say anything bad!” Jisung panicked a little, carefully removing your food from your lap before it could get spilled in your movement. He moved his chair over, giving you some of his desk space so you wouldn’t have to use your lap as a table anymore. “All he said was that you two were holding hands and giggling. He said it was sweet.”

You refused to look at Jisung, still too embarrassed to do anything more than push your food around its plate. “He’s… really sweet,” you admitted after a moment. “I dunno how I feel, honestly, and I kinda feel bad about that. He’s nice to talk to, and he’s sweet, but… I dunno. I keep getting worried that I’m leading him on if I’m not all-in already.” Your knee bumped against Jisung’s. “You changed the subject, by the way.”

Shit, you caught him. Jisung just moved the dumplings between the two of you again, trying to distract you. When you gave him a pointed look, he knew you weren’t going to drop it yet. With a sigh, he shrugged. “I’ll show you after I finish one. They aren’t good yet.”

“Bullshit,” you said. “Your works’ always good. Even when it’s a work in progress—I can always tell that you love what you’re doing. I love how devoted you are to it… and to us, y’know.”

Now it was his turn to be embarrassed, always so easily flustered. How did complimenting him come so easily to you?

“You don’t have to share it if you aren’t ready or if you don’t want to,” you said after a moment. “You can tell me that, though. I’ll stop asking.”

Jisung looked up, nodding. “Later,” he promised, running a hand through his hair nervously. “When I’m ready.”

You giggled, squeezing his knee. “That’s all I needed to know,” you said. “I’ll be here for you when you want to share, alright?”

Tell them. The little voice in the back of Jisung’s mind was nagging him again, and all he could do was admire how giddy you were getting over dumplings. He loved how you found joy in little things like this, too. Tell them so they can break your heart and get it over with.

Then something clicked in his mind, something he’d glazed over entirely. “You… might not like Felix?”

You avoided his gaze, as though you were ashamed. There was nothing wrong with not being sure of your feelings, and yet you’d shrunk before him, unsure. “I don’t know. I… I like him, but I’m not sure how far it goes.”

“You should figure it out soon,” he said softly. Regardless of his own feelings for you, Felix was his friend. You clearly were, too. It was unfair if you stopped feeling things and kept seeing him. “Felix is a really good person. If you want to date him, you should be up front about it. He won’t hold it against you if you don’t feel the same, you know? Do what will make you happy.”

You looked up from your food a moment later, a soft look in his eyes. He’d seen you and accepted you without any harsh judgment. Someone else might have told you off for being unsure, but not Jisung. Never Jisung. Feelings were complicated, after all. If you weren’t sure, then you weren’t sure. All you needed was time to figure it out. You wouldn’t drag things out to hurt Felix. You turned, leaning over the side of your chair to wrap your arms around him. He relaxed into your embrace, reaching up a hand to squeeze your arm.

“I’m really glad you’re in my life, Jisung.” You shut your eyes, squeezing him extra tight for a second. “I really, really love you, y’know?”

Why did that feel like a confession? His heart was racing, and he just squeezed you gently. His eyes fluttered shut for a moment as he savored this moment. “Yeah,” he said, praying that you didn’t notice how warm his face was getting, or hear how fast his heart was racing. “Love you, too.”

A moment later, you drew away, hands lingering on his arm for a moment too long. Then you were hit with realization. “Oh!” You drew away from him, “I forgot to get us drinks.” The wheels noisily rolled against the floor as you stood up. “I’ll go see what’s in the fridge, alright?”

Before he could offer to go, you were gone. Jisung watched the door shut behind you, and let out a long sigh as he relaxed into his chair. How long would it take for him to get past this? Every little moment like this with you only made his feelings burrow deeper into his chest. It felt as though he’d hit bedrock and somehow managed to keep digging. Something squeezed in his chest, and he felt as though he was going to suffocate in that moment.

Jisung loved you too much, and now it was starting to hurt even more.

Felix was… Felix. He’d been kind to you from the first day you met him. He was sweet. Sometimes insecure, but most people were, weren’t they? He was warmer than sunshine, though, and you had always felt like you were on top of the world when you were with him. He had that ability to just spread joy in other people, that pretty smile enough to give anyone butterflies—especially when you heard his laugh afterward. He’d always drifted toward others, always ready to give a warm hug when someone needed it (or even just wanted it). Felix was sunshine in human form…

So what changed? He was smiling that cute, smitten smile that he always seemed to have when he was around you. He played with your fingers, talking about his day and asking you about your own. The two of you hadn’t been going out that long, yet those weeks seemed to shift subtly more and more until you were where you were now. The time he first kissed your cheek felt so distant now. He still liked to press little kisses against your cheek, and you often did the same to him, too. So what was wrong with you? His giggle still made your heart flutter, and the cute face he made when he got flustered was still adorable, but…

Chris had paused the movie the two of you were watching one weekend, opting to study you for a moment. You’d been scrolling through your social media feeds, too bored with the stilted leads. They were reciting shitty dialogue written by someone who clearly didn’t know what love was. Then again… What was love like?

“Hey. Can we talk?”

You looked up, confused. When did Chris get so serious…? “What’s wrong?”

“I love you, but…” He let out a sigh. “I just wanted to say that I think you should cut things off with Felix if you aren’t interested.”

What? You never said you weren’t interested. Felix was sweet, and nice, and you felt great when you were around him still. “What?”

“I don’t know—Whenever I look at the two of you now, it looks like you’re always thinking about something.” Chris paused for a moment, and then frowned at you. “You know you can tell me anything, right? I’m still here for you. I just don’t want you and Felix to get hurt.”

You hugged yourself. “I know, I just…”

“Just… Figure it out, yeah?” Chris let out a sigh. “I love you so, so much. And I love Felix, too. When you said you were interested in him, I was really excited for you both, yeah? But, I don’t know, I can’t shake this weird feeling now.” He paused for a moment, eyes searching your own now. “I didn’t push you into this, did I?”

“No! No,” you shook your head, “you didn’t. I was crushing on him for a while.” You drew your knees a little closer to you, shifting into a more comfortable position. “I… I don’t know.”

Maybe you should kiss him. Just to see how it felt.

“I guess…” You trailed off for a moment, hugging your blanket closer to you. “I guess I’m just not sure about anything anymore. I like hanging out with him. And… I like him. I just don’t know how I feel anymore.”

Chris frowned as he watched you. He understood, though: feelings were always complicated in some way, weren’t they? “You should tell him soon once you figure it out.” The way he was being so insistent on it meant someone talked to him. Was it Felix…? Had Felix confided in him? He sat up, reaching for the near-empty bowl of popcorn. He dropped the remote into your lap. “I’m gonna make more popcorn. Find something actually good to watch, yeah?”

“This was your pick, you know.”

He just rustled your hair before moving on. With a new movie picked out, Chris settled into the space next to you rather than his usual spot. He wrapped an arm around you, pulling you into his side as he pressed a kiss onto the top of your head. He’d always given you little kisses like that when you were upset, and the habit never really died. It comforted you even now, reminding you of simpler times. He’d cared for you once when you were a child, rushing to your side when you skinned his knee. Admittedly it was because you’d been chasing after him, but he’d cared for you the same way he did for his siblings. He bandaged your knee, kissing it better the way his parents always did before kissing your forehead. His parents told him that it helped it heal faster. And, sure, the two of you had been dumb kids then, but the kisses now always reminded you that you weren’t going through things alone. Chris was always right there with you, the older brother you never had.

It was sweet. At least you would always have Chris in your corner, right next to Jisung.

Felix kissed you.

The two of you had walked home from dinner that night with your pinkies linked together. You’d grown quieter with each step, listening to Felix as he filled the space with soft conversation until it, too, was drowned in the sounds of the night. The sound of cars driving past, the chirp of crickets, the wind as it kissed your skin. But Felix was right there with you, still tethered to you by your pinkies. Even now, he looked at you so sweetly whenever he caught your eye. He’d fixed your jacket, or brushed a stray strand of hair back from your face. When you were finally back in front of your apartment, he’d asked if he could kiss you. You said yes, and he closed that distance between you. All at once, you knew: Felix wasn’t it.

Maybe there would never be anyone like Jisung for you. But you couldn’t be upset about that. It wasn’t his fault you fell for him somewhere along the way. And now you were standing in front of your apartment, an eternity seeming to pass as Felix kissed you gently. His lips were slightly chapped this time, fingers gently holding your face. One of the neighbors must have opened their door and seen from the way it opened and immediately shut.

A moment later, Felix pulled away since you never actually reciprocated. The hurt in his eyes told you everything: he knew. His hands were still holding your face, thumbs running over the apples of your cheeks. Shit. Fuck, you’d hurt him, all while you were hurting, too. Yet you saw the way he tried to fight back tears, blinking quickly as he took in a shaky breath.

When he spoke, his voice was strained. “This… wasn’t ever going somewhere, was it?”

Even after you’d hurt him, he was still so gentle with you. You wished he were angry with you, or upset, or anything other than the man who was forcing a smile in front of you now. If he yelled at you or started crying, then you could apologize. You could try to fix things. All he did was keep that forced smile as he drew his hands back, letting them fall to his sides again. With the tiniest step back, your worlds seemed to break apart. Why couldn’t he just yell at you? You’d hurt him, and he just… He looked at you like he still thought the world of you.

“That’s okay.” His voice was so much quieter. It was as though his sunlight had been snuffed out. “I had fun.”

“Felix—”

“I mean it,” he said, taking another small step back. “I… I really hope this doesn’t hurt our friendship. I still like talking to you, and—and I like being your friend. And you’re kind-of good at games, so we could, um—we could still use yours if you wanted to play with us, and…”

He was rambling. All you could do was step forward, pulling him into your arms to hug him tight. All too easily, he crumpled into your embrace, holding you tight.

“I’m sorry, Felix.” You hoped he would forgive you someday. Not today. Not too soon, not too easily. You didn’t deserve that. “I should have known sooner.”

He shut his eyes for a moment, taking in another shaky breath before pulling away from you. “It’s okay. You didn’t know.” He paused. “You should head in. I’m sure Chris is worried. I’ll probably get a text from him on my way home. You know how he is—he always worries, and, um, he… worries a lot about if I’m getting home safe, and…”

You punched in your apartment’s code, stepping back into the doorway. You turned to face Felix one last time, heart breaking in your chest. He forced one more smile as he looked at you.

“Goodnight,” he said, voice soft as ever.

You swallowed hard. “Goodnight, Felix. Get home safely.”

And then you shut the door, securing the door as you pressed your forehead against it. You waited, hoping that Felix had taken off as soon as the door was shut before you slammed your fist into it. Chris was out. You hadn’t seen his shoes when you stepped in, his house slippers left in their usual spot. All too quickly, you kicked your shoes off, heading toward your room as you started to strip off your clothes. You just wanted to be in your pajamas, curled up in bed. The heartbreak wasn’t what was hurting you more: it was knowing you’d hurt Felix, and he was going to go home, and he was going to cry because Felix was someone everyone treated with care. He wasn’t fragile, but he was gentler. A softer person. There was a reason why Minho joked with him differently, after all.

At least you were alone now. Chris would have asked questions. Everyone would have, except… You’d picked up your phone, opening it up to Jisung’s contact. Jisung wouldn’t ask questions. Jisung would hold you and let you cry. But he was Felix’s friend first.

All you could do now was send a final text to Felix to get home safely. A little heart popped up next to the message, a sign that he saw it, and you shut your phone off afterward. You dragged yourself to bed, chest heavy and hurting as you pulled your blankets around yourself. Why couldn’t things just be different?

Why couldn’t you just turn your feelings off?

Jisung didn’t speak to you all week.

This wasn’t him getting busy with schoolwork and shutting everyone out to work. Jisung did that with warning to everyone, just so no one worried about him. That was the rule for all of you. Life could be hectic, but no one was to completely shut everyone out without at least some sort of heads up so no one worried too much. Jisung had always been clear with telling you when he needed his space so that you could check in with him occasionally. The one person you needed most right now wasn’t responding to your texts, and that terrified you. He was pissed at you. He had to be, right? You had hurt Felix, and Jisung decided to side with the person he’d known longer. Messaging Minho yielded no answer, too. You had expected Felix to avoid you the way he was now, but even he had been more cordial to you. Sure, he was quieter, but that, again, was something you had expected. He apparently came by one day to see Chris, and you had never known until Chris offhandedly mentioned it.

You had to figure things out, which meant asking everyone separately. Chris had claimed he didn’t know anything about what was wrong with Jisung. He never acted any differently when they interacted, although it was a little more rare nowadays. Minho only responded to tell you that Jisung needed space, but that he wasn’t sure what had happened. Felix had messaged you back to first accept your apology for bothering him and then tell you that he wasn’t sure what happened. No one did. Jeongin seemed clueless that anything had happened, Changbin said he’d see what he could find out (only to come up fruitless in that attempt), and Seungmin had been buried in his own schoolwork. If anyone had known something, it would have been Minho.

Which… admittedly was why you decided to wait outside the dance studio he worked at. He was teaching kids dance now, and it paid well enough that he could support himself. Plus he seemed happy, always getting along well with the kids according to Felix and Hyunjin when they volunteered to help a few times. You knew that he locked up in the evenings because he was the last person out, always taking an hour to himself to practice his own dancing. You listened to the jingle of keys and the loud click of the door, followed by Minho making his way down the steps. He noticed you all too easily, and slowed to a stop.

He shook his head, pocketing his keys. “I’m not telling you anything,” he said, as though he’d been expecting you to track him down. Maybe he did. Minho could have his airheaded moments the way you had your own, but he wasn’t stupid. “How long have you been waiting?”

“Maybe half an hour.” You crossed your arms, shivering a little in the cold. Maybe longer, actually. “I just want to know what’s going on with Jisung. I’m worried, Minho—he hasn’t said anything to me.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “He’s just going through a few things.” He stepped down off that final step, making his way toward home. He turned, speaking to you again, “He’s not ready to talk to you, so give him space for now. He’ll talk to you when he’s ready.” Then he turned away again, continuing his walk away.

That wasn’t enough for you. You hurried to catch up to him, “Minho!” You fell into step next to him. “Why can’t he just tell me that? That’s all I needed to hear from him. He knows he can tell me things, I just—”

Minho stopped suddenly, turning to face you. He reached up, hands resting on your shoulders. “When he’s ready, he’ll tell you. Don’t worry about him,” his fingers dug into your shoulders for a quick squeeze, “I’m taking care of him. Just wait for him.”

Before you could question him further, Minho let go of you. All you could do was stand there, stewing in your thoughts. Minho knew, then. What he knew exactly, you weren’t sure, but he at least knew what was wrong with Jisung. You drew your phone back out of your pocket, opening it to your unanswered messages to Jisung. Maybe you shouldn’t have, but you needed to say at least one last thing before you stopped trying to contact him. Just to he knew that you were still on his side:

I’m here if you need me, Jisung. Please take care. Love you.

And by the time you were home, he had reacted with a heart. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to tell you he’d seen your messages.

At least he’d given you that.

Jisung still wasn’t speaking to you another week later.

He knew about Felix. How could he not know about Felix? He knew that you had ended things with him. He knew that Hyunjin was beyond pissed at you, and he knew you’d eventually figure that out. Jisung had spilled his feelings to Hyunjin when he pushed again. That he had loved you for so long now that he couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t love you. Hyunjin, to his credit, had quietly listened to Jisung as he told him everything. Then when he was done, he scowled to himself.

“They hurt Felix,” he had said. “Because they love you.”

Jisung shook his head. “You don’t have to say things like that. I know they don’t—”

“No, they do, and you need to realize that.” Hyunjin crumpled the paper cup of coffee, getting up to throw it into the trash. “That’s why they turned Felix down.”

What the hell—Did you say something to Hynjin? “Did they tell you?”

“No.” He crossed his arms. “But I know. It’s a gut feeling. I always thought you were lying to me, but…” He let out a heavy sigh, shaking his head. “You deserve better than them, Jisung.”

Immediately, he was taken aback. “What?”

“They fucked with Felix’s feelings,” he said, “and I think that’s fucked up. I don’t care that they have feelings for you—they should have left Felix out of it. Why would they do this to him?”

“They liked him,” Jisung said, already quick to defend you. He was hurting, yes, but he wasn’t going to just let Hyunjin insult you like this. You weren’t some cruel person—you had genuinely liked Felix. What, were you supposed to keep dating Felix when it turned out you didn’t feel the same way? “They wouldn’t have dated him if they didn’t.”

“Did they?” He balled his hands into fists. “Or were they just trying to get over you?”

“They wouldn’t have hurt him on purpose!” Jisung hated how he teared up now. He was angry, he wanted to defend you, and yet the stress of fighting back now was already getting to him. “They were figuring out how they felt—they’re not a bad person for figuring out that they don’t like him like that.”

“I mean it,” Hyunjin said. “You deserve better. Felix does, too.”

Jisung didn’t know what else to say. Nothing he could say would change Hyunjin’s mind, would it? He was pissed at you, and nothing Jisung could say on your behalf would do anything. Only you could change his mind.

“I’m still here for you,” Hyunjin said, voice a little softer than before. “I know it’s hard. I’m sorry, Jisung.”

Of course he was still there for him. Everyone would be—including Felix, if he knew. He saw a picture pop up a few days later of Felix out with Hyunjin and Changbin, smiling genuinely at the camera. He’d heard about how badly Felix had been hurting those first few days–. Changbin said he’d been crying for so long that night, genuinely heartbroken by how everything had gone down. Not that Changbin was upset with you at all: relationships sometimes just didn’t work out. It sucked that Felix was hurt, but everyone (excluding Hyunjin, who’s loyalty to Felix admittedly blinded him to anything you were going through) understood that the situation was complicated. It had to be, right? The two of you seemed to fit together so well…

Jisung shut his eyes, listening as he reworked this part in his song about you for maybe the millionth time now. The lyrics weren’t completely right, not flowing the way he wanted them to. But he’d never been able to get them right every time he tried to rewrite them, and it was too personal a project to ask for a second opinion on. He’d stopped working on it to console Felix at one point, only for him to ask point black if Jisung actually did like you. He denied it. the same way he always did and always would, and Felix didn’t push. Jisung couldn’t like you now. Not when it would hurt someone, and especially when it would hurt someone like Felix. Denying his feelings hurt, but pursuing you just felt selfish.

Suddenly, his headphones were pulled off his ears, and Minho stood next to him. He glanced at the screen and already recognized it to be the piece that Jisung had been working on constantly when he wasn’t working on schoolwork, and sighed. Jisung watched as Minho wordlessly made his way over to his closet, opening the doors and searching through his shirts. He yanked one off, throwing it at Jisung, who scrambled to catch it.

“Get dressed,” Minho said before Jisung could question him. “Chris is on his way.”

Jisung furrowed his brows. Chris was…? He looked down at the clean white t-shirt in his hands. “Did something happen?”

“We’re all going out,” he said, searching for a clean pair of jeans. He threw those at him, too, and then turned. “You’ve barely left the apartment outside of work and class. We’re going to sing your feelings out. Bottling them up won’t help you.”

Jisung only stared at him. Writing a song about you was the opposite of bottling it up… right? “I’m not—”

“You don’t have to tell us everything,” he made his way over, giving Jisung a gentle pat on the head. “But you can depend on us. We’re here for you.”

Jisung looked down at the clothing Minho had oh-so-lovingly thrown in his face, and nodded. He left his headphones on his desk, moving to change once Minho had left him alone. Soon enough, he had changed, and even sooner after that, Chris had shown up. If you were upset, Chris hadn’t said a word about it. He just threw an arm around Jisung, already bragging about how he’d have the highest score tonight if Jisung didn’t bring his game. It was almost nice to act as though nothing was wrong, even though Jisung saw the concerned looks Chris kept taking.

He’d run his fingers over the smooth seats in the karaoke room, listening as Chris put in an order for drinks and snacks. All of this was his treat, he’d insisted over and over. This was entirely his idea, apparently (an idea Minho didn’t refute at all). Jisung kept glancing at the door, wondering if this was some plan they’d concocted to make the two of you talk.

“Jisung, you should sing first,” Minho said, prodding his side to get his attention.

Jisung looked to his two friends, who began to chant his name to motivate him further. This wasn’t a trap to make the two of you talk, then. The tension eased off of him. They wouldn’t do that to him—not like this, at least. He waved his hands, though. “No—It’s fine! One of you can go first.”

Chris stood up and began to cycle through the songs, humming to himself before stumbling across one. “Jisungie,” he cooed, “will you sing with me?”

Of course Chris had found a duet. It was from two members of a popular boy group, and Jisung had… admittedly listened to it more than a few times over the past two weeks. The song was about heartbreak to the point of begging the listener to say yes, to sing this song with them again, to let them stay again. It was easier to sing alongside Chris than to sing along, to share his pain through another song he’d had on repeat.

And it became healing to belt out a ballad with his friends until his throat ached. To break down crying afterwards and be held by them as he sobbed. Something inside of him had finally broken down in the way it needed to. When replacing his battery once, the guy behind the counter told Jisung that it was okay to let his phone die sometimes, because even it needed rest. He didn’t know enough to know if this was sound advice, but he had always kept the advice in mind at least. Was that what this was? Had his own battery finally run out and this was his way of resting rather than tirelessly pushing forward, recharge after recharge? He’d leaned into Minho’s side, sobbing into his sleeve while Chris rubbed circles onto his back.

By the time they left after buying another hour, Jisung felt lighter. He would always carry this heartbreak for you within him, yearning for something he needed to let go of to be better. But more importantly, things finally seemed clearer to him. He knew how to fix his song, lyrics perfected in the back of his mind. He typed them out into his notes app while sitting in the back of Chris’s car, just so he wouldn’t lose them. The melody came to him easier—something he’d need to change a little to be just right—and he tapped it out onto his jean-clad leg. The moment he was home, he would put it down onto paper.

And when he finished his song, he could finally let go. Jisung promised himself that he would, and when he did that, he could finally let you back in if you would have him.

Almost three weeks without Jisung, and you felt like you were holding yourself together with thread. At first, you’d been angry once Minho told you to just wait for Jisung. If it was this serious, then Jisung should have told you himself that he needed space. A lot of space, apparently. Then came worry, because had you done something to upset him? Was that why he wouldn’t so much as look at you anymore? Had you hurt Jisung without even knowing it. Or… Or did he figure out the real reason why you couldn’t be with Felix? Someone must have suspected your feelings for Jisung now. Chris had to know. Changbin already suspected something. Surely, one of them would have hinted at it to Jisung… wouldn’t they? Night after night, you found yourself searching through every text from your friend group for some answer that you were sure would never come to you. Something that someone had said to hint at what was wrong with Jisung.

And then the answer came to you in what someone didn’t say. Hyunjin had never responded to a single one of your texts. You hadn’t noticed at the time, far too caught up in trying to figure out the puzzle that was Han Jisung and his disappearance from your life. But you’d had enough, and if Hyunjin had the answers, then it was time to put a stop to this. You’d buzzed his apartment, and Seungmin let you in without much of a second thought. Hyunjin sat at their dining table, sketchbook open in front of him while he worked on thumbnails for a new assignment. He looked up, and immediately you saw disgust cross his face.

“Tell me what’s wrong with Jisung.”

You weren’t asking anymore: this was a demand. A week ago, you would have scurried in and pleaded for Hyunjin to just talk to you. But the scorn in his eyes was enough to tell you that Hyunjin knew something and, for whatever reason, he was beyond pissed at you. He scowled at you for a moment, but let it go, fading into neutrality. He leaned back after a moment, giving you a quick once-over.

“You’re being rude.”

Was he serious right now? Of all the people to deal with… “Hyunjin.” You folded your arms across your chest. “I mean it. If you do know something, then tell me already.”

His gaze was cold still, expression not betraying his true thoughts. “It’s none of your business.”

“Bullshit!” You snapped at him, fists balled as you stepped forward. “It’s been almost three weeks and I haven’t seen Jisung the entire fucking time—If it’s bad, then at least say that!”

“What do you think the problem is?!” Hyunjin truly was pissed with you, voice now raising as he stood up. He pushed his sketchbook aside to where it would be safe, and stared you down. “You broke Felix’s heart, and it’s hurting the rest of us—and you should have thought about that before you asked him out.”

You sputtered. Was he pissed at you because things didn’t work out? “I didn’t know we wouldn’t work out! What was I supposed to do—pretend I still had feelings for him?”

“Tell him sooner.” He clenched his jaw. “Don’t lead him on when you clearly have feelings for Jisung.”

Seungmin gasped behind you, and you found yourself at a loss for words. Hyunjin knew? When—How—How the fuck did Hyunjin find out? You swore you’d always hidden your feelings well, but… “What are you talking about?”

His gaze was ice cold now, and he scowled at you once more. “You went out with Felix because you didn’t want to admit it. Now Jisung feels bad because he helped set you two up because you asked—Did you even like Felix?!”

“I did!” You did. You truly did. But not every relationship was meant to last—and, hell, you never even became anything official. If you could turn back time, you would have ended things sooner. “I did,” you said, your voice softer as you reined in your temper. “I wouldn’t just mess with Felix like that, Hyunjin. He’s my friend, too.” You brought your arms up to hug yourself. “Hyunjin, do you really think I’d do that?”

Hyunjin didn’t say anything for a moment, the regret clear on his face. His fingers grazed the wooden table in front of him as he looked away from you, pressing his lips into a firm line. As upset as he was with you, assuming you would be so cruel to someone you both clearly cared about was… a little too far, wasn’t it? He took a deep breath as he calmed himself down, meeting your eyes after a moment. “I think you need to figure out your feelings. I’m tired of watching my friends hurt.”

“I know.” Your lip trembled a little, and you fought back the urge to cry. “I can’t help how I feel about Felix, though. I know I should have told him sooner, but… I really, really didn’t know until we kissed. I promise.”

Hyunjin said nothing at first, just watching you. He licked his lips a moment later, swallowing hard. “You really don’t understand, do you?”

All you could do was stare. Maybe he would give something away. “What?”

Seungmin spoke up after a moment, “Don’t you have that meeting? For your project?” He looked between the two of you. He looked at Hyunjin more pointedly after a moment, clearly annoyed at the confused look on his face. “Hyunjin.”

Hyunjin caught on for once, although you could tell that this was some sort of lie. “Right,” he said, reaching for his sketchbook. “I should go.”

There was no point in calling either of them out. They weren’t going to tell you anything now, and you needed to reflect on what had happened so far. You apologized for intruding and for coming in so hot, turning to make your way out of the apartment. While you still weren’t sure why, exactly, Jisung was upset to the point of not speaking to you… You understood at least a little more. It felt like everyone knew something that you didn’t, although the answer felt just outside of your reach. How much of it was you not knowing, though, and how much of it was you not letting yourself know? You weren’t sure.

Hyunjin called your name before you left, hesitating before he met your gaze. “I think… I think you should talk to Jisung.” He frowned. “I’m still upset with you because of Felix, but… It’s weird that you two aren’t talking at all. So…” He made his way over, opening the door to leave with you. “Talk to Jisung soon.”

You would. Regardless of how you came out on the other end, you would talk to him no matter what it took.

Jisung had his favorite studio on the music floor of the arts building. He’d penciled in his time slot at the beginning of the week, and let himself in with the code. This room was the furthest from the entrance, and it had the most comfortable chair to settle in and work in. It was always a fight to get this room, and Jisung was good at quietly stealing a few time slots for himself. He shoved his bag underneath the table, and he put himself to work. He’d need to re-record the piano track for one piece, record the guitar accompaniment for another piece he’d been working on… And plenty more that was always best suited for working here rather than home. Using digital instruments only took him so far—there was something calming about sitting down and playing a piece himself.

It wasn’t until he was playing a piece back that he heard the door click unlocked behind him. When he looked up, there you were. You looked tired. Far more tired than he did most days. What had happened to you?

“Hey.” You stood in the open doorway. Non-music students weren’t allowed in here, but that had never stopped you. Someone had to drag him back home when it was getting too late, after all.

He ran a hand through his hair, hoping that he looked casual enough. “Hey.”

“Everything okay?” The door slowly fell shut behind you, and you stepped a little closer to him. “It’s been a while.”

Three weeks, but who’s counting? Jisung was. He kept counting day by day, hour by hour, trying to whittle down the time further and further until he was strong enough to face you again. “I’ve been busy,” he half-lied. “That’s all.”

“Is it?” You frowned, making your way over to the nearby chair. “If you want me to leave, you can tell me, okay? I’m worried about you.”

Jisung let out a sigh, nodding. “I’m okay. Just…” He looked at the piece he’d been working on, and thought back to the song he’d been writing for you. “I’ve been working on a song sometimes. But…” He looked at you. Maybe you’d have the answer he was still searching for. “What would you do if you loved someone you shouldn’t?”

“Like… forbidden love?” You tilted your head curiously, frowning. “Or…?”

He chuckled, actually smiling again for the first time in a while. Oh, how he was still so endeared to you. No wonder you were still in your literature program with cute thoughts like those. “Just someone you can’t be with. Like…” He hummed to himself. It would be another lie, but it’d throw you off his trail if you were starting to figure him out. “A friend’s partner.”

He could see the way you started to think on that, no doubt making a list of all the friends the two of you had that were dating. It’d vex your brain for a bit, sure, but Jisung didn’t mind. He liked the cute way your brows drew together when you were thinking hard, lips always pressing into this pout.

“That’s what my song is about is all,” he said. “I haven’t experienced it myself,” he lied again, “but I was thinking about it and I wondered what kind of song that would turn into. It’s about someone who’s in love with their friend’s partner, and struggling with those feelings. Like… They wouldn’t do anything to hurt their friend, but they still can’t help their feelings.”

You said nothing to him. Had he said too much? You were figuring him out, weren’t you…?

“I just think it’s hard to live that life,” he said. Every time he even thought about you, there was an ache in his chest. Felix liked you, too. “I mean… Imagine loving someone so much that it hurts.”

“I can, yeah.” Your voice had gone a little quieter than usual. Right. Had you felt that way about Felix…? Or were you talking about him now? Jisung struggled more with that one, even though Hyunjin was so confident that Jisung’s feelings had never been one-sided.

He met your gaze a minute later, shy to look into your eyes again. He’d always loved the color of your eyes. If he could write songs about how he wanted to drown in their warm, loving gaze, he would. But that was straying a little too far into territory he’d sworn away from. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I wanted time to figure things out, but… I think Minho would tell you I haven’t talked to most people lately.”

You nodded. “Chris said the three of you went out to a noraebang.” Your toes tapped against the floor in that nervous way, as though this was a topic you shouldn’t even come close to. “Did that help?”

Wait… You weren’t mad at him for that. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“No?” You toyed with your sleeve, not quite meeting his gaze this time. “I mean… It did sting a little bit, but if you needed Chris and Minho, then I can’t change that. All I can do is just kinda hope that they helped you.”

He didn’t deserve you. Fuck the music for now, he’d finished what he really needed to do. He began to shut down the equipment, gathering his things as he stood up, facing you. “I’ll buy dessert,” he said. “Is that okay?”

it was your turn to smile at him, lighting up his world all too easily. You followed him out of the studio, and he secured the door shut to make sure it was locked. For a moment, his hand brushed against your own, and he yearned to hold it. Another feeling he would have to get used to, he was sure. But all he could do was smile at you, thankful that you were right there by his side for the first time in weeks.

This would be hard, but he could do it. He wasn’t going to lose you again. Not if he had anything to do with it.

Hyunjin had shown up to his apartment for once, and he stood in the doorway to his bedroom. “Jisung. Tell them.” His hand curled around the strap of his bag, clutching it tight. “Soon.”

Minho had told him the same thing ever since the two of you started talking again. If Jisung didn’t want to pursue you, then it was time he learned to let you go. And if he did want to become something with you, then he needed to talk to you. It wasn’t fair to either of you if he held onto this dream of loving you without ever trying. If Jisung couldn’t let himself do it, then why keep hurting himself by holding onto it so tightly? Why not find a new dream to pursue, a new person to love wholeheartedly? Yet Jisung couldn’t imagine a world where he wasn’t loving you in some way. Part of his heart would live and die with you one day, no matter how far away he went. This was his fate now.

“I just got our friendship back,” he said without looking up again. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Jisung, they like you.” Hyunjin said it outright. “So you need to tell them.”

Jisung looked up. He knew you liked him. But would he ever let himself fully believe it? It felt… harder to grasp that reality. He’d spent so long telling himself that it was all in his head, that the tender look in your eyes was just you caring for him as a best friend. But Hyunjin was right. Minho had been right. Everyone who had ever told him to just go for it was right. “Hyunjin, I don’t know if I can—”

“I’m tired of watching my friends hurt,” he said. “All of us see it. Why can’t you?”

Jisung swallowed hard. “What about Felix?”

Hyunjin averted his gaze, frowning. “Felix…” He took a deep breath. “Felix would want you to be happy, Jisung. He knows, too, you know.” He took a step back. “I’m not going to push you. But you should tell them.”

He said nothing else, and soon Hyunjin left him there. Jisung shut the world out again, listening to his song as it played back to him again. One step closer. Once he finished this song, everything would be okay.

Chris Bang had always been your best friend growing up before Jisung took that title away from him. He was an older brother to you in every way except blood, and that meant he was the one who would have the hard talks with you. He’d come home with your favorite takeout in hand, setting it on the dinner table before saying he’d change out of his work clothes quickly. But you knew what was coming. There were only two reasons that Chris would buy your favorite takeout on his way home from work. You weren’t upset, which meant it was time for an adult conversation. One that you wouldn’t want to have, but needed to. Soon enough, Chris had sat across from you, having poured your drink first.

“So I think we should talk about how you’re in love with Jisung,” Chris said as he set down the bottle. “Okay?”

You stared at him, already feeling tears well up. Everyone knew, then. If Chris knew, then there was no way the others hadn’t figured it out. “Chris…”

“It’s okay.” He took your hand in his own. It was time for the two of you to dump your feelings onto the table and sort them out right then and there together. “Let’s talk about this, okay? No more running away.”

No more running away. You breathed in deep, and slowly exhaled. Where to begin…? You weren’t sure. So much of your life had become this huge mess over the past few months, and now all those strings were tangled so tightly together that you weren’t sure you could undo the knot.

So Chris squeezed your hand before letting go, turning his attention to the bag of takeout in front of you. “I know you,” he said. “So I know you didn’t want to hurt Felix, and I know that you still don’t. But… I think it’s time you put your feelings first for once.”

“Chris…” You frowned. “It feels too soon.”

“I kinda hate saying it, but we all know now. Felix included.” He set your plate in front of you, and didn’t touch his own. All he did was watch you, waiting for you to say or do anything further. When you didn’t, he decided to continue on, “You can’t tell me that you don’t want to act now because of Felix. I asked everyone and they all said the same thing: they thought you’d liked Jisung for a while before you and Felix dated. After that, they all thought that you two were just that close.”

“We are.”

Chris shook his head, saying your name gently this time. “You know Jisung loves you, right?”

There was a spike of pain in your chest. Not because you didn’t, but because you did. Hyunjin had all but spelled it out for you before, but seeing Jisung again that day proved it. You’d always thought you were just believing in something that wasn’t there, too afraid to toe the line between friend and more. Tears lined your eyes now, and finally ran down your cheeks as you blinked. All you could do was nod now.

Chris already reached up to wipe away your tears. “It’s okay!” He chuckled. “You’ve gotten so soft,” he teased. “But… Why did you never tell him?”

“I was scared.” You still were, to be fair. “I didn’t know for sure before, and… Now I just don’t want to hurt Felix. I don��t think Jisung does, either.”

His gaze softened so much. Of course the two of you were still thinking of Felix. Minho had said the same thing to Chris, actually. “Felix wants you to be happy,” he said. “All of us do. If that means being with Jisung, then that’s what you should do. Felix is an adult, you know. He might be more sensitive sometimes, but he’d never hold any of this against you.” He cupped your cheek gently. “And I really, really don’t think he’d want to be the reason you two never tried.”

You could believe that easily. If Felix knew, he’d feel guilty. That you knew as fact.

“And if I’m being honest… I don’t think he’s the only reason you haven’t tried.” He pulled his hand away from your face. “So… Talk to me. What’s really stopping you?”

No running away. “What if this doesn't work out and I lose Jisung for good?”

“There’s no guarantee that will happen,” Chris said.

“There’s no guarantee we’ll work out, either.” You frowned. “I’ve heard horror stories of friends who tried to date and it ruined everything.”

“And there’s friends who managed to go back to being friends,” Chris said. “I really think that you two wouldn’t let it tear you apart. You’ve already been through so much, you know?”

You shifted uncomfortably in your seat. The last thing you ever wanted was to lose Jisung again. If the two of you didn’t work out, how hard would you fight for him? Would he fight for you, too…?

“The most you’ll ever have to do is get space from each other,” Chris said. “But I think you’d come back to each other.”

“I think he’s my soulmate.” You hadn’t thought before you said it, the words bursting out of you all too easily. Regardless of whether that was platonically or romantically, Jisung was someone you wanted to keep in your life forever. “But…”

“But?”

“Isn’t it too soon?” You frowned at Chris. “I mean… Felix and I—”

“If you don’t go for it now, when will you?” Chris held your hand again. “If you aren’t ready to tell him, I won’t push you to do it. Just because you confess doesn’t mean you have to rush into a relationship—it just means you’re finally being honest with each other. Go at your own pace… But don’t hold back because of everyone else, okay?” He squeezed your hand reassuringly. “The only people in this relationship would be you and Jisung. So don’t include anyone else in this decision, okay?”

With a nod, you decided to commit to giving yourself three days. One day to make up your mind for sure on whether this was the right move to make. If you were going to confess to Jisung, then you wanted to do it sooner rather than later. The second day was to figure out how you were going to tell him. Over cheesecake, or in through a song, or in the park… You still had to figure that part out, and you would. It needed to be special.

And the third day was going to be the day you told him.

On the rooftop of Jisung’s apartment was a community garden. It brought a little greenery into the city, and it was nice to see the plants that several people often tended to— fresh herbs that Minho would sometimes pick with permission to use when he cooked, a few tomato plants that he often saw people tending to, Things that he didn’t fully understand the care of himself, but he still appreciated the efforts put into it. It was a nice space to sit and think alone sometimes, most of his friends unaware of just how often he’d come up here. He could see so much of the city here, too. He was just one person in this great big city—in the world, even, if he let his mind wander that far. And yet he’d found significance through the people he loved, in the passions he pursued.

He’d finished his song for you late last night, and now he was left with this hollow feeling. He’d told himself over and over that this song would be it: one last thing he’d dedicate to you, and then he’d move on. But… That wasn’t how it was going to work at all. Han Jisung knew a few things now. He loved you. You loved him. The only question he had left was how to tell you.

Maybe he should have written you a love song instead. Then he’d have something, at least.

He’d brought a drink out here with him, settling at the picnic table. He used to bring you up here sometimes, stealing away from the world for a while to just exist with you. You’d share drinks together, and a few times you’d ended up rained on. Now, he just lost himself to the playlist he’d been listening to, head bobbing along to the music. He could bring you here and confess to you at sunset. Would that be romantic? He didn’t care for it being a grand gesture, as long as it was something memorable. All he wanted was a gesture that told you that he was sorry but ready to face tomorrow at your side, if you would let him be there.

The door to the rooftop had this awful screech that he could hear through his headphones. He opened his eyes, reaching to pull them around his neck and politely greet whoever had come up here. And it was as if you’d heard his thoughts, because there you stood in the golden rays of the day.

“Hey.” The door had slowly swung shut behind you as you made your way over to him.

He shyly smiled at you. “Hi.” Now it was his turn to ask: “Is everything okay?”

You nodded, coming to the edge of the table. “I think we should talk about us.”

“Us?” His heart almost skipped a beat at that. Did you…?

Oh. You knew.

“It’s nothing bad,” you had said to him, as if it could put him at ease now. “But…” You rounded the table, throwing one leg over the bench he’d been sitting on. Instead of sitting normally, you chose to straddle it, just so you could fully face him.

So he matched you, throwing one leg out and turning to fully face you. “But?”

“I’m in love with you,” you said, voice wavering ever so slightly now. “And… And you’re in love with me.” You’d begun to drum your knuckles against the wooden bench. “And… And I don’t know why neither of us said anything sooner.”

Jisung stared at you, face growing warmer. His gut instinct was to deny it, to push his feelings away. But Hyunjin’s words rang out in his head: he was tired of seeing his friends hurt. Everyone was now.

“I really wanna be honest with you, so…” You took a deep breath, shutting your eyes for just a moment to center yourself. “Hyunjin thought I was using Felix to get over you, and… I just wanted to say that I promise I wasn’t. I really did like Felix, but…”

“I didn’t think you were,” Jisung’s voice was soft, and he reached for your hands. His fingertips grazed your knuckles before he pulled his hands away. Was touching you, even in such a tiny way, too much? “I knew you liked him.”

You nodded slowly. “Good. Because…” You’d grown flustered, averting your gaze. “I.. didn’t know that it’d always be you until I kissed him.”

That time, the world seemed to stop around him. It’d… always be him? “What?” His fingers curled around the edge of the bench. “I don’t understand. What do you—”

A moment later, your eyes met his own. “I think I’ve been looking for you in every person I’ve tried dating, and that’s why it’s never worked out.” He’d already begun to melt, but you continued on, “If you didn’t love me back, then I think maybe one day I would have moved on. But… If you don’t, then tell me, and we can pretend this conversation never happened.”

He shook his head. The last thing he wanted was to pretend he didn’t love you. Yet something ached in his chest. Felix. Even now, all he could think about was how Felix would hurt once he knew the two of you were something. “I… I want to,” he said, voice softer now. “But what about Felix?”

“Would you hesitate if Felix didn’t like me?”

He shook his head. Never. He swallowed hard, his emotions building in his chest. He’d dreamed of a day like this for so long, always pining over you night after night. He dreamed of kissing you, warm and tender, and saying all the pretty things that came to mind. And now that you were in front of him, he couldn’t help but glance at your lips again. Not yet. “I…” He paused, just to gather himself together. “I didn’t think you’d love me, you know.”

You frowned at him. “Why not?”

“You’re you,” he said. “And… And I wasn’t sure if you’d ever like me like that. I’ve always known you liked me, but love is… different.” The paint chips from the bench were flaking onto his fingers now, the same shade of red as your sweater. As his, too. “I know Felix is hurting now, but it doesn’t change how I feel about you. I thought it would, but…”

“I get it.” You nodded slowly. “I… I also kinda thought things would change. But if everyone wants us to be happy, then I think we’re the only people standing in our way.”

He didn’t want to. Not anymore. Jisung reached forward, this time keeping his hands over your own. “I think we should stop that,” he said, voice growing quieter. His eyes had grown wetter, tears brimming the edges, and reached up to wipe them away. “Sorry—I’m getting emotional.”

“It’s okay.” You scooted forward a little, and Jisung felt his heart begin to race. You were so close he could kiss you. He wanted to kiss you. You reached up, caressing Jisung’s face. He already leaned into your touch, eyes fluttering shut for a moment as he savored the feeling. Your hands were so warm, even now. “I think I’ll always love Felix the way I love the rest of our friends. But… I love you more, Jisung. I know it’s early to say it, but… I really think it’s you.”

He opened his eyes, taking in the way the golden rays of the sun were kissing your face. Was it wrong to be a little jealous? Again, his eyes flickered down to your lips for just a second. “Can I kiss you?”

You said the only word he needed, and he leaned in to close the space between the two of you. His nose had brushed against yours for a moment, already smiling before his lips met your own. Your lips were so soft, and his hands found a home at your waist after a moment. He’d always wondered what kissing you would be like, and now it felt as though he’d finally woken up from the longest dream in his life. His eyes fluttered shut as he lost himself in this moment with you.

He’d heard stories before of what it was like to kiss someone after so much pining, after so many trials in the way. People talked of having their breath stolen from them, or being unable to breathe from how surreal it all seemed to be. Yet when he kissed you, it was as though he could finally breathe again. He had resurfaced after drowning in so much self doubt and fear for far too long, and kissing you was living. Yet he knew that if he was given the choice to drown in you, he would have done it without a second thought. As much as you’d given him life with only a kiss, filling his lungs with air, he’d follow your siren song to the depths of the ocean all too eagerly if it meant he could taste this feeling once more. You ran a hand through his hair, and he was already intoxicated by you, his body yearning for your touch more than ever before. Yet when he pulled away, something had plucked his heartstrings one by one. He let out that broken, stuttered breath that always served as a precursor for him crying. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he gazed at you, trying to commit every part of this moment to memory.

“Jisung?” You were concerned for him even after kissing him, and he wanted to laugh. To cry. To kiss you again. “Are you okay?”

He nodded, his hands finding your own all too easily. “I love you, too.” He’d always love you. Whatever part of his heart you had, it was yours to keep regardless of where this went. “I think it’s you for me, too.”

By the time the two of you had made it back inside, the sun had set, and Jisung had held onto your hand tightly the entire way to his apartment. He’d given up his bed for you in the past already, he’d happily do it again to make sure you had a proper night of sleep. Maybe one day he would fall asleep next to you and memorize every line and blemish on your face, but not tonight. Kissing you and saying those three little words he’d always wanted to hear you say was plenty for one day. Yet he’d kissed you one last time as he left you at his bedroom door, just to kiss you goodnight.

“Jisung?” You’d called to him as he made his way to the couch, and he’d turned to face you one more time. “Dream of me.”

Oh. Oh. His heart had skipped a beat yet again at you. This was his new reality, wasn’t it? He found himself smiling at you, that same shy, pretty smile you’d later tell him you always wanted to kiss. He’d dream of you every night if it meant he could wake up to you, too. Tonight would be the end of strife and stress and strain from not telling you how he felt. Now he had to make up for so much lost time.

And if that meant that, starting tomorrow, he would tell you exactly what you meant to him, then he’d do it. That was what you deserved, after all, and what he did, too.

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