#we wanted to do it years ago but covid meant we couldn’t get it done before she started chemo but now that’s over

[fieldtomatoes]

btw it’s my mom’s birthday today and on sunday she, my sister, and I got matching tattoos

[okara-illustrates]

It’s good you love asks (what it says on your askbox) because I love sending ’em. >:3

So how did you get into taekwondo? Parents signed you up on a whim? Classmates were doing it?

And how did you get into art? Like what was your process to learn, what did you do? Would you do anything differently if you could change any of your methods/steps?

GASP!! AN ASK!!! AFTER ALL THESE YEARS!!! AHHHHH

okokok I’m adhd I will ramble bear with me

Taekwondo:

I remember the day my mom signed us up for taekwondo very vividly. She had her big old Mac computer out. It was 10 years ago, so it was like it looked like a monitor essentially. She was scrolling through a list of sports trying to find something that my brother and I would enjoy. As she was scrolling down, I saw the word taekwondo, and I was extremely intrigued. So I asked her if we could do that I knew it was some sort of martial art, but I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but I was willing to try it. Since she’s Korean, we already had ties to it so she was like OK sure so she found us a little Dojang and we began our lessons. I see yours went by my love for the sport grew and grew. By that time we had become close friends with our coaches as they like to be called. It’s easier to call them that. And eventually we became part of the competition team. It was a three-year commitment for nationals so we would be we would train and go to nationals three years in a row and then we were done unless we want to continue through our couple years of training with the team we grew closer than family like cousins like we saw this group of athletes day in a day out 4-5x a week 5+ hours a day. We went camping together we did team bonding activities together. We quite literally shed blood sweat and tears together we worked hard together we pushed each other. We laughed together. We cried together. It was a whole another kind of experience that was great until Covid hit. Once Covid hit, my family went from being busy all the time 24 seven with not even really a day of rest in the week to absolutely nothing and to me although I’m an extrovert it was thrilling. I loved it. But it meant that we couldn’t do taekwondo because it was a close contact sport you know so nationals was shut down for a while. I didn’t even get to go to nationals. I actually got kicked off the team because I didn’t like to put in the work except we were so close with my coach who by that time was diagnosed with stage four cancer he had me trained with the team anyway. So I technically wasn’t really kicked off but officially I was. He probably pushed me the hardest out of the entire team, even though I did not like to work all that much and my confidence had dropped like a rockin in the ocean. It was really bad, but I knew that he just wanted to see me succeed, and he just cared a lot, especially since you know it was pretty. It was pretty bad. I’m a speech to texting this by the way because I wrote a whole thing out and then Tumblr deleted it so yeah. Anyway, once Covid letter I got to see my coach a couple more times before he passed away in June and and that just rocked our team in a bad way. We kind of trauma bonded over it because we were all just so close together that it felt like losing a family member but not one of those like distant relative family members but someone who is very very close to us. Half of us got their black belts two months before he passed away, which really sucks because they didn’t have the closure that the other half of us got after a new master took over our school and we got to work at our black belts as a sort of tribute to our coach and I need to get some of those guys out of their house cause I don’t think they’re doing so well with it. But yeah, so that’s my little taekwondo history you know these past 10 years have been life-changing. I wouldn’t have changed it for the world it sucked yeah but also I grew a lot and without taekwondo. I seriously wouldn’t be the person. I am today if you read all this, I commend you you deserve a gold star. I don’t have a gold star, but you deserve one. I’m sure there’s one at dollar store or something. I don’t know OK now onto to art!!

My art journey ironically started in Covid. I’ve always kind of had a little liking to doodling characters, but I never really was serious about it. It’s just like every kid doodling you know I wasn’t special. I wasn’t talented. I didn’t you know have all the supplies I didn’t have classes. I’ve the only art class I’ve taken was a watercolor thing, and it didn’t teach me very much other than hues and values. I’m a self taught artist. But when Covid hit suddenly I went for being incredibly busy to having nothing to do at all so since my brain was an occupied with tae kwon do and homework and missing birthday parties and all that I had so many creative ideas that I wanted to get out on paper so I could see But being the non talented kid with absolutely no artistic skill, I had to really work at it. It took three years before I was happy with my arm. It was really grueling, but I had to give myself grace you know and be like hey my art is shit right now but it’s not always gonna be like that so I’m just gonna keep working at it and it’s OK that it’s shit Because I’m learning and as the months went by I wouldn’t see the improvement for months at a time it took a long time what I do was I look up human art references or like the drawing like the drawing references and stuff and I trace them and I trace and trace and trace and trace trace until it became muscle Memory Once it became muscle memory, and I had a basic understanding of human anatomy I would use references instead of tracing, so I just kind of built. I kind of took those baby steps. I was building up to the point where I could draw the human body without references just a drawing, helped a lot with that and at first when I first weaned myself off of tracing it looked horrible as you know it does when you’re a beginner, but I refuse to let that hinder me because I was learning and I gave myself grace for that. I don’t think I would really change anything. I did for my art journey, other than figuring out shading and lighting sooner and backgrounds cause I suck at those, but That doesn’t mean I’m necessarily bad at art or I should never continue being an artist because I suck at something, that’s just an untruth that we tell ourselves often times we suck at something so badly and we have such a high opinion of ourselves that we think that we should be good at everything on the first try and if we’re not, we think well I will never be able to get up to ____’s level. And that’s something that a lot of beginner artist struggle with and that’s why a lot of people quit because they think that they don’t have talent, but it is not about talent. It’s about skill and skill. Takes a lot of time to build up and that’s where a lot of artists drop off because experience artist tell them practice practices practice that practice what you need to And because there’s no really set instructions other than practice a lot of people think well I can’t do it when that’s not really true because I started out as the most average kid artistic skill like I was not talented at all I started out on the same base level as everyone else I just had to drive to do it and that’s the difference if that makes sense, but yeah, there’s my little spiel Again if you read this I commend you because I ramble a lot anyway yeah. :33

This is probably my favorite ask that anyone’s ever sent me. Thank you.

[pookiescurls]

Kinda butt hurt rn ngl

A week and a half ago some friends and I went out for my birthday and it was also a last little outing for my two close friends (they’re dating, and they both just graduated and moving about 2 hours away) and at the end of the night I went to say my final goodbyes to him (she left a few hours earlier bc she had to be up early) and he goes “I’m not saying goodbye to you yet and I’m not doing it drunk either. We’ll be back for new years, *our schools block party*, and graduation (my graduation)” so I kinda brush off the goodbye bc I hate doing them. And so I made sure I was back in town for New Year’s Eve bc he said that “we’re gonna go to the bars” and I figured ‘we’ meant their group, which I’m not quite a main member of, but I’m a step below that. (I get invited by everyone in their group to parties and and the bars. I went on a spring break trip with them, I worked with two of them, I’m besties with their gfs, I’ve crashed in their couch a few times, I’ve even been invited to ‘small hangouts’ for the group which was everyone drinking and playing video games) so when he said stuff like that in the past that meant that I was invited but here’s the thing. I haven’t ever partied with them in new years bc the first year covid happened then I wasn’t super close with them and we were all at home bc we all lived in the dorms still and then the next year I was at home home and couldn’t make it down due to weather and then I wasn’t invited last year but I kinda knew they had plans and then this year I think I got extended an invite but idk anymore. So like that’s just kinda how things have gone this past semester bc everyone’s been so busy that plans are kinda made and talked about but they aren’t solidified until the afternoon/evening we go out. So I got all ready and did my hair and make up but both of them are still an hour away so I’m calling it bc by this time we’d be done pregaming and on our way to the bars. And ig I’m just kinda sad that neither one of them really told me they weren’t coming down? Idk I know I could have also asked about plans too but I just wanted to go do something fun ya know?

[mindgazer]

I’m 30, stressed, and conflicted

2023 is nearly coming to its end. It’s crazy to think about how 3 years ago the world was stuck with a global pandemic. I was 26, turned 27 after the official lock down. I had just made the cut off of graduating college (December of 2019) I was at peak joy. I was proud of myself for finally getting my bachelors after so many years of struggling with school when I entered my 4 year college for the first time back in 2011. I felt maybe I can do anything. I had somewhat of a plan. Work at my crummy retail job at a college bookstore (not my Alma mater but a college that was way closer to my home than the one I attended) for a year as I heard it looked good when you worked at a place for over a year, and look for something else. But the pandemic happened and the world was on hold. I was on hold. But I feel so robbed. Robbed of the last years of my 20’s after I already personally fooled around academically in my late teens/early 20’s. And now 3 years have passed and I don’t feel 30. I feel like I’m still 20 something and I have time to figure shit out. But I’m 30! I’ll be 31 in 3 months and I feel like I should have been more. I feel like I should have been doing more. I’m 30 and I still live in my childhood home with my mother. I lost my job in the pandemic (which who hasn’t?) and struggled with work since. I get a job in September 2022 deciding to take advantage of the wfh wave as I was (and very much still) afraid of catching covid and having lasting issues from this illness. But I was let go in April of this year, I couldn’t keep up with the demands of that job and was let go on a random Thursday afternoon. I felt like such a failure. I was never fired before. I either worked temp and simply left when my time was up and my last job I was let go bc everyone was let go during the pandemic. This was the first job I was sat down and fired from. This summer was a lot going on from my sister graduating college, to my mother having some surgeries and medical procedures planned. We even had some slight renovations done to the old childhood home. I rode out the unemployment train from May to September of this year. And now I’m back where I started. Jobless and lost. Only now I’m older.

I feel like I’m running out of time. I feel like a bum living off my mom and her retirement funds. I can’t even help with any bills as I’m simply living off my savings I had from working. Like I know I’m the most useless able bodied adult in the world and I hate it. I try to push it down and not think about it but it’s becoming more and more apparent the longer this goes on.

I have hopes and dreams. I want to save money and move out of my home. Really enjoy freedom before dealing with the inevitable fact my own mother is getting older and having more medical issues. Before having to one day deal, as the oldest daughter, with future care of my mother(but that’s a whole rant for another day). I want to move to an apartment and be able to live without a roommate. I want to own a cat or 2, maybe a dog. I want to finally feel like I can contribute to a future relationship. But I know for any of this to happen I got to start with a job. Get a job and save money. But as I come to realize with all the experience I have with working… I fucking hate it. I hate retail. I hate people. I don’t want to work in person/on site because people are annoying. People are gross and I feel alien seemingly being the only person who still goes outside with a mask. The days I work retail exhausted me to be very being. Standing for 8 straight hours a day even if it was part time since I was also doing school work. Dealing with demanding customers and ignoring the shitty managers that made working there a pain. I hated every minute of it. I hate being up at the crack of dawn just to commute to work and avoid the heavy morning traffic. I hated the closing shift because I turned into a custodian. I thought having an on campus store meant there was was a separate cleaning crew for that and I never forgotten the disappointment for my first closing shift. I hated that even if the store closed at 7-8pm(I forget really) I can potentially stay until 8-9 or even 10 depending on what’s going on bc we all have to leave together only to drive home nearly too tired to eat dinner, shower and do it all again. When I hat my wfh job I was stressed from the constant phone calls. I have to decompress before and after work even without having to deal with the annoying commute. I hate working. I don’t dream of working. I have to work until I’m roughly 65 (let’s be real us millennials aren’t going to be able to retire at 65) and be too tired/too broken/ too sickly to enjoy my retirement and maybe have a good 10-15 years before the health issues really take hold. That’s horrifying. I don’t dream of labor. I don’t want to do this forever. But dammit how else am I gonna make money?! Money can’t fall from the sky.

I feel so sick. Because I’m 30 and I should have been well established in the workforce. I should already have a place of my own even if it’s with a roommate. My 25 yo sister is doing better than me with that department even if her and her roommate constantly struggle with rent at least she has her own place. All this schooling and I have nothing to show for it. And the worst part I can’t really blame everything on the pandemic. Even if it hadn’t came when it did I have no idea which job I would have taken after I dusted the retail one. How would I find field related work that’s not teaching (the curse of getting a humanities degree)? And at this point I don’t even have the motivation to be a writer like I used to be. I make countless incomplete fanfiction and even being stuck at home did nothing to improve my writing motivation l, if anything the stress of catching this unknown virus and potentially dying kept me from doing anything that required too much thought. But the pandemic is ‘over’ there’s vaccines for covid now. I’m 30 and have no excuses to be this useless. That quote floating around of

“I’m 27 years old, I have no money and no prospects. I’m already a burden to my parents. And I’m frightened.”

That’s me only I’m 30 and I’m feeling it now more than I ever did when I was actually 27. At this point I just want a job I can live with and not wake up everyday being tired and stressed but nothing I’ve seen so far seems to fit what I need. I want to be able to make adult moves. But I still feel frozen in place. I already feel over this being a slave to the job thing. Just a lot of overwhelming feelings I’m having.

[ericspinkhair]

quarantine longings

pairing: best friend!kevin x fem!reader

word count: 3.2k

synopsis: you and your best friend have sex because quarantine made you horny

warnings: best friends to lovers, takes place during the pandemic, spoiler of 356 days (but not the end, just generally the plot), no use of condoms but only the pill, creampie, sexual fantasies, fingering, hand-job, sex, slight angst at the end if you squint

a/n: I would literally die for kevin, I love him so much. I'll be writing a multiple parts series about him after I'm done writing scenarios for every member first.

requests are open!

masterlist + requests

you slammed your foot hard against the wall and cursed in pain. you hopped on one foot to your bed, holding your other leg in agony and tasted blood as you bit your lip to keep the volume of your suffering groans in check. someone knocked on the door.

'are you okay?' your roommate asked concerned.

'no, leave me alone, kevin,' you croaked out. you wanted to suffer by yourself.

there was an awkward silence and then you heard him sigh. soon after, the door next to your room closed shut.

why were you so frustrated, one might ask? well, the pandemic was kicking your butt and you just couldn't take it anymore. when the news of the virus had first spread, no one thought it would become this serious. but suddenly everyone was walking around with masks and spent most of their time staying at home.

after graduating high school, you and kevin had decided to move in together for college because both of you were broke and couldn't afford to live alone. you had been best friends since middle school and had been convinced that it was a smart idea at the time.

and everything went smoothly for the first one and a half years. however, after not seeing anyone else since the start of the pandemic over a year ago, it became increasingly difficult to share an apartment, but not in the way one might assume. you were neither sick of each other nor did you fight a lot. to tell the truth, it was quite the opposite.

earlier, before you had kicked the wall in anger, the two of you had painted together. kevin was majoring in art and, since you didn't have anything better to do, you joined him while he did projects for his classes. you might have been majoring in journalism but you had always liked drawing and painting, even though you weren't particularly skilled. you were a naturally clumsy person, always tripping over air and dropping things. today you were hecticly moving around your hands while telling him about a stupid video you had seen and you accidently let go of the brush in your hand. it hit the side of kevin's face, leaving a wide splodge of red paint on his right cheek.

to get back at you, he jerked his paint brush and splattered some green color on your white shirt. you saw this as a challenge and soon both of you were both drenched in the colors of the rainbow, laughing hysterically on the floor, not caring that you were spreading the paint on the poor carpet.

you turned your heads to look at each other and you felt absolutely in peace. you loved this man and couldn't be more glad that it was him and not anyone else you were stuck with inside of this apartment.

he stood up to take off his stained shirt and your smile quickly faded off your face. your lips slightly parted and you couldn't help but stare at his now exposed biceps and abs.

your mouth watered and you felt heat pooling between your legs as you took your time to study his architecture. thoughts about how badly you wanted him to thrust into you while his strong arms held you up invaded your mind. you tried to shake them off but it was impossible.

occasions like this were slowly becoming a common occurrence for you.

having mostly stayed inside for over a year, also meant that you didn't have sex for that long. it's not like you were the horniest person on the planet but you still had needs that were being neglected. with kevin being home all the time you didn't even dare to masturbate, scared that he would be able to hear you through the frustratingly thin walls. you must have gone insane with all the lust building up inside you and that's why you suddenly craved to have sex with your best friend. this whole thing was destroying everything. it was hard to act normal when he was making you this nervous and heated but you tried to pretend that everything was fine anyway for the sake of your friendship.

that was the reason why you were angry and had hurt yourself. you hated the way you felt about your best friend and you hated the pandemic for not giving you an outlet to escape so you could recollect yourself.

what you weren't aware of was that kevin was no stranger to the exact same frustration.

he would need more than his ten fingers and ten toes to be able to count the amount of times he had to run to the bathroom to hide his boner because he had done so much as look at you bend over or stretch. he didn't want to make you uncomfortable but it was a challenge to try and calm down his hormones.

whenever he jacked off, images of you flashed through his mind; your sweet curves and pink lips drove him insane.

last week, you two were cooking together and you had asked him to get the salt. he stood behind you to reach for it on the highest shelf. he was forced to press his crotch against your butt cheeks and his dick hardened against his will. he quickly handed you the salt, excused himself and ran off before you could figure out what had happened.

he might not have known the cause of your sudden outburst but he sympathized with your fury because he had a lot of pent up anger towards covid as well.

he lay in his bed and tried to focus on the book he was reading but he couldn't tune out the groans coming from the room next to his. he cursed.

'stop it!' he was panicking as he saw a familiar tent forming in his pants. your sounds triggered some weird perverted part of his brain that sent signals right to his genitals. his dick was hardening and he saw no other solution to his problem than to give in to his subconscious desires.

he pulled down his pants just far enough so that his cock had enough room to spring out. it only needed a few strokes before it stood tall and angry. kevin pressed his head into his pillow and moved his hand fast. he wanted to get over with it quickly. he emptied his cum on his stomach while imagining your greedy little mouth being stuffed by his cock. he lay there panting as yet another round of shame flushed over him.

'get yourself together,' he whispered, mentally slapping himself.

***

'do you want to order japanese or italian?' you asked kevin. today was friday which meant it was time for your weekly tradition of ordering take out and watching a movie.

'definitely italian. we've already had japanese for the past four days. I need something else for a change,' kevin complained and shuddered at the thought of having to eat sushi again. the japanese restaurant prepared absolutely delicious food but he just couldn't stand it anymore.

you laughed at his pained facial expression. 'fine, italian it is.'

within twenty minutes the doorbell rang and after about half a minute kevin came back with two huge boxes.

he opened them on the small table situated in front of your couch and the smell of freshly cooked pasta seasoned with basil made your stomach growl.

kevin wanted to dig in already but you stopped him. you had to choose a movie first.

'let's watch tall girl. I saw everyone hate on it on tiktok,' you suggested.

'I think we should watch 365 days, that was all over my for you page as well,' kevin argued. you hadn't heard of it so you weren't sure whether it would be the right movie for you. the rule was that it had to be as bad as possible.

'according to what I have heard, it's apparently even worse than 50 shades of grey,' kevin added which piqued your interest. the both of you had watched 50 shades about two months ago and you were honestly shocked by how awful it actually was. you couldn't understand why everyone had been so obsessed with it when it was first released. if 356 days was really worse, then you'd hit the jackpot. you clapped your hands.

'fine, you win. I swear if the movie isn't as horrible as you say it is then you owe me something!' he intertwined his pinky with yours to promise.

watching horrible movies was way better than watching good ones. making fun of bad storylines, stupid characters or horrible editing was one of your favorite past times.

'I guess I'll have to add are you lost, baby girl to the top 10 worst lines ever spoken. who thought ah yes this is sexy, let's have him repeat it over and over again', you complained, shoving some pasta into your mouth.

'so he's like I won't do anything without your permission while he is literally groping her boobs against her will, like make it make sense, massimo', added kevin, ruffling his hair in frustration. he almost completely forgot about the food.

'so let me get this straight: he drugged her, kidnapped her, tied her up, hung up a painting of her just because he saw her face when his dad was shot?'

'totally relatable.' both of you giggled.

you were enjoying complaining about the plot. it was horrible.

there were plenty of erotic scenes but they were honestly so funny and kinda gross that you could bare it without really being affected by them. kevin, on the other hand, had placed a pillow over his hard-on to hide the embarrassing fact that these terrible, smutty scenes had turned him on.

and then the infamous boat scene came.

massimo and laura had a huge fight, she fell of the boat, he saved her and now she was suddenly so in love with him that she begs him to fuck her. which he does.

you felt your panties become increasingly wet as the couple had steaming hot sex.

'this is embarrassing but I'm so horny,' you admitted but in a way that should have suggested that you meant it as a joke. something about this statement stirred something in kevin.

'well, what can I say?' he replied and lifted the pillow. your pupils widened at the sight of your best friend's bulge.

his eyes darkened and he looked at you with lust clearly written on his face. you reciprocated his stare with the same intensity. you tried to focus on his dark brown orbs instead of his boner but the image you had just seen was present in your mind.

his gaze shifted to your lips and, before you knew it, kevin climbed above you and pressed your back flat onto the couch.

your lips locked and you immediately buried your hands in his hair to pull him closer. you moved in sync, his lips fitting perfectly onto yours. you bucked your hips up against his crotch and earned a moan from kevin. he opened his eyes in shock as realization hit him. he quickly pulled away and jumped off the coach.

'I'm so sorry, y/n. I shouldn't have just done that. I don't know what came over me,' he apologized profusely, staring at his feet. did he really think that you didn't want this?

'give me your hand,' you told him and held out your hand.

'why?' he raised his eyebrows in confusion. you rolled your eyes.

'just do it.'

you took his hand and led it to your crotch.

'what are you- oh my god.' your juices had completely soaked through your panties and your sweatpants. 'you are so wet.'

'for you,' you added. 'there's no need to apologize. I'm literally begging you to continue.'

you didn't have to say that twice before he pulled you closer to him by your hips and engaged you in another desperate kiss. his hands were groping your butt while you let yours slide under his hoodie. you felt his naked skin and toned abs, as you rubbed his stomach. you lowered your hands and bravely palmed his boner through his clothes.

'y/n,' he hissed out against your lips. you hooked your thumbs in the elastic of his pants and underwear, and pushed the material down to his thighs. he struggled to get them off.

you stroked his hard dick as he slipped his hand into your panties to massage your pussy at the same time.

he slipped one finger inside and began working it in and out. you finally were getting the relief you had been desperately craving for for so long. kevin was skilled and your walls were trying to swallow his slim finger. you were quickly coming close to your orgasm after having abstained for more than a year. you pulled his hand out.

'I bet you can make me come even better with your dick,' you challenged kevin.

'you bet I will.' he was confident.

'let me just look for a condom.' he was already turning away to go search in his room but you held him back by the arm.

'forget about it. I'm on the pill and I want you raw. I want you to come inside me and not spill into a stupid condom.'

the idea of this sounded very tempting to kevin. he picked you up and threw you back onto the couch, drawing your hips closer to him so he could pull off all the pieces of clothing that were hindering him from accessing your pussy.

he propped up his arms next to your sides and spread your thighs apart. strings of arousal were hanging from your folds and he saw your hole desperately clench around nothing. his dick hurt from how much he wanted to finally be inside of you. he wanted to find out how close he had been able to imagine how you would feel around him.

your hole took him in easily, welcoming him happily by embracing it tightly. kevin swore he could've cum right here and there.

he went slow at first to give you a chance to adjust but you were already fully ready, rocking your hips forward to meet his thrusts.

he crashed your mouths together and you kissed him like he was oxygen and you were short of air. you smiled and your eyes rolled back, satisfied with how things had played out today and the prospects of coming looked fairly promising.

desperate for release, kevin picked up the pace, his eyes closed while fucking into you like a horny animal. he couldn't help himself and all the 'faster's and 'harder's spilling from your mouth only encouraged him to drive himself deeper into you.

you wrapped your legs around his torso in an attempt to regain the control you were losing.

'fuck fuck fuck,' you cursed, feeling your muscles starting to contract. kevin brushed away some hair that was stuck to your sweaty forehead.

'it's fine, I'm coming too,' he announced and it took only a few more thrusts before a body shaking orgasm flushed over you, making you see only white. this drove kevin over the edge too and he spilled inside you, filling you up with his hot cum. he continued to slowly ease his dick in and out of you, fucking his semen right back into you until you had ridden out both of your orgasms. he let himself fall onto the couch right next to you, panting hard.

'I very much needed this,' you sighed in content.

'same, I wasn't sure whether I could hold out any longer without having a proper orgasm.' he watched his cum drip out of you.

'we should've thought of this sooner,' you said. 'this was a great idea.'

kevin hummed in agreement.

***

so now you and kevin were having sex on a regular basis, your high score being five times in a day. it felt good to finally live out your sexuality and not having to restrict yourself. sure, you guys did it more than necessary but it was a great way to pass time and it felt fucking amazing.

today you had done it in the shower after waking up, then on the kitchen counter and you had just finished having sex in his bed.

he was spooning you from behind, his cock still placed inside of you. he nuzzled his nose into your neck.

'stop, that tickles,' you chuckled.

'sorry.'

after a while of comfortable silence you heard him let out a big sigh.

'what's wrong?' you asked as he pulled out of you. you turned around to be able to look at him.

'I don't think I can do it like this anymore,' he confessed.

'what do you mean?' you asked. 'are you talking about us having sex?'

he nodded. your heart dropped and you started feeling dizzy. you tried to search for answers in his eyes but he avoided looking at you.

'w-why?' you stuttered, trying to hold back the tears that were welling up in your eyes.

'it was amazing at first,' he started and finally raised his head to meet your gaze, 'and I went into it without much thought. I went crazy during quarantine and began fantasizing about having sex with you. then it became reality but now I understand that was probably wrong of me. I've always thought of myself as a gentleman, yet I slept with you without much thought. you see, my issue is this…'

suspense hung in the air and you were impatiently waiting for him to get to the point.

'I like you.'

you quietly gasped in surprise. you had been expecting him to say you were bad at sex and that he regretted everything but not this.

'I shouldn't be sleeping with you unless you were my girlfriend,' he finished off his ramble. you felt immensely relieved.

'do you want me to?' you asked him.

'want you to what?' kevin was confused. he had been a hundred percent sure you'd immediately jump out of the bed in disgust when he confessed.

'be your girlfriend. after all, I like you too, you moron.' you realized that you had known this for a while. you might have even been crushing on your best friend since way before the pandemic struck but it was kind of hard to track your feelings. still, you were sure you liked him too. now that he had admitted his feelings, you were able to admit yours not only to him but to yourself as well.

'wow, I didn't expect this,' kevin confessed surprised. you laughed.

'yeah, we should've realized this sooner.' he pulled you closer and kissed you. it was different than the other times. his lips moved softly against yours, in contrast to all of your rough and passionate kisses you had exchanged these past few weeks. he conveyed his emotions through the kiss.

'you're ready again?' you groaned as you felt kevin's dick harden against your upper thigh. he chuckled.

'sorry, you just turn me on so much.'

so then you did it for the fourth time. that day, you set a new record of having sex six times. you might have been happy now but still just as horny.

[system-of-a-feather]

Not at all meant to throw shade at the previous post, cause I am assuming benefit of the doubt and that it is a bad take with decent intent, particularly because they’re relatively young, but honestly I really am fine with people implicating or thinking or assuming we are faking, because we are far past the whole “denial and doubt” aspect of this all.

Plus its pretty laughable since we really really really do not fit the demographic of people who are / would be faking - particularly since we have a relatively textbook path of diagnosis save for that we were slightly young.

None of this makes us more valid than others, but simply just how it makes it ridiculous and almost funny when someone claims something “isn’t possible in real DID” yet its something we definitely do

Were in therapy primarily for OCD and PTSD for like 2-2.5 years before that couldn’t progress more due to excessive dissociation

Saw a dissociative specialist after that because I got frustrated with the wall we hit and ended up getting diagnosed with DID

Have been in treatment for 4+ years with said specialist

Were diagnosed in 2018 prior to the whole COVID shitshow

Have only introjects from stories we wrote and then one (technically two because its the same character split into two) from a thing we relied on to cope in childhood (me lol)

Relatively small system / easy to buy system size (14-18~ known)

Literally working towards final fusion and I think it would be really weird for me to be faking a disorder and wanting to aim towards having all my parts harmoniously melded and working together to have a cohesive life, cause man if it was as easy as just stopping, man I would have done that a while ago

Like if there is anything I learned over my time of being online with DID / OSDD and having been in treatment, it is that the experiences of this weird disorder is extremely vast

-Riku (Host)

[canonicallysoulmates]

Last year, I did a post looking back at some of the j2 moments 2019 and the 2010’s decade had given us, this year with it being so shit and so many of us needing some cheering up I thought I’d do a 2020 version.

So before we say fuck off to 2020 here are some of the j2 moments this year has given us:

SM isn’t everything but it’s still cute when the boys interact with each other online and the year actually started with it, with both boys liking each other’s New Year’s pictures with their kiddos:

X

Those weren’t the only SM interactions, on a more recent example by which I mean December they had this cute little exchange under a pic Jared posted were he was sleeping:

XX

And Jensen liked this cute pic of his smiling boy:

XX

Of course nothing compares to the best SM moment of the year: Jared’s beautiful, emotional, touching, heartfelt birthday message for Jensen 🥺:

And Jensen’s reply ❤:

X

Before everything went under lockdown we got one convention, among the moments we got from it were:

- Jared talking about his birthday post to Jensen, calling Jensen his boy and saying that he has pictures of him and Jensen just hanging out on his phone

full gifset

- Fist bump

- And a hug

full gifset

To me one of the best j2 moments 2020 gave us was the release of this amazing EW photoshoot that I will forever be in love with (especially this cover I will never be over this cover) 😍

This photoshoot was the gift that kept on giving! Not only did we get beautiful new photos of the boys, but we also got some amazing content from the bts like

full gifset

Look at them! The way Jensen closes his eyes and leans into Jared, the way they look at each other this is what love looks like people! 🥰 Find someone who will look at you like how j2 look are looking at each other in that gif. 

And even the accompanying interview gave us a little something with Jared saying that he burrowed strength from Jensen when he was struggling with the job

Padalecki, 37, who’s been vocal about his struggle in the early seasons, says. “I borrowed strength from Jensen.” x

And this is barely the tip of the iceberg I’m just providing some examples of what that photoshoot gave us but it was a feast!

Summer seemed to be the never ending dry spell, many wondered ‘will we ever get j2 content again?’ and the answer was...yes!

Starting with a little interview the boys did with small moments such as

full gifset

And Jensen confirming he and Jared still live near one another.

When Jensen appeared for the second time on Rosenbaum’s podcast he spend a good part of it being fond over Jared and making them sound totally married sharing a story about Jared’s preferred breakfast burrito and how he and Jared have bickered over it and of course starting of the panel by making it clear covid or no covid him and Jared would be making out:

full gifset

The boys had a joint virtual Q&A panel filled with moments, they were joking around, they made each other laugh, and it all started with Jensen saying how handsome Jared looked.

When filming wrapped up Jared and Jensen had their own celebration with dinner and champagne at one of their favorite restaurants:

"Jared and I wrapped on Thursday, and Saturday night he and I went to one of our all-time favorite restaurants, just us, and toasted with some champagne," Ackles says. x

Those two can’t get enough of each other so they road tripped part of the way home together!

“He and I just drove together all of our stuff across the border. So, we drove up together for season 1 and we drove away together for season 15.” - Jensen in the Chelsea Davis interview

Jared mentioning their road trip during a TVLine interview & during a TVInsider interview 

With Supernatural coming to an end a lot of interviews took place and provided us with content:

The Talk interview gave us a married moment, when the boys were asked who had the messier dressing room Jensen replied Jared did to which Jared literally went no sir, no sir. 

The CNN interview had the boys admitting not working together will be an adjustment with Jensen saying “So, it will be different, and that’s probably when he and I will call each other and be like, ‘I miss you so much!’” as well as this moment  "Oh, I thought you meant we fell in love," Ackles quips."We fell in love, too," Padalecki jokes. When I add that plotline was only in fan fiction, Ackles retorts, "Or was it?" Padalecki erupts in laughter. "There it goes the internet."

In an interview with Chelsea Davis Jensen once again brought up that him and Jared will be contacting each other from their new shows

“Jared said it, he’s like I don’t think it’s really gonna set in until we walk unto the set of some other show. But that’s fine cause then we’ll just turn around and call each other and be like ‘what’s your show like?’”

Jared having a little fond moment over Jensen during one of the TVline segments

Jensen saying that 15yrs ago him and Jared got on a rollercoaster (Supernatural) and that he couldn’t have asked for a better partner:

full gifset

Jared comparing him and Jensen finishing the show to the time they ran the Seattle Marathon together (yes, the marathon they ran together and crossed the finish line holding hands) 😭❤: 

“There were a lot of tears all over but Ackles and I were looking at each other like, ‘Man’. It was kind of like finishing the Seattle Marathon. We did it. Dude, we did it, you know? We put in the work…I’ve been with you for 15 years, 15-½ years. I’ve seen you sweat. I’ve seen you bleed. I’ve seen you hurt. I’ve seen you going through stuff personally and put it aside for this show, for your character and I know I’ve done the same and it was bittersweet.”  x

Jensen talking about his and Jared’s Impala’s in the USA Today interview

Ackles says he was “floored” by the gift: “And it's cool, because now Jared and I can just drag-race around Austin.”

“If we get pulled over, it'd be like, ‘Don't worry. FBI Agent Robert Plant,’" Padalecki adds.

“We've got FBI badges in the glove box,” Ackles confirms.

The last virtual panel of the year was Jared’s and it was full of love for Jensen; Jared mentioned him often, unprompted he shared the story of when the twins were born and how hectic it was for him and Jensen to return to Austin in time for their birth honestly hearing him talk about it it’s clear how important that day was for him too and it’s just so sweet, he said him and Jensen will definitely work together again and he hopes it’ll be sooner rather than later, also said Jensen has a standing invitation to do whatever he wants on Walker, and implied he’s already looked at his schedule to see if he could make it up to Toronto where Jensen will be working in 2021. 

And these are just some moments; I know that with everything going on and time losing all meaning it might have seemed like we had a j2-less year but as you can see that’s not true cause not even a pandemic or this hellish year were able to stop or dim the beauty that is j2 and their relationship. 

This men make me so ridiculously happy, and with this being such a hard year for all of us, for some more than others, it makes me all that extra grateful for them and to them for bringing a smile to my face. I hope that with this post they will bring a smile to yours. I personally am looking forward to seeing what j2 goodies 2021 gives us, I’m hopeful there’ll be plenty, our boys have new projects coming out, God willing cons will be able to pick up again in a safe way, and there’ll be even more j2 content to enjoy. 

Until then, stay safe, take care of yourselves, and Happy New Years my fellow tinhats! ❤

[juminsmysticmc]

Pregnancy Series - Part 2

Finding out 

Hope you like the second part of my pregnancy series! 

Click here to read Part 1!  

Jumin 

You dried your tears after you dried your hands with the towel next to you, observing the pregnancy test you just took in front of you.

You hated that one stick so much that whenever your period was late, your heart was beating in fear and not happiness.

One and a half years passed ever since you and Jumin began to try for a baby and there was still no baby.

You couldn’t bear seeing your husband’s sad face anymore whenever you gave him the news that you weren’t pregnant and that this was just a false alarm.

You were sure that this time too, the result wouldn’t be the one you hoped for.

A last glance on the clock made you look at the pregnancy test for the last time before you would toss it into the trash can since you had to get the breakfast ready for Jumin, but somehow this time, something was different.

Your heart was beating crazily in your chest as your cheeks grew warm.

You slowly placed your hand on your belly as you watched the results on the stick you hated so much.

,,Pregnant’’ it said.

You slowly sat back on the toilet, the pink stick between your hands as you read it again. ,,Pregnant,’’ you gasped, trying to gulp the tears away.

,,J-’’ you were about to call your husband when your brain decided to think about this logically.

What if the test is false and he gets excited?

And so, you instead decided to not say anything and instead put the test in your pocket to hide in a bag so that he wouldn’t see anything.

The first thing you would do, however, was go to the doctor after breakfast.

,,My love, I forgot that I have to meet a friend after breakfast. I know I shouldn’t come late as your second secretary, but-’’

Jumin kissed you as he took his bowl of rice.

,,You are my wife and are allowed to do anything. Do you need Driver Kim perhaps?’’ of course you declined and even though you knew, you just lied. You knew that this was going to protect him…

,,Six weeks pregnant, Mrs Han. Your pregnancy test wasn’t wrong,’’ the doctor told you after a checkup, making you tear up.

She then made you follow her to a room where she made an ultrasound and eventually gave you your first picture of your baby.

The doctor explained the next steps, telling you that she wanted to see you regularly.

,,I’m so happy that you finally are here on your way and you did well. It's daddy’s birthday this weekend and you are already a perfect baby,’’ you sobbed as you looked around for some ideas for Jumin’s surprise...

Zen

,,I don’t think I can come today,’’ you groaned as you laid back as you just came back from throwing up into the toilet.

An acidic taste was left in your mouth, making you feel disgusting.

As if an upset stomach wasn’t enough, you even had a slight fever.

Your body felt weak and all you wanted to do was sleep, well, not that you could do anything else in this condition.

Your boyfriend looked concerned for you. The possibility of you being pregnant wasn’t even on his mind since the both of you finally gave up, wanting to wait again after so many failed attempts.

Well, Zen wanted to try more. It was more so you who couldn’t bear it mentally and so he stopped buying pregnancy tests.

,,It’s the time of the flu in February… well, I’ll stay with you,’’ Zen whispered and kissed your nose, feeling sad to see you so sick.

,,No,’’ you tried to stop him.

,,You need to go to work. It’s okay, I’ll sleep a bit and later when you are back, I will be better and I will be able to go to the doctor,’’ you told him, closing your eyes because right now everything was spinning in your head. You just wished for it to get better.

Zen hesitated, but agreed afterwards, giving you a last kiss. ,,I will come earlier, I mean, I took a holiday leave for tomorrow so I shouldn’t have much to do today,’’ he told you and quickly left as he was late for work.

You decided to close your eyes for a few seconds again before a big feeling of nausea hit you again, making you run to the toilet.

,,Ugh, I hate throwing up,’’ you silently cried to yourself as you tried to hold your own hair back.

It didn’t take you long until you decided to dial your doctor's number on your phone and ask for an appointment this afternoon.

,,Thank you, I will be there,’’ you said as the nurse asked you to come right away, making you groan in annoyance and get changed.

The weather was cold as you stepped out, closing the door behind you and walking towards the medical facility, rubbing your hands together as you were freezing.

,,Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day,’’ you remembered as you walked past a shop selling chocolate, remembering that you didn’t buy anything for your boyfriend yet.

,,Pretty lady! We even sell chocolate done with a picture chosen by you! Want to give it a try!? I bet you have a boyfriend!’’ a woman smiled at you, showing you pictures of white chocolate with edible photos printed on it.

You thanked her, telling her that you had to go somewhere and had no time.

A few streets away you arrived, putting your mask on and entering the building, telling the nurses that you had an appointment.

,,When I heard that you had a slight fever and felt nauseous, I knew immediately that you were pregnant!’’ the doctor smiled at you after she checked you up and took your blood sample, making you look in shock at her.

,,R-really? I am...expecting a baby?’’ you asked her, tears slowly coming up and rolling down your cheeks as she nodded.

You immediately called your gynecologist to make a second check and also see if you could already have a sonogram since suddenly you had a very good idea. 

,,Ajumma,’’ you said with a teary face to the woman who wanted to sell you chocolate earlier.

The woman looked concerned at first, but quickly began to tear up herself as you held up a picture.

,,I just got this good news. Will you help me surprise this baby’s father?’’ you asked her.

Yoosung

Soon, you and Yoosung would celebrate your eighth wedding anniversary.  

You were currently sitting in front of the window, thinking about everything the both of you achieved until now.

A lot.

Yoosung had a stable job, you worked with the RFA, both of you had your own big house with a beautiful garden. Your relationship and marriage was the best, there wasn’t anything else you could wish for.  

Everything seemed perfect, if just that one little detail wasn’t missing.

A child.

Something you both could take care of and shower with love and affection as it grew up.

But some things weren’t meant to be. It was just too much for you to handle.

The disappointment you regularly had to face, the pain in your heart.

,,We should give up,“ you whispered as you kept looking outside of the window, tears in your eyes as you said these harsh words.

Giving up was something you would normally never do.

Yoosung hugged you from behind, knowing how much this situation was hurting you and how much this made you depressed.

,,I will be back for dinner,“ he whispered after a few seconds before he rubbed your arms and put on his jacket to step out on his way to work.

As soon as he was outside, you could finally let out that loud sob you held onto yourself to not make Yoosung pity you and cried alone in your room.

,,Ah, I need to go to the doctor today,’’ you groaned as you dried your tears with your palm, sighting and looking at your display as you calculated how much time you still had until you had to go there.

As soon as you arrived, you rolled your eyes in annoyance as you sat down in the waiting room, three pregnant women with their husbands on their side, smiling widely, feeling probably blessed. Today was a bad day.

You were truly happy for every pregnant woman in the waiting room, but seeing them made you angry and made you feel and think things you shouldn’t.

You were jealous, jealous that they achieved something you couldn’t achieve in all these eight years.

,,Mrs. Kim?“ the doctor called you, making you stop thinking about the women around you and instead look up at her.

Your doctor was smiling at you as she asked you to follow her, leading the way to her room where she asked you to sit down to talk to you.

,,How are you?“ she began, ready to listen as you told her that you wanted to give up on getting pregnant.

,,But before that I would like to check one last thing. Is that okay?“ she asked you, nodding as she typed something on her keyboard to note everything you guys talked about.

A bit annoyed, you watched her minutes later as she checked you, finally looking into your eyes, smiling at you.

,,Mrs. Kim, it seems that you are already pregnant. Five weeks,“ she smiled.

In disbelief you observed her, you could feel your eyes get teary. ,,But the last test-”

,,Sometimes they’re false, but you are pregnant,“ she cut you off.

While she talked about a few things you should keep an eye on, all you could think about was that tomorrow you and Yoosung had your anniversary and that this news was the best present you could give him, just like she just gave to you.

Jaehee

,,I just hope you are alright and that they can find out whether it is or isn’t Covid-19,“ Jaehee whispered as she looked out the window.

You weren’t with her together at home, something that already was difficult for her, but knowing that you weren’t feeling well somewhere apart from her made her feel even worse.

The both of you decided to have a little bit of time on your own, making you go to your parents home for the week. Neither of you ever thought that you would stay away longer.

The reason why you both decided to get a distance from your place was that both of you just agreed on giving up on getting pregnant.

It was getting too hard for you and her, knowing that your body couldn’t give you what you wanted - a child.

You and Jaehee already spent about 9.000 won to get you fertilized artificially three times and you both failed three times.

Six weeks ago, when the doctor told you once again that you guys failed, you decided to give up.

As if it was yesterday, Jaehee remembered your crying face in your dark, shared bedroom.

Your loud sobs and your trembling body on the floor.

You were devastated.

She couldn’t bear to see you falling apart anymore and she couldn’t bear to act like the strong one for both of you because she, too, was in too much pain.

As soon as your parents found out, they persuaded you to come back home for a bit to rest.

However, as soon as you arrived, the symptoms of the virus hit you.

You were feeling weak, had a slight fever, and you felt like your limbs hurt a bit.

,,I hope so too. The test was negative. Well, all my tests are negative,’’ you mumbled, making Jaehee feel bad without noticing.

,,Tomorrow they will take a blood sample, but I’m happy that you are feeling good, Jaehee,’’ you said as she told you that her COVID test was also negative. 

,,Okay, I will go and sleep a bit. Call me tomorrow as soon as you know something new,’’ she whispered before she cut the call, her thoughts by your side.

The morning afterwards, your legs were shaking in the isolated waiting room as you waited for your results to come.

Well, if it wasn’t Covid it would be something less worrying, right?

Indeed, the news the doctor had was less worrying since you were told that you were positive - positive for a pregnancy.

,,Huh? But, the doctor said…. we waited so long!’’ you told her, crying out of happiness but not believing her.

,,Yes, sometimes the test can be false or he made a mistake, but I am for sure that you are pregnant,’’ she nodded.

And so, happy that you could go home again, you decided to not tell Jaehee anything and instead surprise her with good and happy news…

Saeyoung

Your husband looked at you with a sad face as you once again felt sick and decided to stay in bed the whole day.

But he knew that you weren’t sick, but more depressed and sad.

He gulped as he looked over to the calendar.

It’s been almost two years since the both of you agreed on trying to become pregnant, even though he was sure that it would work out in less than a year.

But you both failed.

And the one that was hurting her body was none other than yourself, but he could just observe you and stand by your side.

Saeyoung’s eyes wandered over to your desk where countless pills and bottles were standing.

The both of you were currently injecting hormones into you to overstimulate your production of eggs.

He was nibbling on his lips. ,,Mc?’’ he asked you.

,,Mhh?’’ you hummed in response, turning your body to his side.

He hated to see you in pain, feeling unwell, and of course the stress of becoming pregnant was something that bugged you too.

,,Maybe… well no, to be honest, I think that we should stop with the injections wait one, maybe two years for the baby. What do you think? I mean, I don’t want to stress out your body,’’ he whispered to you, nervous for your answer.

You just sadly smiled at him and nodded as you slowly closed your eyes.

,,It’s a good idea. I think I’ll sleep for a while. I actually have a headache,’’ you lied.

Well, the truth was that you stopped taking the injections for four days already, something Saeyoung didn’t know.

He also didn’t know that you were already six weeks pregnant.

But you also just found out at your last appointment when the doctor told you that you were five weeks along, making you feel the most happiest wife on earth.

The reason for your lies was that soon Saeyoung would have his birthday and you wanted to make this day a special day for him, but also for his brother, who would be an uncle soon.

And so you decided to lie to your husband who was clearly worried as hell and told him that you were having side effects of the hormones.

Well, that was something you also thought at first.

The doctor told you from the very first injection that the side effects may be hot flashes, mood swings, nausea, and swelling, so when you first had them, you didn’t actually think that you were pregnant.

But you still wanted to talk with her about it to make sure that everything was fine.

To your surprise, it was more than fine and you were pregnant.

,,We just need to keep the secret,’’ you whispered, rubbing your still flat belly.

Saeran

You patted your boyfriend’s back as he once again sobbed at the negative pregnancy test.

,,I… I’m a loser,’’ he whined and looked at you, his eyes red and swollen from all the tears.

,,Maybe my mother is telling me that I shouldn’t become a father, that I don’t deserve it, that I am bound to become a monster like her and… ahh… so much is going through my head!’’ he whined and threw the test into the next corner, sobbing into his hands.

You slowly began to sob too, feeling guilty.

,,I’m sorry, Saeran… I wish I could do better,’’ you cried as you looked at him. He seemed so fragile.

Your boyfriend suddenly looked up. ,,Why are you apologizing?’’ he asked you. He couldn’t believe what you were saying.

,,I can’t give you what you want. I’m a bad girlfriend,’’ you whined.

,,No!’’ he sobbed again. ,,I’m a bad boyfriend and brother! I can’t find Saeyoung so I’m getting punished and you’ve been with me even though you didn’t do anything!’’ he told you, now hugging you and rubbing your back. ,,I’m so selfish, crying to myself even though you’re in pain too!’’ he sobbed harder.

And so this day, just like other ones, ended with the both of you lying in bed, sobbing into each other's arms as you thought about the future without children.

But it was still empty.

Days passed by and you and Saeran decided to give it up. For the time being, you didn’t want to get stressed, you wanted to enjoy life/ Saeran wanted to find his brother for real now and you just wanted to have a clear head.

But it didn’t work as you felt a sudden pain in your abdomen.

Sick and lightheaded, you laid back in pain, feeling a slight temperature that morning.

Some infection, you thought. Being pregnant wasn’t on your mind back then.

But after you didn’t seem to get healthy again, Saeran decided that it was best to bring you to a hospital.

,,Are you perhaps pregnant?’’ the doctor asked you and seemed to understand the case pretty quickly.

But you wanted a whole diagnosis. ,,No, I can’t get pregnant,’’ you told him, hearing these words from your own mouth hurt even more and so you once again felt your hot cheek as your eyes began to shed tears again.

,,Make a pregnancy test to make sure before doing anything else,’’ he told the nurse and went off to the next patient.

Indeed, the nurse turned back with a big smile, asking you again. ,,Are you sure that you can’t get pregnant?’’ she asked you, rubbing your arm.

,,The last test was negative,’’ you whispered.

,,Well, we will bring you to the maternity ward because it seems that you are pregnant,’’ she chuckled and pushed the wheelchair to the other ward.

,,Uhm, can you please not tell my boyfriend? I… I want to prepare a surprise for him,’’ you told her as you began to smile in happiness.

Finally good news arrived. Was it a sign?

Jihyun

Almost two years passed ever since you and your husband decided to adopt a new child to make Lucy into a big sister.

However, back then the adoption wasn’t possible, making you go for pregnancy.

But to you it just seemed as if God wanted to punish you for something.

,,It’s not working,’’ you sobbed as you found out that this time, too, you weren’t pregnant.

Your husband pressed his lips together and thought of something else.

Injecting hormones into you was something he wanted to avoid.

,,Maybe,’’ he began, looking at you and stroking your hair. ,,Now, we should stop for a bit.

You are stressed out and I’m nervous.

We are doing our best and I’m sure that one day the right time will come and we will be able to have a child on our own,’’ he told you.

He let go of your hand and kissed your head and then walked off to pack his bag.

Jihyun also had to go on a business trip for six weeks so he had to prepare a few things.

As consolation, the both of you lastly had a lovely and also sexy time together. This time you two didn’t think of having a baby, you just wanted to feel each other, feel closer and happier as you both wouldn’t be able to stay next to each other for a bit.

The next morning, Jihyun already left. The house felt empty and you were down, but for Lucy, you kept staying the happy mother she knew, waking her up, preparing her, as well as bringing her to school and then doing your house chores.

But it didn’t take you three weeks until it all backfired. You got a bad virus and weren’t able to get off the bed.

,,I’m so sorry that I can’t help you,’’ Jihyun gasped from where he was currently, feeling guilty.

,,It’s okay. Hyun and Yoosung are helping me and Jaehee keeps an eye on Lucy's tuition while Jumin helps with the hospital and medicine,’’ you groaned as you felt like vomiting again. It was eight in the morning after all.

,,I am such a bad husband. Three more people have to look out for you,’’ he chuckled, happy that you had support at home.

,,Well, you are providing for our family so don’t feel bad. Besides, it’s five. Saeyoung and Saeran are doing their best making Lucy happy and helping me too,’’ you laughed.

A few moments later, you cut the call as a red haired man, none other than Saeyoung entered your room. ,,Hurry up, I am taking you to the doctor’s. I read countless diagnoses with your symptoms and none of them is anything I would like you to have,’’ he said worriedly, helping you get ready after you vomited again.

But the diagnosis you had was much better than you all thought and with happy tears in your eyes, you entered your friend’s car again, actually shocking him. ,,I never thought that you could be so wrong with your diagnosis, Saeyoung. Actually, Jihyun and I are finally going to become parents!’’

Vanderwood

The both of you stopped counting the time at some point.

It just felt like a never ending story. It felt as if it was impossible for the both of you to archive what you wanted to.

Becoming a family.

Having a child between the both of you at night, caring for someone…

The more time passed and the more negative tests you held between your trembling fingers, the more you thought that this was an impossible dream for you.

You kept biting your upper lip as you looked into your calendar again.

You were once again bleeding. It was your period.

A sigh left your mouth as you looked over to Vanderwood.

Ever since he stopped smoking and was actually trying for a child, his mood had gotten weirder and harder to bear.

You weren’t happy anymore.

,,Yo, Vanderwood!’’ you called him, trying to smile as he turned your head over to you. ,,I… can we actually stop trying? You can smoke again and I can… maybe focus on my job for a bit… like, nothing has happened yet. Can we go slowly?’’ you asked him.

This was so out of the blue, he was actually so shocked, maybe a bit pissed off. You fell over him with this topic as if it was the most causal thing to say.

But he still said yes. He still nodded at you and he still agreed with you.

And so he really began to smoke a day later. Of course, smoking wasn’t that good anymore. He actually hated it.

But, he was sulking? He was hurt by you, a bit disappointed even though he could understand what you were trying to tell him.

A few days later, your period didn’t come as strong as it was supposed to be, so you decided to visit a doctor, maybe also to get a prescription for your birth control again.

But the news you got there was something you never expected.

,,You’re pregnant and you’re three weeks along!’’ she said, looking at you happily. She never had a woman who couldn’t get pregnant since she was still not a very well known doctor.

But you, one of her hardest cases, finally did it.

,,Since it was a hard fight, I want you to take these,’’ she said and wrote something down. ,,You need to take them to support your body with the change, make sure to come regularly. I think you already know what to do, but do not lift anything heavy, rest a lot, sleep, drink, whenever something feels off do not hesitate to visit me, okay? I will now schedule the first ultrasound of your baby and then you will have the assignment to search for a midwife to support you, okay?’’ she asked her.

Suddenly you felt so happy and scared at the same time that you didn’t know what to do.

But you already knew that there was someone at home that would be clearly happy to find out and you knew that for sure.

Part 3 of my pregnancy series here

MASTERLIST 1

MASTERLIST 2

MASTERLIST 3

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12.05.2021// 23:55 MEST

[themagichour]

I have a really bad case of Covid, despite being vaxxed and boosted. Have spent the morning contacting my surgeon’s office and my GP’s office, neither have gotten back to me yet. I finally did an on-demand virtual visit and the NP told me to go to the ER since last night my broken ankle swelled like crazy and hurt and was burning hot to the touch and bright red. But I’d had a fever I couldn’t get under control all night, and my foot went back down to its previous degree of swelling once the fever broke this morning. I’m assuming the two are correlated.

NP said I could have an infection in my ankle and/or blood clots, that they would do an ultrasound at the ER. But my entire leg is in a cast, so idk how they’d do that unless they’d want to take my cast off and change it — but the casts need to be set in a very specific way, and the cast techs at my surgeon’s office know what to do.

I just don’t think there’s any reason to go to the ER.

Wasn’t offered Paxlovid, I’m young and have no risk factors. But I thought maybe being 3 weeks out from reconstructive ankle surgery would be a risk factor. idk.

I have an appointment on the 8th to have x-rays done and my cast changed OR a boot put on, depending upon how much has healed. They told me if I test negative the day of, I can keep the appointment.

It’s all a clusterfuck and I am so sick and in so much ankle/foot pain. Haven’t felt this sick since the Great Dorm Room Swine Flu Outbreak of ‘09.

Something out there in the universe just needs to cut me some slack. I deserve it many times over.

This is petty, but I wish my Dad would apologize to me. I broke my ankle a couple weeks before my parents were set to leave for a 2-week vacation, and he was mad at me for having an ACCIDENT because he feared it meant he wouldn’t be able to go on the trip.

I begged them to reschedule, but they wouldn’t. My Dad was going to Comic Con, and they were meeting up with our friends in San Diego. Plus they spent a bunch of time just puttering about LA because we moved away 2 years ago and they miss it.

Meanwhile I had to fend for myself for 2 weeks post-op and could barely feed myself and nearly fell over so many times.

Then my Dad comes back from Comic Con with Covid. A Covid hotbed. Why on earth would a 70-year-old man who has worried for 2 and a half years that he’ll catch Covid and die (he’s a type 1 diabetic with heart disease) EVER go to Comic Con.

And all that time, he was always so worried about ME catching it and spreading it to him and killing him. Then he flippantly comes home and rather than saying hi, announces, “Well, here’s something that’s going to affect your recovery: I have Covid.”

Dude.

I don’t deserve this.

[the-witches-you-couldnt-burn]

It started with a whisper

I originally wrote ‘Like I did with you’ as a one-shot but people wanted a sequel. This turned out to be waaaaay longer than expected (4.7k word count). Inspired by Everybody Talks by Neon Trees. I hope you lot enjoy!

Ao3

(Also this is Mari’s new outfit, all credits go to the original artist)

————

Two teens stood upon the balcony of a large banquet hall, exposed to the midsummer night air. The sky was a lilac blanket that hung over the Parisian buildings, speckled with glowing stars. The moon, with it’s crescent smile, beamed down of the young couple.

Hey, baby, won't you look my way?

Marinette’s eyes were closed as she rested her head upon his shoulder, relaxing after the night’s rapid escalation. Tonight she had arrived at the ball with the intent to be there for her friends, but somehow she found herself within the arms of Gotham’s (and probably Paris’) Ice Prince. She had overheard his nickname from the Gotham students, one of which being Jon, who was in the middle of mocking the young Wayne. She had never considered that nickname as suitable; sure he was temperamental & had a tendency to snap, but icey to the core? No.

I can be your new addiction

Damian was calm. For the first time in his life he felt like he could take a breath. His exhale was carried off by a small gust of wind, the bush over hanging the stone railing rustled. With his inhale, the scent of Marinette’s perfume became present once more. Mixed with the crisp night’s air, her usual scent of pastries was mixed with what could only be described as ambrosia. His phone vibrated within his pocket, it was never on volume due to the potential risk it caused during his heroic activities.

“Shit.” Notifications covered his screen, multiple tweets, Instagrams and Tiktoks in which he had been tagged in. But the alert came from his family’s private messaging chat. The whole thread was a shit storm, Grayson and Todd’s messages were completely capitalised (he learnt years ago this meant ‘to yell’ in writing form) and both had multiple ‘keyboard spasms’. Drake, like the thorough detective he is, had combed through the images and videos, investigating their validity. His honorary sisters had replied with ‘awwwww’(s) and ‘Omg we MUST meet this girl! I need to know how she tamed the demon!’. He could practically hear Brown’s shrill voice from across the ocean.

Hey, baby, what you gotta say?

No reply from his father or Alfred. The two of them were the only semblance of ‘normal’ paternal figures he had within his life, after the sham of a relationship he had previously held with his grandfather. Their silence unnerved him.

Marinette had noticed his attention had shifted to his phone, her own mobile was buzzing away within her baby pink purse. Messages, notifications of account tagging and comments galore. A sigh left her lips when she saw her parents seemed to be none the wiser. Good, she didn’t need to deal with future adoration for ‘The boy who swept our daughter off of her feet’ (or something along those lines).

Her cheeks regained some of the warmth they held before as she thought of her parent’s reaction. Scrolling through her Twitter she saw her friends had posted multiple images of the night’s events, majority being her shared dance.

Chloé Bourgeois @TheBestBourgeois

what kind of Disney shit is this? (Insert video of two teens dancing around an mostly empty dance floor.)

Alix Kubdel @Sk8trGirl

Replying to @TheBestBourgeois

I KNOW RIGHT?! THEY WERE FUCKING FLOATING!!!

All you're giving me is fiction

She was thankful that they hadn’t tagged her but she hadn’t been spared by others in attendance. Her post thread had blown up, thousands had commented and even more had viewed the evidence. There was no way she would come out of this unscathed.

“Has anyone been on Twitter today?” The blonde of the family asked as she walked into the dining room. Her eyes focused on her scrolling screen, brows furrowed in confusion. “Actually has anyone seen what’s happening on any of our socials?”

It was early in the afternoon and the family had recently returned home after a straining stakeout. The Joker had broken out of Arkham and the Batfam had to deal with his minions. Dick’s arm was in a sling (sprained from a grapple gone wrong), Jason was icing his hand, Alfred was stitching Bruce’s chest wounds while Tim and the girls escaped without severe injuries. All were still recuperating and finally able to recharge.

Alfred always enforced a strict ‘no devices at the dinner table’ rule; no matter how urgent it was, it could wait until after sustenance was consumed. Tim strongly opposed this, but there was no arguing with Agent A. This all surmises that probably no one had seen the crap storm on social media.

I'm a sorry sucker and this happens all the time

Bruce sighed, bringing his free arm up to rub his eyes. Tilting his head back to look at Steph, “Who was it this time?” Barbara quickly took out her phone to see what Stephanie was talking about, all the while glancing accusingly at Dick and Jason. Both of whom held up their arms (or in Dick’s case arm), declaring their innocence.

“It wasn’t fucking me!”

“Jason! Language!” Dick shot a glare at Jason and was met with one in return. “It wasn’t me either.”

“Then who-“ Bruce started before being cut off by his most rambunctious daughter.

I found out that everybody talks

Stephanie with a squeal, exclaimed that it was Damian. Visions of what the Wayne brat could have done flashed through the heads of everyone in the room. He had been sent overseas before the quarantines and lockdowns hit. During Damian’s first month in France he had been forced into online schooling and then finally when he got to go to in-person classes he hated it. Described the class as a kindergarten with petty and vindictive toddlers.

Had he broken someone’s arm? Was that person of such importance that it had spread over multiple social media platforms? France’s government had announced on June 15th, that teens were now being inoculated so him having COVID-19 was doubtful. Had he insulted the wrong person? Had he taken over the government? He certainly had the potential.

Everybody talks, everybody talks

What they saw stunned them, even Steph as she watched it for the 7th time. Damian Wayne was dancing. But not only that, he was dancing with a girl.

It started with a whisper

“What is this shit?”

No one verbally objected to Jason’s outburst but he was sent a harsh glare from Alfred, Dick and Bruce. Their focus soon returned to the images and videos before them. Babs’ and Steph’s phones were returned to them as the others ran to grab their own devices. They all met back at the table, comparing the posts and comparing their notes.

I can hear the chitchat

“There’s no way this can be real.”

“Jesus Tim,” Barbara rolls her eyes, “have you seen the amount of posts there are? You’d be an idiot to think otherwise.”

Take me to your love shack

“I’m with Tim, how do we know this isn’t some skit. I mean, Demon Spawn almost looks normal. That’s a matter of concern.” He almost dry heaved when he agreed with Tim. Damian couldn’t be capable of naturally exuding that amount of humanity unless there was something in it for him.

Mamas always gotta backtrack

“I was just saying Babs, that we should check the credibility of these images. For all we know they could be gorilla glued together and trying to get unstuck.” Tim cringed at his own reasoning, he really needed to either sleep (probably not going to happen anytime soon) or find his favourite coffee brand (which had been one of the first to vanish after the covid hoarders appeared).

When everybody talks back

Dick was too busy freaking out and spam messaging the youngest Wayne, to defend Damian’s humanity. The family saw this and followed suit, wanting to get information from the source.

Chat name: Alfred supremacy

BigBird: AHHHHHH DAMIAN!

BigBird: YOU LOOK SO CUTE!!!

BigBird: HAIFJDNDNFI

LittleWing: WTF HAPPENED DEMON SPAWN YOU LOOK ALMOST HUMAN

Babs: who knew the city of love would influence the brat

Blondie: they are so cuteeeeeee!

Blondie: We HAVE to meet her!

Silent-but-deadly: agreed.

Timbo: YO DEMON

Timbo: Apparently the videos are legit

Timbo: are you being blackmailed?

And it just devolved into more chaos from there, fueled by the fact that they saw Damian’s ‘Blood Son’ account appear online before vanishing once more. Dick shrieked, “I FOUND HER ACCOUNT!”

The family gathered around the eldest son, peering over his shoulder to view his iPhone 12max screen. They saw a young girl’s Instagram account. It was locked but they could see her profile pic, the girl had black hair and looked to be if Asian decent. They compared it to the videos but it was hard to see due to the hall’s lighting and the minimised facial features of the pfp. Alfred suggested that they search up her username and see who has tagged her, some might have other photos of her.

After research for awhile, the family began to get frustrated with lack of results.

Hey honey you could be my drug

You could be my new prescription

“Come on!” Jason complained, “What kind of teenage girl doesn’t post her life online?” He ignored the girls glares and went back to researching. How had the account by the name of ‘mariiiiinette’ to managed to prevent the entire Wayne clan from accessing it? Damn Instagram privacy settings. He groaned, dragging a hand down his face, “We are fucking stupid. Why don’t we just use the Bat-computer? It would be so much fucking easier.”

“It shouldn’t be used for civilian issues-“

Too much could be an overdose

“The girl could be a meta for all we know! We aren’t safe until we know who she is.” Jason points a finger at Tim, his paranoia flared up and even though he would never admit it, Jason would do anything to protect each member of his family (although Bruce is still debatable).

All this trash talk make me itching

Barbara and Tim took their usual positions as Oracle and Red Robin (who had been banned from patrol due to lack of sleep). The rest of the Batfam stood behind them either with arms crossed or still failing at researching.

Oh my my shit

“The account is owned by a girl called Marinette Dupian-Cheng. She is French-Chinese and her parents own a popular bakery. Also if it wasn’t already obvious, she goes to Collège Françoise Dupont, aka Damian’s French school.” Tim begun informing his nosy family, “But this account has been inactive for the past 6 months, which is strange due to her frequent posting schedule before hand. It seems she probably has a second account and this is her old one.”

Everybody talks, everybody talks

“Not only that,” Barbara interrupted. “There are unopened messages from other accounts that accuse her of being a bully. There is a whole Facebook page about this girl and how she has been hurting her old friends, but neither side seems reliable. The so called victims seem to be twisting the truth but there is barely any information about Marinette so we can’t disprove it either.”

“Read out some of the messages.” Bruce took a cup of coffee from Alfred and sipped it.

The main screen of the bat computer displayed a Facebook group with the banner picture being a photo of Marinette. “They are mostly complaints expected of teen girls when there is a girl they don’t like; ‘Marinette is such a know-it-all’, ‘She is constantly insulting Lila’s intelligence’. They go on to talk about how Marinette was briefly expelled from the Collège before being reinstated by the principle for a reason unknown to them.”

Everybody talks too much

“Her school reports up until this year were good. The newest one states, ‘While Marinette is a wonderful and bright student, I encourage her to settle her disagreements outside of class. This seems to only be a recent occurrence and I implore her to go to the guidance council if she is in need of help.’” A beat of silence echoes through the cave, Tim sighed. “Jason’s meta theory could be correct. She could have just recently started exhibiting her abilities and using them to get what she wants.”

“Bruce what do you want to do?”

“We’re going to Paris.”

She opened her eyes to the blaring morning light that streamed through the blinds. Her lashes still painted with mascara that refused to leave. She felt a pang of sorrow when she was removing her makeup and dress last night, she never wanted the night to end. She shuffled down the stairs to the kitchen, covering her mouth when she yawned. She greeted her mother as she entered the kitchen to get breakfast.

She glanced at her phone and there was the chaos that was started hours ago and it was still occurring. It was the weekend, she wouldn’t need to deal with her classmates until Monday. But she would still have to survive her parent’s interrogation. Out of the corner of her eye she caught her mother smirking at her.

Everybody talks

“Nadja told me some interesting news about last night.” Marinette held her breath, glaring at the toaster, willing it to hurry up so she could escape. “Well,” Sabine patted her shoulder before rubbing Mari’s back. “I know you didn’t want to go but I hope you had fun.”

With that she exited the kitchen, probably going to help her father in the bakery. The ravenette stared after her, eye widened in shock, jumping when the toaster went off. Buttering her toast she went over the conversation, her brows furrowed in confusion. She had expected a ‘When do I get to meet the oh so famous prince?’ or ‘Should I be expecting a new guest sometime in the near future?’ or at least a ‘Who was that young man, Bǎozàng (宝藏 it means treasure)?’ But she said nothing.

A small smile was plastered upon her face as she changed and went down to help her parents in the bakery. Her father didn’t say anything either, he gave her a knowing smile before continuing to kneed the dough. She sat at the the store front as the cashier whilst her parents were busy making ‘Paris’s Finest Pastries’.

Her musings slowly faded as she was brought back to reality by badly hushed whispers. Two young preteens were by the bread roll casing near the door. She had seen them come in before with their parents, the girls went to the prestigious international school over in the 16th arrondissement. The one with purple hair kept whispering to the brunette, both ‘subtly’ glancing towards her. Using her enhanced hearing she listened in on their conversation.

“That’s her, I swear that’s her in the video.”

The blonde’s face soured likes she sucked on a lemon. “No, it wasn’t good lighting there is no way he would dance with someone like her.”

Everybody talks

Marinette had tough skin but their words had an impact, only a small one due to her defence mechanism of repressing emotions. She stopped listening and went back to drawing in her sketchpad, she was in desperate need of a new school outfit.

The two girls eventually came up to the counter, goods in hand. Marinette rung up and bagged their items (paper because save the turtles sksksk) in a tired daze. A phone was shoved into her face, her eyes barely adjusted to view the screen before the blonde spoke.

“Is this your instagram?” She asked in a tone so snobbish that it should be illegal from a person her age. Marinette finally was able to view the screen that was barely an inch from her face. Her old Instagram ‘mariiiiinette’ was displayed on screen, she hesitantly nodded, gaze flicking back to the two in front of her.

The blonde’s nose scrunched up and the purple goth girl squealed in delight. They soon after left the store, their conversation had devolved into ‘See! I told you’ and ‘Yeah, yeah. You were right.’

Walking to school on Monday, she had finally come down from cloud nine. She still rode the tail end of her high as she rushed along her path to her campus, she wasn’t going to be late but she sure wasn’t going to be early. She had spent the better part of the weekend designing and sewing a brand new outfit. Her new look was composed of a black cropped singlet (L'amour gagne hemmed into it and it’s straps), paired matching peach plaid cropped overshirt and a-line miniskirt. Her hair was down, ballet flats were worn and her makeup was the usual with the added edition of a rose gold eyeshadow.

Even though her face was covered in a black and gold mask, she looked hot.

She reached the campus and the whispers started again, people were still buzzing from Friday night. Her classmates, the majority of her grade and the younger years seemed to gossiping before class about the formal’s events. She couldn’t spot any of her friends or the two Gotham transfers, so she was stuck listening the the chitchat. Why couldn’t she have been late like usual?

Damian had a fowl disposition and it showed in multiple icey glares (and that was before he even reached the collège). His family had made their appearance known in Paris at 1am Sunday morning. He could have used his dorm to escape but his family didn’t have the word ‘privacy’ within their vocabulary. He didn’t want to have to pay for a lock replacement due to his brothers’ (most likely Todd with Drake & Grayson laughing at him) lock picking habit.

The Ice Prince was back with full force. He had just been... influenced by all the other couples. Yes he did respect Dupain-Cheng and he appreciated her company & pleasant conversations. He would struggle to hide a small smile at the memory of the dance, even if he denied himself the happiness of normality, he felt content when reminiscing.

“Ooo the Ice Prince is here, did he have a fight with his princess or something?” The voice seemed to mock him.

“The Disney Magic is gone. The demon is back.”

Everybody talks

At the second jeer he shot a glare at the perpetrator. Jon held his hands up in an ‘I surrender manner’, laughing as he joined Damian at his side. The two entered the school’s large foyer and looked to see if any of the classes were open yet. Sadly they weren’t, before he was wrong and the his class was plain torture but this was truely hell.

He saw Dupain-Cheng sitting alone on the stairs, drawing within her sketchpad. He wondered how a girl like her, who always seemed to be involved in other’s lives (for the better) was ignoring all of the comments about her. She felt his focus centre on her, eyes flicking up to meet his, she provided him with a small wave before continuing to draw.

Jon nudged him with an elbow to his ribs and dragged him off to the side, into the boy’s locker rooms. Jon scowled at the door, “It’s a mad house out there. You’ve heard what some people are saying right?”

“Why would I care about these imbeciles?”

Jon jabbed Damian in the chest, causing the demon to stumble. Green eyes darted from blue eyes to the tan finger. “You care when lies hurt people you care about.”

The day began to rapidly decline once the two dance partners took their seats, next to each other. They had both been placed up the back of the class and them sitting together hadn’t been a problem until now apparently. She wasn’t even safe when the teacher started their lecture, whispers and glances were cast towards them. Once the two got to biology it was better, Ms Mendeleiev was a strict teacher and was able to control the class.

Everybody talks

But the recess came. When the bell rang she slowly started packing up her equipment, Alix and Max (who she shared biology with) waited for her; she watched as the Ice Prince left through the door. She knew she didn’t need to be concerned about her friends joining in with the gossiping, if anything they would dispel people and tell them to ‘Mind their own fucking business’ because this whole situations is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.

She did receive some slight teasing from Alix about being a Disney princess, but Marinette quipped back about the skater’s fairytale story being ‘Pinknette, the Geek and the Beast’. The three met up with the other two of their group, they had just come from geography. Kim was complaining that Argentina was a state in America.

“That’s Arkansas you idiot!” Chloe shrieked, lightly hitting his arm with her white handbag. Max held his head in his hand as he approached, how had his tutoring sessions failed so badly?

Chloe turned to Marinette, a smile forming from her glare. The blonde examined the designer’s clothing, nodding. “You look like you are about to have a hot girl summer.”

Marinette’s face burned, the tips of her ears coated in red. Alix chuckled and nudged her shoulder.

Everybody talks

“Look at her, she is so desperate for his attention that she probably copied those designs.”

“Why do you think he danced with her anyways? Maybe she has something on him? I mean, she forces him to sit next to her in class, who knows what else she has done.”

What. The. Fuck.

Chloe glowered towards Lila’s posy. “We have a fucking seating plan, those cretins-“ She made a motion to storm over but was caught by the ravenette, looking back to Mari, her rage decreased from a boil to a simmer.

“No Chlo. It’s fine, it’s not worth it.”

Everybody talks... back

The group walked out to the school’s front steps, it was a mad house... a mad courtyard? Students sitting on the stairs, on the grass and standing around mingling, all of them now were staring at her. She held her backpack close to her chest (she had swapped her signature coin-bag purse for the pastel pink bag), pretending its a shield. Her friends circled around her becoming an obstacle to prevent their stares. If people were afraid of a scowling Kim then they don’t know the scorn of Chloe or Alix’s bite. And Max, sweet quiet Max.... you better hope he doesn’t have blackmail on you (he probably does), he can dismantle your life with a single anonymous post.

Rushed footsteps approached them. The group was broken apart by a rude Wayne boy, he swept Mari away from the school and the gossip crowds within. Her four friends shouted at him and he kept walking, shooting a glare at them in response. He kept pushing Marinette forward with a hand placed on the small of her back, her backpack was now swung over his other shoulder.

They ended up in her favourite alcove. She had brought him here with the other Gotham transfers for a native’s tour of Paris. It had always been her safe place to be creative.

It started with a whisper (everybody talks, everybody talks)

“My apologises for our rushed departure but you seemed to want to get out of their anyhow.” His gruff tone danced through the silence, his head still peaking around the corner; watching for any unwelcome guests.

“Thank you.” She whispered, her voice almost being carried off by the gentle wind. A genuine smile illustrated upon her face.

“We weren’t able to converse after the events of the other night. I would like to formally apologise once more for my actions causing this adverse reaction. If I had kn-“

“You don’t need to apologise!” She squeaked, hiding her eyes behind her fisted hand. Her shoulders curled inwards as she tried to make herself seem as small as possible, a side effect of her common use of her secondary miraculous form: Multimouse.

“I chose to dance with you, you don’t need to apologise for my own actions.” He stared at her with confusion. He had taken the blame so she wouldn’t need to do so herself; but she had taken it anyways. He had given her an out. Why does she always take the blame, even for things out of her control?

“But if I hadn’t danced with you then you wouldn’t have been the focus of the entire school.”

Marinette stepped forward, her eyes hardened and blazing. “Damian Friday night I went there out of obligation to my friends, I didn’t want to be there. But dancing with you? That was the highlight of my week, probably my month too. I enjoyed our time together.” Her face softened, lips twitched downwards ever so slightly. “I don’t regret anything about that night, but do you?”

He was bad at comfort. Everyone in his family avoided him when they were in need, he plainly didn’t know what to do. She wasn’t visibly upset but he sensed that she is disappointed that he apparently didn’t share the same opinion of the night. The only thing he regretted about that night was letting Jon call him a coward, but then again if he didn’t he never would have danced with Dupa- Marinette.

He picked up her clenched hand, the tension in her body alleviated at his embrace. He remembered how Grayson would apologise to Kor’i or how his father interacted with Ms Kyle. He brought their hands up and placed a kiss upon her knuckles.

And that was when I kissed her (everybody talks, everybody talks)

“I do not regret anything either—“ he cleared his throat, “In fact, I’d appreciate if we would be able to interact more, especially outside of that cesspit.”

Was he...?

It didn’t matter.

She smiled the same dazzling smile she gave him at the dance. She nodded while laughing, “I’d love that.”

Everybody talks

The two stay talking, hidden within their secret alcove for the rest of the day. She texted her parents to say she was with a friend and would be back later that night. Damian didn’t bother texting his family, Marinette knew he had to be back soon due to his dorm’s curfew.

The sun was setting at they walked back together, he did the gentlemanly thing and dropped her off at her bakery door. She could see her mother behind the register inconspicuously looking over at the two of them. Damian’s lips quirked upwards, she was satisfied with his kinda-smile.

He walked back, hands in pockets and a neutral expression upon his face instead of a scowl. He reached his door and took his keys, he found that it was already open. Damn.

His family was splayed out within his two roomed dorm. Todd and Drake were fighting over a place to sit on his bed, whilst his father sat at his desk, watching the commotion. The three of them turned to him as he enter the room, they were the only family members able to attend on short notice; Cain had a ballet audition, Gordon & Brown had concert tickets for tomorrow, Grayson had to take care of Mar’i while Kor’i was on Tamaran and Alfred stayed to ensure no one died during their night time activities.

“We need to talk Damian.” His father stood, leaning onto the desk chair. “The school called and said you had an unexcused absence for half the day. Where were you Damian?”

Damian stared into his father’s eyes. He was fifteen, almost an adult, but was treated like he was ten again.

“I was with a friend.”

“Probably the girl from the dance. Marinette, right?” Todd mocked him. Damian snapped his head in the direction of his bed, glaring at both his brothers.

“That’s what I want to talk about with you Damian. Now I don’t know her personally but from what we’ve discovered through our investigation we have some concerns. What’s happened Damian?”

The youngest Wayne’s glare shifted off of his brothers to the floor, and then finally to his father; his family sitting in wait for his answer. Straightening his posture, his shoulders clicked as he rolled then back. His statement’s tone was sure and steady, “Everybody talks father.”

Everybody talks... back

[thiserichann]

cookies and cream - lee jeno

reader x jeno

genre: smut, strangers to fuck buddies, humor if you squint hard enough

word count: 4k-ish

warnings: recklessness (she met with a stranger online, don’t do it kids) excessive lying, 18+ scenes that includes: oral (f receiving) face riding, soft dom!jeno?

This is merely a work of fiction and is not meant to hurt the image of Jeno and NCT. Again, don’t be as reckless as OP. This was just a fantasy of mine that I’ve been dying to get out of my system.

Holy fuck.

That's the only word that you've managed to utter when you decided to check your messages that morning.

You got bored in the middle of the class and decided to sneak a peek on your phone to pass the time. The class is recorded anyways so you can always just go back to the parts of the lessons that you've missed.

But holy fuck.

You never expected to see THAT so early in the morning.

"Miss Y/N?"

You snapped back to reality and stopped malfunctioning for a second when somebody called your name. Everyone including your professor remained quiet and all eyes are on you.

"Oh. Sir what’s the question again?"

You answered nervously as you tried to review your notes and backtrack on what he is discussing a few moments ago.

"I see that you're distracted in the middle of my class again. Mind sharing what you're occupied with?"

"Uhm. I was watching KPOP fancams, sir."

"Fancams won't get you into law school, Miss Y/N. Phones off please."

You tucked your phone back to your pocket and never picked it up again since. The professor started blabbering again but no information is being retained on your head. It stayed that way at your other classes.

You wished you were looking at some KPOP fancams earlier. You’ve watched fancams at class before and got away with it unscathed.

Oh no. It was a goddamn dick pic.

A good one, too.

It was from a guy that you met in a kink site a few days ago. You created the account out of boredom and expected nothing to come out from it. It’s all the flirting and sexting without all the unnecessary commitment

It only took you a few minutes to set up an account. For some privacy, you made a random birthdate and a random nickname, because like hell would you share your real information to these people. You also picked a racy picture of a lady that looked a bit like you and passed it off as your own.

Within minutes, your inbox is flooded with messages. Most of them, however, are from men who are old enough to be your father.

Well, you were bored, so you entertained everyone and then went on back to your boring, vanilla life. A few political history and theory books later, you went back to see which ones messaged you on the site.

And that's where you've met him.

The most gorgeous piece of meat alive.

He seems like a nice guy. He introduced himself as LJ and your age aren’t that far off from each other. LJ is the only one who actually engaged in conversation besides "want to fuck?" or "are you horny?"

As soon as you started messaging back and forth, you scrolled on his profile to see what he looks like. The only thing is, his profile looked a whole lot like those high fashion male underwear photoshoots.

It was an array topless pictures (presumably his, you just can’t be bothered to check if it is actually his). It featured his sculpted abs and biceps, cropped up all the way to his full lips. Despite not seeing his whole face, you knew very well that he’s a hunk. To say you were intrigued is an understatement.

Since then, you've been talking back and forth through Snapchat (your secret one because you're not stupid) and sent him actual pictures of yourself, completely omitting the face. You took one from your bed, your bathtub, and probably every part of your house that you felt is sexy enough to be included on the pics.

You can't tell him if it's him or the repressed sexual urges finally manifesting itself after more than a year of not getting laid, but every text to and from him made your heart race. It was something that you looked forward to every hour everyday.

Hours went by that you totally forgot leaving him on read. You climbed up to your bed to rest your back to the headboard and opened your unread messages.

You: Hey svlr. School stuff.

  He opened the chat and started typing right away.

  LJ: Oh good. I thought I did something wrong to upset you.

You: Not at all. I loved the pic by the way. It literally knocked my socks off.

LJ: Just the socks?

You: You can take the rest of it off yourself ;)

You scoffed. The flirty banter has always been there ever since you started talking but nothing really came out of it.

LJ: If only I could :(

You: I know. Covid’s a bitch.

You set your phone aside for a second to go to the bathroom. On your way, you picked up some snacks at the fridge and sat back down to your bed, only to find your phone blowing up.

LJ: If you're down maybe we could meet

LJ: It's totally fine if you don't want to

LJ: I just made it weird, didn't I?

LJ: I'm so sorry I brought it up in the first place

LJ: I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable

LJ: Hello?

LJ: I'm really sorry

You: Chill. I'm right here

You: I just went to the bathroom

LJ: Oh

You: I'd be lying if I said I don't want to meet you as well

You: Well... I wouldn't write off the idea

You: But with the Covid

LJ: Thoughts?

You: I don't think it's a great idea

The screen says Seen right at the bottom but it took him a couple more minutes before finally replying.

LJ: I understand

LJ: But in case you change your mind, I'll leave the time and place up to you

LJ: I’ll take care of the rest

LJ: Deal?

You: I'll sleep on it.

You: Speaking of sleep, I gotta go. Morning class.

LJ: Okay. I guess this is good night then

You didn't, in fact, talk to him the day after.

You'd be lying if you said that you didn't want to see him and his abs in real life. But as someone who overthinks a lot, you just can't shake off the risk.

You: Good night. Talk to you tomorrow.

What if he's not really the guy in the pics? Or he’s psycho in real life? What if he's infected the virus?

You sighed.

Why must some global pandemic ruin your sex life?

You waited until the end of the day before you finally replied to LJ. The last thing that he texted was a brief good morning from earlier in the day and nothing else. He’s actually a pretty sweet guy, totally not worth ghosting, and you actually liked talking to him as a friend that you can share your sentiments with.

With your guilt finally eating you up, you took a break from your assigned readings and sat back at your bed to rest for the day. Your fingers hovered over the keyboard for a minute, thinking of something to say to him. It took you a few tries before finally hitting the send button.

You: So, I thought about it

LJ: And?

You: I need to know I can trust you

LJ: Okay. How?

You: I don’t know. Send me a proof that you’re real. Get tested?

You: Is that fine with you?

Within a split second, he sent his reply.

He actually did it.

You couldn’t believe it but he actually did it.

LJ: Consider it done.

He got tested for physical, including the virus test, and passed with flying colors. He even sent you a vid of him inside a medical clinic.

He just sent the uncensored results this morning where you can clearly see his real name.

Lee Jeno.

LJ.

Seems legit.

Well, the uncreative nickname shouldn’t matter now because the results meant only one thing.

You’re gonna have to push through with your promise.

You got ready around noon that day. You can’t remember the last time that you actually got ready to meet someone that’s not a delivery guy or a relative passing on something to your family.

As someone who overthinks a lot, you actually got everything covered. You picked a place near a restaurant to eat. The police station is just a few blocks away just in case something happens, and right in front of a library…

“Where’re are you off to?”

You raised your backpack to show to your mother.

“I’m off to the library. I needed to get these renewed. Maybe pick up a novel or two.”

She looks at you from head to toe, eyeing that incredibly loose hoodie, faded denim jeans, some worn out sneakers that looked like it’s supposed to be thrown away years ago and a medical mask that covers about ¾ of your bare face. It’s just your usual attire whenever you go out for errands.

She just nodded and went back to watching her favorite soap opera.

“It’s nice that you’re out of your room for once. Take some cookies from the kitchen so you’ll have something to eat in case you get hungry.”

… as an alibi to get away from your strict parents.

As soon as you left the door and made sure that you’re out of sight, you found the nearest public toilet and grabbed a whole other outfit from your backpack. The hoodie is replaced by a white, ruffled see-through blouse and you ditched the jeans for a tight skirt that’s at least four inches above your knees. You tousled your hair a little bit and put on some powder and tiny hint of lipstick before putting your facemask back on again.

It’s been a while since you’ve done an elaborate scheme like this. Your skills got a little bit rusty, but they always work.

Sometimes you wonder if you’re really meant to be lawyer or a criminal instead.

You stepped out of the toilet and blended right back into society.

Now all you have to do is find wherever the hell LJ is.

Jeno sat anxiously as he waited for you right inside the café. He’s on his fourth cup of coffee but it didn’t do anything to calm his nerves down (geez I wonder why).

You: I’m almost at the café.

He’s been staring at his phone the whole time. Once he received your message, which is a pic of you in the bathroom after the outfit change, he almost choked on his drink.

This message sent him on a panic as he turned his camera on to see how he looked. He did some minor adjustments to his hair and he wiped off his eyeglasses clean with the sleeves of his hoodie (which did nothing for him by the way) and then casually sat down and played it off cool like he hasn’t been waiting for you for over an hour.

On your perspective, you walked inside the café and looked around for LJ. Fortunately, there was only guy inside the café, twiddling with his phone on his hands and as he kept on peeking through the glass windows as if he’s looking for someone.

From afar, he actually looked really cute. His appearance, a shy, nerdy dude with glasses, looked way off from the fuckboy image that you expected him to have in reference to the messages that you’ve been getting from him.

It’s always the quiet ones that are kinky. You should know, you are one.

You walked over to his table and tapped his shoulders to get his attention.

He froze for a moment before he finally managed to turn around and face you.

“You’re actually here.”

“I know. I’m just as surprised as you are.”

tap tap tap tap

The room is so quiet that the only thing you can hear is the sound of your heels tapping against the tiled floor. You can say that that is one of your observable annoying habits tapping your foot on the floor when you're a nervous wreck.

Sighing in retaliation, you removed your hoodie, fanning yourself as you tried to relax and get comfy on the hotel couch (which should be comfortable enough since you paid a shit ton of money on that room), switching the TV on to get your mind off of things. The lackluster array of shitty sitcoms didn’t distract you at all, but it instead reminded you of the reasons why you’re in that room in the first place.

Having nothing to do to pass the time, you paced back and forth in the room, finally sitting down once you realized that it looks way worse than you just tapping your foot. You folded your arms right across your chest, looking at the watch from time to time but the hands of the clock seem to be moving slower the more you stare at it.

Quarantine started almost a year ago and it's been very hard for you. Sexually. It's been almost a year since you've been touched by a man and you’re more than ready to jump on anyone’s dick at any this point,

Too bad that that dick is taking his sweet time in the bathroom.

tap tap tap tap

Your foot found its rhythm once again, only this time, you’re not nervous anymore. Your patience is wearing thin.

As if summoned by the constant tapping, the guy comes out of the bathroom, just casually drying himself while wearing nothing but the towel dangerously hanging on his waist and a boyish smile on his lips.

No biggie.

"Hey."

Suddenly, you’re not tapping anymore.

Head empty, just thoughts of a hot guy patting down a towel all over his toned body.

“I hope I didn’t make you wait for too long.”

He spoke, tossing aside the towel on his hands on the sofa, finally giving you a full view of him and all his glory.

You must admit, you’re skeptical at first. The guy that’s been sending you faceless thirst traps just days ago, telling you how he’d fuck you senseless looked a lot different from the guy who entered the hotel room just a moment ago.

He came in wearing those black oversized hoodies that did a great job in hiding his best features. His hair was a bit long for your taste, covering half of his face while the face mask hid the other.

But this man right here in front you, he’s Adonis.

You unconsciously bit your lower lip, earning a chuckle from the guy.

“I’m guessing that you’d like to start now?”

You nodded, the tension and awkwardness rendering you unable to speak.

He smiles as he takes the remote from you, turning off the television because the main show is about to start.

You started to tense up again, eyes wide as you realized that he’s now right beside you, wrapping his arms around you as soon as he sat down. He leans over, soft lips coming into contact with your exposed neck and shoulders, landing small pecks all over.

You sat there breathless as he slowly ran his fingers to the side of your thighs, tracing circles at it while giving small, reassuring kisses on your neck and shoulders. It’s as if he’s asking you for your consent, waiting for you to open up to him before he makes a move.

He got his answer when you turned around to face him, running your fingers into his cheeks before cupping his face, your lips finally touching his. He moved in the same pace as earlier, slow and calculating. You got a bit impatient once again, biting his lower lips gently to let him know that he can do more.

He grabbed you by the waist and successfully placed you on top of him. The kiss got even more sloppy as you ran your hands through nape, then into his soft locks. His hands travelled once again, finger running through legs again, stopping as soon as he reached the hem of your skirt, flipping it up to reveal the thin lace material that barely covered your core. You took that as initiative to remove the towel on his waist and grinded against his growing member, the friction and heat enough to earn a groan out of him.

He held your waist once again, firmly this time, halting your movement completely.

You broke away from the kiss, staring him in the eyes to read his face.

“Something wrong?”

“Hold tight.”

You were about to ask about what hold tight mean, but your arms cling unto him involuntarily as he lifts the both of you out of the sofa.

Jeno laid you gently in the bed, making sure not to break eye contact as he does so. He looked like he's about to eat you alive, which is enough to send flush to your cheeks.

“I would’ve loved to bend you over that sofa, but I think it’s just proper that our first time will be on the bed.”

"God. You're beautiful."

He then ran his fingers towards the thin fabric of your blouse, feeling every part of your torso like he's memorizing every detail of it. His hands then travelled in your chest, squeezing the swell of your breasts on each hand, fingers shaking as he does so. It felt like an artist admiring his delicate work of art.

He situated himself between your legs, taking a moment to admire you first before doing anything else.

He started to run his hand on your cleavage and stopped on the uppermost button of your blouse, taking his time to remove all of them and placing a kisses at the exposed skin. After all of the buttons are taken care of, you lifted your body up and slid off the fabric. Your black lacy bra finally made its appearance. You took the liberty of taking that off too, as slow and as you possibly can.

 Jeno just stared at your body in awe, breathing heavily as his eyes scanned your naked glory.

 "Gorgeous."

He said under this breath before leaning down to claim your lips once again. You're turned on by how much attention he's giving your body now. You're usually loud in bed but his gestures are making you bashful. You've never felt this beautiful before.

You can feel his hands trembling as it travels all over your body, his kisses getting even more needy. There was moans of satisfaction every time he would lick your lips. Jeno was kissing you like you were oxygen and he needed to breath.

His hands travelled south, running across your thigh and your now aching core. You're about to remove your skirt and underwear but he stopped your hands midway.

"Keep it."

He took your hands away from your skirt and placed them just above your head.

"Just sit there and relax baby. Let me treat you."

You did just like he told you and gave him full control of your body.

"Good girl."

His lips brushed your ears, whispering sweet nothings about how beautiful you are under him. His kisses then went down to your neck, using his tongue and teeth, marking everything he can get his mouth on with his saliva. Meanwhile, his hands finally touched you down there, massaging your still clothed wetness.

His middle and index finger felt your slit, moving it in swift motion in search for your clit.

"Oh my god. That's it."

You gasped as his fingers finally hit the right spot, tossing your head back as his fingers made circles at your bundle or nerves.

You opened your legs more, leaning on your arms on your back, head tossed back and eyes closed as you feel your impending orgasm.

He dipped his hand inside your underwear and collected some of your essence with his fingers. The mental picture of him licking his fingers deliciously is enough to get you off for weeks.

It didn't take long before he took your panties off and his ducked his head down. He opened your legs once again and licked one long stripe on your core, making sure to taste all of you. You sat there and watch as he hungrily takes all of you in his mouth, acting like your pussy is a full course meal and he's been starving for years.

Within moments, you've become a moaning, toe curled mess. You ran your fingers to his blonde hair, guiding him on how to move his tongue and fingers on you. At one point, he bit some of your sensitive skin, making you scream a string of curses under your breath.

"Stop stop stop."

You grab a fistful of his hair and he paused from what he was doing. You pushed him gently away from you, leaving him staring at you confusedly. The confusion didn't last long when you flipped your current position, you're now on top.

"Can I ride your face?"

At this point, you're bold and horny enough to use your words and ask him. He just nodded, sliding himself from underneath you and went back to eating you like a champ. You grabbed his hands and placed them across your chest, squeezing your breasts to send him a message. He was quick to pick up and followed suit, pinching your nipples right in between fingers while your ride his face to orgasm.

"Shit. I'm coming..."

  You writhed from above him as you come undone. Your body felt cold all over. Your eyes are ringing, feeling dizzy as you almost passed out while you bucked your hips a few more times to milk your release.

You didn’t have time to recover when you heard your phone ringing from outside. Your legs felt a little shaky and you almost tumbled and hit your head in the wall if Jeno didn’t help you get up. You  sat down on the floor, butt-ass naked as you frantically searched for your phone from under all of your stuff before you finally pressed the answer button.

“Yes mom?”

“Where have you been? Your father’s been looking for you at the library. He’s picking you up on your way home.”

You buried your head on the couch to shake off the buzzing feeling on your head. You placed a pillow on your body while you searched for your discarded clothes all over the hotel room.

“Oh yeah. I went to the café and got something to eat. Tell Dad I’ll meet him outside the library.”

“Okay sweetie. Can you pick up some groceries on your way back? I’ll text you the list.”

“Yeah mom. Bye.”

You breathe a sigh of relief as you started putting on the outfit that you wore when you left home.

“Where are you going?”

Jeno reluctantly got dressed as well, his shy demeanor came back as soon as he wore his glasses and fixed his hair.

“I got to go, Jeno. I’m sorry that I’m leaving in such a bad time…”

You went over to him and placed a sweet kiss on his lips.

“I promise to make it up to you next time, okay? I’d love to meet you again.”

You grabbed a paper bag from your backpack and handed it to him, waving as you bolted out the door.

After fixing his things, he sat down for a moment and took a quick peek inside the package that you left him.

It was a ziplock bag of full of cookies and a whole other treat.

You left him your two-piece lace lingerie.

To be continued.

[twoflipstwotwists]

Becky Downie has missed out on an Olympics before. In a 13-year gymnastics career, which has seen her win 14 major medals, she felt the heartbreak of watching a home Games from the sidelines in 2012. But this time is different, she says.

On Monday, her shock omission from the Tokyo 2020 team was announced, and she now says she can “never forget” the turmoil she endured from British Gymnastics during the selection process.  She also hints that her treatment was influenced by her decision to speak out at the culture of abuse within gymnastics, suggesting she was “made to feel not welcome” at the sport’s training hub at Lilleshall after going public.

In an exclusive interview with Telegraph Sport, Downie describes the last few weeks as "the hardest of her life". She had thought things could not get worse than 2020: Olympic postponement, the fallout after she joined whistleblowers to speak publicly about what she described as "normalised" abusive training environments, and her father's time in intensive care battling Covid-19.

But last month tragedy struck when her brother Josh, 24, died suddenly from an undiagnosed heart condition while playing cricket. It was news Downie says "you never imagine receiving". To make things worse, she received the devastating call on the eve of the final Olympic team trial, while apart from her family at a hotel in Cardiff.

"I got a knock on the door after midnight, and my first thought was it must be drug testers," Downie says of that night. "I was half asleep, completely dazed. The coaches came in and when they told me [that Josh had died], I thought, am I actually dreaming this? There are really no words to really describe it. There were a lot of tears. It was the longest journey of my life, getting back to be with my family in Nottingham."

Sat in her living room in Nottingham now, Downie still has a look of disbelief on her face as she describes the events of the last few weeks. Condolence cards are placed around the room to mark how raw and recent her family's grief remains. Mounting more pain on top of that seems unimaginable, but the blows have kept coming.

Just two months ago, she was on top of the world after executing what she believes is a world leading uneven bars routine. At 29, she felt in the form of her life. When she posted a video of her routine online, major champions were applauding her in the comments, even the legendary Nadia Comaneci. Downie believes the routine put her in contention for a gold medal.

But last Friday her appeal was denied, and British Gymnastics confirmed she would not go to Tokyo. It is less than two years since she won a stunning silver medal at the World Championships - a competition that counted as a trial for the Olympic squad - but somehow she has failed to make even the three reserve spots for Tokyo. Though Downie has wished all of the gymnasts selected the best, she remains baffled by her exclusion - especially because she “met all the criteria” and her trials scores put her top of the rankings in bars.

British Gymnastics have defended the decision, saying they are focusing on medals in the team event, and that Downie's specialism in bars posed a "risk" to this strategy. But it has caused uproar, with a petition calling for an independent review of the selection process receiving 25,000 signatures in the last five days. Beyond selection though, Downie says what hurts the most is the way she believes the decision was made and how she was treated in the process.

After missing the final trial due to bereavement, Downie and sister Ellie were given another opportunity by British Gymnastics to compete for their spot on the team 10 days later. Though Ellie elected not to do so, Downie made the brave decision to take up the offer.

"I know that Josh would want me to, he wouldn't want me not to try," she says. What followed though, was a process where she alleges British Gymnastics lacked "any element of compassion".

They did not allow her to compete at her home gym in Nottingham or at the national centre at Lilleshall. British Gymnastics then rejected a venue she and her coach proposed and instead suggested she return to Cardiff - a six-hour round trip from her home and the very place she had learned of her brother's passing.

"That's the part that hurt me most. I refused. Why would I want to go back there? I don’t think that should have been asked of me at all."

Another venue was confirmed instead, and though British Gymnastics emphasised their intention to replicate as closely as possible the environment that the other gymnasts had competed in in Cardiff - for the benefit of fairness - Downie says it was her that was put at the disadvantage.

New obstacles included British Gymnastics failing to book her training slot at the chosen venue - a basic thing that all of the athletes had for their trial - which saw her make a 90-minute trip and have to plead with the Leisure Centre to remain open. She also had an existing dispute with the governing body because they refused to allow her to use equipment at the trial which more closely resembled that being used in Tokyo. As a bars specialist, this meant she couldn't perform her highest difficulty routine. "It's like telling Lewis Hamilton to get in a Ferrari and drive - in a sport of small margins, and high performance, equipment is always a factor."

Actually competing in the trial, while still reeling from the death of her brother, was "the hardest thing I ever had to do", and she describes national coaches walking past her wordlessly while she “sobbed uncontrollably”. But afterwards, she and Ellie walked out of the gym with "not a doubt in our mind" that she had done enough.

"If I can perform in that environment, which was harder than any Olympic final would ever be, I’m really proud," she says.

But, according to British Gymnastics, it was not enough. Knowing now that the team event was the priority in selection, she believes her exclusion from the team was already a foregone conclusion before her trial.

British Gymnastics "categorically" denies the suggestion that the trial was a "tick box" exercise, and say they trust that selection was decided purely on merit, but Downie is unconvinced. To add insult to injury, she was given a 48-hour deadline to appeal the decision, falling on the day of her brother's funeral.

"It makes me feel sick that they treated me like that," she says. "It hurts me to know the things I had to miss. Picking the flowers for the funeral whilst I was away trialling, a tribute for my brother at his cricket club, which happened when I wasn’t even given a proper training slot. I missed that, for what? There’s so much that was hurtful.

"I'll never forget that. And no amount of apologies will ever make that okay."

Downie and her sister were two of the only current British gymnasts to speak out about abuse in the sport last year, which triggered an independent review commissioned by UK Sport and Sport England. When she was left out of the squad on Monday, lobbying group Gymnasts for Change called it a "sinister warning" being sent by British Gymnastics to whistleblowers.

Does Downie think this outcome is a result of her speaking out? "It's very hard to say... But I definitely know that there has been a big behavioural shift towards me and Ellie, since that point, from certain individuals, decision makers. We’ve gone down to Lilleshall and been made to feel not welcome.

"I have been told by a person of significant importance - in the national team environment - that a lot of coaches do not agree with what we've done. Maybe I did open my mouth a year too soon, I'm not sure. If this is the sacrifice [an Olympics] then this is the sacrifice, change needs to happen. I’m proud of what I did and I don’t regret it."

Tokyo was meant to be her final bow, but now Downie has spent her first week in months out of the gym.

Downie is adamant though that she is not done with gymnastics. Despite the heartache and hurt caused, her love for the sport remains strong.

"It’s hard for me to think, can I be selected for a team ever again? I do know I want to carry on, because I want to show that routine. I haven’t done two years of work to sit on the sofa. There’s a World Championships this year. They certainly don’t have control over my final chapter. I know I want to compete again on my terms."

But the dream of Olympic gold is gone: "I genuinely believe that we could have done it. I think I had a shot at being the first female Olympic champion Britain has had in gymnastics."

[arcturusreads]

And I Don't Know Why This Hurts So Bad - Merhayes

TW: Mentions of Covid-19 and death

I had a prompt in my inbox to write a Cormac's view on when he found Meredith passed out in the parking lot and to make it fluffy but I don't think there's any fluff in this and it might have ended up a little more angsty. So, I'm sorry to that anon but here we go...

Cormac sighed as he finally left the hospital building. He hated to admit that there was a feeling of disappointment when Meredith hadn’t taken him up on the offer of a drink. She’d text back telling him that she was feeling exhausted, and he couldn’t blame her. She was in the thick of it all, working all hours on the Covid wards. The work was often unforgiving and took an emotional and physical toll. Cormac found himself cursing the virus for the twentieth time that day. It had cost him time with his sons and a trip back to Ireland. On top of all that, just when he thought that he might be ready to move forward after Abigail, the entire world went into lockdown. In the grand scheme of things, these were small issues. Nothing necessarily life-threatening but as his mother often reminded him, someone else’s problems don’t diminish your own.

As Cormac walked across the carpark, ready to head back to his hotel a figure on the floor caught his eye. It took a split second between him rushing over to registering exactly who it was on the floor. A tightness took over his chest as his fight or flight response began to kick in. No. Panicking over this, freezing, it wasn’t going to help her. That was what he needed to focus on. Helping her.

“Hang in there, Meredith, please.” He kept repeating the words under his breath as he waited for the gurney and O2. Her name almost felt foreign in his mouth, so used to only calling her by the name plastered across the hospital

What the hell was taking response so long? Did they not understand the urgency? Did they not realise who was lying on the floor right now? The tightness in his chest didn’t ebb away as he cradled Meredith’s head. Every time his eyes scanned over her face it just got worse.

Hearing the rattling on the gurney against the tarmac, Cormac pushed his feelings as far down as possible. It was an art that he’d mastered in the months after Abigail’s diagnosis. When their family had been bogged down with medical terms and statistics, he hadn’t had time to feel, he had to be there to explain, to try and ease worries the best that he could. It would drive Abigail crazy, she always told him that he switched into doctor mode. Cormac couldn’t help it though; it had been his coping mechanism. One that he hadn’t used in a long time. Definitely not since he had moved back to America with the boys. Well, that was up until now. But it was like riding a bike.

With the help of two nurses, Cormac gently placed Meredith onto the gurney with the oxygen mask placed other her mouth.

You aren’t doing this to me, Grey. Not after everything.

As they walked through the ER doors, Owen came rushing up to them. “Hayes, you know we’re not taking in any emergencies right now.”

“It’s Grey.” His voice was sharper than he had intended but they had no time to waste.

Finally looking down at the patient on the gurney, realisation dawned on Owen’s face and suddenly he flew into trauma mode. He barked orders swiftly, pushing Meredith into a private room to start tests. When Cormac went to enter the room, Owen stopped him in his tracks.

“I don’t think so, Hayes.”

“What? Hunt, look, I found her! I need to be in there with her!”

“And you can but you’re not in any PPE and the last thing we need is another doctor to go down. Go suit up and I’ll meet you in there.”

Cormac huffed out a breath before nodding and turning away. He’d never gotten into his PPE so quickly before and once he was done, he ran straight back to Meredith’s trauma room. Whilst the PCR test was going to take a few more hours to come through, Hunt and Hayes were pretty sure that Meredith had contracted Covid. She had been in and out of consciousness ever since they had set her up in the room. Every time she opened her eyes, she would complain about how exhausted she was, how achy her muscles had become and Cormac felt that familiar tightening of his chest every single time she spoke.

“We can’t move her up to the Covid ward until we have a confirmed diagnosis, so I think it’s best that we leave her in here for now.” Owen looked over Meredith’s chart before placing it on the side. “I’ll come and check in on her in a little while.”

“There’s no need.” The words came out of Cormac’s mouth before he had realised.

Owen gave him a questioning look before he clarified. “I just mean that I’ll stay in here and keep an eye on her.” Cormac couldn’t even think of leaving her alone in this room. What if Meredith woke up again? What if she needed something?

“Are you sure, Hayes? Weren’t you meant to finish a couple of hours ago?”

Glancing up at the clock, Cormac realised that it had been two hours since his shift had finished. “It’s not like I’d be heading back home anyway. Honestly, Hunt, I’ve got it covered her. Plus, it doesn’t feel right just leaving her in here, on her own.”

Owen gave him a small smile, nodding in understanding. He knew the effect that Meredith had on the people in her life. The minute that she drew you into her inner circle you knew that she was as much a part of your family as you were of hers.

“Alright, just look after yourself.” He quietly left the room, ready to face the battlefield of questions he was going to get from everyone about Meredith.

“What are you doing to me, Grey?” Cormac looked down at her face. In sleep she had some reprieve, her features no longer contorting from pain.

He gently smoothed back her hair, wishing that he didn’t have to wear gloves right now. That he could feel her silky strands under his touch. Wishing and praying that her test came back negative. That this was just exhaustion, and she would be fine. Cormac knew that he might be kidding himself because they had run all the other tests that they could, and they had come back negative. All that was left to do was wait to hear the inevitable.

Part of Cormac wanted to curse himself. After Abigail had passed away Cormac hadn’t wanted to be around people. He ran to Switzerland with the boys and set up their lives there. He hadn’t bothered trying to make friends with his colleagues, hadn’t bothered to try and forge relationships with anyone. It was the last thing he wanted. Cormac repeatedly told himself that his main focus had to be bringing up the boys, but something had broken inside him when Abi had passed. Something that would never fully heal, and Cormac had a fear that bringing people close would make the wound hurt even more.

Against his better judgement, Meredith Grey had wormed herself into his life. He hadn’t meant for it to happen. The moment he had met her, Cormac thought she was just going to be another know-it-all surgeon. An irritation that he would learn to deal with. Yet here he was, a year later and sat by her bedside whilst she was unconscious feeling that same pain in his chest that he thought he would never have to face again. And as much as Cormac wanted to yell at himself for getting into this situation for a second time, he couldn’t bring himself to regret meeting Meredith.

“You’ll be fine, Grey,” he murmured. “You have to be.”

[jazzytriestowrite]

Date night | Takami Keigo (Hawks) X Reader

Fandom; My hero academia

Pairing: Takami Keigo (Hawks) X GN Reader

Synopsis: Late nights and long mornings, quarantine has made it hard for y/n to see anyone, more or less their boyfriend hawks. Feeling bad for leaving his s/o alone in their empty home, hawks plans a date night for the both of them to relax and enjoy the little time they have together. 

Warnings: A bit of angst at the start, but after that bone rotting fluff. 

Word Count: 4,778

A/N: This lovely fic is apart of quarantine fluff collab that the discord server crackhead sanctuary put together. Thank you Sof @myherowritings​ who hosted this, and I can't wait to read everyones fics!! Also this lovely banner was made by @sanurrwrites​ and I'm very thankful!!! 

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡

It hit us unexpectedly.

The drastic change in how we did everything was overwhelming, and many of us didn’t really think it would be such a big deal at first. It was a silly virus that would be cured within weeks, nothing to really worry about. So everyone continued about their normal lives, happy that the virus wasn’t in their country, happy it wasn’t them. It simply wasn’t our problem right?

Wrong.

Everything flipped and turned upside down when the unknown and mysterious virus finally hit Japan. While earlier we thought it wasn’t our problem, what are we supposed to say now that it's at our front door? Affecting our neighbors, our friends, our students and our heroes who protect society. No one really cares until it's your problem.

The first death the virus caused made everyone realize just how serious this was. This wasn’t some joke, people's lives were actually in danger and things needed to be done to protect the citizens from a virus that was on a killing spree.

That meant no more social gatherings.

Someone might ask- Well that doesn’t sound too bad? What's wrong with not having to see people?

It was a problem to you, and many others.

Laying in bed day after day, letting the loneliness set in and the worry skyrocket about the current situation. You had taken the simple act of seeing someone in person for granted, and realized just how texting and calling wasn’t the same. You missed going out with friends and doing random things that made you happy. You missed going to the ice cream parlor down the street that would sell you ice cream and soothe all your sad and depressive feelings. What you missed the most was your boyfriend.

The sudden thought of him already made your eyes water and your heart clench. ‘’I miss you Keigo’’ You whispered to the darkness, pulling your warm blanket closer to your body for comfort. The bed that was made for two, suddenly felt way bigger than it needed to be without your boyfriend. ‘’I’m just being selfish, he’s keeping us protected’’

Keigo or Hawks as most society knows him, had been quite busy since the virus broke out in Japan. You’d think villains themselves would stay inside once they heard a virus could kill them, but it was quite the opposite. With no one outside to stop them from their wrongdoings, it was easier for them to commit their daily crimes. So that meant heroes never really got the break they thought they’d get.

While they risked their life everyday to protect citizens, the risk factor was now doubled because of the virus. Heros would continue to go out and protect homes, stores and people who needed it, not letting the virus keep them from doing their job.

It made you happy to know that your boyfriend was doing his job, and probably saving many lives with his patrols. It just hurt that you couldn’t really see him anymore. He was gone before you woke up, and back away after you’ve closed your eyes. You had tried multiple times to keep yourself awake, but never seemed to make it.

You missed his laughter, the way he grinned after getting on your nerves and the stupidly cute smile that would make your heart flutter. You missed his bear hugs and his butterfly kisses all over your face. You missed everything about him down to his annoying antics and crazy eating habits. You had taken it all for granted and now all you had was yourself and the little notes he would leave behind.

‘’I love you Keigo, goodnight baby, stay safe’’ You whispered to the darkness, hoping your words would get to him. Closing your eyes, you snuggled into your body pillow and fell asleep within minutes.

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

A couple hours later, the front door of your home creaked open. A blonde male entered quietly, or what he thought was quiet. His posture was slouched, and the eye bags under his eyes gave a clear giveaway that he was tired. ‘’Shit’’ He glanced at the clock and saw it was around 3 am, meaning you had fallen asleep some time ago. His red wings felt heavier than usual, and the thought of sleeping by the front door so he wouldn’t have to climb the stars to the bedroom, was seeming like a good idea.

Keigo shook that idea out of his head, if anything, he wanted to see you, even if you were already sleeping. He felt filthy, so maybe a shower before he got into bed. Even though he was sprayed with every cleaning spray known to man before coming back to your shared apartment, he still took extra precaution when coming home to you. Constantly checking his temperature, and wearing a mask and goggles to keep you protected. You were his little dole, he’d never get over the regret if he passed a virus on to you.

Slugging upstairs, he yelled in fright when he felt himself falling forward towards the steps. At first he didn’t even fight it, trying to save himself from marks on his face from steps seemed like too much work. However, his wings spread out as much as they could, leaving the males face hovering over the steps he was just about to kiss. ‘’Oh’’ He mumbled, the simple thought to use his wings had flown out of his head. God he was so tired. Standing back up, he carefully treaded up the stairs, trying to be more quiet now that he was getting closer to the bedroom.

Opening the bedroom door as quiet as he could, his yellow eyes found your body first. Walking closer he stared down at your sleeping form, a small smile appearing under his mask. ‘’Hi baby, I’m home’’ he said softly, before he frowned. He noticed the tear lines on your face and his heart suddenly felt heavy. Just the thought of you crying without him here to comfort you was truly heartbreaking. You weren’t the only one who missed their partner, since he was surely feeling the same loneliness as you.

He teared his eyes off of you finally, walking away and into your shared bathroom. Shutting the door behind him, he turned on the light and let gaze find the mirror. His rough appearance made him cringe. His golden blonde hair was matted down poking in every direction, eye bags were prominent and his gorgeous smile was covered by this stupid white mask. Reaching up, he ripped the mask off his face, cringing at the red lines he saw of having to wear it so often.  All of this sucked. Yet if it meant keeping you and others safe, he would wear this mask for eternity.

About an hour later, he’d showered and dressed in the clothes he’d be sleeping in. All today's grime and cleaning products washed off his skin leaving it spotless. As he stood in front of the mirror, brushing his teeth half heartedly, the thought of you crying earlier was still fresh in his mind. While you wouldn’t tell him you were lonely and wanted more, he knew better. He had been with you for some years now, he knew you inside out. He knew that whilst he had it hard, you were equally suffering.

Within the first two weeks of Covid 19, your student Bakugou Katsuki had caught the virus and was hospitalized due to it. You had cried for 4 days straight, and nothing he said made you feel any better. Being a U.A teacher meant you had worried even more for your students, who were still kids and had places to go.

Keigo felt terrible that he was putting extra stress on you since he still had to do his duties, and that everything wasn’t easy on you just because you were home and hopefully safe.

‘’I’ll make it up, we’ll both have some fun soon’’ He said to himself in the mirror, before spitting out the nasty toothpaste and rinsing his mouth out with some cold water. Finally finishing up, he turned the bathroom light off and trudged towards the bed. Climbing in lazily, he wiggled under the comforter you were hogging to yourself. As his head hit the pillow, he had to keep himself from falling asleep on the spot. The soft fluffy pillow almost sent him to heaven. Scooting closer to you, he wrapped his arms around your body and pulled you closer to him, his head resting in the crook of your neck. Your hair didn’t even bother him, if anything the smell of your shampoo calmed him.

‘’I love you y/n, goodnight dove, I’m home and safe’’ Keigo whispered to you before finally letting his eyes slip close, knowing in a few hours he’d be gone again. Yet getting to hold you before he went to sleep always made his mornings and days easier.

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

Sometime before the sun came up, you had felt the bed move, and the warm arms that were keeping you secure left again. You wouldn’t lie, the disappointment you felt hit harder than anything. And when you heard the bedroom lightly shut behind Keigo, you simply wrapped your arms around yourself, hoping to mimic the arms of your lover. Yet his arms and presence were unique, so of course you couldn’t replace his embrace.

You don’t remember falling back asleep, so it confused you when you suddenly felt the bright rays of sun on your face. ‘’Oh, Good morning I guess’’ You mumbled as you sat up, trying to rub the sleepiness out of your eyes.  Shielding your eyes from the sunlight with your right hand, you looked around for the one thing that always made your morning.

‘’There it is!’’ You say happily as you roll out of bed and towards the dresser that was next to the bathroom. On Top of the wooden dresser was a handwritten note covered in chicken stickers, and a red rose next to it. Grinning you grabbed both items and jumped back into bed, excited to see what the dumb bird had wrote for today.

Ever since the pandemic started, and since Keigo had been having long shifts, he’d always left letters for you to read in the morning, and a different coloured rose everyday. It made him leaving easier, and the fact that he spent time writing and putting his feelings into them always sparked joy.

Carefully opening the note, you were met with Keigo’s chicken scratch handwriting. You loved him, but one day you were going to give him writing lessons. You shook your head in amusement, ignoring the bad handwriting, you began reading.

‘Good Morning Chickadee,

I hope you had a good sleep baby, I came home late again but as soon as I had the chance you were in my arms. You cuddled up to me instantly, what if I was some intruder? I guess even in your sleep you recognize me and my godliness.  

Anyways, I apologize for once more coming home late beautiful. Work has been a bit stressful, but I believe we’ve put a dent on the villains plans. Only small time villains are really causing trouble, and were handling it pretty well. I think sooner or later we won’t need so much patrolling anymore. Hopefully soon, I wanna spend time with my lil nugget.

Oh! I have some news.

Someway or another, I will get off early today and spend some very much needed time between the two of us.

Not to be too sappy in this letter, but, I really miss you y/n. Way more than words can describe. It’s lonely patrolling instead of being home with you and having fun, and honestly just the thought of coming home to you at night is the only way I’m getting through my days at work.

I miss you and the weird laughter you let out at my god awful jokes, I miss you and the way your eyes sparkle when you look at something you like, I miss you and the way you love me unconditionally even when i’m being a weird asshole.

I love you y/n, and I’ll see you tonight dove.

-The best boyfriend ever

ps. You mumbled my name in your sleep.. Having some good dreams huh ;)’

‘’I hate him so much’’ You say while grinning and holding the note towards your chest, your heart beating like crazy. It was weird he still had this affect on you despite dating for a few years, but you hoped this feeling never went away. Neatly folding the note back to how it was, you crawled to the edge of the bed and pulled out a container that was hidden under the bed. Popping the lid off, you placed the note from today alongside the other notes you’ve received over the weeks.

‘’I love you Keigo’’ You whisper lovingly before closing the box once more, sliding the box back under your bed. Picking up the rose you abandoned, you smiled at it. The red rose was beautiful, and it seemed your lover had taken the time to cut the thorns off it.

Shaking your head with a smile, you stood up and walked out the bedroom, your feet padding against the cold ground. ‘’God it’s freezing” You mumble out loud shivering physically, before heading into the kitchen. Opening the window above the sink, you see a cast of 7 different colored roses from this week alone. ‘’Here's your new home’’ You say softly to the red rose before placing it in the vase next to the others.

Leaning against the sink, your gaze wandered to the window or more specifically what's outside the window. The beautiful flowers that were blooming outside made your mood feel lighter, and hearing the kids laughter who was next door made your heart clench in joy.

You couldn’t wait to start a family with the love of your life.

Now that you were up, you would start your daily routine of going with the flow and seeing where the day would take you. Hoping that Keigo would keep his promise in the note and come home early so you could shower him with much needed affection

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

Sighing, you turned off the tv with the remote, eyes getting tired of staring at the same screen for hours. Looking over at the clock, you read it was currently 8pm. While your boyfriend said he’d be home tonight, it was starting to get late and you were questioning if he’d actually show.

Not that it’s his fault or anything, you knew his job could get stressful. Yet that wouldn’t stop the disappointment that started to set in, which was a very valid feeling.

Standing up you begin to head towards the bathroom, planning to simply take a bath before getting comfy in your bed and reading, a hobby you picked up after quarantine.

‘’HONEY I’M HOME’’

A voice shouts after forcefully kicking down the door, startling you and making you flinch. None other then Takami fucking Keigo was standing at the door, wings tucked neatly behind his back, huge grin on his face and two grocery bags in both hands.

‘’Keigo, you scared me’’ You say with an angry look before everything set in. ‘’Wait.. Keigo..’’ The light bulb in your head turned on and before your brain could process it anymore, you were flying across the room and jumping into your lovers arm.

Keigo let out a grunt at the sudden attack, but smiled at your innocent gesture. He placed the bags down and wrapped his arms around your body, spinning you around as he bear hugged you. ‘’I’ve missed you too’’ He says, kissing the top of your head. ‘’I told you’d I’d be home tonight, I hope you didn’t lose hope’’ He says as he grins down at your sheepish expression.

‘’No worries though’’ He comments before picking back up the backs he previously dropped. ‘’So, I have a whole plan in mind for tonight, which I am very excited for’’ He says before kicking the door shut and walking into the kitchen. He places the bags on the counter, ‘’So just sit back and relax and I’ll make this a date night you’ll never forget.’’

You tilt your head in curiosity, now wanting to know what this bird brain had planned, but you couldn’t help but get excited along with him. It had been a while since the two of you properly hung out with each other. ‘’So Mister ‘’I have everything planned out already’ what's on the agenda right now?

‘’Well Chickadee, we are gonna make dinner together’’ Keigo says with a bright smile, but cringe when he see’s your deadpanned expression. ‘’Don’t look at me like that dove, I promise it isn’t what you think it is’’

You saw through his desperate attempt to lie. ‘’Kiego did you plan on making chicken again’’ You say while staring him down, and when you see his head hang in shame you laugh. Stepping closer to the male you lift his head back up and press a quick kiss against his lips. ‘’It’s okay, I don’t mind having chicken for the seventh time in the row. Your cooking is actually pretty good’ You comment before stepping away, tying up your hair so you could help as well.

‘’WOO!’’ Keigo winked as he gave you finger guns, ‘’Chicken never gets old babe, thought you knew this’’ When you responded by throwing said bag of chicken at him he screeched before catching it and laughing.

You pull out your phone and play your favourite playlist, so the two of you could bop while cooking. ‘’Oh we can make cookies as dessert! It’s the one thing I can actually bake’’ You say sheepishly, sticking out your tongue when your lover nods in agreement.

With that, the two of you jammed quietly as you began the preparation of dinner.

While you were pouring the cups of flour into the big mixing bowl, you suddenly got the idea to terrorize the male who was singing quietly behind you. Scooping some in your hands, you turn around and innocently call out his name. You wait until the perfect moment. Which is when he turns around fast, a small smile on his face as he quirks his brow. He immediately see’s what you're about to do, but it's too late anyways.

You blow the white powder in your hand right at him, watching as he closes his eyes and screams. ‘’Y/N!! IT'S ON NOW’’

And while you thought this was a good idea at first, when you saw Keigo open his eyes and reveal the determination within them, you mentally cursed. And from there started the flour war, with the two of you giggling while throwing flour at each other.

It ended when you were running to throw some flour at him, but ended up instead eating shit and busting your ass on the wooden floor. Keigo, who was concerned, couldn’t help but start laughing as he helped you off, dusting the flour out of your hair. ‘’Oh gosh, we’ve made a mess of the kitchen’’

Looking around he was right, everywhere you looked there was flour, and now the two of you regretted ever touching the damn powder.

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

After some cleaning, and a mini dance session to a couple of songs, the food was finally ready and the two of you sat at the table eating together.

‘’Yeah there was this big spider and I was so scared, I yelled for you and then realized I’d have to get rid of it myself’’ You spoke between bites, your eyes lighting up as you continued telling the story of how a huge spider made its way inside your home.

Kiego just stared at you silently, his mind not even processing your words anymore. You were so cute when you started to ramble, he honestly missed the way you would get so into your stories. Sometimes he didn’t think you were real, you were too perfect. But he was glad you were his, because at the end of the day, he was wholeheartedly yours and he was glad you shared the sentiment.

You two continued to chat as you ate, nothing too important just random chatter to fill the silence. The two of you had so much to tell each other that you didn’t even know much time had passed. Two hours had passed by in the blink of the eye, and you didn’t notice until you glanced at the clock behind you. ‘’Wow it’s getting late’’ You comment, putting the dry dish where it was supposed to go, stepping away from the sink.

Keigo nods, ‘’Time sure does pass when you’re having fun’’ He says with a soft smile, before taking your hand in his, ‘’Come on, I have one more activity I wanna do before sleeping’’ He said as he picked up the last bag that was still sitting on the counter.

You nod, trying to get a peek inside the bag only to be met with him pulling it closer to his body. Letting out a pout, you followed as he pulled you upstairs, nearly sliping as your socks slid across the wooden stairs. ‘’Jeez, the stairs are trying to kill me’’ You complain, glad when the two of you reach the bedroom.

Kiego then whips around, ‘’You should go clean up, you know to get the flour out of your hair’’ He says nervously, and while you wanted to ask why he suddenly started acting weird, a voice inside your head told you just to listen. You simply nodded and gave him a grin, ‘’Okay I will, better not run away while I do’’ You say before going inside the bathroom, shutting the door behind you.

Keigo lets out a deep breath, his eyes drifting to the bag in his hand. ‘’Don’t fail me now’’ he whispered  to himself as encouragement.

♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~♡~

Finally done with washing your hair, and getting the flour out of random places you stared at the door in front of you. It was obvious he was doing something out there since you heard his hard footsteps running all around the place. Yet you wanted to give him all the time he needed, and the fact that he was trying to surprise you was cute.

Suddenly, you hear music start to play, making your brows furrow. It sounded like that one song..

‘’Dove you can come out now,,’’ You heard the slight panic in his voice, which made you nervous too. Pushing those feelings aside, you open the door and slowly peak out.

‘What would I do without your smart mouth?

Drawing me in, and you kicking me out

You've got my head spinning, no kidding, I can't pin you down

What's going on in that beautiful mind

I'm on your magical mystery ride

And I'm so dizzy, don't know what hit me, but I'll be alright’

You stand in shock as the lyrics start to reach your ears, which was the song the two of you danced to when he first confessed his love to you. The next thing that almost brought you to tears was the sight in front of you.

Standing in the dim moonlight, your lover was standing proud and tall in the balcony, a nervous smile on his face. Leading up to him were red and pink rose petals, some thrown on the bed as well.

‘’Keigo’’ You whisper as you start walking in his direction, not even caring that the petals stuck to your feet as you walked.

‘My head's under water

But I'm breathing fine

You're crazy and I'm out of my mind’

You finally reach your lover, who in fact still has some flour in his hair. Yet that didn’t matter, because all you could see was his beautiful face, the way his blonde locks flowed in the wind, and how his golden eyes sparkled with an emotion you knew all too well.

Love.

‘’Hi my love, I wanted to end the night really special’’ Keigo whispers as his hands find their way to your waist, pulling you in as your arms wrapped around his neck.

’Cause all of me

Loves all of you

Love your curves and all your edges

All your perfect imperfections

Give your all to me

I'll give my all to you’

The two of you start to sway to the song, your eyes staring into his honey coloured ones. You were caught in a trance, a trance you didn’t really mind at all.

You loved this man more than anything and anyone you knew. Even when he was being a weirdo or saying unfunny jokes, you always found him entertaining. You loved him and all his imperfections. Arguments never tend to last long between you guys as of the unconditional love you had for one another.

As the song started to come to an end, you laid your head on his shoulder, embracing this moment and engraving it in your mind. Tonight was simply perfect, and while the two of you didn’t do much, you still had a blast with your boyfriend.

’I give you all of me

And you give me all of you, oh oh’

You pulled your head off his shoulder when he started to sing the final lines of the song, a genuine smile on his face. ‘’Kei-’’ As the song turns off, he suddenly lets go of your waist and bends down onto one knee, his hand reaching inside his pocket.

‘’ Ah, so here I go’’ The male says as a blush covering  his face and running up to his ears. You stand there shocked, your hands coming up to cover your mouth.

‘’Quarantine has been pretty rough haha, but it has taught me a lesson. The world is a scary place, and when this virus pops out of nowhere, I’ve noticed that anything can happen. It’s scary to think that villains aren’t are only problems, but some killer disease could sweep over and take away our happy lives’’

Keigo takes a deep breath, before putting on a nervous smile.

‘’These last few days that I’ve been apart from you made me realize that I never, NEVER, want to be away from you again. I realized that I want to spend all my time that I have left here with you. Y/N, I love you so much’’ He laughs, ‘’I’ve been nothing but happy with you, and you bring out the best in me, and without you I wouldn’t have found myself. I never thought I’d find love, If anything, I just thought I was made to be a hero and nothing more. But I’ve figured out that I can be a hero and also love you.’’

‘’You are my pride and joy, my dove, my chickadee, my beautiful lover...What I’m trying to say is, I love your last name, But I’d prefer if you’d take mine’’

You giggle at his words, tears slipping down your face. You were speechless, and honestly couldn’t even compel yourself to say anything.

‘’Y/N L/N, will you make me the happiest bird every and marry me?’’

You can’t help the shit eating grin on your face as you stare down at your lover, your best friend and the best thing that has ever happened to you. ‘’Keigo’’ You say as more tears fall down your face, your voice shaking as your brain processes everything that just happened. ‘’Yes duh! Who would say no to you’’ You yell, your bottom lip trembling as he stands up and slips the gorgeous diamond ring onto your finger, kissing the ring after he placed it.

‘’I love you’’ The two of you whisper at the same time, both of you gazing into each other's eyes. The both of you were crying, and it made it more special to see him showing so much emotion.

Keigo leaned in slowly, ‘’I’ve loved you for many years Y/N, and I’ll continue to love you until my dying days’’ He says softly before pressing his lips against yours, one hand holding your cheek and the other bringing your waist closer to him.

And with that, moonlight shined on the newly engaged couple, who still had their whole life ahead of them.

[manic-kagura]

alright so some shit in my life has happened and im just reaching breaking point after breaking point and this post + its possible following reblogs exist to help me vent

general tw, but specific to domestic abuse, narcissistic abuse, and anything that can occur within those two categories (im exhausted i cant think of all the issues that may pop up)

theyll all be under readmores

so for context: my dad has undiagnosed narcissistic personality disorder - while it may be undiagnosed by technicality, i consider this to be his state of being because, like narcs do, he refuses to get help, because THAT would mean something is WRONG WITH HIM!

I’m 27 years old - I didn’t get out of that emotionally abusive household until i was 25, and even then I was unable to fully escape it. in late february of 2020 my dad crossed a line that just...lit the lightbulb in my head and i chose to go live with my current boyfriend, who i had known for about a month and been dating for maybe 2 weeks at the time. it’s been 2 years since i left, and after a long time of slowly getting things in my control (finances, my dog, my car, my bank account, etc) i was finally able to start going low contact 10 months ago. unfortnately, this also meant i couldn’t call my mom because he would turn the volume on the tv down so he could hear me talking to her over the phone. i didnt want to risk her safety further, so we just...dont call each other unless shes in the car.

this specific post is not for me to go into details on the bullshit i endured (i may do that elsewhere another time with heavy tw) - this post is specific to a rather recent set of events and how this has, today, crumbled into causing me a downward spiral.

my dad has threatened my mom with divorce A LOT over the past 2 years - it started getting really aggressive when i caught covid and she was asking him to back off because (SURPRISE) his meddling was making my symptoms worse (and i didnt even live with them...controlling ass freak). so anytime she vaguely annoyed him, he’d threaten it. my mom is very very Christian (unfortunately), and from South Africa - the idea of divorce is terrifying to her on so many levels, and no matter how many times ive tried to get her to leave she always had an excuse.

well, one day he made the threat, and she said “bring the papers and i’ll sign them.”

the threats calmed down. I don’t know when they started getting aggressive again, but in May of this year (2022), he finally decided he’d bring them. he told my mom she had time to look for living arrangements, and when she did he’d start finalizing divorce shit. when i learned this i blocked him everywhere i could manage - no phone calls, no texts. saving face has no purpose anymore when theres nothing to salvage.

my mom has been working her ass off for like 4 years - my dad lost his job, and with it any financial stability we may have had (all the Amazon boxes stacked around the house every day would make you think otherwise though). i learned my mom had NO ACCESS to her income. it went to a joint account that she was unable to get into.

well with this actual divorce going on and her job working her to death (like she goes in at 7 am and leaves at 12 am - fuck publix), she has had literally no way of packing shit up to start getting ready to leave. she has not opened a new bank account for her income. she hasnt found a lawyer. despite me telling her id help her with these things, shes declined and ive backed off.

until today.

on a whim i decided to check my old email (a rarity in the past 2+ years honestly). i noticed some emails in there that were sent as a text, from a phone, which was something i had seen before (my dad had done this somehow by accident before in 2019, but it was always in a text chain that included me).

this one did not include me. i dont know how im receivng these. but its a text chain between him and some woman that i do not know - number and name dont ring any bells, she isnt in our family, shes not a friend ive ever heard him speak of.

he was asking her about “tourism visas” for someone coming from the Phillipines.

its not for work. not only does he not even do shit in the line of work in which hed be talking to people in other countries now, but TOURISM VISAS arent for work.

a good friend of mine from high school has a shitty dad too. we laugh at how fucking similar they are. turns out, her dads had shit like this too! fucking mail order brides!!!

i start sending my mom screenshots. im frantically texting her to contact me. she hadnt contacted me in about a week so in a fit of fear i decide to call her, which is something ive done my best not to do, at all, ever.

i asked her “can you talk? are you alone? can we speak in private?” she said she was at home, to call back in 10 minutes. i told her ok, but she needs to check her texts.

we start texting. she says my dad was asking why i called, what it was about, what i was gonna text her about. she said she didnt know (which is only half a lie tbh).

his response was “when you get home tomorrow, we need to finalize things.”

i ripped him apart in my texts. i told her she needs to get her finances together ASAP. no more waiting. he didnt give a singel solitary shit about her or our fucking family, hes trying to fuck her over. hes hurt us enough. i told her i had screenshotted all of the messages, i told her to ask for a small vacation from work to get her shit together and out, i told her to stay with a friend when my boyfriend and i couldnt be with her to pack.

shes finally decided to get a lawyer. she said to keep everything on hand. shes finally seeing the fucking lightbulb.

im hoping in the next week she’ll be having more days off to deal with this shit. my only high points within this situation today were to see her finally turn around and the mere fucking thought that i made my life long abuser shit himself, all because i said “i need to talk to you in private” to my poor fucking mother.

i hope this fucker burns in whatever hells exist. i hope he burns in every single torturous afterlife and his soul never rests. but most of all i hope he realizes he will leave this fucking world cold and alone, just like he raised and left us.

[bangtae-sohotddaeng]

we’ll be counting stars | k.th. | 3

(^ gif cred: ON THE VOYAGE | pinterest)

pairing: idol!Taehyung x publisher!Reader

rating: nc-17 (for language and themes)

summary: You’d sworn off love and relationships forever. You were here to do your job - work with the biggest boyband of the world. Not forge friendships and...and whatever it was that you and Taehyung were building up with these sneaky glances. It was, to be very fair, your Chief Editor’s fault that you’d landed in this mess. Maybe you should quit your job? Maybe you should quit life -

Oh, he was staring again, and did he freaking lick his lips?

warnings: swearing (reader’s got a potty mouth) + this is set like 5 years in the future + reader has emotional issues, she's a relationship phobe + mentions of weed

genre: so much ANGST ugh + fluff + comedy + some crack

words: 5 k

note: hey, y'all. so last month i went on a new year's trip to my boyfriend's city (yes, covid has forced us into an ldr, fml) and got too occupied in all the celebrations and reunions, and this got delayed. also, you might have noticed how the chapters progressively grow wordier, lmao i'd been confused. but i think i've found the perfectly comfortable number now. expect this length from now on. thank you for reading~💜

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You were, to be very honest, a complete mess at this point.

You hadn’t been quite certain as to what to expect when you’d picked Jungkook’s name out of the bowl in your office, but you could say with certainty that it hadn’t been even close to this. 

This boy was brimming with ideas! You hadn’t been able to get a single sentence in the midst of his own enthusiastic chatter, with words and ideas folding and layering all over each other. All you had done was nod, mumble words of agreement and appreciation—that you were pretty sure he didn’t even hear—and type it all. Freaking typing. So much typing.

So basically, the entirety of yesterday spent fussing over the repertoires to ensure that the list of tasks for the first set of three weeks were well-constructed had led to this—not being able to so much as tell him about the questions your team had so meticulously framed! You felt irked, amused, exasperated, exhausted, and at the same time, really fucking lost. 

How were you supposed to interrupt him without disrespecting him? You didn’t have a great amount of tact and usually just cut to the chase. Which was generally an appreciated quality in your profession, because no writer wanted to be just lathered with compliments to later find out his work was actually bullshit that no one wanted to read. But this situation was different. You felt pressured, nervous and out of your element. Because you really had no idea how to respectfully stop this guy from making a mess of all your hard work.

He was Jeon freaking Jungkook of BTS, for God’s sake!

How could you shut him up?

You were both in Jungkook’s personal studio in the BTS dorm. The boy was seated on a couch across the coffee table from your own, literally swimming in a trillion size bigger t-shirt and some loose sweatpants. His hair floof-ed all over the place as he spoke, bubbling and bursting with enthusiasm. Which he was doing a lot of. Speaking, that is.

For the better part of two hours now, you’d been listening to him go on and on about what all he wanted to include in the book. Your fingers were nearly cramping with all the typing, but you’d promised the guys no recorders and you didn’t wanna miss anything he said. But it was freaking difficult with the speed he was going at! 

And also with the mess and reluctance in your own head. You were used to pulling the reins with writers. This situation was making you feel incompetent.

You hadn’t even touched your list, yet. What would your teammates think of you if their very team leader failed to finish with the assigned data collection and messed up the team’s hard work? Ugh!

Currently, Jungkook was having you make a list of all the people he needed to talk about in the book.

“And there was this boy my age, Ji-Hyun, he was so much better than me at everything! It is him, truly, that I credit my overachieving traits to. I had to work so, so hard—oh! Please also note down Mun-Hee’s name! She was the best dancer in my entire school. So… wait, where was I?” He looked up at you with wide big, round eyes.

You opened your mouth to speak—was this when you asked him to shut up? It had to be, right, because this was the first time he’d actually prompted you to speak. 

You meant to take your shot, but then stopped. You blinked. Looked back at your laptop. Blinked again. 

You were so confused, right now. “Uh, Ji-Hyun was better than you—”

“Oh yes!” Jungkook exclaimed, launching off into a detailed story about how and in what respects, exactly, this guy was better than Jungkook.

You shut your eyes. This had gone beyond “taking notes” and was quickly turning into Jungkook enthusiastically reminiscing his childhood and freaking telling you tales about it. And he seemed to be enjoying himself so thoroughly, looking so adorable, that it felt very wrong to ask him to stop even when you tried to avoid the added pressure of him being a whole ass idol.

But you had actual work to do. And you were leading a team. You couldn’t act so unprofessionally.

In hindsight, maybe you shouldn’t have told the boys that this was going to be like “making friends.” Jungkook seemed to have taken it too literally.

Biting down on your lip, you cleared your throat. He didn’t acknowledge it. Sighing, you shut your laptop. “Jungkook?”

This time, he stopped mid-word, looking at you with his lips rounded in a pout, sparkling eyes turning into saucers. 

Now, you were in no way attracted to the guy, but you really could not deny how freaking cute he looked in the moment. 

“All okay?” he asked, looking at you and then the shut laptop on your lap.

You took a deep breath, winced a little, and then shook your head. “No, Jungkook. We need to pause…” You had to stop speaking when his face crumpled. “Whoa…um?”

Jungkook slumped in his place, shoulders sinking. “I’ve been giving horrible ideas, haven’t I?”

Your eyes widened. “What? No! Absolutely not! That isn’t the case, I was…”

He wiped his face with both his hands before looking at you with really sad eyes, all enthusiasm from some time ago washed away. “Then what? You can tell me, it’s okay.”

Now. You prided yourself to be a practical human being who strived to be as straightforward in her life as possible. But right now, you really could not stop yourself from lying your way out of this one. You decided to blame it on the fear of upsetting a client, and not the impossible-to-control empathy that Jungkook’s doe eyes seemed to naturally draw out of people. 

“I just need a coffee. It’s been a while, my hands need a break. And my brain’s kinda overwhelmed, too,” you expertly lied, relaxing when Jungkook’s eyebrows lifted.

“We’ve been sitting here for long, haven’t we?” he said in an almost guilty tone before standing up. “And I didn’t even show you around the dorm!”

You tried to tell him how it was really not necessary, not to mention a bit too personal and…not what you were here for? But he was already moving towards the door and beckoning you along.

“Come on, let’s drop by the kitchen and then we’ll take a walk around the property!” he enthusiastically announced.

You stood up and followed him out of the room, awkwardly trying to ignore the two bodyguards that had stood as still as mannequins while you were in the room and then started to follow Jungkook wordlessly as you left.

The walk to the kitchen was a short one, and the place was, unsurprisingly, not empty.

Your team members along with their partnered BTS members had been assigned one particular space in the dorm, each. According to the email you received last evening, the kitchen was supposed to be used by Simon and— 

“Taehyungie-hyung! Are those chicken burgers?” Jungkook excitedly rounded the kitchen island to peek into the paper bag Taehyung was fiddling with. “They smell so good…”

You looked from Jungkook’s face that was awash with childlike excitement to Taehyung’s, and your breath caught when you found his eyes already trained on you. While you struggled to formulate a coherent thought at the intensity his eyes seemed to be emanating, yet again, his lips slipped into an easy smile.

“Hello!” he greeted you cheerily, bowing his head.

You, dazedly, bowed back and dragged your feet up to the island, standing across from the two guys. “Hey,” you mumbled in English.

His smile widened further to show his teeth. “Food?” he asked you in English, nodding at the burger Jungkook was pulling out of the bag.

You shook your head. “No, coffee,” you responded in Korean, earning raised eyebrows from him.

“I hate coffee.”

You smiled, this time. “You’re missing out.”

“Can I call you by your name?” he asked out of the blue, and you did a double take.

“Uh…yes?” you stammered. “Yes, of course Taehyung-ssi.”

“You should call me Tae.”

You swallowed, continually nodding your head like a damn puppet. “Yes. Tae. Sure.”

“I’m bac—boss?” 

You twisted on your heels at the familiar squeak. “Simon, hi,” you mumbled, professionalism slipping over you in the blink of an eye at having a member of your team in your vicinity. “Where did you wander off to?”

Simon seemed to be sweating a bit, and you really couldn’t really tell why. You’d just asked a simple question. 

Maybe you’d become too scary…

“Just the loo,” Simon responded with a forced giggle. 

You nodded, giving him a long look and observing how his smile grew progressively weirder. Then you turned back to the island. And nearly choked.

Taehyung’s fringe hung over his eyes, making his eyes look that much more hooded. His lips were twisted up as he watched you.

Oh, dear God, did this guy have a crush on you or something? But how? Why? 

He was a bonafide Greek God, and you were…well. Not.  

And needless to say, he was literally not allowed to have a crush on you. Or anybody else, for that matter. It was against BigHit’s policies. According to what you’d read, the boys were to wait out one more year, as of now, before indulging in any sort of romance.

You were, by contract, also bound to not encourage any such advancements. Not that smiling at you could be considered one, to be honest. He could very well be trying to make friends, and you could be reading too much into it.

You decided to stop thinking so much.

“You want to eat something?” Jungkook asked as he handed you a cup of brew.

You smiled and shook your head. “I don’t eat at work. None of us do.” You eyed Simon and he nodded with his gaze wide. “Disturbs the momentum.”

“Hey, you shouldn’t consider this strictly work,” Taehyung spoke up in that deep ass voice of his, startling you. “We’re also making friends, here. This is also not your office, but our home.”

And then he grinned at you with all of his teeth. You felt your cheeks heating up.

This was not going according to plan. 

You were panicking.

Flashing Taehyung a close-lipped smile, you stepped away from the counter. “Um, Jungkook?” you mumbled. “D’you guys have a pool in the house?” 

Jungkook looked surprised but as enthusiastic as ever. He nodded, his hair bouncing all over. “Come on!”

Throughout your walk around the house, you had tried to slip in ideas from your first three week’s layout to Jungkook that would fascinate him enough to make him at least want to hear them out. And, you’d proudly like to claim, it had worked.

Jungkook had heard your plans and had even asked you to pull the list up on your laptop to have a look at it. And henceforth, you’d made tremendous progress.

And now, at nearly nine o’clock of the night, you and your team were taking your leave for the day. 

You had exchanged brief words with all the members to see how they found their partners. Currently, you were conversing with Yoongi.

“ARMYs know a lot about all of that,” the guy said, referring to his life before BTS. “But there’s still a lot that they don’t. I talked to Nathan about all of it, we made notes. I’m really excited about the book.”

You gave him a professional grin. “I couldn’t be happier! Nathan’s got a really innovative mind. I’m sure he’ll make this a good experience for you.”

Nodding, Yoongi wished you a good night and bowed. You bowed back, moving away from the building and towards the vans waiting to drive you back to your hotel.

Jimin flashed you a wide grin as you got into the car. “Have a good night,” he wished you, shutting the door like a gentleman. Then he peeked and waved at Areum, your team member assigned to him. “See you tomorrow, Areum-ssi!”

Namjoon followed suit with a hand forwarded through the window for you to shake. “How did today go for you?” he asked you in English, causing Hoseok to elbow Jungkook, probably asking the younger to eavesdrop. Jungkook’s eyes met yours, though, and the two of you shared a covert giggle. “Did we meet your expectations?”

You smiled, formally. “It was… a good introduction of sorts, I’d say. Highly informative. Moderately productive. And we didn’t have any expectations, per se, but my team really loved you guys. We’re super excited to be working with you.”

You looked around yourself, prompting the three team members seated with you to nod in agreement. “Likewise!” Namjoon nodded at you, his smile turning his eyes to crescent moons.

“Thank you. How was your experience with Sana?” you asked him, nudging the girl sitting next to you.

Namjoon grinned with his teeth. “Amazing! She’s really compassionate and driven. Today’s session was interesting and felt comfortable. I’m eagerly looking forward to more.”

You secretly exhaled in relief. Sana had been the one person on your team that you’d been the most worried about. It was good to learn that she’d managed to impress Namjoon despite her initial nerves.

Next to you, she gave a short, very professional chuckle, and leant by you to nod at Namjoon. “Thank you, Namjoon-ssi.”

“Have a safe journey and a good night,” Namjoon wished you before peeking into the car. “Bye, Sana! See you tomorrow!”

You waved at the boys and their manager as your van started to move. You looked behind to check that the other one, carrying the remaining three members of your team, was following closely behind.

“What a day!” Simon exclaimed from his seat opposite you.

“You can say that again,” you mumbled, massaging your temples. “And what was up with you? You looked really wound up when I saw you in the kitchen.”

Simon took his glasses off and rested his head against the back of the van’s seat. “Let’s just wait it out, boss. I’ll tell you later if I absolutely have to. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

You frowned, but let him be. 

Today was just the first day. If you stuck to your schedule, you would have a hundred and twenty five more of these before this project was done.

You could do it.

Right?

You, as it turned out by the end of the first week, could do it. The same couldn’t be said about Simon, though.

On Saturday night, barely an hour after you’d all retired to your rooms after dinner, Simon sent an SOS to the group chat. The six of you were in his room within a minute.

“You look physically okay,” Nathan, the only other guy on the team, mumbled as he squinted at the bespectacled nervous wreck. “What’s up?”

“I can’t do this anymore!” Simon blurted out.

All eyes immediately landed on you.

You did a double take. “Come again? You can’t do what anymore?”

He sighed, shrinking into himself as Riya, another member of your team, sleepily sat on one corner of his bed. “You can’t quit the project, Si,” she mumbled, patting his shoulder. “You signed a contract.”

Simon’s wide eyes met yours. You raised your eyebrows.

“Then—then I need a different partner.”

Sana clicked her tongue. “No can do. We’ve all worked on our homeworks. No one’s gonna sacrifice theirs for you.”

You agreed, so you stayed quiet when Simon looked at you in hopes of a counter.

“I can’t go into another week, please! It’s…” Simon trailed off with a helpless expression on his face.

You sighed. “Everyone, out.”

Your team trickled out of the room, tossing curious glances and hushed whispers your way.

“What is it?” you questioned Simon when it was just the two of you.

“He’s too intense. I have a huge crush on him.”

Your jaw fell open. “Dude… I… what? You have a fiance!”

He exhaled. “Yeah, he cheated on me.”

You drew a sharp breath, shocked. “Oh. Oh, my God, what? What the hell’s been going on with you, I’m so sorry, Simon. Are you…okay? When did you find out?”

“I’d been suspicious for a whole week, hoping it’d turn out to be a lie.” He sighed. “Guess not. But, don’t worry.” He waved a dismissive hand. “I’ll deal with it, no big deal. It’s happened before. I’ve done it before, too, that’s not the issue. The problem is that, right now, this is all making me wanna kiss Taheyung. What the fuck do I do, boss?”

You sympathised with the guy and felt responsible, in a way. After all, you’d been the one that forced him to propose to his boyfriend so that you could bring him with you on this project. If only you knew what kind of a toxic pair these two were! Goddammit. 

But, this guy was really telling you he couldn’t focus on work properly because he wanted to kiss Taehyung? For real?

What a guy.

“Get a fucking grip, Simon, what else?” you exclaimed, throwing your arms up. 

“No, I can’t. Don’t you think I have tried, already? Please take me off this project before I fuck things up for all of us and the company.” He shut his eyes, rubbing his face with both his palms. “And I’ve also, technically, broken the contract, so… Ask Boss to send someone else in.”

Was this happening for real? You were caught between wanting to smash the glass vase kept next to you over Simon’s head, and hurling yourself over the balcony.

You inhaled deeply, then exhaled. You could, realistically, do neither of the above. So you thought clinically and professionally, and made the sound decision to burden your boss with this mess instead of trying to sweep it under the rug by yourself.

“Fine.” You cleared your throat. “Take a break tomorrow. I’ll have a word with Manager Woo, he’ll talk to Taehyung. Tomorrow’s a Sunday, so I’ll be calling Boss for the first weekly check-in. I’ll ask her if something can be done to replace you on the team.”

Simon nodded with a grimace, which may have been his attempt at trying to smile.

You retired to your room on heavy feet. How could things go south in a week? You had barely begun and a buckload of bullshit was on you already.

Exhaling, you opened your laptop to leave a mail for Manager Woo. Quoting a personal emergency, you drafted an apologetic letter stating Simon’s absence tomorrow and asked the man to forward your apologies to Taehyung as well. At the same time, you were also mentally seasoning yourself for a possible confrontation with Taehyung when you went in tomorrow. 

You’d just put your laptop away when your phone rang. Frowning, you lifted it up, only to silent the ring with a groan.

Ever since you landed in Seoul, your best-friend cum roommate back at home had taken to giving you a call every single night. Even when you didn’t pick up. Ever.

Every morning you would text him an apology, and every night he would call again. It’d been a week to this pattern, now.

Why was he doing this? You’d made it abundantly clear that you weren’t going to get roped into any kind of affair with him—emotional or physical. What did he want, now?

For a second, you wondered if he was maybe only just concerned about your well-being in a foreign country? But then you dismissed it, immediately. Why would he? What had you ever done to deserve his—or anyone’s, really—concern? You were a bitch to the majority of people in your life, without trying and even meaning to. Why would anyone give a fuck about you without ulterior motives, right? 

Lying back on your pillows, you looked at the ceiling.

You’d been absolutely horrible at treating people with compassion and care for the majority of your life. You were always labelled either too prudish, too selfish, too career-oriented, or plainly, too narcissistic by people around you.

And, strangely enough, it never bothered you. 

But that didn’t mean you had not cared about anyone, ever. You had. Too much too, once upon a time. But what had that left you with? Expectations and hurt. 

So then, wasn’t it better to not care at all, and not expect at all? You never got hurt, this way.

Sighing, you rolled over to your side, tugging the covers up to your chin. Lifting up your phone from the nightstand, you turned it to silent.

An unread message was displayed on the locked screen:

Looks like you went to bed early again, lol. Hope you’re safe, warm and relaxed. Have a good day at work tomorrow xo

You sighed, yet again. You did not need anyone’s hugs and kisses for your day to be good. Why couldn’t people take a hint?

Shutting your eyes, you tried to get some sleep.

You were absolutely not surprised when, barely an hour into a fierce discussion about his school life, you and Jungkook were disturbed by a knock on the door. But Jungkook was, and jumped at the loud rapping, his wide eyes flashing to the door.

Your back being to the doorway, you looked at the boy expectantly to inform you of the intruder. Not that you didn’t already know.

Jungkook didn’t say anything, though, and simply kept looking behind you with raised eyebrows and rounded eyes. You sat very tightly wound up, contemplating whether to peek around the sofa’s high back or to stand up, when a deep, heavy voice enunciated your name. 

You stood up, slowly, pulling on a professional frown of very minute concern on your face. You willed yourself to act surprised when your eyes met a timid looking Taehyung’s. And, you actually slightly were, too. Why did he seem so shifty and nervous?

“Hello, Tae,” you wished, formally bowing to greet him.

He bowed back, licking his lips as he stood back straight up. “May I please borrow you for a few minutes?”

You twisted on your heels to look at Jungkook. It took him a few seconds to focus on your stare and recognise the question. “Oh! Sure! Of course! I’ll be here, I’ll wait.”

Nodding in gratitude, you stepped out of the studio to join Taehyung in the lounge area attached to the kitchen.

“I know what you would ask—”

“Have I not been cooperating well with Simon?” Taehyung cut you off with a question you were not expecting.

You frowned. “What makes you say that? He had a personal emergency today, Tae, that’s all! I’m sure he must be having a great time working with you.”

Taehyung sighed. “You think, or you know?”

How were you supposed to answer that? You bit your lip, trying to read Taehyung’s eyes, but the collar-bones peeking above the wide neckline of his oversized, brown t-shirt kept distracting you. On some level, you could understand what Simon must have been facing. But! You were all supposed to be professional adults and quell any unprofessional thoughts and not foster them!

You turned your face to your feet, not missing the wide-legged, knee-length shorts Taehyung wore. You mentally cursed yourself.

His sigh floated over to you. “I hope it isn’t something I did. I know I can seem a bit overwhelming sometimes and uninterested at other times, but… I am excited for this project and I really want to give it my best, too.” His eyes looked pained when you met them again. You softened. “Please tell me the truth.”

You drew in a breath. “It’s just as I told you, Tae. Simon has to sort some issues out in his personal life. And what makes you think you’re too overwhelming or uninterested? Did Simon say something?”

“No, no!” Taehyung immediately shook his head. “I just…speak from previous experiences. I don’t collaborate with people that well. I tire them out. And Simon… I don’t think we like each other’s approach very much. I feel like he doesn’t really agree with my ideas, just goes along out of courtesy.”

Your lips turned downwards. “I’m sure it’s none of that, Tae. Absolutely positive. And if worse comes to worst and the two of you actually aren’t able to work together, we will arrange for a switch-up so that you’re able to work comfortably.”

Taehyung seemed to perk up at that. “Switch-up? Will you work with me?”

You narrowed your eyes. He seemed a bit too keen about wanting to work with you, didn’t he? You could very clearly recall your first meeting and how he’d seemed to wane when you told him you were paired up with Jungkook.

Curious.

“We’ll see how it unfolds. But as of now, I am partnered up with Jungkook and you’re fretting over nothing. Simon will be back tomorrow, and things will get back on track. I promise.”

You hoped.

Taehyung nodded, excusing himself to visit the kitchen and you took your leave and came back to an eagerly waiting Jungkook.

He stood up the moment you entered the room. “Is everything okay? Hyung looked sad.”

You honestly had zero idea as to what to tell Jungkook. Pursing your lips, you slowly nodded in contemplation as you made your way to your seat. “He’s not working well with Simon,” you honestly told him.

“Oh.” Jungkook’s lips rounded, forming an adorable pout. “Taehyung hyung has a very artistic soul,” he said, taking you by surprise. You leant forward to listen in with interest. “He tends to get awkward and insecure about his ideas and conceptualizations. They’re usually off-beat and hard to work with, but they’re amazingly creative if you look at them like an artist. Not everybody has the right vision for those things, though. Maybe that is why Simon is…” Jungkook trailed off with a shrug.

You bit your lip in consideration. Taehyung’s words echoed in your head. 

‘I don’t think we like each other’s approach very much.’

Maybe they really were mismatched, outside of Simon’s immature, unprofessional, god-awful behaviour, too.

“Hey, could we add him to our group?” Jungkook suddenly asked, confusing you.

“Huh?” you very eloquently responded. 

He gave a small giggle. “Hyung. Could he work with us? We have been pretty efficient, and you certainly seem to have an artistic vision.”

You smiled. “Thank you, Jungkook, that’s really flattering. But also, no, I don’t think we can do that. The contract we’ve all drawn has a couple of strict clauses and one-on-one sessions is one of them.”

Frowning, Jungkook nodded in acceptance.

The two of you resumed your discussions from before, but the vigour and drive was now lessened to a great extent. You, especially, couldn’t stop worrying. You were the leader of the team, after all.

Sunday night brought in the awaited conference call with your boss. 

Looking at her excited, smiling face on your computer screen, you couldn’t help but dread the news you were about to break to her.

“So. How is it going?” Your boss rubbed her hands together, wiggling her eyebrows. “How is Sana doing? You were quite wound up about her, if I remember correctly.”

“You do remember correctly. There’s good news and bad news,” you responded with a grimace. “Which one first?”

Your boss pursed her lips. “Don’t wanna immediately spoil my mood, so, the good one please.”

“Sana has been doing fantastic. She’s been nothing short of professional, and according to what I’ve seen and heard, Namjoon is really pleased with her,” you relayed, smiling when your boss sighed in relief.

“Okay, so that’s out of the way. What’s wrong?”

You sighed. Better rip the band-aid straight off. “Simon has a huge crush on Taehyung and feels like he broke the contract. He wants to leave.”

You watched quietly as your boss choked on an inhale, coughed, had some water, and sat back down to blink at you with a blank face. “These words must not leave your room. Or Simon’s. None of the BigHit staff must catch a wind of it.”

You groaned. “Please don’t ask me to work through this, boss, please—”

“Work through it, Y/N!” your boss cruelly cut you off. “This is such a tiny, little, manageable thing! Resolve it.”

You gawked. “You literally just choked—how is this little, boss?”

“Counsel Simon. Ask him to push through. Threaten his employment with us, if necessary.”

It was your turn to blink at her, owlishly. “And? That’s it?”

Your boss shrugged. “And if it doesn’t work out, swap him with someone else on your team.”

You sighed. “This is all such high school, teen flick bullshit. What the hell.”

“I know, hun. Which is why I’m asking you to manage it. And I know you can. You’re my favourite, Y/N.” Your boss nodded at you with a solemn look. “I have believed in your capabilities since day one. It’s time to make them shine.”

You nodded, dumbly. The back of your mind was hinting at an inkling that you were being manipulated by flattery, but the forefront was basking in all the praise and could really not be bothered.

All you had to do was keep the whole thing hush-hush from the BigHit people and keep Simon in line, right? You could manage that.

Bidding your boss goodbye, you rung up Simon.

“Hey, boss.”

“You’re coming with us tomorrow and you’re gonna be a fucking professional like you’re supposed to!” you barked into the phone. “Bottle up your feelings, or eat them—I don’t care. You’ll do the job you were here for, and you’ll do it right.”

There was a long, suspended silence at the other end. And then a sigh escaped Simon. “I don’t think I have a choice. Fine, I’ll try.”

You put your phone to silent and shut your eyes, knowing you’d receive another call tonight and that you won’t pick up tonight, either.

You lay back in the bed, gearing up for tomorrow.

If worse actually did come to worst, and Simon sent everything down the rabbit hole, who would you make him swap places with? All of you had built really amazing rapports with your assigned partners in just a week. No one would be willing to start over.

If it came to it, would you have to? Would you be able to?

You could maintain professionalism a hundred times better than Simon, that much was certain. But you and Jungkook had been working so well! And who was to say Simon wouldn’t cause trouble with Jungkook, too? 

You let out a whine, beyond mad at the situation this guy had landed you in.

But you’d have to navigate out of it, somehow. This was the biggest project of your life so far—the first ever you were heading. You would ensure everything worked out at the end.

You would tie all the loose ends and make it all work. You would.

(You literally had no choice.)

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