#which again is impossible bc she made enough to feed six people

[constellunette]

my grandma is the type of person where she can't just vibe she Needs to be helpful and prove that she's six steps ahead doint the Right Thing. and it's exhausting!!!!!! I am easy-going on purpose because I like my life being as frictionless as possible. almost nothing in day-to-day life is worth pitching a fit over. so many things are within the boundary of Okay 👍. and it's frustrating to have someone essentially refuse to take you at your word and invent problems for you to have so they can be the one to solve them. I am chill why is the version of me that exists in your head so profoundly unchill!!!!

[mallowstep]

the nature of folklore

today, i want to talk about the nature of folklore.

we're not divorced from it in the modern day by any means: the nature of folklore is that it is always there.

after all, how many times have you heard that if your roommate dies, you get an a? or listened eagerly to someone's tale of an impossible encounter with an impossible stranger?

folklore is omnipresent. it is woven into us.

that said, we don't have a ton of folklore via stories, oral history, and songs anymore. if i could singlehandedly change that, i would. i grew up telling stories, keeping the history of my family in vignettes i taught to my brother, making up comforting fables for my younger cousins when they couldn't sleep.

my mother sang me lullabies, amazing grace, you are my sunshine, tula tula, melodies i can no longer name but would recognize in a heartbeat.

i went to a summer camp where you were never too old for a bedtime story, where the greatest reward, even for a pack of sixteen year olds, desperately vieing for independence, was to hear another story. i can still tell you the story of the invisible prince, of how such and such and so and so met and married, recount the little prince or hatchet or my side of the mountain in impeccable detail.

unfortunately, i am but one voice, and i don't think i really want to change us back. let culture progress, it is the way of the world.

but i have so many stories for cats. trust me, i have about 20 drafts sitting of stories for these murder cats. but i want to take a moment to talk about how folklore works, what it does, and why it's important.

[3.7k words. 20 minute read. section headers, minimal formatting changes.]

oral history: a written explanation

i'm feeling a bit punny.

anyway, i'm not qualified to talk about oral history. what i am qualfied to do is talk about the broadest sense of it.

oral history is not an accurate way of keeping records. stories change, people forget things, the tales become exaggerated and tweaked.

but...it's not the worst way. it's a real, sincere, history.

for example, in my full moon, it's unlikely that one individual really mastermined this plan. especially not the same individual who sorted out some other important part of skyclan business, which in it of itself is a tall-tale.

realistically, the clans realized they had an error, decided on when they would meet, and just went with it.

but briarleap is one of skyclan's heroes. she's not the only one: rushfoot and dovestar are also important heroes. she fills a particular type of archetype: she's the young hero, who sees the world more clearly than those around her and comes up with a solution.

so it makes sense to assign her to the problems which are clever and had no obvious solution. she's not really a trickster archetype, but she is clever, young, and has no real power within the clan.

in other words, she's a ya novel protagonist.

likewise, the yet-unwritten story of briarleap and swallowpaw definitely didn't happen as it's told. that's just a nice box to put it in, a nice cover for an important lesson: mark unstable branches.

all the clans probably have a similar version of briarleap's story. i can't tell you for sure who the equivalent is, because i don't know, but it's worth remembering that almost none of these cats existed.

i think riverclan's will be a cat named briarstream.

you see what i mean, they're both named briar- because briarleap belongs to no cat. they just have a suffix that corresponds with common clan names.

now, i can't speak for anyone else, but in come back to you one by one, by solacefruit, there's a cautionary tale about catching koi. we get this line:

The koi were left alone because the tall folk loved them. That was the truth of the story. The real truth, not Linnetleaf’s version.

that confirms it, the story is a warning that's been polished into something kinder and more forgiving. (i highly recommend come back to you one by one btw.)

that's how oral history works.

it's not good for having a factual understanding of historical events, but...that's not really the point.

shared stories

another thing is, a lot of clans share the same stories.

i already talked about briarleap/stream/??? for the other clans, but it's more than just that.

every clan is going to claim that they have the right, correct story, that the other clans don't tell it well, etc., but with the exception of clan specific stories, that's not generally true.

okay this is hard to explain bc i'm still drafting/editing a lot of what i'm talking about right now and full moon is kind of a boring story for this. so i'm going to use the story of the long night, because that's the closest to finished and most likely to have been published by the time i finish this.

cw: the long night is a story that involves infanticide and cannibalism. i'm not graphic about it, but it's featured very heavily. we move into discussion at "STORY COMPLETE," and i move on entirely at "SAFE"

okay, so to summarize very briefly, the long night is a story about the seasons and about queen madness. it's one piece of clan creation mythos.

basically, before there were seasons, the night and day just took turns. during the night, everyone slept, but during the day, everything woke. one night, the night doesn't end. i'm telling the thunderclan version, because that's the version i'm working on, but this is a tale from before there were clans, so while every clan says their version is universal, it's definitely not.

there's a queen, slateflower, who has six kits (pigeonkit, harekit, fallowkit, dewkit, ripplekit, and muddykit), who are very young. her mate, silvershadow, has been hunting for her, because there was no clan to provide.

he's able to catch a small amount of prey, but as the night goes on, slateflower just doesn't have enough milk. she knows her kits are going to starve, so she picks the weakest one, kills it, and eats it. when silvershadow returns and asks what happens, she says that muddykit died and she buried her. this repeats itself until only pigeonkit and harekit are left.

silvershadow fails to catch anything, so he comes back, and sees slateflower try to decide who's weaker. he realizes what's happening, takes harekit from slateflower so she doesn't have to decide, and brings the kit into a clearing. he begs the moon to end the night so he can feed his family again.

it takes him a couple times, and he also is searching for another nursing queen. he finds a queen named flamepuddle, who also had a litter of six kits (silentkit, webkit, wildkit, dustykit, beetlekit, and talonkit), as well as taking in the kits of her sister, echofur, (heatherkit, redkit, goldkit, leafkit, cricketkit, and graykit), and right now, only redkit, leafkit, talonkit, goldkit, and cricketkit had survived. (the rest, and her sister, died of starvation.)

flamepuddle agrees to take in harekit, and the night eventually ends.

silvershadow decides that he, flamepuddle, and slateflower will live together. this isn't a thunderclan origin story, mind, just the beginning of collective cat behavior. but one of the reasons it is a distinctly thunderclan edition is because the implication is that later on, the other clans are all splinter groups.

there's also an implication that such large litters used to be more common, à la how in the bible, people used to be more fertile.

so anyway, because all cats are said to be descendents of these nine cats (silvershadow, flamepuddle, slateflower, redkit, talonkit, goldkit, cricketkit, harekit, and pigeonkit — leafkit dies later on), it's said they all carry the trauma of the long night and queens, feeling unsafe, will choose the strongest of their litter.

STORY COMPLETE

so.

in thunderclan's telling, flamepuddle and silvershadow are made to be the heroes, and slateflower is the villain. notice that slate is a windclan name, and the kits who die don't have very thunderclan prefixes. the implication is that this is because the other clans are weaker.

in a riverclan telling, instead of flamepuddle and slateflower, we might have puddlefeather and tallsong, and the kits who survive might be fallowkit and dewkit.

in skyclan, we might have mothpetal and nightstep, with surviving kits echokit and maplekit.

and so on. silvershadow usually keeps his name, tho. or at least half of it.

the 10th cat who dies is also variable. in thunderclan, it's another kit. slateflower is understood to not have intended her actions. in shadowclan, it's the slateflower analogy who dies. in riverclan, silvershadow dies and puddlefeather and tallsong have to work together.

so we always have the same story, but the details of it change, and there's a lot about the clan in that.

it might even be that the reason puddlefeather is able to keep five out of twelve kits alive is because she can fish for herself. tallsong can't.

and this is a story that's supposed to be universal, before the time of clans.

imagine how differnt briarleap and briarstream are. no, seriously, i don't have it in me to do five versions of every folk tale i write, so y'all have to live with one.

anyway, i could go on here, but wow, this section is...much longer than i meant as it is whoops.

SAFE

morals, protagonists, and antagonists

i'm not going to lie, i'm somewhat exhausted from the last section.

basically, the "protagonists" are often the ones who make mistakes. this is because that's a common theme for parables. you want the protagonist, who listeners relate to, to understand the mistakes and learn from them.

there's almost always a moral in these stories. they're not told just to entertain. they're ritualistic, nigh religious, tied in deeply with their culture.

finally, when an opposing clan is needed, (a) the clan telling the story is nearly always in the right, and (b) it tends to shift to whoever the clan is most antagonistic with.

a lot of my stories are shadowclan v skyclan because they have the strongest story-telling development and i don't have any aus planned for shadowclan and (old) skyclan, but i really like what i've developed for them.

in the case a friendly clan is needed, that also tends to shift, but it's less likely to change. it's significantly more likely to change if they're fighting with the clan in the tale.

for this reason, clans tend to be allies with cross territory clans in stories. you're just less likely to fight with someone who's territory you're across from, and you get fun flanking if you gang up on someone in the middle.

characters and archetypes

so i mentioned how briarleap is a certain kind of archetype, and that's pretty common in folklore. you've got your tricksters, witches, wise elders, w/e. i could do a bunch of research into folklore and find a canonized list but i'm approximately 90% sure it's going to tell me it varies by culture so. instead of doing that, i'm going to talk through some of the character archetypes i've been using.

please keep in mind that this is highly suspect to change. also, i'm referring to a lot of cats in my lore posts, so i'm sorry, because if you don't keep up with that, you might be a little bit lost. if you want to check out my folklore, it's here. maybe one day i'll make a kit simulation list that gives them to you in the order a kit would be told them.

the young warrior — characters like briarleap. smart, creative, and willing to speak up when something is wrong. they're who young kits should aspire to be. they're the most common protagonist in stories for young kits, and they're one of the only protagonists for stories with a "good" lead.

cassandra — prophetic characters who struggle to act on their prophecies. goosefeather types. they're cautionary tales, warnings about who not to be, because these are true seers who failed. sometimes, it is framed as the clan being wrong (e.g., berrymoon's main story is about this), but usually it's because the character said too much/too little, at the wrong time, etc.

impulsive apprentice — another warning. characters like swallowpaw. their actions are usually not actually wrong, but they end up being wrong with hindsight. they're tragic characters, and their warnings are usually about the rules established because of them, rather than not being like them.

wise leader/deputy — it's exactly what it sounds like lmao. usually, this is going to be the deputy more than the leader, because the deputy is a far more relatable position than the leader. these are your rushfoots and lilytails, deputies who make quick decisions on the behalf of their clan.

foolish/selfish warrior — warriors who take actions selfishly, which wrap back around to hurt themselves. these are the "protagonists" of the tales about feeding elders and kits first, and so on. they're actually the most common protagonist in stories over all. it's kind of a wide category, including everything from slateflower from "the long night" to lightningcall from "full moon." you know, a queen who only escaped the dark forest because it didn't exist, and a tom whose "mistake" was not showing up to a deputy meeting he was physically unable to attend.

there are, naturally, many more archetypes. there are archetypes for every role in the clan, often many. there's probably some amount of symbolism in the names — perhaps "-leap" is a skyclan indicator of a young warrior, etc., but at least right now, i'm not interested in that. i have more fun naming characters than worrying about the symbolism behind it, because i'm trying to also provide an understanding of clanlife, and that requires bending the rules.

(i mean, for what it's worth, this is true of many things. "the long night" as thrushpelt tells it is not the full version. usually, you wouldn't separate it from "the four seasons," but also, he glazes over the infanticide and cannibalism because he's talking to, like, four-year-olds, explaining how their mother had inherited a trait from slateflower.)

overall, though, i think these five are enough to give you an idea of what the archetypes look like.

interestingly, i also want to call attention to the fact that there's no specific trickster archetype. i mean, there is, because it's (a) one of the most common, and (b) it needs to exist for what i'm about to say, but it doesn't properly count.

see, cats are good at being sneaky and smart and clever. you know this if you have a cat.

clan cats also have to be good at following rules.

so basically every protagonist and antagonist in a story is some permutation of the trickster. the young warrior is the trickster but with less pointless trickery. the impulsive apprentice is probably the closest to straight-up trickster, but there's usually no associated deception. etc.

but in general, all cats should be clever and smart and finding new solutions, so there isn't a specific trickster.

names and times

on a related note, one that's significantly harder to demonstrate, the names of cats get repeated a lot.

in the real world, this is because the names are approximately 75% generated and 25% tweaked, and i have a bias towards certain names.

in the context of lore and worldbuilding, and why i'm not doublechecking against my database of every cat i've ever mentioned, this is because, well, it should make sense for certain elders to tell multiple stories, or, logically, for a kit to grow into a warrior grow into an elder and tell a story.

i mean, dovestar's nine lives are a huge part of skyclan, because each life is supposed to demonstrate some fundamental principle, and they're told over the nine moons of a kit's life (again, cats count kits' lives from the season before they're born for the purpose of holy nine, and from their actual birth for every other purpose, which is how brokenstar got around the warrior code fun fact), so yeah, i'll probably have some repetition in there.

likewise, there's no timeline for these. we don't know what happens when at all, except that the cats telling a story are younger than the cats in the story, and any "book cats" are younger than any other mentioned cat.

(that last point is because exactly one story is told by thrushpelt.)

so anyway, really hazy times and names because...that's how things go m8.

impact of the great journey

so as you can imagine, the great journey is a pretty big deal.

first of all, we're running out of cats who can remember the forest. in thunderclan, according to moonkitti, who i trust in this, birchfall is the youngest cat who can remember it. so considering birchfall could have great grandchildren in the next book or two, i'd say that we're pretty much done with cats who lived there.

even among the other cats, squirrelflight was an apprentice, and she went on the first journey, so there's that. cloudtail and brightheart won't be around for much longer, and graystripe might be immortal, but if he isn't, he'll be gone soon too.

i mean, i know there are non-thunderclan cats, but do you know their names? do you?

yeah. that's what i thought.

anyway, my point is, right now, in canon time, all of the stories are set in the forest. but like, that's kind of not helpful.

who knows, there's probably a story about sunningrocks that just doesn't make sense anymore.

i don't know for sure how the great journey impacts the folklore. this is because there's not an easy way for me to write it. my elders' den stuff is specifically set before tbp, so i don't have to think about adding in the villains of tbp.

why only tbp? because we have 3 wonderful, fantastic, folklore worthy villains. in tnp, we have the journey, in po3, we have interpersonal drama, in oots, we have rehashings of old villains, in dotc nothing matters, in avos, we have weird fuzziness i don't really remember what happened after darktail tbh, and tbc is ongoing. but wait! i hear you saying, what about hawkfrost? and darktail himself? and... no. shut up. they don't matter. just. they're not. they don't. they're not lore villains is what i'm saying very poorly. they're not the kind of villains who inspire lore. maaaaybe darktail? but he was far too recent for folklore.

anyway.

i'm sure in all of the po3 stuff i have on the horizon, i'll explore this more. dovefeather lore is in the awkward middle ground — everything is from the perspective of cats who never knew the old forest, but pretty much everyone older than them does, so it's unlikely anything substantive has changed.

but i have a lot of po3 extended universe plans that might dip in to this?

but for spitballing purposes, what probably happens is that most stories are just reskinned.

things like stories about sunningrocks are going to be repurposed. maybe about that weird strip of territory that they fought over? i'm not sure.

some stories will get to stay in the old forest, like the battle with bloodclan. and some stories will fade out, just as they always do. but for the most part, once the elders didn't live in the forest, they're just going to start plopping stories in the lake.

also, the great journey itself is 100% already folklore. i don't have to do that part, canon actually does it for me. kits are constantly being told about the great journey, or apprentices are telling us they were told about it, or someone is having a weird dream sequence that involves it.

the great journey is a major part of folklore, and that's cool. maybe if i run out of old stories, i'll do some post-canon elders' den stuff. we'll see, i'm definitely not feeling it right now, but that could change.

speaking of great...

this is a minor thing, but like, what's up with all the greats?

the great journey, okay, yeah, sure, makes sense.

and then we have the great battle.

also legit. it had been a while.

and then...the great storm?

look, i understand the storm in bramblestar's storm was a big deal. i have a lot of thoughts about bramblestar's storm as a book and this isn't that. but...

can we compare how many cats died in the great journey and the great battle? and we lost, like, three cats in the great storm

don't get me wrong, i sobbed like a baby when briarlight died.

oh hold on i lied that wasn't this book. never mind never mind.

i just, like, it's very strange IMO to have this great being a thing. or at least, i don't now, i guess it's evolution of culutre?

bluh okay i'm hungry and i do not focus well so i'm going to finish up but just. great. interesting.

conclusion

folklore is a topic i'm really interested in, and i try really hard to think through the consequences of, well, everything i can.

i'm definitely missing a lot of details — specifically, i scratched out my plans for a specific creation myth — but i like the general shape of the lore i'm building up.

[ewankoseyo]

a chance || yugyeom imagine

A/N: A kind anon requested this last week and I finally got the time to sit down and finish it. Please enjoy! :)

“an imagine where yugyeom and y/n are shipped together by the media and while yugyeom is super shy about it cause he likes y/n, y/n plays along with the ship like promoting yugyeom’s dances, and talking about him in variety shows. yugyeom is super confused if she’s doing this for the boost it’s giving both their careers or bc if she likes him as well”

——

“Close your mouth already, you’ll catch flies.”

Jinyoung smirked over at Yugyeom, who had spent the last ten minutes scrolling through his phone with his jaw practically on the floor. Yugyeom stopped scrolling to glare at the older boy.

“This is all your guys’ fault!”

“Us?” Jinyoung feigned a shocked gasp, placing a hand over his chest. “Whatever do you mean?”

Yugyeom sighed and continued scrolling, still unable to process what he was seeing. “If it weren’t for you guys going on and on about me being the ‘biggest fan’ of the ‘nation’s newest songbird’ on that show yesterday, the whole internet wouldn’t be shipping me with her!” Yugyeom shoved his phone in Jinyoung’s hands. A pormanteau of your name and Yugyeom’s was currently the most trending hashtag on the internet. Clips from yesterday’s talk show of the boys making fun of Yugyeom for being a fan of you were shared countless times.

“I know you guys must be really busy with the recent comeback but in your downtime is there anyone you like to keep up with? Any new music you’re listening to or...?” The interviewer trailed off.

“I think you’re setting us up perfectly, because actually...” Jackson slung an arm around Yugyeom’s shoulders. Yugyeom inwardly groaned, bracing himself for the roasts that were going to come out of this interview. “We wanna talk about how our maknae here has grown very fond of a certain someone!”

“Yeah, you know that really popular cover of ‘You Are’ that everyone keeps talking about?” Bambam piped up.

“Ah, from the nation’s newest songbird? No one can get enough of her YouTube videos. It seems as if she blew up overnight. Didn’t she just join your label?”

Jinyoung cut Yugyeom off before he could get a word in. “That’s correct. But our Gyeomie has been watching her for a while.” Yugyeom attempted to fight off Jinyoung from pinching his cheek.

“He’s one of her many subscribers and has watched all of her covers,” Youngjae joined.

“Is that true Yugyeom?” The interviewer inquired with an eyebrow raised. “What do you like about her?”

“Yes, please tell us Gyeomie,” Jaebum teased. The boys sat on the talk show couch with their heads propped up by their hands, giving Yugyeom their full attention.

“It’s no big deal, I just, uh...” Yugyeom glanced around at all the expectant faces staring back at him, searching for an answer that would prevent any sort of broadcasting incident. “I just really expect her as an artist? She has a unique and powerful voice that puts a twist on her covers. Her original songs are good too...so yeah...”

The boys broke out in laughter from his weak explanation, taking turns in between to make fun of him. 

“Aww...Yugyeom’s blushing! Wait until she watches this! We’re going to get this trending online to make sure she does!”

Jinyoung tossed Yugyeom back his phone. “You’re talking about this like it’s a bad thing. You do like her.”

“Yes, but I can’t let the whole world know that...I can’t let her know that.” Yugyeom groaned morosely. “What if she saw the interview?” 

“I’m sure she has, but she hasn’t said anything about it yet though,” Jaebum added, coming out of his room to join Yugyeom and Jinyoung in the lounge. He took a seat next to Yugyeom, looking at him expectantly as he showed the younger boy what he was watching on his phone. “I’m surprised you weren’t watching this already, I thought you would have been one of her first few viewers.”

Jaebum and Jinyoung snickered when Yugyeom’s eyes nearly popped out of the sockets, realizing what he was watching. He grabbed Jaebum’s phone out of his hands, holding it closer to his face. You were doing an Instagram live to thousands of viewers, greeting all of those who commented asking you to say hi to them. Yugyeom couldn’t help the small smile forming on his lips as he watched you giggle from reading some of the comments. It was the same laugh he had fallen in love with thousands of times before. 

“Oh, JB-sunbaenim is watching this. Hello!” You waved to the camera. “Thank you for watching this and thank you for all of the support from you and the other members. I’m so honored to be in the same company as you!”

The older members silently gave each other knowing looks and smirked as an almost-inaudible squeal unknowingly escaped the back of Yugyeom’s throat. Though your greeting was not directed necessarily to him, he found your just being entirely adorable. Just when he thought it was impossible for you to get cuter, you would manage to outdo yourself without even trying. The whole thing was killing the poor boy. 

Yugyeom’s smile was growing by the second as you explained how you were in the dressing room getting ready for a variety show you were guest starring on, until he noticed the upcoming comments.  

“JB-oppa is watching this? Maybe Yugyeom-oppa is watching this too!”

“Did you see what Yugyeom said about you yesterday?”

“Unnie, what do you think of Yugyeom?”

“I ship you with Yugyeom. Please make this happen!”

Seeing these comments, Yugyeom felt his soul leave his body. Jaebum and Jinyoung didn’t bother to hold back their laughter as Yugyeom threw Jaebum’s phone back in his lap. He buried his face in a couch pillow, muffling his distressed screams. “Why?! Just kill me already!”

Jaebum forced Yugyeom to sit back up, shoving the phone back in his face. “Wait, let’s just keep watching. It’s getting good.”

“What do I think of Yugyeom-sunbaenim?” Yugyeom’s ears perked up as you read a comment out loud. He grabbed the phone back, eagerly awaiting your answer. “He’s really nice! I’ve run into him a few times at the company and he was nothing but kind to me even if he was busy. He’s helped me to feel very welcome over there.”

“So when the time comes, you guys better have six kids and name them after all six of us,” Jinyoung joked. Yugyeom shushed Jinyoung without removing his eyes from the screen as you continued speaking. 

“Hopefully one day I could collaborate with him and the rest of the group. I’ve been following them since day one. I just love Yugyeom-sunbaenim’s dancing! My favorite is from that one show...”

Yugyeom had just about turned into the heart-eyes emoji, staring at the screen with unabashed happiness as you went on and on about his dancing. You didn’t mention anything about watching his interview from yesterday, but maybe what you were saying meant that there was hope that you could possibly like him back? Yugyeom’s heart melted at the thought. How did he manage to fall so hard for you in such a short amount of time?

Yugyeom handed Jaebum’s phone back as you ended the live feed to finish preparing for the show. He moved to grab his coat off the rack and opened the front door.

“Where are you going all of a sudden?” Jaebum asked.

“I think I’ll go practice some dance moves,” Yugyeom replied with a smitten smile before heading out the door. 

What happened the next few days should have made Yugyeom happy, but he grew suspicious instead. 

Your variety show episode aired the next day. During a game where you had to quickly decide which you liked better between two choices, an image of Yugyeom kept coming up alongside images of other handsome celebrities. Though the show did this to you as a joke in response to recent events, you happily chose Yugyeom each time. When asked about this, you simply replied that you couldn’t betray your labelmate. Despite his heart racing from watching the episode (in the privacy of his own room so the other boys couldn’t make fun of him, of course,) he tried not to think too much of this. 

But then after that, you kept talking about him on social media. You shared GOT7′s comeback videos online, but with captions only praising Yugyeom (“If I had Yugyeom-sunbaenim’s feet, I’d never stop dancing!”) You had commented on a fan’s picture of Yugyeom giving the camera a suggestive look at a recent concert with a heart-eyes emoji. When a fan tweeted you asking who you would date in GOT7 besides Yugyeom, you responded by saying you were unable to choose a member that wasn’t Yugyeom. 

All of this didn’t go unnoticed by his fans, who would tag him to these posts, asking Yugyeom what he thought. Yugyeom kept quiet, never responding to the matter since it started, because truthfully, he didn’t know what to think anymore. He was (somewhat) fine when his little crush on you was exposed. He half-expected the fans to go crazy about it for a short while, then the buzz would die down if he or the other members never brought it up publicly again. Yugyeom would just live peacefully with his semi-private feelings (and the occasional teasing from the boys.) 

But you were actively responding to the fans about the ship, though never directly addressing what Yugyeom had said on the show. You had never mentioned him publicly before, besides the times when you would talk about being a fan of his group. But you were talking about all of the members then. Now, it was almost as if you were encouraging the fans on with this ship. You never confirmed whether it was real, but you also didn’t shy away when people talked about you and Yugyeom. He should have been over the moon from the way you kept talking about him, but when he realized how many more thousands of followers and views on your videos you had gained in such a short amount of time, Yugyeom was beginning to feel, well...used. 

Did you really have a thing for him or were you just saying all of that for the publicity?

“I don’t know what she’s thinking right now, but maybe it’s time you go out and do something about it, you know?” Mark suggested casually one day when Yugyeom voiced his concern with the older members. After an honest pep talk with them (“Just grow a pair and confront her already!”) Yugyeom decided he was going to have a word with you about the situation when he had the chance. 

That chance turned out to be the following weekend where you were both attending a music awards show. When his manager told him he would be presenting an award with you, Yugyeom knew he had to act fast. As he was backstage mentally rehearsing his confrontation with you, Yugyeom felt a tap on his shoulder. When he turned around, whatever speech he had prepared for you completely left his head.

Yugyeom was at a loss for words. You stood there shyly with your hands behind your back, giving him a small smile. With the way your hair was pulled back elegantly, giving him a better view of your face, and the way your gown subtly accentuated your features to make you look like millions of dollars, Yugyeom nearly let himself fall for you all over again.

Nearly. Remembering what his older members told him and the mission at hand, Yugyeom shook those thoughts out of his head. 

“Hi,” you greeted him softly with a small wave. “It’s great seeing you again. I was really happy to hear that we were going to be presenting together.” 

Yugyeom balled his hands into fists down beside him for a final push of encouragement before donning an unamused expression. 

“Are you though?”

“Pardon?”

“Are you really happy to be presenting with me?” Yugyeom pried, a hint of bitterness laced in his tone.

“Yes...? Why wouldn’t I be?” Your mouth shifted into a frown. You didn’t expect this interaction to play out like this. Yugyeom seemed...upset with you? But why?

Noticing your growing discomfort and hesitance with him, Yugyeom dialed back. Even though he was supposed to be confronting you, he didn’t want you to shy away from him. Yugyeom sighed as his hands fumbled nervously below him. 

“Do you like me?”

Yugyeom mentally slapped himself. He didn’t mean to be so forward. 

“Of course, that’s why I’m happy to be presenting with you,” you replied innocently.

“No, I mean do you actually like me?”

Yugyeom looked at you with wide eyes, holding his breath as he anticipated your answer.

“Yes...” Your answer almost came out as a whisper. You looked down, unable to look him in the eye as you felt your face growing warmer by the second. “Yes, I do like you.”

Hearing the sincerity amid the reservation in your voice, Yugyeom let out a sigh of relief. “But why?”

“Why?” Your eyes shot back up at him. Was that even a real question? “Because I think you’re so cool and you’re such a great singer and dancer and I look up to you. You’re passionate and funny and you care about your fans so much and you’re basically the nation’s most eligible bachelor,” you rambled. With every word that seemed to flow carelessly from your mouth, you wished the ground would just swallow you up whole to save you from embarrassment. “...I thought the whole world knew I felt this way already.”

Yugyeom’s mouth opened and closed in an attempt to find the words to say next. “But I thought—I didn’t know...please don’t take this the wrong way, but I thought you were just...using me...”

“What do you mean?”

He furiously shook his head, trying to diffuse any anger and misunderstanding that would arise from you. “I mean, you just joined the same label as me and started to get even more popular than you already were after that whole thing on that show I was on and then you were responding to all the fans about it...but you never mentioned it before that...so I just thought...”

“Sunbaenim,” You sighed, looking almost hurt. Yugyeom’s heart nearly broke at your crestfallen expression. “I’ve never talked about it before because I respected you so much. Then I joined the company and there was a higher chance of me seeing you more often than just in short passing, maybe even us working directly together, and so I kept quiet so I wouldn’t embarrass myself. But then you mentioned me on that show, and the fans kept talking about us, so I thought that maybe I had—”

“A chance?”

“Yes...” You looked down again. “So I kept talking about you online...in hopes that maybe you’d notice me again...”

It was quiet for a moment. You were sure you had blown it with Yugyeom and were ready to make a run for the bathroom to cry when you felt his hands gently take hold of your bare arms. Your head shot up only to be met with his sincere gaze.

“I really like you too, if you didn’t already know it,” Yugyeom whispered. Feeling his fingertips burn from the light touch, he abruptly dropped his hands behind back. Yugyeom mimicked the shy smile inching its way on your lips and looked down at his feet bashfully. “I’m really really really sorry about this whole misunderstanding. It’s just difficult to gauge someone’s true intentions when it comes to the work we do, you know? But that doesn’t excuse how much of a dick I’ve been acting to you just now. Do you think we could just start over and try again?” Yugyeom looked back at you hopefully.

You beamed at him, sending a wave of warmth rolling through his stomach. “Of course, Sunbaenim.”

“Good,” Yugyeom smiled back at you before taking one of your arms to loop it through his. “Now let’s go. I think we’ve got an award to present?” You blushed once again as he sent a playful smirk your way. “Also, we don’t need to be so formal with each other. You’re older than me, Noona.” 

You hid your face in his arm, a soft and short bashful squeal escaping your lips as he walked you to the curtain behind the stage. “Okay Sun—I mean, Yugyeom.” 

As you called him by his name, Yugyeom was sure he had fallen for you all over again. 

And when the fans saw the way he looked at you as the two of you walked out on stage arm-in-arm, they were sure too. 

——